The time has come for our next major monthly update, 0.2 is nearly here and it arrives with some heavily requested features as we continue to work through our Roadmap.
Let's cover the downtime portion first, then get into all the fun stuff. Here's the usual countdown for when maintenance will begin as well.
- Servers Locked: Thursday, March 28th at 9 AM Central[/*]
- Service Downtime: Approximately 1 hour[/*]
Fun stuff time - first out of the gate, a new Veil Demon that many of you have known about since the Invitational, Shadow Master. Clone your enemy and utilize deployable buff stations to enhance your possessed minions as a Shadow Master. It's your choice how you want to utilize the clones you create, either offensively or defensively, enabling a whole new world of strategies for the Veil Demon and challenges for the Heroes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rX7JcCifDo
In addition, don't forget about the Twitch Prime promotion that started last week, and will run for 4 months. You'll receive QC Points and Boosts every month, with some special rewards along the way just for linking your Twitch account to your QC Games account. More details on that as we move forward.
Another major roadmap item we're debuting with 0.2 is the long-awaited Challenge System. Challenges are achievements players can accomplish and earn rewards for throughout the game. In 0.2 we've added the first set of Challenges, which includes rewards for every level earned in every class up to level 30. These rewards are varied and include things like equipment items with brand new talents, gold, emotes, hats, prestige class names, and outfits. Additionally, at levels 16 and 18 you will unlock the ability to use general and ultimate spells from any other owned class in the same school of magic without having to level up those classes.
We've got even more coming in this update in the form of bug fixes and optimizations, which you can see in the lovely bullet points below.
Updates and Changes:
General
- Added Shadow Master Veil Demon Class [/*]
- Added Challenges System[/*]
- A new section has been added to the "Character" Tab ("C"), where you can view all of your progress on individual Challenge categories. [/*]
- Added Leveling Up Challenges and Rewards for every class including Equipment, Gold, Cross-Class Ability Unlocks, and Outfits.[/*]
- These rewards can all be claimed retroactively.[/*]
- Additional Categories of Challenges coming soon.[/*]
- All players will now automatically receive all 6 'default' Hero Classes, instead of only the one chosen in Character Creation. [/*]
- The Free Weekly Rotation will now contain two classes instead of four, a single non-default Hero class and a single Veil Demon Class[/*]
- The Free Weekly Rotation will now update on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, to match up with our patching schedule.[/*]
- Rarity and prices of several classes have been reduced.[/*]
- Ranking System Beta. There are now two Ranks, one for Hero and a separate one for Veil Demon. As a result, everyone's Rank will be reset.[/*]
- Added a /help menu to help new and existing players understand various aspects of the game, and detail some non-obvious chat commands.[/*]
- Added a "Blocking" command that will hide all chat messages from the blocked player. It will also prevent that player from sending you party invites. [/*]
Classes and Combat
Veil Demon
- Possessed NPCs will now receive 1k health on possession. This health is lost on depossess. [/*]
- Possessed Boss NPCs will receive 33% damage buff. [/*]
- There is no longer a cast delay after de-possessing.[/*]
- Hero Minions can no longer be targeted by several Veil Demon spells, including Veil Rift and Aethyr Coil.[/*]
- Hero Minions can no longer trigger Veil Demon breaches.[/*]
- Chronos Gem. Reduced cooldown to 50s.[/*]
- Winds of Auros. Now purges buffs from affected targets and applies a 50% damage taken debuff for the next 3x. Max charges reduced to 2.[/*]
- Soul Infusion. Stacking bonuses are no longer removed on depossess, instead they will decay over time. Possession stops decay. Re-casting Soul Infusion will enable gaining of stacks again. Casting Soul Infusion on a new target will remove stacks on previous target.[/*]
- Summon Elite. Now starts with 1/3rd of a charge.[/*]
- Veil Rift. Now has a 1s windup where the target is locked in place and the Veil Demon aim the launch direction more reliably. Targets inside the Veil can now walk through destructible objects. Cooldown now starts once the Veil Demon leaves the Veil.[/*]
- Veil Shroud. No longer blocks ability to target creates inside, but still blocks all projectiles. Now lasts until replaced.[/*]
- Command. Cooldown reduced to 8s. No longer has charges. Movement speed buff reduced to 30%. [/*]
- Sacrifice. Can only be used on grunts and now explodes target instantly instead of on health trigger. [/*]
Arcane
- Flamestrike. Fixed an issue in which this could stun enemies while in the dodging state.[/*]
- Stasis Beam. Fixed an issue where the total effect of the spell was not properly manipulated by haste or slow effects.[/*]
- Haste is now named Accelerate[/*]
Battle
- Cyclone Blade. Fixed an issue where the total effect of the spell was not properly manipulated by haste or slow effects.[/*]
- Resolute Block. Caster is immune to all damage and stuns for duration. Lasts up to 2s or on input release. Damage received will heal caster. [/*]
Dark
- Frenzied Shambler. Reduced cooldown to 8s.[/*]
- Grim Reaper Form. Fixed an issue where Grim Reaper Form would trigger while downed if you take a talent that grants Ultimate charge.[/*]
- Overwhelming Power. Fixed an issue in which the frequency was not correctly defined in the tooltip.[/*]
Shadow
- Bloodlust. Updated the tooltip to match the fact you can only lifesteal up to 100%.[/*]
- Mob of Ravens. No longer targetable by allies or enemies. Can no longer launch enemies in the air.[/*]
- Talon Frenzy. Fixed an issue where the total effect of the spell was not properly manipulated by haste or slow effects.[/*]
Tech
- Arcane Converter. No longer consumes Healing Microbots, but the damage bonus per active Healing Microbots has been reduced.[/*]
- Lead Storm. Fixed an issue where the total effect of the spell was not properly manipulated by haste or slow effects.[/*]
Maps and NPCs
- All NPCs damage and health have been reduced slightly across all modes. [/*]
- Oni Boss fight mechanic has changed. 3 orbs spawn at 85% and 70% health. 6 orbs spawn at 55% and 40% health. 9 orbs spawn at 25% and 10% health. As long as one Orb is active the Oni gains 25% haste and invulnerability. Spawning orbs no longer interrupts the Oni. Malestrom is now cast at 70%, 40%, and 10% health. Maelstrom no longer consumes orbs.[/*]
- Ra Pillar Mechanic. Has been reduced from 3 orbs to 2 orbs in Co-op vs AI Adept and Co-op vs Player.[/*]
- Sekhmet Sacrifice Mechanic. Now does 75% max health damage to sacrificed target, down from 100%.[/*]
- Fixed several destructible object spawn location exploits in Valley of Kings. [/*]
- Kiev Artifact Objective. Artifacts spawn locations have been moved farther away from the drone.[/*]
- Academy Training Room. Komainu Annihilator is now available to spawn from the tab menu.[/*]
Objectives
- Defeat Enemies. Contribution per enemy killed has been reduced slightly.[/*]
- Capture Uplinks. Banished and stealthed enemies no longer block capture progress.[/*]
- Collect Veil Beacons. Count is now displayed with a dedicated UI icon and larger number. Elite enemies now drop 6.[/*]
- Escort Drone. Banished and stealthed enemies no longer block capture progress.[/*]
- Deliver Artifacts. Heroes will now drop the artifact if they fall into a pit. [/*]
- Secure Relic. Objective radius has been reduced. Objective progress rate has been reduced.[/*]
Equipment Talents and Gems
- Added over 50 new Equipment Talents across all classes. Several of these new talents can be found on equipment rewards in the Class Challenges. [/*]
- Invis to Veil Demon. Stealth happens after 8s of not using spells or basic attacks. After 8s, you are stealthed for up to 7s. Stealth can be broken by using spells or basic attacks.[/*]
- Basic attacks apply slow to possessed targets has been reduced from 10% per stack to 5%.[/*]
- Sacrifice Immediate Explosion. This is now the base functionality for sacrifice. This talent has been replaced with Increases Max Charges and Reduces Charge time.[/*]
- Command Bonus Damage Prismatic Gem. Instead of reducing max charges, this now increases the cooldown.[/*]
- Mob of Ravens +1. Now also increases damage of the clones by 33%.[/*]
Miscellaneous
- Lifesteal was improperly tracking as "Heal" in the scoreboard - this has been corrected to properly track as "Mitigation".[/*]
- Match chat has been properly name Mission (note, this also changes the slash command to access this channel to /mission).[/*]
- Match Bonus in the Play Menu has been renamed to Mission Bonus.[/*]
- "Cooldown and Charge Accrual" has been properly named "Cooldown and Charge Cooldown".[/*]
- "Cooldown and Charge Cooldown for Minion Spells while possessing" no longer applies to bosses.[/*]
- Fixed an issue where some gems were multiplicative with one another.[/*]
- Fixed an issue that applied the Cooldown and Charge Cooldown for Minion Spells to apply to bosses.[/*]
- Fixed an issue that caused the Damage Echo talent to deal more damage than intended. It should now be 50% of the damage dealt in all cases.[/*]
- Fixed an issue where some Roots were considered an Ailment.[/*]
- Recruit mode has been removed as an option[/*]
- Bastet - Prowl. No longer shows impact hits from enemy attacks while immune.[/*]
- Juggernaut - Juggernaut Smash. Fixed an issue where the total effect of the spell was not properly manipulated by haste or slow effects.[/*]
- Fixed an issue that caused Ra's dodge counter not to display on the HUD[/*]
- Fixed an issue that caused Oni's dodge counter not to display on the HUD[/*]
- Fixed an issue that caused Sekhmet's dodge counter not to display on the HUD[/*]
- Fixed an issue that caused the Firestorm Onryo to have more health than intended.[/*]
- Spray is now a bindable key.[/*]
- Season 0 quest will no longer be granted to new players.[/*]
Known Issues:
- Challenges: Due to the retroactive nature of challenges, high-level players will receive a large number of rewards upon joining the Library of Alexandria. Please claim those rewards first, then you will be able to chat and accept party invites.[/*]
- Challenges: If you do not claim a reward after acknowledging the reward, you may get a second pop-up upon your next login[/*]
- Challenges: If you claim a reward, then exit to Alexandria and load the rewards screen again, the same challenge may still be active. Attempting to claim it will cause an error message, but your reward will have already been claimed.[/*]
- The rewards for Veil Demon players winning a Co-op vs Player match early has improved with the win bonus applying regardless of duration, but we are still working on improving it beyond that.[/*]
- Siphoning Skull's stun effect will sometimes end early.[/*]
- Players may get caught in a longer load screen than expected when starting a match, and can hear a match starting in the background. This cannot be fixed by reconnecting, but the player will eventually connect within a few minutes[/*]
- Some abilities are not tracking their score correctly on the in mission stat board, resulting in displaying lower than actual stat numbers[/*]
- Rapid Fire Clip only reloads properly when placed in the 3rd spell slot for a Tech class.[/*]
- Bonus AoE Damage gems do not work with the following abilities: Cerberus Inferno, Sacrifice, Vortex Slug, Shards of Cerberus, Cerberus Core[/*]
- We've noticed a rare occurrence during the Hero reviving process may deactivate by itself before reaching completion during multiplayer matches[/*]
