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| | | | Update Highlights
A new year brings new magical possibilities to the Spiral! Do you adore your pets? Are you looking forward to the next Beastmoon Hunt? Is collecting a hobby of yours and you would like to see combat benefits from matching certain types of gear? Our Spring Update has all this and much more for you to explore!
In this update we bring out all the cuteness of pets by allowing you to play as your Wizard's pet. This update includes several exciting new features for pets. We have created new ways to play pet games, to level up your pets and unlock new talents, and even adventure as your pets with pet specific quests! There’s plenty of other pet related features we’ve been working hard on for this update.
In addition, we’ve been working on revamping the item UI, adding new Beastmoon Hunt maps (including an underwater one!), and releasing Fellspawn to those who dare challenge another Skeleton Key Boss. Speaking of water themed content, there’s now fishing in Khrysalis!
Update Highlights Include:Item UI RevampSet BonusesFind Now on InspectTwo new Beastmoon Hunt mapsSkeleton Key Boss – FellspawnKhrysalis FishingAdvanced Move for decoratorsFTUE ImprovementsPVP Improvements
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New Pet Features
PLAY AS YOUR PET
This update includes several exciting new features for pets. We have created new ways to play pet games, to level up your pets and unlock new talents, and even adventure as your pets with pet specific quests! Since there’s so many new features designed around pets in the update, let’s start with one of the highlights – Play as Your Pet.
We can’t wait to see what you think of running around the Spiral as your very own pet. If you have a pet equipped and are at least at the minimum level, you’ll see some new buttons on the main screen that allow you to enter ‘Pet Mode’. You can switch control between your Wizard and your pet very quickly, allowing you new ways to adventure through the Spiral with a press of the button.
What are the benefits of playing as your pet, aside from it simply being cool? Well, just like with the Spiral Showcase, you get points for feeding your pet and participating in the new Pet Promenade event! Pet Mode includes a pet quest tracker, Happiness reader (more about this further below as well!), and more.
For those playing though their mainline quests, you will also get an additional 4 Pet XP per quest turned in!
PET MASTERY
Pet Mastery is a way to reward your time spent with your pets. You earn mastery points each time you win a pet game, unlocking mastery badges beginning at 25 wins. It's super easy to track your wins on the pet game screens over time. Once you have earned a badge, you can AutoPlay the game (spending Energy as usual) and feed your pet immediately.
For our veteran players, we’re happy to tell you that we’ve been tracking your number of plays (and wins) for Grumpy Gobblers and Way of the Ninja Pig events since the games were introduced, so those event stats will automatically be “Grandfather Spidered in” to the Pet Mastery system. This includes getting the Grumpy Gobblers and Way of the Ninja Pig badges.
PET HAPPINESS
Many of the new pet features making it into the Spring Update are dependent on a new pet stat – Happiness! Pets use Happiness to perform a variety of marvelous feats. Each pet starts with a certain amount of Happiness. Happiness is then used by pets when performing different pet actions, including playing in pet mode, activating Combat Talents, and activating Adventure Talents.
To raise your pet's Happiness, you need to feed it pet snacks. Don’t worry, you can’t over feed a pet! Some activities deplete Happiness at a steady rate (such as Play as Your Pet) and some features require you to spend Happiness for each activation.
PET TALENTS
We know you adore your pets and we realize that you probably teach them all sorts of tricks. Well, we’re giving you a new way to teach them tricks by providing them with special talents! We are introducing over 40 new talents with this update, a mix of Adventuring Talents and Combat Talents, with more to come!
Adventuring Talents – Some pets have Adventure Talents which allow you to send your pet to fetch reagents or chests as you come across them while questing. Pets will often come back with bonus goodies that your Wizard might have overlooked. Different pets are good at finding different things – gold, reagents, treasure cards... even Spellements!
Chest Interaction - When the pet comes back, they may get a bonus from a custom loot table.
Reagent Interaction - When the pet comes back, they may get a bonus from a custom (school specific) loot table.
Combat Talents – For the feistier pets, we added combat talents – spells that you can direct your pet to cast on command—or as we call them, “Will Cast.” Each combat talent has a windup (how many rounds must pass before you can use it), a cooldown (how many rounds must pass before you can use it again), and max activations (how many times you can use it in single combat). Note that if you are stunned while in combat, you will not be able to issue an order to your pet.
To use a “Will Cast” combat talent, activate your pet’s spell before selecting your Wizard’s own spell (or passing the round). Combat talents require your pet to spend a certain amount of Happiness to activate them. The higher the talent rank, the more Happiness each activation costs.
For now, all pet “Will Cast” talents are flagged No PvP, but as we evaluate these systems, we hope to lift that restriction in future updates.
Locked Talents – Some of these new talents appear on your pet in a “locked” state. In order to unlock these talents for use, you will need to collect new Pet Reagents (denoted in your reagents tab with a fancy pet collar). Pet Reagents are granted automatically each time you level up a pet (at Ancient and above). They can also come from progress bars during events like the Pet Promenade (see below), the Scroll of Fortune, and from Packs.
Once your Wizard unlocks a particular talent on a pet, that Wizard can then hatch with that pet and if the talent is included it has a chance to get passed down to the hatched pet in an unlocked state. Other Wizards will have to collect reagents and unlock the talent for themselves, they do not transfer between characters!
Pets can only have one adventure talent and one combat talent at a time.
NEW PETS
All these pet features wouldn’t be right without new pets in the works! We have several new pets ready to release over the succeeding months. There will also be a re-release of seven Level-48 school pets, one for each of the schools, to introduce the new talents to the pet hatching system.
We’ve also added a new mainline quest to the beginning player experience to grant new pets that showcase some of the new pet features going into the Spring Update. Don't worry, if you've already completed these quests, you can hatch with any of the new pets to obtain these talents through the hatching process.
Several premium pets have also been added to our Live Events – including new pets awarded via the Beastmoon Hunt and new variants of the class Hamster for all Deckathalons! There’s also a chance at the end of the Pet Promenade progress bar to get the updated Ravenwood Hamster.
A few balance tweaks have been made to the hatching system as well. The cost formula for hatching pets has been adjusted, accounting for both pet pedigree and age. In-person hatching costs will generally be cheaper than before, while Kiosk prices will generally be more expensive as your pet age and pedigree develop. As we mentioned above, we also added Pet Mastery and Pet Talents.
We are also altering the kiosk to limit talent searches to two at a time. Additionally, we fixed a bug with the Kiosk search that should find it less likely to get the “Pet Unavailable” error when attempting to hatch at the kiosk.
EGG TIMERS
Beginning with this update, pets that you acquire from quests, loot drops, or crowns purchases hatch instantly – there’s no hatch timer! Pets that you acquire by hatching with another pet, however, have a new hatch timer that varies based on the age of the parent – older pets take longer to hatch. You can now pay gold to hatch these eggs faster (and we’ll prorate the cost as the hatch timer counts down).
Pet Event: Pet Promenade
This new event is similar to the Spiral Showcase but focused on pets. At the end of the progress bar you will always get a random pet jewel, but also a chance to get the Ravenwood Hamster! There are also materials to unlock new pet Combat and Adventure Talents and other pet related goodies.
Expect the Pet Promnenade event to occur between other regularly scheduled events like the Spiral Showcase, Beastmoon Hunt, and Deckathalons.
Item UI Revamp (User Interface)
We’ve revamped the Item UI (User Interface) to make it even more organized than ever before!
Our goal was to make item comparison intuitive and easy to navigate while showing all the important information. We’ve split all item info into multiple tabs – basic stats, bonus adjustments, and spells. Many of the new item UI features are accessed by using CTRL-Left Click OR Right Mouse Click which will open a permanent window for you to compare items more easily. You can CTRL-Left Click OR Right Mouse Click again to close. It is also possible to navigate in a circular manner between the tabs with the “Tabs” key. In future updates, we will continue work on additional ease-of-use improvements to the UI based on player feedback.
The most significant change we've added is the Compare feature, allowing you to compare two items, and showing you in a 3rd window the net effect that swapping a new piece of gear will have on your character. The main UI shows the base stats you'll get from the gear itself. This is the summary page. The adjustment tab will show you stats you'll get from socketing jewels and bonuses from item sets.
We've also retooled the way we indicate bonus spell cards provided by gear. We now indicate how many different spells are provided by your gear and indicate the number of copies of each spell using a small “pip,” similar to how we display copy counts in your spell Deck. Spell cards are color coded to show you where it came from.
Set Bonuses
Set bonuses are now being added to equipment! Set bonuses grant you additional stats and benefits if you equip multiple items from the same “set”. The more items you have equipped from that set increases the bonuses you get from it up to a certain threshold. Sometimes you’ll be able to equip an additional item or two that provides the same bonus as the items already equipped.
Regarding item sets, you’ll be easily able to arrange multiple sets for quick review and selection.
We are launching this feature with a couple of sets you can collect with more coming in the future. Note: Sets are per school in some cases.
Find Now on Inspect (Fast Finder)
Let’s go Window Shopping!
Are you tired of asking people “Where did you get that?” and maybe they don’t even remember? Well we have a solution for you! Find Now on Inspect is a new feature that allows you to right click on a Wizard and select options to view what they are wearing. Hovering over many of the items will not only reveal what that item is, but also where it can be acquired for your own Wizard.
When you’re inspecting someone’s equipment you can now click on the icon and it will pop up all the locations you can find the item in-game including shops, boss loot, quest rewards, gardening loot, minigame loot, fishing chests, and the Crown Shop. If the item can be found on a Prepaid Card, there is a button that will take you to the web page with more info about that Card.
If the item can be purchased in the Crown Shop either by itself, or in a Bundle, or as a chance to receive it in a Booster Pack, you can click the Buy button.
If the item is stitched you can choose to find the Appearance or the Stats.
Go ahead and find a Wizard to try it out!
New Beastmoon Maps
Two new challenging Beastmoon Hunt maps are ready for you to conquer! These two maps add to the existing maps that have come out since the Beastmoon Hunt’s inception last year. Each one adds a different flavor of gameplay as you work your way across the map. The scenery can be so beautiful and enchanting in these latest two that you need to be careful not to get caught up in it and forget you’re in it to win it!
Celestia
Celestia is the first map we plan to release for the next Beastmoon Hunt. As you would expect for a Celestia themed map, the cool unique aspect of this map is it’s entirely underwater! Ruins dot the landscape with a central tower peaking above it all. Seaweed walls line the perimeter and certain routes with giant clams situated near them that contain shadow, chests, and other spawn related objects. And bursts of bubbles and schools of fish will wash across your vision as you proceed across the map!
Aquila Mines
The next map is based on Aquila! This mine-themed map has great visibility for the whole zone. Hamster wheels power cranes in the background as you navigate your way across and around the many cliffs and staircases.
We also added two new Beastforms for you to play (and unlock): the Life Colossus and the Life Fairy.
- Life Colossus – This Beastform focuses on intercepting damage to his team and leveraging DOTs for his own ends.
- Life Fairy – A true beauty and beast! This Beastform can heal and hit, generate pips, and expertly exploit blades.
In addition to new maps and new Beastforms, we are continuing to listen to player feedback to improve the Beastmoon Hunt play experience. To that end, we’ve added the following new features:
Join As Group – You asked for it, you got it! You can now form up into groups of up to six players. When someone from your Group joins the Beastmoon match queue, everyone in the Group is added. (If you don't want to play, you can drop out of the Group). If your Group is less than the 6 players required for a Team, we will add solo players from the queue to fill out the rest of your Team. (And we have a little bit of extra matchmaking magic behind the scenes to steer new players into matches together, and away from more experienced players/Groups.)
Anti-Griefing – We've created a system that flags players for “Griefing” – covering a variety of unhelpful and/or unsportsmanlike behavior. The system will put them into a penalty box with escalating penalties. We hope this helps to remove bad actors from the event sooner and keeps them out for future matches. As always, if you experience behavior that violates our Terms of Service, please continue to report related players through our existing reporting system.
Skeleton Key Boss - Fellspawn
Deep beneath the bustling Wizard City streets lies an eldritch horror: the Fellspawn. Sealed away in the Catacombs ages ago by the magic of the ancient Druids, today the only thing keeping the Fellspawn and its tenacious tentacular familiars contained is a Gold Skeleton Lock.
While the Fellspawn’s exact origins are unclear, many speculate that it was a survivor of the destruction of the First World. Other scholars believe it was born from the aftershock of the creation of Shadow Magic. Then there are those who believe the Fellspawn isn’t even real; rather, a myth created by the Druids to scare children.
If you possess a Gold Skeleton Key – and friends with the intestinal fortitude – you can enter the Fathomless Tomb and determine for yourself if the Fellspawn is real or not.
Here are some requirements and the location to get started: - Location: The Wizard City Catacombs – The Fathomless Tomb
- Requirements: Must have quest ‘No Place Like Catacomb’; and a Gold Skeleton Key.
- Level: 130
- Loot: Chance to drop the Dragoon’s Equipment Set
Khrysalis Fishing
Love to fish and want to discover new fish in new areas? You can now fish in Khrysalis! Here the swimming fishies that await catching: - Antchovy
- Butterfly Shirmp
- Deep Bee Bass
- Dragon Fry
- Long John Silverfish
- Mantis Ray
- Rhino Fish (introduced in Zafaria)
- Spider Squid (Black Widow Squid)
You can find all these fish in Silent Market, Moon Cliffs, Last Wood, Crescent Beach, Sardonyx, Kondha desert, and of course the hub zone of Bastion.
Add all your fresh Khrysalis fish to the multi-fish tanks!
Advanced Move for Castle Decorators
Moving items around your homes is now easier than ever! Firstly, get to level 15 and then you’ll be open to all that’s possible with decorating your home and stuffing it with things you’ll be moving around.
To use the new Advanced Move tools, click the Advanced Move button which will open a new Advanced Movement window. This window is what you’ll use to move items around. Want to place a boat in water? Now you can!
Advanced Move is a powerful feature, so be careful not to move something in an area that’s truly inaccessible! Not to worry though, if you use Advanced Move to move an item to an inaccessible location, you can recover it by opening your attic, selecting the house tab and then selecting the object and moving it to your backpack.
FTUE Improvements (First Time User Experience)
The FTUE (First Time User Experience) is the first two hours or so of gameplay. That two hours of impact for new players gives the first impression of the game for a Wizard’s experience far beyond those first couple of hours. This is why we’ve been heavily focused on this initial entry into the game for the last few game updates. It’s important that new players have fun exploring for the first time if they are to reach all the other exciting content that comes afterward!
This FTUE update centered around Olde Town and Triton quest flow improvements (just like Unicorn Way), and we added new pet content to the mainline in Olde Town. There were a lot of updates which you may notice as you adventure through the beginning zones. We made quest helper automatically point you back to your mainline quest in the rare event you lose it, and if you've done the tutorial before, we allow you to skip it at any point now.
PVP Improvements (Player vs Player)
We’d like to thank our PVP community for their continued and valuable feedback. We’re working hard behind the scenes to plan out some great updates to this section of the game in the future, but we had a few changes we wanted to roll out this Spring.
During Test Realm, we disabled Tournament costs and rewards to gather your feedback and to decide on the right course of action. First, let's talk about our concerns. There have been many changes to the Tournament system since it was first launched to where it stands today. Many players have amassed large amounts of Arena Tickets while other players are still struggling to collect enough tickets to buy the PvP gear that you need to compete in ranked.
On top of this, we will most likely retire the current Arena tickets and/or gear when we launch the 5th Age of PvP, so that all players can start on a more even footing. Our intent was to prevent current players from investing in a system with a planned retirement. However, based on community feedback, we have decided to restore the Tournament structure almost entirely so that players can continue to work for the PvP gear (if they so choose) until 5th Age arrives. The entry fee has been restored, but Tournaments now drop only Arena tickets as rewards.
Finally, we have made some changes to the vendor offerings in response to 'ticket inflation.'
The most significant change we have made to Ranked PvP in this update is the introduction of Turn-Based play, which was a frequent community request. However, based on Test Realm feedback, the community let us know that a certain element of fun - what we call 'predictive play' - seemed to be lacking from Turn-Based play. We made two changes to PvP to try to restore some of that feeling: Pip Generation and Hand Manipulation.
Pip Generation: Pips, power pips, and shadow pips now generate on the opponent's turn, rather than your own turn. This will allow you to see what resources your opponent will have on their turn and react with more strategic counters.
Hand Manipulation: During your opponent's turn (when you can see your hand, but you are waiting for your opponent to play), you can discard cards, draw TCs from your sideboard to replace them, and combine enchant cards you have in your hand. Because we have shifted hand manipulation to your off-turn, you will NOT draw cards from your main deck at the start of your turn; instead, at the end of your own turn, you will draw up to a full 7 cards (and can then manipulate that hand during your off-turn). Your ability to discard, to draw TCs from your sideboard, and enchant during your own turn remains as it has always been.
Shadow Shrike, Sentinel, Seraph, and Trickster no longer double reduce backlash from “Likes.” Backlash for these spells now starts at 40% Health and caps at 70%. Dark Nova, Dark Fiend and Dark Shepherd backlash now starts at 30% and caps at 70%. This is for both PvP and PvE.
A couple of other changes to note - many spells have been added to a “watch list” for their power in the new meta, and Fire Beetle TCs are now NO PvP.
We continue to gather feedback and monitor match data as we move forward to a more balanced, fun, and rewarding PvP experience. Our goal is to be as receptive and responsive to feedback as possible, and we will try many things – not all of which will have universal agreement, and some of which may not work. Players should expect frequent and ongoing changes until we can officially relaunch PvP with a new 5th Age.
Thank you for your continued support and feedback!
Miscellaneous Miscellany
- Catacombs Vanguard Gear drop rate has been increased on bosses
- Team Up queue players can enter instances again with an access warning
- Players can now buy Treasure Cards from the Bazaar via Harold Argleston
- Added Second Chance Chests to the Catacombs
- Mana Burn now destroys the proper 3 Pip value count
- Begue TC from Eye of Bartleby is now Rank 3
- Various monster spawn and display issues resolved
- Several minor visual and audio adjustments
- Several performance and stability tweaks
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Wizards! As with any major content release to the game, sometimes the Spiral develops a kink or two in its beautiful structure. Not to worry though, as our team is on the quest! The Spring Update was released earlier this week and today's update resolves several identified issues.
If you don't see an issue here that's still apparent in the game, we most likely know about it and are hoping to get it resolved in future updates. This is especially true for larger systems like the Item UI.
Thanks community for your feedback since the Spring Update was released! Here's the latest game update! If you see continued or different issues with the following, please reply below specifically for those issues:
Update Notes for May 15
- Quests 'Pitter Pattern' & 'Some Assembly Required' can now be completed
- 'A Chain of Ice and Fire' quest arrow now directs you to the correct area
- Doomsday Krok Gauntlet mobs now load properly for combat
- Doomsday Krok Gauntlet teleporter now exits players properly
- Inventory UI now displays correctly on bundles
- Modified Death Ninja Pig in Beastmoon Hunt
- Made adjustments to Beastmoon Hunt penalties
- Several other Beastmoon Hunt tweaks
- Some client performance issues resolved
We are still investigating and working to resolve the points loss for Scroll of Fortune and confirming a Beastmoon Hunt issue.
Update Notes for May 7
Quests- Players can now complete the Storm Quest ‘Pitter Pattern’ and ‘Some Assembly Required’ on Triton Ave.
- Quest ‘Good to be King’ will now reveal Thermidor
- Herman in Crab Alley will now continue quest lines ‘Trouble Underfoot’ and ‘Under Pressure’
- Some quests should no longer prematurely show or be offered twice
Combat & Items- Clarified some Krokotopian item set wand names
- Sprite Queen spell card will now show up when looking over Auspice of Icewind Glad weapon
- Pips are now properly deducted visually upon casting of the Storm school spell ‘Tempest’
- First round PVP attacker now draws cards into hand
Pets & Mini-games- Hatching 2 Ultra Dark hounds now shows a completion timer
- Spirit of the Forest pet now provides the ‘Growzone Layer’ card
- Addressed an issue with not being able to skip mini-games after a win
- Players can now craft the Fortified Grilled Cheese pet snack with the proper reagents
- Ravenwood Hamster Pet Promenade reward should now drop the correct amount of time
- Pet Promenade rewards and goal count should now show correctly
- Several missing or incorrect pet reagent icons should now show correctly
UI- Improved how equipment comparing is presented
Misc- Resolved client crash when switching to Play as Your Pet mode
- Adjusted Khrysalis Fishing catch rates
- Several background music and SFX fixed
Depending on the type of bug, this may not be a complete list. If you are unsure if something has been resolved, please try logging into the game to confirm.
We are also still monitoring and resolving other issues in this iterative process, and are continuing to improve upon the UI as feedback comes in.
Let us know what you think of this latest update! Thanks Wizards.
Update Notes for April 30
Quests- Spirit of the Forest provides the Growzone Layer card again
- Sylvia Drake now shows Duncan properly in all instances
- Herman in Crab Alley now provides the next available quest
- Under Pressure quest now works properly regardless of elixir use
- A Penny Saved quest book is back in the Commons
- Second Chance chest in Reality Edge now gives out the correct items
- Sir Nigel no longer repeats his dialog
Combat & Loot- Shadow Spells: Shadow Shrike, Trickster, and Seraph blowback and damage is adjusted
- Fellspawn is more generous now with increased gold and jewel drops
UI & Display- Item image now shows when mousing over left-pane loot preview icons
- Right-clicking a loot item preview icon now removes the icon
- Added a minimum level to the Skeleton Key tab on Team-Up Kiosk
- Several Set Bonus names adjusted to match the item title prefix
- Several text display tweaks
Play as Your Pet- Sitting or using certain items should no longer cause your Wizard to get physically stuck
- Players now show properly after using Photomancy
- Dismounting a 2+ person mount works again
- Several stability fixes
Update Notes for April 24
Quests
- Previously completed quests no longer show as available
- Players should now be able to complete these quests:
- 'Pitter Pattern' (there are still some issues we hope to resolve by next week)
- 'The Lore You Know'
The Monkey Business magic carpet ride no longer causes issues with completing the Mirage storylineCorrected issues with Wizards who were partway through Triton Avenue before the update and had multiple mainline questsPenny now gives pet snacks to playersResolved some duplicate NPCs appearing in Triton Avenue
Pets
- Players can no longer turn into pets while waiting to enter a combat sigil
- Pets are now show properly under the Hybrid tab in the Pet Kiosk
- Pets should appear properly when right clicking them in your inventory
Combat & Loot
- Fellspawn will now drop skeleton keys and socket wrenches
- Corrected issue with Fellspawn losing his bubble
- Myth Deckathalon now drops the Myth deck instead of the Storm deck
- Entering PvP while Playing as Your Pet will now properly change you back into your Wizard and allow you to cast spells
- Players should now draw properly in Ranked PvP
- Tournaments now show Arena Ticket Rewards properly
Misc.
- Several graphical issues resolved
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This is the only stat attribute whose value can increase and decrease. In the bottom left corner of your screen, you can open the Pet HUD by clicking on the little piggy above your potion bottles. If you click on the first icon with a pet snack on it, you’ll get a new prompt window. You choose your desired snack and click the “Offer Snack for Happiness” button or the snack button in bottom left corner. This will start refilling your pet’s happiness bar.
How can I use it?
