6.01: Game Balance & Improvements

Thursday, July 9, 2020 Discuss on the forums

2020_0708_Patchnotes (1).jpg

Small maintenance patch with balance changes and other improvements

Matchmaking
- 4-person parties in Classic Queue are now only split up if their average rating is 1800+. We consider both ranked rating and hidden classic rating when calculating a team’s average rating.
- Improved average match quality for players rank 1-40
- Improved average match quality for all players during off-hours

Game Coach
- No longer wrongly says you’re overvalued with Eggsack
- Less likely to warn you about missing certain attack/defense types
- No longer warns you about missing certain attack/defense types when playing Chaos

Improvements
- Mastermind rolls can no longer have more than three tier 1s (occurred 0.5% of the time)
- “Suspended until” message now shows how long you are suspended (in addition to the date)
- Added sound effect for rank-up celebration
- Added small persistent VFX for Chained Fist & Oathbreaker, Golden Buckler & Royal Guard
- Improved VFX for Elite Archer & Trinity Archer
- Tweaked Scoreboard tooltip width
- Mastermind roll selection warnings are now smarter for arcane units

Fixes
- Fixed a bug where King Upgrades sometimes became unusable
- Fixed a rare bug where matchmade games would sometimes crash when playing with a player who had an “=” sign in their names
- Fixed a rare bug where a player wasn’t marked as AFK when they should have been, when their client is unresponsive but still connected
- Fixed a bug where the Health Bar Visibility option wasn’t saving between sessions
- Fixed a bug where viewing a player’s profile via match history while in-game would send you to the main menu instead of back to game when you pressed back
- Fixed a bug where rank-up celebration popup would show during your first 10 ranked games of the season (it should only show after you have played at least 10 ranked games this season)
- Fixed a bug where Unranked tier accidentally had numeral divisions
- Fixed some rounding bugs with HP displays
- Fixed some minor bugs with Profile stats (Rounding digits, sorting 100%)
- Fixed some minor display bugs with Leaderboard
- Fixed a bug where reporting a player sometimes didn’t display a “Success” message, even though the report succeeded
- Fixed a bug where you would be auto-requeued for a Ranked game if someone failed a ready check in a Custom game (Thanks FlightTV for logs)
- Fixed a layout bug with Postgame Builds
- Fixed some display bugs in Profile

Stability
- Experimental Game Server stability (modified some thread locking code exit conditions & thresholds)
- Improved Login Server stability
- Fixed a rare bug where a wave would spawn twice, resulting in a lot of other server instability
- Disabled “Display Mode” (Windowed/Fullscreen) option setting while in-game, since it sometimes causes the game to crash. This setting is meant to be modified only while in the Lobby.

Game Balance

Legion Spells

There’s been legion spell power creep over the years, so we’re dishing out small nerfs. Nerfs often don’t feel good, but they are important for game balance.

GiantSnail.png
Giant Snail red_arrow.png
- Health: 530 -> 510
- Damage: 23 -> 22

GuardianAngel.png
Guardian Angel red_arrow.png
- Maximum health: 2400 -> 2300

Hero.png
Hero red_arrow.png
- Damage and damage reduction: 7% -> 6.5%

Magician.png
Magician red_arrow.png
- Mana regeneration and gain: 24% -> 22%

Protector.png
**Protector red_arrow.png**
- Health: 650 -> 600

Pulverize.png
Pulverizer green_arrow.png
- Stun duration: 1 second -> 1.2 seconds
- Percent chance: 28% (16% for ranged) -> 27% (15% for ranged)
- Fixed a bug where Pulverizer didn’t work with Masked Spirit & upgrades (it now has a chance to stun a single random target)

Sorcerer.png
Sorcerer red_arrow.png
- Ability damage: 24% -> 21%

Titan.png
Titan red_arrow.png
- Health: 1400 -> 1350

Vampire.png
Vampire red_arrow.png
- Lifesteal and spell vamp: 24% -> 23%

Villain.png
Villain red_arrow.png
- Damage amplification: 28% (16% for ranged) -> 27% (15% for ranged)

Fighters

More time is needed to assess fighter balance after the season 6 patch, so we’re going light with the changes

Zeus.png
Zeus red_arrow.png
- Attack speed: 2.5 -> 2.38

LostChieftain.png
Lost Chieftain green_arrow.png
- Gaia Shield: Health: 1250 -> 1300

Waves

Recommended Value
- No longer inflated late game
- Now generally more accurate
- Now ramps up with each subsequent wave of wave 21

Carapace.png
(9) Carapaces green_arrow.png red_arrow.png
- Health: 750 -> 740
- Deflection: 15% damage reduction from ranged autoattacks -> 15% damage reduction from ranged units

Deflection is now more understandable and also allows it to counter ranged ability damage dealers

Mercenaries

GhostKnight.png
Ghost Knight green_arrow.png
- Health: 3150 -> 3200
- Damage: 185 -> 190

SiegeRam.png
Siege Ram
- Health: 5400 -> 5350 green_arrow.png red_arrow.png
- Deflection: 15% damage reduction from ranged autoattacks -> 15% damage reduction from ranged units

Deflection is now more understandable and also allows it to counter ranged ability damage dealers

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