Oct 15, 2014

Magicka: Wizard Wars Celebrates a Year of Severely Tested Friendships!

Community Announcements - [Pdx] Escher

STOCKHOLM — October 15, 2014 — Paradox Interactive and Paradox North today celebrated the one-year anniversary of Magicka: Wizard Wars, the game where bad spelling is finally punishable by death. Released in Early Access one year ago today, Magicka: Wizard Wars now has a community of close to 1 million registered users, all of whom (along with anyone else brave enough to play) will receive the gift of a special Imp skin for their helpful in-game monstrosities. In addition, all players who supported Magicka: Wizard Wars early on with the purchase of a Founder’s Pack will receive color versions of the Imp skin to match their Founder Robes in the near future. There will also be a special gift for all players who participated in the Alpha.

Since the game’s debut in 2013, the community has grown significantly, closing in on 1 million players, and the following milestones have been achieved (measured both by magic and science):

25,000 matches of Magicka: Wizard Wars now played on an average day (average of 17 matches per minute)
Over 300 items now available via in-game store (almost one new item per day since the game’s public release)
Over 1,400 bugs annihilated thanks to player feedback, not including updates made for game balance

“The Wizard Wars community never ceases to amaze us, and it’s not just because they can shoot fiery death beams on command,” grins David Nisshagen, Game Director. “When we launched last year, we wanted to give the Magicka fans a game as fun and unique as the original, but with a balanced PvP and a stronger game engine. Now, after one full year of weekly updates, there's a new match of Wizard Wars starting every five seconds. Every added feature, robe, map, or Magick sinceis better than the last, thanks to the constant improvements our players I know you can’t see our faces through those mysterious wizard robes, but believe me when I say we’re all beaming with grateful pride right now.”

Players who log in to Magicka: Wizard Wars between the 15th and the 22nd of October , will receive a special anniversary Imp Skin, available from the in-game store for only one crown.

Magicka: Wizard Wars, which is free to download and play immediately in Early Access, is a spellcasting action (PvP) game where two teams of four wizards each . Warring Wizards combine elements to attack, defend, and generate total confusion in hundreds of ways.

Oct 7, 2014

Game Update - 7th October 2014

Community Announcements - [Pdx] Escher

Hi all!

Today's update is now up and running. Big changes are the huuuuuge balance overhaul, a new Warfare Map, emotes, and a bunch of tutorials in the Training Ground!

Items added to the store: Spear of Longinus, Staff of Six Paths, a shiny new Highlander robe skin, something "fishy" in the robe section.

Patch notes below!

New Features

Tutorials in Training Grounds! Choose different ones from the list and learn the ropes!
Get Emotes when purchasing Robes, and use them In-Game and in the Lobby! Press the Hotkey to trigger them (Default: P) or use chat commands!
A new Warfare map with teleporters!

Water Affinity and Spells

Now controls Ice and Steam Resistance, 0.75-1.25.
Now controls size of Steam Sprays.
Now controls amount of Ice Projectiles spawned and their velocity.
Now controls movement speed while Water Spraying.
Now controls Steam and Water AoE size.
Now controls AoE range in projectiles.
Now controls amount of Ice Barriers spawned.
Water Spray width modifier changed from 0.9-1.1 to 0.8-1.2, length from 0.8-1.2 to 0.7-1.3
Steam Spray has a unique size modifier, length 0.7-1.3.
Water AoEs size modifier changed from 0.7-1.3 to 0.6-1.4.
Water Bomb and Mine AoEs has a unique range modifier of 0.8-1.2.
Projectile charge up changed from 0.75-1.25 to 0.8-1.2.
Ice and Ice+Earth projectiles now always deal same damage, but Water Affinity affects range velocity and amount.
Water Spray now has a significant movement speed slow down. (1 elements weighs 3, 2 weighs 4 and 3 weighs 5)
QF spray has base damage and range but has highest movement. QFF has base range but deals more damage. QQF deals base damage but has longer range and Wets.
Increased Water Spray max range from 6m to 9m. Steam remains at 6m.
QFF and !QFF now counts as consisting of two Steam elements, for damage purposes. This allows it to be blocked by !EQF.
Increased base push amount from Water Sprays. Min from 40-50 and max from 60-70.
Removed Push increase by affinity since lowering push amount makes you stun someone for longer time. Walk speed is now the main boost for Pushing.
A Half Water Ward now protects you against 50% of Steam/Ice Damage.
Water AoEs now only Push when Water is the majority element. For example a !WWQ won't Push, but a !QQS will.
Water Mines push nerfed somewhat due to bad data being repaired.
Weight of Steam elements in Sprays increased from 2 to 3.

Shield Affinity and Spells

Now controls the number of Barriers, Bombs, Mines and Storms spawned.
Affinity modifiers changed from (when Earth Affinity affected Earth Barriers) 0.65-1.35 to 0.5-1.5.
Mine Immunity to own elements have been removed.
Effectiveness of Wards increased. Changed from 0.75-1.25 to 0.5-1.5

Lightning Affinity and Spells

Removed duration modifier.
Now fires off 3 bolts per default again.
Hit angle widened from 30° to 37.5°.
The amount of Lightning in a Lightning spell now determins its range.
Lightning is now blocked better by Barriers. (Fixed after Test Server feedback)
Damage revamped. Lightning only used for base damage and range, Death deals most damage, Cold and Fire mostly adds effects.
Min range is now 3m, Max range 12m.
Force Lightning cast duration changed from 0.8sec to 1sec.
AoE Lightning cast duration changed from 1.2sec to 1.1sec.
AoE Lightning damage and range changed to match Force Cast.
Made som visual tweaks to Self-Electrocuted to make it pop more.
Lightning range kept per arc jump changed from 50% to 66%.
Lightning Storms' Life damage increased from 35 to 50. Lightning damage reduced from 70 to 35.
Improved AoE selection logic, bases desired targets on closest in range.
Implemented Height Limiter, set to 3m.
Life damage in Lightning changed from 50 to 65.

Cold Affinity

Beams' Cold damage changed from 0.65-1.35 to 0.7-1.3, Projectile AoE's Cold damage changed from 0.7-1.3 to 0.75-1.25.
Spray Length changed from 0.8-1.2 to 0.75-1.25. Max duration from 0.65-1.35 to 0.7-1.3.
Now controls Cold AoE size.
Removed affinity effect for DQR projectiles.
Water and Cold Storms no longer weak to each other.
Projectile charge up changed from 0.75-1.25 to 0.8-1.2.

Other Affinities

Life and Death Ice Damage changed from 0.65-1.35 to 0.7-1.3.
Removed Life Resistance perk from Life Affinity. A Life spec now only deal more Life damage in all aspects, they don't receive more of it. Self Heal tweaked so amount of healing made remains pretty much the same.
Life Ward Aura effectiveness changed from 0.6-1.4 to 0.5-1.5.
Earth Affinity now has a movement speed multiplier when wearing Earth Ward (Armor).
Earth projectile damage changed from 0.85-1.15 to 0.9-1.1.

Weapon Abilities

Flurry damage increased from 245 to 250.
Quickdraw damage increased from 395 to 450. Hit boxes changed to better fit animation.
Cleave damage decreased from 488 to 455.
Lunge charge time changed from 0.2sec to 0.5sec.
Valkyrier Spear now has the same damage as other Lunge weapons (420).
Burning Inferno damage increased from 149 Fire to 165 Fire.
Chilling Scourge damage changed from 40 Cold to 47 Cold.
Gunfire damage changed from 412 to 422.
Rush damage increased from 225 to 377. Push effect has been removed and hit boxes tweaked.
Throw Weapon projectile damage increased from 250 to 340.
Throw Annoying Thing is now a copy of Throw Weapon, AoE removed. Chain Damage changed from 122 to 195.
Snowball damage changed from 150+75 Cold to 105+100 Cold.

Other

Knockdown Immunity changed from 0.2sec to 0.25sec to better allow for Wards to be used.
Chill's spellcast slowdown is back again. For each level of chill your speed value is lowered. Now 90% / 80% / 70% / Frozen.
Removed rotation speed affinity modifier for projectiles.
New Affinity descriptions in the Gear screen.
Lowered Earth Projectiles initial damage at 0 charge to reduce their spam viability somewhat. From 50/75/100 to 30/40/50.
AoE Blast cast time changed from 0.15 to 0.25. (Fixed after Test Server feedback)
AoE Blast Damage tweaks. Death from 125 to 100, Fire from 115 to 75, Steam from 180 to 225. (Fixed after Test Server feedback)
AoE elements in projectiles now all start at 1 damage at 0 charge time. Base projectile elements always have some damage. (Fixed after Test Server feedback)
Ice projectile min velocity changed from 25 to 5. Max velocity changed from 80 to 65. This to reduce spam. (Fixed after Test Server feedback)
Ice projectile damage tweaks. Ice changed from 175 to 150, Death from 40 to 50, Life from 250 to 225. (Fixed after Test Server feedback)

Bugfixes

Fix for knockdown speed bug when chilled.
Now print "EFFECTIVE" instead of "WEAKNESS" when susceptible to Life damage.
Fixed !QFF not getting any additional damage. (Fixed after Test Server feedback)

Aug 19, 2014

Patch Notes for 19th August 2014

Community Announcements - [Pdx] Escher

Hi!

Today brings you our first "proper" patch since we left for vacation. The development team have had their batteries recharged and are ready to start bringing you awesome content again! The main changes this week were the addition of the new "Treasure chest" feature (unlock one each day for a chance at Gold Crowns, Crystals or extra-special exclusive robes) and some big changes in terms of information in the pre-game/lobby screen. You can now see in full detail what your opposition have equipped, even their Magicks!

Full patch notes:

Gameplay
- Speed modifier system rewritten, primarily to deal with problems concerning permanent slowdown/speed up.
- Gear now properly calculates speed bonuses by adding/subtracting their bonuses instead of multiplying, ie two separate modifiers of +4% and +10% provide a 14% boost instead of 1.04 x 1.10 = 14.4% boost.
- Movement speed is now presented in all stat screens as a percentage of the default base speed.
- Movement slowdown when charging projectiles is now removed upon release and not projectile impact. This indirectly dealt with one cause of permanent slowdown.
- "IMMUNE" GUI popup when resisting knockdowns for any reason.
- Partial earth armor now protects correctly against ice.

Spells
- Fix for sprays being blocked by storms.
- Always knockdown both players when their beams collide.
- Self-cast now buffers the input like forward cast.
- Healing is now applied after damage from combined spells such as AWW, to prevent taking damage from a net heal at full health.
- Spell-casting speed now doesn't affect channeling tick rate(would cause self heal to be slower when chilled).
- Magicks can now be selected and queued during spell-casting, this should make it easier to reliably cast Magicks quickly.
- Reduced Death damage on low charged ice projectiles. Reduced charge up time elemental affinity bonus for ice projectiles (i.e speccing into Cold affinity doesn't ramp-up the cast time quite so much).

Localisation
- Added more new strings to all languages, plus some re-translations overall.
- New Amulet of Nullification description.
- Updated Teddy Bear error message.
- Fix for chat commands info string in German referring to SHIFT as CTRL.

Bugfixes
- You can no-longer hit yourself with your own Conflagration.
- Halt key now works as expected when holding down LMB.
- Fixed issue with items not appearing in the store.
- Fixed rare condition which could put login server in closed_for_players state.
- Some rare case UI bug fixes.
- Fire Longsword+1 charge effect now despawns properly when player is killed and/or gibbed.
- Rusty Dagger now has its proper damage template, doing 3 attacks instead of 4.
- Fixed not being able to join training grounds.
- Fix for crash if client eula was accepted but LS was in wrong state.
- Crashfix when dying during extreme lag.
- Fixed broken resolution behavior.
- Don't try to pathfind on the navmesh when in air.
- Fixed potential crash when player is knocked down
- Beam crash fix.
- Projectile charge effect glitch fix.
- Server now destroys all broken connections, should deal with some persistent slugs.
- No longer allow several players to spawn simultaneously at the exact same spawn point, clipping into one another.

Sound
- Bearded Axe impact sound tweaks.
- Some new sounds for Steam spells.
- Fixed distortion issue with Play and Join sounds.
- Changed Gungnir ability sound so it doesn't loop after it's been charged up.
- Weapons can now trigger unique equipment sounds in the menu.
- Fix for the Sacred Beast Horn weapon ability charge sound.

GUI
- Bundle packs offer icons.
- Fixed GUI shader causing visual artifacts.
- Correct calculation of word wrapped text extents.
- Replaced a lot of old GUI with new GUI.
- Fully detailed lobby stats window when hovering over players. It now provides the exact same information as the gear screen.
- Disconnected/dead indicators on player portraits should now never appear at the same time.
- Chest introduction background texture, and Magicks info background texture without text.
- Chest description background picture added.
- Updated a UI effect texture.
- Topmenu glow effect texture updated.
- New icons for the store.
- Updated Lobby highlight texture.
- Chest topmenu button effect.
- Open button for Chest and Store icons update.
- Updated the Special Offer Icon base (May still need changes).
- Updated store icon textures.
- Added a placeholder "Special Offer" base texture.
- Store stat display fixes for nullify trinket.

Misc.
- Default render settings set to high.
- Polished various textures.
- Various beam explosion effect fixes.
- Added specific error code for client unable to connect to EAC servers (TeddyBear).