Charging Into Darkness

Minion Masters!

Our latest expansion, Charging into Darkness, starts now! With Ardera's true agenda revealed, High-Mage Leiliel races to the Whispering Woods to find an old friend. Without his help they stand no chance against the evil that is coming in Jadespark Jungle - But the Elven armies are locked in battle with the accursed legions of Mordar the Mad. Can Leiliel secure Fanriel the Stormchargers aid?

Revised Battle Pass System

With this Expansion, we’re doing big changes to how we release new content, and how the Battle Pass system functions. We have a big write-up of the changes and our reasoning on our blog here. Here’s what’s being changed:

• Battle Passes are now known as Season Passes
• Season Passes last 1 month
• Season Passes are 50 Tiers
• 3 new cards are added to the game with each Season Pass
• Also includes 1 Legendary Skin, 3 Avatars, and 1 Emote
• Still includes heaps of XP, Shards, Rubies and Gold
• Includes lots of copies of other cards and 35 Power Tokens

• Season Tokens have been removed - You now unlock new cards directly through specific Season Pass Tiers. There’s no longer any randomness in accessing new content.
• All new cards can be earned in the free pass. They will also appear earlier in the premium pass.
• Cards introduced in the season cannot be crafted until the next season starts.

• If you complete the Season Pass, you will receive glory for the new Cards, both for the Free and Premium paths.
• XP Requirements for Season Pass tiers now scale - It’s easier to get started with a new Season Pass. It now starts at 25k Glory for the first tier, compared to 42k as before.
• Overall XP requirement to complete a Season Pass is the same as finishing 50 tiers of the old Battle Pass system.
• Season Pass price will be 1500 Rubies
• Expansions will last 3 Season Passes - Each Pass brings new content related to the Expansion.

New Cards

New Adventure

Aid High-Mage Leiliel as she races through the raging battlefield in the Whispering Woods to find her old friend, Lord Fanriel. She needs his help to overcome the evil emerging from Jadespark Jungle - Can she secure his aid?

• Brand New Story - Venture through the woods and fight off maddened denizens and cursed Undead.
• Play as the new High-Mage Leiliel Master, exclusive to Adventures - Or play as returning favourites Jolo and Fergus as bonus content!
• This 1 Chapter Adventure is free!
• Completing the Chapter will get you some cool rewards, and will take you to a story introducing an upcoming Master!

Balance

Accursed Ascension
Reworked: To obtain Accursed Ascension, spend 60 Mana on Accursed cards.
Spectral Essence removed from the game

Arcane Bolt NEW: If the unit drops below 500 HP during the stun duration, destroy it.
Stun Duration 9 > 5 Mana Cost 3 > 4 Mana Freeze 2 > 1 Developer Comments Arcane Bolt has been difficult to find a good spot for due to the hard threshold in the card’s mechanic. By changing the requirement to allow for greater leniency we aim to make the card much more practical to use in regular gameplay. Arcane Ring Radius 5 > 4 Developer Comments It was unfortunately common for units to be missed by the Arcane Ring’s projectiles due to the circle radius, where they could simply walk through it and ultimately mean the majority of the spell’s damage was wasted. ATG Drone x8 Projectiles 6 > 7 Blastmancer/Spiritmancer Effect Radius 10 > 14 Blood Imps Attack Cooldown 1.1 > 0.9 Bridge Shrine Total XP 15 > 18 Crystal Construct Now gives Mana on Death, instead of on Play Developer Comments This change also applies to the new card Dormant Defenders. Cursebearer Mana Cost 3 > 4 Curse Aura Duration 4 > 8 Developer Comments Cursebearer’s effect ultimately made it too efficient for its mana slot. Demon Warrior Attack Cooldown 2.2 > 2.0 Dragon Whelp Attack Cooldown 1.0 > 1.1 Also affects Flightless Dragons and Shadow Whelp Ghost Turret Health 350 > 250 Now grants an allied minion Spirit on death Grasping Thorns Total Damage 160 > 170 Enemy Speed 3 > 2 Jungle Jumble No longer grants a mana Discount Cards obtained now have Growthburst Shroom Leiliel’s Vortex Pull Strength 7 > 10 Ratbo Attack Damage 6 > 5 Snake Druid Attack Cooldown 1.0 > 2.0 Damage 25 > 50 Attack Delay 0.4 > 1.4 Developer Comments Snake Druid’s ability to deal with swarm fairly efficiently was an area we felt he needed a weakness in order to enable more counterplay. Squire Puff Now a Minion New Effect: While on the bridge, give 3 random friendly ground Minions Shield every 10 seconds. Empyrean Army: Give 5 shields instead. Mana Cost 2 > 1 Ting, Teng & Tung Bug Fix: Rage and Growthburst Shroom now grant damage bonuses properly Health 360 > 300 Wall Duration 20 > 30 Zeppelin Bomber Mana Cost 2 > 3

Misc

• Dragon Nest and Priestess have received visual overhauls, including new models and card art.
• Black Hole and Combustion have received updated card art.

Bugs

• Fixed Blue Golems summoned by the Red Golem card doing 300 damage instead of 200 - Thanks KcToby101!
• Fixed minions in Chapter 2 of the Saving Jadespark Jungle adventure being permanently invisible.
• Fixed inconsistencies regarding Mana Surge and Stealth.
• Fixed Puffs being able to wander off the bridge and get hit by effects such as Mordar’s attack.
• Fixed a slight error with the Buffed HP indication - Thanks SoSiskodemon!
• Fixed Black Hole occasionally causing games to hang, making them unplayable.
• Fixed Haunting Hugger becoming Untargetable.
• Fixed Hypnotize still being able to permanently steal minions.
• Fixed Sun Burn’s size indication being too small.
• Fixed units granted Stealth by Mal’Shar not visually regaining Stealth.
• Fixed Twitch Drops not working.
• Potential Fix for Twitch VIPs and Moderators not receiving Twitch Drops.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Accursed Ascension Rework

Minion Masters!

A quick note before we begin; there was a minor error on the Charging Into Darkness Update Site where it listed the available masters for the new Adventure as 6. This was incorrect, and has been altered to the correct amount of 3. We apologize for the miscommunication.

Accursed Ascension Rework

This week, we've got news of a rework to the Accursed Ascension mechanic coming in Version 1.13. A frequent issue we found with the mechanic was that, particularly as a new player, the condition you needed to fulfill wasn't always intuitive, and at times could feel somewhat clumsy. 

The requirement of obtaining Spectral Essence was especially confusing in this perspective - It wasn't clear what Spectral Essence actually was at first glance and where it could be found, and could also cause confusion when a player obtained it without knowing what the mechanic was. This was doubly so for cards that had Spectral Essence but not Accursed Ascension - You'd receive a ghost particle from your Skeleton card that would go to your Master tower, but you had no idea what that actually meant, or if it even did anything.

As such, we're changing Accursed Ascension to be the following;

• Spend 60 Mana on Accursed faction cards to gain Accursed Ascension.

Our hope with this change is to make the mechanic easier to understand at a glance, and also encourage greater freedom when creating Accursed Ascension decks. Previously when building a deck centered on Accursed Ascension, you would simply look for the most efficient Spectral Essence cards to include, which had the potential issue of some Accursed cards being completely disregarded in those decks. While it'll clearly be the most ideal option to load your Ascension deck with a ton of Accursed cards, we're fairly confident that this isn't much of a difference compared to how you would build such a deck before.

Wild Cards Feedback

Over the last few weeks during our Wild Cards test, we've been collecting a ton of feedback from community, leaderboards and in-game sources to gauge the effectiveness of the rework. Overall we've seen that it's a positive step forward for the game, but we've also identified that there are various areas that require improvement going forward, and certain elements that were not impacted enough by the change.

For now, we're going to keep the Rework in the game while we investigate what directions we want to pursue for the future. In the meantime, we're going to continue to try and address the currently problematic Wild Cards in future balance patches. We want to thank everyone that helped us out by participating in the tests and answering our in-game surveys.

Dwarf Stream Incoming!

We've got a developer stream coming up for the release of Charging Into Darkness! We'll be doing a full showcase of the card Resonating Blast Crystal, as well as a full preview of all of the new contents arriving with the update. Join Community Manager That Sprite on the official BetaDwarf Developer Stream on the 25th of May, at 1900 UTC+2!

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Stormcharging & PTR Signups

Minion Masters!

Charging into Darkness - Lord Fanriel the Stormcharger

Last week, we launched our new Expansion Site for Charging into Darkness. The story of this new expansion follows High-Mage Leiliel searching for her old friend, Lord Fanriel. Fanriel himself is a bulky but slow-attacking leader who charges into the fray via his Stormcharge ability, and we're opting to showcase his signature ability:

via Gfycat

Please note that the animations are not finalized yet, so things may look slightly different when the card is actually released. Tomorrow is the reveal of Dormant Defenders, so look forward to that!

We're looking for PTR signups!

We're opening our doors for PTR testers again to help us test upcoming content and balance changes!

As a PTR tester, you will test new content on the PTR and provide feedback for the Minion Masters design team through questionnaires and discuss feedback with the team directly in the Discord channel. Responses from the PTR testing group is an extremely important part of creating new content for the game.

To join, you must be able to write in English, be open-minded, and have time to test and discuss new cards, masters and other content with us. It is a requirement that you are open to testing new cards/masters through rigorous playtesting. You must also have a Steam account and be able to play the game on PC (you will have the full collection of cards at your disposal).

To sign up, answer this questionnaire here and we'll contact you via your Discord account if you're accepted:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdy4N1jO2PXJTy3R8UHqS6Aa0meFVyI2wD8CWrt1OhPPUyRuw/viewform?usp=pp_url

Make sure your voice is heard on the Wild Cards Rework!

We just finished up the Week #1 Survey on the Wild Cards Rework Test. Did you respond to it while it was in the news? Next Monday we'll start the second survey and we want to make sure everyone from the community has their say as the meta develops. If you still want to submit a response to the week 1 survey, you can find it right here.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Battle Pass Restructuring

Minion Masters!

Coming in Version 1.13, we have a large restructuring of how our Battle Passes function. Battle Passes have been in Minion Masters for almost 2 years now, and we're starting to see their place - They're where most of our development goes, as new content takes time. They're also some of the most fun additions to the game, keeping it fresh for everyone. While we're always working to improve the releases themselves, we've reached the point where we can't give the game the love it deserves if the game is "too free".

We want to ensure that Minion Masters can continue to grow, and we also want to maintain our stance of avoiding "Pay to Win" elements in Minion Masters. Our goal is to make access to new content (That's intended to be power-balanced with existing content) the main reward for players, both in terms of purchasing and as a progression item.

Here's a rough overview of what's changing:

• Battle Passes are now known as Season Passes
• Season Passes last 1 month
• 3 new cards are added to the game with each season
• Also includes 1 Legendary Skin, 3 avatars and 1 emote
• Value for your Ruby purchase remains the same as the previous Battle Pass system
• Still includes heaps of XP, Shards, Rubies and Gold
• Includes lots of copies of other cards and 35 Power Tokens
• Fewer Tiers (50)

• Season Tokens have been removed - You now unlock the new cards directly through specific Season Pass Tiers. There's no longer any randomness in accessing new content.
• All new cards can be earned in the free pass. They will also appear earlier in the premium pass.
• Cards introduced in the season cannot be crafted until the next season starts.

• If you complete the Season Pass, you will receive a large amount of glory on the new Cards, both for the Free and Premium paths.
• Required XP for tiers scales so it's easier to get started with a new Season Pass (Now starts at 25k Glory, before it was 42k for all tiers)
• Overall XP requirement to complete a Season Pass is the same as finishing 50 tiers of the old Battle Pass system
• Season Pass price will be 1500 Rubies
• Expansions will last 3 Season Passes - Each Pass brings new content related to the Expansion

While new cards cannot be crafted while they are in the Season Pass, the option will be available as soon as the next Season Pass starts with no increased crafting cost, making them more readily available to free to play users that couldn't afford to spend a ton of Shards on new Season Cards in the old Battle Pass system.

Putting Season Cards into smaller month-long batches will also make the task of balancing them easier by evening out the release of new content, as well as helping to avoid "dry patches" where little content is being added to Minion Masters. Adding new cards frequently also helps to ensure a constantly evolving meta game with every new season, and avoid scenarios where little changes over multiple patches.

We hope that this new system can help us give Minion Masters the love it deserves, while not creating a scenario where it's essential to buy every Season Pass as it comes out. We want to preserve the ability for players to be truly "Free to Play" and reinforce that Season Passes are something to buy for their excellent Ruby value and to access exciting new content sooner.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!