Minion Masters!
We had a ton of things planned for this update, but as always we may have been overly ambitious.
With a lot of user feedback, we have delayed a few important things, but that’s not to say today will be boring, oh no!
As we teased on our blog, some very exciting reworks are happening and a new card is coming but we’re also starting the Frisky Friend Fiesta!
Frisky Friend Fiesta event
- The Frisky Friend Fiesta runs from February 7th to February 21st.
- You will receive an extra Daily Quest every day - themed around playing with Friends!
- Three new cards will be unlocked during the event, starting off with two tough buddies.
- Keep an eye out on our blog for teasers!
Changelog for Update 58
NEW CARD - Lost Legionnaires
- 3 Mana
- Spawns 2 Legionnaires
- 150 health
- 30 damage
- 1.5 Attack speed.
Inspire removed
The Inspire mechanic has shown itself to be rather troublesome in Minion Masters. It was completely lopsided in regards to what minions could benefit from it and in some situations made small Minions so powerful you hardly had any time to react.
Many users gave us the feedback that it felt weird it was a flat bonus, but we did not want to make it even closer to Rage’s functionality.
Additionally, we’re working on making sure we can keep developing interesting cards in the future, and to that end we’re cleaning up in the Buff area. Inspire overlapped a little too much with the other offensive buffs, and we felt the visual and design space could be better used elsewhere. Inspire put a lot of limitations on future card designs, and while limitations can be fine, we did not feel this was a good solution.
All these things considered led us to the decision that the game was better off without Inspire, and now was the time to do it, since only two things were using it.
- Inspire (+25 damage) removed
- Bannerman reworked.
- King Puff Perk 2 reworked.
Balance
- King Puff Perk 2 reworked
- Before: Give friendly Minions on the Bridges Inspire (+25 damage)
- Now: King Puff’s 4 and 5 mana Minion cards gain either Rage or Shield when played.
- The buff is randomly chosen, 50/50 for each.
- The buff is shown in your hand before you play the card.
- It only applies to Minion cards, not Minions spawned by Spells or Buildings.
--- Developer comments ---
King Puff has had a tendency to be used for stalling strategies because he was so focused on the bridges. Two of his abilities did really well when fighting on bridges, and the third used bridge control to make him survive.
All in all this meant he was well suited for taking the game to Mana Frenzy and while that should remain a viable strategy, we wanted to give him something that could be used offensively.
Additionally, the new perk should make deckbuilding for King Puff interesting, by trying to find the right 4 and 5 mana Minion Cards that work well with both Rage and Shield. - Bannerman reworked
- Before: 3 Mana, Grants nearby friendly Minions Inspire (+25 damage)
- Now: 2 mana, When played, grants Shield to the 5 closest friendly Minions in 8 range.
- Stats are unchanged - 100 health, 10 damage, 1 attack speed.
--- Developer comments ---
We’ve wanted to try out Shield on more cards and Bannerman seemed an obvious place to start. His new mechanic serves as a defensive counter to Spells if you’re quick, or a preparatory group buff when attacking. - Xiao Long Reworked
- Before: When an opponent plays a Spell, deal 250 damage to them.
- Now: When an opponent plays a Spell, gains Rage, Frenzy & Shield
- Damage increased from 20 to 25.
- Rage and Frenzy are permanent, as always
- Shield can be reapplied if spent and the opponent plays another Spell.
--- Developer comments ---
Xiao Long has been a much discussed card recently, and based on a lot of feedback we’ve decided to focus on two main issues;
He was very strong against spell-heavy strategies, to the point where you could call him a hard counter.
His mechanic felt much worse to be subjected to, then it did to pull it off. This was especially the case in Team Battle, where your ally could unknowingly be killing you with not chance for you to do anything.
The direct damage was the main gripe, but we wanted to maintain his focus on being stronger versus spell heavy decks and maintaining the trigger for his ability.
This change caps out the value you can get from him and puts some more responsibility in the hands of the one playing Xiao Long to get value out of him, as positioning becomes important.
Misc
- Removed ! from the Rage descriptions.
- Added a safety to prevent people from running the login process twice.
Cheers from Betadwarf!