Welcome to this week’s wrap-up! We have newly previewed cards, feature changes, a 14-attack Gimli, and patches galore. Let’s dive in.
CARD PREVIEWS
On stream this week, we previewed 4 incoming player cards. You can watch the VODs on Twitch to see the cards themselves, but their descriptions are below. Keep in mind these designs are subject to balance and change before they’re in the game.
Farmer Maggot
Ally
Tactics level 1
4
2/1/5
Arrival: 1 of Farmer Maggot’s Hounds enters play
Farmer Maggot’s Hounds can only be brought into play by Farmer Maggot. Here they are:
Fang
Ally
Tactics level 1
0
1/0/2
Arrival: Deal 2 damage to an enemy
Grip
Ally
Tactics level 1
0
1/0/2
Revenge: Discard a Shadow attachment
Wolf
Ally
Tactics level 1
0
1/0/2
Stalwart
East Road Rider
Ally
Lore level 1
2
1/1/4
Gain +2 Willpower when engaging a Hazard.
For Gondor!
Event
Leadership level 1
3
Every Character gains +1 Attack this round. Every Gondor also gains Block this round.
Hold your Ground
Event
Spirit level 1
2
Every Character gains Block this round.
These cards are going to be added to the pool of Valor cards within the next month. As a special thank you to everyone who’s joined us in Early Access, they will be unlocked for free. No need to spend your Valor here.
PATCHES
Achievement alerts
Earlier this week, we put achievement alerts in the game to allow players to track their progress. We went into this thinking we’d have to roll it back further, and we have; achievement alerts now appear at every interval of 10 instead of every time that a player makes progress. We’ll continue to tweak and tune this until we find a comfortable middle-ground. We’ll be fixing the issue with Steam-side progress updates, as well.
Scoring System
We had a particularly annoying bug regarding the in-game scoring system. It was failing to report players’ scores accurately, causing confusion and headaches for players attempting to track their accomplishments in the game. We have pushed a patch to help mitigate some of the issues, but unfortunately problems are still coming up for some users. We are continuing to investigate and we will update once we’ve diagnosed the problem and found a fix. This is going to be a top priority for us. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Connection Issues
We’ve tracked down most of the connection issues, but some users are still reporting problems. We will continue to work on this and consider it high priority. We’ll keep pushing solutions as we find them.
Card Draw
Card draw on Hard has been set to 1 per upkeep. This change is an experiment to balance higher difficulty levels. There have already been a lot of interesting and vocal opinions on this change, and we’re listening to player feedback. We’re also tracking player data to see how it effects gameplay.
Languages
We've received the first patch of translations. We plan to get them implemented next week. We'll have news for you as it develops.
CARD CHANGES
Giant Slug can no longer receive attachments.
While Giant Slug was designed as a challenging encounter, cards like Despair and Veteran led to unfair gameplay experiences. We've updated the slug to be too slippery to receive Sauron attachments.
Beneficial Current
Beneficial Current's text has been updated to match its behavior (4 becomes 5).
Flanked
Block now absorbs damage from Flanked.
Khazad Ai-Menu
Fixed several issues including Surge stacking effects and the behavior of the buff during travel has been fixed to remove the benefit when traveling.
Borne Aloft
Borne Aloft will no longer return Quest-specific Allies to the player’s hand (cards like Wilelk and Gloin).
DECKLIST OF THE WEEK
This budget-conscious list from user perfect-wall brought us to an easy victory in the fifth Quest on stream. If you like clever Spirit strategies with a low starting Threat, try it out:
Legolas / Arwen / Tom
Allies
2x Wandering Took
2x Gandalf
2x Imladris Caregiver
2x Ithilien Lookout
2x Rhovanion Outrider
2x Veteran Axehand
1x Westfold Outrider
2x Galadhon Archer
Attachments
2x Self-Preservation
2x Unexpected Courage
2x Warrior Sword
1x Ranger Spear
1x Dwarven Axe
Events
2x A Watchful Peace
1x Well-Prepared
2x Beorn's Hospitality
1x Lembas
1x Feint
Got a deck you’d like to showcase? Share it here on the Steam Community forums! If we like it, we might feature it in the next weekly wrap-up.
14-ATTACK GIMLI
Finally, in a clip from user Seastan, we see the true meaning of Baruk Khazâd!
Have a great weekend, everyone.
FFI