Minion Masters Monday - Framed

Minion Masters!

We've entered that transitional period between Battle Passes as the Battle for Light's Reach has begun, but with Minion Masters that never means we stop working hard! And that means working on exciting new iterations to features such as Guilds, it means working towards finding the perfect cards to make for our next Battle Pass, and it also means making sure they're the best they can be for our players.

Frame the Yesterguild

Speaking of guilds, that's a pretty looking Guild Frame, isn't it? Guild Frames are designed to go behind your Guild Icon to help your group stand out even farther from the rest of the crowd. How might you unlock these, you ask? Well... you'll have to stay tuned to find out, but we can tell you it's a prestigious reward that will require a group effort to unlock.

The March 8th Mystery

You may have noticed we had the date March 8th noted in our recent Newsletter (along with that nice free gift code). We can't talk too much about it just yet, but something cool is going to happen that we're certain will put a smile on the face of both new and old players. Make sure you're there, and keep an eye on those Store Pages!

FORCED to TTRPG

As for internal news, the Forced TTRPG will be starting this week in the BetaDwarf Offices! We don't have much currently to share with everyone as it's still in the early stages, but our Savage Worlds: Adventurer Edition campaign will follow some brave new heroes in various scenarios throughout our game world. DMed by That Sprite, and with UncleOwnage, Sketchyness, lolpatrol and Taclis as the players we hope to create both memorable tales from the universe and a deeper development of our lore. Part of the inspiration that led to the creation of this TTRPG was the internal development of our World Map, which you can find right here. We can expect the campaign to trot all across the known landscape! Stay tuned for updates and stories as we go along, or if you have a particular interest for running your own campaigns contact That Sprite on Steam or Discord for advice.

That's all for today, Masters! Thanks for all of your feedback on the latest Battle Pass, and here's to making the next one just as great!

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Update 88 - Battle for Light's Reach

Minion Masters!

The fifth Battle Pass, Battle for Light’s Reach releases today! In this Pass you can find 8 new cards, 5 new emotes, 2 new skins, our first ever Animated Avatar and Emote, and more as the Empyrean and Voidborne forces rage war over a strategically fortified city in the Cracked Mountains. If you want to know where that is, you can check out our new World Map right here.

Battle for Light’s Reach

For centuries fierce Voidborne armies have assaulted the great walls of Light's Reach and been defeated, but now an endless horde of voidborne, led by Crakgul Doomcleaver threatens its very survival and that of the Empyreum.

All that stands in their way are the valiant Empyrean Armies and the greatest warriors humanity have to offer - the Chapter of Light. They are few in number but each warrior is the equal of a hundred men.

This content season will last for 2 months
8 new cards have been released! These are:

Misc

• Several Empyrean units have had their visuals upgraded to be more uniform with their faction.
• Factions have been added! Every card in Minion Masters, including Master Cards, now have a faction associated with them. Factions also operate as a Search Tag, to help you quickly find cards from your favourite faction.
• The Card House Contest rolls on! Your keys have been reset, and you can now get Morgrul the Swarmer King from House Valor, Gax the World Bomb from House Triumph, or a Random Legendary Card from House Glory. Get them to enable your new Voidborne deck!
• The “Top 20” Leaderboard text has been updated to say Top 150.
• Removed the Tick noise on the Main Menu carousel. Your ears can now rest.
• Added a notification in chat for Guild Leaders and Officers when they have a new applicant.
• Upgraded our Twitch Bot to write a message in chat about how to use the Puff Audience commands while a streamer has the arena active. It will only send the message when you return to the Main Menu and 50 messages have been sent since the last time the bot sent a message, to avoid flooding slower chats.
• Increased the amount of emotes per row on the Emote tower to 5 to stop it stretching off the screen again.
• Consolidated all the Guild and Friend lobbies into one menu that pops up when Create Lobby is pressed.

Bugs

• Fixed an issue where two Wheel of Dooms being cast by opposing players would cause the first Wheel to do nothing - Thanks MiKe!
• Fixed the Mute List being missing - Thanks Euphytose!
• Fixed an issue where Guilds Search would not update until the button was pressed.
• Fixed Guild Title always being displayed in capital letters, even if it was different in the Guild Search.
• Fixed Guild Info not updating with new players that join a guild unless you refreshed it.
• Fixed a bug where you could not leave a Guild if you were the only member in it and there was a pending application.
• Fixed an issue where Past seasons on the Leaderboard returned an error.
• Fixed an issue where the time given for a user to complete the tutorial after following a Referral link was dramatically shorter than intended.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Explore the world behind Minion Masters!

Minion Masters!

As some of you are no doubt aware after our Developer Stream last night, we've steadily been working on the backdrop for our games. This was mostly achieved through the use of our free time outside of office hours with contributions from a number of different dwarves, and we're happy that the initial map reveal was met with such enthusiasm. You can find the link for the World Map right here - http://minionmaster.com/map

Today we're also releasing a new Audio Book to tie in with the Battle for Light's Reach Battle Pass, called The Corrupting Will. Check it out right here - https://youtu.be/4q6ThLbjlNU

It's been a lot of fun to see the work we've put our own personal hours into be received as well as it has so far. Thanks to everyone who has been getting engaged so far, and look forward to more exciting lore in the future!

Minion Masters Monday

Minion Masters!

It's only two days to go until Season 5 is released into Minion Masters, and we're hard at work at the BetaDwarf offices. Between making sure all our new models are nice and shiny, and that the sound effects are just that right amount of awesome, we've been working a tight ship to make sure the Battle for Light's Reach Battle Pass is one to be remembered.

Looking Animated

With that in mind, it was about time we got some new hands on deck to help with the Animation side of things. Our latest addition to the Dwarf roster specializes in just that, and he's been hard at work on the animations for our final card of the set, Crakgul Doomcleaver. More on that later, but he's also done a bit of work revamping the animations of an old favourite Empyrean unit. In Update 88 the Legionnaires will be having their movement animations updated, to change them from "dudes with swords" to a much more organised military unit. Check it out:

gfycat link

We can't quite reveal what else is being worked on just yet, but we'll hopefully have more juicy animation updates to show off in the future. Stay tuned, Masters!

Dev Stream? No, Dwarf Stream!

With Season 5 right around the corner, it's only appropriate that there be a Developer Stream to cover all of the remaining content that we haven't shown off yet. We're talking emotes, Crakgul Doomcleaver, and we're also talking skins. In fact, here's a little preview of a certain companion dressed up as part of it:

So who can you expect at the developer stream tomorrow, at 1800 UTC? How about Community Manager That Sprite and Zundmaster, frequent Minion Masters Streamer and Troubadour cosplay extraordinaire? 

Make sure to be there this Tuesday on our Twitch Stream so you don't miss out!

King Puff Cup 31

The 31st King Puff Cup took place over the weekend! It was a closely fought competition that saw the Top 4 of the Tournament come down to a face off between katt, videogamer77, newcomer Mattie and Xiniu, with Mattie in particular battling through two close sets to get to the Grand Finals. katt once again took the 1st place prize, continuing his undefeated tournament streak and securing himself a $300 SteelSeries Gift Card as well as those juicy KPC points. 

In fact, looking at the timetable above, there's only two more King Puff Cup tournaments left in this circuit before the KPI Qualifiers occur! So if you want to be involved in the biggest tournament of the Minion Masters season, you had better start working towards those Circuit Points!

You can check the VOD out for the 31st King Puff Cup right here: Swiss Group Stage Top 8

That's all for today, Masters. We're looking forward to getting the Battle for Light's Reach out into your hands this Wednesday.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters Fanart Contest - Results!

Minion Masters!

Two weeks ago, we started up the Minion Masters Fanart Contest in order to see the full range of creative potential our community had when it came to artworks. And we're very happy to say that you smashed our expectations! Right up to minutes before the deadline fantastic pieces were being submitted by you all, and the hardest part of this contest for us was deciding who would be taking home the prizes! There was an excellent show of spirit from everyone involved, and watching it develop and pick up the pace over two weeks was an experience we will be sure to remember. We hope it was just as fun for our entrants and spectators, too! But now that the contest is over, there's only one thing left to do, and there can only be three winners of those juicy Ruby prizes.

Honorable Mentions

With the amount of excellent entries we got, however, it would feel unfair if we just limited the winners to only three. As such we picked out four pieces we felt were a cut above the rest that didn't quite make it into our top three.

While a lot of the entries we got during the contest we great, the Honorable Mentions stuck out to us particularly. Int's unique art style on the Disruptor Puff and technical skill certainly impressed, while the Voxel King Puff of DX2 and MySmilie's Pixelated Apep were sights to behold. And of course, how could we leave out the level of detail put in to Ludelkri's rendition of Milloween? These are but a few examples of the greatness that was experienced in this contest. If you want to check out all of the entries that were submitted to the contest, drop by our Discord where the contest channel will remain archived for public viewing for the forseeable future!

And the winners are...

Ultimately, however, the quality and care put into these three pieces are what made us designate them as the winners.

Гелька's watercolouring method, as well as capturing the charm and aesthetics of King Puff and Milloween in a cartoonish fashion enthralled us - The detail in the colouring really stands out when viewed at full resolution.

MR. MuЯdeЯ ☣'s last minute submission blew away a lot of the competition, however, creating a fantastic visual representation of Mordar and his Skeleton legion - We're particularly huge fans of how he depicted Pirate Mordar! An excellent showing of the bony gang takes him home Second place.

But of course, the winner could be none other than Gloom, with his stunningly accurate representation of a real Minion Masters game that had the BetaDwarf Office in stitches when we first saw it. It managed to truly capture the spirit of Minion Masters with its comical nature combined with the masterfully drawn Cleaver and Crossbow Dude and was the solid favourite of our Discord users as well, garnering the most positive Reactions.

We had a ton of fun both running and watching this contest throughout its progression. Keep your eyes peeled for potentially more Minion Masters fan contests in the future!

Cheers from BetaDwarf

Minion Masters Monday - Empyrean Makeover

Minion Master!

Guilds are finally in your hands, and we've been loving what you're doing with the feature so far. We've seen lots of creativity with Guild names and the communities around them, and we're eagerly anticipating the feedback we receive going forward. Next up, our fifth Battle Pass; the Battle for Light's Reach is swiftly approaching. We've been steadily revealing what you can expect from it on our Update Website, but we've got some more news for you today. So let's get into it, shall we?

Military Colours

In Update 88, which will be the release of the new Battle Pass, the current Empyrean units will be receiving a visual makeover. The intention of this is to create a more cohesive visual identity for the faction, as some of them still had differing designs from our previous game Forced Showdown, or didn't quite match the style we were looking for. These colour schemes have been adapted to look a bit more like what you've seen so far out of Caeleth Dawnhammer and the Brothers of Light. For now, the most notable of these changes will be to Legionnaires, Warrior and the Spear Throwers. Here's some side by side comparisons of the changes:

(Click on the images for higher resolution)

Look forward to these changes in Update 88, coming next Wednesday! And yes, the Card Art will be updated to match.

Guild Statistics!

As mentioned before, there's been a huge amount of interest from users regarding guilds, and we figured we'd publish some fun stats on the initial weekend (from Thursday to today) about the Guilds feature:

• 2.5k Guilds active
• 13,000 Users have joined or made a Guild
• 33,000 Matches played with at least 1 Guild lobby involved

And keep in mind, this is just the beginning for Guilds! We've got some exciting new Guild-based content coming in the future to reward jolly co-operation with your friends, or maybe even the new ones you find in your Guild.

King Puff Cup 31

The 31st King Puff Cup is happening this weekend! Tune in for high level Minion Masters play with your favourite Casters and players, this Saturday 16th at 1400 UTC on the KPC Twitch Channel. Signups are due to close on this Friday, so you need to enter to ensure you're in the running for prizes such as a $300 SteelSeries Gift Code, a piece of that $600 prize pool. Don't forget to join their Discord or follow their Twitter Account to get all the latest updates as well! And if you want to catch up on previous King Puff Cups, you can watch their Twitch VODs or their Youtube Channel.

That's all for today, Masters. We hope you've enjoyed the Rise of the Howling Moon Battle Pass and are looking forward to the Battle for Light's Reach!

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Update 87 - Guilds

Minion Masters!

Guilds

Guilds have finally arrived in Minion Masters! After many delays we’re confident in our new Guilds system, and while this is merely the beginning for the features we intend to implement, we’re ready to put it in the hands of you. Here’s what you can expect from our initial release:

• Guilds cost 3000 Gold to make, while joining a Guild is completely free.
• Guilds can have up to 50 members, and can be set as Open, Request Only, or Private.
• Guilds can have their region set in the settings or upon creation. This does not affect any in-game options, but functions as a search criteria for other players.
• Users can search for guilds based on their name, region, and member count.
• Guilds will have custom emblems that you can make from preset backgrounds and icons, which will show up underneath your username along with the guild name in the match introduction and post-game screen. Your guild banner will also display on the Leaderboard.
• Guilds have their own private chat room that can’t be accessed by people who aren’t members of the Guild.
• Users in a guild have three different ranks: Member, Officer, and Leader.
• Officers gain the ability to kick Members from the Guild.
• Leaders can kick Members from the Guild, as well as change the Guild’s Icon, Description, Region, Application Status, and Promote or Demote other members of the Guild.
• The Leader can promote an Officer to become Leader of the Guild, at which point they will become an Officer.

• Any Guild Member can create an open invitation for a match with fellow Guild Members by clicking the Guild Lobby button, located next to the chat window. You can select between 2v2 Premades, a 2v2 Lobby, Mayhem, and a 1v1 Challenge.
• There will be a Special Guild Quest available for a month after the release of Update 87. Win 10 games through Guild 2v2 Premades and you’ll receive 3000 Gold.
• You'll notice a tab in the menu saying Guild Pass. Yes, a guild-based progression system is coming! We aren't ready to say too much about it yet, but you should get your best allies together and prepare!

Important to note is that this is a first iteration of the Guild System. We don’t intend for this to be the final version of the feature, and we have lots of ideas for how to expand upon it in the future. Your feedback will be invaluable in the next few weeks, so make sure to communicate with us about what you like or dislike.

Balance

• Bazooka Scrat
• Health increased from 60 to 65
• Damage increased from 200 to 225
• --- Developer comments ---
• Bazooka Scrat has always been the odd one out in terms of anti-building cards, really only ever used for turret disposal. Its applications as a unit that damages the enemy Master tower have always been pretty limited due to its low health pool, and while we don’t want to overbuff that as a result the damage increase should help justify the inclusion of it in a deck. It also makes it best for the immediate removal of those pesky high priority buildings, such as a carelessly placed Scrat Launcher.

• Crossbow Dudes
• Attack Speed increased from 1.5 sec to 1.4
• --- Developer comments ---
• Crossbow Dudes is a card that has been underperforming since the loss of the third unit. While we have buffed the card in the past we still feel it’s in a fairly weak spot, so we are introducing a minor buff while remaining cautious of how the change might affect other Crossbow Dude cards such as Crossbow Guild, Raging Reinforcements and the likes.

• Crystal Arcanist
• Attack Delay decreased from 1.4 sec to 1.1
• --- Developer comments ---
• Crystal Arcanist, while sounding good on paper, often found herself getting overwhelmed by the very swarm units she was meant to kill due to her slow attacks outside of Mana Surge. It severely limited her capability to deal with swarm cards such as Propeller Horde due to how quickly she could be killed before even getting a single attack off.

• Crystal Archers
• Range decreased from 12 to 10
• Attack Delay decreased from 1.5 sec to 1.1
• --- Developer comments ---
• Crystal Archers have been a very prominent card since their release, and their ability to outrange most masters or even other ranged cards made their overall safety too high for a card that provides glass cannon stats. Reducing the range still makes them have that unique element of being longer range than most units in its class. We chose to reduce the Attack Delay to compensate for this as they have now become a much more defensive unit, especially pre-Mana Surge, so we want to make sure they can still fulfill that purpose.

• Demon Warrior
• Health from bonus after fifth play increased from 300 to 350
• --- Developer comments ---
• Demon Warrior’s redesign was with the intent of making her a “glass cannon”, having the single highest attack damage in the game once she’s activated. Unfortunately, her health pool was currently a bit too low for her to actually be in a position to dish out that damage offensively, so we feel a small tweak in her Health is necessary.

• Divine Warrior
• Mana Cost decreased from 5 to 4
• Divine Shield duration decreased from 8 to 5 seconds
• --- Developer comments ---
• Divine Warrior has been a long-time staple of high level play. Some people loved her, the others wanted immediate changes. The sheer amount of value she provided from the extended capability to block damage made her an invaluable asset on the defense with the amount of time she bought you, allowing you in some cases to generate the amount of mana you spent on her in the time she’s soaking up damage. This rescaling isn’t intended to be a straight nerf to the card, hence why she is being made easier to play in exchange for this reduced defensive capability.

Misc

• Added a new Spotlight rotation on the main menu to replace the Streamer Panel and Event banner. The Spotlight will rotate between current items, such as between the Featured Streamer panel and the current Event.

Bugs

• Fixed buildings preventing the placement of Diona’s traps - Thanks Floflorian!
• Fixed Scrat Tank opening and being trapped by Diona’s bear trap, even if there were no enemies nearby - Thanks BOB!
• Fixed a bug with the new Glory UI bars not filling completely - Thanks Thehagengnome!
• Fixed Ruffles still retrieving rewards if he is stunned by Bridge Swap while collecting them - Thanks Datenshi!
• Fixed an issue where too many expeditions were being shown at once.
• Fixed a graphical issue with Witch Hunter Ratbo’s attack.
• Fixed an issue where Werewolf transformations caused the unit’s ragdoll to become a bright colour and stay on the field until the end of the match.
• Fixed the 2v2 premade timer not appearing.
• Fixed an AO issue in the victory/defeat screen.

Minion Masters Monday - Guilds of the non-Crossbow Variety

Minion Masters!

Update 87 is just around the corner, and we're finally ready to unveil the big news about an update we haven't been talking all too much about: Guilds are coming to Minion Masters!

Everyone's Invited

That's right, Masters! After many delays we're confident that the first iteration of the Guilds feature is ready to go live to fulfill all of your social Minion Masters needs. This is just the first iteration of Guilds and we expect to add more exciting features to it in the future, but here's what you can expect from the release:

• Guilds cost 3000 Gold to make. Joining a Guild is free.
• Guilds can have up to 50 members, and can be set as Open, Request Only, or Private, affecting how users can join appropriately.
• Guilds can have a region defined in their settings.
• You can search for Guilds based on their Name, Region, and Minimum/Maximum amount of members.
• Guilds will have their own custom emblem you can make from preset backgrounds and icons.
• Your Guild's banner (Emblem + Guild Name) will show underneath your user name in any match you play, regardless of mode. Your Guild will also be shown on the Leaderboard.
• Guilds have their own private chat rooms which cannot be accessed by people who aren't members of the Guild.
• Guild members come in three ranks: Leader, Officer, and Member.
• The Leader is the owner of the guild, and can change the Icon, Description, Region, and Application Status, as well as Promote/Demote and Kick other members of the Guild.
• Officers can kick members from the Guild.
• Any Guild Member can create an open invitation for a match with fellow Guild Members by clicking the Guild Lobby button, located next to the chat window. You can select between 2v2 Premades, a 2v2 Lobby, Mayhem, and a 1v1 Challenge.
• There will be a Special Guild Quest available for a month after the release of Update 87. Win 10 games through Guild Team Battle and net yourself a nice 3000 Gold reward!
• You'll notice a tab in the menu saying Guild Pass. Yes, a guild-based progression system is coming! We aren't ready to say too much about it yet, but you should get your best allies together and prepare!

This is, of course, just the beginning for Guilds. We've got more exciting features to bring you and your Minion Masters friends together soon enough!

Shorter Bowstrings, Faster Crossbows

Not only that, but we also have some Balance Changes upcoming in this update. Here's two of them we can reveal early for you:

• Crystal Archers will have their range reduced from 12 to 10, but their Attack Delay sped up from 1.5 to 1.1 seconds (Does not affect their overall Attack Speed)
• Crossbow Dudes will have their Attack Speed increased from 1.5 to 1.4 seconds.

As you can see, the Crossbow Dudes have refined their reloading techniques, while the Archers are going to have to get a bit more upclose to put out their damage, while still outranging most other Ranged units. But if you want to know all of the Balance Changes, there's only one place to be to get them as soon as possible...

Dwarf Stream!

And that is our own BetaDwarf Developer Stream! We'll have all the details and previews of Guilds and Balance Changes available for you, led by That Sprite. It's the same time (1800 UTC), the same place (http://twitch.tv/playminionmasters) and the same fantastic audience (You!), so make sure to tune in and interact with the Minion Masters Community. We'll also be showing off some of the Minion Masters Fanart Contest submissions with full credit to their artists to share the inspiration among you all. Speaking of which...

Join the Minion Masters Fanart Contest!

We're halfway through our Fanart Contest on the official Discord server, where the winner takes him 5000 Rubies, and two Runner-up prizes of 1000 Rubies. All you have to do is make what you think is the best piece of original Minion Masters fanart possible! To enter, check out the details of the contest right here. The contest ends next Monday, the 11th of February at 0900 UTC. Good luck, Masters, and keep the great submissions coming!