EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

July 17, 2013

Prepare for Dread Domination!

Are you ready?

After weeks of fighting in the Dread Plains, plans for a powerful new weapon have been captured by both sides of the War.  Now, Legion and Exile forces are prepared to unleash their power upon Delta V in the form of the Dread Domination Varium Package!

This package includes 4 unique weapons and is not available in game!

• 2 Auxiliaries
  • o Dread Desolator P
  • o Dread Desolator E
• 2 Sidearms
  • o Dread Disruptor P
  • o Dread Disruptor E

We've equipped the Dread Desolators (auxiliaries) with technology of unknown origin in the form of the Improbability Gate Core. This exclusive core uses technology derived from an undisclosed research facility in the Dread Plains to open holes in the fabric of the universe. These tears in reality have been weaponized to allow players to summon creatures and objects from other worlds to come to their aid and help vanquish their foes! Be warned, however, this technology is quite unstable: you never know what will come through!

War Objective Leaderboards

Can you rule them all?

New leaderboards on each War Objective will display the top Influence contributors in addition to showing your own contribution. With 34 War Objectives to dominate, you have 34 chances to get your name and face out there, showing Legion and Exile forces that you’re a force to be reckoned with and that either alignment should feel honored to hold your favor. Can you dominate them all? We think it’s impossible, but we also know never to underestimate a dedicated EpicDuel player with unlimited access to energy drinks!

Alignment Switching

Where do your loyalties really lie?

This week we are introducing the heavily requested feature of alignment switching. Our primary concern with this change is that it could irrevocably tip the balance of the alignments, as players with weak loyalties rush to whichever alignment has the upper hand. 

Delicate negotiations.

To ensure that alignment switching is treated with the gravity it deserves, we are limiting the feature to Varium only. Players will only be able to switch alignments once per month. Players currently in a Faction will need to first leave the Faction in order to switch. There is still no way for Factions to switch alignments with disbanding and recreating themselves.

Bug Squashin’

Inevitably, when new features are released, new bugs will pop up, sometimes in old features. We try to make each release as bug free and polished as possible within a week of development time, but often bugs slip by. This update will fix several issues that have arisen since the last update (for specifics check out Rabble’s patch notes leading up to the release). To track down and fix bugs as quickly as possible, we need your help. Posting bugs on Twitter, while appreciated, isn’t always helpful since reports quickly get lost in our feeds. The best way to help us fight bugs is to post them to the official EpicDuel Bugs Forum. 

Please be as descriptive as possible when reporting bugs, explaining exactly what you were doing when the bug occurred. Giving us those details helps us to reproduce bugs more easily. A reproducible bug is usually an easily fixable bug. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Tags: Nightwraith Factions Dread War Alignment Legion Exiles Weapons Varium Leaderboards Bugs Reports Cores Forums

May 30, 2013

Hey there, EpicDuelists! It's time once again for some delicious design notes from your friendly neighborhood Cinderella.

The Dread War itself is still in development, and will likely remain so for a bit more time.  Our planned rollout for the War is in mid-June, but expect rapid-fire updates as development is underway. However, I can confirm that the War will coincide with improvements to the Faction system, and will involve territorial control on a much greater scale than the current flag system. This conflict is fairly large -- the biggest players have ever faced -- and could expand beyond the Dread Plains to consume all of Delta V!

MAIL TIME!

The new mail system is getting some nice improvements. You'll be able to manually choose search criteria (eg. Subject, Sender, Message) instead of searching through all three simultaneously. In addition, you'll now get a confirmation message when deleting mail, so it's at least less likely that you'll delete something important...like a message from a Delta III prince who needs your bank account information.

Balancing Act

The conversion of passive skills to active skills is still underway. Since this is a massive change and we want to cover all the classes in one release, we are allowing as much time for testing as possible. This means that the changes will probably go live next week, thoroughly tested. It's very important that class balance is in a good place for the War so we are taking these upcoming changes very seriously.

The Long Arm of the Law

A special message from the Lawman:

Howdy y'all, 

As some of you may already know, I have been around to help here for a long while now, but now it's time for me to part ways and concentrate on leading the Exile forces! 
From now on, please do not try to contact me via the forums as I will likely not be able to deal with your issues. However there are a team of awesome Moderators who will now be dealing with all issues in-game. Within the last two month major changes were made to the in-game system which means that your reports will now be directed directly to Moderators who will deal with each manually. This means that you no longer need to take any screenshots and take the hassle of PM'ing in here on the forums! 

So please do make use of this new system, as I will now be retiring from this line of work to allow for more time in my main line of work! 

With the new and improved reporting system, there is no reason to take screenshots and send them to the AEF Lawman account. Do not send messages to the Lawman -- he's not going to answer them. Having said that, we would like to thank all those who took the time to compose reports to the Lawman under the old system. However, that system required a great deal of time investment, both from the Moderator staff and the players making the reports, and it have been made almost entirely obsolete by the new system. If you need to report a player, please use the in-game report system!

Celtic and April Fools Weapons Leaving

The April Fools and Celtic weapons have hung on long enough, being as it's nearly June. If you still need a giant spoon, now's your last chance!  Also, the Bunny Weapons from last year are leaving as well.  However, the 2013 Bunny weapons will stick around for another week because of a bug with Brachylagus' shop that has been fixed for the new release.

Calissa and Oz

Many of you were curious about Calissa, and her relationship with Oz and the Exiles. I've actually read the story suggestions. Here's my own take on their story.

 

            Oz couldn't move. Couldn't protest. He thought he should scream, but that couldn't save her. Helplessly he watched as his bride -- the only woman he loved, fell backwards lifelessly. He dropped to his knees, seemingly freed from the spell, and tried to reach out for her.

            “My name's Calissa.” Sixteen-year old cadet Lorenzo Ozimus ignored the voice in front of him, keeping his head down in the Shadow Guard manual.

            “Hellooooooo!” The little girl grabbed his head and forced him to look up. “I SAID my name is Calissa.” Lorenzo looked up at the eleven year old girl in front of him- her dark hair was done up in braids, and her white skin was tinged with blue; silver under the skin. Lorenzo noticed her ears were pointed.

            “Hi,” he grunted and looked down.

            “My daddy's your commander.” That got Lorenzo's attention. “You're in Wright Jarek's unit.”

            “Yeah.” Jarek was born on Delta VI. That explained the little bit of silver under her skin.

            “What's your name?”

            “Ozimus. Lorenzo Ozimus. Mostly they call me Oz.”

            “Ozimus...” she stared at him with large emerald-green eyes. “I'm a little bit psychic, I don't know if you know that. But I know you're destined for great things.” She stared at him a bit more with those green eyes before running off.

            It was those eyes that the adult Lorenzo stared into now. Those eyes that were once full of life now stared at him unblinking, unseeing. She'd died before she hit the ground, and her lips stained red as her head lolled to the side.

            Lorenzo and Calissa's lips parted. The War was over, and life goes on. Eleven years had passed since their first meeting, and the minute he saw her again, Oz was taken by Calissa's beauty. Their courtship had been brief, and they married that summer. But their bliss was short-lived, as already there were stirrings of rebellion against Baelius's regime. Calissa was in training to become a master Mage under one of her father's friends, a powerful man named Caden.

            “Is your Master sympathetic to our cause?”

            Calissa nodded. “There is no love for Baelius in Caden's heart.” She paused. “You should lead this, Lorenzo. I do not dare bringing up a request like this to my Master.” Oz agreed.

            Caden.

            It had been Caden's idea to bring the Uprising straight to Baelius's gates. It was Caden who had organized the charge.

            It was Caden who stood over Calissa's body, removing the sharpened end of his stave from her neck. Caden tracked the blood across the floor of the throne room -- the apex of Oz's failed assault. Caden smirked, lifted his foot, and all Oz saw was blackness.

            Oz stared in the mirror. He splashed cool water on his scarred face, and raked his fingers through his rapidly-graying hair. A new battle faced him- one that would force him to return from obscurity and take his place at the front of the Uprising. He looked at his communicator, and noticed the date. He smiled bitterly. The first charge was scheduled for his eleventh wedding anniversary. He held her ring, “This is for you, Calissa.”

Tags: Cinderella Dread War Factions Legion exile Rares Reports Lawman Oz Caden