The winds of Autumn have brought change to the Halcyon Fold. With the new season comes an explosive new sniper hero and a new season reward system. Plus, there are new interface and control options along with a cornucopia of new quests. Let’s dig in …

AUTUMN SEASON HALCYON FOLD MAP

Explore the latest map to discover all kinds of seasonal touches — including pumpkins, falling leaves and other autumnal flora. In addition, the brush has been redesigned to look better and be more clear, especially when hunched heroes like Reim have stalked into cover. Use the mini-map to look around or just take a stroll!

AUTUMN SEASON REWARDS

The Autumn season offers an improved Daily Chest, a new Season Chest, a new currency to unlock past Special Edition skins and much more. Of course, you can still collect Sunlight to boost your rewards and get bonus Sunlight from wearing skins in matches.

It’s been a full season since we introduced the new seasonal rewards system, and we’re pleased by the player response. Still, we wanted to go a step further, make rewards bigger and give players more chances to win huge rewards.

In addition to your Daily Chest, Autumn introduces a new Season Chest that will offer amazing rewards like ICE, Glory, cards, currency jackpots and even entire skins instantly! In order to open a Season Chest, you need to find keys, which will be awarded through our Autumn level rewards system. Play more games, earn more Sunlight, level up and you’ll get chest rewards like you’ve never seen.

We want the opening of a chest to be filled with anticipation and possibility — and we’re looking forward to loading up the new Season Chest with all sorts of things that will blow you away.

We wanted to spice up the Daily Chest as well. Not only will you be able to get your usual rewards of Glory, ICE, boosts and Essence, but you’ll also now have an opportunity to get even bigger rewards like keys to the new Season Chest and a new currency called Opals used to unlock skins from past seasons.

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OPALS & ‘ORIGINAL SKIN’ IDENTIFIERS

We’ve taken steps to honor those players who acquired skins when they first came out:

NO RANKED SKILL TIER RESET FOR AUTUMN

Your Ranked skill tier will not reset at the beginning of Autumn season.

at the beginning of Autumn season. We intend to introduce “skill tier decay” in the future, whereby neglected accounts will gradually drop in skill tier. (You must play regularly on that account to prevent decay.)

While there is very real and substantive work being done now to improve the Matchmaker, we realized that we also had a matchmaking perception problem. In many cases, players believed a matchmaking pairing was poor because of a visual skill tier disparity between themselves and their allies. If you’re Hotness and get paired with two Just Beginning allies, you understandably assume the Matchmaker did a poor job. But in reality, all those players had remarkably similar hidden Matchmaking Ratings (MMRs). For more about the difference between VST and MMR, read this.

By no longer resetting Ranked skill tiers, these skill tiers will become more and more accurate representations of a player’s true skill over time. You won’t run into any more Just Beginning players who are actually at Hotness skill level. The end result is easier-to-understand Matchmaking where the players you’re paired with visually match your skill tier far more often, creating more confidence in the quality of the match.

Additionally, we will most likely introduce “skill tier decay” at a future date. This would be to ensure that players don’t “retire” accounts following the removal of seasonal skill tier resets. In order to maintain your skill tier, you’d have to play on that account regularly. The skill tier on neglected accounts would degrade over time.

SKILL TIER POINTS

Your ranked profile now shows your exact skill tier number, helping you assess your progress toward the next tier.

NEW HERO

NEW HERO: BARON

Baron is a soldier who specializes in raining destruction on his opponents. He brings incredible range and powerful burst damage to any team. With his rocket launcher, even his basic attacks have area-of-effect damage. When building crystal items, he becomes mobile artillery, laying siege to enemy teams. His weapon path enables aggressive in-your-face tactics. Though slow, his powerful jump jets allow him to reach new positions. His ultimate ability calls in an orbital strike that devastates an area.

READ HIS LORE:

BARON EARLY-ACCESS PERIOD

Baron will be unlockable with ICE only for the first 7 days. Afterward, you will be able to unlock Baron with ICE or Glory.

HERO ABILITIES

Rocket Launcher (Heroic Perk)

Baron’s basic attacks deal 130% weapon damage to the target and surrounding enemies. These explosions deal reduced damage to lane minions.

Porcupine Mortar (A)

Baron launches artillery toward the target location, damaging enemies on impact. Enemies caught by the explosion are also slowed for a short period of time. Weapon power strengthens the slow while crystal power increases the range of the ability.

Jump Jets (B)

After a short delay, Baron launches to the target location, then gains bonus move speed for a short period of time. After landing, his next basic attack fires quickly and reloads instantly. Crystal power can extend the range of the jump while weapon power can shorten the delay of the jump.

Ion Cannon (C)

Baron targets a location for an orbital strike. After a brief delay, the location is obliterated, dealing massive damage to all enemies in the area. This deals full damage to enemies near the center and deals less near the edges. This ability also passively increases Baron’s basic attack range every level.

NEW HERO SKINS

All these skins will be available for purchase with ICE the moment Update 1.22 arrives and they’ll be on sale! The Update 1.22 Skin Sale will offer all of these skins for 25% off for the first 10 days.

MOON PRINCESS CELESTE (SPECIAL EDITION AUTUMN SEASON SKIN)

First 10 days – ON SALE: 1949 ICE

– ON SALE: 1949 ICE Regular price: 2599 ICE

DEAR DIARY LYRA (TIER III)

First 10 days – ON SALE: 1949 ICE

– ON SALE: 1949 ICE Regular price: 2599 ICE

NETHERKNIGHT LANCE (TIER II)

First 10 days – ON SALE: 1125 ICE

– ON SALE: 1125 ICE Regular price: 1499 ICE

Keep an eye on the in-game News section for official skin lore, dev interviews and in-game skin spotlights.

NEW QUESTS

Autumn season brings with it some new hero quests, bot quests and more community quests!

COMMUNITY QUESTS

New Conquests (submitted by player Deathscyth): Destroy 50 Turrets (in 100 hours / 4.16 days) Destroy 100 Turrets (in 7 days)

(submitted by player Deathscyth):

Remember to submit your quests ideas here! Punchpop will pick some periodically to turn into real quests.

HERO QUESTS

Petal & Baron now have quests like other heroes. (Hooray for Petal!)

QUEST CHANGES

Bot Quests: Decreased chances of bot quests for players at higher levels.





Based on player feedback, we’ve permanently removed the “Use Glory Boost” quest.

INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS

We’re always striving to improve players’ game experiences, and that means looking at new ways for players to interact with Vainglory.

PHONE-OPTIMIZED LAYOUT OPTIONS

Vainglory was originally optimized for tablets, but we’ve found that increasingly large numbers of players prefer to play on phones. Over time, we’ve been improving the game experience for these phone-first players, and we’re taking a huge step forward in Update 1.22.

The new layout takes full advantage of how phone players hold their device, putting items on the left-hand side underneath your thumb for much easier access and faster reaction times. If you had trouble hitting your Crucible or Fountain in time for a clutch save, you’ll be surprised what a big difference item layout changes can make! Buffs are now located above the items (instead of in the lower corner), and because of these moves, the social pings (smiley face, etc) are pushed further up in the corner.

If you don’t like the changes or just feel too used to the “old way,” simply go to Settings on your device to change it back.

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR INTERFACE LAYOUT

ON iOS:

GO to your Settings app.

Scroll all the way down to Vainglory.

Change the HUD Layout setting

ON ANDROID:

Open the Vainglory app.

Tap on your Profile section

Tap on the “gears” icon to open your Settings

CAMERA SHIFT

Camera shift is a little feature with massive positive implications for players.

Ever wish you could see just a little bit farther in the Halcyon Fold to land an ability or see a fight coming? Now you can! With the improved mini-map and camera, you can see more, easier. Here’s how it works: When you do a quick swipe on the mini-map, it will shift the camera’s base offset from your hero. Meaning, if you swipe quickly right on the mini-map, it will shift the camera to the right of your hero (to a certain max) and stay that way, allowing you to see more on the right side of the screen but less on the left. Tapping the mini-map and releasing quickly will reset the camera to normal. Camera shift does not alter the rules of vision, but it can often be the difference between life and death or securing a kill or sulking away.

Try a match with Celeste to hit your Helios more easily, and try shifting the camera down when heading to Jungle Shop to prevent running face-first into an enemy jungler!

Using this feature will take some experimentation, but most players will have an “ah-ha!” moment when they realize how freeing and useful this feature can be.

Swipe the mini-map to shift the camera and see farther on the map.

Tap the mini-map and release to reset the camera to normal.

Camera shift does not alter the existing rules of vision.

FULL MULTI-TOUCH CONTROLS

Great news! Now, Vainglory’s user interface has full multi-touch controls. In simple terms, this means you can now tap on multiple screen elements at once. There are a ton of positive implications of this. First, if you hold your finger down on the screen, your hero will follow your finger wherever it goes. No more spamming the screen with a million taps (if you don’t want to)!

Multi-touch also makes it possible to use many abilities more easily. For example, when lining up someone’s global ability (like Kestrel or Celeste), you’ll be able to move the camera around with the mini-map and activate an ability. Pretty nifty stuff. You no longer have to execute a weird sequence of alternating touches to do certain things well or worry about losing a crucial tap to an accidental multi-touch. Try it out!

NETWORK TROUBLESHOOTING HELPER TEXT

In the Play menu, there’s a Wi-Fi icon that shows the quality of your local Internet connection. If the icon gets above certain thresholds, it will turn yellow for bad and red for very bad. The problem is, some players don’t know what to do when they get that “bad connection” notification. To help, new tooltips will walk you through hints for resolving your local network latency issues. We hope this ultimately improves your play experience.

NEW WAYS TO INVITE FRIENDS

We’re excited to announce new ways to invite your friends to Vainglory! Use email, SMS and your favorite social networks to get your friends into the game and party up. Better yet, make or join a guild with your new buds for maximum end-of-season rewards. Nothing’s more fun than playing with friends, and getting them into the game just got much easier. Check out this new invitation system in your Friends list.

SUMMER SEASON REWARDS & REMINDERS

The leaves are changing and it’s too brisk for flip-flops. That can only mean that Autumn is just around the corner. While you may be loathe to put away that bathing suit, the end of the Summer season is also a time to celebrate because it’s payout time! In addition to the usual rewards based on guild fame, we’re adding bonus Summer Party cards based on your seasonal level to help players get those Special Edition skins.

BONUS REWARD SUMMARY

Everyone from seasonal Level 1 & up will receive bonus Summer Party cards.





The higher your seasonal level, the more total bonus cards you’ll receive.





With the inclusion of these card bonuses, thousands upon thousands of players will have participated enough in Summer (Sunlight from matches + weekend card events) to unlock Summer Party Krul or Summer Party SAW at no charge.





You still have two more weekends to participate in card events and improve your season-end bonuses!

The better your seasonal level, the better your rewards will be. This will be a bonus payout separate from the seasonal guild payout. Higher levels will receive more total cards, so play as much as possible to collect maximum Sunlight before the season ends.

REMEMBER GUILD FAME!

Like in previous seasons, you’ll receive a payout of Glory and/or ICE based on your guild level. Important reminder: You must be a full “Member” of your guild (based on participation) and not just an “Initiate” to receive payouts. Initiates don’t get payouts, so if you’re an initiate, play more matches with guildmates now to advance your tier!

ANOTHER BONUS PAYOUT: SEASON CHEST KEY

Your season-ending payout will also include a key to the new Season Chest. Use the key to open the chest and receive a hefty reward. In fact, it’s possible for the Season Chest to grant an instant skin unlock or jackpot of other currencies.

HERO BALANCE CHANGES

ALPHA

PRIME DIRECTIVE

We wanted to increase the reliability of Crystal Alpha. —Zekent

Direct damage weapon ratio down from 120% to 60%

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Damage per stack weapon ratio up from 0% to 40%

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Direct damage crystal ratio up from 90% to 200%

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Damage per stack crystal ratio down from 90% to 40%

CORE CHARGE

Following the same line as the change to Prime Directive, some more consistent damage for Crystal Alpha can go a long way. —Zekent

Crystal ratio up from 80% to 100%

TERMINATION PROTOCOL

It is far too common for an enemy to simply walk away from Alpha as Termination Protocol is activated. This small increase in movement speed may allow her to land this powerful ability a bit more often. —Zekent

Self slow down from 70% to 50%

KOSHKA

POUNCY FUN

While Koshka is meant to do some serious damage with her abilities, this was hitting a bit harder than we would like even with a low amount of Crystal in her build. —Zekent

Damage changed from 75-140-205-270-400 + 120% CR to 75-130-185-240-350 + 130% CR

EMPOWERED BASIC ATTACKS

Being locked in place after an empowered attack dramatically reduced Koshka’s mobility in engagements. This change will allow Koshka to maneuver around fights much more easily. This change is a fairly substantial increase in power for Koshka, as it means that it will be even more difficult for her enemies to lock her down. —Zekent

Koshka’s empowered basic attacks no longer lock her in place longer than a normal basic attack

TWIRLY DEATH

While this ability does some decent damage, the main bonus granted is the two empowered attacks following it. Tuning this down a bit gives Koshka a bit less AoE damage, further focusing her toward a single-target assassin. —Zekent

Crystal ratio down from 100% to 80%

YUMMY CATNIP FRENZY

Fixed a bug where this ability would sometimes not automatically cancel if used on a target with Reflex Block activated.

RONA

For a hero who is supposed to be in the front lines brawling, Rona was a bit too easy to take down. —Zekent

Health up from 799-1789 to 815-1893

INTO THE FRAY

With a fair number of highly mobile heroes on the Fold, Rona needed a few more opportunities to gain Bloodrage and stick to her targets. —Zekent

Cooldown down from 16-15-14-13-11 to 14-13-12-11-10





Bloodrage generation up from 20 to 25-25-25-25-35

RED MIST

While Red Mist is a powerful ability, Rona would often not be able to activate it in situations where she most needed it because of the high Bloodrage requirement. —Zekent

Bloodrage requirement to activate down from 75 to 50

OZO

THREE-RING CIRCUS

We’re increasing Ozo’s survivability through healing. While he may take a decent chunk of damage during Acrobounce, using Three-Ring Circus in opportune situations can quickly heal him back up. —Zekent

Heal-per-hit up from 15-25-35-45-55 to 15-30-45-60-75

JOULE

HEAVY PLATING

Joule’s perk was simply not covering enough area, leading her to take far more damage than she could handle. —Zekent

Perk arc increased from 90° to 220° Armor and shield granted by this perk increased from 40-150 to 50-175



PHINN

FORCED ACCORD

Phinn was able to pull his enemies in a bit too often, with too little punishment for missing his ultimate. There will now be a longer grace period for his opponents to take advantage of his slow movement speed. —Zekent

Cooldown up from 60-45-30 to 70-55-40

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Cooldown “refund on miss” down from 0-15-30% to 0-10-20%

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No longer refunds cooldown if Reflex Blocked

LYRA

PRINCIPLE ARCANUM

The sheer amount of slow on her basic attack was a bit too frustrating to play against — especially early on before enemies had an opportunity to purchase boots. Lane mage Lyra was also able to take advantage of high attack speed and Principle Arcanum’s slow to endlessly kite her foes. —Zekent

Slow on basic attack down from 70% to 35% + 1% bonus health ratio

to bonus health ratio





Energy cost up from 12-20 to 15-20

IMPERIAL SIGIL

Lyra was able to use to her Imperial Sigil a bit too frequently without having many worries about her energy pool. She will now need to use it a bit more sparingly, though she can overcome the increase in cost with some energy items. —Zekent

Energy cost changed from 65-70-75-80-85 to 60-70-80-90-100

ADAGIO

GIFT OF FIRE

Taking Crystal Adagio’s healing down a notch. The previous numbers allowed for Crystal Adagio to have the best of both worlds: high sustain and damage. Now, Adagio must choose to lean more heavily toward one side. —Zekent

Burst heal crystal ratio down from 45% to 30%

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Healing/sec crystal ratio down from 20% to 10%

PETAL

MUNION AI

Munions have gone to stutterstepping school and are now amazing.—Zekent

Dramatically improved Munion AI; they now attack significantly faster.

MUNIONS

Seriously. They attack REALLY fast now. This will tone down some of the pain they can dish out. —Zekent

Damage down from 8-16-24-32-48 +50% CR to 6-13-20-27-41 + 40% CR



SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION

Making this ability more controllable. Enjoy! —Zekent

If Petal has a target selected, the munion closest to her target will explode. If no target is selected, the munion closest to Petal will explode.

SKYE

TARGET LOCK

Skye was able to use her abilities from a bit too far away when she had a few points in Death From Above. This additionally allows her to stay closer to her targets early on in the game and addresses an issue where Skye was able to basic attack turrets from outside of her lock range. —Zekent

Base range where a lock could be applied up from 8 to 8.5

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Additional lock range from leveling Death From Above down from 2-4-6 to 1.5-3.0-4.5

SURI STRIKE

A bit less power across the board. Skye is slippery enough as is. This also means that Forward Barrage will be ready just a bit less often. —Zekent

Cooldown up from 13-11.5-10-8.5-5.5 to 14-12-10-8-6

LANCE

IMPALE

A bit more incentive to build some crystal power on Lance. Being able to lock your enemies in place for your allies can greatly increase his effectiveness against certain heroes. —Zekent

Root duration crystal ratio up from 0.001 to 0.0015 (100 crystal for an additional 0.15-second root)

GYTHIAN WALL

Even more crystal power bonuses! Yay! —Zekent

Stun duration crystal ratio up from 0.2% to 0.3% (100 Crystal for an additional 0.3-second stun)

CELESTE

CORE COLLAPSE

With a number of slippery foes on the Fold, Celeste needs to have a few more opportunities to lock down her opponents to take them out before they can finish her off. —Zekent

Cooldown down from 16-15-14-13-10 to 14-13-12-11-9

ITEM CHANGES

STORMGUARD BANNER

Just a bit more damage for Stormguard Banner. —Zekent

Damage up from 25-75 to 30-80



STORMCROWN

A small amount of power for Stormcrown will make it a more worthwhile choice for roamers. —Zekent

Damage up from 50-150 to 60-160

Editor’s note: These Stormguard Banner and Stormcrown changes were locked prior to the North America Summer Live Championships and the introduction of the “Tension-Crown” build. We’ll keep an eye on it, and if any changes are necessary, we’ll adjust in Update 1.23.

CLOCKWORK

Though Clockwork is a fairly powerful purchase with the introduction of the Crystal Amplification passive, it was still not quite up to par with some other options.

Crystal amplification up from 25% to 30%

IPHONE UPDATES

Vainglory is no longer compatible with iOS 6.1.

For players who are on an iPhone 5 (not 5S) and upgrade to iOS 10, the game will crash for you. We are working to resolve.

BUG FIXES

Fixed a bug where gold trickle, experience trickle, health regeneration and energy recharge was happening every 1.1 seconds instead of every 1 second

seconds instead of every second Removed text from Samuel’s Corrupted Genius perk description that incorrected indicated that there was a crystal ratio on the damage.

Fixed a bug where SAW could cancel another SAW’s Roadie Run.

Fixed a bug where jungle monsters would follow invisible targets.

Fixed a bug where Taka would continue attacking after activating Kaku, which would immediately end Kaku.

Fixed a bug where an existing Lyra Arcane Passage could be reused immediately if another instance of Arcane Passage was cast.

Fixed a bug where Lyra’s Bright Bulwark did not prevent enemies from entering her portal for its full duration

Fixed a bug where Ozo could not activate Acrobounce on minions in Battle Royale.

Fixed a bug where Alpha could regenerate while having Termination Protocol activated.

Can no longer buy Minion Candy with a full inventory.

Reim’s Frostguard perk description now accurately describes its functionality.

Glaive’s Afterburn description now mentions its stun (duh!)

Autumn season is overstuffed with new content and experiences. Feast on the new rewards system, new hero, new skins and much more! Remember to open your Daily Chest every day in the SEASON tab of your profile, and collect keys to open the new, awesome Season Chest. Autumn’s bounty awaits!