Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Minion Masters Fanart Contest!


Minion Masters!

We're here today to bring you our very first Fanart Contest with a grand prize of 5,000 Rubies! Here's what you need to do to enter:

  1. Make what you think is the best Minion Masters fanart ever created.
  2. Head on over to our Official Discord at http://discord.gg/minionmasters and post your entry in the #fanart-contest channel.
  3. Once the Contest ends on the 12th of February, a winner will be chosen by us to receive in-game codes worth 5,000 rubies, and two runner-up prizes of 1,000 rubies!
Please note that all entries need to be original artworks! You can use any medium you like - Sketches, digital, 3D, but they need to be your own work to be eligible for the contest.

The contest runs from the 29th of January to the 12th of February, 0900 UTC. Good luck, Masters!

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Monday, January 28, 2019

Minion Masters Monday

Minion Masters!

It's already been half a week since our new master Diona was released, and you've been busy experimenting with her and providing your thoughts. And now, it's time to work towards more awesome updates that we can't wait to put in the hands of our playerbase - None that we can reveal today, of course, but stay tuned!

The Aftermath of Diona

We've been getting a lot of valuable feedback about Diona, in both bugs and balance, and it's great to see so much experimentation with her on release! We'd first of all like to give a huge thank to the users that helped us test Diona before release, and either found us bugs to hammer down or whose feedback was invaluable in ensuring that we released her in as fun a state as possible.

We also give a huge thanks to the people that have been reporting bugs encountered with her on all of our platforms, such as the issue where buildings block her trap placement. Community reports go a long way to help improve the quality of Minion Masters, and even if you feel something may have been reported it certainly never hurts to reach out to us and make sure of it. No matter how small your contribution was to her release, everyone at BetaDwarf thanks you for it!

New Season, New Offices

We recently launched our new Battle Pass webpage for the Battle for Light's Reach update. Much like last time, we've got countdowns and card reveals, giving you all of the insight necessary to keep on top of what's coming in the next Battle Pass. So far, we've already revealed the Brothers of Light, our second 10 mana card that brings quite the imposing presence to the battlefield. If you need melee clearance, they're the guys to turn to! In 4 days we'll be revealing Morgrul's Ragers and the first legendary card of the set, Caeleth Dawnhammer. And what's with those faction names in the card description, anyways? There's only one way you can find out early, and that's to keep track of our update website!

Internally, however, BetaDwarf are going to be saying a fond farewell to the offices we've been using for 6 years (since New Years Eve 2012!). With expansion comes more dwarves, meaning less space, and our trusty workplace unfortunately contain the raw power of our development team. That means we'll need to move out in the coming months, and it's something all of us have been looking forward to. We don't expect the move to affect our work too much, thankfully, as it's not a huge shift in locale, but definitely a change in scenery. So here's to our old office, and long live the new one!

E-Sports




The 30th King Puff Cup happened on Saturday! New administration meant a refreshing experience for many people involved, and the tournament went down smoothly thanks to the efforts of salbei, Julaiwnl, NellerJoe, Smoshi and the commentating crew of Thehagengnome, That Sprite, RushSecond and apples. While Diona wasn't allowed due to the short time since her release, it was a lot of fun to see the variety being brought out, especially in the group stages.

When it finally came down to the finals, it was a showdown of prestigious long-time players katt, Memfisto, Dirion and videogamer77, with katt once again taking home the first place prize in a dominant performance, continuing what may be one of the longest winning streaks the competitive Minion Masters scene has ever witnessed! If you want to catch up on all of the KPC action, you can check out their Twitch VOD right here: Group Stage & Top 8



Other than that, the Russian Dark Moon Tournament is happening on the 2nd and 3rd of February - That's this weekend! We highlighted it last week and the signup deadline ends on the 30th of January at 8PM UTC, so if you want to be in the running, make sure you sign up right here!

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Finally, we've got this quality Reddit post to share courtesy of /u/LordAftermath, sharing his insightful commentary on the differences between Harbinger and Soulstealer. You can find his original post right here on the subreddit. It goes without saying that BetaDwarf is overjoyed when our community gets creative - We'd love to see more like this in the future!

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Update 86 - Diona the Witch Hunter


Minion Masters!

We hope you’re all ready for the first Master of 2019!
Wolves have roamed the woods for a good month now, terrorizing beneath the light of the Howling Moon.
The desperate cry for help is answered by Diona the Witch Hunter, who specializes in hunting the dark and dangerous.

Check out her details here or play her in-game - you can acquire her both through the normal Master shop or through the All Master’s DLC.
And don’t miss out on her legendary skin from the Battle Pass!

You can also check out her audio book story right here!

New Master


  • Diona the Witch Hunter
  • The Witch Hunter Diona uses a variety of traps to deal with any threat. Her trusty sidekick Ruffles fetches useful items from the battlefield for his master.
    • Basic Attack
      • Rapidly fires bolts from her dual crossbows for 20 damage every 1 sec with a range of 10. Lays a Bear Trap every 20 seconds.
      • Bear Trap - Roots a minion in place for 4 seconds. Deals 50 damage, lasts 15 seconds.
    • Perk 1 - Art of the Hunt
      • Add a Trap card to Diona’s deck. The card alternates between Crossbow Trap and Decoy Trap with each draw.
      • Crossbow Trap - Stealth. Fires bolts at nearby minions. Costs 1 mana, deals 30 damage per second, 100 health, lasts 15 seconds.
      • Decoy Trap - Taunts nearby enemy minions. Costs 1 mana, has 300 health, lasts 15 seconds.
    • Perk 2 - Fetch!
      • Every 10 seconds, Ruffles will run to a killed enemy Minion and dig up a prize.
      • Prizes: 2 mana, 3 XP, 250 Master Health.
    • Perk 3 - Thrill of the Hunt
      • Adds another Trap card to Diona’s deck.
  • Diona will be available for purchase for 775 Rubies or 1500 Shards from the Master Selection view.

Balance


  • Call to Arms
    • No longer affects Master Buildings (Buildings unique to a Master such as Tombstones or Snake Totem - will still affect buildings gained from e.g. Apep’s perk 1)
  • --- Developer comments ---
  • Call to Arms is a bit of challenge, we’ll admit. It’s been severely limited by the powerful synergies when Master’s acquire one or more buildings through their perks, as it always had to be balanced around those (few) set ups, rather than a larger pool of potential strategies.
  • It was an obvious time to revisit it during Diona development, as she had the same - or even greater - potential, which would again mean it had to be limited to those strategies.
  • We decided to separate Call to Arms from Master buildings to allow it to flourish with deck strategies, as opposed to that centred around the Master. There will still be good synergies, but no more direct combos.
  • In turn, we expected to off-set the change with some increased power, but have seen a recent rise in Call to Arms decks that don’t rely on the Master at all. We’d like to see where those decks land in terms of power before we do anything to the spell itself, as it’s heavily reliant on having valuable buildings to fuel it in addition to its own value.


Tri-Team Tourney

The Tri-Team Tourney is back! This time you get to choose which Legendary card you want to own instead of voting for a future card to be in the game. Your reward options are Scott the Sensitive Savage, Troubadour, or a Random Legendary. The teams are as follows:


  • House Valor (Scott the Sensitive Savage) - Stormbringer, Settsu, Ravager
  • House Triumph (Troubadour) - Diona, Milloween, Mordar
  • House Glory (Random Legendary) - Ratbo, Apep, King Puff
  • Volco is taking a vacation for this tournament.


There are 15 keys to collect for each team, which reward 10 shards each. You can only claim one of the three legendaries, so make your choice wisely!

Misc


  • Added Werewolf stats to all Lycanthropy cards.
  • Updated the Glory UI when previewing cards.
  • Added new VIP Streamer Arena and Emotes - For details on how to obtain visit http://minionmastersthegame.com/streamerprogram/
  • The Tier 100 Mystery Skin has been revealed as Duchess Diona! The skin will be automatically unlocked for everyone who achieved Tier 100 before the patch, and available by reaching it for everyone else.

Bugs


  • Fixed Werewolves being damaged by Howling Moon post-transformation if there are too many units on the field.
  • Fixed Howling Moon’s lycanthropy being granted on a delay, allowing cards played after it to receive the buff and be transformed.
  • Fixed Demon Warrior’s ragdoll being too small when her effect is active.
  • Fixed emoting in 2v2 displaying the wrong avatar.
  • Fixed units visually being red when placed over a building, despite it being a valid placement.
  • Fixed Blastmancers retaining their ability after transforming into a Werewolf - Thanks Save Helgi!


Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Monday, January 21, 2019

Minion Masters Monday - Lady Diona

Minion Masters!

The advent of our new master, Diona the Witch Hunter, being released into the game is upon us! As you are with no doubt aware, she will be released in Update 86 and be purchasable from the shop for 775 Rubies or 1500 Shards. We're really looking forward to seeing what you can do with her! If you need a recap of what she does, check last week's Minion Masters Monday for a full recap of her abilities.

PSA: Your decks are going to be reset

Due to backend server changes we are making, we are changing the way decks are saved to solve issues with decks being lost for some users. The downside to this however is that it will cause decks to be lost following the release of Update 86 one last time, after which we hope similar issues will not occur again. To this end, please make sure you keep track of the decks you want to keep so that you can make them again after the Update releases with ease. We're sorry for the inconvenience this causes.


Lady Diona

Also coming in Update 86 is that mystery Tier 100 skin featured in the Battle Pass, an alternate Legendary skin for Diona! She'll swap her crossbows for some fancy pistols and dress to impress. The skin will be automatically unlocked for everyone who reached Tier 100 before the update, and unlocked for people who attain the tier after as well. As with other skins, you will need to own the Master in order to be able to use the skin.


Dwarf Stream Incoming!

Since it's update day on Wednesday, that means there'll be a developer stream to go along with it! Join us tomorrow at 1800 UTC where That Sprite will be reviewing all things Diona, some new goodies for members of our Streamer program, and all the Q&A you can handle! Make sure you're there on our official Twitch Channel so that you don't miss out. Maybe there'll even be some giveaways...?


War is Coming

On Friday, we launched our new Update webpage for our next Battle Pass Season. Make sure to keep an eye on it for all the new reveals of upcoming content and... Is that a map in the background?! Only time will tell what's in store for the world of Minion Masters.


The Dark Moon Tournament

Minion Masters' Russian community have come together to host the Dark Moon Tournament, a two day event across the 2nd and 3rd of February! The Tournament will feature in-game prizes as rewards that are to be announced and features a Swiss BO3 group stage, before leading into the Single Elimination Top 8 that uses Best of 5 matches. If you are a Russian member of the Minion Masters community, make sure to check out its Toornament page right here.


King Puff Cup 30

King Puff Cup 30 is happening this Saturday! Make sure to tune in on the King Puff Cup twitch channel on January 26th for high level Minion Masters play with new administration, and a prize of a $500 Graphics Card! If you're still looking to sign up, make sure to do so here ahead of the deadline on Friday!

That's all for today, Masters. We hope you're looking forward to Diona as much as we are!

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Monday, January 14, 2019

Minion Masters Monday

Minion Masters!

It's Minion Masters Monday, which means more weekly news from the BetaDwarf team about upcoming content and community engagements. Today we'll be looking at Update 86, as well as reviewing new additions to the BetaDwarf team.


The Witch Hunter

Update 86 comes soon and aligns neatly with the countdown timer we currently have available in-game for the release of Diona. Our first new master since Milloween, she aligns with the Rise of the Howling Moon Battle Pass and will be bringing her top notch hunting skills to the battlefield to stall, slow, and control the battlefield. We've previewed her live on our Twitch Developer Stream, the VOD of which can be found here, but here's a handy recap of what she can do:

Her Basic Attack is a 15 damage shot from one of her two handheld crossbows once per second. Additionally, Diona spawns a Bear Trap close to her Master Tower every 20 seconds that alternates between the two lanes. When a minion walks over the Bear Trap, they will be damaged and rooted.

Her first and third perk add a Trap card to her deck - Either the Crossbow or Decoy Trap. When a trap card is used, it will change to the other trap when it's put back in your deck. The Crossbow Trap is weak but provides good supporting DPS that can target ground or air units, while the Decoy Trap has a moderate health pool with a Taunt effect. Both Traps can be placed anywhere inside the arena, unlike regular Building cards.

Her second perk has her trusty pup Ruffles bravely venture into the Battlefield to retrieve the spoils of war for his Master. The first time an enemy minion dies while Ruffles is off cooldown, they will drop a special potion that can be worth either 2 Mana, 3 XP or 250 Health. Ruffles will then jump off the Master tower and attempt to bring it back to Diona by walking across the arena and taking a few seconds to secure it, at which point the reward will be given. If Ruffles takes any damage or is stunned before he retrieves the potion, he is sent back to the Master tower and the reward is removed from the battlefield. In either scenario, Ruffles will need to rest for 10 seconds before the perk can activate again.

We're very excited to release Diona to Minion Masters, who will be available for purchase for 775 rubies or 1500 shards from the Master selection screen. Look forward to her in Update 86!

New Year, New Dwarves

We've also been hard at work recruiting new talent to the BetaDwarf team. We're always looking to expand our capabilities to work on new features and content for Minion Masters, which is why we're happy to announce that we've recruited two new Programmers to the team recently who have already been hard at work behind the scenes on both Guild features, and stuff we aren't quite ready to reveal yet. But more hands on the deck certainly means you can see the impact they'll have on Minion Masters soon enough.


King Puff Cup 30

The 30th King Puff Cup will be taking place soon, and with the new year the circuit has been bringing on new management to help make 2019 a great year for Minion Masters E-Sports. Julaiwnl and salbei have joined as administrators and have been working tirelessly to improve the competitive experience for both players and KPC Staff.

The 30th King Puff Cup features a first place prize of an AMD Vega 56 Graphics Card once again, worth an estimated $500, with second place earning a $100 SteelSeries Code. It will take place on January 26th, 2019 at 14:00 UTC, with signups closing on the 25th at the same hour. If those prizes sound good to you then you need to be in it to win it, so make sure you sign up to the tournament right here!

That's all for today, Masters. Next week you'll be able to catch a sneak peek at that elusive Tier 100 Battle Pass skin that we've been hiding away for so long.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Update 85


Minion Masters!
Our first patch of 2019, we’re starting it off a little slow with some balance and bug fixes.
If you didn’t get to join the Dev stream, check it out here for discussion on this patch and a preview of our upcoming Master, Diona that With Hunter!

Balance

  • Werewolf (Unit from Lycanthropy buff)
    • Damage decreased from 60 to 45
    • No longer invulnerable during transformation (Technically a bugfix)
    • Transformation time increased from 0.2 to 0.4 seconds.
  • --- Developer comments ---
  • It was fairly clear that the Werewolf unit was too volatile when Buffs such as Frenzy or Rage were applied to it, giving it DPS values far higher than what we wanted from them. The 25% decrease in attack damage should help ensure that while the deckbuilding elements of those buffs remain viable, the overall damage is significantly reduced. The vulnerability, while technically being a bug fix, opens a new avenue for balancing the card if these changes prove to not be enough.


  • Wolf Among Sheep
    • Mana Cost increased from 4 to 6
    • Unit Count increased from 2 to 4
    • Amount of units affected by Lycanthropy remains unchanged
  • --- Developer comments ---
  • The 4 mana variant of this card generally proved to be both too reliable and a provider of too much bridge control for other cards to reasonably compete with it at an equal mana cost. By making it a 6 mana design it still provides excellent value if it is unanswered, but the card is overall less spammable and more open to cards that can kill the Legionnaires before the Werewolf transforms.


  • Once Bitten
    • Mana Cost decreased from 3 to 2
  • --- Developer comments ---
  • This change is mainly a combination of Once Bitten both not seeing much play, and the change to the Werewolf potentially making it even weaker than it was. At 2 mana it should be far more usable but still feel expensive to play due to effectively losing half of a minion to get the Werewolf unit.


  • Lone Wolf
    • Mana Cost decreased from 5 to 4
  • --- Developer comments ---
  • Similarly, Lone Wolf’s requirements of needing to be the only friendly minion on the field when played to get the maximum value out of it made it difficult to use in the 5 mana slot, and the nerf to the Werewolf unit would similarly deal another blow to the viability of the card. A reduction to 4 mana should make it a strong value card but still require careful management of the board state.

Bugs

  • Fixed users being able to select avatars they don’t own - Thanks ELRiley!
  • Fixed the Twitch Boost button being unusable during a battle.
  • Fixed Defenso Chopper dealing its damage before the stun, allowing a Lycanthropy unit to transform despite hitting it - Thanks Greywolf!
  • Fixed certain units being affected by the Lycanthropy buff that would, upon transformation, heal much faster than usual.
  • Fixed some desync errors regarding post-game Battle Pass XP gain.
  • Fixed a Lycanthropy unit being hit by Chain Lightning twice before and after transformation.
  • Fixed various bugs with clicking the Battle Pass button while on the Power Tower - Thanks Omicron666!
  • Fixed Guardian being able to tank hits despite being dead - Thanks Crabhead!
  • Fixed Masters being in their idle animations when rewarded.
  • Fixed Lycanthropy units being affected by Marksmanship after transformation.


Monday, January 7, 2019

Minion Masters Monday - We're back!

Minion Masters!

The Dwarves are back in the office from their Christmas holidays (well, we've been back since Wednesday actually) and it's time to get cracking on our future updates and content, such as the new master Diona.

Back in the Office

Now that our two week slumber is over, BetaDwarf is back to working on giving our players the best Minion Masters experiences they could hope for in 2019. We told you that 2018 would be a huge year for BetaDwarf, and with our First on Discord promotion combined with going Free to Play on Steam, we're certain all the new voices among our community can agree with that. 

So what lies ahead for 2019? Well, we're working hard on getting our new master Diona the Witch Hunter ready with a current expected timeframe of Update 86, as described by our in-game timer - Though this date is not final if issues occur. Other than that, we'll be continuing to provide new Battle Pass Seasons featuring exciting new content to you - Maybe with more additional Masters down the line? Either way, it'll be a great year to be a player of Minion Masters, and we'll be with you for the ride all the way.

Wolves of the Night

Coming in Update 85 will be some balance changes to cards from the newest Rise of the Howling Moon set. We issued changes to the Bats Bats Bats! card shortly before our winter holiday so that we were able to react to imbalance as soon as we could, and now that we're back from vacation we can re-evaluate the power level of the other cards and adjust them as needed. We'd like to thank you for all the great feedback we've been receiving on the Werewolf cards regarding both the Strengths, and in some cases weaknesses. Our main focus on these changes will be to curb the explosive capabilities of the Werewolf card when they receive substantial buff effects such as Rage by tweaking the base unit's numbers, while reworking the Wolf Among Sheep card to... Well, you'll have to find out tomorrow, won't you?


That's because there will be a Developer Stream live at 1800 UTC on Tuesday the 8th of January, hosted by That Sprite, where we'll be delving into what you can expect from Update 85. Make sure to tune in at our official Twitch channel to get all of the details!

E-Sports

We had quite the active week for Competitive Minion Masters, didn't we? Thehagengnome kicked off the year with his first Gnome Tournament, while the 29th King Puff Cup kept its stride going strong.

The Gnome Tournament series kicked off with spectacular prizes for its entrants, offering $150, a Super Mega Dwarf Pack, and a temporarily exclusive in-game avatar in the fashion of Major Heal from Forced SHOWDOWN! 25 Entrants battled their way to prove their might, with the finals coming down to a matchup between long-time tournament veteran katt and ladder superstar JF, with katt taking the set 4-1 and taking home their prize. It was a great tournament to watch, and we're looking forward to see what Thehagengnome can come up with in his future arrangements.

As for King Puff Cup 29, players fought through the Swiss with the hopes of getting into Top 8 and securing their shot at the $300 SteelSeries gift code, with the majority of its final contestants being relatively new faces to the competitive scene - Divine, Rold, Fanderman, TGXAndy, Lazur and zoom all made it to top 8, but veterans GReY WolF and katt weren't intending on giving them an easy ride to the Grand Finals, with the two facing off. Once again katt upheld his winning streak by taking the set 3-0 and maintaining his consistent results throughout the King Puff Cup season.

It's been great to see all of the Competitive Minion Masters activity sprouting up lately, and we fully encourage our playerbase in their endeavours. Remember, if you have a tournament you want to get off the ground, contact That Sprite on Discord to learn about getting your rewards sponsored.

That's all for today, Masters. Here's to a dwarven 2019!

Cheers from BetaDwarf!