March 08, 2024 EpicDuel Heavy HealthEpicDuel is back with the addition of a new balance feature resurrected from the game's past: Agility.
What Is Agility?High HP builds have been troublesome to balance throughout EpicDuel's history. Sometime in the game's early days, we attempted to combat these builds with a new stat tied to HP called Agility that would inflict a defense penalty if health exceeded certain thresholds. This stat ultimately failed to address the initial problem since high HP builds already suffered from low defense so the penalty wasn't much of a deterrent. Now, utilizing EpicDuel's modern core system, we've brought Agility back. This time, the stat is split into two different core types: Agility for HP below a certain threshold, and Encumbrance for HP above a certain threshold. The tiers and buffs/debuffs, also visible in the HP rollover on the character stats page, are listed below:
This new system gives us much better control over the tiers so we can add a robust range of debuffs and buffs to better control extreme HP builds. We went with a percentage debuff because a flat debuff felt too restrictive, but this can be changed if the current Encumbrance debuffs are ineffective. These buffs and debuffs will only be visible in battle. NPCs are unaffected by this change.
Azrael Cavalier BattlepassThe tentative release date for the new, long-awaited Battlepass is Friday March 15th TBA, barring any technical complications. We're sorry the Olympus Battlepass has lingered as long as it has, but we will plan our Battlepass releases more strategically after gifting next time so we won't be stuck with the same showcase for too long.
Scheduled MaintenanceEpicDuel will be down for scheduled maintenance at around 11:00 AM on Tuesday March 12th. We will be finishing the process we started earlier this year with database migration and copying the entire EpicDuel database to it's new home. This transfer is expected to take at least 2 hours, but could take more, especially if we run into any unexpected problems. Hopefully, we'll turn the servers back on and all will be well! Tags: Nightwraith | |
February 29, 2024 EpicDuel Cores Reforged 2024Core ReBalance 2024Finally, the long awaited core rebalance of 2024 is here! There are a lot of changes here so bear with us as we make additional tweaks over time. The goal of these changes was to perform a bit of a "reset" on the power levels of the cores and robots to stop some extreme builds and encourage more build versatility. If you're mad that your favorite core was nerfed, take this as an opportunity to change up your build and experiment. No core or robot or build was meant to stay on top forever. With all these changes, some bugs and unintended interactions are inevitable so we'll do our best to stay on top of any issues as they emerge!
Other Changes
Tags: Nightwraith | |
February 23, 2024 Balance Progress and Azrael Battlepass PreviewBalance ProgressProgress has been steady but slower than I'd like for the massive core and robot balance update. Nearly every core in-game received some changes. Many were small tweaks like Energy cost or damage adjustments, but many others received much larger overhauls. The goal of this update will be to combat the power creep that has been building for cores and robots as more have been added over the years. These changes should encourage more experimentation and build variety. It's likely that we will need additional balance updates for the balance updates as new overpowered or underpowered cores emerge from battle data, but this is a major step towards better balance for EpicDuel. If all goes well, this update will be ready for next Thursday.
Battlepass PreviewWhile I've been occupied with updating nearly every core in the game, Acatriel and Bido have been building items for a new Battlepass that should release soon. Because we've been so occupied with updating existing cores, this Battlepass will not feature new cores. The slots formerly occupied by cores will be filled by additional rewards of currency.
Pre-Spring CleanupNext Thursday, we will be doing a bit of cleanup to update of all the seasonal rares to be set to stock at their appropriate time. We will also be removing some Rare items from Azrael that were added in June of 2023. Also, the Fourteen Year Alpha weapons and Achievement will go Rare and leave the shops. As another part of the cleanup process, we're going to be purging orphaned factions. Since faction founder step down was introduced, whenever a faction was deleted after the founder changed down at any point, the faction would fail to delete properly and remain, despite having 0 characters in it. Currently, there are over 1,000 factions in this state so purging them should free up some coveted names for new factions. This will not affect any faction that currently has at least one member, but factions that are on the leaderboards will 0 members will fall off. The bug that caused this problem in the first place will also be fixed. As one additional change, on Thursday we will also be updating the evolving Epic Supporter and Legendary Epic Supporter Achievements to 2024. Do to it's overwhelming popularity, the 50,000 Varium package will remain in-game for the foreseeable future. Tags: Nightwraith | |
February 09, 2024 EpicDuel Rare RefreshGifting ProgressAs of this update, only one set of top Gifter prizes remains. I hate making anyone wait for their prizes, but progress is progress and I can think of a Gifting season when we were this far along this early. Thank you Gifters for your patience and I hope you're thrilled with your prizes so far.
New Rarity TypeLast week some noticed fluctuations in their rarity scores. This was due to Battlepass items being recategorized as seasonal rares when they were added to the Challenger's shop. This felt bad, especially if you went through the trouble of collecting the rares in the original seasons. To correct this, we added a new, more descriptive rarity type: Battlepass. This should adjust the rarity scores back to what they were before the recategorization. If you've collect all the Battlepass items so and don't know what to collect next, the next Battlepass will be here soon enough. Soon enough doesn't mean next week, but hopefully by the end of the month.
Jack Frost ArrivesJack Frost bots have awarded to those with Gifting scores higher than 50,000.
Corrupted Core CorrectionSome were able to purchase a core that was literally corrupted. It appeared as Consecrated Ground for primary weapons, but it was unable to be equipped to anything. To correct this, we've updated the these cores to the correct auxiliary version of Consecrated Ground.
Server Migration Part OneThis Wednesday we experience some downtime to start the move to a shiny new server box. It's similar enough to the old one, but just different enough that it still throws me off when navigating it. This was only the first step, but so far so good. The next step will be a full data transfer to EpicDuel's new home. This will occur later this month and take several hours. Tags: Nightwraith | |
February 02, 2024 EpicDuel Battlepass RestockThis week we say, "Goodbye!" to the Darkeater package and say, "Hello again!" to returning Battlepass items and cores. If you took 2023 off of EpicDuel, or just didn't feel like completing the Battlepass seasons, this will be a massive update for you!
Darkeater RetiredAvailable since 2022, the Darkeater promotional package has officially been retired. You will still be able to purchase the cores and bots from Acatriel. To allow players who don't have Varium a chance to use the cores, we've brought back new versions of select Darkeater items (tagged 2024). We did this to preserve the rarity of the promo items for those who already purchased the promotional package.
Epic Battlepass RestockOriginally, our intention was to bring back the Battlepass items from previous seasons gradually, but because of a major upcoming core rebalance, we brought back Azrael's Scorn, Botanical Knight, Cathedral Knight, and Draconic Warlord all at once. We wanted as many people to have access to as many cores as possible to test the efficacy of any balance update. Even if you don't have Varium to purchase the cores outright, you can still get many of the cores by purchasing the Battlepass items from The Challenger who resides in the Time Fortress zone of the Afterlife. Since cores are crucial to balance and the health of PvP, we plan to offer cores in a shop alongside Battlepasses in the future, starting with the next Azrael Battlepass. This may provide less incentive to grind out the Battlepass for some, but wide availability of the cores will be useful for determining any imbalances more quickly.
New CoresA permanent version of the Thrown Shot core as well as sidearm and auxiliary versions of the permanent War Commander core are available at Vendbots across Delta V.
Minor Cores RetiredBecause they don't adequately serve the purpose they were meant to fulfill; the minor cores have been retired. It is still possible to equip and use them, but they are no longer for sale.
Widescreen ExpansionLast year one of our major goals was to expand EpicDuel to a widescreen resolution. Acatriel managed to expand all the current screens in game, and I planned to implement them over the Summer, but my surgery shattered those plans. I will resume the expansion process after Gifting obligations are wrapped. The widescreen expansion also includes adjusting every interface in game so it's not quite a simple matter of just replacing the old map screens with new ones. This change will require a lot of testing and make the game difficult to update while all the screens and interfaces are expanded so we want to be sure we have plenty to occupy players while the work is underway.
Server MigrationNext week we will be migrating EpicDuel's database to a new physical server. This will result in several hours of downtime while all the data is transferred. We will update you when we've determined the exact time we plan to do the migration so you can plan accordingly. I've been told the new server won't offer much of a performance boost aside from using SSDs instead of HDDs. Hopefully there are no hiccups and EpicDuel arrives at its new digital home safe and sound.
In the coming weeks, we will wrap up the last of our Gifter items and undertake a massive core rebalance. While this is happening, we will also be working to complete the Gifting Bonus Tier items as well as the 2024 Azrael Battlepass. Thank you for your patience! We usually have a lull in substantial updates after Gifting as we work to complete all the post-Gifting tasks, but we're moving at a much faster pace this year than ever before! Tags: Nightwraith | |
January 26, 2024 EpicDuel Gifting 2023 AftermathGifting is over, but the progress continues on the prizes for the top Gifters. Our progress this year has been swift, but we still have a few outstanding prizes to complete. Thank you for bearing with us as we work to wrap up Gifting prizes and fulfill all of our final obligations for Gifting. In the past, this process could extend into months and sometimes over a year, but it looks like we could be finished or very nearly finished with the top Gifters prizes by February! With this update, several new top 15 Gifter prizes were added. I hope the Gifters enjoy wielding these amazing items as much as we enjoyed creating them (if not more). To keep you all up to speed with our current plans for the near to mid-term, here's a summary of pending or in-progress topics to tackle for EpicDuel.
War ResumesWith this update, the regional faction war will resume as scheduled as the main Gifting leaderboard is retired for another year. This is the step of resetting Gifting that feels the most like putting the holiday decorations into storage for the next season.
Quality of LifeThis year we will strive to implement frequently requested quality of life features to EpicDuel. The most requested feature right now is the ability to sell multiple items at once. You can already do this with mission items and cores, but so far we haven't been able to find a way to stack them. Other items are more complicated to stack because of all the variables since they can be upgraded. You wouldn't want to sell your fully-upgraded, coveted rare item along with a pile of duplicates, so we need to cover as many scenarios as possible. Spider has some solutions he's working on that will hopefully enable bulk selling for regular items as well as home items. These steps will be crucial for clearing out massive amounts of inventory space, especially after Gifting when some are stuck with over 10,000 items in their inventories! Obviously, this is not ideal, since you can't even buy anything with a full inventory, making the game frustrating to play and collecting new rares impossible. These features are challenging, but necessary, and we'll do everything we can to get them to you ASAP.
Cyber WolfThe Cyber Wolf collection is still pending, but I haven't forgotten about it!
BalanceIt's been awhile (too long) since our last comprehensive balance update so we're planning a major one with a focus on cores. These changes will probably roll out in phases since the list of cores has expanded over the years and dominate builds have shifted around them. We hope these changes, many player recommended, will revitalize duels and shake up a stagnating meta.
Azrael's ScornIn early February, the Azrael's Scorn Battlepass items will be equipped to The Challenger. If you missed that Battlepass completely or couldn't grab the last few items, this will be a great opportunity to complete your collection.
Darkeater LeavingThe Darkeater package that has been available since 2022 will finally leave the shop next Friday February 2nd. If you missed our for some reason, this will be your last chance to collect these items all in one package. After the pack leaves, a few select items will be equipped to an in-game shop, allowing purchases of the cores, bots, and select items.
New BattlepassOur next Battlepass is planned to drop sometime in February. In hindsight, it would have been a better idea to hold the Olympus' Wrath package until immediately after Gifting, but it's a lesson we'll take to heart next time.
That's a lot. Is there anything we forgot? Probably. This list wasn't all-inclusive but includes some of the biggest topics that came to mind as I was writing this post. I really should get some more sleep. Tags: Nightwraith | |
January 12, 2024 EpicDuel Gifting 2023 EndsAnother Gifting Season Ends…And what an end it was! EpicDuel ending 2023 with a bang as the volume of Gifts were double that of 2021. Congratulations to our winners and all who participated, whether you were #1 or #10001. Gifting only works if people show up, and you all showed up with an incredible level of dedication and passion for the game that means so much to all of us who continue to keep the game running after nearly 15 years. The top 15 winners this year are:
Though all the top 15 winners this year had impressive scores, with all exceeding 1 million gifts and 6 Gifters crossing the coveted 2 million gift threshold, Musashi exceeded all previous records with an incredible score of 5,038,987 gifts! Will it ever be beaten? Every year I think I've seen the highest Gifting score possible and every year I'm proven wrong! We also want to celebrate the top 50, who put up some impressive gift scores themselves. The complete scoreboard will be added to Titan’s Peak as soon as we excavate a space big enough for this massive leaderboard of Gifters. Though we had some challenges this season, they were challenges borne out of something positive: People gifted enough to literally break the game! The number of gifts slowed the servers and created frequent instability by the end of the event. That brings me to the next topic.
Where Did My Gifts Go?If you logged in sometime January 10th after 4:30 EST, you may have noticed your gifts are gone. You may have also noticed there were many server crashes with the game being inaccessible for minutes or hours at a time. This was because there were so many gifts given this year that EpicDuel was literally unable to handle it. Every time someone opened their mail or used the /open1000gifts command, it hit a database table with millions of entries. Rather than wait for people to open their gifts manually while dealing with instability, we decided the best solution was to open every gift all at once. Because at the end of gifting most players end up with 1000s of duplicate items, we decided it would be preferable to automatically convert them to 1000 credits a piece, rather than forcing everyone to sell everything one item at a time. Arcade Tokens would be automatically inserted into everyone’s inventory since they’re more valuable than common seasonal items. Captain Rhubarb and I worked on a query to open millions of gifts and finally had an opportunity to use it when the server crashed again. If you logged in after this update, your gift queue would be empty, but your inventory would be overflowing with Credits and Arcade Tokens! Long story short, you didn’t lose your gifts. We automatically opened them all at once to save you time and save the server from incessant downtime. If enough people missed out on the drop items, we could make them available for purchase from a shop to fill out your seasonal rare inventory.
Arcade Prize PruningOne complaint we hear often is that many players’ home item inventories are clogged with too many home items. We want to fix that, but we can’t right at the moment, so we’ve removed home item prizes from the Bronze tier of Arcade Games, replacing them with Arcade Tokens or pure Credit prizes from 50 – 100 Credits. These slots will eventually be replaced with other items, but for now, you can spend excess Arcade Tokens without packing your home with more items that you could ever place in 100 lifetimes.
Secret and Silver Secret PrizesAfter today’s update, we “opened” all the Secret and Silver Secret packages! By opened I mean inserted the prize items into everyone’s character inventory who owns one of the two or both packages. The packages themselves won’t be deleted until all are distributed (there are still a handful outstanding) and we are confident everyone got the items they should get. When we are prepared to delete them, we’ll turn extra packages into credits. We hope you enjoy them because I think Acatriel really outdid himself from the last Secret and Silver Secret packages he created.
Winner Prize ProgressAs of right now we have been in contact will all this year’s Gifting winners and their prizes are underway. This should be a faster process than previous years thanks to Acatriel’s help and our stricter guidelines for requests. We still want each prize to be something the champion Gifters can be proud of and celebrate, but we also don’t want to drag the process out too long. It’s just as painful for us as it is the Gifters who are left waiting! That won’t happen this year. At least I don’t think it will. I have a habit of making positive statements only to be proven long later, but at this point, I’m optimistic!
Cyber Wolf CollectionThe Cyber Wolf Collect has fallen behind due to the technical issues we’ve faced towards the end of Gifting and my own work piling up on me. However, we will still be able to release the items from the collection as they are completed without the need for a reboot. The ambitious projection is that all parts will be distributed by the end of January, but, again, I’m being very optimistic. We learned some valuable lessons when creating this year’s prize items that should help us develop content more efficiently for next year’s Gifting event to minimize waiting for prizes!
Thank you again for everyone who participated in this year’s Gifting event, the biggest of EpicDuel’s nearly 15 year history! Duel on! Tags: Nightwraith | |
January 05, 2024 EpicDuel Gifting 2023: The Final StretchAs we enter 2024, the 2023 season of Gifting nears its finale. Though almost over, there is still time to climb the leaderboard and secure your place in EpicDuel history! Gifting will officially end just after January 8th at 11:59 PM EST, and what a season it has been! I admit that the response to the return of Gifting this year was beyond my wildest expectations. I thought that maybe skipping a year plus the different prize structure would have reduced the excitement somewhat, but, once again, our most dedicated players delivered, smashing all-time records with unprecedented scores!
What Happens When Gifting Ends?If this is your first time Gifting or you need a refresher, allow me to give you a brief rundown of what to expect once Gifting officially ends at the end of January 8th: 1. Gifting ends. After a brief delay, the leaderboard will change to a static leaderboard showcasing the winners of 2023's season. 2. I will gather information on all the top 15 winners, including contact information. Some of them have already won in previous years, but I still like to double-check to make sure everything in accurate. 3. I will count how many Secret and Silver Secret Prizes the winners received. This will be relevant for their distribution later. Secret and Silver Secret packages will open after they are all distributed. 4. I will email the top 15 winners offering congratulations and providing relevant information regarding their prizes. If you don't recall what the prizes can be this year, please refer back to this post from September. 5. Next, I will award the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Chest prizes. This will take some time since there are manual steps in the process, but I will reboot the server after I'm finished. If this process is taking too long or I'm too tired, I may delay this step until the morning. I don't want to execute numerous database queries on 50 characters if I'm sleep deprived. If you have no idea what that these prizes are, please refer to this post. 6. Next, I will award the completed Bonus Tier Prizes (Cyber Wolf Collection). Unfortunately, several of these are still pending, but I will award them as soon as they are completed on an ongoing basis.
Bonus Tier Prize PreviewsThe Bonus Tier Prizes are a new addition to the Gifting 2023 season, intended make Gifting more rewarding for those who don't have massive Varium stockpiles they can use to dominate the leaderboard. This year's theme was the Cyber Wolf Collection (with some noteworthy exceptions like the NightBot 3000). I intended to have previews over a month ago and all the items finished by now to enter 2024 with a clean slate as well as a personal challenge. However, it's clear that I don't have the speed or endurance I used to. Sure, my eye is healed, but it still strains and fatigues faster than it used to, preventing me from pulling the all-nighters I'm used to. While several of these are still in their concept-art form, they're coming together fast and will be distributed based on Gifting tiers from 10,000 to 250,000 as indicated by the Bonus Tier Prize post. Again, I apologize, but it seems like I forgot the game development truism that everything will take at least twice as long as you expect. Please note that these are concept art drawings and the final designs, though close, may differ somewhat, but still look better and cleaner overall thanks to the magic of vector art.
Login TroublesIf you logged in or tried to login to EpicDuel the last few days you may have spent some frustrating time stuck at the "Retrieving Client Data" screen. The past few days we've tried many solutions to try to remedy this error and pinpoint its cause. Time will tell if our fixes were successful, but I'd like to thank Captain Rhubarb and Spider for looking into it and helping resolve this frustrating and elusive error. The current leading theory is that login requests were piling up and not being processed properly, jamming the login queue almost indefinitely. This could possibly be caused by a malicious actor, BUT it could just as easily happen due to high traffic and increased stress on the server. We experienced a similar issue earlier in Gifting that seemed to resolve if given enough time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused anyone trying to login to experience the final days of this Gifting season. Being stuck at a loading screen is as frustrating for you as it is for us to reboot a server at 2:00 AM while frantically troubleshooting. It's also clear that EpicDuel is in dire need of optimization and cleanup to better handle the kind of volume we experience every year for Gifting, and we intend to make that a priority for the short to mid term in 2024.
Final 2023 ThoughtsLast year took some bleak turns for me and EpicDuel. Emergency eye surgery shattered many of my plans for this year and the recovery set me back physically and professional. Honestly, at the time, I thought that might be the end of Nightwraith as you know him entirely. Luckily, Acatriel stepped up and delivered enough content to keep the game humming along while preparing content for future updates to make my transition back to work easier. Without him, I'm not sure EpicDuel would be what it is today. The game would technically still be accessible online, sure, but it would be considerably diminished without his tireless efforts and invigorating passion for the game. Artists Bido and Deuce also stepped up to offer more content support when needed, delivering some amazing items by the year's end. The 2023 Gifting season never would have happened without all their help. Even more surprising and heartwarming was the players showing up in a big way to deliver one of the best Gifting events of all time and definitively the best by raw scores alone. Once again, I'm eternally humbled by your generosity and devotion to this game, which has been a labor of love (love/hate at times) for me since 2007, which, as a gaze sleepily at my gnarled, liver-spotted hands, feels like several lifetimes ago by now. Whether you climbed to the top 15 on the leaderboard or simply stopped by to greet a few old in-game friends, I hope to honor your continued love and support for this humble PvP MMORPG by making 2024 an incredible year for EpicDuel! Let's Duel On into 2024! Tags: Nightwraith | |
December 21, 2023 EpicDuel Gifting 2023 UpdateSo far the 2023 season of Gifting has been truly extraordinary. Several players have crossed the 1 million gift threshold, while Exempt and Thaddeus have exceeded 2 million gifts. The #1 gifter so far, Musashi, has crushed the all-time record with over 5 million gifts! Even with this awesome performance, the leaderboard isn't set in stone so there's still time to secure a place in the top 15!
Gifting Leaderboard ExpansionProbably the first change you'll notice in this update is that the Gifting leaderboard has expanded to include the top 50 Gifters. This should make it much easier to tell where you stand in the ranks if you're trying for a Silver or Bronze prize package. Due to the phenomenal performance of the top Gifters this year, we've also updated the prize tiers for the Gold, Silver, and Bronze chest items to the following:
Since we've updated the rules yet again and still haven't posted previews of the Cyber Wolf Collection, we're extending the 50,000 Varium package until the end of Gifting. Also, it would be weird to remove it right before major holidays. If you're within striking distance of the various tier collections, the overstuffed Varium package should provide a great opportunity to climb a few ranks to secure your spot!
Omega Void Trials ReturnEarly in 2022 the Omega Void Trials disappeared after what was intended to be the final Gifting event ever (it wasn't). Since we brought Gifting back, we thought it made sense to return the Omega Void Trial missions to the Daily Mission pool to give people a way to spend their extra Void and Omega Wolf Shards.
Credit SinkA major Gifting session can leave most players with more credits than they could reasonably spend in a year. To help give newly Credit-rich players a place to spend their new wealth, we've introduced a new upgradeable Snowflake badge with 16 levels of upgrades. We've also added snowflake home item decorations. These won't be the last high-Credit value items introduced so expect more to come, especially after Gifting concludes.
If we don't post another Design Note before December 25th, we hope you have a happy and safe holiday and continue to Duel On into an amazing 2024! Tags: Nightwraith | |
December 13, 2023 EpicDuel Gifting 2023 ContinuesGifting's 2023 season has now been live for about a week and the performance of this year's participants has been extraordinary! A special shout-out is deserved by the player Musashi, who ascended to the #1 spot on the 2023 leaderboard with a staggering 4,450,519 gifts! This unprecedented outpouring of generosity has led us to update the final prize criteria for the top 15 Gifters as well as extending the 50,000 Varium package a bit longer.
Gifting Top 15 PrizesThis year's Gifting season has been impressive beyond our wildest expectations. We never anticipated seeing so many Gifting clear or crush the 1 million gift threshold so quickly. To add incentive and reward for the most generous gifters, we've updated the final prize criteria with the following additions:
We hope these additions are sufficiently rewarding and enticing for those still contemplating participating in Gifting this year. Our original goal with prizes this year was to avoid the situations that occurred in previous years in which the prize creation workload piled and compounded, dragging prize fulfillment late into the year, sometimes even the next year! This modest addition increases the rewards without substantially increasing the workload, allowing the winners to receive all their rewards much more quickly than in previous seasons!
50,000 Varium Package Extension (Again)The 20,000 AP package for 50,000 Varium will stay in the shops a bit longer while we prepare the preview for the Cyber Wolf prizes. Additionally, since we updated the prizes, we wanted to offer people who want to secure a placement in the top 15 another opportunity to get this delux Varium package and boost their Gifting score. Tags: Nightwraith | |
December 07, 2023 EpicDuel Patch 1.8.826EpicDuel updated with the following fixes!
Hopefully these fixes will diminish the low latency that occurs during heavy Gifting sessions, but at the end of the day, there's only so much that can be done to improve performance when 400+ characters are in the same room at once. It's a miracle of engineering that the game doesn't instantly crash when this happens, but we'll continue to investigate possible improvements for future updates. Duel on, and happy Gifting! Tags: Nightwraith | |
December 04, 2023 Gifting 2023 Is Now Live!EpicDuel's 2023 Gifting Event has begun! Login now to give and receive inconceivable mountains of loot, earn achievements, and spread holiday cheer throughout Delta V! Let's send off 2023 on a high note! If you haven't already, remember to select "Low Performance: Hide Other Characters" from the Settings menu when Gifting heats up, or the main heat you feel will be from your CPU! This Gifting Event will last from December 4th to January 8th, 2024. To review the rules and regulations for the final prizes, please refer to this Design Notes post! To view a preview of the Gold, Silver, and Bronze reward tier prizes, please gaze upon this Design Notes post!
Good Luck and Have Fun!I don't know if it's even possible to top the previous Gifting events, but let's still try to make this the best Gifting season yet! Be safe, have fun, and Duel On! Tags: Nightwraith | |
November 30, 2023 Gifting Approaches 2023Are you ready? Ready for Gifting? It's hard to believe the biggest EpicDuel event of 2023 is nearly here (I'm as surprised as some of you!), but on Monday December 4th the servers will shut down for an update to activate Gifting! This will happen as soon as possible, but it could be pushed later in the day if any last-minute problems emerge that need stamped out. When the Gifting update is live, the 50,000 Varium package along with the Legendary Epic Supporter 2023 achievement will leave the game. You still have a few more days to stock up, but once this unprecedented package is gone, it's gone! UPDATE 12-1-2023 It was our intention to have the Gifting Bonus rewards (The Cyber Wolf Collection) ready to preview so everyone could make an informed choice before buying Varium to participate in Gifting, but I've sadly fallen behind my own deadlines. To allow more time to finish the previews and show off the potential rewards, the 50,000 Varium package along with the Legendary Epic Supporter 2023 achievement will remain in the game for another week, leaving the game on December 11th instead of December 4th. Gifting will still go online on December 4th as planned.
Gifting Rules UpdateSince many have been asking about a particular aspect of this year's Gifting guidelines, I've decided to issue an amendment: If you are in the top 15 Gifters and you ask for the Physical (P) or Energy (E) version of a Legacy rare, you may also receive the corresponding version of the opposite damage type. For example, this means if you ask for the Bunnyzooka, you may also have the Energy Bunnyzooka. An important restriction to this amendment is that if an opposite damage variant does not exist, another item will NOT be created to fulfill the request. If you request a Physical damage item with no corresponding Energy variant, you're limited to the Physical version. You also cannot request the Physical version of one item and the Energy version of a completely different item. Armors don't have P or E versions so if you ask for an armor, you only get one armor. You don't get an armor + and item. It's also worth noting that these rares will not be customized as in previous years, aside from a name to distinguish it as your own such as Player X's Bunnyzooka. I was reluctant to make the above changes because of possible loopholes and confusion, but since the rares won't be customized, the workload shouldn't be increased substantially.
The Challenger ApproachesAfter being teased in a previous update many months ago, The Challenger is finally being added to EpicDuel. This new NPC will sell old Battlepass items about a year after the Battlepass was initially offered. When the game updates Monday, the NPC will be equipped with items from the Sanguine Showcase and the Frost Revenant Showcase. To maintain the exclusivity of the Battlepass items, the Enhanced Battlepass items will be Varium only, while the Basic items will be offered for Credits / Varium. Cores and Bots will be sold all year while the other Battlepass content will return around when the items were initially offered. Also, starting with the Frost Revenant Showcase items, cores will come pre-equipped with their corresponding items. Since we did not do this with the Sanguine Showcase, we will not pre-equip cores to items to be fair to those who already purchased cores with Varium. Additionally, for those craving Battlepass styles, the hairs and helms of the Sanguine and Frost Revenant Showcases will be sold in the Style Change interface. As with the items, Basic Battlepass styles will be sold for Credits while Enhanced styles will be Varium only. Battlepass home items and achievements will remain rare. This approach should be a fair way to acquire Battlepass items for players who were not able to play while the Battlepass was initially offered or discovered the game after the Battlepass expired. If this approach is unpopular, we can adjust our release strategy in future updates.
Seasonal Rares ReturnAs in past Gifting seasons, seasonal rares will return to shops until the conclusion of Gifting. If you've been away from the game for awhile, Gifting is a great time to stock up and boost your rarity score! Tags: Nightwraith | |
November 09, 2023 EpicDuel Gifting Prize Bonus TiersIn addition to the other prizes offered by this year's gifting event, we will be introducing a new batch of prizes for Gifters who manage to achieve certain thresholds for gifts given. The main theme for these prizes will be the Cyber Wolf Set, but there will be some other bonus prizes scattered throughout the tiers. This is designed to provide an opportunity for prizes for those who aren't necessarily aiming to land on the final leaderboard. The hope was that there would be a cool GUI in game to track the scores and automate prize claim, but in due to the heavy workload, we'll be awarding the prizes manually at the conclusion of gifting. Unfortunately, we don't have many previews to show as the items are still in progress, but we can show you the tier levels as well as the names and types of items we plan to offer for each tier. We will post more previews as the items are completed!
10,000 Gifts (over 150 Gifters attained this level in 2021)
15,000 Gifts
20,000 Gifts
25,000 Gifts
50,000 Gifts
75,000 Gifts
100,000 Gifts
125,000 Gifts
150,000 Gifts
175,000 Gifts
200,000 Gifts
225,000 Gifts
250,000 Gifts (28 Gifters attained this level in 2021)
That's all for now. We apologize for the delay in updates, but getting a new Battlepass ready in addition to preparing hundreds of new items for Gifting is stretching us to the limit. Next week, with luck and elbow grease, we should be back on track! Tags: Nightwraith | |
November 03, 2023 EpicDuel Gifting 2023 PreviewWe're almost a month away from the return of biggest event: Gifting! This season is now planned to last from December 4, 2023 to January 8, 2024. Starting and ending the event on a Monday rather than a Friday works better logistically since it will be easier and quicker to address any problems on a weekday rather than a weekend. For now, we are pleased to present a preview of the Gifting prizes for winners of each tier of the upcoming event! We wanted to present these rewards in advance so you'll know exactly what you're competing for and can plan accordingly.
Gifting Chest Prize PreviewBelow is a comprehensive list of prizes that will be awarded to Gifting finalists. These prizes do not include the Legacy Item award that the top 15 Gifters will be eligible for or the Custom Item that the #1 Gifter will be eligible for. These rewards will be manually added at the end of the competition so please allow some time to receive all your rewards after Gifting concludes. Bronze Chest Winners (26th - 50th place)
Silver Chest (11th - 25th place)
Gold Chest (1st - 10th place)
Secret Package PreviewThanks to Acatriel's hard work, we have a preview of the Secret Package rewards well before the Gifting competition begins! Silver Secret Package For those that need a refresher, Silver Secret Packages are given to the first five places of Daily Gifting leaderboard at the end of each day and to anyone who gives out more than 15000 gifts in a day. If you place among the top 15 Gifters at the end of the competition, you may distribute any additional Silver Secret Packages you receive throughout the competition. This means if you win 4 Silver Secret Packages, you may distribute 3 to friends.
Secret Package For those that need a refresher, Secret Packages are given to the Top Daily Gifting leaderboard at the end of each day. Those who place in the top 15 Gifter but somehow did not receive a Secret Package will receive one at the end of the competition. If you place among the top 15 Gifters at the end of the competition, you may distribute any additional Secret Packages you receive throughout the competition. This means if you win 4 Secret Packages, you may distribute 3 to friends.
Olympus' Wrath Battlepass Coming SoonThe Draconic Warlord Battlepass is leaving in a couple weeks to make way for the final battlepass of 2023: Olympus' Wrath. It might just be one of the best-looking yet! This battlepass will run concurrently with Gifting to provide another incentive to keep dueling between major giving sessions. Tags: Nightwraith | |