New Features
Ability Progression: Mercenaries can now upgrade their existing abilities in addition to learning new ones. At certain levels (10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20), instead of picking a brand-new skill, you'll have the option to power up one you already have.
Each ability has up to 5 upgrade levels.
Upgrading increases potency, effect duration, and reduces cooldown (+10% per level)
The upgrade level is shown as Roman numerals (II, III, IV, V) on the ability icon.
The Academy can now offer ability upgrades in addition to new skills.
CONTROL button now called CAPTAIN: The idea behind this change is to give "manager" players a clearer and better way to spectate and play like an Autobattler.
When you click CAPTAIN, you can choose PLAYER CAPTAIN or AI CAPTAIN.
If you choose AI CAPTAIN, you don't need to click "Spectate" each match.
Choosing PLAYER CAPTAIN would be the same as the previous CONTROL, letting you manually control that mercenary every fight.
Aim Randomization: Enemy mercenaries now have randomized accuracy based on their class and personality.
Same class, different accuracy , no two fighters feel exactly alike.
Watchout for Deadeye archer/fire mage.
This will cause bigger differences between a good and a bad mercenary.
Four new champions added to the pool.
UI changes
Fighter Stats: A new Fighter Stats button has been added to the Cup History panel, letting you quickly check individual fighter performance from the standings screen.
Skip Cup button now appears in the hub action bar during Cup phases.
You can now spectate Cup matches after being eliminated (or use the Skip button mentioned above).
Several panels have been improved to make them more appealing: Demo Challenge, Champion offers, Champion Auctions, Cup History, etc.
Improved the mini panels for Academy/Training Hall/Medical Bay.
Tutorial updated to better explain new CAPTAIN button and allowing the AI Captain option.
Added new tips for the loading screens.
Balance
Max abilities changed from 6 to 4 (plus basic and dash) to better improve combat flow, reduce chaos and synergy with the new Ability Progression.
Several skills and abilities damage and cooldown rebalanced thanks to Gaspa79 Eslafacts, with more than 30.000 battle simulations to get class/ability win rate.
Improved Barracks bench XP share.
Improved Impact/Performance score formula to better reflect the battles and how each mercenary/fighter performed.
Bugfixes
Several fixes to abilities/skills.
Savegame timestamps corrected.
Fixed bug related to Reapers and Orc Shaman target selection.
Improved AI related to projectiles to avoid friendly fire.
Fixed end screen mercenaries not showing correctly.
Fixed some champions having problems with the new ability progression.
Fixed Champion offer panel empty space.
Updated several hover ability descritions.
"No captain" option was not clearing correctly in Tutorial/Preseason selection.