Minion Masters News

Minion Masters!

v1.0 is here and the game is released!
As we look back at our time in Early Access, we see a long list of planned and unplanned features that took shape with your help!
We'll remember major experiments such as Expeditions - if you haven’t heard Videogamer77 shout “Baguettes!” on stream, you really should check him out. The introduction of Team Battle brought a whole new group of players into the fold, and the various events we've iterated on throughout the 1½ years of Early Access turned into a dependable way for Streamers and the community to share rewards.

v1.0 is a major milestone. We’ve finished the core of Minion Masters - and we'll use that to build the future.
Guilds was the last big thing to iterate on, and we've ironed out many issues and successfully completed Conquest (for now - we still have plenty we want to do!).
Quite importantly however, is the fact that Minion Masters releases on Xbox One today, and a whole new community joins us to enjoy the game!
Of course, there’s no 1.0 without a good batch of new things, so with this update comes the Battle Pass Bones & Bravery, balance and more!

As mentioned, v1.0 is but a milestone. It's not the end, it's not even the beginning. But it is a beginning.
From here we will keep updating the game with new Battle Passes, iterations on old features, possibly new platforms, and of course a bunch of new and exciting features!
There's still much to do in optimizing, bug fixing and balancing, and it'll all come along the way.
With your help we'll keep gathering information about every obscure (or obvious) bug in existence, and we'll thank you for your contributions!

As a great way to kick off this new evolving period - we've revealed a brand new Master coming to the game - Morellia, the Lich Queen!
You can check her out on theupdate site

And without further ado, let's get into the changelog:



Accursed Ascension
Collect 20 Spectral Essence to activate Accursed Ascension.
Spectral Essence is gained from Accursed Minion and Spells.

• This content season will last until August
• 8 new cards have been released!
  

With v1.0 we’re also releasing an upgraded version of our Streamer integrations. Now, when a Streamer wins a Watch & Win fight while streaming, every member of their audience who has linked their in-game and Twitch accounts will receive the prize via Twitch Drops instead of the shareable code system.

Twitch Extension - Streamer Audience

• The Streamer Audience is now integrated with a Twitch Extension interface
  
• Viewers on Twitch get their own character in-game to cheer the Streamer on!
  
• Read more about it on the Streamer Boost website

Twitch Drops - Legendary House Event

• Starting with v1.0 is a new Legendary House Event! Collect 15 keys for the house of your choice to earn a copy of Ghost, Howling Moon or a Random Legendary Card. You can only claim the reward for one House, so choose wisely!
  
• Keys are earned through Prize Fight events while playing that will appear at random when a match starts. Win the match to earn a key!
  
• Keys are also earned through watching Streamers that complete Watch & Win events. Make sure you have your in-game account linked to Twitch to receive Twitch Drops!
  

• (Mechanic) Spirit
  
  • Health Bonus 100 > 200
    
  • No longer stacks
    
  • Grants one Spectral Essence to the buff’s owner once the unit dies
    
• Developer Comments
• Check out our Blog Post on the Spirit rework on our blog
  

• Spirit Vessel
  
  • Mana Cost 3 > 2
    
  • Health 250 > 50
    
  • Damage 40 > 25
    
  • Attack Speed 1.1 > 2.0
    

• AIM Bot
  
  • Now also gains Shield when Summoned
    
• Developer Comments
• AIM Bot's original intention was to trade off the increased Mana Cost by making it a safer supportive card through the use of Marksmanship, but the increase in range simply was never useful enough to justify paying the premium for it over Drone Walker. We'd like to reinforce the "safe" aspect of the card by making it much more durable against removal through the addition of a Shield, while not removing its weakness against cards that can close the distance quickly such as a Prowler or Incubus.
  

• Rampage
  
  • Mana Cost 3 > 2
    
  • Area of Effect 8 > 6
    
• Developer Comments
• Rampage is a card that has been in a weak spot ever since the Rage nerf removed its volatile nature. Increasing the usability of the card as such should make it an easier inclusion in the types of decks that would effectively make use of the Damage increase while hopefully not being as explosive to play against as the status effect was in its prime.
  

• Caeleth Dawnhammer
  
  • Mana Cost 9 > 8
    
• Developer Comments
• This change to Caeleth is fairly straightforward - He was too difficult to make use of at 9 mana, with his Divine Shield effect, while strong, not being enough of a justification to include in most decks. Hopefully this change will give him the boost he needs to be useful for play.
  

• Demon Warrior
  
  • Attack Speed 2.5 > 2.2
    
• Developer Comments
• One noted weakness of Demon Warrior was when she had to face off against multiple units. Even as a win condition, she would suffer against even the smallest groups of swarm due to her slow Attack Speed - So we're giving that aspect of her a significant boost, but not to the extent that it removes her primary weakness. This change should make her more of an immediate threat that you have to answer.
  

• Dragon Ball
  
  • Mana Cost 5 > 6
    
  • Mana Cost to activate Dragon Ball’s effect 6 > 6+
    
• Developer Comments
• Dragon Ball has been a particularly efficient card ever since its inception, finding a home in aggressive decks of all shapes and sizes. We've tried to keep it at 5 Mana so that it met two particular goals; that it didn't feel too bad to play unactivated, and to be a viable activator for Shars'Rakk Twins. However, the value provided from the Dragon Whelp ultimately proved to be too much regardless of what mana cost the Activator was at, merely shifting around what kind of deck could make the most of the card. As such we're opting to push it to the 6 Mana mark, but in exchange make it slightly easier to activate in a deckbuilding sense by expanding the range of options you have to combo it with.
  

• Shieldguard of Light
  
  • Mana Cost 6 > 7
    
• Developer Comments
• Shieldguard has been a powerhouse card for a while, and how best to change him was a frequent topic of discussion internally after our previous smaller adjustment didn't have an effect on his prominence. Suggestions included lowering his health or cutting his damage and focusing on his charge, and while we did consider and work with these changes at first, we iterated into focusing on the "One Man Army" identity of the card. We wanted him to be powerful, and thus we are instead opting to put him at a higher mana cost without particularly reducing his effectiveness on the battlefield.
  

• The Leaderboard has been reverted from Top 150 to Top 20 to help reduce server load.
  

Fixed Shen Stormstrike ignoring volume options - Thanks everyone Fixed Xiao Long's card indicator not disappearing if it dies while hypnotised.
Fixed Pirate Mordar’s jaw stretching into infinity again.
Fixed Bannerman’s buff indicator radius being based upon where your cursor is - Thanks TomatoMato!
Fixed the Leaderboard not grouping cards together correctly - Thanks Thigh Imp!
Fixed the Leaderboard showing the glory of your cards on everyone’s decks - Thanks Sunny!
Fixed instances where Volco’s hammer would not return to his hands properly - Thanks Jess Tha Bes’!
Fixed Jungle Jumble being obtainable from Future Past & Present - Thanks TGXAndy!
Fixed the wrong rank image being displayed after ranking up - Thanks Zundmaster!
Fixed Harbinger applying knockback to units that were black holed as the attack hit - Thanks Khazlariko!


Finally, if you’re ever wondering what we’re working on, check out the Roadmap on our store page and you’ll catch a glimpse.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters!

This Update is a preparatory patch for Xbox Flight to be on the same server as our Discord and Steam users in roughly a week. We’ve included a lot of optimisation changes as well ahead of release, which we are currently planning for the release of Bones and Bravery on Friday the 24th of May. Expect to hear lots of news in the coming weeks as we rapidly approach the exciting launch of v1.0 of Minion Masters!

Misc

• Many various optimisation improvements.
  
• Added more Power Tokens to the Recruit Friend rewards. These extra Power Tokens will be claimable from the Referral menu if you previously achieved the number of Referrals required.
  

Bugs

• Fixed Guild Conquest Season 2 Rewards being unclaimable if a user had joined the guild late in the previous Conquest Season. The rewards can now be claimed.
  
• Fixed Guild Conquest Leaderboard Rewards incorrectly being rewarded twice visually - Thanks to the PuffChamp Guild!
  
• Fixed Ruffles being invisible on certain Diona skins - Thanks TomatoMato!
  

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters!


Zen-Chi Zap is here! The 6th Battle Pass features a collection of content from the mysterious Zen-Chi faction.

This Battle Pass will be a “Mini-Pass”

The Mini-Pass is intended to be a shorter experience, and thus easier to complete.
Everything is halved compared to last Battle Pass.

• Half the price.
  
• Half the tiers.
  
• Half the cards/skins.
  
• Half the duration.
  

Note that this is not a permanent change to the Battle Pass format.
The Mini-Pass gives the opportunity to explore more places around the game world between Battle Passes.


Welcome to the jungle we take it day by day.
If you want it you're gonna bleed but it's the price to pay.

• This content season will last for 5 weeks!
• 4 new cards have been released! These are:
  

The “PuffChamp” Guild took number in season 1, with all its members receiving the awesome prize; 5 copies of a random Legendary card.

A new season starts today, lasting 5 weeks.
Enjoy the changes and iterations with this patch, we’re looking forward to watching the leaderboard!

• Balance - Combustion
  
  • Explosion delay increased from 1 to 2 (total delay is now 3 seconds from casting to explosion)
    
• Volco’s model has been updated on all skins, including a new animation set and a victory animation.
  
• You can now view past season leaderboards for Guilds.
  
• Added a timer to Conquest Cards to try to better indicate their non-permanency.
  

Fixed an issue where players could get stuck due to joining a guild after entering matchmaking.
Fixed an issue where currency would not be displayed when crafting cards.


Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters!

The Twitch Memote Melee returns! Collect keys by winning online matches for the Emote team you want and gain Puffa, PuffChamp or WutPuff as an in-game usable emote! For returning players, this gives you a chance to get one of the two emotes you didn’t get previously. Note that if you already own one of the three emotes, you will not gain anything by claiming it again. The event will run until the 1st of May.

• Extended the in-game Battle Pass timer to the correct date that was previously announced. Battle for Light’s Reach will end with the release of Update 92.
  
• Extended Conquest Season 1 by six days.
  
• Conquest can now be used in Expeditions.
  
• Online Guild Members will be shown at the top of the list by default.
  
• Glory values for Conquest in the Guild member list will now be truncated if the value is higher than 10,000.
  
• Minor improvements to the Battle Pass UI to make the Free and Premium paths more distinct.
  

• Fixed Gor’Rakk Sacrifice not killing Re-Boomer.
  
• Fixed Combustion dealing its damage through Guardian’s shield.
  
• Fixed Cursebearer aura not doing damage post mortem.
  
• Fixed an instance with Stormy where the lightning vfx could turn massive.
  
• Fixed the Streamer Arena banner being flipped when player 2.
  
• Fixed Molten Stormbringer and Blood God Apep skin effects not being “powerful” enough.
  
• Fixed Leaderboard decks not being sorted by mana - Thanks Kishin!
  
• Fixed Magma Storm’s cast delay being inconsistent between its first and subsequent uses - Thanks Smoshi!
  

Cheers from BetaDwarf!

Minion Masters!
After much anticipation, Stormy will be joining us in the flying arenas of Minion Masters! We’re also introducing a number of Balance Changes to this patch as well as some general bug fixes.


Stormbringer’s trusty sidekick from Forced Showdown arrives to Minion Masters! This clumsy cloud shoots Chain Lightning as its attack, dealing damage to itself in the process. It comes with the new Zen-Chi Flow affinity, where if your last played card was from the Zen-Chi faction, he gets double the health! Stormy is available to be crafted for 2000 shards or can be earned from Power Token spins.

• Walking Blind Date
  
  • Now has Taunt
    
  • No longer has Summoning Sickness
    
  --- Developer comments ---
  Walking Blind Date is a card that has been very weak for a long time, but also a challenge for us to buff. Rescaling it risks the cycle potential of the card being too powerful, so we decided an interesting direction to take the card would be to give it additional utility by being able to redirect and “kite” enemies through the Taunt ability.
  

• Sniper Scrat / Bounty Sniper
  
  • Attack Speed improved from 4.0 to 3.5 seconds
    
  --- Developer comments ---
  While the Sniper scrats were decently powerful for a short period of time, they fell off soon after, and we feel a moderate buff like this can give them the boost they need to compete.
  

• Howling Moon
  
  • No longer gives units Lycanthropy
    
  • Now summons two Werewolves where the spell is cast after the effect of the spell has been applied
    
  • Is now a Defensive Spell
    
  --- Developer comments ---
  Howling Moon is a card that has been fairly problematic to play against on multiple skill levels due to its explosive combo potential. Often decks that used the card felt uninteractive or somewhat unfair when you would die to two Raged and Frenzied Werewolves dealing thousands of damage to you in the manner of a few seconds, even after previous nerfs to the Werewolf unit. We explored several different iterations on how we could change this card yet its ability to be comboed so effectively only served to make it more powerful in the end, so we settled for a solution that still kept the spirit of the card.
  

• Combustion
  
  • Now only does 10% damage to Masters
    
  • Explosion Delay decreased from 3 to 1 second
    
  --- Developer comments ---
  Combustion is a card that was often featured exclusively in “cheese decks”, which revolved around detonating a large number of small minions at the Master tower to do extreme amounts of damage in a short period of time if it wasn’t reacted against. The volatile nature of this playstyle often felt unfun to play against. At the same time, we felt outside of those situations it was hard to effectively use Combustion, but its usage as a face damage spell was a limiting factor in any adjustments we wanted to make. We hope that this change can solve both of those conditions.
  

• Propeller Horde
  
  • Unit Count reduced from 6(12) to 5(10)
    
  --- Developer comments ---
  Propeller Horde is a card that has felt somewhat overtuned since its buff after the release of the card. We feel its original values of having 5 and 10 Propeller Scrats still leaves the card in a useful state, while being less overwhelming to play against in decks that buff all of the units.
  

• Chain Lightning
  
  • Cast delay reduced from 1.5 to 1 second
    
  • Stun Duration increased from 1 to 2 seconds
    
  --- Developer comments ---
  To tie in with the release of Stormy, we’re choosing to further reinforce Chain Lightning’s ability to stun the battlefield rather than make it directly compete as a damage dealing card with other options such as Fireball.
  

• Shieldguard of Light
  
  • Damage decreased from 70 to 60
    
  --- Developer comments ---
  Shieldguard of Light was a popular card from the new Battle for Light’s Reach Battle Pass, and we ultimately feel it was a bit overtuned in terms of what it was capable of. With its capable DPS and large Health pool combined, it was more of a “One Man Army” than the Tank role we initially planned for it. We’re opting to reinforce the latter with a small damage tweak to the card without risking making the card feel too weak.
  

• Guardian
  
  • Can no longer protect units from self-inflicted damage (Stormy attack, Combustion, Screaming Scrat)
    
  --- Developer comments ---
  Guardian’s ability to protect against self-inflicted damage was an ability that restricted design space on cards like Stormy, as well as future cards that we may intend to damage themselves as a drawback to a particularly powerful effect.
  

• Adjusted the look of Conquest Cards in the Deckbuilding menu to prevent confusion about ownership of the cards.
  
• Adjusted the Lobby icons to avoid confusion regarding the Premade 2v2 queue.
  
• Tweaked the visual effects of Shields so that it fades out towards the ground.
  
• Updated SFX for Chain Lightning
  
• Updated VFX for Boomer, Fireball and Armor of Light explosions.
  
• Updated VFX for Colossus’ attack swing.
  
• Collection View will now remember that you had it open when you re-enter Deckbuilding.
  
• A guild that has pending applications but reaches its maximum member count will now delete all pending applications - Thanks Zundmaster!
  
• Made Teleport interactions with roots consistent. All teleport effects (Succubus, Incubus, Netherstep and Trick Swap) break immobilizing effects such as roots or bear traps - Thanks Khazlariko!
  

• Fixed Currency totals disappearing from the bottom right of the menu if you bought an item - Thanks DerpSmashed!
  
• Fixed golden donator name not being given out to Streamer puffs if they donated on the Watch & Win screen - Thanks Zundmaster!
  
• Fixed Hypnotised Xiao Long keeping the spell indicator above your cards after it is dead - Thanks Ty!
  
• Fixed the KPI3 skin missing its link in the description - Thanks Kishin!
  
• Fixed Cursebearer being able to curse units while in Black Hole - Thanks Memfisto!
  
• Fixed Morgrul the Swarmer King not roaring or summoning swarmers on death if it was being healed - Thanks videogamer77 and Julaiwnl!
  
• Fixed an instance where scores on the Guild Leaderboard could be missing a “K” on the end - Thanks Kishin!
  
• Fixed the Twitch chat link from betadwarfbot being broken - Thanks RynoRanger ACTUAL!
  
• Fixed Master skins not using the correct dialogue when previewing them at the power tower - Thanks GReY WolF!
  
• Fixed Master dialogue playing when opening any rewards at the power tower.
  
• Fixed Stormbringer gaining perk 2 removing marksmanship from enemy units.
  
• Fixed Arcane Golem’s new vfx not being Worldspace.
  
• Fixed the Versus screen being too bright in the Day Snow skybox.
  
• Fixed the updated Empyrean models not being highlighted by spell effects.
  
• Fixed the Werewolf unit not being highlighted by spell effects.
  
• Fixed Plasma Marines’ guns not being highlighted by spell effects.
  
• Fixed the search term for Conquest Cards incorrectly being Guild Cards.
  
• Fixed Fireball and Healing Fireball nested tooltips saying Scrat Horde in the Gambler’s Ball description.
  
• Fixed Werewolves receiving Mana Surge.
  
• Fixed the bloom on Power Towers when you are low HP being too high.
  
• Fixed Spectator Puff Emotes being too dark.
  
• Fixed Guardian shield being hard to see on Day Snow skybox.
  
• Fixed being able to place Diona traps on top of Mordar tombstones.
  
• Fixed switching avatars off of an animated avatar causing all avatars to be dark until you restarted the game.
  

Cheers from BetaDwarf!