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Discover the stolen lands of Lemuria! We're opening the sealed door to an exciting new world that is at once familiar and strange and completely bonkers. What will you find there? It's a mystery! Let us know, as we are just as curious.
Along with the new world and all the exciting content it has to offer, we've made several improvements to existing systems, starting with the Quest Journal. It has been revamped to allow filtering of quests! With mainline and side quests to complete, it's now easier than ever to focus on those most important to your questing goals. A cluttered Quest Journal is no longer an issue!
Also in the update are new features to Adventure Parties, continued balance changes to PvP gameplay, exciting new Beastmoon rewards, and of course a selection of new Beastforms to challenge your play and scare the enemy team right off the combat sigils. Are you a fan of Castle Magic and making your castle the bling bling of the Spiral? Seek out Babbage Basset for a bunch of new decoration options!
Thank you, Wizards!
Highlights Include:
Click here to view Part 2 of the update below.
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NEW WORLD OF LEMURIA
A mysterious entity has appeared to the Wizard in the guise of the Old One. Confused and lost, it knows only one thing for certain: it must find the world of Lemuria. The only problem: there is no such world. Or is there? The answer lies in the most forbidden chamber in the Arcanum.
Investigate the lost fragments of history and uncover a forgotten crime so monumental it shook the Spiral. In the process you'll discover a world of worlds, a mishmash of the strange and familiar, overseen by the enigmatic, cute but cautious Lemurs. In this place, bears never learned to fight, Manders never learned to serve and Water Moles… well, they actually learned a lot.
In the realms of Lemuria heroes are forged. Barbarians triumph in the untamed Badlands, while polymaths excel in the floating Sky City. Monster Hunters are needed to protect the people of the gloomy Night Forest, while the Wildlands are protected by a mysterious violet Ghost.
But there is a greater danger than they can know, hidden for centuries. Amidst the jungles and deserts and cities of Lemuria is one last great secret that, if left undiscovered, could unravel Everything. Team up with the Heroes of Lemuria to put things right!
Level 150 and New Lemuria-Themed Shadow-Enhanced Spells
The character level cap has been raised to 150! Don't rush getting there! A ton of content is ready to explore on your way through Lemuria.
Each school gets new Lemuria-themed shadow-enhanced spells for the level increase. They are granted by completing the Lemuria main quest line (starting with 'Say the Magic Wands') and can be further improved by collecting Spellements that drop throughout the world.
Want even more spells for your school? One of the first locations you will want to visit as you level up your character is your school's professor. Every few levels your professor will train you in a new school specific spell and some of the professors will have new PvP related spells available.
Additional school spells are obtainable from the various trainers like Sabrina Greenstar or Mildred Farseer who can be found around the Spiral. Other sources may include Crown Shop offerings in packs and bundles like the Grizzleheim Lore Pack or the Immortal's Lore Pack. And of course, all those adventurous quests may have several spells to offer you.
There's a lot more to go over in this update, so check it all out below! Please note that some of the content may go live at a later date, such as the new Beastforms in Beastmoon events. This includes Crown Shop offers that are released in the coming weeks.
QUEST JOURNAL IMPROVEMENTS
We've been working on a number of different things to help make questing more enjoyable, and felt like taking a closer look on the Quest UI would be beneficial to adventuring Wizards. As exciting as these changes are, what you see in this update should be considered a first step and not the final version. More will be done in future updates.
We decided to start with giving players more control over organizing their quests, so we did that in a few ways:
- First, we created a number of Quest tabs that correspond to different categories of Quests, when you click on that Tab, then you'll only see Quests which fall into that category. This includes a Ready to Turn in tab, showing all the quests that are waiting to be turned in!
- Second, we let you choose a World which further filters out Quests displayed in the Tabs.
- Third, we let you mark non-mainline quests as Hidden, which means they can only be seen in the Hidden tab.
- Finally, for those who like the current way quests are handled in the journal, we made the first tab represent the way that quests are currently listed.
MORE ADVENTUROUS ADVENTURE PARTIES
We've made some significant improvements to Adventure Parties! Have you joined one yet? Here's a few tips from Artie our lead designer of the feature on how to use it:
- You can now chat with the other online players in an Adventure Party by opening an Adventure Party chat channel.
- If someone in an Adventure Party is being unfriendly, the owner of the Adventure Party can now remove them. If someone is removed by the owner, only the owner can invite them to join again.
- If an Adventure Party name has worn out its welcome, the Adventure Party owner can now change it.
- The Adventure Party owner can now designate another player as the owner of the Adventure Party.
- If the owner wants to leave an Adventure Party, they must designate another player as owner first and then select the Leave Adventure Party button.
- Your character can be less than level 30 and you can still join an Adventure Party if any other character on your account is at least level 30.
- Hidden From Friends now works for Adventure Parties too.
If you are in an Adventure Party, you can easily create a Group with online players (click the Create a Group button on the Adventure Party Details page.) Groups that were formed from an Adventure Party are special and get a star.
- Players in Groups that were formed from an Adventure Party can now request combat sigil assignments. Click the Set Sigil Slot Preference button on the Group tab. If a player has selected a slot preference, it's displayed next to their name in the group window. If multiple players select the same sigil spot, they quickly play a game of rock, paper and scissors to see who gets it.
- Adventure Party Groups now have a group leader. The player that started the group becomes the leader, but they can change the leader by clicking the Change Group Leader button.
- Everyone in an Adventure Party Group follows the quest arrow of the group leader. You can turn this behavior on and off by clicking the Unfollow Leader and Follow Leader buttons.
PVP UPDATES
Show/Hide PvP Rank
We have two new UI features for this update. The first is Show PvP Rank. It should perhaps be more aptly called Hide PvP Rank - in effect, when this setting is OFF, your PvP Rank will not show up when your wizard is inspected. The PvP Panel is not displayed as part of the information available via Inspect. You can find this setting on a new options tab (#4).
Of course, there are times when your PvP Rank must be shown, most notably at the end of a PvP Match where Rating is exchanged. When the Match Results window appears, regardless of this setting, your Rank must and will be visible on that screen.
Inspect Opponent
We've added another feature to the Match Results window, Inspect Opponent. Next to each participant's name you'll find a magnifying glass. Click this button if you want to inspect your opponent's stats, gear, and so on after the match concludes. This option is only available immediately after the match ends and only while the Match Results window is open.
Chess Timer
At long last, with this update, 1v1 Ranked will be switching from the current 30-minute timer - with the Decision-by-Diego conclusion - to a Chess Style timer. Here's how it works:
- Each player has a fixed amount of time on their personal timer (for example, 10 minutes)
- During your own planning phase, which remains limited to 20 seconds, your timer counts down.
- As soon as you select your spell and the execution phase begins, your timer STOPS counting down. (No time is lost due to spell cinematic times.)
- If you PASS, there is a time penalty (so that simply passing over and over can't win you a timer match).
- When your opponent's planning phase starts, their timer starts counting down.
- Play goes back and forth with each player's timer only counting down during their own planning phase.
- If your timer reaches 0 seconds, you LOSE.
During the match, you will see a YELLOW warning indicator when your timer drops below a certain threshold, and an additional RED warning indicator when it drops dangerously low. You cannot see your opponent's exact time remaining on their clock, but you will see the yellow or red warning indicators by their nameplate to give you some idea of where they stand.
We will begin testing the Chess Timer with 10 minutes (600 seconds) on each player's chess timer. (This number was derived from analyzing hundreds of thousands of 1v1 ranked matches that went all the way to the current 30-minute timer.) This translates to 30 turns per player, assuming each player used all 20 seconds of the planning phase; of course, most won't. Nevertheless, over the course of an entire match we expect the average number of turns to more or less hold true. As a result, we think that the total actual match time, including time for both players' spell animations, should fall between 30 and 40 minutes.
When we initially release the Chess Timer, we will bring it out in a very simple, straightforward form. However, we have built additional parameters that we can implement if it becomes necessary to prevent certain exploits, including "bonus increments" (which reward quick, valid plays) and "time penalties" (which penalize certain plays).
Known Issue: During Test Realm we were made aware of a bug where clicking the PASS button ended the match. We were unable to reproduce this bug and suspect that subsequent code changes to the Chess Timer have eliminated it; should you experience any further issues, please let us know.
No PvP Enchant
We now have an added setting for spells—No PvP Enchant—which we will enable for specific spells. As of this update, all shadow-enhanced hits and all of the new Gambit spells (see below) will be set to No PvP Enchant. This will bring the burst damage of hits down, while at the same time allowing players to use and enchant other spells in their library. We hope this increases the variety of spells used in PvP.
Incidentally, although these changes apply only to PvP, we have a setting for No PvE Enchant as well. With both settings flagged, we can exclude spells from enchanting entirely.
Rho-Sham-Bo!
If you're a dedicated fan of PvP you're probably already aware of the big slate of new spells planned exclusively for PvP. These new spells include 3 Gambits (conditional spells that quickly advance you to a win condition) and 4 Ramps (utilities that counter your opponent and set up your own gambits).
New PvP-only Mastery amulets are now available for purchase from Brandon Mistborn!
NEW BEASTFORMS
Played through all the current Beastforms for the Beastmoon events? You're in luck, as we've got five more exciting Beastforms for you to check out in this latest game update!
Balance Rat Thief
The Balance Rat Thief does a couple of things, he is a master of Charms, so can create Blades for himself and weaknesses on the enemy. He also has a number of different spells that helps generate pips for his teammates.
Ice Minotaur
The Ice Minotaur is a tank who has damage potential by countering all charms (positive and negative) and synergizing with friendly minion.
Life Elf
The Life Elf is more of a damage focused Form. They are also built to make opponents think twice about summoning a minion.
Myth Wolf Warrior
Myth Wolf Warrior is a pure tank that uses a minion to pull attention away from his teammates. He also converts traps into Shields
Storm Colossus
The Storm Colossus gets stronger the more damage he takes, activating additional effects to his normal spell. He can also Taunt, which forces the other team to hit him.
Which school and form are your favorites to play? Let us know on social media!
NEW EVENT REWARDS
Your hard work defeating challenge bosses and other players in the Beastmoon events should be rewarded, which is why we've added new event rewards for both Beastmoon Hunt and Monster Mayhem! For the Beastmoon Hunt there are new gold idols, pets, and of course added Spellements. Pets and craftable gold idols will be released in the coming Beastmoon Monster Mayhem events.
We're sure you are eager to get hold of these precious new resources. Check out below when some of the new rewards are expected to become available. Be sure to keep watch on the Live update notes and the game's social media channels for upcoming announcements, and of course in-game as events kick off, for when event rewards are updated.
Beastmoon Hunt Rewards
- Gold Beastform Idols and Pets:
- DEC: Ice Fairy
- JAN: Fire Colossus
- FEB: Storm Colossus
- MAR: Storm Krokomummy
- APR: Life Elf
Beastmoon Mayhem Rewards
- Progress Bar Pets:
- DEC: Fire Ninja Pig
- JAN: Death Cyclops
- FEB: Storm Elf
- MAR: Balance Fairy
- APR: Myth Draconian
- Craftable Gold Idols:
- DEC: Storm Rat Thief, Ice Wolf Warrior, Fire Ninja Pig
- JAN: Myth Rat Thief, Life Fairy, Death Cyclops
- FEB: Ice Wolf Warrior, Fire Ninja Pig, Storm Elf
- MAR: Balance Fairy, Balance Wolf Warrior, Balance Krokomummy
- APR: Life Fairy, Death Cyclops, Myth Draconian
Beastmoon Spellemental Rewards
And here are new Spellements that will become available for both Beastmoon events! As mentioned earlier, all dates are tentative:
- DEC: Elemental
- JAN: Spiritual
- FEB: Elemental
- MAR: Balance
- APR: Spiritual
NEW PACK PREVIEW FEATURE
With some of the newer Hoard and Lore packs you can now use the inspect button in the crown shop to see a list of items you have a chance of getting in that pack. These items are always shown at the highest level those items can be in that pack.
Here are a couple of examples:
We find previewing of packs super convenient and hope you do too! Note that this feature is only functioning on select packs right now.
CASTLE MAGIC IMPROVEMENTS
Castle Magic allows you to make your house even more magical and welcoming to visitors. See Babbage Basset in Marleybone for a ton of new offerings and shop search capabilities. Here are the new ones we added in this update:
- You can now buy Castle Magic combat effects spells for the Mirage and Empyrea school spells.
- Since we now have so many Castle Magic combat effects spells, we added school filter buttons to the Castle Magic spell shop.
- When buying a Castle Magic item from Babbage Basset, his shop starts on the Decoration tab because that's where most of the items are.
- Babbage Basset has a new Castle Magic item for sale, a Magic Sequence Reflector. The Magic Sequence Reflector is like a combination of a reflector and a counter. It can hold up to 8 spells and will cast them one by one each time it's activated. You can use either Activate Reflector or the Add 1 to Counter spell to make the first spell activate and advance to the next spell. You can use Subtract 1 from Counter spell to activate the first spell and go backwards to the last spell. The Magic Sequence Reflector wraps both forward and backward, so if you have all 8 spells and advance past 8 it will go back to 1. Subtracting from 1 goes to 8. See the Castle Magic Help Tome for more information.
- Babbage Basset has 3 new Action spells for sale. Move Faster 200, Move Faster 300 and Set Normal Speed. Cast these spells on an item that is being moved, turned or scaled with another Castle Magic spell and the effect will be sped up. You can also use these spells before casting a move, turn or scale Castle Magic spell. You can cast both the 200 and 300 spells on an item to move it even faster. An example - say you use the spell Move Up 250 on a chair. Previously the chair slowly floated up. If you cast a Move Faster 200 on the chair and then use a Move Up 250 on the chair, it will float up much faster.
- A bug was fixed with how Castle Magic spells worked when more than one player visits a house.
- Thanks to a player suggestion, we've added two new Castle Magic phrases:
- "I can't move"
- "I don't know what to do"
BUG FIXES AND OTHER CHANGES
Spells
- New ramp and gambit "Rhoshambo" spells have been added to the Ravenwood professors
- Rhoshambo spells are currently only enabled in PvP (check out Ratbeard's Roshambo Dev Diary for more details!)
- The 2-pip global spells have been restricted to max 4 copies in main deck
- Dog Tracy Spell now does damage and applies a heal over time
- Freeze Ray Spellements path now has a Shadow Pip cost
- Freeze Ray Spellements name corrected
- Mana Burn set to no Enchant (PvP and PvE)
- Threefold Fever (PvP Only) is now available for training via Dworgyn
- All non-standard Efreet item/pet cards are set to No PvP
- Jinn's Defense now set to the correct cost (3 pips)
- Tribunal Oni now deals the correct amount of damage
- Righting the Scales now removes the correct hanging effects
- Fixed a bug on the Shatter pet card to remove only beneficial wards
- Several spell cards which had blank descriptions now have them filled in
Combat
- Lemuria Henchmen are now available to hire
- Sigil in Arcanum will now load in more than one player
- Sigil to Solomon's Basement in the Crane House no longer requires a Skeleton Key
- Hierarch Lucien, Morg the Merciless, The Writer and Snow Queen cheats have been adjusted
- The line: "I'll be taking that, thanks!" in the final fight now properly fires off the cheat
- Mobs in Sanctum of Lifeforce and Sanctum of Mana have been adjusted
- Various Mob spawn adjustments
Castle Magic
- When used on the Castle Magic Sequencer, Subtract 1 spell now subtracts first and then the action
- The Set Normal Speed spell now works correctly
Other
- Players hidden from friends will no longer show online in Adventure Parties
- Catch of the Day and Tournament fish no longer include the holiday fish
- Various animation and UI adjustments
- Various performance and stability fixes
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Game Patches
- Assorted Lemuria themed housing items added to Mirza in Telos
- Audited all TC and other variants of elemental and spirit blades, traps, and shields
- Inferno Salamander trained spell, tiers and crafted treasure card modified to respond to emergent meta concerns
- Fixed issue with quest arrow not updating in Kraken Up Quest
- Updated cinematic for Balance Oni (faster "triple hit" animation)
- Updated animations for PvP-variant of the Life Scion spell (now has animations for normal and x2 hit)
Adventuring
- Fixed several quest blockers in early game (Wizard City, Krokotopia, Marleybone)
- Fixed several interior Lemuria quests so that completed quests lights display correctly
- Players should now receive the Bookworm badge for completing The Lore You Know and Trip to the Library quests
- Players should now be able to complete the Gotta See Gretta quest to achieve the related badges
- Ursai Village now has Health wisps and should apply passive healing
Combat & Animations
- Fixed an issue with Old One's Endgame displaying mismatched hanging effects
- Fixed an "infinite loop" bug with Sugarr
- Fixed a bug in the combat cheats for Mandrake the Maligician
Monstrology
- Many Lemuria mobs are now ready for essence extraction
PvP
- Fixed a bug with the match timer related to disconnects during a match; the timer should now pause during the disconnect and resume when you reconnect.
- Oni's Projection now correctly respects Dispel and other charm hanging effects.
- Some Jinn and Oni card art has been updated to disambiguate them from pre-existing spells
- Macabre Jinn and Doom Oni updated to apply "steal health" effects (cinematics updated to match).
- Duststorm Jinn updated to apply a "triple hit" of Storm, Fire, and Ice (cinematics updated to match)
In our continued efforts to encourage a fun, fair, and friendly competitive environment, accounts that have an active mute status will not be able to queue in PvP.
Graphics & UI
- Fixed display issues with "translucent" card art on the new PvP Jinn and Oni spells
- Fixed display issues on Mandoria and Badlands doodle maps related to mob icons
- Fixed various display and item placement issues with housing
We made the following bug fixes:
- Players should now be able to properly complete Big Ben dungeon
- Fixed issued related to Quest Journal hidden quests
- Fixed an issue related to Castle Magic timers not starting correctly
We also made the following changes to help address gameplay issues in PvP:
- (1v1 Ranked Match Timer) The minimum amount of time deducted for each player's turn has been increased to 5 seconds. This will help to eliminate some of the advantage of "fast clicking" and allow a bit more time for decision making. Players taking between 5-20 seconds for their Planning Phase will see their match timer count down as normal.
- In accordance with the above change, the penalty for a quick PASS has been reduced to 5 seconds.
- Each player's total match timer has been reduced to 300 seconds (5m). Combined with the changes above, this will strictly limit each player to 60 turns max.
- The Guardian Spirit spell (and all spells that create an Afterlife effect) now carries a 20s timer penalty.
- A number of "maycast" spells on pets and wands, including but not limited to spells that create a healing effect, have been curtailed or entirely disabled in PvP.
- A variety of equipment and Treasure Card spells that create significant amounts of "burst healing" have been set to No PvP, including: Sacrifice, Unicorn, Satyr, Pigsie, Rebirth, Regenerate, and Dryad.
Please note that these changes are intended to provide some short-term relief to these issues, but we continue to explore additional ways to address these and other issues related to PvP as 5th Age draws nearer.
In addition to several tweaks and fixes to spells and dungeon encounters, we also fixed a progression blocker bug with the final fight. Check out below the patch notes.
Blockers
- Players can now complete the 'To Err is Hero' quest
- layers can now complete the 'Katzenstein Never Kloses' quest
Anyone on the quest goal 'Save Lemuria in Telos' should be able to return to the Hall of Heroes where the final fight happens and interact with the Synthesizer object. This should initiate a cinematic and then you will be able to progress as expected from there.
Spells
- Sprite Swarm now summons a minion when a deferred over time is placed
- Hanging Conversion spell effect no longer converts blades previously used in the spell
- Enfeeble no longer removes negative charms
- Added spell to Quartermane Citrine jewel card
Bosses & Dungeons
- Modified Sugarr side boss cheats
- Lemuria Hero Jewels have been added to the loot tables of various bosses
- Players can no longer teleport to each other while inside the final battle zone
- Sigil to the Dead Archive now properly lights up
Miscellaneous
- Resolved a few issues for the next Balance Deckathalon
- Added vendor icons to the Telos doodle map
- Updated a combat music file with a new Arcanum track
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We've been working hard at continuing to improve the beginning areas of the game and refining the quests along the way. Many 'quality of life' improvements have been made that you may notice on your journey across the Spiral. If you enjoy participating in the monthly calendar events, Beastmoon are being updated to include a new Beastmoon Hunt map and beastforms. Be sure to check out the revamped Beastmoon Pavilion accessed by taking the yellow teleporter in the Duel Arena.
One of the biggest changes in this update are new socialization features, built upon an initial feature set we added. This time though, we're expanding them out to support more ways to group players together for questing and events.
Lemuria Update (cont.) Highlights:
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FIRST TIME USER EXPERIENCE (FTUE)
In this update, we finished polishing the quest content for the First Time User Experience (FTUE). We focused changes on these four zones: Firecat Alley, Cyclops Lane, Dark Cave, and Nightside. After the Wizard Art team put in so much work to update Wizard City's appearance for the tenth anniversary, the writing department is following suit and updating the Wizard City quest content. We've added tons of context, some updated cultural references, and lots of humor while keeping the core of the old story intact.
Don't worry - Professor Drake still has errands for you, but now you'll learn which show Alicaine Swiftarrow and the Fire Elves were putting on in the Fire Globe Theater, and get a proper introduction to Bartleby in the mainline story. You'll see old familiar faces (including Malistaire himself) and meet a bunch of new friends... and enemies!
For players at the other end of the mainline the search for Lemuria continues with another preview quest! If you missed the first one, seek out the Old One in the Arcanum.
One other item of note: Vanessa Mythdust, pillar of the Wizard101 community turned KI team member, makes her VO debut on Cyclops Lane and Firecat Alley! Can you pick her out?
MEETING YOUR FELLOW WIZARDS
Groups in Wizard101 are a temporary collection of players that can adventure and explore together. We've had groups in Wizard101 since the beginning, but the feature continues to grow. Have a look below at what groups and our socialization efforts are evolving into!
These are things players in a group can do:
- Have a spot in a combat sigil reserved for them if another group member starts combat
- Ride a multiple player mount
- Queue for Beastmoon together
- Chat with other players in the group in a separate chat channel
But groups have been kind of awkward to form and view, so we've made forming and viewing groups easier. There's a new tab on the Social UI for groups. It shows the name, location, level and current main line quest of each player in the group.
You can use the Invite Friends to Your Group button to quickly invite any of your online friends. If you click on an open slot in the group, you can click on any player to invite them to your group.
We've added some new perks for being in a group:
- When players in a group defeat a monster, they have a better chance of collecting quest items. Completing Defeat and Collect quests is even easier in a group!
- When 4 members of a group join a combat sigil, they always get to act first when combat starts.
While there's plenty of changes here that you'll notice, we left in the original Group UI as a sort of minimized way to view your group.
Adventure Parties
Adventure Parties are permanent groups (they are NOT guilds!) that create an association between players, gives tools to help those players to synchronize their quests, and gives them a sense of identity. They are for players who want a bit more than what groups currently provide. You may belong to up to 3 Adventure Parties at a time and can have up to 12 players in each one of them.
Here's how to create an Adventure Party:
- Form a group with at least 4 players
- Each player in the group must be at least level 30
- Each player in the group must have a free Adventure Party Slot
- One player must click the Create Adventure Party button
- The player that clicks the Create Adventure Party button is the owner of the party and they first must choose a name for the party.
- Once the owner chooses a name, an Adventure Party invitation is sent to all other members of the group. Each member of the group must agree to join the party, or its creation will fizzle.
Adventure Parties display their name, the owner's name, the date that the party was created, how many members it has and how many members are currently online. The latest message is also shown. Click on the Adventure Party Details button to see the information about the party's players and messages!
Adventure Party Details
Adventure Party Details displays information about the players in the Adventure Party. Each player's name, school, level, join data or last logon date are displayed. Icons for online players and players in a group are also displayed.
On the bottom of the Adventure Party Details display is a button to leave the Adventure Party.
There is also a button to Create a Group from Online Players in the Adventure Party. The online players are displayed, and you can choose which players to invite to your Group.
There are two ways to invite players into the Adventure Party: by clicking the Invite Friends button or by clicking on an open slot and then clicking on any player. Players that you invite into the Adventure Party must be at least level 30, have a free Adventure Party slot and must be your friend. If you select a player that isn't your friend to invite into the Adventure Party, you will be prompted to become friends with them first.
Adventure Party Messages
Players in an Adventure Party can send messages to the other players proposing various activities. To send a new message click the New Message button. Then select the activity, the location for the activity and the time to meet. You can propose any time in the next week. For now, each player is allowed one Adventure Party message at a time. You may delete your own message by clicking on the Delete Message button.
When you create a new message, you are added to the list of players planning to attend the message's appointment. Each player may add or remove themselves from the list of players planning to go to the appointment. There is also a message whenever a new player joins or leaves the party.
Adventure Party Rules
Adventure Parties have a few rules:
- To stay in an Adventure Party, you must login at least once every 30 days.
- If the Adventure Party ever has just one player in it, the Adventure Party is disbanded.
NEW BEASTMOON EVENTS
New Beastmoon Monster Mayhem Avalon Map
We added the Avalon map to the Beastmoon Mayhem rotation! This map requires a bit more mastery to move through without getting turned around, so take a few rounds of play to learn the best ways to quickly dominate the new layout.
New Beastforms
Death Draconian
We have three new Beastforms to spice up your Beastmoon Game. The first up is the Death Draconian with a unique special ability that places cards in the opponent's deck. Your opponents would be foolish to try to front a Life Beastform against you while rolling the Death Draconian! Negative Charms? We got that. Stealing HOTs? We got that. Stealing Health? We got that too.
Ice Fairy
Easy there wizards, it's time to cool things down! The Ice Fairy is ready to join the fray and working down the damage in style. She is ready to Pacify even the most turbulent Storm Beastform that crosses her path.
Fire Cyclops
Not feeling the Death Draconian? How about a Fire Cyclops? I think we can all agree this is one toasty companion on any Beastmoon battlefield. The Fire Cyclops uses the power of fire (duh!) to generate pips for himself and his team. He can Taunt the enemy, the opposite ability that Ice Fairy has with Pacify.
New Event Rewards
We've got new event rewards too for both Beastmoon Hunt and Monster Mayhem! For the Beastmoon Hunt there are new gold idols, pets, and of course added Spellements. Pets and craftable gold idols will be released in the coming Beastmoon Monster Mayhem events.
We're sure you are eager to get a hold of these precious rewards. All release dates are tentative but check out below when some of the new rewards are expected to become available.
Beastmoon Hunt Rewards
- Gold Beastform Idols: Myth Ninja Pig, Ice Colossus, Death Draconian, Death Ninja Pig
- Progress Bar Pets: Myth Ninja Pig, Ice Colossus, Death Draconian. Death Ninja Pig
Beastmoon Mayhem Rewards
- Progress Bar Pets: Balance Krokomummy, Myth Rat Thief, Ice Wolf Warrior, Life Fairy
- Craftable Gold Idols
- AUG: Balance Cyclops, Balance Fairy, Balance Krok
- SEP: Life Colossus, Death Fairy, Myth Rat Thief
- OCT: Fire Minotaur, Storm Rat Thief, Ice Wolf Warrior
- NOV: Death Fairy, Myth Rat Thief, Life Fairy
Beastmoon Spellemental Rewards
And here are new Spellements that will become available for both Beastmoon events! As mentioned earlier, all dates are tentative:
- AUG: Balance
- SEP: Spiritual
- OCT: Elemental
- NOV: Spiritual
NEW SPELLS AND COMBAT CHANGES
Combat Sigil Changes
We've made a few changes to improve players' combat experience:
- If you join a combat during the planning phase, you can now select your card right away. You no longer must wait an entire round of combat before you have your turn. Some time is added to the planning phase timer so you can select your card.
- Players can no longer join a combat sigil during the final round of combat.
- The player that summoned a Henchman or Minion can now dismiss them by clicking on their red X button. You are not refunded the mana or Crowns you may have used to summon the Henchman and Minion.
- When multiple players join a sigil, they're rewarded after combat with bonus wisps.
New Spells and Minion Changes
- Visit your Ravenwood Professors to learn a brand-new trainable spell!
- Taunt and Pacify spells have newly updated mechanics first seen on Shatterhorn and Grrnadier.
- The Water Elemental and Sprite Guardian minions have been updated with new spell decks and behavior
- Added "Wyldfire" to the Fire Elemental minion's spell deck
- The Spectral Minion and Sprite Guardian spells have been reduced in cost from 4 pips to 3.
- The minion summoned by Golem: Taunt functions differently in PvP and PvE
- Animate spell redesigned with new functionality, minions, AI, and cards
- Animate TC spell made "No PvP"-TCs retain Animate's original design
- Dark Pact TC now correctly shows it providing one blade instead of two
- Sprite Guardian TC set to correct cost
New Monstrology Extracts
We have added Extract Dinos, Extract Draconians and Extract Insects for your Monstrology pleasure. You can purchase the extraction spells from Monstrologist Burke in Azteca for Dinos, Monstrologist Burke in Dragonspyre for Draconians, and Monstrologist Burke in Khrysalis for Insects.
PVP IMPROVEMENTS
As the march continues towards 5th Age, we continue to tweak matchmaking to provide the best possible experience. Many of the changes are made with an Elo rating system in mind (yet to be implemented) as well as looking to address some of the issues that plague the current and former Ages: boosting, sniping/setting, and farming rank from less experienced players. Players who ask, "Why change it?" need only look back at 4th Age (and earlier) to see these issues and understand what we're trying to put into place for 5th Age.
We have changed the matchmaking sort order to prioritize Level Band over Rank. This is a change to address current matchmaking, and it may or may not extend into 5th Age. We intend to closely monitor the ability for more skilled players to farm rank from higher level (but less skilled) players. As long as this sort order does not manifest such problems, we can extend it into 5th Age.
The matchmaking server will now sort players as follows:
- Tier, Level Band, Rank, Rating
The two biggest issues we had with our new Matchmaking system:
- Long queue times (including the "ghost queue" issue)
- Mismatches (matching players of the wrong Tier, Rank, or Level Band)
TC Gating
This change affects mostly low level PvP, though because spells become available at all levels of play, it has the potential to affect any level of PvP below max.
This change affects PvP only and prevents players from drawing treasure cards from the sideboard if a player is below the minimum level for the TC.
To determine the level of a TC, we started with the level of the learned spell (if any), then set other TCs of similar rank to the same level, and then we made a pass to deliberately set some essential TCs (blades, traps, etc.) to a lower level in order to provide more diversity in play. Last but not least, we set each TC to the minimum level for its Level Band, in order to allow players to use TCs that might be slightly out of reach. For example, a TC that matches a spell learned at level 18 would be pushed down to level 10 for the purposes of TC Gating.
We will be listening closely to player feedback on the Gating system and can adjust the required level as needed. Although it is unlikely that we will restore all TCs to the "anything goes, Wild West" that we had before, we are certainly receptive to widening the pool of available TCs at each level to keep PvP varied and exciting.
Meta Curation
One of the benefits of our recent stat audit was building in "dashboards" to allow us Devs to tweak combat settings without relying on new code to do it - easy to change, easy to change back. With that in mind, we're going to try just a couple of tweaks to "speed up" this meta.
First, we've increased the PvP Damage "intersection" from 100 to 125. This means that all schools will now get 1:1% damage increases up to 125 damage stat, with the drop-off curve occurring only after that point. Players should not expect any dramatic damage increase from this change, nor do we expect it to "fix" the slow meta - but with these new limit parameters available to us, it's worth tweaking a bit to see if it moves things in the right direction.
Second, we're adjusting the Crit damage multiplier, raising the potential damage of a crit. This will not change your chance to crit or block in any way, but it will add value to successful crits.
PvP Temporarily Free To Play
We do intend, and are still exploring options, to open 5th Age PvP in some fashion to Free to Play players. However, we have concerns about the quality of players this will bring into the 5th Age, both in terms of "unearned" rank farming from unskilled players as well as possible issues around boosting. Most importantly, because PvP is still very much "under construction," we have concerns about ushering players into an unpleasant experience. But there are some good reasons to get players into PVP now - mostly to improve matchmaking, but also to widen our pool of feedback to include those players we'd like to win over for 5th Age.
So, although the exact terms of Free-to-Play for 5th Age are still under discussion, we have decided to immediately but temporarily open free PvP to all players of L20 and above.
CROWN SHOP ADDITIONS
New Wishlist
The Crown Shop now includes a per-character wish list feature! Click on the heart icon to add items to your wish list! Wish lists can be made private, friends only or public. If a wish list is set to friends or public, anyone inspecting you can see your wish list and buy something for you from it. Items on the wish list can be marked to be saved even after purchase, or to be removed if purchased.
Improvements
- Search now searchs everything, not just the tab you are on.
- For your Wizard section at the top of each category has been removed.
- Items can now be shown or hidden based on account age, character level, character class, previous Crowns purchases, and more.
- Added Battle Ready toggle. Click the Battle-ready Button on a henchman and it will automatically be selected when you open the Crown Shop while in battle.
- Added new Bundles section.
- Friends List and Inspection button mouse overs have been improved.
MISCELLANEOUS MISCELLANY
Quests
- Players should now receive the proper mainline quest after speaking to Talbot in the Oasis
- Players should no longer get stuck in the Arena after completing the Advanced Combat Tutorial quest
- Fixed a rare instance of the quest 'Trip to the Library' not being acquired
- Quest helper now shows when playing as your pet after defeating Judd
- New Krokotopia teleporters
Combat & Spells
- Players who are in combat with other players will now notice that health, mana, and new gold wisps appears after you win the fight!
- King Borr SKB now includes the wooden and stone key requirements
- Tweaked difficulty balance of Storm Rat
- Added recipe to TC vendor for Apex Wolfen Spear
- Updated Text Chat options for Monstrology
- Corrected an issue which allowed players to train the new spells at earlier levels than intended
UI & Animations
- Improved some player animations for gear and when on mounts
- Camera angle tweaks during certain scenes like when speaking to NPCs
- Corrected some display issues on pet damage stats
- "Z" and "Print" buttons should now work properly when using Photomancy
- Various other UI and dialog fixes and tweaks
- Added a diversity of new emojis!
Housing
- Castle Tours apartment teleports should now be more reliable
- Two new housing art book items will come to the Crown Shop in the next few months.
- We've also added new housing sign options!
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FTUE
- Players should now be able to access all three streets from Olde Town
- Fixed the pre requirement for accessing Mount Olympus
Monstrology
- Sir Greggor, Squire Greggors, and Hangriest Gobbler are now labeled as bosses
- Removed Arkyn Moonblade and Skurkis Screaming Moon
- Expel Nodnard treasure cards should now be properly created
Emotes
- Emojis are only available to accounts that have at least a level 20 or above character
- Sunglass Emote should now display correctly in private messages
- Heart Emote should now display correctly when used in a sentence
Misc.
- Maycast Weakness no longer casts on the owner of the pet
- Sokkwi high guard death animations no longer overlap
- XP amounts should now display correctly
- Fighting the Rogue Engineer should no long cause a player's hand to fill with no use cards after turn 7 (for Quest: La Mort et Lemuria (goal 13))
- Maycast Weakness should no longer fire off in an endless loop
- Fixed draconian mobs in dungeons not producing expel TCs
- Fixed undead mobs in Wizard City not producing expel TCs
- Changed color of NPC Assistant Danforth's overhead name
- Emojis removed from menu chat
Game content translation notice: All languages for the Wizard City new player experience voiced dialog will be played in English. For Lemuria, Greek and Polish dialog and text will display in English.
Some Lemuria dialog quotation marks are not yet properly localized. You may see strange-looking symbols in certain dialog sequences. | | | | |
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