Patch v822 Breakdown

Welcome to the third edition of “The Patch Breakdown”.This week we cover patch 822, go over the new cards and talk a little about the optimization. Let’s start off with the patch notes for this week.

NEW FEATURES

• Players now have the option of no longer fading out chat

GENERAL

• Troops no longer incorrectly retain the animation indicating they cannot perform actions

• The ‘axe’ animation no longer stays on a champion when a troop is removed from combat before the end of combat

• Chat Options menu is no longer automatically open on the main screen when logging in to the game

• Cards that transform no longer continually try to recalculate (breakdance)

• Ardent champions now display the correct text for their faction

• Players can no longer name a deck with unsupported characters

• Tool tips in card manager now trigger correctly

• Threshold icons now display the correct wording

• The collection scroll bar no longer scrolls beyond the collection, and is appropriately sized

• Hitting “enter” while searching for cards in the Card Manager will no longer open the chat window

• The scroll bar in the Gem selection window is working again

• The VFX on resource counter has been improved

• We have updated the tournament lobby layout

• The volume master setting is now correctly saving

• You can now restore the setting defaults in the options

• Players with special characters in their computer’s username will no longer be prevented from seeing card images

• Players should no longer receive an intermittent “Server is Down” message

• The activity timer should no longer be able to get into a state where it causes players to get a defeat early during a game

• Resources are now able to appear in the void

• Players can now chat in Tournament Lobby

• Tournaments have had an optimization pass and players should have a more enjoyable experience. This is still a work in progress

• Duplicate text on Princess Victoria and Headless Executioner has been removed

• Players are now notified when they get a “bye” during a tournament

NEW CARDS

• Doppelgadget

• Eldon’s Distress Signal//Eldon the Imprisoned//Eldon the Liberated

• Lord Adam, the Powerful//The Triumvirate

• Gearsmith

GAMEPLAY

• Multiple Mastery of Times played on the same turn now correctly provide the correct number of additional turns

• Fahrny is now working correctly with created artifacts

• Incubation Slave no longer incorrectly retains counters after sacrifice

• Rose Lion’s ability no longer incorrectly goes on the chain

• The Mushwocky’s ability now works correctly with sacrifice effects

• Polymorph: Dingler now interacts correctly with Honeycap

• Polymorph: Dingler no longer removes the same effect on all cards within a player’s deck

• Inspire effects now work correctly with cost modified cards

• Survival of the Fittest now reads “Target troop you control battles target opposing troop.”

• Spellshield is now only active while in play

• Soul Marble now correctly displays the counters it gains

• Gems now graphically save in Deck Manager between games in a match

• Players can now more than four of the same card in Sealed Tournaments.

• Decks are created for players that do not successfully create one in Sealed Tournaments.

• Infernal Professor’s granted ability no longer triggers after the selected card leaves your hand

• Prime Ruby of Destruction no longer incorrectly resolves without the required threshold

• Prime Sapphire of the Mind no longer incorrectly resolves without the required threshold

• Transforming a card with a gem no longer will prevent the game from continuing

• Inquisition can now be cast even if the opponent only has resources in their hand.

• Frost Wizard no longer incorrectly counters all abilities on the chain

• A card’s stats are no longer reverted when they are brought back from the graveyard

• Troops are no longer stuck in a recalculating state when Reversion is played on them

• Protectorate Defender’s effect no longer costs one resource when destroyed

• Prime Ruby of Intensity now resolves in the correct order

KNOWN ISSUES

• Reversion does not destroy Honeycap

• The Mushwocky’s increased stats are temporarily temporary instead of permanent

• The Proving Grounds header isn’t quite bold

Doppelgadget

This is one of the most versatile artifacts in HEX. The ability to transform into any artifact gives you many options at the start of your turn. Keep in mind, Doppelgadget also retains this ability when it transforms, allowing you to change your target often and keep your opponent guessing.

Eldon’s Distress Signal

This unique constant is a great card to build a deck around. The first version is easy enough to transform, effects like Bertram Cragraven will give you enough troops in play by turn three. Eldon the Imprisoned is a little trickier to transform. Keep in mind, cards like Turreted Wall can deal damage without even attacking. Once fully transformed, Eldon the liberated’s power that allows you to draw a card when any troop deals damage to an opposing champion will quickly take over the game. Try running a lot of flyers and Air Superiority to not only take advantage of Eldons power but to make him easier to transform during his second form.

Lord Adam, the Powerful

The last of the three lords, Lord Adam is a thrilling card for only 4 resources. If Lord Benjamin and Lord Alexander are also in play, you may void all three lords and put “The Triumvirate” into play. The Triumvirate is a powerful force to be reckoned with once assembled; it wont take long to dominate your opponent by putting this card on the assault. When building a deck to take advantage of The Triumvirate, try to use as many one-threshold troops as you can and don’t forget to use shard of fate to make the three shard requirement a little more manageable.

Gearsmith

This one cost Dwarf will be an all-star in many artifact based decks. The ability to look at the top three cards of your deck and choose an artifact among them is incredibly powerful for a one-cost troop. Tack on the fact he gives the artifact you choose minus one cost permanently and it doesn’t take long to see why this dwarf wont come up…short.

Our engineers have been working hard to optimize the way many cards and systems work within our game engine. This change will result in smoother performance in the long run with deck building, transforming, syncing, combat, tournaments, and server communications. However, this does open up the possibility for small bugs to pop up in the short term. This is where you brave alpha testers come in!

If you haven’t already please take a look at the Official Bug Report Forum. If you have already seen this post, you can fill out the Bug Report Form or View the Spread Sheet. This tool was created to give the community a direct way to submit bugs to our Quality Assurance (QA) Team. Our team has setup a color system to mark bugs, any bug in green has been resolved, you can find them in the “resolved tab”. Bugs marked in yellow are still being researched and finally bugs marked in red are not bugs or QA can’t reproduce them. We are blown away with the amount of bugs that have been submitted so far and ask that everyone continues to keep up the good work. In the short time the spreadsheet has been available we have had fifty submitted bugs with twenty of those being fixed with this patch. That’s almost 50% of the submitted bugs being resolved in less than a week! This is your game and we couldn’t have done any of this without our amazing communities continued support.

That’s it for the Patch 822 Breakdown. We hope you enjoyed this summary of the new features you can expect in patch 822. Please feel free to post any feedback you have on this patch in the Alpha Forums. We want to build the game you want to play and posting your feedback allows us to achieve this goal. From everyone at Cryptozoic enjoy patch 822!

Discuss this article in our forums!