Behind the scenes information about EpicDuel's development and releases, a real-time PVP MMO that you can play online in your web browser.
 | July 26, 2024 Nanotech Nightmare Battlepass Now Live
The Nanotech Nightmare Showcase Battlepass is NOW LIVE! Login now to earn the latest collection of nanotech and casual weapons, armors, vehicles, morphs, bots, and more crafted with care by Acatriel and Mihuri!
Good luck and happy dueling to reach level 60 of EpicDuel's latest Battlepass season!
So you all know what you're getting into with the new bots available in this season, the skill descriptions are listed below:
- Nanotech Destruktor P
- Nanotech Destruktor Assault P Chaingun attack, ignoring 15% defenses.
- Nanotech Destruktor Onslaught P At critical HP, reduce Def/Res 50% for 1 round; steal 25% Rage.
- Nanotech Destruktor E
- Nanotech Destruktor Assault E Energy chaingun attack, ignoring 15% defenses.
- Nanotech Destruktor Onslaught E At critical HP, reduce Def/Res 50% for 1 round; steal 25% Rage.
Character Animation Optimization
The optimization of the character animation timeline is still underway so there may still be some jank in certain animations. This means that certain armors in certain poses may not look right. In some cases, it might be better to change the armor rather than the animation, but this will be handled in time. Many animations have been consolidated, cleaned up, and shortened (especially the hit/block animations) to improve the flow of battle. Despite all the work already done, with over 8000 total frames, there's still plenty of room for improvements in the future. Tags: Nightwraith |
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| July 18, 2024 EpicDuel Progress Report
Progress Report
The upcoming Battlepass, Nanotech Nightmare, is still in progress.This update features some new armors which will require a few changes to the character animation timeline. These changes are minor, but there are 8,000+ frames in the timeline, so the update is taking more time than expected. Everything else is going smoothly so the update is expected to go live next week!
We didn't want you to go too long without any updates so we're implementing a few small changes while you wait!
Balance Changes
- Reactive Armor: 50% —> 25% melee reflection at max; new values: 10%, 12%, 14%, 16%, 18%, 20%, 21%, 22%, 23%, 24%, 25%
- Force Field: +25 energy cost to all levels
- Tactical Reload: No longer puts the associated weapon on cooldown
- War Commander (Gun): +4 Dexterity instead of Strength
- War Commander (Aux): +4 Support instead of Strength
Achievement Updates
- Olympic Games 4 is now available form the Seasonal section of the achievement shop.
- Rising Star achievement, awarded for earning the most fame in a day, is now tiered with 5 tiers. Those who qualify for the higher tiers will automatically receive the corresponding achievement.
Tags: Nightwraith |
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| July 03, 2024 Independence Day 2024
Independence Day Arsenal
Visit the Overlord Guard in the Overlord Facility to browse his shop of new seasonal rares created by Bido! These rares are limited quantity so you'll need to act quickly if you want to collect them all!
- Liberty Slayer P
- Liberty Slayer E
- Maple Leaf Slayer P
- Maple Leaf Slayer E
- Liberty Guards P
- Liberty Guards E
- Maple Leaf Guards P
- Maple Leaf Guards E
- Liberty Axe P
- Liberty Axe E
- Maple Leaf Axe P
- Maple Leaf Axe E
- Liberty Staff P
- Liberty Staff E
- Maple Leaf Staff P
- Maple Leaf Staff E
New Missions
In addition to new seasonal rares, the Overlord Guard is offering a new mission chain, starting with "Dawn of Destiny." This new chain will allow players to turn in new Starlight Shards, earned from PvP wins, to claim the new rares: Dawn of Destiny and Starlight of Destiny.
New Achievement
The Independence Day 6 Achievement has been added to the seasonal section of the achievement shop.
Juggernaut Battle Cap
To combat the exploitation by botters, as of this update we've implemented a cap on Juggernaut wins. After 300 Juggernaut wins, Juggernaut battles will stop offering credits, experience, war drops, and PvP drops. This was done to remove the incentive to use bots accumulate way more wins than any human could possibly achieve. Tags: Nightwraith |
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| June 28, 2024 Classy Achievements
New Class Win Tracker Achievements
New achievements have been added to track wins for each class in each PvP battle mode (1v1, 2v2, and Juggernaut). These achievements are not retroactive so everyone will start at 0 for all Classes and battle modes. They will start tracking as soon as you win any PvP battle mode with any class.
Balance Changes
- Skills:
- Multi-shot: +1 damage per 0.3 --> 0.34 dex; 85% --> 90% damage against multiple targets
- Reflex Boost: Scales with dex --> supp
- Massacre: Removed 50% lifesteal; 30% --> 15% defense ignore
- Maul: 75 --> 100 base energy cost; 20% --> 15% stun chance
- Artillery Strike: Requires dex --> tech
- Barbed Grenade: Add 15% stun chance
- Assimilation: +15 to all base values; +1 energy per 1.25 --> 1 str
- Cores:
- Necrosis: 100% --> 85% damage
- Botanical Wrath: 85 --> 100 energy cost
- Salvage: 0 --> 90 energy cost
- Thorn Assault, Meteor Shower, Plasma Meteor, Shattering Star, Jack-O-Fire: 90 --> 100 energy cost
- Icy Overkill (Aux): 1-turn warmup
- Revitalization: 1000 --> 1300 heal; 0 --> 100 energy cost
- Medusa's Gaze: 70% --> 85% damage
- Piston Punch: 85% --> 100% damage
- Captain's Charge: Update description to include lifesteal effect
- Ninja Reflexes: 20% --> 13% additional block chance
- Deflection Shield, Ballistic Shield: 20% --> 13% additional deflection chance
- Robots:
- Gamma Bot and Variants: 111% --> 109% damage
- Shadowlord's Severance P/E: 40% --> 35% defense ignore
- Infernal Overload P/E: 100% --> 95% initial damage; 135% --> 130% max damage
- Dino Fire P/E and Variants: Removed warmup
- Necrotek Assault P/E: 15% --> 20% defense ignore
- Yeti Claw (includes Baby/Omega Yeti Variants): 100% --> 105% damage
- Other:
- Brace: Remove additional block/deflection chance
BuyBack Boost
New items will be added for people who have the following promotional items:
- Infernal Interdictor E
- Bionic Battlegear E
Owners of these items will receive the corresponding P (physical damage) variants. If you already sold your original promotional weapon, you can find the new items in the BuyBack shop.
Botters' Bane
Every only game suffers from bots, hackers, cheaters, and jerks of all degrees, but that doesn't mean we can just rest on our hands while exploits are used. Most players play the game legitimately, but some are clearly using sophisticated bots to take advantage of blind spots in our bot flagging system, particularly in Juggernaut mode. I've never understood why someone would put so much effort into *not* playing a game, but clearly, as revealed by the popularity of generative AI, there's a market for pathetic people who want to reap rewards in exchange for minimal effort. With this update, we've modified the bot flag parameters to throttle rewards for those who accumulate more wins than would be possible for a human player. Some players are hardcore and can play for hours, but no human can play 24/7 without rest.
The ultimate reward for botters is an empty game with all human players driven out with numbers going up perpetually to the acclaim of nobody. Maybe that's what they want? Maybe I'm too old-fashioned, but that doesn't seem fun to me. Tags: Nightwraith |
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| June 21, 2024 Epic Legendary Arsenal
New Legendary Gear
The Legendary Shops of Titan's Peak have been stocked with loads of luxurious new items! User your excess Credits to boost your rating score and show off your stylish new swords!
For new-ish players: These shops are only accessible if you have achieved level 40+. If you're under level 40, you'll need to level up before you can access the shops.
- Legendary Arsenal
- Silver Royal Dagger P
- Silver Royal Dagger E
- Silver Royal Claymore P
- Silver Royal Claymore E
- Silver Royal Scythe P
- Silver Royal Scythe E
- Silver Royal Spear P
- Silver Royal Spear E
- Silver Royal War Axe P
- Silver Royal War Axe E
- Exquisite Legendary Arsenal
- Golden Royal Dagger P
- Golden Royal Dagger E
- Golden Royal Claymore P
- Golden Royal Claymore E
- Golden Royal Kingmaker P
- Golden Royal Kingmaker E
- Golden Royal Impaler P
- Golden Royal Impaler E
- Golden Royal Cleaver P
- Golden Royal Cleaver E
- Golden Royal War Axe P
- Golden Royal War Axe E
- Golden Royal Halberd P
- Golden Royal Halberd E
- Golden Royal Spear P
- Golden Royal Spear E
- Golden Royal Scythe P
- Golden Royal Scythe E
- Golden Royal Wrist Blades P
- Golden Royal Wrist Blades E
- Golden Royal Reaper P
- Golden Royal Reaper E
- Golden Royal Great Hammer P
- Golden Royal Great Hammer E
- Golden Royal Greataxe P
- Golden Royal Greataxe E
- Golden Royal Staff P
- Golden Royal Staff E
- Golden Royal War Staff P
- Golden Royal War Staff E
- Gilded War Scythe P
- Gilded War Scythe E
- Epic Legendary Arsenal
- Epic Blade of Honor P
- Epic Blade of Honor E
- Epic Blade of Awe P
- Epic Blade of Awe E
- Legendary Royal Claymore P
- Legendary Royal Claymore E
Balance Addendum
As per the last Design Notes, there was supposed to be balance changes for this update, but those have been delayed, unfortunately. I didn't want to hold onto the content for any longer so I decided it was better to update with the new items than nothing at all for another week! Balance changes are still being considered and will be pushed to live as soon as they are ready. Tags: Nightwraith |
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| June 14, 2024 Optimization Odyssey
Optimization Odyssey
This week was a challenging one as a great deal of time was spent on optimizing the file that contains all the skill icons in the game. Every icon is stored in one FLA (the raw file format used by Flash) and compiled at runtime. The problem was that the file had become to large and would take 15 minutes or more to publish if it did at all. This can happen when FLAs become too large. This can sometimes be addressed by splitting the one massive file into several, but in this case, the only way forward was to make the file smaller by merging duplicate assets and removing unused ones. The end result was a file ten megabytes leaner (20% reduction) that could reliable publish! There was still more optimization work to be done, but it is good enough for the time being. This will not be the last time optimization work will be needed as EpicDuel is ancient by game standards -- that long lifespan means plenty of time for redundant assets to accumulate that bloat files and hinder development.
The rest of the time this week was spent making dozens of new weapons for release in the Legendary shops. I ended up making progress, but not nearly enough weapons for a substantial update so I'll continue work into next week to make sure all weapons are thoroughly polished and tested.
Since there will be no update this week, I've included some previews of content to expect for next week and the weeks to come.
Golden Regal Armory
For those who have been itching for something use their accumulated Credits on, we'll soon be introducing new weapons with to the Legendary Shops.
To make sure the update is substantial, we're also planning to include several balance changes with the next update!
New Battlepass Already?
The Eldritch Battlepass just launched last week, but Lodrian has been one and a half steps ahead of our schedule by delivering the next Battlepass: Nanotech Nightmare! Here's a small preview of the new gear that will be available with the next showcase!
If you just started leveling Eldritch Onslaught, don't worry! This will not release for a few weeks so you'll have plenty of time to complete the current Battlepass. Tags: Nightwraith |
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