PHAGEBORN online card game News

Dear Denizens of Issilith!

You may have noticed that we posted this week's announcement earlier than usual. That is because today's a big day for us! Not only did we just start with the testing of Phageborn (more info on Discord) but today we will also introduce our long-awaited faction newly implemented in the game, The Ascended (some of you may have been asking about it on Discord already)!

Zealous and with a strong sense of justice. Most of the souls that have had a chance to cross their path with the Ascended would describe them as such, and they wouldn't be wrong.
Unlike Drakkorith, whose martial prowess is based on aggression in combat, the Ascended tend to have a more balanced fighting style. That is thanks to their two main philosophies which apply both on and off the battleground, Tey and Yul. Tey, or the Teaching of the Sun, favors offense over defense, and Yul, The Teaching of the Moon, that favors defense over offense. Finding balance in such surroundings is what makes the Ascended so formidable opponents.
This faction of great warriors is more than just that. In their midst, you can notice many different creatures, including humans and human-like beasts. Taking that into consideration along with their usually protective fight style, it may not come as such a shock that they were once a part of those races. However, when faced with almost certain death, some of them were saved. While their origin is shrouded by mystery, it is evident that every creature that became Ascended was touched by something, well, almost divine. Now, granted new life and imbued with spiritual power, the Ascended have only one thing on their mind, to fight against evil and prevent that horrid destiny of corruption and destruction that awaits all.

If you ever find yourself playing with or against The Ascended, knowing some basic mechanics that this faction relies on may be of great help on your way to victory. Just like in the Lore, while playing with Ascended you can expect a heavy emphasis on protecting your units and giving them the edge to survive long enough to make the maximum of every unit. And the main way to do it is usually through Shield Counters and Blessings.
Shield counters serve as a health protector for your units, Core, and Avatar. However, there is a catch, shield counters only last until the start of your next turn so use them wisely!
Blessings are, in their essence, ability cards specific to Ascended faction. Using them can give you that extra advantage needed to make advantageous trades with your opponent. They can be obtained only through a handful of units. So if you are feeling blessed, make sure to include them in your deck!

If you wish to try out the Ascended and with their help fight your way to victory, join our testing today! You can find more information about the test on our Discord channel: Discord. Feel free to join us, play some Phageborn, and leave feedback on our game. It is greatly appreciated!

Yours truly,
Games Revolted

Dear Denizens of Issilith!

If you find yourself testing Phageborn from the 21st of April you'll see that one of the new features we implemented is Quests. Their primary purpose is to boost your progression by helping you level up your Player level faster and to give you that slight edge you wouldn’t normally have. For now, we have several types of Quests, not including the ones in the Battle Pass. These main quests consist of Daily Quests, Epic Quests, and Guild Quests. Battle Pass Quests count only towards the Battle Pass levels and as such do not directly influence your Player, Faction, or Avatar Level.

Daily Quests usually have XP as their reward. You can have up to 3 Daily Quests active at a time and you'll get a new one every day until you reach that cap, so make sure you have space for more! Since they are usually things you will do in-game, (e.g. 'Energized' is a quest that requires you to spend 15 energy) it's not a problem to complete them passively, just by playing. However, just in case you don't like the quest or just don't think you'll be able to finish it in time, you can re-roll each quest once per day. Just keep in mind that the progression already made in the re-rolled quest won't be carried over to the new one.

When you open the Daily Quest side menu you will see it also contains a Daily Boost. Daily Boosts will give you extra XP for the first 3 wins of the day. Every 24 hours your Daily Boost is refreshed and you can use it again to boost your next 3 wins. After every win, the number of wins remaining is reduced by one, until all 3 win boosts are used.
We would like to add that it is planned that Daily Boost will apply to non-custom PvP game modes after the full release. For the duration of the testing it will also apply to the vs A.I. game mode (Tutorial excluded), so you can progress more easily and try out as many features and options in the game as you can during the testing period.



Epic Quests will grant you some major rewards upon their completion, however, they are not as easily acquired or completed as Daily Quests. You can get Epic Quest as a random drop when you win a ranked game. Only one Epic Quest can be active at the time. They cannot be re-rolled nor can they expire since they are not timed quests. It will usually take you some time to complete them as they consist of 3 subquests (e.g. Win 30 games + Deal 150 Acid damage + Heal your Avatar for 300 health).

Guild Quests track the progress of all members of the Guild that you are a part of. Guild Quest lasts for a week, 168 hours to be precise. Every week a Guild Master can choose one of the 4 suggested Quests as the next week's Guild Quest. If they don't, the Quest will be chosen at random. When the Guild Quests are completed and their time runs out, your Guild will be awarded XP that counts towards Guild levels as well as a reward for each member of the Guild that contributes to the Quest progress. You can contribute to the quest progression even after the quest is completed. That way everyone has a chance to fulfill the minimum requirements needed to collect the reward. Currently, the reward system for the Guild Quests is not completely in place and it will not have its full functionality for testing. The main reasons are rewards, in this case, Guild Points which you'll be able to use in the Shop for unique and special cosmetics. However, at this stage, we still don't have a Shop set so the full implementation will come at a later date.

As stated at the start of this post, Quests are a feature still in development. We will be dropping full details on the test on the 19th of April, so make sure you check our Discord then! So feel free to leave your input on them or any other part of the game as your feedback and data collected from the testing will help us shape the final look of Phageborn. Comment below or join our Discord channel (Discord) and share your preferences with other Residents of Issilith!

Yours truly,
Games Revolted

Dear Denizens of Issilith!

With the new Battle Pass plans in place and all the new updates we are currently adding to the game, a question “How will all this affect my progression?” may come to mind. So today we will walk you through some of the main progression elements and how we plan for them to look like in the future.

It is important to us that you know how this is an ongoing discussion, and that we may change the final look of the player progression according to the testing results and your feedback.

Experience (XP) is the basic progression element you passively gain while playing Phageborn. Every time you finish a match you will be rewarded with a certain amount of XP, depending on your performance. There are minimal requirements for a game to count for awarding XP to prevent players from gaining XP by surrendering at the start of a match. Completing Quests gives XP as well, but more on that next time.
Gained XP is assigned to each progression element in its full amount. In Phageborn, progression elements are Player level, Faction level, and Avatar level.

Player Level may very well be the main cornerstone of the progression system. XP required to level up will increase with each level until it reaches its cap. With each level up you will gain Progress Points (PP) and Soul Fragments (SF). Once you have reached the maximum amount of PP and SF they will be replaced by various other rewards.

Progress Points (PP) are used in the Blacksmith to unlock seals from the Seal trees. Seals always cost 1PP to unlock. When you unlock a seal you acquire the cards behind it (more on that when we talk Card Acquisition).
Soul Fragments (SF) are acquired through leveling up your account. You can use 5 of them and combine them into a complete Avatar Soul.
Avatar Souls (AS) are acquired when you collect 5 SF. You can use it in the Shrine to unlock additional Avatars. All Avatars cost 1 AS.

Faction Level is increased when you collect enough XP while playing with a specific faction. Each faction has its own Faction level. Your Faction level is important for a few reasons: it allows you access to more unlockable content (cosmetics), it's tied to your range of influence (more on that when we talk Card Acquisition, it’s coming honest), and it serves as a catch-up function. The catch-up function will help a higher-level player speed up progression in any faction. This bonus will automatically start once the player reaches the point where XP required to level up the Player Level will become uniform. The bonus will be greater the larger the difference between the Faction and Player Level is.

Avatar Levels' primary function is to give players time to adapt to using an Avatar by restricting their second and third traits behind a level gate. This level gate is removed at some point, depending on the Player Level.

CARD ACQUISITION
As stated before, we will not sell card packs! In Phageborn, apart from the Battle Passes, you can acquire cards through the seals. Every faction has its own Seal tree alongside the Neutral cards as well.
There are certain requirements you need to have so you can unlock a seal. You have to: have the required previous seal, have unspent PP, and the seal you wish to unlock has to be in your range of influence.



As seen in the screenshot, every seal is positioned somewhere along with one of the 3 paths. To unlock a seal you will need to unlock the one before that is connected to the seal you wish to unlock. Unlocking the final seal on the path requires 3 seals from the previous range of influence to be unlocked. Once you start unlocking seals along the path you don't have to finish that path to begin to unlock other seals outside of it. You can unlock any other seal in a different path or even another faction as long as you have prerequisites to unlock that seal. Each seal always costs 1 PP no matter where it is situated on the Seal tree. Seals that are outside your range of influence cannot be unlocked and you'll have to level up that faction's level.
Once you unlock a seal you cannot refund it! As soon as you unlock a seal, cards behind it are added to your account and that can't be reversed. So take your time to explore all that Seal trees have to offer to you.



There are a few differences in how the Neutral Seal Tree looks in comparison to the Faction Seal trees. First, Neutral Seal trees do NOT have a range of influence. That means that you can unlock cards from it as long as you have enough PP and have the required previous seal unlocked. The second difference is that the Neutral Seal tree has an additional, separate group of seals that are not bound by any path and can be unlocked in any order. Each of them contains 3 legendary neutral cards.
There are two main reasons why we implemented this. This way we have cleared up the Neutral Seal tree, giving it the same look and amount of cards behind each seal as in Faction Seal trees. But besides the esthetic, the main reason is that it gives you more options for deckbuilding, especially if you haven't been playing for long. Since the legendary cards can be the main focus of some strategies or an extremely big help in the right circumstances, we felt that locking all of them at the end of the paths may have as a result a needless grind just so you can try out some new legendary cards and their potential synergies. So we decided to put them separately so you can unlock new legendary cards even as a new player!

Once you start the game and choose your faction you will be given that faction's base deck, starting Avatar of that faction, and 3 Progress Points. The way you want to use your resources is entirely up to you. So feel free to browse a bit and strategize, and most importantly, don't forget to have fun!

Keep in mind that during the testing we will look over data and your feedback so there is a possibility that some things may change in the future. That is why your input is important to us! Feel free to comment below or join our Discord channel (Discord) and talk with Residents of Issilith about things you like and don't like about our current player progression.

Yours truly,
Games Revolted

Dear Denizens of Issilith!

One reoccurring comments we get regarding the game is that Phageborn can be a bit too complex for beginner players. It's very important for us that all our players can enjoy our game regardless of their experience in this game genre. So, after a lot of hard work, we are proud to present to you our first Tutorial!

For now, while it is still a work in progress, the tutorial is divided into 4 short lessons, each of them introducing some of the fundamental mechanics Phageborn uses.
First, the Intro lesson, explains the basics of the game, like win condition and how the zones work. In the second lesson, Positioning, you will learn more about moving, how the combat works, and things every Avatar can do. Skill Mastery will illustrate how Energy, Avatar skills, and targeting works. And the final lesson, On the Draw, is made to give you a bit more insight into Attributes and their leveling, as well as into subduing the Avatars.

In-game screenshot

We're looking to start the testing on the 21st of April (check out our Discord for more info). Once that happens, the tutorial will be one of the things which will be looked at heavily. So feel free to leave your feedback on it again once you've been able to try the tutorial for yourself, it would be greatly appreciated!

Do you prefer shorter, less detailed tutorials or are more in-depth tutorials your jam? What specifics do you think should be included in the tutorial? Let us know by commenting below or join our Discord channel and share your insights with other Residents of Issilith by clicking on the following link: Discord.

Yours truly,
Games Revolted

Dear Denizens of Issilith!

Making a game like Phageborn we know how critical it is to make sure we focus on keeping true to our community while making a game that you can be proud to play. The key to this is providing you with reasons to keep coming back and that means we need to be able to make sure we can continue to develop content for the game.

We passionately believe it's important to delve deeper into the lore, give you exciting and challenging missions, explore the history of the factions, and other cool features over time. Doing this requires constant development and we have to make sure that we are able to give you the best experience we can, rewarding you for coming with us on this thrilling journey, and make the game better for everyone playing. At the end of the day, we want to make sure we can keep working on a game you enjoy playing, and that we love making.

We need to find a way to support the game based on the value we deliver to you the players. That’s just not possible with a single up-front price for the game. Instead we want to find a way to unlock the game for everyone, and support the game by making exceptional content experiences that you love and that keeps you playing over and over again.

So we are planning to drop the up-front price and instead move to a Battle Pass Model which rewards actually playing the game. But we think its vital that we make sure that everyone who has supported us so far gets treated like the champions they are!

So here is what we are planning…


***Importantly this is an ongoing discussion***

We are not going to sell Card Packs!

We have listened to you and understand that for many of you it's important that we don’t sell ‘booster packs’ of cards (unlike many other card games). Instead, we will continue to make sure that you can unlock cards through ‘Seal Trees’ earned from playing the game; learning them and mastering as you go. We will share more about how ‘Seal Trees’ work in future posts!!


We are going to add Battle Passes

The game will have a set of missions updated each week that will allow you to unlock content as part of each Battle Pass that everyone can take part in. That means that anyone can earn items from the Battle Pass no matter what. But there will be extra missions for you if you buy the Battle Pass as well.
A key thing here is that you can unlock what you want from the Pass when you want to, either as soon as you can or taking your time getting to the other items whilst the Pass is still active. Special items may sometimes be locked behind levels or specific quests , but if you have your eye on an especially shiny cosmetic for your favourite Avatar, it's up to you if you want to grab that first! What is in each Battle Pass will change too, but we want to make sure that it is deeply tied into the story and built on the Lore. We even plan on having some in-game events that will spice up how you play, all linked to the Battle Pass that is going at the time.

BattlePasses will include:

• New Cards (obtainable by everyone – no pay to win)
  
• New Battlegrounds (each with unique music)
  
• New Avatar Skins
  
• New Foils
  
• New Avatar voice lines
  
• …and many more new things that we haven’t introduced yet (We don’t want to spoil everything).

Everyone who has bought the game before 20th of April 2022 will get a Founders Pass

If you have bought our game up until the 20th of April 2022 you will permanently unlock the following:

• Ability to create a Guild (Anyone can join one)
  
• Access to Ranked mode queue
  
• Uncapped deck slots (We are still designing how many slots premium players will have)
  
• Special Founder’s tag
  
• Unique King Tyberiuth skin
  
• …other perks we are still designing

But most importantly ***you will get the first year’s Battle Passes included for free!!***

Anyone can play for FREE

We want to make the game available for everyone. We will do so at full release of the game for anyone to play but free players will have some restrictions. These include:

• Not being able to create a guild (but able to join)
  
• Only access to the Casual mode Queue
  
• Capped Deck slots (Again we are still exploring the numbers)
  
• Normal quests only

But! We are also looking at offering players a one-time purchase option to unlock these restrictions, whether or not they buy a BattlePass - we would love to know what you think?

Also! We are thinking about whether we should offer people who didn’t manage to unlock some items from the previous month’s Battle Pass to be able to pay for what they missed? Certain items would only be available from playing missions in the game.

We want to hear what you think about this.

Comment below or join our Discord channel (Discord) and join the ongoing discussion with your questions, thoughts, and feedback.

Yours truly,
Games Revolted