Minion Masters!

We hope you have been enjoying the Uprising expansion! 1.21 adds the last two cards of the expansion into the game: Lash of Ah’Mun and Shroom Puff.

As you know, this means we will soon release info on our next expansion coming out in March! We can honestly say that we are super excited to share what the team has come up with for the next expansion; it’s really out there.

But for now, for 1.21 we have some balance changes, two new cards, and a variety of bug fixes coming your way.

On to the changes!

• A new Season Pass has arrived to Minion Masters!
  
• Tons of new rewards, including 2 cards, a Legendary Skin, bonus cards, and more!
  
• Two new cards have been added to the game:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Dark Fury Dryad Morellia has also been added to the game!
  
  
  
  
• The Season Pass will end on the 4th of March.

Arcane Bolt

• Mana Freeze 3 -> 2
  
• Threshold 500 -> 450

Boom Buggy

• Cooldown 5 -> 4.5
  
• Delay 2 -> 1.5

Bridge Shrine

• Health 350 -> 400

Crossbow Dudes

• Attack Cooldown 1.8 -> 2

Dragon Ball

• Summon a flightless dragon if not activated

Empowered Soul Stealer

• On spawn gain 2 stacks and +1 for each sacrifice
  
• Remove Call Slitherbound

Grasping Thorns

• Cost 3 -> 2
  
• Damage 200 -> 170

Lord Fanriel The Stormcharger

• Damage 120 -> 100
  
• Charge Damage 150 -> 100
  
• Charge damage is now true damage

This introduces a new damage type, True Damage which is essentially just armor piercing. Certain things like Pincer of Dread already has this, though this is the first Minion to get this. Fanriel's design was always to force you to defend with big minions. This removes Shielded Crossbow Dudes and Armored Scrats as value answers to his charge.

Nether Bat

• Nethersteps forward on spawn

These are attempts at making more 2 mana cards feel valuable to play, it may or may not workout, in which case we will keep working on them

Sewer Scrat

• Basic attacks inflict 2 seconds of poison
  
• Poison on hit duration 3 -> 2

These are attempts at making more 2 mana cards feel valuable to play, it may or may not workout, in which case we will keep working on them

Shen Stormstrike

• Attack Stun Duration 2.5 -> 2
  
• Zen Chi Flow Stun Duration 3 -> 2
  
• Zen Chi Flow Stun Radius 4.5 -> 6

This is to unify the stuns a bit more so that they work the same. Also in the case of Zap shrine we wanted less of it's value to be in that first Zen-Chi Flow stun, but instead make the building provide slightly more reliable value afterwards.

Shield-Captain Avea

• Shield Range 6 -> 8
  
• Now counts toward the quest even if the target unit already has a shield.

Ting Teng Tung

• Health 300 -> 270

Void Altar

• Cost 9 -> 8

Zap Shrine

• Zen Chi FLow Stun Duration 3 -> 2
  
• Health 75 -> 100

This is to unify the stuns a bit more so that they work the same. Also in the case of Zap shrine we wanted less of it's value to be in that first Zen-Chi Flow stun, but instead make the building provide slightly more reliable value afterwards.

[/h1]Healing Balance[/h1]
[/list]

• Flying minions have healing reduced by half

Last patch we tried this with Valorian's perk 1 only, and we feel it worked out nicely. Now we're trying it to all healing on flying Minions, mostly to keep things consistent and hopefully easier to keep track of.

Volco

• Perk 2 - Embers of Flame changed to all minions gain rage
  
• Perk 3 - Embers changed to melee minions gain berserkers rage instead

This change gives him more diversity for his deckbuilding while still retaining incentive to go for aggression. In longer games Melee will still prevail for him, but now ranged minions should feel like less of a compromise to bring along to balance out the deck.

• Fixed Jing Long’s shock entry radius size being visible in preview
  
• Fixed Jing Long’s card status icons referring to Xiao Long. Thanks me
  
• Added the indicator for blood pact to Brutish Betrayer
  
• Fixed Avea’s shields reacting fast enough to fireball to block the fireball’s damage on units around her
  
• Fixed blood imp sound and animations. Thanks hinkyt25
  
• Fixed the indicator for Pincer of Dread showing that it damages buildings
  
• Fixed the master selection interface breaking in draft
  
• Fixed a bug causing Sugilite Shield to block melee damage
  
• Fixed Avea’s drop rates from tokens being too high. Thanks Huffchux, Brit Churchill and all the other people who reported this and got us to actually check the values.
  
• Fixed the hitboxes for Laser Turret and Magma cannon to match their new models. Thanks Coconut Commander

• Puff cards have been removed from Jungle Rumble

Edits - Added missing dev comments, missing grasping thorns change, and missing healing change for flying minions.

Minion Masters!

Did you enjoy the first season pass for the latest Uprising expansion? We hope you did, but now it’s time to go over the changes accompanying the second season pass.

For 1.20 we have some balance changes, two new cards, and a variety of bug fixes coming your way.

On to the changes!

• A new Season Pass has arrived to Minion Masters!
  
• Tons of new rewards, including 2 cards, a Legendary Skin, bonus cards, and more!
  
• Two new cards have been added to the game:
  
  
  
  
  
• Shadow Viper has also been added to the game!
  
  
  
  
• The Season Pass will end on the 4th of February.

Accursed Ascension

• Threshold 60 -> 70

Accursed Ascension decks have been really strong for quite a while now. This is a small adjustment to delay the power spike moment a little. 10 mana is around half a cycle, and as it comes late game where mana generation is high, it shouldn't delay the ascension more than 15~20 seconds, for most ascension decks.

Arcane Ring

• Damage Per Projectile 25 -> 30

Ardent Aegis

• Remove Empyrean Army.
  
• Healing only applies to Empyrean minions.

With the introduction of the new Brutish Betrayer, Ardent Aegis could have been an amazing combo card, too good, it was found during testing. Added to the fact that it was never meant to be a card that fit into an aggressive style, we decided to remove the Empyrean Army effect and instead make the healing only apply to Empyrean minions. As Empyrean Minions for the most part have Slow-Medium movement speed and the healing should therefore be used more to turn fights rather than to maximize direct tower damage.

Akinlep’s Gong of Pestilence

• Cost 7 -> 6

AtG Drone x8

• Health 275 -> 250

Black Hole

• Duration 1.8 -> 2
  
• Cast Delay 0.2 -> 0

This card has been through a lot of changes, and we believe it's close to a good spot. It does have a tendency to flip quite dramatically. As soon as it's viable it can pretty much take over the meta. So we're taking things slow and doing small changes here to see if we can get it to a place where it can provide slightly more consistent value without taking over games completely. Combined with the recent change to Leiliel's Vortex, which has taken over a lot of Black Hole's utility use cases, we believe this should make the card see more play in the future.

Brutish Betrayer

• Remove Turncoat
  
• Give Blood Connection - Your master loses health equal to half of the damage they take, even overkill damage.

We've been working a lot with turncoat and tried out different variations but we haven't been able to find a solution that we really loved. So we're now removing the mechanic completely (It still exists in Adventures). Instead we're choosing to consolidate the Voidborne faction slightly more by introducing the blood imp mechanic to more cards. We think this is an interesting mechanic to play around with and we believe it retains the spirit of the original card designs quite well, as it still emphasizes the aggressive play that signifies the Voidborne faction.

Crystal Sentry

• Mana Cost 4 -> 3
  
• Gain Mana Freeze - 1

Elite Swarmer

• Health 225 -> 250

Gor’Rakk Gate

• Cost 3 -> 4
  
• Remove Turncoat
  
• Give Blood Connection - Your masters loses health equal to half of the damage they take, even overkill damage.

We've been working a lot with turncoat and tried out different variations but we haven't been able to find a solution that we really loved. So we're now removing the mechanic completely (It still exists in Adventures). Instead we're choosing to consolidate the Voidborne faction slightly more by introducing the blood imp mechanic to more cards. We think this is an interesting mechanic to play around with and we believe it retains the spirit of the original card designs quite well, as it still emphasizes the aggressive play that signifies the Voidborne faction.

Grenadier

• Attack Cooldown 2.1 -> 2
  
• Attack Delay 0.6 -> 0.5

Jolo the hero scrat

• Reworked his dodge mechanic, his dodge chance starts at 100% but decreases by 10% for each successful dodge.

Jungle Jumble

• Mana 5 -> 4

Morgrul’s Ragers

• Health 225 -> 250

Morgrul The Swarmer King

• Health 225 -> 250

Mountainshaper

• Stack Delay 5 -> 4

Princer of Dread

• Now deals damage through shields.

Swarmer Totem

• Health 350 -> 325

Wizard Puff

• Damage 60 -> 70

Stormbringer

• Marksmanship only applies to minions.

The heavy turret focused defensive strategy is very strong in particular with Stormbringer, as the added range removes many of the different buildings weaknesses. We believe there is a space for that playstyle in Minion Masters, but atm it's too strong and too uninteractive. With this change we believe these decks will have to supplement with more utility and/or aggressive cards to solve certain problems, and in doing so make the deck less hyper focused on pure defense.
Valorian

• Perk 1 healing halved for flying minions.

We're quite happy with the spot Valorian currently has within the meta, however he has developed a niche for flying minions as his healing ability can make them very difficult to remove. Particularly with flying minions those few additional HP can mean a lot in those cases where it brings it just out of range for a removal spell. We don't want to remove this playstyle completely, but we do believe that the perk synergizes a little too well with flying minions. This should help mitigate that.
As a footnote: we're currently considering making this a shared rule for all healing, a cross the board.

• Free token notification dot is removed.
  
• Fixed an issue preventing searching in deckbuilding.
  
• Fixed the refund symbol showing up on offers where the only duplicate item is cards.
  
• Fixed caber tosser getting stuck. Thanks mezlat.
  
• Fixed Mar'Dred constantly laughing.
  
• Fixed Akinlep with cost reduction issue. Thanks StarDrifter.
  
• Fixed Thelec failing to summon archers after summoning Akinlep. Thanks hinkyt25.
  
• Made Improvements to Boom Buggy targeting. Thanks DeathShoottOneyOoney

• Updated various avatars to reflect new card art.
  
• Christmas decorations have been turned off.

Edits: added a balance change for Jolo the Hero Scrat, which was initially forgotten.

Get the new $15 Uprising DLC 100% off for only this weekend!

CLAIM IT HERE: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1467210/Minion_Masters__Uprising_DLC/


An Uprising has come to Minion Masters! The Slitherbound are in desperate need of help. You must fight to clear a path for their escape and keep them from the shackles which once bound them.

This new updated features new cards, a new Adventure, a new legendary skin and more.

Read all about the new expansion on the Update Site, or just jump right into the game!

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters!

The Slitherbound are in desperate need of help. You must fight to clear a path for their escape and keep them from the shackles which once bound them.

Stay tuned to our update site for more reveals about upcoming Season Passes.

• A new Season Pass has arrived to Minion Masters!
  
• Tons of new rewards, including 2 cards, a Legendary Skin, bonus cards, and more!
  
• Two new cards have been added to the game:
  
  Chain Gang
  
  
  Akinlep's Gong Of Pestilence
  
  
  
• Dryad Morellia has also been added to the game!
  
  
  
  
• The Season Pass will end on the 7th of January.

• Brand New Story - Fight against the mighty Apep
  
• Play as a special Adventures version of Slither Beast
  
• This is a 3 Chapter Adventure that costs 2,010 Rubies or 1,000 rubies for just chapter 1.
  
• Completing the Chapter will get you some cool rewards!
  
• The adventure AI has been improved so opponents use a wider variety of cards, including high-cost cards. This applies retroactively and will impact older adventures.
  
• Replays for adventures are now available.
  
• The Adventure releases on December 10th.

As we mentioned in our latest blog post, there will be some changes to the Minion Masters economy coming in 1.19. For details, read our blog post here https://blog.betadwarf.com/2020/11/minion-masters-economy-changes-follow-up.html

• All master skins will be available for purchase from the master selection screen.
  
• If you receive a duplicate cosmetic item or master, you will receive a reimbursement of gold.

• Season bonus glory will no longer apply to conquest. While it still improves season pass progress, we wanted to make sure that users that buy the season pass don't have an unfair advantage in their conquest runs compared to free-to-play players.

Ardera

• Divine shield is now only given to Empyrean Minions

Armored Scrats

• Count 4 -> 3
  
• Barrel Shield Health 50 -> 60

Blood Imps

• Now only deals 50% damage to its controller’s master

Call to Arms

• Disables building abilities on transform

This will only affect two interactions: Ghost Turret and Crystal Construct. They will no longer produce a spirit or mana, respectively, when transformed into a Warrior.

Crossbow Dudes

• Damage 15 -> 20
  
• Attack Cooldown 1.4 -> 1.8

Crystal Arcanist

• Health 45 -> 40
  
• AoE Range 2.5 -> 3

Crystal Archers

• Health 45 -> 40
  
• Damage 25 -> 30

Dormant Defenders

• Duration 20 -> 40

Illusory Cleaver

• Illusion Damage 30 -> 50

Illusory Dragon Whelp

• Illusion Damage 30 -> 50

Leiliel’s Vortex

• No longer moves allied units.

Screaming Scrat

• Cost 1 -> 2
  
• Explosion Damage 30 -> 130
  
• Explosion Delay 5 -> 4
  
• Barrel Shield Health 50 -> 60

Last patch we brought this back to 1 mana, however we've since learned that was a mistake. It simply has too many uses to be balanced at 1 mana, and with the puff rework there was no doubt in our minds that Screaming Scrat would have become the #1 premiere 1 drop in 85% of decks. So we decided to bring it back to 2 mana but increase its power to hopefully find a good balance.

Shield Captain Avea

• Shield Radius 4 -> 6

Slitherbound Darter

• Damage 5 -> 8

Slitherbound Lancer

• Damage 10 -> 15

Soul Stealer

• Attack Cooldown 1.5 -> 1.6

Sunburn

• Damages its controller’s units as well

Ever since we did the 1 mana overhaul some patches back, we've seen Puffs have an incredible resurgence in play rate. While we definitely do not mind puffs being popular at all, we did find it slightly concerning when we looked at their win rates. One problem we ran into is that their main power is their ability to grab the bridges, cheap, quick and reliably. This means we'd have to nerf their inherent power level to find a good spot, but we feel that would be the wrong direction for them, as the puffs aren't meant to be a bridge grabbing unit but rather fun and quirky utility Minions. So instead we decided to restrict their spawn path in order to further emphasize the mechanics that make the unique.

• ”Puff” is now a card type, not a faction. Puff cards can only be spawned by the master tower and do not trigger minion abilities like Ratbo’s first and third perks.

Puffs have always been a bit of a weird faction, and as they are mostly designed around quirky utility purposes, they are not necessarily cards that you would build decks around. This sort of goes against our idea of what a faction is, and as we don't produce a ton of puff cards, it would always be underrepresented. We decided it was because Puffs shouldn't be a faction but a card type. This allows us to impress certain rules on these cards, as well as put them into factions where they might actually contribute to deck building.

Disruptor Puff

• Faction - Puff -> Outlander
  
• Card Type - Minion -> Puff
  
• First teleport proc delay 3 -> 2
  
• Speed 5 -> 10

Heal Puff

• Faction - Puff -> Zen Chi
  
• Card Type - Minion -> Puff
  
• Cost 2 -> 1

Mana Puff

• Faction - Puff -> Crystal Elf
  
• Card Type - Minion -> Puff
  
• First mana proc delay 10 -> 4

Mana Puff Madness

• Cost 2 -> 3

Squire Puff

• Faction - Puff -> Empyrean
  
• Card Type - Minion -> Puff
  
• First shield proc delay 10 -> 4

Wizard Puff

• Faction - Puff -> Crystal Elf
  
• Card Type - Minion -> Puff
  
• Attack Cooldown 1.6 -> 1.4

Valorian

• Damage boost per Empyrean card in hand 5 -> 3

Volco

• Damage 40 -> 50
  
• Burn the Bridges Cost 2 -> 1

• Reworked the jump and charge animations to ensure Bahra’s beam doesn’t become disconnected from targets.
  
• Updated Cursebearer’s description to reflect the intended interaction with transform effects.
  
• Fixed a bug causing Wreckinator’s self-destruct mode to do more damage with rage.
  
• Fixed Propeller HOrde not getting beserkers rage.
  
• Barrel scrats no longer move faster than normal scrats after their shield is broken.
  
• Changed ghost’s attack type to special so it no longer picks up Volco’s bridge perk.
  
• Fixed a bug causing bats bats bats to spawn the incorrect number of bats if played by two players at the same time.
  
• We fixed the amount of points won/lost in contender not scaling correctly.
  
• Nyrvir’s Breath no longer creates skeletons after breath’s effect has ended.

• Xbox users can now take advantage of Twitch integration. Note that if you previously connected an account, you will likely have to email support@betadwarf.com to switch to a new account.
  
• Christmas decorations have been turned on.
  
• We made some changes to unit collision. Units that are standing still will move out of the way of same-sized units that are moving.

Hey everyone, we want to start off by thanking you for engaging in this discussion passionately and bringing up your concerns. We understand that this is highly contentious news, so we wanted to clarify in some areas while we discuss things further behind the scenes.

Know that your feedback is always important, and we take it very much to heart when there’s a strong reaction.

To start, we can be super honest with you about the problem that we are facing. Minion Masters has always had systems in place that were generous with rubies. Right now, approximately 50% of rubies spent in Minion Masters were “grinded” as opposed to purchased. For a premium currency that is an issue. 

Our main goal was to rebalance the economy by replacing them with other rewards that provide more overall value, but come in different forms. However, we recognise that we may have gone too far with the amount of Rubies removed and that some of the new rewards don’t feel particularly good, and we’re making the following adjustments;

• Rubies moved from Grand Master to Diamond to make them more achievable
• Grand Master reward is 150 Shards
• Grand Master reward in the future may be replaced with exclusive avatars
• These exclusive avatars would come as special versions of existing avatars
• Contender reward increased to 3000 Gold

• Every 10th Profile Level after 50 grants 250 Rubies
• Power Token rewards in Profile Levels increased from 2 to 3

Here’s what that looks like on the tables we used before:

Ranked Rewards
Profile Level Rewards

Note: These rewards repeat infinitely. The Level value is used for the purpose of clarity.


We’d love to hear what you think about these changes and what kind of alternatives to Rubies you’d like to see, but regardless we hope this comes across as a more fair alteration of the existing reward paths.

Focusing on selling skins often comes up, and while we’ve discussed it in the past, we’d like to reiterate here. We wanted Minion Masters to be carried by skins. We hoped for that, it’s the major reason we introduced them besides customization. Unfortunately Adventures and cosmetics, even the high-end skins, just don’t make the money necessary for the game to be sustainable by themselves, with new content being much more desirable. 

A frequent request we’ve seen regarding the Shop in response to our post, however, is to “open up” in regards to what skins are being sold at any one time. We’re happy to announce that, starting with Version 1.19, all purchasable skins will be available at their full price, all the time. The Featured Shop Offers page will remain however, with periodic discounts being offered on the skins, much like before. There might be some bugs with the system due to its rapid inclusion in the upcoming update, but we deemed it’s important to make good on your feedback as soon as possible.

There’s been some very valid concerns about reducing new content in the battlepass. We know it’s a major part of keeping the game fresh. However, it also takes a lot of focus, and we’ve gotten a lot of feedback that too many cards are being released with barely time to balance it out. We take that to heart, and scaling down should help balance and quality, and also make time for more on gameplay improvements. 

We're also working hard on the ELO system tests, which will make the ranked system more meaningful and there are so many other great suggestions from the community we would like to implement. We can't reveal too much about it now, however, but it's a promising opportunity to improve Minion Masters in the future.


Lastly, we want to give some peace of mind and inform you that we don’t intend to alter the Minion Masters economy again for a while - we don’t like making changes to it just as much as you. As always, we’re listening closely to your responses and taking them seriously. We realize that we have missed the mark with some of the initial changes. Hopefully this gives you a bit more insight into why we are making these changes, and we’re open to your suggestions about how we can improve our plan.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters!

https://steamcommunity.com/games/489520/announcements/detail/2933494053288575237



In previous posts, we've detailed how we need to make adjustments to the Minion Masters Battle Pass system in order to ensure that the game isn't "too free", as well as to create a more sustainable game for us to continue to work on going forwards.

While the recent changes have proven favorable, it also began to highlight that we would need to make further changes to how the Economy of Minion Masters functions for us to achieve this goal, and to keep supporting the game we love. In particular, one of these necessary changes are to the income of Rubies a player receives.

Their inclusion in the natural economy of the game has been enjoyed by players for a long time, but as the game has aged they have also harmed the game's monetization to a significant extent by creating scenarios where players don't feel they have any "buying power" when it comes to Rubies. "Why spend money on the game's premium resource if it's so readily available just by playing the game?" is a sentiment we've seen echoed many times throughout the community, and it's something we've been able to measure the true impact of on Minion Masters. As such, it was apparent to us that they were the primary element about the in-game economy that had to be changed, and a lot of the reworks we will be discussing in this post come about as a result of this.

As always, our continued goal with Minion Masters, and top priority with these changes, is to ensure that the game remains "fair to play" for everyone, regardless of if you pay for access to new content or not. We're working to keep Minion Masters the most generous F2P game out there, and we don't want to start pinching people's wallets. New content should be available faster if you pay for it, but not be stronger than content you can earn for free. Cards should afford new opportunities - not advantages.

But to keep the game sustainable, we need some measure of control over the premium economy, which we are currently lacking.


The first step we're taking is to replace the "Free Spin" resource token you receive every day with a free Shop Offer instead. The main reason behind this is due to the ability to gain Rubies from the Free Spins, which is the resource we are looking to limit in how much you can earn with these changes.

If we simply removed the Rubies from the spin however, we also feel it wouldn't be very interesting for a player to use every day, so we're aiming to replace it with constant Free shop offers that allow us to potentially create more interesting daily rewards, like random copies of cards that might be more valuable to players than a small sum of Gold.


The larger source of Ruby income we're changing, however, is those that you receive from ranking up in 1v1, 2v2, and 2v2 Premade modes, as well as the large quantities you receive every 5 levels after Account Level 50.

These were by far the largest source of free Ruby income for players, and were the biggest contributing factor to the feeling of Ruby purchases being unnecessary for experienced players, while feeling somewhat unfair to players that weren't capable of reaching the higher ranks in each mode. They also made it feel somewhat mandatory to "grind out" Grand Master in all 3 modes each month, else you would miss out on a significant amount of free player income.

To put it into perspective, a player that reached Grand Master in every mode would earn 975 Rubies - If they earned 10 Profile Levels, they would be getting an extra 550. This meant the typical monthly Ruby income for this player was 1525 Rubies - enough to cover the price of the Battle Pass. If you were a player that could consistently achieve this every month, there was essentially no reason to ever pay for Rubies, and this had significantly hurt the sustainability of Minion Masters for a long time.

As such, our goal is to keep it a generous and rewarding track, but to separate it from the premium economy. These plans are subject to possible change, but in the interests of transparency we've detailed the alterations below:

Ranked Rewards


Profile Level Rewards:
Note: These rewards repeat infinitely. The Level value is used for the purpose of clarity.



With these changes in mind, we're also making the decision to make further adjustments to the Battle Pass to reflect the new economy.

• Price is now 1250 Rubies
  
• Contains 2 new cards each month
  
• One card will be in the Premium path only
  
• Existing customization is being added, as well as a refund feature
  
• 1 Legendary Skin
  
• 2 Avatars
  
• 2 Emotes
  
• Unlocking customization you already own will refund 20% of its Gold value.
  
• Still contains new Customization

Most of these changes come as an evolution of the previous adjustments we made in Version 1.16, where we considered making the Legendary card from each Season Pass only available in the Premium Path. Our main goal with the new Battle Pass design was to find ways we can downscale the scope of the individual passes without sacrificing the quality of their contents, and making players feel their purchases are still valuable.

To this end, the change to create two new cards per month instead of three can be seen as somewhat of a benefit - It allows us to focus our efforts on putting more creativity and time into more polished, interesting cards, rather than having to make ones players feel are less exciting for the sake of filling the contents of the Battle Pass.

As a result of this, we're choosing to reduce the price of the Battle Pass to reflect the lower amounts of new content being added, but also to make it more affordable in the reworked Minion Masters economy. We're hoping that the addition of extra customization items also helps to make up for the value of that extra new card, being a valuable addition to both new and old players alike.

As a final note, the addition of existing customization options should not affect new content of those types - We're still planning on having exciting new Skins, Avatars and Emotes with the new pass system.

We'd like to thank you for taking the time to read this lengthy post. We're optimistic that these changes can help aid Minion Masters in truly becoming sustainable as we wish, and we hope we've been able to shed some light on why we feel these changes are necessary for us to perform. As always, if you have questions, we're open to answer them in our usual channels.


Hey Masters, That Sprite here. For a while now I've been in charge of our blog posts and newsletter communication, as well as the Patch Notes and general responsibilites of the BetaDwarf Community Manager. This week will be my last post as I begin to part ways with BetaDwarf, with my responsibilities being transferred over to RGL_Trinity, who'll be undertaking the role going forward.

This isn't a sudden decision and comes amicably, and we've been working to make it happen as smoothly as possible over the last few months, so nothing should be immediately different for you and I'm confident it's being left in the right hands. You'll likely still see me hanging around the Minion Masters crowd and I'll always be available for a friendly chat.

I'm not one for overly long farewells, but it's been a great two and a half years working with the exceptionally talented people at BetaDwarf, and I couldn't be more glad for the opportunity and the experiences I've shared with everyone. Thanks for everything!

- "That Sprite", Community Manager

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Greetings masters!

The dwarfs have been working really hard behind the scenes to prepare for some pretty big changes coming to Minion Masters and BetaDwarf. We would like to officially announce that BetaDwarf is becoming a multi-game company!

We’ve put together a great dedicated team to run Minion Masters for years to come, and established the ground-work for another game to add to the family, working title Project Haven.

Most relevant to you is a big 2.0 upgrade we will talk about below.

This comes off the back of lots of new dwarves joining the team the last year and slowly setting BetaDwarf up with dedicated teams for each game, but also to share things both games can use - e.g. a 3D model from Haven can be used in Minion Masters, and a server component for Minion Masters can later be adapted for Haven.

Without further ado, we present Minion Masters 2.0!



Minion Masters 2.0 is a major upgrade to the game that will help propel Minion Masters to new heights. We are planning on releasing the Minion Masters 2.0 update alongside the mobile version, although we haven’t set a date for the release yet. Stay tuned for that.

As mobile development started, we saw an opportunity to make big improvements to the game that we’ve wanted to make for a long time: upgrade the UX on all platforms, much requested performance improvements and finally, improving the code base.

While we’re not touching the core gameplay (as part of this upgrade), it’s going to make the menus and overall feel of the game, well, feel like a new game, thus the 2.0 designation. We know there are concerns in the community about how Minion Masters will work on both PC, mobile and Xbox, but we’re actively working to make it the best it can on all platforms.

We still want to make plenty of other changes to the game along the way - requested improvements to the ladder are already in the works with trials for hidden ELO and more competitive higher ranks starting this month, economy improvements to make Minion Masters more sustainable still need doing, and much more Today, however,we are focusing on the big long-term package called 2.0.

Let’s dive a little deeper into what Minion Masters 2.0 and mobile will bring:

• We are making a lot of optimizations to improve performance, a requirement for mobile that will benefit PC and console as well.
  
• We are also rewriting the code base for the Minion Masters client, which will result in fewer bugs and faster development and will allow us to make your suggestions, new content and features for years to come.
  
• We are redesigning the user interface and focusing on user experience. We want to make the game much easier to navigate, make the game more appealing to new players, and overall make the game cleaner with higher quality UI. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the changes to the Season roll-over screen and how rewards are faster :)
  
• We’re aiming for what we call “True Cross-Platform”, i.e. it’s made for all platforms, has cross-play, cross-save, you can link your accounts between any platform and seamlessly switch, all that jazz.
  
• And a bunch of other stuff we’ll talk about later!

Fortunately, we were able to bribe the UX designers with some cake so they would allow us to share images of the UI rework with you. Just to note, these images are for the mobile version, and they are still being worked on. As we built it from scratch we were exploring mobile UI first because that's what we know the least about, but there are obvious things to make it fit for PC. We would love to hear your feedback on what elements you would like for the PC version as we start building that version too.





The dwarfs are working hard to get these changes out. This is a very big update and will take some time to make perfect, but it will be an exciting update that helps Minion Masters’ development for years to come.

We are thrilled to start talking about 2.0, and excited about what it’ll mean for Minion Masters.
Now, we also promised some details on Haven.

What is Project Haven?

Project Haven is the code name for our next project. It’s still in the very early prototyping phase, and we’re not making a splash out of the announcement yet, we wanted you to be the first to hear.

We do not have a lot of concrete details yet, but we can share an idea of where we’re going right now.

Haven is a cooperative PvE MOBA where you play as tight-knit groups of heroes saving the world from a time-twisted fate.

It plays a lot like a MOBA, but as with other BetaDwarf games there’s a lot of focus on fast decision-making over reactions. Action-decisions, if you will.

We’re building it to be forever replayable, with tons of systems for variation and interesting decision making to be made on the fly.

It’s also built to foster friendships through co-operation, guild-building mechanics and what we simply call “friendshipping”, a variety of mechanics ranging from e.g. matchmaking you more with those you enjoyed playing with to high-trust missions where you bring your best teammates.

Haven is linked to the Minion Masters (also FORCED and Showdown) world, but toys with some cool time-clashing mechanics that will allow you to play as and encounter all your favorite characters.

This is all very vague, but while we’d love to tell you more we intentionally aren’t sharing details publicly because it would be unwise. We wanted you to know about the overall future for the company though.

Weaving them together

With Haven being in the Minion Masters universe, there will also be some opportunities for us to share things, especially art assets, between the two games, making development faster and more cohesive between both.

Overall we have some lofty goals for Haven. We want to push the boundaries of co-op games to create lifelong friendships all around and across the world; we’re on a journey to becoming a front-runner in games that also attacks a society epidemic: loneliness. We expect this to help Minion Masters grow as well and aim to get 60 percent of Haven players to play Minion Masters in addition to Haven.

We know you have an Empyrean ton of questions at this point, and we’ll share more about Haven as we go, but for now we’re going to focus on getting Minion Masters 2.0 rolling and out on that mobile platform so the game can continue to grow!

Your Thoughts?

As always, we want to know what you think. Head over to our Discord and let us know! We are sure you have a lot of questions about the changes. If so, please DM them to RGL_Trinity#2180. He will get them together and do a follow up Q&A in next week’s blog with Alex, Minion Master’s content lead, and Peter, Minion Master’s lead designer.

Minion Masters!

The third and final Season Pass for Nightmares is here! Stoutheart reinforcements have arrived to the fight against Mar’Dred, while the heroic Shield-Captain Avea charges into the front!

Stay tuned to our Update Site for more information on our next Expansion, coming soon!

• A new Season Pass has arrived to Minion Masters!
  
• Tons of new rewards, including 3 cards, a Legendary Skin, bonus cards, and more!
  
• Three new cards have been added to the game:
  
  
  
  
• Angelic Milloween has also been added to the game!
  
  
  
  
• The Season Pass will end on the 3rd of December.

As mentioned in previous Blog Posts, this patch marks the end of our support for the game on Discord. In recent months we've been concerned about the stability of the platform in regards to the game, with users experiencing difficulties related to the platform itself that we can't resolve. While we expected this to happen eventually as Discord had officially ended support for game distribution, they occurred a lot sooner than anticipated.

We don't want to just switch off supporting the Discord version of the game without offering any alternatives for everyone playing through the platform, however, so we’ve created a system to allow Discord players to transfer their progress to a Steam account.

When you launch the game through Discord, you’ll be greeted with a message and a 6 digit code that’s unique to your account. When playing on Steam, you'll be able to select a "Migrate Discord User" option in the Menu where you can enter the code to start a one-way operation that replaces the account you're playing with on our server with that of the Discord account.

If you own DLC on the Steam account, but not on Discord, you'll unlock the content once you've transferred your progress.

However, if you already own the DLC on Discord, you will not receive them a second time for your account, even if you purchase it from the Steam store. We cannot flag your account as having purchased the DLC, so the option to buy it will still be there even though you won't get anything from it.

Note that we are not responsible for any incorrect or accidental account transfers that happen as a result of you accidentally sharing your code. Don't transfer your account while streaming, and recheck your Steam credentials to make sure you're logged into the correct account before migrating. Keep your code safe!

This update comes with a large overhaul to one of our oldest masters, Volco!

Basic Attack
Unchanged

Perk 1 - Burn the Bridges
Add the card Burn the Bridges to Volco’s deck.

Burn the Bridges
Both bridges get covered in flames, dealing damage to ground Minions.
Mana Cost: 2
Card Type: Spell
Damage: 200
Duration: 5 seconds

Perk 2 - Tempers Flaring
Summon an Ember of Flame every 15 seconds on a random bridge. When a friendly Melee Minion picks up the ember, all nearby friendly Melee Minions gain Rage

Rage
+50% Attack Damage

Ember of Flame
Pickup Radius: 1
Effect Radius: 8

Tempers Burning
Ember of Flame now gives Berserker’s Rage instead

Berserker’s Rage
+100% Attack Damage. Also self inflict 10% of attack damage

Developer Comments
For a while Volco has been directed a lot by his perk 1, pushing him into this Spam Master identity. This was never really the intention, as Volco's identity is supposed to be Aggressive, brutish and very much a fighting Master. The Afterburner perk was supposed to give him a tool to put some pressure on the opponent master, allowing him to be more aggressive. However, it has proven that the effect was far too strong which resulted in him being relegated to simply dominating the bridges (with help from perk 2) and spam killing his opponent from a far - Quite the opposite of what we want Volco to really be.

Veteran users will remember the days before Rage was set to 50% where Volco was all about getting to that 3rd perk and destroying your opponent with superior brawling power. This is the style we are trying to get back to with this rework.

By making the rage dependent on the bridge we are hoping to gear Volco into an aggressive track in which he minions are far stronger in offense, rather than in defense. Adding the 100% Berserkers rage should make his perk 3 quite significant again, however the 10% self damage should help make it slightly more manageable to deal with these highly explosive minions.

Ultimately we're hoping this design will help Volco return to his true Identity, as well as removing a play style that has been very frustrating to play against.

Arcane Bolt

• Cost 4 -> 2
  
• Mana Freeze 1 -> 3
  
• Developer Comments
  
• We’re hoping that this change will make Arcane Bolt easier to use on high-priority targets quickly, but have a Mana Freeze amount significant enough to still retain a significant mana cost to the card in practice.

Armor of Light

• Cooldown 12 -> 14
  
• Developer Comments
  
• This affects Brothers of Light, Caeleth Dawnhammer, and Shieldguard of Light. We’re mainly opting to do this change as the Brothers have emerged as a powerful frontline duo recently due to the large amounts of value they can generate, between their anti-swarm capabilities and large stat pools.

Caeleth Dawnhammer

• Mana Cost 9 -> 8
  
• Developer Comments
  
• This change is mainly to compensate for the increase in Armor of Light cooldown.

Empyrean Army

• Now requires 5 Unique Empyrean cards.
  
• Developer Comments
  
• This is a change we've wanted to make for a while, as the intention has always been that a significant portion of your deck needs to meet the Empyrean theme for the effect to activate. The usage of Wild Cards would somewhat defeat this goal, hence the change.

Healing Fireball

• Healing is now split among friendly Minions.
  
• The spell will try to split healing as evenly as possible, but will not "overheal" units. If there are two minions with 100/200 hp, and 100/400 hp, the first Minion will heal for 100, and the second for 300.
  
• Developer Comments
  
• Healing Fireball simply provided too much value for its mana cost in push-oriented decks, exponentially becoming more powerful the more units it affected and rendering some spells completely ineffective as a countermeasure, or making trades far too valuable after the fact. Nerfing the numbers of the Spell would simply put it in a state where it's either dominant with how much value it provides or too bad to consider running, so we're opting for a rework to how the healing is applied.

Resonating Blast Crystal

• AoE Radius 4.5 -> 6

Restless Dead

• Mana Cost 3 -> 4
  
• KNOWN ISSUE: This change does not appear to be in the game currently. We are working on getting this hotfixed as soon as we can.
  
• Developer Comments
  
• We wanted to take a moment to explain why this nerf didn't come sooner. We were first made aware of how explosive Restless Dead really was just a few days before the release of Version 1.17, which ended up being dangerously close to the patch deadline and would have more than likely affected the Xbox Certification process, and delayed the patch as a whole.
  
• We weighed our options and decided against hotfixing it so we could try a new mechanic on the PTR that could hopefully be incorporated as a balancing measure in the future, but the results weren't satisfactory. We've shelved that idea for now, and while there are still interesting options for Restless Dead on the table, we're opting to go with this change for now and revisit it later.

Screaming Scrat

• Mana Cost 2 -> 1
  
• Health 100 -> 15
  
• Now has Barrel Shield
  
• Damage 130 -> 30

Smite

• Damage 250 -> 200

Wreckinator

• Max Health is now reduced when Malfunction occurs
  
• Health Reduction is equal to the Malfunction Threshhold
  
• Slam attack Cooldown 6 -> 4
  
• Developer Comments
  
• Wreckinator’s main usage was with a cheese strategy involving Glenn’s Brew, which provided a huge boost in HP at a low mana cost while bypassing the downside of the Minion disappearing at the end of its duration. While Glenn’s Brew will still be somewhat effective with this change in mind, we wanted to make it feel less frustrating to play against and enable better counterplay options. As Wreckinator wasn’t particularly powerful outside of it, however, we also wanted to buff the baseline abilities of the card, as we felt the Slam attack never saw much practical usage due to its long time requirement.

Zeppelin Bomber

• Attack Cooldown 3 -> 2
  
• Damage 100 -> 70

• Fixed being unable to report teammates for leaving in 2v2 matches.
  
• Fixed Ravager’s Feeding Frenzy removing Haste when a unit is healed past its threshold.
  
• Fixed Stormbringer’s Marksmanship removing itself from Minions if their team was changed (I.E. Ghost)
  
• Fixed Bridge Shrine having a Production Time statistic.
  
• Fixed some issues with Stormbringer’s targeting logic.
  
• Fixed an instance where Scrat Tank takes damage with its shield up, while Hypnotised - Thanks Sinobii!
  
• Fixed an instance where Log Tosser would throw his log halfway across the arena - Thanks Karlim00!
  
• Fixed Haunting Hugger disappearing after possessing a unit it kills instantly - Thanks Nerzl!
  
• Fixed Re-Boomer having an “activated” highlight despite not having Voidborne Wound - Thanks Ecke!
  
• Fixed being unable to claim Battle Pass tiers if there’s nothing on the tier.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters!



We've got a large overhaul to one of our oldest masters, Volco, coming in Version 1.18. Here's a sneak peak at the new Volco:

Basic Attack
Unchanged

Perk 1 - Burn the Bridges
Add the card Burn the Bridges to Volco's deck.

Burn the Bridges
Both bridges get covered in flames, dealing damage to ground Minions.
Mana Cost: 2
Card Type: Spell
Damage: 200
Duration: 5 seconds

(Functionally the same as the current Burn the Bridges, but now costing 2 mana, up from 0)

Perk 2 - Tempers Flaring
Summon an Ember of Flame every 15 seconds on a random bridge. When a friendly Melee Minion picks up the ember, all nearby friendly Melee Minions gain Rage

Rage
+50% Attack Damage

Ember of Flame
Pickup Radius: 1
Effect Radius: 8

(Embers spawn on your side of the bridge)

Perk 3 - Tempers Burning
Ember of Flame now gives Berserker's Rage instead

Berserker's Rage
+100% Attack Damage. Also self inflict 10% of attack damage

Developer Comments:

For a while Volco has been directed a lot by his perk 1, pushing him into this Spam Master identity. This was never really the intention, as Volco's identity is supposed to be Aggressive, brutish and very much a fighting Master. The Afterburner perk was supposed to give him a tool to put some pressure on the opponent master, allowing him to be more aggressive. However, it has proven that the effect was far too strong which resulted in him being relegated to simply dominating the bridges (with help from perk 2) and spam killing his opponent from a far - Quite the opposite of what we want Volco to really be.

Veteran users will remember the days before Rage was set to 50% where Volco was all about getting to that 3rd perk and destroying your opponent with superior brawling power. This is the style we are trying to get back to with this rework.

By making the rage dependent on the bridge we are hoping to gear Volco into an aggressive track in which he minions are far stronger in offense, rather than in defense. Adding the 100% Berserkers rage should make his perk 3 quite significant again, however the 10% self damage should help make it slightly more manageable to deal with these highly explosive minions.

Ultimately we're hoping this design will help Volco return to his true Identity, as well as removing a play style that has been very frustrating to play against.

It's been a blast playtesting the new Volco behind the scenes, and we can't wait for him to hit the Live servers next week. Let us know what you think!

We've also got a selection of other card balance changes coming in version 1.18;

Healing Fireball

• Healing is now split among friendly Minions.
  
• The spell will try to split healing as evenly as possible, but will not "overheal" units. If there are two minions with 100/200 hp, and 100/400 hp, the first Minion will heal for 100, and the second for 300.
  
• Developer Comments
  
• Healing Fireball simply provided too much value for its mana cost in push-oriented decks, exponentially becoming more powerful the more units it affected and rendering some spells completely ineffective as a countermeasure, or making trades far too valuable after the fact. Nerfing the numbers of the Spell would simply put it in a state where it's either dominant with how much value it provides or too bad to consider running, so we're opting for a rework to how the healing is applied.

Restless Dead

• Mana Cost 3 -> 4
  
• Developer Comments
  
• We wanted to take a moment to explain why this nerf didn't come sooner. We were first made aware of how explosive Restless Dead really was just a few days before the release of Version 1.17, which ended up being dangerously close to the patch deadline and would have more than likely affected the Xbox Certification process, and delayed the patch as a whole.
  
• We weighed our options and decided against hotfixing it so we could try a new mechanic on the PTR that could hopefully be incorporated as a balancing measure in the future, but the results weren't satisfactory. We've shelved that idea for now, and while there are still interesting options for Restless Dead on the table, we're opting to go with this change for now and revisit it later.

Screaming Scrat

• Mana Cost 2 -> 1
  
• Health 100 -> 15
  
• Add Barrel Shield (Includes the reduced movement speed effect)
  
• Damage 130 -> 30

Zeppelin Bomber

• Attack Cooldown 3 -> 2
  
• Damage 100 -> 70

Empyrean Army

• Requires 5 Unique (non-Wild Carded) Empyrean Cards in your deck to activate
  
• Developer Comments
  
• This is a change we've wanted to make for a while, as the intention has always been that a significant portion of your deck needs to meet the Empyrean theme for the effect to activate. The usage of Wild Cards would somewhat defeat this goal, hence the change.

These are just a small selection of changes coming in Version 1.18. As always, let us know what you think!



BadAsAFish has signups for another 2v2 tournament open right now! Signups are closing on the 26th for this Double Elimination multi-day event, so if you're looking for competitive Minion Masters action with a friend, this'll be the tournament for you!

This is a global Minion Masters 2v2, Double Elimination, Best of 3 (Finals are Best of 5), Multi-Day event. The tournament will start on the 28th of September, and you will be given 3 days to play each round at your convenience. Please note that this is a global tournament, open to players of all time zones.

1st: $50.00 ($25 each) + 3 Big Dwarf Packs Each (900 Rubies + 45 Power Tokens)
2nd: $25.00 ($12.50 each) + 2 Big Dwarf Packs Each (600 Rubies + 30 Power Tokens)
3rd: $15.00 ($7.50 each) + 1 Big Dwarf Pack Each (300 Rubies + 15 Power Tokens)
4th: $10.00 ($5.00 each) + 1 Big Dwarf Pack Each (300 Rubies + 15 Power Tokens)
5th - 8th: 1 Dwarf Pack each (1500 Gold + 3 Power Tokens)

https://www.toornament.com/en_GB/tournaments/4022691033885106176/information

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters!



We're able to share some more about the process of Account migration we'll be offering with Version 1.18 for Discord users.

(Previously we discussed that support for the Discord version of Minion Masters will be ending with the new update due to concerns about the game's stability - Check out the post here if you'd like to read more.)

With the patch, when you launch the game through Discord you'll be given a 6 digit code that's unique to your account. When playing on Steam, you'll be able to select a "Migrate Discord User" option in the Menu where you can enter the code to start a one-way operation that replaces the account you're playing with on our server with that of the Discord account.

If you own DLC on the Steam account, but not on Discord, you'll unlock the content once you've transferred your progress.

However, if you already own the DLC on Discord, you will not receive them a second time for your account, even if you purchase it from the Steam store. We cannot flag your account as having purchased the DLC, so the option to buy it will still be there even though you won't get anything from it.

Note that we are not responsible for any incorrect or accidental account transfers that happen as a result of you accidentally sharing your code. Don't transfer your account while streaming, and recheck your Steam credentials to make sure you're logged into the correct account before migrating. Keep your code safe!

Version 1.18 will be releasing on the 29th of October. If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to us at the usual places, or via support@betadwarf.com.



The arenas are getting spooky with today's mini-Update! As detailed in last week's blog, all your favourite arenas have a facelift - Have fun with the haunted festivities and let us know which modified arena is your favourite! And get ready for a huge DLC sale on the 27th, and that special free shop offer on Halloween itself!

Last Friday, we showcased the new Mountain Gale card on our Update Site. This week we figured we'd showcase a sneak peek of it in action:



(We'll start including GIFs of the new cards in our weekly Newsletters. If you haven't already signed up, make sure to do so and be the first to see previews like this!)



BadAsAFish is back at it again with another multi-day tournament, with a $100 prize pool and an invitation to the Sinobii Battleground Invitational up for grabs!

It'll be starting on October 19th, so you've still got time to sign up if you want in. Earn some experience playing competitive Minion Masters games, and engage with our awesome e-sports community!

https://www.toornament.com/en_GB/tournaments/4003556989281189888/information

Cheers from BetaDwarf!