This patch mainly addresses bugs and other issues with cards. It should also fix disconnect problems we have seen with Giant Queen. We are still gathering data on the meta game and will address balance issues in a following patch.


Text on Invoke Ruin kicker

Trigger on Thirsting Axe Durability spend v multiple attackers in same turn

Harder They Fall damage result vs Boss

Moordiar, the Sorcerer and Sarkhet, Death's Envoy name missing on certain UI elements

Added redundant Tenacity check to Draw In targeting to prevent sequential pull of Heroes within Dauntless Vigil

Revised Exploit Weakness debuff evaluation to prevent calculation errors

Revised base Hero draw 2 to start of first tick instead of unit turn first tick to prevent lost draws from Temporal Anomaly and allow looking at all three Hero decks

Fixed text on Channel the Storm range

Fixed required stats on Death Grasp to match range

Fixed Molten Veins decreasing cost of Fire Channels

Fixed Blade of the Immortal spending on Counterstrike

Fixed Judgement of Urix kicker to process damage instantly to trigger Sarkhet's ability

Fixed restrictions on Dauntless Vigil preventing Sarkhet from adding to deck

Revised next attack buffs to filter out use on entire Channel so as to use/expire on first attack in Channel instead

Fixed Surefoot not ignoring Difficult Terrain

Revised Tranquil Bloom and Quicksilver arrow to refresh your move only

Fixed Beseech the Sun God healing after Assault

Fixed Time to Feed healing total damage done for each hit instead of just damage for that hit

Revised targets of kill triggers on Angel of Death ability, Ghostbite, Tinker's Warplock, Cycle of War to prevent missed triggers

Fixed summon triggers for Eerie Marauder, Dawn of Zha, Cave Spider to make sure they happen on tick and not boss turn

Added Tenacity filters to Venomfang Queen Tick add, Chilling Growl move debuff, Blizzard Golem move debuff, Shockwave and Crushing Blow Knockback, Howl from Within Tick add

Added redundant Tenacity check to Awakened Might targeting

Removed Tenacity filter from Word of Command targeting

Added Structure check to targeting on Subdue, Word of Command, Force Push, Howl from Within

Fixed Tremor damage result

Fixed Pounce movement result

Fixed tooltip on Doomsday Machine using Great Experiment structure for stats

Removed Strength of the Undying unnecessary filter preventing play by Boss

Minion Ai revisions to prevent moving out of revised range for Aspect of Zha and Cannoneer




Allowed Entreat the Goddess and Primitive Idol to be used on full Health targets for Devotion gain and Offhand turn passing, respectively

Increased Star Cost on Splinter of Nilath (3), Boots of speed (2) for Heroes

Increased Star Cost on Howl from Within (4), Heart of Primeval (6), Aether Tap (3), Force Blast (3), Chill of Ice (4), Geist-Charged Arsenal (4), Inertial Inhibitor (3), Warlord's Might (3), Horn of Uldenum (5), Strength in Numbers (4) for Bosses

Revised Giant Queen Armor to 1 and Health to 55

Nerfed Mech Scorpion to 35 Health for consistency with Mechanical trait Health v Armor balance

Switched odd/even for Mech Scorpion ability to prevent even Tick attack deck exploit

Tagged Magnetron, Dynomine, Arc Node, Flamewall Pylons, Voidmine damage as attacks and give visible attack power

Revised half health triggers and text to less than or equal on Bloodborn Bracers, Oath of the Deathless, Go For The Throat, Awakened Fury, Awakened Might, Awakened Force




Thank you to everyone who purchased one of the new heroes or bosses. We appreciate your supporting Labyrinth development while it is in Early Access.

In order to run Labyrinth as a free to play game that can sustain its operating costs and better cover the cost of development for a given hero or boss and their associated level-up cards, we will be increasing the price of the non-basic heroes and bosses in the patch after this one. We want to give players advanced warning so that they can buy any hero or boss at the lower price right now if they should so desire. Heroes and Bosses will still be purchasable with Gold.




There was a bug in the calculation for Stardust that was refunded after the account reset in the last update. We will be fixing affected players later this week. Sorry for the inconvenience.




We increased the number of server instances for Labyrinth and will now being releasing rolling updates each time we update the game. This means that anyone who logs in after we release a patch will be presented with the new version, and those who are currently in a raid when we update will be presented with a screen after they finish that will tell them to restart the client to get the new version. This should minimize interruption and downtime for players.

Build Update Notes

Maintenance Period

The servers will go down shortly and may be down for around 4 hours while we update the game. Thank you for your patience.

Cards

Added 75 new unlock-able cards, 60% of those are unique to the Hero/Boss that unlocks them, the other 40% are shared by all Heroes/Bosses of that trait. These occur more frequently during leveling.

Reduced total Star Points for both Heroes and Bosses. They gain Stars less frequently as they level, but there are no longer slots for Perks, so Heroes and Bosses can add as many as they can afford. Also rebalanced the Star costs for Perks across the board.

Added 2 new Heroes (Sarkhet, the Angel of Death, and Moordiar, the Sorcerer) and 1 new Boss (Mech Scorpion, Clockwork Beast).

Free Heroes are now Lavella, Rohin, Korghan, and Renna. The free Bosses are now Radaghar, Roggix, Adolphus, Queen of the Northern Wastes, and Maessna. The other four Heroes and two Bosses are now purchased in the store (if you don't already own them). The free heroes and bosses cover each of the disciplines and traits respectively, so when you get a card from opening card packs, you should be able to use it right away.

Fury spending is now automatic like Amps.

Changed medium range to 4 spaces and long range to 7 spaces to represent 1 and 2 full moves of distance away.

Re-balanced damage and healing as a function of range and Piercing across the card set.

Re-balanced equip cost, use cost, and/or durability of several weapons.

Re-balanced many of the lower Tick cards, with some instant cards now costing 1 Tick (in anticipation of being discounted to instant) and some 1 Tick cards now costing 2 to prevent playing as instants when discounted.

Nerfed both the offense and defense tutorials and reduced their length of play.

Since we made so many wide-sweeping changes, we will monitor hero/boss balance daily and as we see the need to do so, we will patch right away in an effort to iterate on the balance and address any emerging meta game issues.

Accounts Reset

Accounts had to be reset for this build as we mentioned previously. Similar to how we have reset accounts in the past: All card packs purchased with gold will be returned as gold and those purchased with Tokens will be returned as Tokens. Any card packs purchased with real money will be returned as Tokens. Gold on balance will remain and Gold from Ranked rewards will be added (see below.) Earned Stardust from Defense and email registration will be returned as well. Stardust from disenchanting will not be returned.

Backer Rewards

The following backer rewards have been enabled in the build and codes for them will be distributed next week according to the reward tier of the backer.

Backer badges
Bonus Loot (Gold) for Raids
Bonus Loot (Stardust) for Defense
Weekly non-giftable card packs
Ranked Seasons

We have added seasons to the Ranked mode. Seasons will be 1 month long, starting on or around the 1st of the month. This month's season will be short, since it starts now. Rewards will be given for this previous season that has lasted up to this update.

Season rewards are:

Rank eternal, 250 Gold
Rank 2-5, 200 Gold
Rank 6-10, 150 Gold
Rank 11-15, 100 Gold
Rank 16-20, 50 Gold
Rank 21-25, no reward
Client and Server

We optimized the client in preparation for porting Labyrinth to mobile. Many of those optimizations are in this build. So, things may look a little different than you are used to. If something looks "wrong", please let us know. Some of you on older computers should experience a more snappy game.

We did extensive backend server work to aid in migrating data from one build version to the next.

The next major update is coming soon, in a week or more. Accounts will be reset then. Similar to how we have reset accounts in the past: All card packs purchased with gold will be returned as gold and those purchased with Tokens will be returned as Tokens. Any card packs purchased with real money will be returned as Tokens. Gold on balance will remain and earned Stardust will be returned as well. Stardust from disenchanting will not be returned. This is the method we used last time with the addition of Tokens and real money.

You will be able to play the 4 basic heroes once you complete the introductory Offense tutorial and the 4 basic bosses once you complete the Defense tutorial. All other heroes and bosses will be available for purchase in the store for Gold or cash. Any non-basic heroes or bosses that you are able to play right now will be unlocked for you after the reset, as a thank you for playing the game early and providing valuable feedback and data to help develop Labyrinth.



The 4 basic heroes are one from each discipline: Korghan (Warfare), Lavella (Faith), Renna (Wizardry), and Rohin (Skulduggery). The 4 basic bosses cover combinations of 5 of the 8 traits: Radaghar (Spirit/Warlord), Oros (Elemental/Warlord), Roggix (Elemental/Beast), and the Giant Queen (Spirit/Giant).

We are adding 4 heroes and 3 bosses to the store. The heroes for purchase in the store will be: Marrik (Warfare), Sarkhet (Faith), Moordiar (Wizardry), and Kylee (Skulduggery). The bosses for purchase are: Maessna (Celestial/Caster), Adolphus (Mechanical/Caster), Mechscorpion (Mechanical/Beast). At least 1 more boss will be added before exiting Early Access.

So this upcoming update will have 2 new heroes and 1 new boss. Their images are shown below.








The engineering team has been optimizing the game for improved performance and preparation to port to mobile. In the last two weeks, they fixed issues caused by optimizations; refactored ​the timeline clock; worked on a data migration system to minimize future wipes; refactored ​targeting arrow; set up build settings for multiple scenes; refactored ​UI shell; fixed store and quest bugs; placed maps on table; refactored map display; set up controller; worked on remote to Unity interface; established ranked seasons; and optimized load times.

The art team optimized lairs; worked on idle animations; updated UI mesh; reworked lightmapping on lairs; and worked on the shield generator.

The design team redesigned cards; ​revised cards for balance; and ​revised the tutorial slightly.

The audio team added minion sounds.

We are still working toward the next major update in a few weeks, just starting internal playtests this week. The other tasks the team completed this past week include:

The Engineering Team ​in an effort to optimize for mobile removed the mask from the UI; ​reduced drawcalls from offense HUD; worked on migration system; implemented ​backer rewards; ​fixed timeline elements; improved Deck Builder; ​fixed slow health animation; improved deck builder; gold earning from special card; worked on Ranked mode end of season; and refactored ​tag data and caching.

The Art Team combined minion meshes​; made a low poly Zombie and textured it; skinned Pirate and Mine Securitron; worked on ​idle animations for menus; and created animations for Queen's Attendant.

The Design Team worked on card design and balance.

The Audio Team added sounds for Serpent; Aspect of Zha; Battlefield Lurker; Blizzard Golem; animation events for minions; and missing hero sounds.




We are aware of the balance issues many players are struggling with. In order to work towards a more balanced card set, we created some tools to visualize the data we have collected from player decks. We decided to share some of the aggregated data today, even though we realize that it may shift the meta for the next few weeks. In the next major update we will be making significant changes to the card set, so strategies you use now may become ineffective.

We are well aware of how popular Radaghar is. It may seem like everyone is running him, but less than 40% of players are right now. The graph below shows how popular Radaghar is, mainly because he has a high win rate, in relation to the other bosses that under perform.



We also analyzed party composition. The Korghan, Lavella, Renna combination is the most played, but the Korghan, Lavella, Rohin tends to win the most. In addition, most combinations that include Renna seem to be worse off.



The above graphs isolate the heroes or the bosses by themselves. The chart below shows the relationship between the two in terms of Win/Loss ratio from the perspective of the heroes. To make the chart easier to read, the values have been color coded. The more red a value is, the more the heroes are winning; and the more blue a value is, the more the boss is winning. This chart shows who is strong or weak against their opponent.



Going a few steps further, we analyzed the actual cards played and in which decks, in several different ways. In summary, what we mentioned in the last update still holds:

Players should not ignore common cards, especially those that do not have numbers on them. There are many useful utility cards that do not appear great at first, but the best players are using them to defeat hard boss setups. There is a tendency among most players to select the biggest damage dealing cards and the highest rarity cards for their decks. With the current card set, this is not the optimum strategy in many cases.

To make that a little more concrete, the table below shows the 10 most used offense cards by players who win a lot but are ignored by players who usually lose, versus the 10 most used offense cards by players who tend to lose but are not usually in the best players' decks. This is not necessarily a list of powerful vs. weak cards or good vs. bad cards, but just a measure of frequency of how often the cards appear in decks. They might not even get played a lot, or they may require other cards in combination to be effective. Obviously, this is not the end-all-be-all for determining what a good card is, but it might help you craft some more interesting decks.



Furthermore, we created a tool that will measure the balance of cards used on a day to day basis, so after the next update, if we see a card starting to dominate the meta, we may be able to release a quick patch, so we don't end up with a situation like Pale Rider again.




Valve has changed how ratings are calculated again, so if you haven't already, could you please write a review on Steam.

Labyrinth was showcased Monday afternoon in the Intel booth at GDC last week. It was selected since it works great on the new Intel graphics chipset.

We also met with Playfab senior management since they had a booth at GDC. We reiterating the need for inventory store improvements, so that we can add bulk card pack opening and mass disenchant features to Labyrinth.




The focus of the next major update includes adding a Hero Store, a balancing pass for cards, and features to fulfill Backer rewards. Mobile optimization is also underway and Labyrinth currently maintains a frame rate of 30+ fps on Android. We are working to hit 60 fps this week. That has required optimization changes to coding and art, many of which will be included in the upcoming PC update. Mobile will be released sometime in a future update.

More detail on what the individual teams have been working on for the past two weeks.

Engineering Team - The engineering team worked on backer rewards including backer ​badges, extra gold/stardust; hero store functionality and UI; enhancements to the Announcement system; Skybound Insiders integration; profiling and optimization for mobile, including scripts, HUD, shell, controls, materials, card engine equations, and fixed bugs caused by optimization;​ serialization for migration; fixed game logic threading issues; and improved the build system.

Art Team - The Art team worked on effects for Aether blast, Annul Spell, Stone Rain, and others; sculpted models for the low poly Pirate, Securitron, Zombie, and Wastelander hero; concepts were created for a boss and hero skin; art optimizations for mobile were done for Celestial Giant, Giant Queen and Minotaur levels, Defender and other minions, rebuilt prefabs to reduce drawcalls, and created a single drawcall room; and skinned mine worker (that's not as gruesome as it sounds).

Audio Team - The Audio team did a sound pass on minions.

Design Team - The Design team worked on card design, including​ card fixes, adding more cards including a few more Legendaries, and design work on the Queen's attendant.




Since the New Years Update on January 5, we have been collecting data on every card played in every encounter. That has created millions of records in our database in the last 2 months. Recently we finished building a tool that allows our designers to visualize this massive amount of data for heroes, sorting cards by frequency of being played, opened in card packs, crafted, disenchanted, "discrafted" (disenchanted and then later crafted), added and removed from decks--over disciplines and levels for all players. We plan to expand this tool to visualize boss deck cards too.

One major insight is: players should not ignore common cards, especially those that do not have numbers on them. There are many useful utility cards that do not appear great at first, but the best players are using them to defeat hard boss setups. There is a tendency among most players to select the biggest damage dealing cards and the highest rarity cards for their decks. With the current card set, this is not the optimum strategy in many cases.

The next update(s) will have extensive shuffling and recategorization of cards, as well as some rule changes.




The next major update will be in a few weeks. Accounts will be reset then. All card packs purchased with gold will be returned as gold and those purchased with Tokens will be returned as Tokens. Any card packs purchased with real money will be returned as Tokens. Gold on balance will remain and earned Stardust will be returned as well. Stardust from disenchanting will not be returned. This is the method we used last time with the addition of Tokens and real money.

In a future progress report, we will address how the Hero Store will impact unlocking heroes and bosses going forward.




Join us on the official Labyrinth Discord server to chat about Labyrinth and get tips on how to play from other players: https://discord.gg/labyrinth

Development

Over the last 2 weeks our teams have been working on new content and features for Labyrinth. Below is a list of what our teams are currently working on or have completed.

• The Engineering Team worked on the Hero Store, Skybound Insider integration, game optimization for mobile, and migration system.
  
  
• The Design Team worked on card designs and new card revisions.
  
  
• The Art Team worked on Waste Land character; Pirate sculpting; Hero textures; Defender skinning; Clan Shieldmate skinning; alternate Landing Screen animations; Dialog art; and Death Harvester texturing.
  
  
• The Audio Team worked on Arcane Anomaly FX; Voice Over editing; Goon Voice Overs; and Structure FX.

The switch to Free to Play has been a lot smoother than we thought, however we noticed a few important issues appear and this patch will rectify some of those. The most exciting is that we will run into the limit of our current server license soon because of the increase in the number of players.

We have made the following changes:

Card Changes

• Fixed targeting on Crush
  
• Revised text and buff card frame from Lavella's special ability
  
• Removed stealth filter on Centurion basic attack
  
• Revised text and targeting on Conservation of Time
  
• Set Tinker health to 20
  
• Set Random targeting to ignore Stealth
  
• Revised Centurion basic attack to 3 damage
  
• Fixed card frame on Berserker self-buff
  
• Fixed timing on Pale Rider summoning

Other Changes

• Fixed bugs in Analytics Manager and Log Manager
  
• Added a server license to accommodate more players
  
• Fix to matchmaking algorithm so low level players aren't matched with high level players as much

Development

The team has started to work on new content and features for the next major update. Here is a small list of new things to look forward to that was worked on this week.

• The Engineering Team worked on Stable Master; Hero Store.
  
• The Art Team worked on Dialog Art; Death's Harvester model; Death's Harvester Axe; Death's Harvester Mask; Celestial Giant; Alt Idles at Landing; Angel of Death revisions.
  
• The Audio Team worked on Structure Sounds.

Labyrinth is now Free to Play

Yesterday's patch seems to have fixed the critical issue and a few more bugs. So, we just set Labyrinth to free in the Steam store. We would like to test the load on the servers, so please invite your friends to try it out.

The 1000 Gold we were crediting accounts for 10 card packs for Early Access purchases is no longer being automatically applied to new accounts. If you have a Steam Key that has not be activated yet, please let us know when you do login for the first time, so that we can manually credit your account.

Still in Early Access

Labyrinth development is not over. It will stay in Early Access as we work on it, until the core game is finished.



Next Major Update

The next major update will be at least 4 weeks from now. Until that time, we will only patch again if we find critical bugs.

We do not have a time table for releasing new heroes and bosses, but we will try to add new content at each major update, like we have been doing.

An area of focus for the next major update is Backer Rewards. Not all may be finished this next time; we plan to distribute them each update as the portions are ready.

Summary

This patch addresses the following issues with Labyrinth:

• Email registration should work again. Please retry if you had problems. You might have to enter a new confirmation code if you were previously blocked. If you have any problems, please let us know.
  
• Space bar was disabled for progressing through Tutorial dialog to prevent hangs.
  
• Second Wind was fixed to prevent hanging, if it was active at the end of an encounter when boss is killed.
  
• May have fixed a problem certain players were having where they would equip a boss and return to find that Oros was equipped instead. We are unsure if our fix works for everyone, so if you still have this problem, please let us know.
  
• Fixed a few rare login problems that certain players were having. A few more were not reproduceable. If you happen to have problems, please let us know.
  
• Modified Graphics Settings menu such that it applies quality changes only when screen is closed. This improvement will be mostly noticeable on Macs.
  
• Fixed some minor bugs.
  
• Additional logging was added to help diagnose bugs.

Card Fixes

• Fixed text of Shield of the Immaculate to say Shield 2
  
• Fixed Spectral March to give Fleetfoot
  
• Fixed Moontide Brand on self
  
• Removed instant tag from Equip Warplock\

Going Free to Play

Assuming there are no other showstopping problems found with Labyrinth, we will set it free to play tomorrow at 11:00am PST.

Last update added a critical bug. So, we have to delay Labyrinth going F2P. We are working on a patch now.