Update 0.39 (Patch Notes)

[PowerPlay]

@hbellis17

#relicsarelesscommomthanunicorns

As a unicorn I can agree

[PowerPlay]

So let me get the story straight here.

You do NOTHING to alleviate the enemy buttf–king we keep experiencing because “lol more enemy damage means more challenge” when all it means is fights become “first to OHKO WINS” which is not fun.

You made food WORTHLESS but did nothing about ore generation.

Bounties were one of the sources of keys and you just went “this feature is useless, YEET” when people like me were still using it for keys. On top of that you made an even more extortative version of the Battle Pass.

The minion menu looks f–king ugly, coming from someone who usually gives no shits about graphics.

The entire UI redesign looks extremely unintuitive.

Glyphs, relics and any actual useful gear will still be rarer than someone sinking a 500-yard hole-in-one during a hurricane while crop circles reveal the winning lottery numbers to a farmer in Indonesia.

What in the actual f–k is the purpose of Stars?

The only thing you’ve incentivized is rerunning through the story more and more for the chance of a RANDOM shard for somebody who may or may not already be maxed out, which means it’s a dead drop. And even then why WOULD we want to do that if your combat is still unbalancef as shit!? We kept bitching at you guys that we can’t progress through the story and even TOLD you why we can’t do it but all you did was “lol here’s a way to spend more money and also our minions menu gives your eyes cancer now” when ANY COMPETENT DEVELOPER WOULD LOOK AT ALL THE COMPLAINTS AND GO “oh shit, we f–ked up the game part of the goddamn game, we gotta fix it”!

Unless the actual gameplay portion of the game is rebalanced massively we will continue to be unable to progress and complete the story.

ALSO WHY DO YOU REFUSE TO BUFF SPELLS THEY ARE LITERALLY YOUR BEST MEANS OF DEALING DAMAGE AND MAKING THE BOARD DO WHAT YOU WANT IT TO

[Sibelios]

Many of the open items that I recapped in 0.38 as issues have not been addressed in 0.39, with a couple of notable exceptions. You can read that list here:

Update 0.38 – Patch Notes

With the last Update (0.37), I listed several issues which I felt were still insufficiently addressed. So what’s the state of these issues now? Here’s my list: Issues still are the same, even more so with the change to Marks as I mentioned here: Grade: F While some issues have been addressed like the disconnects in Events from touching the screen too much, inactivity disconnects remain an occasional problem and lag and game hangs up (e.g. retrieving mail, switching classes in PVP, naviga…

This post instead addresses the specific changes in 0.39.

@Cyrup

The Battle Pass was not offering enough value. To help distinguish it from other game modes (especially Bounties and Goals), the Battle Pass has been reworked to include clear Tasks and the Rewards have been reviewed. The new Quest Pass features clear Daily, Weekly, and Epic tasks to complete within the game. We’ve adjusted the Premium Pass+ to give double the rewards.

Lots has been said already about the new Quest Pass. Overall, I think it’s a good change in format and timing although I think the rewards have suffered a bit. My main issue though is the price. Even with 50 tiers instead of 30 tiers over 30 days instead of 56 days, the value of the rewards is not 50% better than the previous battle pass. The price should have remained unchanged at 500 Crowns at best, not only because the quality of the rewards is not much better (and worse in some regards), but also the fact that a one-month play pass just feels overpriced at $15US. Micro transactions should feel micro; this one does not.

@Cyrup

• STORY: Continue the latest part of the Story by selecting “FIGHT” from the Hero menu. The latest conversations will be skipped

As Gear Loadouts are visible all at once, some menus and icons may appear smaller. In the next update, we would like to introduce the World-Map back into the menus to show progress throughout the story mode and see your battle rewards.

+1 vote for bringing back the world map and visibility of rewards when doing Story mode. This feels like a bad change and it’s good that it’s acknowledged that it needs to be corrected.

@Cyrup

Alongside a number of small changes to update the UI, we have improved the rewards sequences in the game to be more efficient. This change is intended to help speed up parts of the game that were not flowing.

• “Stars” are a visual indication of your progress in increasing to a higher Tier of Chest. Earning more Stars will indicate a higher rarity of Chests at the end of battle

This is the worst kind of visual fluff. Instead of getting my random result chest reward at the end based on finishing the skirmish/dungeon, now I get random stars after multiple enemies that is entirely meaningless and also defeats the feel of “what do I get for winning” since no stars are awarded for the last enemy. Honestly, this should just be discarded as a bad idea. It’s ok to let things go.

@Cyrup

Minions can now be used to Open Chests from the same screen

This is one of those changes that should be great but is currently frustrating and even pointless due to implementation. There needs to be a way to have a preferred sort for this feature. Currently I have to waste time side swiping because the first options are not the ones I want to use.

@Cyrup

The end of the battle sequence is faster, making it easier to collect rewards

Quite possibly the best part of the update. Please extend this feature to chest opening, showing all chest rewards in the same way.

@Cyrup

Quest Rewards - Random Shards replace Keys for completing parts of the Story

• Shards improve in quality and amount when progressing through the story

I really like this change a lot. This feels much more rewarding and goes some ways to helping to resolve the issue of gear progression. I am curious when you say “for completing parts of the Story” what the breakdown is? One caveat: with the elimination of Bounties and this change, one wonders if the key pendulum might have swung too far. Looks like Ore use for Keys will increase which pinches ore supply even further.

@Cyrup

Battle doesn’t end in PVP when the enemy has lost all life points. The game hangs on-screen, locking the game. Meaning players had to force close as they were unable to retreat.

Thank you for finally fixing this!!

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I brought this up in my running thread on kingdoms, but I really do hope that the discontinuation of Bounties and the rewarding of Crests based on gameplay activity signals a positive revamp for active kingdoms. As of now, it’s status quo:

Why do the Developers hate Highly Active Kingdoms at Maximum Capacity?

0.39 Update The update dramatically changes how Crests are earned but doesn’t change anything about Crests rewards themselves. Therefore, the smaller kingdom approach is even more sensible than before. The average player doing all bounties every week would contribute ~450 Crests. The average player doing all daily activity (PvP, Events, Challenges) is contributing 500-600 Crests / week (or more if doing all PvP matches or buying Tiers in Events). Players that do additional battles on top of th…