Update 83

Minion Masters!
We’ve got a heap of Balance Changes heading your way, along with some adjustments to the Mayhem structure and some other improvements.

Balance

• Arcane Bolt
• Kill Threshold from 400 to 500
• Stun duration from 7 to 9 seconds

--- Developer comments ---
Arcane Bolt was in general underperforming and wasn’t really worth considering, as it wouldn’t have enough of an effect for its mana cost against slightly larger units. By increasing its kill threshold it will be able to take down more mid-range units and help tackle larger singular units thanks to its lengthy stun.

• Lord-Sentinel Thelec
• Health from 450 to 500
• Damage from 60 to 70

--- Developer comments ---
Rather than create a massive redesign of the Archer summoning that’s key to the identity of the card, we’re opting to try making Thelec himself much more dangerous to go up against, so that there is still value to be obtained from him. An increase from 60 to 70 damage adds a lot of additional DPS to him, which should make him a more prominent threat even if the Crystal Archers are eliminated.

• Ghost Turret
• Health from 250 to 325

--- Developer comments ---
Ghost Turret was originally nerfed from 8 range to 6 as it became too much of a “answer everything” card. We don’t really want to push it back to that role, so we’re opting to give it an identity as the tanky close range turret that still has its excellent DPS, making it a good answer to melee minions at the expense of not taking the bridge.

• Styxi
• Depression time from 10 to 6

--- Developer comments ---
Styxi has been a fan favourite of some for a long time, but he always suffered too much against midrange matchups for 6 mana. The 10 second depression time was brutal and he was only good against Swarm or multi-unit minions as a result, so we’re hoping to make him a bit more consistent and playable with this.

• Gax the World Bomb
• Damage from 150 to 175

--- Developer comments ---
Gax is a legendary card that has been underperforming for a long time despite some niche deck usage. We believe that by giving it an extra 25 Damage he should be able to have that much more of an impact on the board state, even on minions he doesn’t outright kill. At the same time we’re wary of over-buffing him, since he can have such a massive impact.

• Ghost
• Attack Speed from 4.0 to 3.5 seconds

--- Developer comments ---
What this means in realistic terms is the speed at which Ghost possesses a unit will increase. Ghost is a risky card to play, but the rewards for it are great - We’re hoping a buff like this can help balance out the risk and reward factor of it.

• Battle Shi-Hou
• Base Attack Speed from 2.2 to 2.0 seconds
• Old Attack Speed:
• No enemies nearby - 2.2 sec
• 1 enemy - 1.7 sec
• 2 enemies - 1.2 sec
• 3 enemies - 0.8 sec
• 4 enemies - 0.6 sec
• 5 enemies - 0.4 sec
• New Attack Speed:
• No enemies nearby - 2.0 sec
• 1 enemy - 1.5 sec
• 2 enemies - 1.0 sec
• 3 enemies - 0.6 sec
• 4 enemies - 0.4 sec
• 5 enemies - 0.2 sec

--- Developer comments ---
Battle Shi-Hou suffered a lot from its previous big nerf after its release, being too inconsistent to consider putting in a deck. It was simply too slow at lower stacks, struggling to deal with most common matchups even after the recent HP buff it was given. We hope that by increasing the Base Attack Speed his performance with lower amounts of stacks should greatly improve, while his high stack attack speed will remain relatively the same.

• Scrat Launcher
• Health from 300 to 400

--- Developer comments ---
Generally seen as one of the worst buildings for a while, Scrat Launcher was far too easy to kill at 5 mana since it had to be played so close to the bridges that any ranged unit could attack it with ease. With this HP buff it should be more resilient to ranged chip damage while still remaining vulnerable to said units, or a handy Bazooka Scrat.

Mayhem Changes

As mentioned in our blog posts, we are including some revisions to the Mayhem structure in this update. Here’s what is changing:

• There will no longer be a Deluxe Mayhem option that requires rubies to enter.
• The regular Gold-based Mayhem will cost 750 gold and have rewards that are roughly a mid-point between the original and Deluxe Mayhem options. The free try will still have no Glory requirement.
• Mayhems will happen once a week and last for 3 days.

These changes are largely experimental and are not set in stone for the future, so we’d love to hear your feedback on them after you’ve given it a try.

Misc

• The Streamer UI has been modified based on user feedback. The blue and red back panels are gone, and the positions of the name and health bars have been swapped. Additionally, the Mana Bar has been placed on top of your hand.
• Moved the replay GUI so it doesn’t conflict with the Streamer UI.
• Streamer Boost chat commands now require a ! in-front of them to work. For example: !throw beer
• The throw chat command has been adjusted so that the thrown objects don’t stick to the streamer arena as much.
• King Puff’s second perk, Buff Dealer, has been renamed to King Buff.
• The Leaderboard has been extended to show the top 150 players in each mode.

Bugs

• Fixed Gax the World Bomb’s egg having 40 health instead of 50 - Thanks Memfisto and Khazlariko!
• Fixed Auburn Milloween’s hand sparks being the wrong colour.
• Fixed Empowered Soul Stealer’s description incorrectly stating he started with 0 souls - Thanks Excaliber80 & myst!
• Fixed Blood Infested Settsu’s description being incorrect.
• Fixed an issue where you couldn’t spectate a live match that was already being spectated - Thanks to the King Puff Cup!
• Fixed Wheel of Doom having a ragdoll on low quality settings - Thanks Rabbit!
• Fixed players not being able to see each other’s pings - Thanks Digniss, Omicron666, the_red_soul and Macstabby!

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters Monday

Minion Masters!

Rise and shine, it's update week! That means we've got all the news to give to you ahead of our patch. We've got some to share today and a lot to share tomorrow, so let's get right into it.

Revised Mayhem

Following up from the statement last week and the mention that there would be news of it today, we've got some details about the upcoming Mayhem changes for you! In essence the gameplay of Mayhem will stay the same, but we're changing the reward and participation structure of the mode. So what's different?

• There will no longer be a Deluxe Ruby entry Mayhem option
• The regular Mayhem will now cost 750 Gold and have better rewards than the previous Gold Mayhems
• The rewards will be a mid-point between the Gold and Ruby Mayhems
• The Free Try will continue to not have a Glory requirement
• Mayhems will be once a week and last for 3 days

Here's an example of what this looks like at the moment - We're still experimenting, however, so note that this can change in the future. Note that these dates will be inaccurate due to this screenshot being from an in development build.

We'll love to hear your feedback on this new Mayhem structure, so let us know what you think on our Discord, Reddit, Stomt and Steam Forums!

Dwarf Stream with a special Community Guest!

That's right, Masters, we have another Developer Stream happening tomorrow! That Sprite will be there with all the details on our upcoming patch, but he's not alone this time... Special Guest truteo, AKA BOB will be there to discuss the changes and give his take on the balance adjustments we're making. It'll be on Tuesday, November 27th at 18:00 UTC on our Twitch Channel with Q&A extending to truteo as well! Make sure you're there! And speaking of Balance Changes...

Balancing Act

We've got some changes coming to cards! We obviously can't reveal all of them at the moment - you'll need to tune in tomorrow to get all of them, but here's three buffs we're making to some cards to start off:

• Ghost Turret will have its health increased from 250 to 325
• Styxi will have his Depression time reduced from 10 seconds to 6
• Arcane Bolt will have its health threshold increased from 400 to 500, and its Stun increased from 7 seconds to 9

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters Monday

Minion Masters!

It feels as if Halloween just left us, and now the Winter Holidays are approaching at a rapid pace. But that doesn't mean we don't have our hands full, still! We've obviously got the upcoming Battle Pass Season, the Rise of the Howling Moon to work on, currently set to release just over one week before Christmas (December 17th), as well as our other features such as Guilds.

A quick note before we begin, however - Some of you will have noticed there are not any Mayhems currently scheduled in-game. We're currently trying a different Mayhem schedule, meaning this behaviour is not unexpected even if it looks a little strange in-game. Now, onto the news!

Balance Changes are coming!

As noted last week, we're intentionally avoiding any balance changes on the same week as a King Puff Cup. Now that the KPC has passed, we're doing just that with some changes being planned out behind the scenes for Update 83. We can't reveal any of them just yet as they aren't finalised, but we'd love to hear your opinions on what cards could do with changes, be it buffs or nerfs. Make sure to voice your opinions on our Discord, Reddit, Stomt and Steam Forums!

Artsy Dwarf

We took the time to update our Public Art folder recently! You can now find all the new Season Cards and Emotes there, as well as the Skin icons from the Shop in .tga format. These images are public and free to use - as long as it isn't commercial :) - for whatever you want, be it Youtube graphics, Twitch Overlays, or otherwise! If you'd like to request a certain piece of art show up in there, or if we missed something, contact That Sprite on Discord or Steam and let him know.

You can find the art folder right here.

King Puff Cup 27

The 27th King Puff Cup happened last weekend, casted by That Sprite, Jarvo10 and RushSecond, with ManDrewSki handling production and Erythais helping with the administrative side of things. It was a great tournament with some spectacularly flashy plays such as JF's Hypnotise + Combustion combo creating some great moments. We also had some lesser-played cards be used to great effect, such as when Jamez28 made a huge push back in Mana Frenzy against Sain thanks to Clear Skies!

The top 8 saw two relatively new (to the competitive scene, at least!) faces appear, JF and Sain, with the Grand Finals falling to Katt and videogamer77. Katt ended up taking the tournament 3-1 and winning a $300 SteelSeries Gift Code, with videogamer77 taking second place, as well as JF and Jamez28 tying for third and fourth place. Huge thanks to the King Puff Cup staff for running a great tournament!

The long Xbox road ahead

We've started to hit the ground running with our Xbox development, and here's one of our QA working hard to establish the most powerful gaming setup possible.

That's all for today, Masters! Thanks for keeping up with us, and make sure to voice your feedback on our Discord, Reddit, Stomt and Steam Forums communication channels.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Update 82

Minion Masters!

We’ve received some great feedback from you with the latest patches, and we’re iterating on the Streamer Features and bringing in a new Key-based Event for you to enjoy. Let’s dive right in to what you can expect out of Update 82.

Card-House Contest

We’re starting up another key event with this patch! This time you’ll be voting for your favourite of three cards to be added to Minion Masters in the future. The event will last for 5 weeks, from November 14th to December 17th, so there’s plenty of time to collect all the keys your want and make your decision. There will be 20 keys per team to collect again, and each team is split into different houses, with a different card to vote for. The teams are split like so:

• House Valor: Stormbringer, Ravager, Apep
• House Triumph: Volco, King Puff, Settsu
• House Glory: Mordar, Ratbo, Milloween

When you open the chest for your team and card of choice, you will be registering your vote for that card. As always, you can only open the chest once, so choose wisely! Here's what team represents what card:

• House Valor: Stormy - If this cloudy little helper attacks your target, they’re in for a world of hurt!
• House Triumph: Charger - Charges into the fray with reckless abandon! It might not be the smartest minion around, though.
• House Glory: Mal'Shar - An assassin with a powerful electric fork. It's rumoured he killed a Storm Spirit to infuse it!

The reward for opening the chest in the Card-House Contest is 2 copies of a random legendary card. We decided to move away from giving the chosen card for free as it caused a lot of frustration regarding how long it took Wheel of Doom to be implemented into the game, leaving a lot of the users that completed that previous event feeling they didn’t actually get their reward until months down the line.

We’re planning for a January release of the winner of this event, but as always this can be subject to change.

Streamer Feature Iterations

• We’ve revamped the previous Streamer Arena to help set it apart from the Default arena a bit more - A couple of boxes really didn’t fit your grand twitch audiences, after all. Now we have a full stadium setup with proper seating available for your puffs to cheer you on from.
• The Streamer Arena will now be prioritized when queuing in 2v2.
• The Audience puffs' character limit has been increased to 12.
• Some known bots have been added to a blacklist so that they will not show up in-game.
• Added a /kickaudience [NAME] command to remove a puff from your audience.
• Viewers that donate bits to your stream through the "party" bit will have their name turn Golden until the Streamer exits the game. They will also be prioritised higher than other users to be a member of the Streamer audience if there are too many viewers to fit in the arena.
• Viewers can now customise their puff’s appearance by typing a colour of choice, and then either Hat, Body, Hand or Flag in the following format: [COLOUR] [PART]. These will persist in-game and last until the game is closed. For example: Red Flag
• The Jump command's animation has been redone.
• Viewers can throw miscellaneous objects around the arena in-game, now. The chat command is: throw X Y, where X is Force, and Y is Direction. The maximum for both X and Y is 100. Each viewer can only throw 3 objects during a match. For example: throw 75 50

Misc

• Increased the size of the card description text slightly.

Bugs

• Fixed Rabid Prowler having Frenzy again.
• Fixed Dark Fury Storm Ranger's emissions being disabled.
• Fixed Brutish Betrayer being able to have the Turncoat buff twice.
• Fixed Emote previews being invisible.
• Fixed the Streamer UI avatars facing outwards.
• Fixed Crystal Stormbringer having snow on him in the Snow skybox.
• Fixed the Streamer Arena saying it would be available in future shop offers - Thanks Crabhead!
• Fixed an instance where taunts didn't properly redirect Minion attacks - Thanks Greywolf!
• Fixed the Emote tower being unusable for the rest of the match if you and a premade partner use the High Five emote - Thanks Julaiwnl!
• Fixed an issue where clicking on a spot in the Twitch Boost page would bring up the legal webpage - Thanks Crabhead & Omicron666!
• Fixed an issue where units that had their mana cost increased by Disruptor Puffs would not lose buffs gained from King Puff's second perk when they are returned to their normal mana cost - Thanks Julaiwnl!
• Fixed an issue where a unit can take a bridge and then not contest it when another unit steps onto it - Thanks Omicron666!
• Fixed an issue where Wizard Puff's polymorphed Mana Puff would start generating mana before it reached the bridge - Thanks Khazlariko!
• Fixed an issue where Milloween's attack delay would reset when all units within her range die, and then new units enter - Thanks Steven!
• Fixed 2v2 Mayhem only letting you see one opponent's deck - Thanks Omicron666!
• Fixed Blood Infested Settsu having the same ragdoll as the regular Infested Settsu - Thanks Elide!
• Fixed the Premium Upgrade still appearing to be purchaseable in the same session you bought it on Discord - Thanks Rosey!
• Fixed the "Get the game FREE" text being cut off - Thanks Hayazo & Excaliber80!

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters Monday

Minion Masters!

It's been quite the busy week since the last post. We've gone from not having much to talk about update wise, to teasing multiple features and the next battle pass! Remember those Streamer Feature Iterations we talked about last week? We've got more to show off. You enjoyed the key event? We've got more to give! You want to know about the next Battle Pass early? There's a site for that!

Update 82

Update 82 is just around the corner, and we've got quite a bit to share. Firstly, we're able to confirm that a fix for the Rabid Prowler will be in this update. Secondly, there will not be any balance changes in this patch - We are are electing to avoid aligning any potential Balance Changes with the same week of the King Puff Cup.

The Streamer Boost features we introduced in the last update were certainly fun to play around with, but the arena itself was a little lackluster. A couple of boxes stuck on the default arena was no suitable setting for your grand Twitch audience. So we've completely overhauled the arena to make it that much more special. Check it out below!

Next up, we have news of a new event coming in this update as well. We got some great feedback from the previous Key-based events, and we're giving you another one! The Card-House Contest will start with this update with some iterations on previous voting events. You'll be voting for your favourite card between Stormy, Charger, and the newly designed Mal'Shar! The full details of this event will be revealed in the Developer Stream tomorrow, so make sure to check it out!

Dwarf Stream!

The Developer Streams continue to roll on, Masters! That Sprite will be here to give you all the juicy details on this upcoming patch and the features contained within it on Tuesday, November 13th at 18:00 UTC. We got some exceptional feedback about the impromptu Streamer Audience testing that was conducted on Discord before Update 81 was released, so maybe there'll be something similar to show off our new iterations...? There's only one way to find out - Be there!

Rise of the Howling Moon

On Friday, we launched our new Battle Pass webpage - Rise of the Howling Moon! We revealed a lot about the upcoming pass, such as the fact that it includes a Brand New Master - Diona the Witch Hunter! We also revealed the first two cards of the set, the Common card Nether Bat, and the Rare card Once Bitten! You can find the details of these cards in full on the webpage, of course. Keep your eyes peeled on that website for more card reveals in the future!

Once you're done checking it out, why not also join the discussion on our Facebook page and give your thoughts on the cards with other Masters?

King Puff Cup 27

The 27th King Puff Cup is just around the corner, happening this Saturday, November 18th at 13:00 UTC, sponsored by AMD, SteelSeries & BetaDwarf Entertainment! The Staff had a great showing with their usage of the new Toornament site to up the production values last time, and they're hoping to bring us more hours of heart-pounding competitive gameplay! Signup is open to everyone with the top prize being a $300 SteelSeries Gift Code!

You can find all the important information right here, or go straight to their Toornament page right here. We hope to see you there!

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That's all for today, Masters! Have a great week and make sure to stop by our stream tomorrow. Continue to give us your great feedback on our Discord, Steam Forums and Stomt!

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters Monday - Adapt, Iterate, Improve

Minion Masters!

We're finally settling down after the chaotic Discord release. It's been a busy time for us, so everyone at the office is relieved we can get back to our regular fortnightly update schedule. That of course means there isn't an update this Wednesday, as it might suggest. But that doesn't mean we haven't got anything to talk about today! We have news of iterations, tournaments, and an update regarding Guilds to deliver.

First, however, we'd like to take a moment to address issues with the Rabid Prowler card. We're aware of the bug that has caused it to regain its frenzy and we would like to apologize that this happened. Sometimes things can happen a little too quickly and issues slip by that would be hard to find during regular testing patterns.

However, we also do not have the resources available to perform a hotfix to either disable or fix the card before the next update. Our current setup would require a lot of work on our end to prepare a release for this issue as well as server downtime, and in a period where we have a number of large features to work on at once we want to focus on delivering those rather than doing additional hotfix patches. We once again apologize for these issues and the lack of communication on our end regarding them, and hope to improve in this area in the future.

Streamer Feature Iterations

We're thrilled to see how much you have been playing around with our new Twitch features since their release. As such we're fixing some quirks with the system and making some adjustments - nothing too crazy at the moment. For instance, we received some feedback that 9 characters for an audience puff's name was simply too small - So we're extending that to 12. We're also making it so that in 2v2 the Streamer Arena is prioritized to appear, to stop streaks of games where your puffs don't follow you into the match. Those are just some of the iterations coming - make sure to keep giving us your feedback on the features, Masters, as all of it counts!

Minion Masters Halloween Tournament

The community run Halloween tournament happened on Saturday! Edelweiss, Kishin, Mandrewski and everyone who helped behind the scenes worked tirelessly to ensure players had a well managed tournament experience, with few submission requirements and a horde of players to match. The top 4 eventually came down to videogamer77, Thehagengnome, smncub and Datenshi, with videogamer77 taking the tournament in a close 3-2 set against smncub. It was an entertaining experience for all involved, and the VODs for the tournament can be found here and here.

Guilds feature update

We have to unfortunately announce a planned delay to the Guilds feature. We're delaying it to the 17th of December for the time being, though we intend to keep this feature close to the frontline of what we're developing. We've chosen to do this as some great opportunities have arisen regarding Discord that we don't want to simply let by due to their benefits for both us and the playerbase at large. We can't quite talk about the details of these just yet, though, so you'll have to take our word on it. Therefore, we are making the call to delay the Guilds feature temporarily to ensure we can focus on giving you the best you deserve out of Minion Masters.

That's all for today, Masters! We hope you have a great week here at BetaDwarf and continue to give us the great feedback we've been receiving on our latest features.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!