v3.0.4

Greetings Abalon fans!

We've concluded our first week of public multiplayer beta and I'm thrilled to see the community's active engagement and clear enjoyment with this feature. So far, you've fought over 3000 multiplayer battles together, with many thousands more in-progress and growing each day. Thank you so much for the continued feedback and suggestions to further balance and improve the game. Here's another round of changes to further improve your experience!

v3.0.4 Release Notes




1. New Feature: Find Another Match: After a ranked battle has concluded, you can now tick a box to "Find Another Match" that will automatically create a new ranked game search ticket with your same hero, guardians and deck. If a match is made at the moment of the search, it'll even add this new match to your current game queue. This compliments the "Auto Match" feature that replaces search tickets when they are filled. (Thanks Wesley)

2. Balance: New Keyword: Barrier: Prevent damage in excess of (X)

3. Balance: New Battle Mode/PvP Rule: All starting units get Barrier (4) and Hexproof until the start of their turn.

Here's a preview of the upcoming Barrier change in practice: https://youtu.be/96bPZerRMHE This change is intended to create a more positive multiplayer experience by eliminating lucky first turn hand combinations that could effectively kill guardians or completely derail the opponent's opportunity to respond before they even got to take their first turn.

Note that the barrier icon lights up as damage is received so you can tell how much additional damage the character can still receive in that turn. Once the unit has received 4 damage, the barrier triggers preventing further damage to that unit.

For 2v2 and FFA games, the temporary Hexproof also protects starting guardians from getting insta-killed by Smites/Shatters/Polymorph/etc.

First turn still has a major advantage with having first chance to position units and mulligan cards. You also get to see your opponent's team, anticipate what they might be thinking, and prepare your response before they even have a turn. Now, with the new changes, your opponent won't enter the game to find half their team destroyed before they even met you. That's a step in the right direction towards the kind of experience I want our multiplayer to be.

4. Balance: New Battle Mode/PvP Rule: You can no longer cast spells with a base cost > 2 on the opening turn (first player's first turn).

The intent for this rule was already there with the first turn player receiving only 2 mana instead of 3. What I had not previously accounted for was the ability to field starting characters with card cost discounts, allowing players to bypass that balance check.

This change prevents early first turn advantage on guardians that can cost discount powerful spells highly effective in the first turn (like Spore Pods) as well as prevent lucky starting hand draw tactics (i.e. mana surge or draw card effect tempo).

5. Balance: Triggering a combo now has an additional condition the must be met: A unit's own action or spell cannot be the trigger of its own combo unless the character has shifted from its original position by at least 1 tile.

Combos have always been intended to require unit teamwork. Previously, a unit's own knockback attack was excluded from triggering combos.

This balance change brings that rule to parity for spells as well and prevents unintended easy combos (ex: Frost Nova with a Vigil unit while a unit is up against a wall or another unit triggering the caster's own combo).

6. Balance: Orc Champion's ability changed from "When an orc is injured, give it +2/+0 until end of turn." to "When an ally orc is injured on an opponent's turn, give it +2/+0 until end of turn."

7. Balance: Incubus life reduced from 12 to 11.

8. Balance: Oni Demon's life increased from 10 to 11.

9. Balance: Occuloid's life reduced from 10 to 9.

10. Balance: Orc Chief can no longer summon goblins with its base Summoner ability on surrounding spaces it cannot legally cast a summon on (i.e. an open surrounding space where los is blocked).

11. Balance: Tribal Transmutor now applies Life Lost/Gained on the unit being transformed and carries over status effects affixed to the unit similar to Metamorph.

12. Improved combat animation timing when Barrier, Forcefield, or other effects fully prevent damage, so follow-up effects (such as summoning goblins with the Orc Chieftain) no longer fire at the moment of impact.

13. Fixed bug where async 2v2/FFA games could show the wrong player's turn after an opponent queued an off-turn surrender. (Thanks Rhubarb314)

14. Fixed bug where mouse-move targeting could crash with Error #1009 when drawing the curved targeting arrow. (Thanks pavlovman)

15. Fixed bug where skipping immediately after an encounter or ambush with Mighty Minions / Elite Guards could desync enemy hit points vs the AI. (Thanks akyro, Dmitriy81, FULGORE, and Guest_387015)

16. Fixed bug where successive Hellhound puppy or Orb of Insight card fetches in the same turn could cause an AI sync error. (Thanks Gryphon)

17. Fixed bugs where Error #3768 could occur on iOS when refreshing the multiplayer hub list while the app was in the background. (Thanks DeCicc, sakoner, potassium)

18. Fixed bug where Error #3768 could occur on iOS when a lobby player left while the app was in the background. (Thanks thedeathreaker)

19. Fixed bug where ambush / encounter battles with AI going first showed Skip instead of the Wait timer until the AI finished thinking.

20. Fixed bug where the boss intro could not be skipped because End Turn appeared disabled instead of Skip.

21. Fixed bug where returning to the title screen with a multiplayer battle snapshot still loaded could throw an exception.

22. Balance: increased mana cost of Wizard hat from 1 to 2.

23. Fixed bug where Graviton Harness was getting a Gravity spell discount despite not having the Gravity tag on its card. (Thanks Jear9682, rickard, and Manchot_Royal)

24. Fixed bug where Wall of Fire stacked on top of a Fire Trap would deal 6 damage for the wall of fire, then 4 damage for the trap instead of 2 damage for the wall, then 4 damage for the trap. (Thanks Jear9682)

25. Balance: increased mana cost of Wizard hat from 1 to 2.

26. Fixed bug where Graviton Harness was getting a Gravity spell discount despite not having the Gravity tag on its card. (Thanks Jear9682, rickard, and Manchot_Royal)

27. Fixed bug where Wall of Fire stacked on top of a Fire Trap would deal 6 damage for the wall of fire, then 4 damage for the trap instead of 2 damage for the wall, then 4 damage for the trap. (Thanks Jear9682)