Patch v824 Breakdown

Welcome HEXers! To the patch 824 breakdown.We have another exciting patch for you this week with three new additions to you library and our card frames getting a make over as well. To finish things off we have a short piece from Chris Woods describing the outbreak of the “plagued client” that some users have been experiencing.

NEW FEATURES

• New card frames have been added. In addition to the new art, we’ve increased the size of the attack, defense, threshold, and cost numbers to help make them more readable while in game.

GENERAL

• During a game, keywords on zoomed in cards are now listed to the left of the card. This fixes problems with overlapping text and abilities, such as with Living Totem

• Fixed issues with some accounts not being able to connect to any non-AI game. This was a major cause of tournaments not completing

• The Restore Defaults button now correctly works in the Phase Stops menu

• Cards that go into a graveyard now always go into the correct graveyard

• Typing “r” in chat when in the tournament lobby will no longer clear text and reply to the last whisper

• The Card Manager will now remember the last deck you used and load it when you enter

NEW CARDS

• Chimes of the Zodiac

• Inferno

• Zombie Plague

GAMEPLAY

• Players can no longer have two Lixil, the Deathless Gems in play

• Shield Trainer is now correctly a common

• Kraken Guard Mariner is now correctly an uncommon

• Archmage Wrenlocke has its correct text back

• Chimera Guard Outrider has its correct text back

KNOWN ISSUES

• The collector’s information tool tip on cards is not yet implemented

• The card modification button on cards is not yet implemented

• The old resource frame on the game screen and in text boxes have not yet changed to match the new frame

Copying any action you play can be a powerful way to get the upper hand on your opponent. Try using ramp and artifact cost reduction abilities to quickly get chimes on the board. You can then copy actions like Mastery of Time or Life Siphon to get a massive advantage. Another clever collection of actions to use with chimes of the Zodiac are escalation cards, doubling the effect of each card played can turn this already powerful cards into game enders.

This is a great finisher for aggressive decks, using this card at the right time can put your opponent in a difficult position to come back from. If the counters on this fiery constant are getting to high cool them off with a revert effect. Keep in mind, playing this constant when you’re low on life could just lead to your hastened defeat.

This powerful card can devour your opponents creatures giving you mindless zombies in return. Very effective against troop based decks with plenty of targets for this blood constant to eat up. While this constant can be very hard for troop based decks to deal with, it is much less powerful when facing control decks with few troops. Don’t underestimate the information this constant can give you even if it doesnt hit a troop, keeping mental notes on cards revealed can stop them from surprising you later in the game.

Cost: How many resources you need to play this card. For Zoltog, you need 4 resources.

Name: The name of the card.

Threshold: The threshold you need to play this card. In the case of Zoltog, you need a Ruby threshold of 2.

Faction: Some troops belong to the Ardent or Underworld factions. Zoltog is an orc, so he belongs to the Ardent alliance.

Card Type: This will tell you if a card is a Troop, Action, Constant, or Artifact. Zoltog is a Troop.

Traits: Describes the race and class of troops.

Restriction: You’ll find card restrictions here. If a card is Unique, each player may only have 1 of that particular card in play. Any others must be immediately sent to the graveyard

Rarity: This icon tells you the rarity of the card based on the color. Additionally hovering over this icon will give you the set name and collection number (this feature is not yet implemented).

Game Text: Outside of Attack and Defense, you’ll find out what else the card does in this box. Zoltog is a fierce commander, inspiring Savage Raiders to join his group any time one of his fellow orcs deals damage to the opposing Champion.

deals damage to the opposing Champion.

Lore Text: Each card is a glimpse into the bigger world of Entrath, and the lore text lets you know how the card fits into the game’s fantasy setting.

Attack: When attacking or blocking, a troop deals damage based on his attack. Zoltog has an attack of 3.

Defense: A troop can only take so much damage before it goes to the graveyard. Should a troop take damage equal to or greater than its defense, it dies. Zoltog has 4 defense.

Card Modifications: While in game hovering over this icon will inform you of modification from other cards effecting this card. This icon will glow yellow when this card is modified (this feature is not yet implemented).

Doubleback Icon: Click this icon to access the card’s double back to see your achievements, trophies, card level, and other information. (this feature is not yet implemented).

It looks like Zombie Plague made its way into our client in more ways than one. Here is a short piece from Chris Woods explaining the outbreak of the “Plagued Client.” This bug has existed since the “reconnect” feature was introduced and resulted in some players being unable to play any PVP HEX.

When you want to play a game, your request to do so gets handed off to a load balancer. That guy is responsible for figuring out which of the game servers has the lowest load and directs your match to that server. From there, you’re connected to that server and start playing your match!

In the case where you get disconnected from your game, the load balancer remembers the server and game, so when you log back in it can connect you back up. If you’re inactive in game for 5 minutes, the game server tells the load balancer the game is over, and it removes the mapping.

This is all great, until a game server crashes.

Once that happens, the load balancer thinks you’re playing game X on server Y. Server Y has long since lost game X, though. As such, it’s never going to tell load balancer that game has ended.

Now, any time you try to go play a game, the load balancer tries to shove you back into game X on server Y. Server Y is all “Buagh?” because game X was lost in a crash. Load balancer thinks it did its job, so now you’re stuck in a dead game, which causes the client to fail to connect.

What gets really interesting, though is when a diseased client would challenge a healthy one.

When a new game is getting made between 2 players, it’s the challenger that tells load balancer to make the game. Normally, load balancer then makes a new game and hands it back to the challenger, who then invites the challengee to play. With a diseased client, load balancer sees it in game X, so it doesn’t make a new one – it just connects you back to that one. Since the challenge tells load balancer there are 2 people in that game, it also connected the previously healthy client to the same dead game, and now you have 2 clients – both of which will try to connect to that dead game.

Those 2 clients can then continue to spread the plague by challenging other healthy players, until eventually every player in the database is trying to connect to the same failed game.

As you can see in the picture above, some of our engineering staff became infected during the testing of this bug and we had to quarantine our engineering room. A race against the clock, they were able to find the cure and administer it in this patch. They saved the (HEX) world!

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