Uncharted Outcomes - Patch #59
We hope you’re prepared for this week's patch! 🧭 Like this meerkat here—he’s got his trusty steed, protection from the sun, and a ton of maps to navigate the landscape. Will you rise up to the challenge and harness the unpredictable?
Improvements 🦾
- Enhancements have been made to the arena graphics
- Massive animation smoothness improvements for card motion. These will be rolled out over the coming days
- Units and Heroes have been slightly repositioned on non-mobile screens to bring the Hero's head below the centerline
- You can now skip sections of the end-of-match rewards screen by clicking "Continue" repeatedly
- We now avoid re-uploading the same shader objects to the GPU in order to reduce stuttering as well as avoid emitting some GPU shader logs in production to reduce rendering load
Changes ⚙️
- Random damage is now actually randomly assigned (no prioritization). Some cards were changed (detailed below in the balance notes) to keep random effects consistent
- When possible, any effect that randomly places an enchantment (like Supermind) will still place it on a unit or Hero that does not already have that same enchantment
- Evoke has been changed back to Summon
- Tutorial matches now give out XP until level 15, just like bot matches
Bugfixes 🐛
- Massively increased the stability of multiplayer reconnections, especially on devices or connections that load slowly
- X-cost cards now display as "X" in the market, Deck sidebar and Graveyard sidebar
- Fixed many bugs related to Deck and Graveyard sidebars losing track of cards on reconnect
- Cards that change cost in the Deck and Graveyard now correctly update their costs in the sidebar
- Cards that change elements in the Deck and Graveyard now correctly update their elements in the sidebar
- Fixed a bug where attachments were tiny after returning a unit from the graveyard with Second Chance
- Fixed a bug causing units to display incorrect numbers for Power, Health, and other stats, especially in combination with Banner effects. (e.g. Using Rave on Tragic Poet)
- Fixed Mind Control on a unit with an attachment causing incorrect attachment visuals
- Casting Forcefield on a unit with Chains and a suppressed Guard or Stealth keyword might cause that unit to reposition when Chains is removed
- Forcefield now calculates the adjacent units before adding any attachments, so it will attach Barrier to the units that were adjacent to the target at the time you cast Forcefield
- Fixed an issue that was rendering some hidden objects, like keywords in deck
Hello everyone, welcome back with our first patch of December! We’ve got some fun card buffs, tweaks and nerfs to try out. In addition, after much feedback and internal discussion, We’ve decided to revert “Evoke” back to “Summon.” While I did like the clarity Evoke provided when contrasted with effects that “summon-ed” units, it ultimately created more complexity than it removed, so we’ve changed it back. In addition to the summon reversion, we also have another overarching change to discuss, as well as a few tweaks to cards affected by it, so let's jump right into that!
Yellowjack (526)
Text: Evoke: Fights a random enemy. ➞ Summon: Fights a random enemy unit, or the enemy hero, if they have no units.
This change might seem odd at first, since it would seem redundant. However, it showcases the larger change that’s occurred. In an effort to make the game’s rules more intrinsically understandable, I’m testing a change to “Random” wherein it actually does what it says, rather than operating using the “priority targeting” rules. This was not a change that I made lightly, as I do generally like the way the priority targeting worked, but using the word “Random” when we mean something far more complex presents an additional learning barrier for new users.
However, this was far from the beginning and end of this choice. Looking into the game, I realized that, of the 19 or so cards that mention “Random,” only 9 or so actually used priority targeting, as the others could only hit units. Of those nine, several (Zam and Unophobia) typically fire off many shots, meaning the RNG factor of them is reduced, so they’re likely to play very similarly. For any cards that I thought this change would hurt too badly, I made some changes to compensate.
Similar to the change to Chains last time, this is not set in stone, but rather an adjustment I want to test out. Ideally, it should provide better readability and make "random" more intuitive for new users, while having a fairly minor effect on gameplay as a whole, and then as long as it isn’t too distracting or troublesome, it’ll be locked in later.
Quadra (637)
Text: Death: Do 1 damage to a random enemy, four times. ➞ Death: Do 1 damage to a random enemy unit without armor, four times.
Keywords: None ➞ guard
Quadra was definitely one of the cards that was holding the change back, so I’ve changed to keep its current consistency by dodging Armor, at the cost of not going face - but it's been given Guard to compensate, making it even better as a defensive tool. Thematically, Wisdom doesn’t get a lot of direct burn damage, so making Quadra only hit units had been a change I’d been considering for a while, to make it more of a defensive tool, and give people the option to “play around” Quadra more effectively via all trading their units into it, without their hero then being shot in the face.
Lightning Vial (448)
Text: Do 3 damage to a random enemy. If lethal, dust it. ➞ Do 4 damage to a random enemy unit. If lethal, dust it.
Another tweak to a “random” card to keep it consistent after the change, now deals a whopping 4 to compensate for no longer going face - may honestly be unneeded but I want to appease the Lightning Vial stans in our community may drop it back to 3 later.
Enrage (184)
Text: Target unit fights one of its enemies at random. ➞ Target ally unit fights a random enemy.
Another tweak, Enrage can now go face past units, which shouldn’t be too scary, since its only currently on Vlad, but it makes the strategy of enraging enemy units into your own much worse, since they could smash into your hero instead, so I’m simplifying it to only work on allies for now.
Swamp Walker (88)
Text: When an ally dies, do 1 damage to a random enemy. ➞ When an ally unit dies, do 1 damage to a random enemy without armor.
Like Quadra, received a tweak to allow it to shoot around Armor units, however, it does still have a chance to go face, since punishing your opponent for boardwiping is a nice part of Walker. With the recent buff he got to his stats this change shouldn’t hurt him too bad.
Scorpio (932)
Text: Evoke: Give ally units Fate. ➞ Summon: Give other ally units Fate.
Nerfing one of our big spam-draw effects to make it a little less abusable. I’m also looking at tweaking Soul Shepherd, but Scorpio was easier to tone down via not giving Fate itself, and in some ways has the edge over Shepherd, since your opponent cannot kill off Scorpio to shut its effect down, since the fate enchants are already placed. Scorpio is also more effective with cards like Jar of Souls.
Evermore (1041)
Cost: 2 ➞ 3
Its high inclusion/winrates and performance at the tournament the other day show that this is likely a fine card to nerf a bit. It was originally 4c when first released, then kept moving down since no one was using it, so I think 3c will be a good place for it. Recurring two units is very strong.
Glacia (1073)
Cost: 3 ➞ 2
Health: 6 ➞ 4
Moving down to fill Evermore’s 2c slot, I think this statline should often feel fairly close to the old, since it still takes two 1dmg hits to take her down, so I think she should be interesting. 2c makes her easier to deploy early, and also lets her play nice with cards like Undergrowth and Vanessa. Hopefully this helps to give Glacia a new lease on life. Could even see upping her to a 2/5 if this remains too weak.
Zoomie (830)
Text: Evoke: Ready this unit. ➞ Summon: Ready this unit.
Health: 2 ➞ 3
Buff to an underused AGY option. With 3hp, you can actually leave the flames on it and demand your opponent give it some respect. It’s still pretty easy to clean up, but not a total one trick pony like it was before. Should be pretty fair next to other 4c Agility cards like Flurry.
Toh Tem (293)
Power: 2 ➞ 3
A fun and unique card that hasn’t felt quite up to snuff lately, so trying another 1pow to make it more appealing - I like buffing AGY midrange tools.
Browl (567)
Text: Evoke: Mulligan spells in your hand. ➞ Summon: Mulligan 5 cost and higher cards in your hand.
A buff/tweak to an underused STR tool that I've been considering for a while. Now, instead of mulliganing spells, Browl will mulligan cards that cost 5 and more, letting decks play with higher cost cards without bricking as much, which should help encourage/reward the use of more high-cost cards in STR.
Stone Fist (912)
Text: Give target unit +1/+3. Exhaust it. ➞ Give target unit +1/+3.
Exhaust is a bit of a clunky term that's typically redunant with "sleep" so I’d like to work towards eliminating if possible, and Stone fist has been kind of languishing for a while now - it's been a fair bit since its glory days, so I think its worth un-nerfing this - should make for a nice HRT tempo tool.
Doomsday (1080)
Text: Give each unit Fate. Kill each unit. ➞ Give each enemy unit Fate. Kill each unit.
A part of Wisdom’s identity is that employing big AOE/clear effects has consequences. Doomsday does have a consequence, but the fact that you can just use it to convert its own units into Gas and Conjure a ton of cards lategame feels a bit too good, so I'm trying a nerf where now only your opponent benefits from fate, incentivizing you to trade your units in to deprive your opponent of draws, rather than just converting your own guys into more resources. Might be an overnerf but I think Doomsday will remain a useful tool.
Nefurti (923)
Cost: 1 ➞ 2
Text: Sunset: Give your hero +1 health for each element among allies. ➞ Sunset: Give your hero +1 health for each element among ally units.
Health: 3 ➞ 4
An immensely versatile draw, antii enchant and healing tool at 1c that nearly always punched wayyy above its paygrade, so I’m moving it up 1c and +1hp, to make it less versatile and easy to use earlygame. I expect it’ll still see plenty of use.
Tactician (1107)
Cost: 2 ➞ 1
Power: 2 ➞ 1
One overused meerkat moves up, another moves down. Lets it be a more appealing earlygame tempo play and be used alongside its spell early a bit easier. May actually be spooky in its own right, but it shouldn’t have as much to offer as nefurti does, since it can’t cycle into more cards like she can.
Doom Shroom (91)
Health: 5 ➞ 6
A bit of a scary buff here, but with other midrange cards improving, I feel like its fair to try a bit of a buff on Shroom, since he’s an iconic card, but one that feels a bit unloved ATM. It is a bit spooky since Doom Shrooms are often created by other cards, so the +1hp buff could add up over several of them, but I like it overall.
Gusto's Retort (1190)
Text: Give enemy units Silence. Do 6 damage to target unit. ➞ Give enemy units Silence. Do 8 damage to target unit.
A buff to a card that never really took off. I had always wanted to make it 8dmg to match Gusto, but it seemed spooky at the time. However, it hasn't seen much play, so I think it's fine at 8dmg now. Should be a tad more appealing.
Sworn Oni (994)
Text: The glory effect of allies triggers twice instead. ➞ The glory effects of ally units trigger twice.
Minor tweak, nothing really changes mechanically, since heroes do not and should not have Glory effects. I've included this change in the notes more as an example of a number of text-only updates that went in - cards with effects that mention "ally/enemy" but which can only affect units in practice like "when an ally dies" or, "when an enemy is summoned" now specify that they care about units - eg. "when an ally Unit dies" and "when an enemy unit is summoned." Since heroes cannot be summoned, and if one dies the game is just over.
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