EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

December 05, 2013

Welcome back, Duelists! We hope you had a happy and safe Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, or last Thursday of November! Did you complete the Black Abyss Saga? If not, there's still time, but some big changes are coming this Friday to EpicDuel!

Achievement Overhaul

The central feature of this latest release is a complete overhaul of the Achievement system. Over time, EpicDuel has released over 300 achievements in multiple categories. Some are seasonal, some are rare, some can only be earned once while other accumulate. We will be consolidating them all into one interface, divided into categories:

General: Basic achiements like those earned through Mission completion.

War: Earned through events like the Frysteland War and the ongoing territorial control achiements.

Boss: Earned through defeating bosses like Titan, Nightwraith, and the Black Abyss Spider.

Arcade: Achievements earned through Arcade play.

Seasonal: Recurring achiements like Frost Warrior.

Badges: Purchaseable achiements.

Feats: Especially hard or impossible to earn achievements like Epic Artists and Alpha Tester.

From this interface, you will also be able to track your progress in collecting all of the available achievements. To make this feature easier to access, we've readded the Achievement button to the main HUD. Also, you can purchase Badge-style achievements from the main Achievement interface now, instead of seeking out a VendBot.

Winter Rares Return

Visit Hank and Valestra in Frysteland to browse a robust selection of returning seasonal rares!

These items will only be around for a limited time, so get them while you can!

Speaking of rares, a lot of current seasonal rares will be leaving this Friday, including all the Harvest and Nightwraith seasonal rares. Rabblefroth's Thanksgiving rares will remain a bit longer, but all the Harvest and Nightwraith missions will also be leaving until next year!

Balance 

This Friday we will also be pushing out a balance update to address energy stealing skills like Static Smash and Static Grenade. Energy stealing skills will be capped to the target’s current energy, thus obeying the laws of thermodynamics.

Preview

As I type this, Charfade is busily concepting new armors, vehicles, weapons, and bots for the upcoming winter release. It's going to be a super-sized mega release so we'll need two weeks to complete it!

Stay tuned for further updates!

Royal Wedding Royale

Tags: Nightwraith Frysteland Juloffenblotten Hank Valestra Achievements Winter Seasonal Rares Weapons previews Wedding Artix snow Frost

September 19, 2013

*Note: Due to events out of our control, we are unexpectedly short-staffed this week. Still, Titan and I will work as hard as we can to release this on Friday. However, if we feel the feature is too lacking in polish or excitement, we will hold it until next week. Thank you for your patience!

You asked for it, and it's back! After a long hiatus, Valestra's Arcade is back in business and eagerly awaiting a flood of players both new and experience! For those of you who don't recall or weren't around, the Arcade used to be a battle mode in which you could deposit Battle Tokens (5 at a time) to join an Arcade Battle. This battle was just like an duel except it offered the chance to earn a prize if you won. The downside was that it was possible to win the duel and not win a prize.

This time, you will win a prize for every play. The prize may not be a jackpot every time, but you'll still never walk away empty-handed!

Excited yet? Read on to learn more about this revamped feature!

How Do I Arcade?

To participate in the Arcade, you must have at least one Arcade Token. This is not a new currency, but is a miscellaneous inventory item. You can acquire them by completing certain Daily Missions or by purchasing them from the ArcadeBots in Valestra's Arcade in Fortune City.

If you're having trouble finding Valestra's Arcade, there will be a link in the What's New page. If you're still lost, then the EpicDuel Wiki has you covered.

Once you're in the Arcade you can click on an ArcadeBot to bring up the Arcade interface. From there, you can play, view your current balance of Arcade Token, or buy more Arcade Tokens. Hitting the "Go" button will cycle through a list of possible prizes. You'll win something each time: it could be credits, a weapon, armor, or even a house! However, to keep the game's Credit economy from exploding, sellback on items won in the Arcade may be reduced from the normal values. 

Expansion

We're building this feature with expansion in mind. For this release, we will only have one prize pool, but in the future, we plan to include selectable prize pools, allowing you to choose which set of prizes you wish to play for.

Another feature that may not be ready for Friday, is an Arcade Leaderboard featuring the all-time winners, complete with an evolving Arcade achievement. This achievement will track the value of your prizes so each time you play, you're basically earning Arcade experience! Even if it's not in-game Friday, we will still be tracking the data!

Our goal with this system is to never make an Arcade play feel wasted, and we believe this additions will make for a truly epic Arcade experience!

Rare Clarification

In last week's Design Notes, I mentioned that the Arcade would give you a chance to win retired rares. There was a bit of an outcry from those who were concerned that their own rares would be devalued. I'm happy to say, that you need not worry -- your hard-earned rares will remain rares. We've decided on a happy compromise to introduce Arcade exclusives -- items that can only be won in the Arcade. Some of these items will be revamped or reimaged versions of retired items. This preserved the value of the older rares while giving new players a reason to play! However, items like seasonal rares, limited quantity items, or prize-code items are still up for grabs! Also, legacy items like Founder Armor or Alpha Gear will be excluded for obvious reasons. I hope that addresses your concerns about rares in the Arcade!

Tags: Arcade Titan Achievements Missions tokens Leaderboards Prizes Rares Exclusives Varium Valestra

July 06, 2011

Performance and Art Updates

Hey all! Thank you for making EpicDuel’s Delta release amazing- we really couldn’t have done it without you. It’s awesome to see how many of you defeated my Armor Hazard creation (thanks for that, Ms. Descarl never actually paid me, although I suppose being alive is payment in and of itself...). Because server stability and performance are top priority, this week is going to be primarily about fixes and balance improvements!

Ninja Update!

*whoosh* Did you see that? Late last week we rolled out a “ninja update”- you’ll notice that Titan and Nightwraith are now carrying the Independence weapons, and we also rolled an update to the game engine. The game engine update may have caused problems for some of you, and improved things for others. The game is running more smoothly on our end, though, so it’s ripe for some performance updates!

LAAAAAAG!

Unfortunately, I don’t think that we’ll ever be able to say we’ve completely eliminated lag from the game- even if we give the server hamsters intravenous caffeine injections (believe me, we’ve looked into it). And while we won’t know for sure if our lag problems will be solved with this update, Titan’s at least going to try!

That said, the Lag Monster is a tricky beast, causing numerous other errors ranging from harmless visual bugs to skipped turns.  Titan is also working on a solution for the bugs that are effecting battle.  These problems are especially hard to recreate because they usually need a server full of 800 people to show up, a scenario that's impossible to recreate on the test server.

Back to bug smashing. *squish*

Renovations

A few of the screens are getting a visual lift too- specifically Valestra’s bar. With all the tokens from the achievements she sells, Valestra’s been able to hire a contractor to come in and fix up the joint. Come on down, check it out, and maybe settle in for a refreshing Energy Potion!

Balancing Act

A lot of you have been complaining about the balance of the new classes.  In testing, we were all pretty equal using all 6 classes, and very different builds.  However, even hundreds of battles with a handful of testers can't uncover the wide-scale balance issues discovered by the rest of the community. That said, we are going to implement a few changes- we haven’t finalized them yet, so they may not all be this update. We aren’t doing this so that everyone class changes to the  current flavor-of-the-month, but to make the game fun for everybody. Remember, we have been buffing and nerfing classes since Alpha, way before class change was even a feature.  We sincerely want a variety of classes and builds- not to make one build overpowered over everybody else. That said, each class has its strengths and weaknesses, and some strategies are more effective than others. In PvP, this is unavoidable and not something that should necessarily be changed. The point of balance is not to make everyone the same, but to give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed.

Because we are still testing proposed changes to the classes, we don't want to announce anything specific at this time.  Look for a specific list of buffs/nerfs/adjustments as testing progresses.

This should be obvious to people who play competative games that require constant balance, but it might be worth mentioning: Class attributes and skills are subject to change and can possibly be nerfed and/or buffed over time. You will not be refunded on Varuim,Credits or Artix Points if you are unhappy with the changes.  It's much more useful to us to post why the changes hurt or help your class and help us with the balancing process by posting your suggestions in the AE Forums.

Tags: Delta Valestra maps balance lag performance Cinderella