HEX Update – Raiding Spoils

Spoiler alert! PVE cards ahead

Hi HEXers. We’re nearly through the first month of the year. This week, we were raided by our new best friends in the community. But first, we have an engineering update from the one, the only, Datadragon.

Shared Treasure

DataDragon here to give you another peek into the inner workings of the Engineering cave at HEX Entertainment. We’ve been digging deep into the code the last few months, but thought it might be good to share a little of what we are up to.

Something that many of our players seen excited about lately is the recent release of Auction House data. We love to see what interesting things the community can do with the data we provide. So far, we have already seen a couple of websites come to life and do fun things with the numbers. Projects like this are an example of the fun ideas that various HEX employees come up with during our work. The daily auction house data dump came from curiosity of how the auction house was doing, and progressed from being simple queries, to full-fledged scripts and finally into entire processes to get the final project. Along the way, this process was touched or affected by several internal groups as well as our partners at Gameforge. As much as I enjoy hoarding data, I also love to see it being used effectively.

As far as the rest of what we are working on, much of it is not at a point where we can share any details. We are however also working on several quality of life improvements to the game, alongside the larger features everyone is eager to see. One example are the improvements being made to the mail system. We are currently working on a cash on delivery feature that should make trades via mail much easier and safer to do. On a broader scale, I have been working on several reports that help inform us on the general health and well-being of the HEX environment. One such report helps inform us on how the current Meta is progressing, and what cards and decks are most popular, and those that win often. We have other reports that we’re improving, one helps us keep an eye on the economy, and another even keeps an eye out for out of place money flow.

A larger quality of life improvement being worked on is a chat overhaul. We currently plan on having trade chat separated out into its own channel, as an example, and plan on adding support for private channels. Code like this helps us get closer to supporting things like guilds, and reducing the amount of excess chat that really could be relocated to a designated channel. The current chat has done its job in allowing in-game communication, and is ready to step aside for a more robust system.

While we are a very busy group, HEX Engineering still makes time for the occasional bits of interesting, especially when it doesn’t take much of our time away from the big projects. The quality of life features not only make the game more enjoyable, and reporting easier, but it also gives us a brief mental break so that we can dig back into the meatier projects. Back to the cave with me.

-DataDragon

Gear Up

This weekend, HEX fans raided our offices for two days of presentations, Q&A sessions, and more. We even streamed part of it on our official Twitch channel for those of you who could not attend.

Those visiting players saw a few spoilers, and we wanted to share some of those with you and give you one exclusive preview at the end. Behold!

First up, we have a boss-only troop. Sorry, while you can play as Poca the champion, you can’t have Poca the troop! She’s been enlisted by the big boss Zoltog and will be torching you with endless Blaze Elementals.

But, what you really wanted to see was some new loot, right? Of course. These next three will be found by victorious arena gladiators, and you’ll find the equipment in arena as well.

Mentor’s Slippers (common) When this enters play, create a Battle Hopper and put it into play Tenacious Katana (rare) Sacrifice a Battle Hopper -> Nori gets Swiftstrike this turn

Celebratory Gloves (uncommon) UNDER CONSTRUCTION Hood of the Holiday Feast (legendary) Holidays instead have, “1, Exhaust -> Choose one at random: transform Holiday into a random troop with cost +1 and it retains this ability (67%), or transform Holiday into a random troop with cost +2 and it retains this ability (33%).

To see Genesis Cube, click on the Soul Cube image



Amulet of the Cuboid (uncommon) When this enters play, create a random troop and destroy it Chain Shoes of Oblivion (legendary) At the end of your turn, if this didn’t create a troop, transform it into Soul Cube

As you can see by the frame, these are PVE-only cards, so you can take these back into arena with you but you can’t use them in tournament decks. That divide, the distinction is what allows us to get wild and crazy with these designs. Do any of these cards inspire you to build new decks or add them to your existing deck? Let us know in the forums!

VIP Weekend

Remember, VIP subscribers, that this is VIP weekend! This is your first chance at alternate art Goremaster AA and Succulent Cluckodon AA. You can find the event times here.

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