Update #18 - Leaderboards

*Also applies to the Abalon Demo

I hope you enjoy earning points and seeing your numbers go up...

By overwhelming player request, I'm very pleased to deliver our new leaderboard feature to Abalon! Compete for global rank or aim to improve your score with each new adventure run.



This update to Abalon incorporates a new scoring mechanic for adventure runs. You'll earn points for your performance in battle, successfully completing fate encounters, and exploring to find lore.

[h2]Battle Score[/h2]


Victory in battle will now earn you points based on your performance in battle. Each type of enemy has been assigned a "par" score based on our players' battle statistics.

Par is the average number of turns it takes to beat this particular type of enemy determined by their level, type (minion, elite, boss), chapter, and your adventure difficulty setting. Substantial bonuses are awarded if you can beat the battle in fewer turns than the par average - creating a nice tensions between playing it safe, conserving resources - or burning through your deck to get the highest score possible.

[h2]Run Summary[/h2]

Your run summary screen can be accessed anytime while exploring by clicking the trophy button or hotkey (R). This will show a detailed record of activities that have earned you points.

[h2]Fate Score[/h2]
Successfully completing fate encounters will earn predetermined scores based on the encounter difficulty. Certain encounters (like the Sandpit Arena) will earn substantially more points than others. Unlike battles, fate encounters always earn a fixed point value regardless of chapter or difficulty. You also earn points for hiring mercenaries (or the entire den if multiple are sold together) or buying out an entire shop.

[h2]Resource Score[/h2]
Unspent resources in your inventory will also grant additional points at the end of your run. However, please note that I incentivized exploration - so you'll almost always earn more points by spending your dice and gold to recruit guardians or complete encounters. Also note that paying off bandits does not earn points (but does spare you fight).

[h2]Challenge Modifiers[/h2]
Coming in our next update, challenge modifiers will allow you to customize your difficulty and grant bonuses to your score. If you've got ideas for challenges you'd like to appear in the game, please share them here, on our community forums, or in our Discord.

[h2]Run Completion Bonus[/h2]
Complete your adventure to earn a 10% bonus.

[h2]Personal Leaderboard[/h2]

Clicking on your score in the Run Summary, pressing hotkey (K), or going to Progression -> Stats will take you to your personal leaderboard. Here you'll find a list of all your previous runs, when you last played or completed them, which Summoner you played, and a score.

"Wow! How do I already have points here, Ross?"

Great question! I built Abalon with the future intent to incorporate leaderboards, so, your runs statistics have been accumulating since our EA launch. What I didn't have was a clear understanding of how to effectively score players, and I wanted something that would really encourage performance and promote healthy tension between pushing yourself for high scores and conserving your resources.

Thanks to all of your feedback, I was able to derive these preliminary scores. I even factored in outliers, such as resource cheat exploits and game breaking artifacts - such as the Red Starling army - so that all players can fairly compete on the leaderboard.

[previewyoutube]https://youtu.be/91SWVTPINqQ[/previewyoutube]
The Red Starling flock was a powerful exploit of the Pied Pipe artifact. I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted

[h2]Global Leaderboard[/h2]


The Global Leaderboard will show you your personal rank relative to the global Abalon player community. Here's our current top-rated players from around the world!

[h2]Summoner Leaderboard[/h2]

And in case you're curious to see which Summoner has racked up the most points - the Summoner leaderboard will show the player with the highest score for each Summoner. Here are the current world's highest scoring Summoners and the players who achieved this honor.

[h2]What about Steam friends?[/h2]

I've got you covered here, too! I've hooked up our cross-platform leaderboard with Steam Leaderboards so you can closely follow that fun climb-to-the-top rivalry with your friends. You can find these on the web here: https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1681840/leaderboards/10462919

The Steam leaderboards also feature individual leaderboards for each Summoner, so you can see how close you are to claiming the top position.

1. Winning battles now award points. Win harder battles in fewer turns to earn more points.
   
2. Leaderboard shows your personal run scores, global high scores, and the top rated players for each Summoner in the world. You can also browse the Steam community leaderboard to compare scores with your Steam friends.
   
3. Balance: Pied pipe has been changed from "Small animals are loyal" to "Small animals that cost zero are loyal." The intended purpose of this artifact was for squirrels, rats and other rodents to follow around the player like in the folktale. But, I'm happy and delighted how players discovered you could make a ridiculously OP army by combining it with Breed and Red Starlings.
   
4. Fixed Bug: Server cloud saves containing ampersands weren't loading properly.
   
5. Fixed Bug: Where goblins retreating from the party or mischief events would linger in the overworld (Thanks Kuza).
   
6. Fixed Bug: Where null error was thrown in targeting (I think I fixed it, I couldn't actually reproduce it... but I added some conditions to prevent the exception...if not, I'm sure I'll get it next time)
   
7. Fixed Bug: Red Imp in the demonic realm wasn't charging gold for his services... silly imp... always ask for more than 0 gold.
   
8. Fixed Bug: Stuck camera after collecting a card from a Suspicious Tomb encounter.
   
9. Fixed Bug: Where my dev messages to you about game updates were getting spammed every time a battle started (Sorry about that!)
   
10. Fixed Bug: Time Flux now works on ANY ally on the board (not just visible ones) - thanks mr.kitty
    
11. Fixed Bug: Blind units (ex: sandstorm) could not target adjacent spaces as targets (only adjacent units). This resulted in spells not being highlighted in hand. It also caused the spell to fizzle when cast on adjacent tile. (Thanks Reiga)

There's still a lot more coming before our 1.0 release on May 11th. Our next update will be a major one.
This will add 4 new Summoners, a large collection of new cards, characters and artifacts, and challenge modifiers you can use to customize the difficulty and earn even more points on the leaderboard.

I hope you've enjoyed this update. I love hearing your feedback, so please feel welcome to reach out via reply email or join our community on Discord. I can be reached almost any time RossD20Studios#2359 :)

Your Steam reviews of Abalon are also very much appreciated - thank you so much for your positive feedback and thumbs ups!

[h2]Join the Discussion:[/h2]
- Steam discussion board: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1681840/discussions/
- Discord: https://discord.gg/d20studios (RossD20Studios#2359)