Recent play-tests have revealed that the state of the game has tipped in favor of games being decided less by individual player decisions and more by the the game’s systems– namely halftime events, equalization, and random events such as Death’s Edge influencing games so heavily that player choice has taken a back seat. While these systems were designed to prevent snowballing and stop a single player from controlling the entire game, they pulled control away from skilled players and facilitated an environment where the game over-compensates for imbalances in net worth– As a result, this patch seeks to dial back on these elements a bit to put more control back in the hands of players.

Shipping alongside this patch are several quality-of-life improvements and clarity updates to make interactions more consistent, and overall reduce player frustration. Keep calm and read on!

GENERAL:

HALFTIME ALERTS – Chat alerts will now be displayed when a halftime event is going to occur at the end of a round.

POWERUP CHANGES:

• Treasure powerups will now spawn more frequently after halftime.
• Treasure powerups can now only provide items worth 105 AP or less. (Down from 180 AP).
• Aegis powerup now only makes a player untargetable for 1 round. (Down from 2).

QUEST CHANGES:

• The “Mad Chemist” Quest now only requires 10 consumable items to be used. (Down from 14).
• The “Tourist” Quest now only requires a player to land on 6 unique square types. (Down from 7).

UNDERDOG CHANGES:

Underdog is a key part of how players who are behind can catch up– however due to how net worth is calculated, Underdog created massive AP swings for players by the time the game was over, allowing for extremely effortless comeback victories. Underdog is about giving players tools to catch up, not doing the work for them.

• Underdog maximum item discount reduced from 25% –> 20%.
• Underdog item discount is now based on rank in the game, rather than a flat 20% bonus.
  • A player in last place will earn the full 20% discount on items.
  • Players in 3rd or 2nd place with Underdog earn 15% and 10% discounts respectively.
• Underdog’s item discount no longer applies to Heroic items.
• Underdog now requires that a player is behind more than 300 AP –> 335 AP from the lead player. (Reminder: This is net worth, not AP on hand).

Miscellaneous:

During intermissions, a 30-second warning will now show. (In addition to the existing 10 second one).

2 new chat commands have been added:

• “/rank” — Displays your current status in the game (1st place, 2nd place, etc). This is an estimate and does not factor in end-of-game rewards.
• “/stats” — Displays your current base stats. Base stats are permanent, and are not affected by items.

Client:

• You can now control all graphics settings from within the options menu. From this patch forward you won’t see the pre-launch dialog supplied by Unity.

CHARACTERS:

Balance-wise, most characters seem in-line this patch. Some minor changes to interactions however:

GRAMPS:

• Rolling a 10 or higher but choosing not to move will no longer cause Gramps to take damage.

NURSE ANN:

• Nurse Ann will no longer gain AP from “EMERGENCY” if it fails to heal a target for any reason. (IE: Caldrio’s Lifebane).

COMBAT:

COMBAT ABILITIES:

• Invigorate
  • Cooldown increased from 3 rounds –> 4 rounds.
• Thorn Shield
  • Damage decreased from 3 + 75% Defense –> 3 + 60% Defense.
• Siphoning Strike
  • Damage increased from 3 + 130% Attack –> 4 + 135% Attack.

COMBAT MECHANICS:

Death’s Edge being a % chance made it highly volatile and frustrating in close matches when everything else was equal. While an interesting mechanic, it will depart this patch until it can be properly reworked down the road.

SNIPPED – Death’s Edge has been removed.

STAT/SCALING CHANGES:

With Death’s Edge removed, crit builds have free reign to invest in ever-increasing amounts of damage without penalty.  These changes will help counteract that and allow defense to step in as an answer to high-damage builds.

Critical Strike damage reduced from 166% normal damage –> 141% normal damage.

Defense Damage reduction cap increased from 60% damage reduction –> 75% damage reduction.

• NEW – For every 10 points of defense, combat damage taken is reduced by 3.  (This applies after % reduction).

Starting evasion reduced from 2% –> 0%.

ITEMS:

 Not to much to see here — Heroic items will cost you more however!

HEROIC PRICETAG – All Heroic items have had their base costs increased from 200 AP –> 250 AP.

REWORK – Clever Disguise

The old Clever Disguise had a random-effect attached to it, however it rarely triggered, as the item requires that another valid target exists. Removing the randomness element makes the item more predictable both for those who buy it and those seeking to focus down Atlas .. priority targets.

• New Effect: The next time a player attempts to target you, they will target another random player instead (if a valid target exists). When triggered, this effect goes on a 4-round cooldown.

BUFFED – Dashkai’s Blood Tome

• Self-damage inflicted reduced to 15. (From 20). This damage is now dealt as non-lethal damage.

NERFED – Feathered Staff

• Damage dealt reduced from 22 –> 20.

Quality-of-life:

• The item preference selection window will now close upon selecting an item in the shop. (Without re-rolling the items for sale).

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where the item grid wouldn’t load within the Guidebook.
• Fixed an issue where Invisibilty Incense wouldn’t work in combat.
• Fixed an issue where restarting a game caused character abilities to sometimes not activate properly.
• Fixed an issue where returning to the main menu (after leaving a game) would prevent a player from joining quickmatch games.
• UNCONFIRMED — Addressed an issue where Magic Clay would lock up the targeting UI.

As the title says, this patch primarily focuses on balancing items and some outlying combat abilities, but it also introduces some large changes to items and battle to completely change the dynamics of combat. Wanna know how? Well too late the patch notes have already begun–

Note that because this patch cycle was a bit longer, some of these changes were held over from the pre-release version of the game following 0.4.2! Some changes here may seem familiar as a result, but this is the comprehensive list.

GENERAL: 

LOCK IT UP – When it isn’t your turn, the action bar is now locked.

LESS RANDOM – Random event squares have been temporarily disabled. They will return next patch when they undergo a moderate rework.

AP GAINS:

AP gains for rolling have been adjusted from: 25 AP + 1 AP Per Round  –> 9  AP + 4 AP Per Round.

(You’ll earn less AP early in the game for rolling, but significantly more toward the end of the game).

AUCTION CHANGES:

LOWER BIDS – Auction squares will now attempt to only show items that all players can afford the starting bid on.

HAUNT CHANGE:

Haunt quickly proved to be too oppressive for those constantly confronted with it. (Er hem, Aimond). So Haunt now has a new effect; one that is still punishing but not nearly as oppressive.

Haunt (New Effect) — When haunted, you can no longer control your dice rolls.

• When rolling while haunted, you will automatically move a random number of spaces forward, and you will not be able to use modifiers.

QUEST CHANGES:

These quests proved a little too hard to complete compared to their counterparts, so they’ve been made a little easier 🙂

• “Finisher” Quest Objective Changed from: “Kill 2 players out of combat” —> “Kill a player out of combat”
• “Not Even Close” Quest Objective Changed from: “Defeat 2 players while having more than 50 health” –> “Defeat a player in a duel while having more than 50 health”.

ROLL MODIFIER CHANGES:

A nerf for the most abused modifiers incoming! Also some buffs to the lesser-known ones.

NERFED — Double Time: Now doubles the roll value and experience gained, but causes you to lose 4 energy.

NERFED — High Alert: Stat bonus reduced from +5 attack and defense –> +4 attack and defense.

NERFED — Hit the Gym: Now grants +1 attack and defense (Changed from +3 attack).

BUFFED — Sightseeing: Experience bonus changed from +4 XP –> +6 XP.

BUFFED — Travel Lightly:  Effect changed to: “Lose the cheapest item in your inventory. Permanently gain +5% –> +6% evasion.

Never lose track of those modifier turns again!

Q.O.L – Before choosing a roll action, the roll window will now display a tooltip letting you know if you’ll be able to modify the action you choose.

BATTLE:

MECHANICS CHANGES:

CHANGED: Items Forever: Items can now be used while in combat! (Unless otherwise specified). Due to this change, a lot of items have been re-balanced, so check out that section later down the patch notes 🙂

CHANGED: Ability Cancelling– Becoming Untargetable in combat will now cancel any actions targeted against you on the same turn.

Here comes the speed round for combat ability balance updates:

Bludgeon

• Damage reduced from 3 + 140% Defense –> 2 + 125% Defense.

Chronobomb

• Base damage reduced from 9 –> 5.

Contempt

• Now generates a combo point.

Fleetfoot

• Evasion bonus increased from 60% –> 70%.

Haymaker

• Base damage reduced from 9 –> 7.

Lethal Advance

• Damage increased from 16 + 150% Attack –> 16 + 160% Attack.

Second Wind

• Healing increased from 8% max health –> 10% max health.

Thorn Shield

• Now procs return damage on abilities as well.
• Reflected damage decreased from 3+ 85% Defense –> 3 + 75% Defense.

New Jams – Two new soundtracks have been added for combat!

CHARACTERS:

A certain humble fellow illuminated some balance tweaks, so here they are:

AIMOND

• “BOO!” energy cost reduced from 6 –> 5.

ROBBIE

• “Five Finger Discount” is much less likely to steal items worth 50 AP or more from the shop.
• Stolen items now only sell for half as much.

NURSE ANN

• “EMERGENCY” energy cost increased from 4 –-> 6.
• “EMERGENCY” damage dealt reduced from 45 –> 40.

Quality-of-Life:

• If you attempt to use your character ability but fail, (due to lack of targets) you’ll now be able to roll normally without missing a turn.

ITEMS:

ITEM SHOP CHANGES:

The item shop received a visual update (See “UI” section), but also was tweaked a bit:

SELECTIVE STOCK – 16 items are now displayed at a time in the shop. (Down from 18).

ITEM PREFERENCES – If you change your item preferences while in the shop, the shop window will now refresh the available items immediately to fit your chosen preference. This can only be done once per intermission though!

NEW ITEMS:

The shopkeeper will have some new items for sale!

NEW – Caldrio’s Lifebane

• Costs 50 AP
• Activate: Deal 5 damage to an enemy. Until the end of their next turn, all healing effects on them are negated.

NEW – Combat Bandage

• Costs 5 AP
• (Auction Exclusive)
• Consume: Heal for 55.

NEW – Etherial Emerald

• Costs 105 AP
• Grants +7% Evasion
• Effect: Whenever you become Untethered, you permanently gain +3% Evasion.

NEW – Juker’s Boots

• Costs 100 AP
• Grants +12% Evasion
• Effect: When an attack misses you in combat, both you and the attacker lose 1 energy.

NEW – Mystic Timepiece

• Costs 10 AP
• (Auction Exclusive)
• Grants +8% Evasion.
• Consume: Reset all item and ability cooldowns.

NEW – Sleepy Syringe

• Costs 10 AP
• (Auction Exclusive)
• Consume: Drain 4 energy from a target player. If they become exhausted, they fall asleep and miss a turn. (Cannot be used in combat).

NEW – Sure-Step Boots

• Costs 100 AP
• Grants +7% Evasion
• Effect: Your dice rolls cost 2 energy, but you may now use a roll modifier every turn if you’re not exhausted.

With items now being usable in combat, here comes the massive wave of item changes. Just try to keep up!

Alien Shield

• Cost increased from 105 AP –> 130 AP.

Atlas Shield

• Defense bonus increased from +5 –> +9.
• Cost increased from 85 –> 100 AP.

Bandage

• Healing reduced from 50 HP –> 15 HP.
• Cost decreased from 10 AP –> 5 AP.

Champion’s Sword

• Cost increased from 50 AP –> 65 AP.

Cleansing Trinket

• Cost decreased from 20 AP –> 8 AP.
• Renamed to “Teddy Bear”
• Effect: Removes Haunt (Unchanged).

Cultist Robe

• Cost increased from 80 AP –> 110 AP.
• Defense bonus increased from 3 –> 4.

Cursed Void Staff

• Stat bonuses increased from +5 Attack, +2 Defense –> +5 Attack, +5 Defense.

Dovan’s Dog Whistle

• Cost increased from 35 AP –> 40 AP.

Eddy’s Amethyst

• Now procs on dice rolls of 5 or lower. (Up from 4 or lower).

Enmar’s Time Rod

• Stat bonuses changed from +6 Attack, +6 Defense + 1 Energy –> +1 Energy, +18% Evasion.

Feathered Staff

• Cost increased from 75 AP –> 85 AP.

Foxlight’s Grace

• No longer grants Defense, and is now a benign item.
• Cost decreased from 60 AP –> 35 AP.
• Healing amount increased from 10 HP –> 15 HP.

Gazerbeam Helm

• Effect: Become Untargetable for 1 round (Unchanged).
• In Combat: Become Untargetable for 1 combat round instead.

Hyperdrink

• Effect: Consume: Gain +8 energy. (Unchanged).
• In combat: Restore +4 energy instead.

Infinity Potion

• Cost increased from 50 AP –> 60 AP.

Kevlar Vest

• Cost increased from 105 –> 130 AP.

M-4 Rifle

• Crit bonus changed from +5% –> +10%.
• Cost increased from 100 AP –> 115 AP.

Monahue’s Righteous Grandstaff

• Damage per energy consumed reduced from 4 –> 3.

Muriel’s Rolling Pin

• Damage dealt increased from 8 –> 10.

Precision Bow

• Cost increased from 25 AP –> 30 AP.

Purging Wand

• Cost decreased from 90 AP –> 55 AP.
• Now only removes Untargetable effects from *living* players.

Sirkind’s Grandstaff

• Now grants +3 max energy. (Changed from +2 Attack, +5 defense).
• New Effect: After using your character ability, restore 2 energy.
• Cost decreased from 105 AP –> 70 AP.

Spear of Arcanos

• Cost increased from 60 AP –> 80 AP.

REMOVED ITEMS:

A moment of silence please.

• Frozen Shield
• Russell’s Crossbow

UI:

NEW – Guidebook: A new guidebook tab is now available in the main menu. This feature is still under-construction, but for the moment you’ll be able to open it and see all available items in the game, and filter them by specific qualities.

NEW – Shopkeeper: The item shop now has a shopkeeper! The shop keeper is a neutral NPC which will spew quotes at you– don’t mind him too much.

Upon death, a fullscreen indicator splash will now be shown.

In-Lobby Window:

• When in lobby, the “Ready” button is less confusing , and more clearly displays your current ready status.

BUG FIXES

They come, they die.

• Fixed a bug where in some cases duplicate items could be purchased.
• Fixed a bug where magic clay could copy the same item twice.

After being conceived and iterated through over the course of a year, the Character Update is finally live! This update adds 5 unique characters (with more on the way) to the game which allow players fresh and unique new ways to play the game. Other than that, this update adds a brand-new square (to replace meditation squares) and offers numerous tweaks to combat abilities, items, and gameplay elements– the usual.

GENERAL:

REDUCED HEALING — End of turn health regen reduced from 5 HP to 3 HP.

START WIF’ NUFFIN – Starting attack has been lowered from 1 to 0.

CHOOSE A QUEST – Quests can now be re-rolled up to 2 times.

BATTLE:

ABILITY CHANGES:

Some balance updates to combat abilities:

NOT AS SPAMMY – All basic combat abilities (1st-pick) have had their base cooldowns increased from 3 rounds –> 4.

BUT MORE DAMAGE – ALL damaging combat abilities now deal 12% more base damage.

AND MORE DAMAGE – ALL damaging combat abilities have had their damage scaling increased by 40%.

ATTACK DAMAGE NERF- Attack damage scaling reduced from 140% attack –> 120% attack.

CHANGED – Invigorate : (New Effect) — Now generates 3 combo points.

BRAWL CHANGES:

IT WAS TOO EARLY – Brawls will no longer occur before round 5.

BIG FINALE – A Brawl will now always occur on the last round.

DEATH’S EDGE CHANGES:

In nearly all cases, Death’s Edge prolonged battles much longer than they needed to be without impacting the outcome of battles much. This change means that as long as you’re willing to stay in the arena, you might get an additional turn or two to turn the tide of a fight — risking death for reward!

UNCERTAIN EDGE – Death’s Edge is no longer guaranteed to trigger upon receiving lethal damage!

• Death’s Edge now has a 30% chance to trigger, which is increased by your evasion chance.
• Death’s Edge can now trigger multiple times in combat!

STUN CHANGES:

• When a player receives a stun, any combat actions they have queued on that turn are cancelled.

CHARACTERS:

Characters are the game’s newest edition which lets each player customize their play-style with unique traits and abilities.  You’ll choose characters before the game starts, and you’ll stick with them to the end; keep in mind each character has unique perks (and in some cases quirks) that will fundamentally change your approach to the game in new and novel ways.

NEW – Character Abilities

Character abilities are new turn options (alternative to rolling) that let you activate a special effect based on your chosen character. Character abilities cost energy, and cannot be used if you’ve rolled on the same turn.

NEW CHARACTER: NURSE ANN

UNIQUE TRAIT (Pledge of Life) — Nurse Ann cannot deal lethal damage to other players, unless she is in combat.

UNIQUE ABILITY (EMERGENCY) — Rush to the square of an opponent and Heal them to full health; for each point of health healed, you earn +1 AP, and while en-route to the target you deal 45 damage to any other opponents in the way.

NEW CHARACTER: Gramps

UNIQUE TRAIT (Wise Man; Bad Knees) — Gramps earns experience 50% faster, but moving 10 or more spaces in a turn causes him to take 15 non-lethal damage.

UNIQUE ABILITY (Back in My Day) — For 2 turns, ALL players lose any stat bonuses from items. During this time, no other character abilities may be used.

NEW CHARACTER: Aimond

UNIQUE TRAIT (Startler) — Whenever Aimond passes another player on the board, he haunts them for 1 turn.

UNIQUE ABILITY (Boo!) — Aimond teleports to the square of an opponent, and haunts them for 1 turn. If they were already haunted, they miss a turn instead.

NEW CHARACTER: Robbie

UNIQUE TRAIT (Five-Finger Discount) — After leaving the item shop, Rob gains a free random item. If Rob dies, any stolen items he has in his inventory are removed.

UNIQUE ABILITY (Snatch) — Rob attempts to steal an item (worth 100 AP or less) from a target player. If successful, he becomes untargetable for 1 turn.

NEW CHARACTER: Steve

UNIQUE TRAIT (Startler) — Steve starts with +4 Defense.

UNIQUE ABILITY (Boo!) — Steve grows in size and doubles his current health until his next turn.

SPELLS:

Spells are a new gameplay element intended to replace powers. Spell work very similarly to powers, in that they cost energy and activate an effect, usually on a target enemy. However unlike powers, spells are not chosen at the start of the game– instead they have a dedicated square type to them… introducing:

NEW – Magic Square

• Magic squares are a new square type; when you land on them, you’ll get to choose between 2 spells to cast, if you have enough energy.
• Magic Squares will replace Meditation Squares this patch.

Possible Spells:

Arcanopulse: Deal 35 damage to a target. If it kills them, the energy cost of this ability is refunded.

Cost: 6 Energy.

Curse: Deal 63 damage to a target over 3 turns.

Cost: 7 Energy.

Silence: Silence a player for 2 turns. During this time, they cannot use items, character abilities, or cast spells.

Cost: 7 Energy.

Untether: Become Untethered for 4 seconds. During this time you can move around the board freely.

Cost: 3 Energy.

Time Warp: Reset the cooldown of all abilities and items.

Cost: 5 Energy.

PREGAME:

The following game elements previously served to give players strategic flexibility when choosing how to approach their playstyle. With the Character update finally live, these aspects became overbearing and added a lot more complexity to the game with little strategic variation. In other words, less is more.

REMOVED – Charms

REMOVED – Combat Aspects

• Note: Previously, when displaying ability choices, the game would present abilities based on the chosen combat aspect. Following this update, abilities presented to players will now be based around their current combat stats— allowing for much more varied ability combinations and more control over what kinds of abilities players have access to throughout the game.

ITEMS:

Smoothing out some items, balance, etc.

CHANGED – Dash’Kai’s Blood Tome

• Is no longer auction exclusive.

BUFFED – Sorrow

• Damage amplification increased from 5% of max health –> 7% of max health.

CHANGED – Riot Shield

• Defense bonus increased from 6 –> 8

CHANGED – Doogle’s Spellbook

• No longer restores full energy upon landing on a Mediation Square. (Because they no longer exist).

REWORKED – Restorative Charm

• New Effect: Restores 12 health at the end of your turn.

CHANGED – Xpired’s Mystery Soup

• Chance of negative outcome increased by 16%. Careful…

REMOVED – Crappy Sword

• It’s gone for good this time.

UI:

ZOOM – You can now use the mouse wheel to adjust camera zoom.

NOW LOADING – A loading screen has been added.

WARNING SIGNS – Notifications are now sent to players whenever a brawl or intermission is scheduled to occur at the end of a round.

LEARN WHILE WAITING – Game tips are now displayed while waiting for other players to choose actions.

This patch delivers on a lot of different goals: reworking several items, increasing player engagement, and introducing some new game elements along the way. As a patch that’s primarily focused on items, this patch delivers the largest change to the item shop ever, so be sure to pay attention when spending your hard-earned AP.

Other than that, enjoy– This will be the last major patch before the Character Update, so sit tight!

GENERAL: 

MORE POWERUPS – Powerup spawn rate increased by 20%.

DE-ENERGIZE – Default max energy reduced from 12 –> 10.

FRUGALITY – Starting AP reduced from 100 AP –> 25 AP.

MAD CHEMIST – The “Mad Chemist” Quest now requires the user to consume 14 items to complete it. (Up from 10).

NEW MECHANIC – Fatigue

This isn’t really a new mechanic, but rather an addition to exhaustion. Exhaustion penalties now apply out of combat as well:

• When a player’s energy reaches zero, they will now gain a “Fatigue” debuff.
• While Fatigued:
  • Roll modifiers of any kind cannot be used.
  • Damage taken from all sources is increased by 20%.
  • Energy does not regenerate at the end of the turn.
• Fatigue can be removed by using the “Recover” roll action, or after 2 turns of not having zero energy.

QUALITY OF LIFE:

• Upon death, negative damage dealing effects (Such as Curse) are removed.
• Item tooltips now display what the item will sell for.
• Several UI’s have had their appearances updated.
• When players have taken all possible actions on their turn (besides using items), their turn will automatically end after 5 seconds.

BATTLE:

Miscellaneous balance updates, tweaks.

NEW – COMBAT TRAINING: Upon landing on a Battle Square, players now have the option to perform Combat Training instead of dueling another player.

• Combat Training costs 10 AP, and permanently grants +1 Attack, +1 Defense, and +1% Crit Chance to the player.

CHANGE – LEVEL REQUIREMENT: To declare battle, players must now be at least level 2.

Duels and Brawls can go pretty long, so round limits have been shortened.

Round limit for Duels reduced from 15 (21 past halftime) —> 10 (12 past halftime).

Round limit for Brawls reduced from 13 (19 past halftime) —> 13 (15 past halftime).

ABILITY CHANGES:

Last Stand:

• Immunity duration reduced to 1 round. (From 2).

Lethal Advance:

• Base damage increased from 14 —> 16

Rewind:

• Energy cost reduced from 4 –> 2.

Siphoning Slash:

• Healing from this attack is doubled when below half health. (Up from 33% health).

Deathbloom:

• Base damage increased from 3  –> 4.
• Attack scaling increased from 45% attack –> 55% attack.

LESS EXHAUSTING – All Intermediate and Ultimate abilities have their energy costs reduced by 1.

DAMAGE ADJUSTMENTS

CHANGE – MINIMUM DAMAGE: The minimum attack damage has been increased from 4 (6 after halftime) —> 6 (7 after halftime).

CRITICAL – Crit damage scaling reduced by 15%.

ATTACK DAMAGE – Standard attacks now deal between (60% -75% of attack) —> (55%-72% of attack).

STAT CAPS

To help alleviate the pain of snowballing, stat caps have now been added.

• Attack and defense are now capped at 50. Any additional attack or defense after this point will have no effect.

EXHAUSTION CHANGES:

• While exhausted in combat, players take 2 damage at the end of their turn. Each time this damage is applied, the damage amount increases by 2.

BOARD:

MORE POT – Pot Squares are 3 times more likely to appear on the board.

LESS POWAH – Meditation Squares are 33% less likely to appear on the board.

WHAT THE HEX- Hex Squares are 10% more likely to appear on the board.

OMNIAUCTION – Shopping can no longer be done from Omni Squares. Instead, this option has been replaced by “Start Auction”.

NEW MODIFIERS

Several new roll modifiers have been added this patch!

Roll Modifier: Moneybags

• Gain +10 bonus AP. 30 AP is added to the pot.

Roll Modifier: Travel Lightly

• Lose a random item in your inventory. Permanently gain +5% evasion.

Roll Modifier: Sightseeing

• Gain +4 experience.

Roll Modifier: High Stakes

• 100 AP is added to the pot.

Roll Modifier: Quickmend

• Heal for 30 HP, and restore 3 energy.

Rest Modifier: Zen

• Permanently increase max energy by 1.

CHANGED – RestModifier: High Alert

• Now grants +5 Attack and Defense for 2 turns. (Up from 3).

CHANGED – Rest Modifier: Hit the Gym

• Now grants +3 Attack permanently, but causes resting to not restore energy.

ITEMS:

The primary issue with the item shop and choosing abilities is that they take a while for players to get through, making turns take longer. These are uninteractive decisions for other players, so it made sense to have players perform these actions simultaneously, to minimize wait times. Enter Intermissions, a way that the game pauses to allow all players to think about their next move. 

NEW – INTERMISSION: “Round Intermissions” will now happen periodically, which will allow players to choose combat abilities and visit the item shop.

As of this patch, intermissions will be the only way to visit the item shop directly.

Intermissions generally happen every 3 rounds, but will also happen on the 2nd and last rounds of a game.

ITEM SHOP:

Randomness in the item shop has been an issue for a while now– more often than not, players are forced to scrape up whatever the item shop offers rather than what they really want to buy, leaving most players with essentially random assortments of items. These changes to the shop address this by presenting more items at a time and giving players the choice of which stats they want to focus on, allowing for highly specialized builds.

ITEMS GALORE – The item shop now displays a maximum of 18 items at a time. (Up from 15).

NO SEPARATION – Upon visiting the shop you’ll no longer choose a category of item– all categories will be shown simultaneously. Level restrictions on specific categories still apply however.

BREAKDOWN – When visiting the shop you’ll see 5 consumables, 5 benign, 5 combat, and 3 heroic items at max level.

NEW – ITEM PREFERENCES: You can now select which stats you’d prefer to see on combat and Heroic items. Doing this will greatly increase the likelihood of getting whichever stats you want.

Can’t decide? — By default, your item preferences will be set to support your combat aspect, but you can change this when you visit the shop.

REMOVED: Shop Squares will no longer appear on the board. To compensate, auction squares will now replace them.

Because items are now a lot more accessible, prices have gone up against all industry wisdom of supply and demand.

COSTLIER:  ALL items have had their costs increased by 20%.

CRIT ITEMS:

As it turns out, there’s a serious lack of crit items for players who want to try bursting their enemies for a change. Previously, this was because crit was supposed to be a supplemental stat to Attack, but as the item pool grows full crit builds become more and more viable. As such, injecting a few more crit items into the game should provide some interesting options for players who want to double-down on this strategy. 

NEW ITEM- Plunderblades

COST: 140 AP

:: +20% Crit.

:: Whenever you land a critical strike, steal 10 AP from the target.

NEW ITEM- Giant’s Bane

COST: 150 AP

::+3 Attack, +15% Crit.

:: Your crits deal 25% less damage, but deal bonus damage equal to 12% of your target’s max health.

NEW ITEM- Lucky Clover

COST: 85 AP

:: +10% Crit, +10% Evasion

NEW ITEM- Dragontruth Glaive

COST: 55 AP

:: +10% Crit.

:: Deal damage equal to 20% of your crit chance to target. This damage can crit.

NEW ITEM- Knuckleduster

Auction Exclusive item.

COST: 80 AP

:: +5 Attack. +10% Crit.

:: Your attacks in combat have a 10% chance of stunning the target for 1 turn.

OTHER ITEMS:

Meanwhile, some other new items will be entering the pool:

NEW ITEM- Magic Clay

COST: 60 AP

:: Consume: Gain a copy of a random item in a target player’s inventory.

NEW ITEM- Invisibility Incense

Cost: 25 AP

:: Consume: Drain 4 energy, and become untargetable for 1 round.

NEW ITEM- Infinity Potion

COST: 55 AP

:: Consume: Gain +1 Attack and +1 Defense permanently. After 2 turns, add this item back to your inventory.

NEW ITEM- Care Package

COST: 100 AP

:: Consume: Fill your inventory with random consumable items.

NEW ITEM- Foxlight’s Grace

COST: 70 AP

:: +1 Defense

:: After being targeted by an enemy, heal for 10 HP.

NEW ITEM- Earthmother’s Root

COST: 140 AP

:: +20 Max Health

:: In combat, your attacks deal bonus damage equal to 5% of your max health.

NEW ITEM- Fortification Rune

COST: 50 AP

:: +20 Max Health

NEW ITEM- Sorrow

COST: 80 AP

:: +2 Max energy

:: Whenever you damage a player out of combat, they take 5% of their max health as bonus damage.

ITEM CHANGES — BALANCE TWEAKS

CHANGED-  Staff of Demons

• Is now auction-exclusive, and grants +2 Max Energy.

CHANGED –  Cleansing Trinket

• Renamed to “Fearless Trinket”
• Now only removes haunt effects from the player who uses it.
• Base price reduced to 20 AP.

CHANGED –  Ryan’s Piercer

• Cost increased from 110 AP to 125 AP.

CHANGED –  Purging Wand

• Cost increased to 90 AP (From 40).
• Now removes untargetable effects from ALL players, not just one target.
• Cooldown increased from 4 rounds to 6.

CHANGED –  Alien Shield

• Now reduces damage from all sources by 2. (From 1).

CHANGED –  Dovan’s Dog Whistle

• Damage dealt reduced to 15 (from 20). This damage is double against targets below half health.

CHANGED –  Das’Kai Blood Tome

• Renamed from Dashkai’s Blood Tome
• New Effect: Your power is 30% stronger. Activate to restore 6 energy. (3 round cooldown).
  • No longer grants max health.

CHANGED –  Berserking Blade

• Attack damage doubling happens when below half health. (Changed from 4o% health).

CHANGED –  Riot Shield

• Active damage no longer scales with max health. (Still scales with defense score).
• Effect now reads: Deal damage to a target equal to your defense score.
• No longer grants max health. Defense bonus increased from 4 –> 6.

CHANGED –  Steadfast Spaulders

• No longer grants defense.
• New Effect: You are immune to stuns in combat.

CHANGED –  AG II Pistol

• Cost increased to 40 AP (From 20).
• New Effect: Activate: Deal damage equal to 50% of your attack to a target.
• Grants +4 Attack (Up from 2).
• Cooldown increased to 3 rounds (From 2).

CHANGED –  Jason’s Shield

• Cost increased to 50 AP (From 20).
• Now grants +4 Defense (Up from 2).
• New Effect: Reduces damage taken while out of combat by 20%.

ITEM REMOVALS:

These items leave this patch, mostly because they didn’t offer enough strategic diversity. RIP Pizza.

REMOVED – Gold Dagger, Sword of Reaping, Spartan Helmet, Basic Tunic, Chainmail Armor, Omen of Death, Prime Pendant, Fresh Pizza

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug where Villain’s Cape was not awarding the proper AP bonus.
• Fixed a bug where item tooltips would not display on the targeting UI.
• Fixed a bug where a player disconnecting could freeze the battle UI.
• Disconnected players should no longer appear in Brawls.

As promised this update marks the first of the year to refine the combat system and make gameplay more consistent! This patch adds some tools to prevent extreme cases of snowballing and make sure all players have a chance to stay in the game all the way to the end.

There’s also some balance updates to make combat abilities feel stronger, make combat more straightforward, and clean up the user experience a bit.

GENERAL: 

In the previous patch, snowballing was quite the issue which meant that once someone got far enough ahead, they would be nearly unstoppable. This change seeks to give a little love to players who fall behind significantly.

NEW – UNDERDOG

When a player is behind more than 300 AP of net worth (compared to the lead player) they automatically receive the Underdog buff.

Underdog has the following effects when active:

• Attack and defense are increased by 4.
• When attacking the player in the lead, you gain +10% crit chance. When being attacked by the player in the lead, you gain +5% evasion.
• Items in the shop are discounted by 20%. (Applies to Heroic items).
• You no longer pay medical fees when you die, and when defeated in battle you’ll pay slightly less AP to the winner.

RENEWAL – The Underdog buff will remain active on the player until they come within 150 AP of net worth as the winning player.

BUT THERE’S A CATCH – The Underdog buff can only be applied after halftime.

AND ANOTHER CATCH – Any stats gained by Underdog do not count toward a player’s net worth.

ROLL PREDICTION

GIVE ME MONEY – Correctly predicting a roll when you’re at max level will now grant +12 AP. (+8 AP if you were close!).

COMBAT:

Balance Changes!

Standard attacks and crits are weaker late game. Many abilities now have increased scaling and higher base damage overall. 

SLOWER SCALING – Standard attack damage scaling reduced from 85% of attack –> 67% of attack.

LOWER CRITS – Critical Strike bonus damage multiplier reduced from +70% –> +50%.

BIG BOMB – Chronobomb damage increased from 5 –> 8 +(35% defense)

STRIKE FAST – Quick Strike damage increased from (3+ 40% attack) –> (4 + 40% Attack + 30% Defense)

THORNIER – Thorn Shield damage increased from (3+ 35% defense) –> (3 + 50% defense)

DUEL – Duality damage increased from (5+30% attack) –> (5 + 45% attack)

RESOLVE – Gladiator’s Resolve attack bonus increased from 5 –> 6.

NEW – MINIMUM DAMAGE REQUIREMENT

• Standard attacks in combat now deal a minimum of 4 damage. (6 after halftime.)

CHANGED – RETREAT

• When a battle starts, the retreat option is now disabled for the first 3 rounds.

ITEMS:

Part of the snowballing problem comes from the scarcity of items when behind. Due to the price of combat items, players who were behind were forced to pick up cheaper, much less useful items which made them less competitive in battle. While players who crush in the arena should be rewarded, this change is designed to ensure everyone has access to decent combat items no matter what.

And in the same way, this change helps to put a limit on snowballing by making it harder for players to run away with the game– players who get ahead will now fill up on their inventory faster, and will be forced to make choices about what to keep and sell, giving other players time to catch up.

PRICE SLASH – The prices of ALL combat items have been reduced by 40-60% (Varying by item).

OPTIMIZATION:

A LITTLE FASTER – Another round of optimization completed! Expect better FPS, lower memory consumption, and overall, smoother gameplay.

BUG FIXES:

Still in the bug squatting business!

• Fixed a bug where player avatar animations would stop playing correctly when moving across the board.
• Fixed a bug where Gladiator’s Resolve and Thorn Shield would not always apply their buffs for the proper duration.
• Fixed a bug where board zones were not always correctly displayed.
• Fixed a bug which caused powers to be able to be activated without costing energy.

Happy Holidays! This patch comes to deliver on a re-skinned map for the holiday season (Everice Ridge) and fix up some early balance issues introduced by 0.3.8. Close attention will be paid to how things continue to play out, so keep on testing and being awesome at the same time!

EVERICE RIDGE

Check out the re-skinned version of Enigma Valley:

BATTLE:

Red = Old values.

Snowballing has become somewhat of a concern following the combat update, so he’s some changes to help with that.

NOT AS PUNISHING – Losing a brawl causes you to pay 10 AP + 4% —> 4 AP + 2% of your net worth to the winner.

TIME TO DUEL – Losing a Duel causes you to pay 8% of your net worth to the winner —> 3 + 4% of your net worth to the winner. (3+9% if in the lead).

EARLY PICKINGS – Losing any battle before halftime causes you to only pay half as much AP to the winner as you normally would.

ITEMS:

BUFFED – Xpired’s Mystery Soup

This item has new effects to make it more worthwhile, especially for the late-game:

:: Now has a chance to permanently grant +5% evasion.

:: Now has a chance to permanently grant +2 attack.

:: Now has a chance to permanently grant +5 max health.

:: Now has a chance to permanently grant +7% crit chance.

GENERAL:

NOT JUST SLEEP MODE – Choosing the “Recover” Roll Action now fully restores your health and energy, regardless of what you rolled.

OPTIMIZATION:

LESS PRETTY, MORE FUNCTIONAL – New options have been added to disable environment and board particles for low-spec PCs.

BUG FIXES:

Fixed a bug where players would sometimes become randomly untargetable.

Fixed a bug where a player may appear duplicated when entering a brawl.

Fixed a bug where the “Blood-lust” accolade was awarding the wrong player.

It’s finally here!

The fabled Combat Update is live and ready to go! As the largest patch this year, this update seeks to revisit one of the game’s core systems and bring it new life! Meanwhile this patch also introduces a large number of item reworks, new mechanics, and user interface improvements. You’ve got a lot of reading to do, but at least this section can remain somewhat short. 🙂

BATTLE:

Combat has been completely reworked from the ground-up. Here we have new mechanics, support for 4-player battles, and a number of changes to make combat more engaging and strategic between players!

NEW – BATTLE TYPES

There are now 2 kinds of combat: Duels and Brawls.

Duels are 1v1 battles between two players, while brawls can have any number of players, up to 4. Winning brawls awards a significant AP bonus, and winning Duels earns you a percentage of the losing player’s net worth.

GET IN THERE AND FIGHT – Brawls start automatically every 5 rounds, but cannot happen on the last round. Players that are dead when a brawl starts will be excluded from participating. Duels can only start when a player lands on a Battle square.

FIGHT CLUB – Brawls will last until there is only one player standing, or when the time limit is exceeded. When the brawl is over, any players still left standing are awarded AP.

SIMULTANEOUS TURNS:

NO MORE WAITING – During battle, players will now take their turn simultaneously. After all players have chosen their actions, all combat events are resolved before the next round starts.

NEW – COMBAT ASPECTS

At the start of the game, you’ll now be able to choose between one of five combat aspects. Each combat aspect allows access to different combat abilities which you’ll unlock over the course of the game as you level up.

Combat abilities are unlocked at levels 2, 3, and 5. (Combat abilities are chosen at the start of the turn, as shown below.

There are too many combat abilities to list here! To see them all you’ll have to try them out in-game, feel free to experiment!

NEW MECHANIC: Death’s Edge

In combat, when a player’s health reaches zero for the first time, this triggers Death’s Edge. When Death’s Edge triggers, the player becomes immune to all damage and effects for 1 combat turn, and cannot be targeted until their next turn.

During Death’s Edge, the player can use combat abilities, attack or retreat as normal.

NEW MECHANIC – Combo Points

Players now generate combo points in battle as they use attacks. (Some abilities will also generate combo points).

ESCALATING DAMAGE – You deal 10% more damage for each combo point you have (Max 3 @ 30% bonus damage).

COMBO ATTACK – If you have 3 combo points and perform an attack, that attack will become a combo attack. Combo attacks deal 50% additional damage, but cost 2 energy and reset your combo points to 0.

EXHAUSTION:

Exhaustion works a tad bit differently now:

EXHAUSTION PENALTY- When Exhausted, you take 20% more damage from all sources, and your attacks deal 30% less damage.

EXHAUSTION DAMAGE – Additionally, you take escalating damage at the end of each turn while you’re exhausted. This damage starts at 1 and increases by 1 each turn for the rest of the battle.

(If you end your turn while exhausted you’ll take 1 damage. Next turn, 2 damage, etc.)

NEW STAT – Evasion

Evasion is a new stat which dictates how likely attacks and abilities are to miss against you. (40% evasion means attacks and abilities targeted at you have a 40% chance to miss).

JUKE JUKE – All players start with 2% evasion.

BOARD:

ROLL PREDICTION:

Correctly predicting an opponent’s roll should feel rewarding and should encourage players to roll in such a way that it doesn’t happen. However the rewards for correctly predicting a player’s roll don’t seem substantial enough, so here’s a change to help that:

YOU GUESSED IT – Correct roll predictions will now result in both you and your opponent gaining the full roll experience.

This change ensures that in order to pull ahead of other players in XP, you’ll need to make sure they don’t predict your rolls consistently. (No more rolling 11’s and 12’s all game..)

OLD TIMERS – The experience needed to level up has slightly increased at every level.

Plus Squares:

MORE AP! – Plus Squares now generate about 15% more AP at all stages of the game.

BALANCED EARNINGS – When the player with the highest net worth lands on a plus square, they earn 30% less AP. When the player with the lowest net worth lands on a plus square, they earn 30% more AP.

With the addition of a roll action that lets you heal for free, Hospital Squares were no longer needed, and so will be leaving the game this patch.

LESS HEALZ – Hospital Squares have been removed.

ITEMS:

NEW – Colton’s Brewing Stand 

(Benign Item)

Cost: 80 AP

:: Can be activated to create a random consumable item. (3 round cooldown).

BUFFED – Quizzle’s Mark

:: Now also grants +1 max energy.

EVEN CRAPPIER – Crappy Sword

::Cost decreased from 65 AP to 35 AP.

::Now grants +1 attack and +5% crit chance. (Changed from +3 attack).

HEROIC ITEM REWORKS

Touching up on some Heroic items to give them distinct interactions with the new combat system!

REWORKED – Bow of the Master Archer

(Heroic item)

Cost: 400 AP (Unchanged)

:: Grants +5 attack, +35% crit chance. After landing a critical strike, you gain +1 attack for the rest of the battle. Additionally, your combo attacks cost 1 less energy.

REWORKED – Odnamro’s Greatsword

(Heroic item)

Cost: 400 AP (Unchanged)

:: Grants +9 attack, +40% crit chance. Your critical strikes deal 20% more damage, and generate an additional combo point.

REWORKED – Duelist’s Longsword

(Heroic item)

Cost: 400 AP (Unchanged)

:: Grants +14 attack, +2 max energy. After receiving a stun or critical strike, your next attack generates an additional combo point, restores 2 energy, and heals you for 10 health.

REWORKED – Emperor’s Defender

(Heroic item)

Cost: 400 AP (Unchanged)

:: Grants +12 attack. In battle you heal for 20% of damage dealt by your attacks. If you’ve triggered Death’s Edge, you heal for twice the amount.

Even more item reworks below:

REWORKED – Bloodborne Sabre

(Combat item)

Cost: 95 AP (Up from 80).

::Your attacks in combat heal you for 15% of damage dealt. (30% if Death’s Edge has been triggered).

REWORKED – Dashkai’s Blood Tome

(Auction only item)

::Grants +2 max energy. Your power is 30% stronger if used when above half health. Can be activated to deal 35 damage to yourself and restore all energy. (3 round cooldown)

REWORKED- Crown of Wisdom

::Now grants +5 bonus experience at the end of the turn. (Up from 3), but no longer grants defense.

::Cost decreased from 90 AP to 60 AP.

BUFFED- Omen of Death

::Duration of effect increased to 3 rounds. (From 2).

Effect: Consume to mark a target player for 3 turns. During this time, they take 20% more damage from non-combat sources.

NERFED- Monahue’s Righteous Staff

:: Now deals 4 damage per energy consumed (Down from 5). Now grants +3 max energy. (Down from +4).

Some items take their leave this patch in order to make way for new items down the road. Say goodbye!

REMOVED – Jorge’s Submission Club

REMOVED- Siphoning Trinket

Consumable items

CHEAPER – ALL consumable items have had their costs reduced by 50%!

BUFFED – Old Man’s Tincture

• Now grants 8 experience. (Up from 5).

BUFFED – Hyperdrink

• Now restores 8 energy.

BUFFED – Duelist’s Longsword

• Now grants +14 attack (Up from 12).
• Now grants +2 max energy.

BUFFED – Eddy’s Amethyst

• Now restores 10% max health at the end of every turn (Up from 5%).
• Now also grants +10 max health.
• Is no longer an auction exclusive item, and can be purchased in the shop for 80 AP.

Quality of Life Improvements:

NOT AS FRUSTRATING – If after using an item its effect is cancelled for some reason (Due to lack of targets). The item’s cooldown will be refunded. If it’s a consumable item, the item will no longer be consumed.

GENERAL:

Internal testing revealed that combat became a tad bit too slow once all the new bells and whistles were introduced. To compensate, the default max health has been adjusted.

YOU’LL DIE FASTER – The starting max health for all players has been lowered from 100 to 80.

MISC:

NEW VOICE TALENT – An all-new narrator (Joe Goeffeney) provides the lines for this patch!

UI:

Major UI improvements have been made!

TARGET ACQUIRED – The targeting window now shows much more detail about players, including their items, health, energy, level, combat stats, and their chosen combat abilities.

CHATTERBOX – The Chat window has been revamped and now stores all messages sent within a game. Players can now scroll through the chat window to see previous messages.

MORE OPTIONS – The options window now has 2 tabs for audio and display options. You can now modify your screen resolution and change the game mode between windowed and fullscreen. (By default, the game will select the highest resolution and prefer to use fullscreen).

PEEK-A-BOO – The Roll Modifier window can now be shown and hidden to view the board while you choose which action/modifiers to use.

SLEEKER – The Roll Modifier window is now partially transparent, and smaller.

More changes to hold everything over until the reckoning comes!

BATTLE:

NOT SO FAST – The energy cost of pursuing enemies has been reduced from 3 energy to 2 energy.

COUNTER-STRIKE – Counter Attacks now deal 80% of the damage from the last attack taken (Up from 60%). Counter attacks now also deal 6 base damage.

ITEMS:

CHEAPER – Sword of Reaping

This item slipped by for being extremely cost inefficient– a remnant of when item stealing was still in the game. All fixed now!

• Cost reduced from 280 AP to 200 AP.

CHEAPER – Xpired’s Mystery Soup

Consumable items are already hard to make efficient use of, so this one especially needed to be cheaper to make it worth the risk.

• Cost reduced from 25 AP to 15 AP.

NERFED – Clever Disguise

Price increase!

• Cost increased from 50 AP to 65 AP.

NERFED – Gladiator’s Stronghelm

As a powerful late-game Heroic item, it was a little too easy to abuse the active component to this item without any tradeoff. Now it will take an extra turn before you can charge at your enemies again.

• Cooldown increased from 2 rounds to 3 rounds.

NERFED – Monahue’s Grandstaff

The active component of this item means that under the right circumstances it can one shot every other player in the game. The energy refund mechanic of this item meant that it’s downtime was severely limited when it killed someone, so that ends now.

• Now no longer refunds energy if it kills another player.

UI IMPROVEMENTS:

THE END IS NEAR – When there’s 10 seconds remaining on your turn or less, a warning tick will play for each second that passes by. A warning sound will also play when you have less than 10 seconds remaining to take an action.

MOTION SICKNESS – The motion blur post-processing effect has been disabled to improve performance.

BUG FIXES : 

Fixed a bug where the in-battle UI would sometimes get stuck.

Fixed a bug where when holding tab, players could not see the level of other players.

This is a rather small patch aimed at fixing some bugs introduced in 0.3.5, balancing a few things, and  preparing for the major combat update next patch. With that we’ll keep things short and sweet for these patch notes.

GENERAL:

End of game accolades have been adjusted to reward combat, as well as power use, board movement, and more! There’s also now a lot more AP to earn toward the end of the game, so aim for accolade bonuses if you can!

ACCOLADES:

“Bloodlust” Accolade now rewards 75 AP. (Up from 55). (Awarded for winning the most battles).

“Unluckiest Player” Accolade now rewards 40 AP (Down from 50).

“Penny Pincher” Accolade now rewards 40 AP. (Down from 55). (Awarded for spending the least in the shop).

“Bully Me Not” Accolade now rewards 60 AP. (Up from 55). (Awarded for being targeted the most).

“Speed Devil” Accolade now rewards 45 AP. (Up from 30). (Awarded for taking turns the fastest).

NEW ACCOLADE: Hoarder

:: Awards 30 AP to the player who collected the most powerups.

NEW ACCOLADE: Wannabe Mage

:: Awards 20 AP to the player who used their power the most.

NEW ACCOLADE: Track Star

:: Awards 30 AP to the player who moved the highest number of spaces on the board.

TOTAL ACCOLADE BONUS AP: 336 AP. (From 246).

HELP TIPS:

FOR NEWBIES – The game will now periodically display help tips via chat! These tips help explain some controls, techniques, and game elements. These tips can be turned off by typing “/silencetips“. But take time to read them all!

QUESTS:

NEEDS MORE SALT – The “Taste of Death” Quest now only requires 300 damage to be dealt to other players. (Down from 400).

AUCTIONS COUNT – The “Mad Shopper” Quest will now proc when purchasing an item through an auction, but now requires 5 items to be bought worth more than 100 AP. (Up from 4).

ITEMS:

CHEAPER – Clever Disguise

:: Cost decreased from 70 AP to 50 AP.

CHANGED – Dashkai’s Blood Tome

:: When activated, deals 50 damage to the user (Up from 20). And restores 8 energy. (Up from 5).

CHANGED – Dovan’s Dog Whistle

:: Cost decreased from 60 AP to 45 AP.

:: Can be activated to deal 20 damage to a target enemy. This damage is doubled if the target is below 50% health. (4-round cooldown).

:: Damage dealt by this item is reduced by 50% when in combat.

BUG FIXES / TWEAKS:

Item cooldowns are now displayed separately from the item’s description for readability.

Fixed a bug where the “Titan” charm would not properly grant max health.

Fixed a bug where Sprint would not deal damage to targets the player passed by.

The camera now properly follows a player as they move across the board.

Fixed a bug where the Roll UI would sometimes gets stuck.

Fixed a bug where player name-tags didn’t disappear when in combat.

Fixed a bug where the “Taste of Death” Quest wouldn’t track damage dealt in combat.

This patch takes another pass at the board, the central play area for the game which has long suffered from a lack of interactive elements. Many of the recent patches sought to address this issue indirectly by giving players other options elsewhere (Charms, powers, combat, item shop, etc) but this patch will begin to tackle some of these issues head-on.

When it comes to moving around the board, players are given limited options on how they want to proceed and ultimately what they decide to do on their turn. One of the biggest changes this patch introduces several new mechanics for moving around the game board while also giving players more objectives to pursue throughout the course of a game via Quests!

With part 1, we’ll take a look at giving players short and long term objectives through quests, introducing new square types along with new board elements, and giving players additional options about how their rolls will be used each turn.

GENERAL:

The first major change shipped with this patch is the addition of quests. Quests provide players with short and long-term objectives to work toward for rewards such as  bonus AP, but will often require the player to commit to new or different play-styles to complete them.

Quests are tasks each player is given to complete for bonus rewards. Currently, players can only obtain quests at the start of the game, and they are automatically assigned to every player based on their chosen Charm. Quests are personal to each player, and when completed, will award the player at the start of their next turn.5

NEW – Quests

GIVE ME A QUEST – After game setup, all players are assigned a personal quest based on their chosen Charm.

Possible Quests:

MAD SHOPPER

:: Purchase 4 items that cost 100 AP or more.

NOT EVEN CLOSE

:: Defeat 2 players in combat while having more than 50 health.

TASTE OF DEATH

:: Deal 400 damage to other players.

FINISHER

:: Kill 2 players out of combat.

MAD CHEMIST

:: Use 10 consumable items.

TOURIST

:: Land on 7 different square types.

COLLECT EM’ ALL

:: Collect 4 powerups.

Note: These quests will all award 300 AP for their completion.

HALFTIME EVENTS:

SNIPPED – The “Let there be Justice” and “Ready to Rock” halftime events have been removed. They’ll be replaced with other events in a later patch.

BATTLE:

A huge combat update is on the horizon, where nearly every aspect of combat will be revamped. However in the meantime, some smaller balance updates make their way into this patch to keep things nice and fair.

EXHAUSTION- For every 10% of energy a player is missing, their attacks in combat deal 5% less damage. (Max damage reduction @ 50%).

LESS PAINFUL – Critical strike damage scaling reduced by about 15%.

BOARD:

NEW MECHANIC – Three-Phase Rolling

After rolling the dice, players are now presented with more options on what actions they want to take before moving.

Rolling the dice is now resolved in 3-phases:

ROLLING : The player rolls the dice as normal, and can press the space bar to stop the roller on a number. This becomes the player’s roll value for their turn.

Other players can attempt to predict this value. (More on this later).

CHOOSE AN ACTION :  After rolling the die, the turn player can now choose an action which corresponds to how that dice roll will be used. Note that some roll actions are available every turn, while other roll actions are only available under certain conditions.

Possible Roll Actions: 

MOVE – Moves the player across the board as normal. This will earn the player maximum AP and XP gains for rolling the dice.

(Always available, can be used every turn).

REST – The player will stay put on their current square and restore a percentage of their health and energy based on the roll value. (Lower roll values restore more health and energy!).

(Always available, can be used every turn).

ACTIVATE POWER – The player will stay put and activate their power.

(This action is only available while the player is in a purple zone on the board).

VISIT SHOP – The player will visit the item shop without moving on the board.

(This action is only available while the player is in a yellow zone on the board).

BATTLE – The player will instantly visit the arena, allowing them to do battle with another player.

(This action is only available while the player is in a red zone on the board).

CHOOSE A MODIFIER: Some actions can now be modified, which grants a bonus effect in addition to the chosen action. Modifiers have numerous effects which can affect the roll value, grant the player temporary buffs, grant bonus AP , and more! Modifiers can only be used every other turn.

NEW SQUARE TYPE – Untethered Square

When landed on, the player becomes Untethered for 6 seconds, allowing them to move freely across the board for its duration.

NEW MECHANIC – Untethered

While Untethered, players can use the WASD keys to move their avatar around the board for a limited time. When the Untethered effect ends, the player will be placed on the nearest square to their current position without activating it.

FREE AT LAST – At the start of the game, all players are Untethered for 10 seconds, which will let them choose their starting square before the game officially starts.

NEW SQUARE TYPE – Auction Square

When landed on, this square will start an auction. (This mechanic is unchanged). However, auctions now only display a special set of unique items that cannot be obtained any other way.

After halftime, some auction squares will become regular shop squares, but auction squares will now be present throughout the entire course of the game.

BACK TO NORMAL – Shop squares will now always take the player to the item shop, and thus will no longer begin an auction.

PENNY PINCHERS – Shop squares will appear less frequently before halftime.

AUCTIONS AWAY – There is no longer a limit on how many auctions can occur in a game.

EXPERIENCE CHANGES:

To make leveling up more consistent and user-friendly, these changes are to make each game more consistent in how players scale up.

CARRY OVER – Experience now carries over to the next level when a player levels up.

SCALING COSTS – The amount of experience needed to level up is now determined by the amount of game rounds to be played. Players should now consistently start hitting max level around halftime or shortly after. (but this can still vary!).

ITEMS:

NEW – Stalker’s Boots

Category: Benign

:: Grants +2 max energy. Can be activated to teleport behind a target player. (4 round cooldown).

NEW – Tempest Amulet

Category: Benign

:: Grants +1 max energy. Your power is 10% stronger.

UNIQUE AUCTION ITEMS

Auctions now display unique items that cannot appear in the shop! Here are the new auction-exclusive items:

NEW – Berserking Blade

:: Grants +5 attack. When below 40% health, this item’s attack bonus is doubled.

NEW – Deathblade Scythe

:: Grants +7 attack. Whenever another player dies for any reason, you permanently gain +1 attack.

NEW – Dashkai’s Blood Tome

:: Grants +2 max energy. Your power is 30% stronger when used while below half health. Can be activated to deal 20 damage to yourself and restore 5 energy. (3 round cooldown).

NEW – Eddy’s Amethyst

:: At the end of your turn, you restore 5% of your max health. Any time you roll a 4 or less, you permanently gain +5 max health.

NEW – Riot Shield

:: Grants +4 defense and +10 max health.  Can be activated to slam an opponent, dealing your defense score plus 15% of your max health as damage to them. (3 round cooldown).

Some tweaks to the existing roster of items: 

CHANGED – Old Man’s Tincture

• Self-inflicted damage decreased to 30. (From 35).
• Experience gain decreased from 7 XP to 5 XP.

BUFFED – Atlas Shield

• Now grants +5 defense and +10 max health (Changed from +5 defense).
• Cost decreased from 125 AP to 120 AP.

BUFFED – AG II Pistol

• Cooldown decreased from 3 rounds to 2 rounds.

BUFFED – Ryan’s Piercer

• Cost decreased from 190 AP to 170 AP.

These items were around since item stealing was a popular mechanic. As a result their prices remained inflated, but that changes now!

BUFFED – M-4 Rifle

•  Cost reduced from 190 AP to 160 AP.
•  Now grants +5% crit chance.

BUFFED – Sirkind’s Grandstaff

•  Cost reduced from 195 AP to 190 AP.
• Now grants +2 Attack, +5 Defense, and +2 Max energy. (Changed from +3 attack, +5 defense).

CHANGED – Jorge’s Submission Club

• Now has a 30% chance to break after winning a battle. (Rather than after every battle).

CHANGED – Cultist Robe

• Now also grants +2 max energy in addition to +3 defense.
• Cost increased from 80 AP to 105 AP.

CHANGED – Spartan Helmet

• Now grants +4 defense and +10 max health. (Changed from +1 attack and +4 defense)
• Cost increased to 100 AP.

CHANGED – Alien Shield

• Now grants +7 defense and +10 max health. (Changed from +1 attack and +7 defense)

CHANGED – Kevlar Vest

• Now grants +5 defense and +10 max health. (Changed from +7 defense)
• Cost reduced from 150 AP to 140 AP.

NERFED – Bow of the Master Archer

• Attack bonus decreased from +8 to +5.

NERFED – Restorative Charm

• Cost increased from 40 AP to 60 AP.
• Healing from this item reduced by 50% after halftime.