Minion Masters News

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/

[h2]Uprising - OUT NOW![/h2]

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 [email protected] 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.

[h3]Rubies[/h3]
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.

[h3]Skins & The Shop[/h3]
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.

[h3]Battle Pass & Ranked[/h3]
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!

[h3]We've made a follow-up post in response to your feedback. Check it out here:[/h3]
https://steamcommunity.com/games/489520/announcements/detail/2933494053288575237


[h2]We're reformatting the Free Spin rewards and moving it into free shop offers, removing some Ruby rewards and changing the Battle Pass price.[/h2]


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.

[h3]Free Daily Resource Changes[/h3]

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.

[h3]Level Up & Ranked Rewards[/h3]

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.



[h3]Battle Pass Adjustments[/h3]

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.

[h2]A note from That Sprite[/h2]

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!