Patch Notes: 4/12/2021 - v0.10.11
Hey everyone, we are very excited to release our massive content update for Arcanium: Rise of Akhan.
Here’s a detailed overview of all of the changes and additions available now in the new build.
- New Province: Uzir, the Golden Plains
Uzir is a desert-themed Province with affinities for Elemental (Red), Light (Yellow) and Void (Purple). It will come with a brand new set of Enemies, Super Elites, Boss, Events, over 40x new Artifacts and much much more!
- Exploration revamp:
The map Exploration has been completely pruned to truly feel like a new open-world experience. We simplified the rules and removed a lot of confusing mechanics that weren't contributing enough to the overall experience. More importantly, we removed the concept of Chapters from the game and the scale of map has been extended to a whole continent, with all the provinces connected by land. You will be in total control of your journey, picking up side-quests and exploring at your own pace. The Corruption mechanic is now replaced by a simpler “steps” system. A run will last 30 steps after what the final Boss will automatically engage your team in battle. Shards will rain down from the sky throughout the run, dropping optional challenging Super-Elite battles on the map that will reward you with incredible loot. The RNG from corrupted tiles appearing out of nowhere is gone as well. The exploration will be all about distance management, assessing risk vs reward and encouraging you to step out of your comfort zone.
- New map and map controls:
The map’s 3d model has been recreated to show all the available provinces in one continent. The camera can be panned by using the WASD keys, or right-clicking (and even mouse wheel clicking) and dragging the cursor on the map.
- XP gains update:
Every XP made on a province’s soil will contribute to that Province’s progression. The XP will be distributed accordingly and shown on the ‘End of run details’ screen.
- New tile types:
With one single larger map, we really felt like the node types were very limited (battles, towns, events, loot caches and campsites) and were making the runs rather redundant. So we decided to add 2 to 3 times more tile types to break down the exploration. Towns are gone and were broken down into individual Forge, Alchemist & Trainer tiles. Oracle tiles will now allow you to Transmute your cards in random ones of higher rarity. The Capital is replaced by a portal in each Province, allowing you to fast-travel to any other portal on the continent.
- New resource: Essence
Essence is the latest addition to the game. It is gained specifically by battling enemies and occasionally found via Events. Normal battles won give 1x Essence, Elites 2x Essences and Super Elites 3x Essences. Upon reaching 5 Essences, a pop-up will show you 4 Augments to choose from, that will enhance your heroes in various ways (Give access to the Ult+, added HP, added Power or extra AP). Essences are a way for your Heroes to scale harder along the journey and for the run to ramp up in difficulty faster, rewarding risk takers and making Super Elite battles very attractive for that reason.
- New battle tiles types:
By splitting battles in three battle types visible from the map, we wanted to create varied ways to approach the combat during a run:
Assault Battles: This is the new name for the current battles on the live version of the game. The objective is to destroy 3 enemies to win
Breach Battles: New battle type that will task you to destroy an enemy to reveal a Shard of Umbra with its own HP. Once revealed, the Shard will stay active for a turn, then disappear to let a new enemy spawn in its place. The objective is to bring the Shard’s HP to 0 to win.
Defense Battles: New battle type that will require you to last a few turns and defend yourself, in order to win.
Each battle type will favor certain team comps, and will really encourage players to edit their decks beforehand. For example, Defense battles favor defensive teams that can sustain damage, but bursty teams will have an ok time as long as they can burst down enemies to prevent them from casting. While Breach types will favor teams that can burst down the Shard the fastest.
- Shrines revamp:
Shrines will now be giving team-wide Blessings that will last for the entire run. 36x swingy Blessings with all kinds of crazy effects have been added to spice-up you runs. Shrine colors will be pre-determined from the map and each Shrine will be aligned with one color only. Each Province will naturally receive 3x Shrines (one of each color)
- New Game Difficulty: Apex mode
You will be able to unlock Apex mode by defeating the game once in Normal difficulty, and will have access to dozens of modifiers, or “Banes”, which will make your runs increasingly more challenging. Each time a run is defeated at your maximum Apex level, you will permanently increase it by 1 until you reach Apex 12 which is currently the maximum. Later this year, a mode called “Custom Apex” will allow you to customize which banes you wish to apply to you runs yourself.
- Simplified UI:
We pruned the UI and worked on clarity. The game is a lot easier to look at for beginners or streams viewers.
- Combat and Hero kits polish:
We simplified some rules and mechanics, and removed the Combo mechanic that felt a bit tacked-on and wasn’t generally well received by the community. Instead, we reworked some abilities to make sure that every Hero kit feels exhilarating, synergistic and that every card feels unique and works towards clearer archetypes.
- Battle Targeting update:
You can now target Minions and Heroes individually. The change makes things easier for the whole mercenary class, since the enemy will always ignore your minions unless they have “Block” in which case they will be forced to attack them. To make the rule consistent, your Heroes will now be able to target the back row enemies and ignore Minions as well.
- Heroes Rework:
Aurora received a big update to capitalize more on her identity. As a Fire Mage, she often felt more like a direct damage dealer and not like the reckless, pyromaniac that she is. Her kit was changed to focus more on burning everything that moves, including herself and her allies. She is also able to utilize the Burn stacks on herself to empower her attacks and even turn them against the enemy. She keeps her glass cannon identity, and is capable of dishing out massive numbers by destroying herself in the process. She will be best paired with a support to keep her alive as a result.
Milady is undergoing some more changes and unfortunately won’t be available for a few days after the patch launches.
All other Heroes got some of their ability cards rework if they used any mechanic related to the Combo mechanic, which was removed.
- Final Bosses Rework:
Aranax and Ra’Khzar received some core changes to make their battles more engaging and challenging. Each boss now has 3 new Passives that rotate at the start of each turn, as well as resistances to 3 different colors that will also rotate each turn. Your Heroes will have to adapt to find the best way to deal with those on a turn by turn basis.
- Performance Optimization:
We managed to get twice the FPS on both map and battles. You should see a drastic difference especially on slower and older machines.
Other updates:
-Access to the Ult+ via having a full deck of 12 cards, was replaced by an extra card draw.
-Enemies no longer drop Gold in battle. Instead, for simplification sake, you will be rewarded by a new Gold card on the Rewards screen.
-Status effects are capped at 10 stacks for buffs and debuffs, at any given time. They now decay at 1 per turn.
-The Fury meter is gone and broken down into 3x individual Fury bars on each Hero. The coat of Ultimate abilities was reduced to accommodate the new change. As soon as your Ultimate bar is full, the Hero will be able to receive its Ult on command, whenever the time is right.
-A good number of Artifacts have received an update and new mechanics following the other changes.
-Filters were added to the Collection
-Economy was revisited and prices at the various shops changed
Coming soon:
Milady’s rework should be out shortly after this patch's initial launch.
Mozebus, the ancient Arcanist will be coming by the end of April, introducing a new mage to the game.
Later in May, Arena mode will be launched, introducing a new way to play Arcanium
We hope that you will enjoy playing the game as much as we do, and as usual please don’t hesitate to send us your bug reports in-game, or by joining our amazing community on Discord at discord.gg/Arcanium
Happy gaming!
-The Arcanium team