May 28, 2020

May 28 (Thu) Regular Maintenance Update Details

Shadow Arena - [GM] Hazel

Greetings, this is Shadow Arena.

Here are the updates made to Shadow Arena during the regularly scheduled maintenance on May 28 (Wed).
* Patch Size: 47.18 MB (Approx.)

Check out all the details below!

Dev Memo:

These update notes are our first for a regular maintenance since the start of Early Access.

With the urgent nature of the temporary maintenance in the past week, we were unable to provide memos in those updates, so we decided to include those memos here.

■ Major System Improvements

- Improved on the in-game lag issue.
- Improved the detection function for hack users and added a function to block access.

Dev Memo:
While this is just a small part of the updates notes, these updates were our number one focus during the past week. The reason we had three temporary maintenances in such a short period of time was mostly to improve on the lag issue. In the case of the game hack detection function, we’ve been continuously adding to it and testing it. Users who are clearly deemed as hackers will now be blocked with this new function.

■ Major Update - Adjustments to Silver Gain

- Increased the amount of silver obtained by defeating monsters and Heroes by double. (This change excludes the Goblin Thief and silver in chests.)
- Decreased the maximum amount of silver obtainable for defeating a Goblin Thief from 100 to 80 silver.
- Decreased the maximum amount of silver obtainable for destroying a silver-containing chest from 50 to 40 silver.

Dev Memo:
We have heard the concerns about the low silver drop rates throughout the week.

Our original intention was to allow players that wanted to farm silver to go after Goblin Thieves and silver chests. However, as we continued to listen to feedback, we decided to reconsider. Instead of forcing players into a certain way of play, we increased the overall silver drop rate from regular play.

Still, this might result in players who are only trying to get silver to get an excessive amount. Therefore, this increase was only applied to regular play by slightly reducing the silver obtainable from other sources. This should help in spreading the income of silver across the board.

■ Major Update - Rewards for AI Matches AI

- Added obtainable rewards (Mastery EXP and Silver) to AI matches.
> You can now gain 50% of the Mastery and silver obtainable from Solo and Team Matches in AI Matches.

Dev Memo:
This is another step we took to improve silver earnings by giving Mastery and silver as rewards in AI matches for players that like playing this mode.

However, it is 50% less than regular matches due to the difference in gameplay time.

Also, try giving “Hard Mode” AI matches a go. We think you will be able to experience a new and fun side of the game.

■ Team Match Event

- “Team Up for Double the Fun!” event has started.
> Event Period: May 28, 2020 (Thu) after maintenance - June 4, 2020 (Thu) before maintenance
> During the event period, Team Matches will give double the amount of silver and Mastery.

Dev Memo:
Shadow Arena has Team matches which offer a whole different experience from Solo matches. However, there seemed to have been a slight burden when starting Team matches, so we decided on an event where you can earn double the amount of Mastery and silver.

You can either choose to create your own team or be matched with a random player. Don’t be shy and give it a try. Do note, you can be resurrected by a team player even if you died after the grace period!

■ Heroes

<May 26th (Tue) Temporary Maintenance Update>
- Increased the duration of invincibility by double when rolling and increased the stamina used to roll by +25%.

Dev Memo:
There was a major Hero balancing update on May 26th. We originally intended for this change to be applied during our regular maintenance, but we needed to do an update to improve on the lag issue. So, we decided to use the temporary maintenance to both improve on the lag issue and apply the balance changes early.

On that day, there was a huge rush to get the fixes for our server out as soon as possible, which led to not having enough time to leave a proper memo for our players.

First off, the biggest changes that were about “Roll” and “Projectile Hitbox Increases.”

Roll is performed by pressing Shift with a directional key. The invincibility duration was really short when evading with a roll, which meant it required extremely precise timing to dodge enemy skills and attacks. This meant it was hard to perform and created too much of a gap between players that can time it perfectly versus those who couldn’t.

That’s why we made it easier to evade attacks by increasing the invincibility time when rolling. However, we increased the amount of stamina required to roll to balance this change. This change affects a fundamental part of the gameplay, so we will be keeping a close eye on its impact.

<May 26th (Tue) Temporary Maintenance Update Details>
- Spear of Serendia (1): Improved to activate a bit faster than before.
- Spear of Serendia (1): Increased the projectile hitbox by 20%.

Dev Memo:
The changes above were applied during the 5/26 Temporary Maintenance.

With the changes to how projectiles were being registered in-game along with their animations, it became too difficult to hit the “Spear of Serendia” skill. As many Jordine players opened up with this skill, we’ve slightly increased its hitbox. Also, we’ve increased the skill’s animation speed, making it a tad bit easier to aim and hit your target.

< May 26th (Tue) Temporary Maintenance Update Details>
- Head Shot (1): Increased projectile hitbox by 25%.

Dev Memo:
The change above was applied during 5/26 Temporary Maintenance.

As with Jordine, due to the change in the way projectile hits were registered, we increased the projectile hitbox of Yeonhwa’s skill as well.

- Phantom Raven (RMB): Improved the skill to be usable in a diagonal direction.
- Phantom Raven (RMB): Improved the skill to be able to combo a bit faster into the basic attack (LMB) after using the skill.

< May 26th (Tue) Temporary Maintenance Update Details>
- Sun of Destruction (4): Increased damage by 9.4%.
- Sun of Destruction (4): Increased projectile hitbox as follows.
> Charge Level 1: 33% Increase
> Charge Level 2: 27% Increase
- Dark Mark (1): Increased projectile hitbox by 50%.

Dev Memo:
Ahon Kirus’ playstyle involves being patient more than attacking other players first. Due to her arsenal of “slower” projectile attacks, we’ve noticed a lot of players struggling with her, especially after the changes to how projectile hits were being registered. Therefore, on 5/26, we improved her projectiles’ hitbox as well as gave her a slight boost in Sun of Destruction (4)’s damage. However, we felt this wasn’t enough so we focused on Phantom Raven (LMB), which had previously been nerfed multiple-times during the closed beta test, by adding the option to fire it diagonally as well as smoothing out how it comboed into basic attacks.

< May 22nd (Fri) Temporary Maintenance Details>
- Bestial Howl (4): Improved to apply the stun effect that was applied only at the start of the attack to now apply while it is being casted.

< May 26th (Tues) Temporary Maintenance Details>
- Bestial Howl (4): Increased damage by 11.2% and improved to inflict stun effect while being casted regardless of when the skill hit.

Dev Memo:
Shultz’s Bestial Howl (4) Stun effect would originally only register at the beginning of the attack, and so, if players comboed too quickly on opponents already knocked down, there were instances where the Stun effect would not apply. Thus, we tried to supplement this issue with the 5/22 change, yet when we looked at our data on kills and victories, we felt that Shultz needed a bit more help, so on 5/26 we improved the skill a bit more.

- Heart Stab (1): Fixed issue of the skill sometimes not registering the Stun effect on opponents.

Dev Memo:
Like the issue with Shultz, we fixed the issues Haru was having with the Stun effect sometimes not registering.

<5/22 (Fri) Temporary Maintenance Update Details>
- Ancient Dragon’s Breath (2): Increased the skill’s level 2 and 3 damage as follows.    > Level 2: +10.4%
> Level 3: +12.5%
<5/26 (Tues) Temporary Maintenance Update Details>
- Fairy Flame (RMB): Increased projectile hitbox by 25%.
- Seed of Ice (1): Increased projectile hitbox by 33%.
- Ancient Dragon's Breath (2): Increased projectile hitbox by 20%.

Dev Memo:
Due to Herawen being the hero with the most amount of CC-based projectiles, she was the most affected by the projectile change. In addition, with the reduction of Freeze’s bonus damage, her overall damage potential was lowered. This was in an effort to lower her power in Team matches, but as it lowered her overall damage too far, we increased the damage on her Ancient Dragon's Breath (2) skill on May 22nd. Additionally, we increased the hitbox for projectiles on May 26th. There are no new changes for her in this update, so we will be watching to see if the buffs make her get too out of control.

- Explosive Trap (4): Reduced the self-detonation time from 90 seconds to 60 seconds.
<May 22nd (Fri) Temporary Maintenance Update Details>
- Explosive Trap (4): Changed to explode after 1 min. 30 sec. if left untriggered by another Hero.
- Natural Marksman (RMB): Increased damage by 10.1%.
- Arrow Storm (2): Increased damage by 5.2%.
<May 26th (Tue) Temporary Maintenance Update Details>
- Natural Marksman (RMB): Increased projectile hitbox by 25%.
- Thunderbolt Arrow (1): Increased projectile hitbox by 33%.

Dev Memo:
As Orwen is heavily reliant on projectiles, we buffed her twice, once during the May 22nd maintenance and again on the 26th maintenance by increasing her projectile hitbox and more.
However, being able to delete someone by overlapping Explosive Traps was not something we wanted to encourage, so we made them self-detonate a bit faster to make them stay around a bit shorter.

<May 26th (Tue) Temporary Maintenance Update Details>
- Iron Pulverizer (1): Changed to make switching to other actions slower if the skill misses.

Dev Memo:
Just as Goyen was known as the original OP hero during the closed beta, we too are quite scared to face him on the battlefield.
Goyen’s specialty is dealing an incredible amount of explosive damage in short bursts, and this was something we didn’t want to remove from the hero. Therefore, we wanted to add a risk factor if he ever missed lading a skill, hence the reasoning for our latest change. If we ever feel that this was too much of an adjustment, we will re-address this change at a later time.

- Golden Gate (4): Changed the amount of stamina consumed to the following.
> 1st Gate: Before 0 → After 100
> 2nd Gate: Before 75 → After 150
> 3rd Gate: Before 150 → After 200
> 4th Gate: Before 225 → After 250
> 5th Gate: Before 300 → After 300
> 6th Gate: Before 375 → After 350
> 7th Gate: Before 450 → After 400
> 8th Gate: Before 500 → After 450
- Asura Tread (RMB): Changed the skill so that switching to other skills will be slower if the skill’s additional attack fails.
- Enhanced Sleeve Tangler (2): Fixed issue of the additional hit (3rd hit) of the Ultimate Level activating when the skill isn’t performed with the precise timing.
- Helix Cannon (1): Increased projectile hitbox by 20%.
- Asura Tread (RMB): Fixed skill not being used when casted after using Golden Gate (4) with 35% to 50% stamina remaining.

Dev Memo:
Right from the start of Early Access, Badal was extremely powerful. However, due to the changes to Badal’s counters, Heroes with projectiles, it became even more apparent as to how powerful his ability to chase after Heroes and take them down in a single combo was.
So, we nerfed him on May 22nd and 26th, especially Asura Tread (RMB). We increased the risk of him missing his additional strike on the skill by making it harder for him to continue using skills left and right.
On May 26th, his natural counters became stronger during that patch. We will be keeping a close watch over the results of these changes and readjust Badal accordingly.

- Radiant Pursuit - Courage Stance (2): Reduced the hitbox of the skill by 30%. However, the hitbox for the additional stab attack was not changed.
- Fixed an issue with one of the skill descriptions stating the incorrect max damage.
- Fixed stance change for sometimes not properly occurring in non-optimal network conditions.
- Patient Stance (RMB): Increased the damage of basic attacks in this stance by 2 times.
- Light’s Judgement (4): Fixed the skill to have the same attack effect regardless of stance.
> The maximum damage will be the same as before while in Courage Stance, and the Blowback effect from Patient Stance will also be retained.
> Adjusted the shield capacity in Patient Stance to handle 24% more damage that before.
- Stance Change (RMB): Adjusted the cooldown from 1 sec. to 2 sec.
- Blades of Retribution - Courage Stance (1): Decreased the damage by 13.5%.
- Radiant Pursuit - Courage Stance (2): Decreased the damage by 10%.
- Basic Attack (LMB): Decreased damage by 9%.
- Blades of Retribution - Courage Stance (1): Decreased damage by 8% and decreased the attack range to match the visual effect.
- Blades of Retribution - Courage Stance (1): Fixed the skill description showing the incorrect damage.
- Radiant Slash - Courage Stance (3): Increased damage by 12%.
- Shield Throw - Endurance Stance (1): Increased damage by 50%.
- Sacred Barrier - Endurance Stance (2): Improved to summon barrier more quickly than before.

Dev Memo:
Venslar... Well... seems like we went too far with her.
Her specs were set too high as our testers were better on other heroes, and since she was brand new, they were not accustomed to her playstyle. S,o trying to balance her win-rate with our in-house testing set her specs really high.
Her Courage Stance was far too strong, but her Endurance Stance was far too ineffective. So we continued to nerf her Courage Stance and buff her Endurance Stance.
We will try to be more careful next time when preparing and testing new Heroes in the future.

■ Monster

- Fixed an issue of a cauldron appearing in the Shadow Shrine before the start of a match.

■ Ancient Weapon

- Decreased the health of Ancient Weapons as follows.
> Laytenn: Before 23,000 → After 20,000
> Puturum: Before 33,000 → After 28,000
- Improved the visual effect when dismounting from an Ancient Weapon.

■ Item

- Added the item “Ancient Weapon Fragment”.
> The Ancient Weapon Fragment can be obtained at a low rate by defeating monsters in the entire map and can be taken out from the Loot Storage.
> When taking the Ancient Weapon Fragments to the arena, you will need 55 points to open the sealed chest.
> Fuse (G) 2 Ancient Weapon Fragments in the arena to make a "Summon Scroll: Ancient Weapon Laytenn. Use this item to summon the Laytenn immediately. However, the item “Summon Scroll: Ancient Weapon Laytenn” cannot be taken to your Loot Storage.

Dev Memo:

Let us explain about the Ancient Weapon section.

It’s really exciting when you get your hands on a Laytenn of a Puturum.

However, they are extremely rare to comeby. You need to fight against other players and the Shadow Lord over this bonus. Not to mention, you had to survive your way to the altar that had the ancient weapon.

Now, all you need is to have 2 Ancient Weapon Fragments and you will be able to summon a Laytenn right away. You can even take a fragment out with you at the end of the match. So, this should make it much easier to get a ride on a Layteen.

However, we also had to consider the players that are running the other way when they see a Laytenn. So we slightly lowered its health and duration.

Caution: The item “Summon Scroll: Ancient Weapon Laytenn” cannot be taken to your Loot Storage.

■ Fixes and Improvements

- Improved the issue of lag that occured near the Shadow Shrine in the center of the map.
- Added a feature that will direct you to the Shop when clicking the locked icon of a Hero you don’t have on the Hero selection screen.
- Added a feature to Hero selection screen that lets you view a skill guide for each Hero. After selecting a Hero, click the skill guide button at the bottom-right to see the Hero’s skill descriptions and combo videos.
> Currently, you see the combo videos for Jordine Ducas, Yeonhwa, Badal the Golden, and Venslar; the other Heroes’ combo videos will be added in the future.
- Fixed the issue where the description in the Shop would bleed out of the UI when purchasing a product.
- Removed “Accumulated Score” from ranking and added “Average Kills”. (Modified)
> Play at least 1 match to have your average kills reflected.

- Added lore to all the Heroes and Skins in the Shop.
- Changed the names of the skins [Goyen] Phantom of the Battlefield and [Gerhard Shultz] God of the Arena in certain language.

Known Issues

- There were reports from players that their frame rates and other performances dropped when they switched from Full Screen Window to Full Screen mode. We recommend playing in Full Screen Window mode until this issue is resolved.

Thank you.