EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

May 17, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

New Weapons

• Botanical Nightmare Physical Mutating Weapon
• Dark Botanical Nightmare Energy Mutating Weapon
• Botanical Broadsword
• Dark Botanical Broadsword

Arborgeddon

• NPCs reverted to pre-Arborgeddon state
• Missions will remain to allow last-minute turn ins
• Shops will receive a final restock

Player Mail 2.0

• Player-to-player mail (Friends and faction members only)
• Autocomplete recipients based on your current Buddy List and Faction
• Mods can send mail to anyone (Muting/warning a player automatically sends them a mail)
• Mail search
• Ability to report mail

New 12,000 Varium package

• Will always stay
• Does not include items

Tags: RabbleFroth Arborgeddon Patch Notes

May 10, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• New player mail system
  • Contains news, staff messages, and other system announcements
  • Player-to-player mail and other improvements planned
• Dage the Evil has crafted a limited number of new Auxiliaries
  • Dage's Doom Cannon - Physical
  • Dage's Spirit Cannon - Energy
• New Botanical Borg and Dark Botanical Borg robots
  • Attack - Mutate into the Botanical Borg and shoot your enemy
  • Special - Fire a barrage of explosive spores, damaging all enemies
• Purified Spores are no longer appearing as the atmosphere has returned to normal

BALANCE CHANGES:

• Generator Core
  • Removed warmup

BUGS FIXED:

• Botanical Bike purchase now restricted to one per character

Tags: RabbleFroth Patch Notes

May 03, 2013

NEW FEATURES / CHANGES

• Davarril Boss Battle will enable once the air purification War Bar reaches 100%.
• Arbor Annihilator achievement for defeating Davarril.
• 3 new "Infested" armors.
• New Botanical Bike.
• Tiered Spore Hunter achievements for collecting and releasing Purified Spores.
  • These will be awarded automatically as soon as Arborgeddon concludes.
• Ability to purchase Botanical Key outright from Davarril for quicker access to War Shop.
• Added a new passiveLink field to allow action icons and action buff graphics to be differentiated.
• Split the ItemBox data response into 4 separate responses to minimize login timeouts.
• Dramatically reduced the size of the mission data table that downloads when logging in (~80% reduction).
• NPC credit rewards now limited to 100 wins per day.
• Fighting lower level NPCs decreases credit rewards by 3 per level instead of 4 per level. In other words, you now get 17-32 Credits based on level, up from 12-32. Fighting NPCs more than 5 levels lower still awards no Credits.
• Drop rate on Purified Spores increased to 15%.

BALANCE

• Robots
  • Base damage on all Robots has been increased by 3.
  • Damage per Focus has been reduced from 6 to 4.
• Frosbite core
  • Warmup has been removed.

Tags: RabbleFroth

April 29, 2013

BUGS FIXED:

• Botanical Buster E was incorrectly doing Physical damage
• Botanical Reaper was missing location and rarity information
• Botanical Battlesuit price was incorrectly shown in Item Finder
• Arborgeddon event bar was rounding up instead of down

Tags: RabbleFroth Patch Notes Hotfix

April 26, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• The Arborgeddon Event has begun! Collect spores by winning PvP battles to cure infected citizens of Delta V, and help purify the air to combat Davaril's corrupted spores!
• Cinderella in the Biodome has a limited number of Botanical shotguns with Spreadfire on them, but you'll have to give her the spores she needs first!
• 6 new cores are available:
  • Frost Shards (Primary active) - Fires a barrage of icicles, dealing energy damage and draining your enemy's energy for several turns.
  • Aim Assist (Gun/Aux passive) - Reduces the chance for your weapon's attack to be deflected
  • Laser Sights (Gun/Aux passive) - Increases damage when your weapon's attack is deflected
  • Overshield (Armor passive) - Further reduces damage when you deflect an attack
• 6 new botanical-themed hairstyles
• 9 new botanical home items

BALANCE CHANGES:

Assimilation
Since Assimilation's effect is now unblockable, we took a little of the base power off of the skill.

• Lowered base energy steal to 3-13 from 3-15

BUGS FIXED:

• Fixed an issue with Last Active Date in the Faction manager
• Azrael promo weapons now sellable
• Botanical Battle Suit now marked as a Promo in the Item Finder
• Marauder's "Chomp" mission was missing the description
• Low level players could encounter a client hang when re-opening the What's New page

Tags: RabbleFroth Patch Notes

April 19, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• New Arborgeddon promo package available! Package includes:
  • Botanical Battle Suit: Classless armor with new Armored Roots core. This core is cast on yourself and will root you to the ground, boosting your defenses and preventing you from doing melee attacks.
  • Botanical Hazard and Dark Botanical Hazard: Physical and Energy robot with Poison Spores ability. Poison Spores deals 60% of your Robot damage as poison over 4 turns.
• The Epic Egg Hunt has ended! If you have leftover eggs, you can drop them off at any merchant.

BALANCE CHANGES:

Blocks
This change is meant to make blocks less frustrating and devastating when they occur.

• Blocks now prevent 85% of damage instead of 100%
• Blocked attacks still cannot stun or crit

Poison Effects
This change is meant to make poisons more interesting by allowing the poisoned player to cleanse the effect, and make applying the poison more tactical by applying it during Field Medic’s cooldown, or try to bait out an early heal from a player.

• Poison effects can now be removed with Field Medic

Toxic Grenade
This change brings Toxic Grenade's damage closer to that of Venom Strike, and helps compensate for the fact that poisons can now be cleansed.

• Poison damage increased to 4-13 damage per turn, from 3-12 damage per turn
• Now strikes for 70% primary weapon damage, up from a flat 5 damage.

Venom Strike
This change helps compensate for the fact that poisons can now be cleansed.

• Poison damage increased to 3-12 damage per turn, from 2-11 damage per turn
• Still strikes for 85% primary weapon damage

BUGS FIXED:

• Fixed an issue where Recruit button could show the incorrect faction name
• Curse Aura incorrectly showed "Level 1" while active in the stats page
• Fixed a bug where Plasma Cannon's crit chance was being calculated incorrectly
• World number not updating properly when switching in certain rooms
• Removed dev-related error message that could fire after battle

Tags: RabbleFroth Patch Notes

April 05, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• Brachylagus has a new armor in his secret shop! Collect his eggs to see it!
• New Bunny Bane P and E available at Brachylagus' secret shop!
• 6 new rabbit-related hairstyles
• 4 new swords on the Endless. Find him in Frysteland.
• Frysteland event missions removed
• Mission items from the Frysteland event are now sellable
• Removed Gold Yeti Leaderboard statues

BUGS FIXED:

• Numerous language updates and fixes.

Tags: RabbleFroth Patch Notes

March 22, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• Increased the maximum credits possible per battle from 210 to 300. This should prevent issues where you could get fewer base credits than expected while boosting during Power Hour.

BALANCE CHANGES:

• Infernal Android
  • This bot could unleash huge, repeatable damage with no downside. This change should make using the bot the more tactical "Can I afford to wait for its full damage" decision we originally intended.
  • Is now usable once per battle
  • Damage dealt changed from 80-140% to 85-130%. Still gains 5% damage per round.
  • Added a 3 turn warmup on the special to prevent accidental use before it deals full damage.
  • Special now goes into a 3 turn cooldown instead of 4 when the normal attack is used.
• Assimilation
  • This skill is intended to provide an on-demand energy boost; this change keeps the focus where it is intended.
  • Lowered damage on hit from 100% to 85%.

BUGS FIXED:

• Reduced the visual size of the Lagomorph auxiliaries.
• Reversed the position of the Sickle weapons to appear more natural.
• Krampus Blaster, Krampus Cannon, Legion Blaster, and Legion Cannon were incorrectly removed in the last update. They have been moved to the Krampus Trader.
• Resale price of Basic items was not visually upgrading in certain cases.
• Inserting/replacing cores would not visually update the resale price of the item in some cases
• Resatting items could sometimes cause the resale price to visually increase.
• Fixed several animation flickers at the start of turns.
• Botanical Battlegear was incorrectly labeled as Rare instead of Seasonal Rare.
• Venom Strike initial damage was incorrectly scaling per round.
• Price of Bio Trooper armor changed to correctly match the Bio Mage and Bio Hunter armors.
• Certain prize items incorrectly had no resale value. This applies retroactively to existing prize items, including the Bounty Pistol and Banx0rz Blade.

PS - Nightwraith is on location at PAX East this week! Follow Nightwraith on Twitter for the latest reports live from the event. Look for a full post with all the exciting details when he returns!

Tags: RabbleFroth Patch Notes

March 15, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• New Botanical Battlegear promo now available! Includes energy and physical mutating weapon sets with the Growth Serum active core. Growth Serum grows your character and increases your base Support by 30%
• Reduced initial file load by around 25%
• Added a percentage loaded indicator when starting the game
• Maximum inventory slots increased to 200 items
• Frysteland weapons removed from store
• All Winter home items removed from store
• New performance setting: "Play Idle Animations in Battle"

BALANCE CHANGES:
GENERAL

• Critical Strikes
  • Defense ignore lowered from 50% to 45%
  • Minimum damage increase lowered from (7+Level/5) to (4+Level/7). At level 35 this was 14 damage, now 9 damage

SKILLS

• Deadly Aim
  • Lowered damage by 5% at all levels
  • At Level 35 this requires 10 points for maximum benefit; 1 point gives +2 damage instead of +4, 10 points gives +9 damage instead of +10
• Assimilation
  • Now usable while at maximum Energy
  • Before Update: Drained 1-10 Energy giving back 50% of amount drained. Slight level scaling, no stat scaling.
  • After Update: Drains 3-12 Energy, giving back 100% of the amount drained. No level scaling, steals 1 extra Energy per 9 Strength
  • This skill had many issues, to the point of being nearly useless in most cases. It should now provide Tech Mages with a more reliable on-demand energy gain.
• Bloodlust
  • Lowered lifesteal by 2% at all levels
  • We overshot slightly with the last buff, this will bring it more in line.
• Massacre
  • Lowered damage from 45-135% to 31-120% (Roughly 5 damage at level 35)
  • Despite previous minor nerfs this skill was giving far too much free damage, especially over Supercharge and Surgical Strike (Massacre was doing up to 22 more damage than these skills even with no stat investment).
• Venom Strike
  • Increased initial damage from 70% to 85%
  • This should make the skill more attractive while still keeping a lot of the damage on the poison.

CORES

• Omega Override
  • Increased debuff to 30% of base stat, from 20%
• Curse / Curse Aura
  • Increased debuff to 30% of base stat, from 25%

BUGS FIXED:

• Added back tooltips to skill minus buttons when retraining
• Bounty Pistol and Azrael's Deathbringer were missing from Finderbot
• Achievements from NPCs could appear to drop multiple times
• Poison damage will now put characters into the "weakened" kneeling state
• Poison bubbles would sometimes show up incorrectly on the Elite Yeti
• Disconnecting at a certain point during battle could freeze it
• Fixed a bug that could cause actions in battle to fail
• Fixed a bug that could cause critical strikes to do an incorrect amount of damage
• Stats and cores could show up incorrectly on your Basic Armor following a class change

Tags: RabbleFroth Patch Notes

March 08, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• New Frysteland missions! For those with the mysterious summoning stone, come see RabbleFroth in the Barrens to continue the story.
• The Golden Yeti Tournament has come to an end! The competition was fierce, a job well done to all of those that participated. The winners should have their Yeti and Achievement when the servers are live.
• RabbleFroth has a new question to ask you about how you play games.
• Various improvements to account registration and character creation.

BALANCE CHANGES:

• Tighter level matching for low level players

BUGS FIXED:

• Class changing and battling with your Basic Armor could cause the battle to hang in some cases
• Various other minor bugfixes

Tags: RabbleFroth Patch Notes

March 01, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• New Cores
  • Nanosteel Armor
    Decreases the ignored defense of incoming Critical Strikes by 8%
  • Plasma Meteor
    Disintegrate an enemy with cosmic debris, increasing weapon damage by 110%
  • Dead Battery
    Due to some last minute issues that came up with this core it wasn't quite ready for today. We plan to have them resolved by next week's update.

• Your current item now remains selected when equipping and unequipping items

• New Concussive Shot animation

• Websites are now filtered in chat

BALANCE CHANGES:

GENERAL

• Primary, Gun, Auxiliary damage
  This change is designed to help with weapon damage on builds with very high amounts of a single stat. For more details see the final section of the Patch Notes labeled "Diminishing Returns."
  • The amount of stats you need per point of damage has increased. This will be most noticeable in builds with more than 85 points in Strength or Support.

• Base Energy
  We felt that characters were getting too much free energy, preventing the need to stat for it. This change is a first step for helping with this.
  • Base Energy increases by 1 every 5 levels, from 1 every 2 levels
  • This will decrease base Energy at level 35 by 10

SKILLS

• Bloodlust
  • Increased lifesteal by 4% at all levels

• Malfunction
  This change brings Malfunction in line with Smoke Screen. Malfunction was stronger to account for the old, faster scaling of Resistance.
  • Technology debuff lowered by 3 at all levels

• Fireball
  • Energy cost lowered by 2 at all levels

• Plasma Bolt
  This skill was doing a bit too much damage for the cost, and the lack of a requirement allowed Tech Mages to overperform at low levels.
  • Energy cost increased by 2 at all levels
  • Added Strength requirement (15 - 33 depending on level)

• Defense Matrix
  This skill was providing a bit too much defense on Support builds without needed to put many points into it
  
  • Gains an extra point of defense every 4.5 Support, up from 4

CORES
These cores were giving a bit more free power than intended. These changes are designed to bring them more in line.

• Azrael's Will
  • Lowered damage on use from 100% to 85%

• Azrael's Torment
  • Lowered damage on use from 100% to 85%

• Massive Strike
  • Lowered defense ignore from 15% to 10%

BUGS FIXED:

• Changed Mercenary Power Armor name to Metal Marine. Tech Mage Power Armor unchanged.
• Fixed discrepancies in skill details between level 0 and level 1
• Name changes were not being reflected in the Gold Yeti Leaderboard
• Stat required could incorrectly show up red in battle under certain circumstances

NOTE: Diminishing Returns

For those unaware, there is a system in place to make stats less effective as they pass certain thresholds (55 stats, and again at 85 stats). For example, in the last update, you needed 4.5 Strength to get 1 point of weapon damage. After reaching 55 Strength, you would then need 5.5 Strength to get each extra point of damage. Finally, after 85 Strength, you would need 6.5 Strength per point of damage.

So the “diminishing returns” of Primary and Gun damage was (4.5 → 5.5 → 6.5). In this patch, the diminishing returns for Primary, Gun, and Auxiliary damage was changed to (4.5 → 6 → 8). This means that builds with less than 85 points in a single stat will see at most a small change in damage, while those with more than 85 points in Strength / Support may see a more noticeable drop in their Primary / Gun / Aux damage.

Tags: RabbleFroth Patch Notes

February 22, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• The Golden Yeti Tournament is now live!
• New Limited Quantity swords available on the Alydroid in Frysteland
  
  • Azrael's Reaper (Physical)
  • Azrael's Spirit (Energy)
  • Both include the Mark of Azrael core (+5% Crit Chance)
• A huge number of names on old characters have been opened for use, if there's a name you've wanted, check and see if it's now available!
• Rusted Assault Bot
  • Now the Assault Bot P (energy version now Assault Bot E)
  • Equipped to Overlord Guard
  • Damage is now equivalent to Assault Bot E
• Players can now earn up to 7 Blue Stars
• Dropped initial language file load by ~25%

BALANCE CHANGES:

• Each point of damage now requires 4.5 point of Strength, up from 4
• Defense and Resistance now scale at the same rate (previously you would get more Resistance per Technology than Defense per Dexterity)
• Smoke Screen requirement changed from 14-41 to 15-33
• Stun Grenade energy cost lowered by 3
• Hybrid Armor now requires Support instead of Dexterity
• First Strike overhaul:
  • Old formula overly confusing and scaled poorly
  • New formula = From a base of 50%, gain +1.5% chance to go first for each point of Support you have over your opponent, and +5% for each level under your opponent.
  • Example: Level 21 with 28 Supp VS Level 20 with 30 Supp. Level 20 player gains 5% for being one level lower, and 3% for having 2 more Support, for a 58% chance to go first.

BUGS FIXED:

• Infernal Android special cooldown was incorrectly set to 3 turns (should have been 4)
• Assimilation could grant more energy than intended if the target was nearly out of energy
• Reistance buffs were not stacking correctly (Ex: Blood Shield and Energy Shield)
• Sellback values were always rounding down, instead of to the nearest integer
• Concussion Shot and Pyro Fly could disable a skill the target did not own
• Armor stats were not properly being used in certain battle calculations
• Attacks with multiple hits could show the wrong damage if the attack did the minimum possible damage
• Certain gear was not showing up properly on Character Pages

Tags: RabbleFroth Patch Notes

February 15, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• New Azrael Promo now available:
  • Azrael's Anguish gun
    • Azrael's Will active core: Charms an enemy, forcing them to strike you on their next turn
  • Azrael's Annihilator auxiliary
    • Azrael's Torment active core: Shoots your enemy, reducing 65% of all buff effects on an enemy
• Alydroid now has Seasonal Rare Heartbreaker gear
• Missions Removed:
  • Lepus' New Friends!
  • Seasons in the Abyss
  • EXFOLIATE
  • Easy Bein' Green
  • Shattered by a White Hare
  • Set Us Up the Noms
  • Dance, Puppets! Dance!
• Starter Kit promo items relocated to the Junker
• Tactical Battlegear promo items relocated to Mirv
• Advanced Battlegear promo items relocated to Overlord Guard
• Veteran Battlegear promo items relocated to Hank
• Marauder now drops the mission item for "Point A to Point B" 100% of the time (up from 18%)
• Oz now drops the mission item for "Access Denied" 25% of the time (up from 11%)
• Added an "Edit Item Stats" button to inventory items
• You may again buy items that your class cannot equip once you are level 9 and higher
• The "Infernal Spirit" core is no longer locked on items and can be replaced
• The "Exoskeleton" core is no longer locked on items and can be replaced
• Meteor Shower, Thorns Assault, and Jack O Fire descriptions now correctly state that the damage increase is based on your weapon’s damage, not total damage

BALANCE CHANGES:

SKILLS
Note: These are not the only changes we plan on making to Strength-based skills. We wanted to make these changes first to make sure we aren't over-tuning other skills or classes at the same time.

• Meteor Shower core
  • Now has a 1 turn warm up
• Double Strike
  • Damage lowered by 8% at all levels
• Berzerker
  • Damage lowered by 10% at all level
• Massacre
  • Damage lowered by 5% at all levels
• Bludgeon
  • Damage lowered by 5% at all levels
• Field Medic
  • Base heal increased at early levels from 11-38 to 14-38
• Bunker Buster
  • Base damage lowered at later levels from 22-40 to 22-35
  • Damage now increases by 2 as you approach level 35

CLASSES
Note: These changes are primarily designed to adjust class balance at very early levels (1-5)

• Mercenary
  • Base Health lowered from 57 to 55
  • Base Energy increased from 53 to 54
• Tech Mage
  • Base Health increased from 54 to 55
  • Base Strength increased from 18 to 20
  • Base Technology lowered from 24 to 22
• Cyber Hunter
  • Base Health increased from 53 to 55
  • Base Energy lowered from 57 to 56
• Tactical Mercenary
  • Base Health lowered from 57 to 55
  • Base Energy increased from 53 to 54
• Blood Mage
  • Base Health lowered from 56 to 55
  • Base Energy increased from 54 to 55

BUGS FIXED:

• Buffs and debuffs affecting the same stat were not stacking properly
• Several skills would freeze the client if the target dropped during the animation
• Rage could be gained by the blocker of an attack
• Rage was capable of exceeding 100%, causing rage reductions to sometimes appear incorrectly
• Chairman's Fury was returning more Rage than intended
• Mutating weapons could show incorrect damage type in shops
• Advanced and Veteran gear were incorrectly flagged as Rare
• Ylwa's "Battle Bruised" mission incorrectly required a Baby Yeti Warrior
• Hulnas' "Battle Born" mission now requires a Baby Yeti to begin
• Arctic Trainer's "Warming Up" now requires a Dark Yeti to begin
• Added items to Valestra's Shop (She and Hank share suppliers)
• "Rotten" weapons are now labeled similarly to "Rusted" weapons in the Item Finder

Tags: RabbleFroth

November 29, 2012

Some of you may have seen on Twitter that BIG changes are coming to items. We wanted to take the time to explain some of these changes as we get ready for Omega. Today, we'll be talking about gear requirements and stats.

SO LONG, DELTA!

Before we dig into the meat of this post, I will tell you that as soon as Omega launches, the Delta Knight armor, Platinum's Pride armor, the Dragonoid Saga gear, and all the Harvest gear will be leaving the in-game shops and Varium store. Delta Knight we go ultra rare, never to return again, while the Dragon Buster II and Platinum's Pride will be going perma-rare. We're not yet comfortable posting an official date, but it WILL happen sometime in December before Christmas. If you've been holding off on picking up any of this superb gear, what are you waiting for? Grab it before it's GONE!

REQUIREMENTS

One major change we want to bring to the game is greater freedom of choice in gear. Currently your choices are severely limited by the level and stat requirements on gear. If your level is too low, you simply can't equip the item. If your level is too high, the item isn't useful enough. If the item has odd stat requirements, you either can't use it or you have to alter your build to equip it.

In Omega, these requirements are going away entirely. You can buy and equip any item at any level, and there will be no stat requirements to prevent you from equipping anything. The only requirements that will remain are gender and class for class-specific items.

STAT FREEDOM

One other limitation to picking your gear is the built-in nature of stats on your items. If you like a staff or gun, but the stats are bad for your build, then that weapon is no good to you. In Omega, you may now arrange your stats how YOU want on all of your items.

To maintain balance, you will not be able to put all of the item's points into one stat, but otherwise you can customize it as you wish. Similarly, you will be able to choose the allocation of Defense and Resistance on any armor.

UPGRADING ITEMS

(Please note that the above graphic is still in the testing phase and not finalized. It's simply meant to illustrate this exciting new upgrade feature!) 

Another major change coming to items in Omega is the ability to upgrade any item. As you level up, you will gain the ability to put more stats, damage, and defense/resistance onto your items, up to their maximum potential for your level. This effectively means that any item can be used at any level and will not be stronger or weaker than any other item at that level.

Let me repeat that. You'll be able to upgrade any item to your current level and it will be useful in battle. Founder Armor, Beta Gear, last year's Autumn items, that weapon you loved using at level 6 -- all of these will be viable at your level.

And just to be perfectly clear, these features will be available with or without Varium. Upgrading your gear and rearranging your gear's stats will have both Credit and Varium options available.

ENHANCEMENTS

That covers everything we want to share today, but we have more still to talk about in the coming weeks before Omega's launch. Maybe next time we'll discuss our plans for enhancements.....Stay tuned! Feel free to discuss everything in the forums.

Other Progress

Here's a quick look at some of the projects the art team is working on for the Omega release!

Stay tuned for further updates as development on Omega progresses!

Tags: Titan Omega Update Weapons Armors RabbleFroth Forum Yeti Delta Rares

November 20, 2012

Rabble's Bounty

So you roughed up Rabblefroth pretty good last week, eh? Apparently, you knocked his massive backpack over and forced him to unload a bounty of new harvest-themed seasonal rares!

Since we were strapped for time, we asked the kind artists at AQW to lend a hand and we received enough assets to create a veritable cornucopia of new weapons! We tried to add enough EpicDuel flavoring to make them appear uniquely dangerous, while retaining that festive holiday feel that AQW artists do so well.

Visit Rabblefroth in the Wasteland to inspect his holiday wares before the Harvest ends and the cold winds of the North descend upon the citizens of Delta V.

Are You Yeti?

That's right! The cuddly-but-deadly creatures from Frysteland are alive and well and will be returning to EpicDuel this December. There's no better way to rub this oversight in Alydriah's face than by wearing it on a slick navy blue t-shirt. 

*Shirt logo colors are not finalized. We are still working with the printers to get the best possible quality.

Look for the "Are You Yeti?" shirts in HeroMart within the next few weeks.  Be sure to follow Faith's Twitter for ongoing developments!

Omega Marathon

Note: Today's update is not Omega. This section of the DNs is a preview of our current progress on Omega. 

As part of the Omega release, we will be returning to the frozen tundra of Frysteland to check in on Alydriah and her latest plans for the region. Check out some of the awesome concept art Charfade has been working on as we prepare to revisit this arctic wonderland.

I've seen a lot of questions on the Tweetbooks and Facespace about the purpose of these class designs, and I will clarify right now that they are not new classes, but revamped versions of the base classes (Hunters, Mercenaries, and Mages). This is to create a better experience for new players and make the game feel fresh again for veterans.

Balancing 6 classes is no simple task, and we would rather tighten that balance than add 3 new classes. Plus, we feel it would be much more interesting to increase the diversity of play styles for all the existing classes so a Tech Mage plays completely differently from a Bounty Hunter and so forth. One way we hope to achieve this is by eliminating or modifying overlapping skills. We hope to make several changes in the Omega update that will make this diversification easier to implement and balance which we will elaborate upon as more details are finalized.

That's all from me for now. Happy dueling and Happy Harvest! Be sure to take time and reflect upon all that your are thankful for and cherish those close to you!

Tags: Omega Nightwraith RabbleFroth Weapons harvest alydriah Frysteland Wasteland previews Yeti

November 16, 2012

Birthday Wishes

Sorry for the delay in the DNs, but this has been an exceptionally busy week as we go headfirst into Omega development. Before I get to the meat, I would like to start off by thanking all of the EpicDuelists who made my birthday this past weekend extra special. I did not expect the outpouring of complements and birthday wishes. You guys rock!

Minor Tweaks

Nightwraith's Wraith Pikes will be returning since I forgot them last week. Sorry for the inconvenience, but at least you have an additional week to get them!

Meet Rabblefroth!

The great and powerful numeromancer Rabblefroth has been sighted in the Wastelands of Delta V! Carrying his massive satchel of arcane tomes, he searches the planet tirelessly for answers to the secrets of the Universe like "Why are we here?" and "Can ghosts be used for fuel?"

Not usually prone to fighting, Rabblefroth is nonetheless not to be trifled with. His mastery of the arcane arts is so great he has been known to summon weapons from the ether and turn is ancient tomes into projectile weapons. If you defeat him, you will be rewarded with an achievement and perhaps some long division homework.

Be sure to check back with the mercurial mage from week to week as he will periodically ask the citizens of Delta V questions to help improve their livelihoods. Your participation will be greatly appreciated.  

Ongoing Omega

Charfade and I have been working hard on improving one of the fundamental elements of EpicDuel -- the character model. This element is one of the oldest parts of EpicDuel and it doesn't wear it's age well. We've learned a great deal in our time working at Artix Entertainment, but we needed some fresh perspectives to breathe new life into our characters so we assembled Yergen, Samba, and Cysero to assist us.

After an overwhelmingly informative session in which we acted out possible EpicDuel animations with Nerf weapons, we gathered the notes and set about tearing down basic character animations and poses to make the model more dynamic.  This is a change that everyone will notice. It will make the game look more appealing to new players, while making battle feel fresh and exciting for veterans.

Going forward, you will not see much content being released with each update until we have launched Omega. There are a lot of changes happening on the Dev database that make it very challenging to introduce a ton of new content until after Omega is live. We have a tentative release deadline planned for December, but there is more to do for this phase than any yet to date. This also coincides with our big Winter release, which will bring us back to Frysteland against new and familiar foes. 

Stay tuned for further Omega updates with a complete breakdown of the features we intend to introduce with this massive update.

Tags: Omega Bugs Animation Characters Samba Cysero RabbleFroth Nightwraith

September 06, 2012

Howdy there, EpicDuelists. I'm stopping by briefly to turn the DNs over to EpicDuel tester and Mod Practel for a thorough Dragon*Con recap. Artix did a pretty amazing job describing the event from the developers' perspectives, but I think it's equally interesting to read about the Con through a different set of eyes. Without further ado, heeeeeeere's Practel!

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We’re home!

Hey there, Duelists! You might have noticed that this Design Notes post isn’t from your friendly neighborhood warrior princess, Cinderella. This is my first (and most likely last) Design Notes post! Some of you may not know me, so let me introduce myself. My name is Practel, I’ve been playing EpicDuel since December of 2009 when EpicDuel merged with Artix Entertainment. I became a tester (someone who tests the weekly releases every week for bugs and to make sure it’s stable for you guys) in August 2011, and now I am an in-game Moderator for EpicDuel and a forum ArchKnight! I’ll be writing the Dragon*Con Recap since our awesome story telling writer Cinderella wasn’t able to attend (which is sad, there’s always next year!)

What is Dragon*Con?

Every year about 50 Artix Entertainment staff and assistant staff travel from their secret undisclosed battle locations to Atlanta Georgia (an 8 hour bus ride) to attend Dragon*Con! Dragon*Con is the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe! Each year the convention attracts about 60 to 70 thousand people, and an awesome group of Artix Entertainment players! To see everything that the con has to offer is almost impossible, but those who are courageous enough to fight the “4 days with no sleep” boss can do it! The con offers something for anyone. There are panels about everything from making your own functional steampunk R2-D2, to meet-and-greets with some of the biggest names in TVs, Movies, Gaming and Books. There are thousands of people dressed up as their favorite characters, movie marathons, a sea of tables for table top games like Dungeons and Dragons, card games like Pokémon, Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh, board games like Risk, Settlers of Catan and King of Tokyo.

Did I mention there were storm troopers?

Dragon*Con Pizza Party Meet and Greet!

Each year, generally the day before the convention officially starts, AE throws an awesome pizza party for all the players that attend. People come across the world just to hang out and talk with the staff about the games, what’s coming up, and genuinely have a good time. The players LOVE hanging out with the staff, and the staff love hanging out with the players! Each year a different, very dedicated player will come by and discuss the game to the point where even the player knows more than the developers about their own game! This year there was one player who was VERY dedicated and even cosplayed as Artix!

The Artix Entertainment Panel

Just like the awesome pizza party AE holds every year, it’s always a tradition to hold one of the coolest panels in all of Dragon*Con! This year was definitely the best panel AE has ever hosted – it had well over 100 people attending to come and watch, laugh, even cry, and genuinely enjoy their time as a player and proud con-goer. Each game lead stood up, discussed the game they headed, told the players what was going to happen in the future, and answered questions. Coincidently, I happen to have a video of Nightwraith discussing some EpicDuel stuff!

As promised, anyone who went to Dragon*Con this year should have received their Slayer armor and DragonBuster II sword by now! If you signed the paper for the AQW item, but forgot to list your EpicDuel name, please let us know!

The Booth

Artix Entertainment always has a player fan booth, where about 5 or 6 staff sit, talk to players, answer questions, and have a good time. For the entire convention. During this time, we had a few very friendly players that most of us knew from Twitter and the forums visit. I was completely shocked and happy when one of my good friends A.C.W popped up and introduced himself to me officially in real life! If you visited the booth, you could have gotten a bunch of cool ribbons to put on your badge. One for each day the booth was open!

HawkBlackWell

He came in a champ… left as a legend. One very awesome, and very dedicated player by the name of HawkBlackWell did the unimaginable… he challenged Titan to an Epic BattleOn Battle Cards game!

The stakes were as follows:

If Titan won, he would receive one steampunk trophy.
If HawkBlackWell won, he would receive one permanent NPC in EpicDuel!

The battle was tight… Titan was annihilating HawkBlackWell, and it was in everyones eyes that Titan was going to win. Then, the most magical thing happened. HawkBlackWell played his deadliest card, life swap, swapping his and Titan’s HP. Titan was instantly annihilated.

A deal is a deal, and it was a tournament between Titan and HawkBlackWell. Look for a HawkBlackWell NPC sometime in the future!

Returning Home

It’s always sad to leave the wonderful players each year, but there’s always the time where everyone needs to get back to reality, go to school, work… life. Everyone had a great time this year at Dragon*Con, and it was all thanks to you guys, the players. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

As usual, we hope to see you next year, for another epic time with the team.

BattleOn!

Practel

Tags: Titan Nightwraith RabbleFroth charfade Cinderella HawkBlackWell Pizza Convention Artix Entertainment Panel Cards NPC DragonCon

August 21, 2012

Did Someone Say Dragons?

Legion and Exile forces are still recovering from a massive war within the Infernal Mines, but now a powerful  force is making its way toward Delta V, ready to bring the Day of Reckoning to the planet and her people.  This threat from another world will be unlike anything ever faced before, but there are ways to survive: attempt to appease the being or rally a shattered world to send the abomination reeling back to the darkest corner of the universe.  I wonder which you will choose?

Make Ready

The Slayer does not take kindly to off-worlders intruding on his home turf so this Friday, he's prepared to finally release his personal stash of armor to help eager duelists to repel the alien threat.  Additionally, he has crafted a brand new weapon, The Dragon Buster II broadsword* which will be included with the new 5 Key promotional package.  He will also be bringing back the legendary Dragon Weapons that return every year to commemorate Dragon*Con.

Draconic Mutating weapons will leave as soon as Dragon*Con concludes.

The Dragon Slayer Armor will be available for 5 keys, but as a special treat, players who see us and write down their EpicDuel character name at Dragon*Con will get the armor and sword for free!**  For more details, check out the Dragon*Con post below!

*We were previously going to buff the original Dragon Buster sword to offer in the promotional package, but our players made it clear that they wanted a brand new item and that it was not fair to buff the old item.  You reminded us of our old promise so we're honoring your request and introducing the Dragon Buster II broadsword.  We will have images as soon as it's drawn! 

**To clarify, this offer is only valid for one EpicDuel character name per DragonCon attendee.

Bye, Bye Bio Borg!

Once the new Dragon Slayer promotion goes live, we will be removing the Bionic Battlegear and the Bio Borg from the game forever!  I know it's been around for awhile, but if you were procrastinating getting it for any reason, please do so before the release on Friday!

The Barrens

The desolate wasteland known colloquially as the Barrens was not always so.  At one point, it was a lush wilderness, but it had the misfortune of being mineral rich and tactically advantageous, two qualities that made it irresistible to Baelius and his corporation.  After most of the easily accessible resources were tapped, a battery of turrets was installed as part of a massive planetary defense grid.  Thousands of weapon batteries could adjust their trajectories to his targets on the other side of the planet and utterly annihilate targets in space.

When war broke out, this battery was crucial in ending the insurrection and keeping any outside forces from entering Delta V's atmosphere.  A suicide strike was ordered by resistance forces to break Baelius' chokehold over the region and divert the cannons away from the defense of Fortune City, and it partially succeeded.  The makeshift fleet of freighters retrofitted with budget armaments and stolen military vessels rained from the skies over the Barrens until their secret payload could be delivered -- a massive EMP that disabled the turrets and remaining ships alike.  But the General overseeing the Barrens was no fool, and turned the turrets on his own rebellious slaves to try and salvage the area. During the strike, the General was assassinated by his daughter’s personal bodyguard, but not before the turret gave its own killing blow- the blast from destroying the Uprising’s main weapon devastated the area, killing much of the area’s life, and corrupting the rest.

The Dragon's Harbinger

Today, the Barrens are a haven for criminals, outcasts, and daring adventurers.  The Legion has no interest in reclaiming this area as it is tapped of all resources, and the once mighty turrets rest silently, many still pointed skyward as dormant sentinels.  However, a mysterious being calling itself Dravax has appeared just outside the devastated turret field heralding the coming of its master and seeking the being known as Char.  It's message is simple: obey and receive mercy or resist and be destroyed.

The Heartbeat of the Universe

                I was browsing the grocery when my communicator rang. I thought it was Eldhi, asking for some spare parts or a tomato, but my heart sank when I saw the tag.

                It was Alaric.

                Alaric was one of the few who would not assimilate into the Legion.  Aegir said it was too foolish, too dangerous to live as Krampus anymore. I hated Aegir.  The hand he extended was the hand of a conquerer, not a friend.  But, his actions did keep the Administration from slaughtering us, but at the cost of our culture.  Though, I had tried to convince Alaric that we should just sign the marriage papers in Fortune City instead of reassembling the council of elders.  I thought about the card I carried, that gave a false name.  My mother gave me the name Ylwa.  My actions earned me the title Beast Rider.  The card identifies me as Winter Page.  Not the most common, not the most exotic.  But it renders me invisible.

                Invisibility.  Invisibility is safety.

                The beeping brought me back to reality and I saw the message. “Ylwa and Aegir. Come immediately. The Shaken. Sorry, Shaman.” Oh Alaric. He never understood autocorrect. But his message, mangled as it was, was dangerous. There had to be a reason that he would take the risk of the Legion seeing he was still alive. I paid for my groceries and fled to the mountains.

                The abandoned strip mine was cold and dank, and the smell of mildew hit my nose as I entered the cavern.  Aegir had beaten me to our hideout.  Aegir had long ago abandoned his training as a Shaman to join the Shadow Guard, taking the name Edgar Boothe.  But even so, he was seated across from his grandmother, staring into the fire.  Both humming to the sound of the universe.

                I made my way around some of the other Krampus who had taken to living in the caves with us to find Alaric.  He had long abandoned his royal finery, pawning the ceremonial armor to buy food for the Krampus orphans, and he was clad in rags.  I embraced my betrothed and kissed him deeply.  The concern was written plainly on his face.

                “What is it, my King?”

                “The Shaman.  She’s been staring into the fire for days, just humming.  The second I brought Aegir here, he joined her.”

                I held Alaric’s hand and we approached the mystics.  They were chanting under their breath, but the chant increased in volume until they screamed the words so loudly that I prayed to the gods that my eardrums would break.  I didn’t understand the language - it was an old tongue used only by Shamans.  The color drained from Alaric’s face, and he ran out into the snow. I followed him.

                “What is it?”

                “You don’t know what they said?”

                “No.  I’m not a Shaman.  Why?  What are they chanting?”

                Alaric held me and stared into my eyes.  “The Devil is coming.  The Dragon is here.”

Artix's Dragon*Con Update!

DragonCon takes place every year in Atlanta, Georgia.  It is a weekend long convention (Recommended ages 15+) with 30,000+ attendees...  most in amazing costumes.  I guess it is really like a weekend long costume party with celebrity guests (walk of fame), panels featuring the casts of your favorite sci-fi/fantasy/etc TV shows, video games, art galleries, table top games, concerts, shopping and...  well, check out the schedule on the DragonCon website.  As usual, the Artix Entertainment team will be attending in force again this year, including Titan, Nightwraith, Charfade, and Rabblefroth!  We will be running a panel and a fan table!  

Come see us at DragonCon

• Artix Entertainment ALL GAMES Panel:  Saturday @ 5:30pm at the Hilton in Grand Salon E! 
• Fan Table: We are taking turns running it all weekend.  Located... um... wherever all the cool fan tables are.

New Matomy Ad Offer on AExtras!

I couldn’t phrase this better myself, so I’m going to be ripping this directly from the AQW Design Notes:

From August 17th until September 2nd, Matomy is running a special AExtras offer! ONE lucky player who completes an offer will win the grand prize: a combo pack of the black Artix and Sepulchure action figures!  You can also win either 3,000 or 4,500 ACs!

Click here to begin participating in AExtras offers!  (Make sure you have a separate email just for doing this.)

As always, the offers in AExtras are provided by third parties, and ArtixEntertainment has no control over what offers are available in your area.  We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause

Tags: Titan Matomy Cinderella Nightwraith RabbleFroth DragonCon Dragons Draconic Weapons Items Armors Promotion AExtras Convention Panel Missions Storyline Slayer Barrens Delta V Dragonoid

March 14, 2012

Hippity Hoppity

Welcome to another Design Notes, EpicDuelists. As I announced on Facebook, we’ve got a lot of exciting things on the horizon for you! We’ve all been super-hard at work these past few weeks, getting stuff prepared for this and the coming weeks.

Rabble Rabble Rabble

RabbleFroth recently got back from the Game Developer’s Conference, the largest annual gathering of professional game developers, and he’s filled to the brim with ideas for how to improve our little game! He’s been working on a few different things that are being released this week. First on the agenda is a revamped leveling curve. Experience gains by level will make more sense for middle levels, although low and high level players won’t see much change. Along with the revamped leveling curve, weapons will be getting a balance to reflect a more consistent increase in power and value across all levels (eg. pricing, resale, requirements, bonus, damages). This is a major undertaking and may take several weeks to complete.

In addition to weapons balancing, the Mercenary class will also be receiving a buff of some kind. According to RabbleFroth's balance data, Mercenaries are having a great deal of trouble at the level cap in 1v1 battles. We've heard many complaints that Blood Shield is not useful enough, so we may be improving it or possible replacing it with a new, more useful skill.

Coming Attractions!

RabbleFroth isn’t the only programmer who’s been hard at work. Titan is releasing several bug fixes, including a bug with the Baby Yeti and a weird faction chat bug. In the coming weeks, we’re moving from CS3 to CS5 (yay Modernization!) to make things better for all of us, and combatting the ever-raging Lag Monster. This may sound like an easy task, but anyone who has developed for Flash knows that it is very picky when it comes to which version you are using, so a lot of the code that worked in CS3 simply will not work in CS5, and the software does little to indicate why. 

We’ll also be replacing the somewhat vague“Power Up!” button on the lost battle screen with helpful tips and tricks to end their losing streak!

The Bionic Battalion Cometh!

The bunnies have escaped from the Biological Preserve, but not every rabbit is a dumb bunny. Several of the rabbits have achieved sentience, and need your help to achieve their plans. These adorable creatures are not seeking world domination, destruction, or greatness- merely answers.

The first rabbit you’ll meet is Brachylagus, the Lagomorph Captain. The first of the rabbits to realize sentience, he is the driving force behind this ragtag group of superintelligent space rabbits. After determining to find others like himself, he was able to find several clever individuals: his lieutenant Myxoma, the strong and loyal Capensis, the gentle Lepus, and the genius Mr. Cottontail.

Brachylagus can be found in Central Station, but you’ll have to search all over Delta V for the other four, as they were separated when all of the rabbits escaped.

Shamrocks from Heaven!

There's now so much green on Delta V, that it's reached critical levels!  That means PvP drops will include, for a limited time, Emeralds of varying quality to redeem at any vendor for mega loot!

On the Silk Road

The Silkworm Bombyx mori is the larval form of the domesticated silkmoth. The moth was domesticated from a wild silkworm species and is completely dependent upon humans for survival. This species is completely reproductively isolated from wild populations and cannot reproduce on its own nor does it have any antipredator defenses, as they’ve been selected exclusively for their silk.

The silk itself comes from a cocoon the caterpillar spins over itself as it pupates. Typically, the silk is retrieved by boiling the cocoons, which kills the pupa. Alternatively, certain types of wild silk can be produced from wild silk moths or tussock moths (from family Saturniidae or Lymantridiae) that have eclosed from their pupae, thus negating the need to kill the pupa. This kind of silk is often called Ahimsa silk, but is not always as desirable, since the silk threads are cut when the insect emerges.

Call for Moderators!

We saved the best for last! With EpicDuel’s continued growth and expansion, we’ll need a few more people to join our team! Here’s a message from Nightwraith about it:

Want to be a mod? Want to spend hours a day not getting paid while helping your fellow players, catching cheaters, hackers, scammers and muting people who use abusive language?

If you answered YES to either of these questions, then you should probably check yourself into the nearest psychiatric hospital as soon as you can, but I also have exciting news for you.

We are looking for new mods / testers for EpicDuel, and now is your chance to apply! One thing we needs to stress - you MUST be over 18 year old. If you are under 18, if you don't include your age, or if you start with "I'm not 18 yet, but..." the application will not be considered.

What they need you to included in your email is:

1. Your real name, age, and country of residence.

2. EpicDuel Game account name and email address

3. Forum account name and email address if one is entered. (not required to have one)

4. Languages you speak/read

5. C.V. (Resume) *please note we'd like the CV in English.

Please send your COMPLETE application to beamod@battleon.com . If the application is not complete, we will toss it out. And please - one application per person.

We will read all the applications. If you are chosen to go through a further interview, we will contact you. Unfortunately, they cannot reply to everyone. If you do not hear from us, sorry.

Tags: Titan Bionic Battalion Bunnies Green Emeralds St. Patrick's Day balance RabbleFroth GDC Moderators