EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

January 24, 2020

It's finally time for those Silver Secret Packages to open! Within a few hours of updating, all the Silver Secret Package will be converted to their right and proper items of great rarity and quality.

Silver Secret Prizes

After the update today, the process of rewarding the Silver Secret Packages will begin. This is a manual process, so it could take up to a few hours to convert all the packages. Your patience is appreciated! The Silver Secret Packages contain:

• Armored Omega Wolf Mutation
• Avatar of Nightwraith P
• Avatar of Nightwraith E

This year, the prizes will be unsellable and all excess prizes will automatically be converted into credits. If you have more than one Silver Secret Package, one will turn into the prizes while the others turn into 100,000 credits for each excess package. The Secret Packages are still on schedule to open next Friday!

Balance Changes

• Blood Mage: Fire rain improve with every .45 instead of .35
• Tactical Reload (Aux) cost 100 instead of 40
• Elimated warmups on Dark Omen, Curse, and Salvage

The biggest change will be noticed by Cyber Hunter in the form of a new skill: Neurotoxin:

• Cyber Hunter: Because energy manipulation was so strong with Cybery Hunters with the combination of Memory Leak and EMP, Neurotoxin replaces EMP Grenade. Neurotoxin is a Support debuff.

War Resumes

The War cycle has resumed at the Infernal Mines region! Yes, it's the same war system, but improvements to the wars are definitely on the list of highly requested features this year. We'd rather keep running the current system than have nothing until a new version could be developed. Plus, it's another opportunity for newer players to level their War Region achievements.

*There is currently a problem with the old war data clearing out. I tried to fix it on my own, but to no avail. I've turned the servers back on with the war in cooldown until next week to give me time to find a solution. Why can't anything be easy?

Gifting Prizes

At this time, all top gifters have responded with many of them underway or nearly finished. These are still a major priority and I'm working all available hours to fulfill these requests. I expect to have a large batch of them ready and in the hands of eager winners next week, barring any unexpected problems.

Tags: Nightwraith

January 17, 2020

Balance Changes

Diminishing returns for Primary Damage increased to disincentivize stacking of Strength.

Tier 1 (0-54): 0.42

Tier 2 (55-84): 0.75

Tier 3 (85-99): 0.75

Tier 4 (100+): 1.00

Frozen Fist Core: Single use instead of unlimited

Secret and Silver Secret Package Status

Nearly all the extra secret and silver secret packages from the winners have been assigned. Those that have been assigned by the gifting winners have been distributed. Since it's a frequent question, I'm announcing the Silver Secret Packages will officially open Friday, January 24, and the Secret Packages will officially open a week later. That should give enough time for all final decisions regarding package placement and, most importantly, final polish on the package prizes themselves. I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but I usually bite off way more than I can chew with regards to gifting bonuses and prizes and spend most of January recovering from the content debt incurred. Even with all the preparations from what was learned from last year's gifting, there's still A LOT left to do! I thank you for your patience.

Gifter Prizes

As expected, the gifter prizes are still my main priority, and I'm working on them as quickly and thoroughly as I can. This update will award prizes for three of the winners, but many more are still in progress, hopefully to release in the coming weeks. Again, thank you for your patience throughout this process. It's really thrilling working with you individually to help realize your dream items for EpicDuel!

Coming Soon

We’ve got new gear, bosses, and mission in the pipeline to get 2020 rolling! Deuce, Bido, and Junny have some awesome items to help you invest some credit piles weighing you down from gifting.

Tags: Nightwraith

January 10, 2020

"Gifting Aftermath"? Sounds apocalyptic for a positive post, but such are the times we live in. The 2019 Gifting shrine is now complete, the winners immortalized on Titan's Peak! Gaze upon their glory!

It's easier to ready in-game!

Balance

New balance changes have been implemented to Crit RNG and some popular skill cores:

• Due to prevalence of skills designed to lower or bypass defense, the 4th tier of returns for Defense and Resistance has been eliminated
• Crit Chance base reduced to 2% instead of 4%
• Wolf's Fury: Stun chance reduced to 15%
• Malfunction (Tech Mage): Improves with every 5 Dex instead of 4
• Heart Attack: 100% damage; reduces buffs 60%
• Ice Shield: Can only target self
• Armored Roots: 40% instead of 45%

New Achievement Tiers!

If you participated in gifting, even briefly, you probably have a mountain of Arcade Tokens weighing you down. If you're interested lightening your burder while boosting your rating points, all the Arcade Games have added 2 new tiers. If your score is above the new threshold, use a Token to spin once will update your achievement correctly. Remember the shortcut /spinfast to use Tokens faster:

• Lvl 9: 3500 Rating Points for 65,000 Score
• Lvl 10: 4500 Rating Points for 100,000 Score  

With all that arcade loot piling up, you'll need more room to store it. If you expand your inventory, you'll note that the rating points for the higher tier Hoarder Achievents have been increased:

• Grand Legendary Hoarder 5500
• Ultra Legendary Hoarder 6500
• Epic Legendary Hoarder 7500

Packages and Gifting Winners

So far I've heard back from all but one gifting winners. If you have not yet been contacted by me, I will try sending another email. If you think your emails aren't going through, you can also try resending on your end. If you've already contacted me, your gifts are in progress! Please be patient as they are concepted and developed. Some are definitely more challenging that others, but you've earned it!

Some Silver and Secret packages are still being distributed and they are not yet ready to open. What could be inside?

Monday!

This Monday EpicDuel will have another update that removes the Varium bonus from the 10,000 AP packages so this weekend (and a chunk of Monday) will be your last chance to take advantage of the holiday bonus.

Also leaving Monday are the the out-of-season, seasonal rares will be removed from the shops, set to return at the appropriate date. This opportunity may not be so urgent for upcoming Heartbreaker or Spring items, but it will be the last time you see Harvest rares for awhile!

Tags: Nightwraith

January 04, 2020

In the first update of the new year, we're giving a boost to rare collectors, changing some class balance and altering the RNG formulas to be more favorable to those with higher stats.

Happy Hoarders:

With the seasonal rares and gifting loot flooding inventories, the time was right to increase Inventory and Bank Space.

• Inventory Space maximum increase to 600
  • New achievements for 400, 500, and 600 Inventory Slots
• Bank Slot maximum increase to 2000

Balance Changes

• Bounty Hunter
  • Multi-Shot: Changed Dex scaling to .35; Increased base damage values by 20
• Cyber Hunter
  • Adaptive Offense: Changed Dex scaling to .35
• Tech Mage 
  • Malfunction: Changed Dex scaling to 4

• RNG Changes to increase the likelihood of blocking or deflecting when you have more Dex or Tech than attacker:
  • Reduced maximum block chance % to 30% from 35%
  • Base block chance changed to 5%
  • Reduced maximum deflection chance % to 20% from 25%
  • Base deflection chance changed to 7%

EpicDuel in 2020

Two days ago we participated in a gifting event, and I'd like to thank you to all who participated and helped us pack the room with an astonishing 175 people! Astonishing mostly in the sense that a Flash game can even support that much on-screen information. I'm sorry if I couldn't get to everyone's comments and questions (chat goes by quickly), but one thing that was clear was that players still deeply care for EpicDuel and it's community. I especially appreciated the comments from players who have been with the game for over 10 years. In the midst of a flurry of "Top Games, Movies, and Events of the Decade" lists, it was wild to be reminded that I've been working on this game for over 10 years. It's important to note just how many games have risen and fell in popularity over this time, including games that have been completely lost to time as their servers shut down or their presence pulled from stores as licenses expire and parent companies declare bankruptcy. In this industry 10 years might as well be an eternity, so I'm amazed and grateful that our community has endured all this time.

With all that reflection on EpicDuels past, it's successes and failures during it's lifetime, it's remarkable to consider the progress we've made even after the game was declared unofficially "dead" when the team was reallocated to AQ3D:

• Improved gifting event with new gifting streaks and daily leaderboard.
• Celebrated it's 10 year anniversary!
• Enlisted artists Deuce, Bido, Junny Osan, Lae, and Tyronius
• HeroMart restocked with old and new EpicDuel items!
• Passive Skills returned! Blood Lust, Reroute, Shadow Arts, Deadly Aim and more all return in their former glory!
• War rewards improved to allow players with a high enough contribution to win the top prize regardless of Alignment.
• Evolving Buyback and Bank Slot achievements!
• Artix Game Launcher V2 launches, future-proofing EpicDuel for the imminent demise of Flash. 
• Introduced new mission chains to battle new threats to Delta V, including Nightmare 
• Charfade and Nightmare Titan!
• Returned Dragonoid Brain Boss, which had been missing since Delta.
• Huge PvP reward boost!
• Class Revival! Replaced many duplicate skills with new, unique skills like Maelstrom and Nanotech Shield to differentiate the classes.
• A new Home Decor contest!
• 4 new promotional packages packed with new items and skill cores!
• Too many new achievements, weapons, armors, bots, hairstyles and home items to count!

None of that would have happened if the response to new updates were met with a resounding "meh". Your continued support has kept this game alive while others have faded away, even in the face of the dreaded "Flash-pocalypse" allegedly coming later this year. It's my sincere hope that 2020 will be a huge year for EpicDuel and Artix Entertainment!

Tags: Nightwraith

December 27, 2019

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! We hope you had a joyous, relaxing holiday! It's hard to believe that 2019 is almost over!

This week, we've implemented a small update to help some of the underperforming classes and fix a few bugged skill cores. Currently, Bounty Hunters and Tech Mages are very strong, while Mercs seem to be having a difficult time in 1v1. Rewards for Juggernaut victories have also been slightly boosted.

Changes:

• Hybrid Armor: 
  • Lvl 1: 7
  • Lvl 2: 9
  • Lvl 3: 11
  • Lvl 4: 13
  • Lvl 5: 15
  • Lvl 6: 16
  • Lvl 7: 17
  • Lvl 8: 18
  • Lvl 9: 19
  • Lvl 10: 20
• Plasma Armor: 
  • Lvl 1: 12
  • Lvl 2: 14
  • Lvl 3: 16
  • Lvl 4: 18
  • Lvl 5: 20
  • Lvl 6: 22
  • Lvl 7: 24
  • Lvl 8: 26
  • Lvl 9: 28
  • Lvl 10: 30
• Mineral Armor: 
  • Lvl 1: 12
  • Lvl 2: 14
  • Lvl 3: 16
  • Lvl 4: 18
  • Lvl 5: 20
  • Lvl 6: 22
  • Lvl 7: 24
  • Lvl 8: 26
  • Lvl 9: 28
  • Lvl 10: 30
• Static Charge: Improves with every 5 points of Tech instead of 7
• Low HP threshold for cores like Wolf's Fury and Yeti Fury reduced to 40% instead of 45%
• Rewards for Juggernaut victory slightly increased

Fixes: 

• Ice Shield: Greatly reduces damage in the event that an attack bypasses the block/deflection buff.
• Lionhart's Shield: Greatly reduces damage in the event that an NPC targets player.
• Blood Bullet: damage was at 125% instead of 115%
• Hatchling Rush: No longer freezes and skips turn when used while rooted by Armored Roots or Tentacle Prison

Secret and Silver Secret Package Donation

Since these packages are so valuable and difficult to attain, we've decided to make having duplicate packages worthwhile by allowing the top 15 gifters of the 2019 Gifting season (not daily) to donate their excess packages to their friends. These gifts can be donated at the end of gifting.

Tags: Nightwraith

December 20, 2019

Gifting 2019 continues with new home items, new styles, a new achievement and new gifting prizes! The prize pool has been expanded with some new prizes that may give you an incentive to check the gift before turning it in for store credit(s)!

Festive Home Decor

Decorate your Winter wonderhome for the season with some new seasonally-themed home items!

Seasonal Styles

Check out new Frost Knight styles in CC and non-CC varieties to complement Bido's Frost Knight armor! But where is this armor? Be sure to collect all the daily gifts and your prize drop gifts to find them (there are 2 varieties to collect)!

Frost Warrior 3.0

The old Frost Warrior 2.0 has been retired and updated with a 3.0 variant. Boost those rating points by collecting a new seasonal achievement! You should have plenty of credits by now so it should be an insta-buy from your personal Achievement shop!

Tags: Nightwraith