It’s been a wild couple of days since our last patch note, but in case you missed it, we have a new publishing partner - The 4 Winds Entertainment - who will support us as we get NeoDuel closer to the finish line and onward. That means our patch notes will become a bit more “fun” and clear, and follow certain formatting for better accessibility.
This upcoming patch for the NeoDuel demo is slightly heavier on content, since we’ll be highlighted in the upcoming Steam Next Fest. Our team has been hard at work adding a plethora of new content and features, a reshape to the existing meta but without breaking some of the top duelist builds out there… Just, you know, stopping some exploits, while keeping things fresh.
NEW CONTENT FOR THE GAME:
New Feature: Battle Log
A lot of Duelists wanted this, and we finally did it. You can now see which of your Cosmion did the most damage or synergy, and find out the weaker chain in the link. It’s a full log feature that splits data into damage count, healing and shield values, and other effects applied. We will be listening to all of you Duelists’ feedback on this feature, and work toward a more complex or tweaked version of the Battle Log as we get closer to the full launch.
New Feature: Fusion Bond
" Fuuu...sion..HA!”
Alright, you probably guessed by now that we're a bunch of weebs. We love the fusion abilities of our beloved Cosmions, but some of you felt like the outcome of fusing wasn't clear. With the Fusion Bond, you can now see which Cosmions can fuse together, and the potential outcome.
New Feature: Additional Keyboard Shortcuts
- Added the ability to rotate Cosmions using the Q and E keys.
- Added the ability to quickly send Cosmions to the bag with the S key or the Mouse Right Click
New Cosmions
We have been working hard on designing and bringing new critters into the game which will increase the depth, enhance your Duelist experience and fill all the blanks a potential build could have.
We start with unique Cosmions, which are found in the Fire, Water and Air elemental category, but missing in the rest. With this patch 0.7.0 codename Steam Fest, all elements have their “ultimate” Cosmions including:
- Z E U S: Powered by the iconic electric deity, each energy you generate will add damage to that Cosmion.
- Faeris: The God of nature is here to protect you. This Cosmion increases all shields you gain
- Revlana: No elemental power doesn’t mean weakness. This Cosmion grows in strength the more you have a variety of other elements in play.
Other than that, we’ve added some a set of 8 new Cosmions to spice things up:
- Pedro: Pedro, Pedro, Pedro, Pedro, Pè. A common attacker that uses a lot of energy but hits really hard.
- Stonks Doge: A new fusion-based Cosmum lets you use those useless stonks tigresses in a useful way.
- ChugChug: We heard that there are energy problems, which we think will be solved with this fusion Cosmium!
- Arthur: Coming from the wild depth, this gunslinger will solve those pesky flow problems by converting your energy into flow!
- Meteor Klood: The long awaited Fire elemental cloud that was missing from the “kloodline”. It will inflict 1 fog, 2 burn and 2 Lava Burn.
- Ishu: Kawaii! A Cosmiun disguised as a sushi, and acts as a defender for - mostly - Fire duelist. Each time you inflict a debuff to your enemy, you recover 1 health
- Pyrophyte: A tree shaped Cosmion which gathers strength by burning inside out. Everytime you deal burn damage to the enemy, it gains shield.
- Harmonion: Fight water with fire? Turns your flow into burn, allowing for some interesting builds.
Developer’s Note: As our current Duelists keep playing the game, we have noticed some problems that aren’t balancing problems, but rather a lack of pieces to finish the puzzle, and those are new Cosmions. As we continue to update this demo, and march towards the full launch, we will keep experimenting with unique Cosmions, in hope it will boost your imagination and wildess builds.
New Zone: Heart
Zones can bring some interesting changes to gameplay, and this new Heart Zone is a big pill of vitamins. For every Cosmion with a passive effect in this zone, your Duelist will gain 10 HP on top of your cap.
IMPROVEMENTS & ADJUSTMENTS
Onboarding and Tutorial
A lot of the community feedback made us realize that the first-time user experience is not where we want it to be. We’re constantly improving on that front, and tweaked the previous tutorial by timing better the on-screen messaging based on Duelist actions, as well as adding an explanation of the Cosmion description card. This is not yet reflective of the final form of the tutorial for the full launch, so keep that feedback coming!
Upgrade Balancing
As we launched the first version of the demo, we noticed that plenty of upgrades were not balanced at all, and we didn't really implement the best system for them. To resolve that, we are going to be separating each stage of upgrades into their own tier, from 1 to 3. Upgrades get more valuable as you progress in the duels, and you will feel it as well. We are also bringing some new upgrades to change the pace on that front.
Unique Cosmion Pricing Reduced
Unique cosmions are those you could only get from upgrades, yet had a price tag of 30. We realized from our data that they were becoming tools to pick and sell, so we reduced their cost to 20.
Cosmion & Essence Balancing & Changes
Fire-based Cosmion & Essence
- Ifry burn per link has been reduced from 2 to 1
- Ifraltus burn per link has been reduced from 3 to 2
- Rare Fire Essence burn effect has been reduced from 3 to 2
- Epic Fire Essence burn effect has been reduced from 6 to 4
- Porgur cost reduced from 2 to 1
Developer's note: Let's talk about the typical fire build here, because there are a couple changes we are bringing into this element to tweak things for Duelists. There are two big problems with Fire builds at the moment: it is very easy to play efficiently, and there is A LOT of starting Burn effect. This is not what we want for a ramping build, so we’re removing a lot of initial Burn effects. To not shatter all current builds, we are also adding some new elemental optimized units so seasoned Duelists can still bring the summer heat.
- Firefist link effect has been upgraded from 2 to 3
- Moltenpunch link effect has been upgraded from 4 to 5
Developer's note: Firefist build is the least popular line in the game according to our stats. Reducing a start build will disrupt too much the meta, so we wanted to make sure you still aim for a perfect link, without removing THAT much burn effect.
- Fire Mira damage has been reduced from a range of 6-8 to 5-7
- Yogan damage has been reduced from a range of 7-10 to 6-8
Developer's note: With the new Cosmions we’re introducing in the Fire category, some base damage from the most used ones needed to be tweaked.
Nature Based Cosmion & Essence
- Spiry energy cost per attack has been reduced from 3 to 2
- Abatis cost has been reduced from 6 to 5
Developer's note: For Spiry, the intended gameplay was for a Duelist to put more of them in play to eventually take advantage of the fusion, but currently, even if you had no other Cosmions, you would be out of energy. This didn't quite make sense so we had to introduce this fix.
Air-based Cosmion & Essence
- Volucris reworked: Changed fusion from Yekrut + Ageccus + Epic Air Essence to now Yekrut + Clepius. Its cooldown is bigger, changing from 3 to 4, and the on-hit haste was removed.
- Volucris’ passive “Giving critical stats to the linked Cosmion” is now “On attack phase give the linked Cosmion 20% critical damage change”.
Developer's note: The Air elemental big boy was a little hard to reach and too important in winduelists, discouraging them to trade. What we are doing is making it a lot easier to fuse a Volucris, and tuning him accordingly. The old passive ability felt limiting for duelists, as most didn’t want to apply critical stats to a linked Cosmion. This one will lead to stronger end-game boards for more fun late duels.
Electric based Cosmion & Essence
- Belestra Rework: Changed fusion from Wasbuz + rare nature + rare electric essence to now Wasbuz + Rare Nature. Its cooldown has changed from 2 to 5, Stamina from 2 to 4, Damage range from a range of 15-21 to 18-22 and finally added 20% innate critical chance.
Developer's note: Do we even need to explain this one? Belestra has been a very strong Cosmion that needed to be contained so it doesn’t go berserk. The tweaks are meant for it to be easier to fuse, but still keep him fun to play.
- Zapp cost reduced from 3 to 2
- Tesla cost reduced from 9 to 8
Developer’s note: Most of our original testers and alpha demo Duelists remember the “nuke it tesla” build, which was VERY scary. For those lucky enough to have not witnessed that dark era, that build could sort of one-shot you at the start of the duel. WE DO NOT want to see those ever again, but we do feel like we overdid it with the previous changes, so we’re balancing to a nice middle ground.
Neutral based Cosmion & Essence
- Demoncore-Omnicore link amount changes from 4 to 6 to be fully activated.
Developer's note: Our team loves these 2 Cosmions, but our internal stats reveal that they are being used too often based on how easily they can be linked. To make sure they are not activated EVERY time a Duelist buys them in the shop, we had to up the link cap for a full activation to now 6, and might add more if we feel these are still too easy.
Water-based Cosmion & Essence
- Common Water Essence flow reduced from 3 to 2
- Rare Water Essence flow reduced from 5 to 4
- Epic Water Essence flow reduced from 9 to 8
Developer's note: Similar to the changes brought to the Fire essences, we realized that Duelists are using too much Essences in comparison with Cosmions, which isn’t really their purpose in the game (you are a monster tamer after all).
For us, Essences are complimentary slots into your backpack, while Cosmions are your priority. Essences only take 1 slot and are used in fusions, which make them on par with the core mechanic of a Cosmion but at a reduced cost. This change to the Water essences should keep that trend down, and we will constantly monitor the situation.
BUG SMASHED!
- Bargain Master: We discovered an unintended loop that could be considered an exploit by our system, between fusions of David E. Sence and the Bargain Master upgrade. This ability has been dropped in the bin to keep the in-game economy healthy… Plus, there’s a big chance you didn’t even discover it.
- Numerous bugs squished in the background that haven't done that much damage for Duelist… Those darn sneaky bugs.
For the most recent news, join the NeoDuel community by following us on Twitter or hopping into the T4W Discord server. Please contact our support channel on the T4W Discord server if you need assistance with typical technical issues or if you are unable to resolve your problem. Till then, keep on dueling, and good luck!