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EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

Behind the scenes information about EpicDuel's development and releases, a real-time PVP MMO that you can play online in your web browser.

August 12, 2011

The Unending Battle for Better Flash Performance

Flash Fight 2000

Just when we thought we were making some good progress in improving EpicDuel's performance, Adobe swoops in and releases a sneaky, ninja update to Flash Player of their own that is just crushing animation performance in EpicDuel. Titan is talking with Adobe to find a solution to the problem, but it may take some time, especially if the problem is on their end.

We first noticed this while playing EpicDuel on Chrome, which installs the latest version of Flash Player (10.3.183.5) automatically (convenient, right?). Firefox and Internet Explorer worked fine until we updated Flash Player on them.

Until this issue is resolved, you may want to try a different browser without the latest version of Flash Player, or try uninstalling Flash Player and then installing an earlier version of the program. We apologize for the inconvenience, but this issue seems to be beyond our ability to control. Such is the double-edged sword of Flash game development.

Balance Update

With this release we are rebalancing all skills that have fixed effects by adding a improvement faction based on level. This includes buffs, debuffs, shields, damage dealing skills that have fixed damage, and a few other skills that see limited use at higher levels. The net result of this is that all skills affected will be slightly weaker at lower levels and stronger at higher levels.

For those who want a complete list of affected skills, here it is:

Damage Skills: Plasma Bolt, Fireball, Overload, Plasma Rain, Super Charge, Artillery Strike, Multishot, Surgical Strike, Bunker Buster, Plasma Cannon, Stun Grenade, EMP

Buffs: Technician, Field Commander, Reflex Boost,

Debuffs: Malfunction, Intimidate, Smoke

Shields: Defense Matrix, Energy Shield

Other: Hybrid Armor, Blood Shield, Assimilation, Super Charge, Toxic Grenade

Because of this huge, sweeping change, and because we've spent so much time combatting Flash's performance issues, we have decided not to raise the level cap this week.

ADDENDUM (red means important!)

Due to the unexpected performance problems form Flash Player and the extensive nature of the balance changes, we have decided to postpone the release until next week (mid week) to include more thoroughly tested balance changes and actual content. We'll be usuing this weekend for additional balance testing in addition to solving the Flash Player issue. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience, but this time it wasn't actually our fault!

Tags: Nightwraith flash player adobe balance lag

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