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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.
Nightwraith

February 21, 2014

War Two Point Oh

When will the Dread War End?

Boom!

We've heard your feedback about the Dread War and many players have made it clear they're ready for it to end.  Well good news!  We’ve been working hard planning exciting improvements to the current system. When we first conceived the Dread War, our goal was to implement an event that could provide perpetual engagement, but over time, a few weaknesses in the system’s design have become apparent and the war has become a bit stale. The current war is complicated, it never ends, it doesn't offer enough rewards, and there is no focal point. This post will explain how we intend to overhaul the current system, and offer up the key points of the proposed new war system. The details are subject to change so please give us your feedback so we can build the best system possible.  We believe by borrowing the best ideas from previous phases and prior wars, we can craft a system that is simple to understand, extremely engaging, perpetually rewarding and really, really fun!

War Planning Board

As you can see, our dry-erase board breeding program is progressing nicely.

 

A Sense of Urgency

 Currently, The Dread War is a global conflict without end. The lack of focus and lack of duration means there’s never any urgency. In past events like The Frysteland War and The Infernal War, there was a clear set of victory conditions. With War 2.0, we hope to recreate this sense of urgency by limiting the scope of the War to one region at a time and structuring it as a race. The War will last until a specific set of conditions are met by either alignments’ forces (we expect these regional conflicts to last roughly 1-3 weeks).

When the War in a particular region ends, the environment will visually reflect the winners, and the region will remain in control of the winning alignment until it comes up for contention again in the future. Prizes will unlock for the winners, and the top participating players and factions will be made famous (in a similar fashion to the Infernal War). After a small cooldown period, the next region will activate and the war will continue. The victory conditions in each region will vary to keep the conflicts interesting.  

 

Streamlined Gameplay

 To a new player, the current War system is baffling. Control points, cooldowns, and other obscure systems are extremely challenging to convey at a glance. As we develop War 2.0, we’ll be streamlining many of the old systems. Mechanics like Influence, Flag Captures and World Dominations will remain, but behave differently from the current system.

The gameplay mechanic will evolve from a constant grind for control, to a more focused system where both alignments are racing toward very specific goals. Each regional War will be a race to complete the given objective and whichever alignment fills their global war bar first will win the battle and take control of the region!

PvP battles will remain the main driver of conflict, however, Influence will no longer be earned at the end of battle. Instead players will earn Influence by depositing new "War Drops" on War Objectives within the region. These drops will be similar to the grenades in the Infernal War in that they will drop after winning a PvP battle. War Drops will be thematically tied to the currently contented region and can be anything from missiles to computer chips, ammo crates, bricks, cakes, plants, metal, bullets, etc. Players of all levels can obtain and use these items, maintaining a very low barrier of entry for War participation. 

 

Showoff

 If you fight hard to be the greatest champion EpicDuel has ever know, you deserve a place of honor. With War 2.0 we hope to give greater exposure to exceptional players who make the greatest contribution to the war effort. Interactive leaderboards will display the leading players and Factions for each alignment. At the end of each regional War, the bravest, most dedicated soldier will be displayed prominently until the region is contested once again.

 

War Prizes

 By defining a clear beginning and end for each regional War, we can offer real rewards for the victor. At the end of each War, players on the winning alignment will gain access to exclusive prizes. To add variety to this experience, players can select a prize from a list. These prizes could be never-before-seen weapons or currency prizes like Credits and Arcade Tokens. Each region will draw a new set of prizes to choose from, and the prize pool will continue to expand as the regional wars progress.

These rewards will only be available to those who participate on the winning alignment, and they will only be available until the next regional War begins.  We will also be adding additional levels to each regional War achievements. If you’re at level 10 or close in any of the regions, you’ll be able to battle your way to an even higher Rating Point score!

Also, the highest scoring player at the end of each day will receive a War Hero achievement. This achievement will have a tracker to record each time you qualify for this prestigious distinction.

 

EpicDuel Evolution

War 2.0 will herald a new phase of EpicDuel development: EpicDuel Evolution. This new phase will be unlike any before it – over the last few months we have been gradually building tools and tutorials to allow EpicDuel’s future to be directed by a force more powerful that the mighty Titan himself: our Community.

Goony's Gats

Over the years we’ve attracted some amazingly talented and ambitious players. Our player base may be much smaller than AdventureQuest Worlds, but the level of talent is no less. Our intention for EpicDuel Evolution is to allow more input and direct involvement from our players to influence things like content creation and balance. If you were shy about contributing content or ideas to EpicDuel, now is a better time than ever to express because soon we’ll be offering the resources to make them a reality!

Group Shot

We're aiming to activate the first region on Friday, March 7, but as usual this is just an estimate and could be delayed if development demands it. Stay tuned for more details as this exciting new feature evolves!

Tags: Nightwraith War Dread War Factions Legion exile Alignment Planning


RabbleFroth

February 20, 2014

Patch Notes - 1.6.5b

BUGS FIXED:

  • Fixed an issue that could cause Blood Shield to leave a player with 0 HP
  • Fixed issues with back-end error logging

Tags: Patch Notes RabbleFroth


RabbleFroth

February 18, 2014

Patch Notes - 1.6.5a

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

  • Mission progress popup now appears after battle
  • Number of improvements to the homes interface

BUGS FIXED:

  • AdventureQuest Worlds VIP achievement renamed to AQ Worlds VIP to fit
  • Character creator visual bug fixed
  • Buy Bank Slots option now only appears on your own bank
  • Added a timer to prevent spam kicks when saving home item locations

Tags: Patch Notes RabbleFroth


Nightwraith

February 14, 2014

Aphrodite's Woe

Aphrodite's Woe

It's that time of year again. A time for love. A time for romance. A time for battle! Join us for today's release as we unveil the most diabolical Heartbreaker weapon yet! Visit the Alydroid in Alydriah's Spire in Fortune City to collect the mightiest Valentine's swords yet conceived: Aphrodite's Woe! Marvel at Revontheus' intricate attention to detail as you smite your foes with the Mark of Azrael core!

When we go live, we'll also be restocking any LQS items that are empty so be ready to jump on that opportunity!

But...as they say in the game show biz...that's not all!

 

No Place Like Home

We've attacked the Home Inventory Manager and blown it to bits! From the ashes, we've reassembled a better, stronger, faster interface for more easily browsing Home Items for sale as well as Items in your own inventory. You will also be able to filter Home Items by category. We are able to expand this system in the future to more granularity in categories for faster searching.

New Home Interface

You may also notice that you can now see your current balance of Credits and Varium! It's useful to know how much money you have when you're shopping, no?

We've done away will the separate "Selling" mode in the Home Inventory Manager. Now, you will be able to sell items from your own inventory quickly and know the sellback price at-a-glance!

In addition to sprucing up the interface, Titan has made some excellent performance improvements to the Home Item inventory, allowing items to load faster and permitting you to cycle through the list unimpeded.

 

Heartbreak Stylin'

While Titan tackles the Home Inventory Manager, Rabblefroth is attacking the style changer. We've removed the clutter and brightened the background to give your character some room to breathe!

New style changer

Also, to eliminate confusion, we're removing the nominal 100 Credit fee for style change. Now, once you own a style, you'll never need to pay for it again, even if you change your colors!

Speaking of styles...how about 24 dapper, new Heartbreaker styles courtesy of Charfade?

Stylin

Stylin

Stylin

Stylin

Every style is made better by putting a bird on it!

 

BeetleGerms? BottleJeans? BezeledJams? BattleGems!

That's right, AE's first major mobile game BattleGems is nearing completion! Follow the latest development news on AQ.com and Artix.com so you'll know the moment it hits the App store!

Tags: Titan Heroes Heart Day Hearts Valentine's Day Heartbreak Aphrodite Home Optimization BattleGems


RabbleFroth

February 07, 2014

Patch Notes - 1.6.3

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

  • Weapons for sale on major War Objectives are no longer limited quantity
  • Added currency display to Legendary interface
  • Added scroll wheel functionality to mission group list
  • Mission groups now have better sorting
  • Olympic Games achievement enabled (now includes both Winter and Summer Olympics)
  • 31 new home items available
  • Increased rewards for missions: Rusted Joints, Purify, Boost Juice

BUGS FIXED:

  • Unable to save location in your own home
  • Yeti missions and Tea and Titan missions now properly removed

Tags: Patch Notes RabbleFroth


Nightwraith

February 06, 2014

Epic Cleanup

Epic Cleanup

This week, we're getting our hands dirty with some deep-cleaning of EpicDuel's inner workings. It's been awhile since we've done optimization so this week we worked hard to fix some nagging bugs and clean up some code to improve performance. These updates don't usually yield many shiny new toys for your enjoyment, but we've worked hard to make sure you're not empty-handed for this update!

 

Home Decor

To assist you with the cleaning process in your homes, we're introducing crabby new home item. These crabs are hungry and ready to clean your homes of any refuse. 

Crabby

We're introducing a total of 31 new home items, including the popular development phase AI trainers. Show off your appreciation of the eras from EpicDuel's past with these awesome new home items!

 

Matching

Last week, we planned on implementing a change to the matching engine to tighten the range at the highest levels. This means that a level 40 should almost never match against a level 35. This change was not thoroughly tested, but this week we're confident in releasing this change. This should encourage fairness and balance among the high level players.

 

Prize Codes

This weekend we'll be giving out more prize codes! As an experiment, we'll be dropping codes more randomly, making it more difficult to "camp" codes with multiple accounts. Follow our Twitter pages to stay updated with the latest developments on these codes and their availability!

 

Preview

Next week, we'll have more awesome items in store for you, including Revontheus' epic new swords, Aphrodite's Woe!

Aphrodite's Woe

Tags: Cleanup code Home Optimization Prize Code Nightwraith


RabbleFroth

February 03, 2014

Patch Notes - 1.6.2a

BUGS FIXED:

  • Daily champion announcement would display "Null" instead of the proper names (Visual issue only)
  • Fixed tutorial-related resale issue
  • Attempted fix for unclickable Legion/Exile Soldiers in tutorial area

Tags: Patch Notes RabbleFroth

 

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