 | August 28, 2024 Epic Justice
This post is a blunt reminder of the new consequences of cheating, plus an important message about the 2023 Gifting perks and account security.
Updated Consequences of Cheating
Awhile ago, EpicDuel implemented a policy of resetting wins as a punishment for repeat offenders who attempt to cheat to boost their wins. Apparently, that policy was not nearly severe enough because we still saw repeat offenders who continue to cheat even after a reset. To escalate the penalty for multiple infractions of cheating, effective immediately, in addition to having wins reset in the battle mode in which the cheating occurred, there will be 3 additional punishments.
- The first change is that the wins from the battle mode that was reset will be subtracted from the main win tracking achievement. For example, if the character has 1000 Juggernaut wins reset, 1000 points would be deducted for their achievement.
- Second, the achievements that track 1v1, 2v2, and Juggernaut wins for each class will be deleted based on which battle mode was reset. For example, if Juggernaut wins were reset for a character, their Juggernaut class achievements would be removed.
- Third, since Influence is a character stat earned from wins, the character's personal Influence would be reduced based on the proportion of the wins that were reduced.
This may seem severe, but that is precisely the intention! Hopefully these additional consequences will give pause to anyone considering cheating in the future. Again, these new punishments are in effect immediately.
Gifting Perk Cutoff
One of the perks of this past year's Gifting event was awarding prizes to a select group of friends. Generously, or perhaps foolishly, I did not establish a limit on either the number of friends or how long this offer would remain open. I have noticed an uptick in reports about people attempting to scam Gifters by abusing this offer so I feel it is now necessary for a hard deadline. Friday, September 20th will be the final day for awarding Gifting prizes to friends for this past Gifting season. If you don't read or care about Design Notes posts, but still ask about sharing items after the cutoff, your request will be politely denied.
Scam Alert
As the holidays approach, this is also a good space to remind you all about account safety and protecting yourself from scams. If you don't remember when you last changed your password, now is a great time to do so. Also, make sure you are the sole owner of your account. A common way to lose control of your account is account sharing. Not only is it against the Terms of Service, but it also puts your account at great risk of being stolen and eventually disabled. If you use a public or shared computer to play EpicDuel, always fully close the launcher or browser window the game is being played on, and avoid using the "save login info" feature.
Protecting your account can be as simple as following a few rules: DO NOT share your password. DO NOT share your account. DO NOT try to sell accounts or items outside the game. The classic advice still applies: If someone offers you something that seems too good to be true, it probably is! Tags: Nightwraith |
| August 23, 2024 Righteous Gemstones Part 2
Extra Achievement Update
This latest update features new tiers for some existing achievements, plus a new evolving achievement to complement the new gem achievements added last week. Those who already meet or exceed the new tiers will be updated manually. To update your Archivist achievement, you will simply need to have your gear re-appraised by an NPC that offers this service such as Charfade.
- Daily Solo Champion: Expanded to Tier 10
- Daily Team Champion: Expanded to Tier 10
- Juggernaut: Expanded to Tier 10
- Daily Prize Champion: Expanded to Tier 10
- World Domination: Expanded to Tier 11
- Rising Star: Expanded to Tier 10
- Archivist: Expanded to Tier 21
- Black Diamond: Evolves up to Tier 20.
New Legendary Rank Leaderboard
By popular request, we have added a new Leaderboard to track All-Time Legendary Ranks.
Character Page Changes
The Character Pages have been updated to correct an error that was causing some items to not load correctly on the character. This bug mainly affected players with extremely large inventories. This is because the query that loads the items on the character was written back when the inventory cap was much, much smaller than it is today. To help clean up the Character Page and accommodate the added items, Home Items and Missions Completed have been removed from the page.
Balance Changes
- Force Field: Replaced with Energy Shield
- Critical Heal (Armor): Activates at any HP --> Activates below 25% HP
- Frost Revenant Retribution P/E: 100% damage --> 85% damage
- Acorn Annihilator: 35% --> 40% robot damage as MP poison; multi-use --> single-use
Jaguar Warrior Arcade Preview
Acatriel is cooking up some awesome new art for an upcoming Jaguar Warrior Arcade game that will be available within the next few weeks!
Tags: Nightwraith |
| August 16, 2024 Righteous Gemstones
New Evolving Gemstone Achievements
To help players invest their excess Credits accumulated over the years, we've introduced 6 new evolving achievements, each upgradeable to level 20. This amounts to thousands of Rating Points. A fair trade for a few million Credits!
- Raw Ruby
- Raw Topaz
- Raw Sapphire
- Raw Emerald
- Raw Amethyst
- Raw Diamond
We may need some extra rating star levels after these are maxed out!
NPC-Only Cores
With this update we are introducing new NPC-only cores. These cores, while mostly identical to the correspondingly-named cores already in-game, can only be used in NPC-only battle modes. These modes include 1v1 NPC, 1v1 Boss, 2v1 Boss, and Simulation. Unlike their PvP counterparts, these cores are multi-use with 4-turn cooldowns:
- Exsanguinating Shield (NPC): Available at Azrael
- Flagellation (NPC): : Available at The Challenger
- Chained Blood (NPC) Available at The Challenger
- Feast of Flesh (NPC): Available at Alydroid
- Titan's Shroud (NPC): Available at Titan
- Hardened Armor (NPC): Available at Deuce
- Infernal Surge (NPC): Available at Kraggor
- Draconic Frost King's Will (NPC): Available at Titan
If you struggled against EpicDuel's toughest bosses in the past, these new cores might be just what you need to take them down!
Note: These cores will still be disabled in PvP battle modes even if your opponent is an NPC! For example, if you are matched with an NPC in 1v1 automatch mode, the cores will still be disabled.
New Bido Core
This update also introduces a new core available at Bido!
- Bido's Bitters: Weak poison (5 HP per turn) that prevents stronger poisoning for 4 turns.
This core could be useful for countering heavy poison builds. Note: This core will not block poison attacks from NPCs. Tags: Nightwraith |
| August 09, 2024 Bido's Birthday Showcase 2024
Bido's Birthday Gear
We've finally adding a long-awaited update to EpicDuel artist Bido's Birthday shop! We know we're later than usual, but better late than never! Pay Bido a visit in his Afterlife perch to browse his latest limited-quantity rares.
- Bido's Venom Greatsword P
- Bido's Venom Greatsword E
- Bido's Venom Blade P
- Bido's Venom Blade E
- Bido's Venom Scythe P
- Bido's Venom Scythe E
- Bido's Venom Glaives P
- Bido's Venom Glaives E
- Bido's Venom Axe P
- Bido's Venom Axe E
- Bido's Venom Staff P
- Bido's Venom Staff E
- Bido's Venom Dagger P
- Bido's Venom Dagger E
We've also re-added the Bido weapons to the PvP drop pool that are necessary for completing his collection missions.
New Achievements
This update is also bringing several new NFTeaser Achievements. Remember NFTs? Such a time capsule of 2020-2021, which, to my mind, feels like it was simultaneously 5 months ago and 50 years ago. Anyway, these new themed achievements should provide a quick boost of the big Credit spenders out there. This isn't the last batch of Credit sink achievements so don't spend them all in one place!
- Titan's NFTeaser
- Rabblefroth's NFTeaser
- Charfade's NFTeaser
- Big Tuna's NFTeaser
- Cinderella's NFTeaser
- Acatriel's NFTeaser
- YOLOScythe's NFTeaser
- Baelius' NFTeaser
Tags: Nightwraith |
| August 01, 2024 August Coming Attractions
There's no update this week, but we do have a quick rundown of what is currently being worked on this month!
Kaiju Slayer Battlepass Preview
The Nanotech Nightmare Showcase is barely a week old, but the next Battlepass is already underway. This new showcase developed by Acatriel is inspired by a particularly famous radioactive movie monster. This Battlepass is expected to go live by the end of September or early October, and we plan to add in-game text with an exact release date when the update is locked-in so nobody forgets to claim their prizes.
Bido's Birthday Shop
AQW and EpicDuel artist Bido is currently working on a new birthday set to bolster his current shop. It's been lonely on his perch in the Afterlife and he'd love some more people to stop by to help him celebrate!
New Evolving Achievements
In addition to the next Battlepass, we're also working on an assortment of new evolving achievements to allow those with massive Credit surpluses to boost their ratings while adding to their extensive achievement collections.
PvE-Only Skills
One challenge with balancing skill cores is that a skill that's extremely effective against bosses might also be incredibly overpowered against human opponents. We're currently working on a way for skills to be flagged for PvE-only, meaning they would only be active against bosses and 1v1 NPC challenge battles. The PvE skills would still be disabled in regular PvP modes like 1v1/2v2 automatch and Juggernaut, even if the matched opponent(s) happens to be an NPC.
This could theoretically be reversed to make certain skills PvP-only, but that's an addition to consider later when the PvE cores are finally integrated. Tags: Nightwraith |
