Next Monday Patch! :)

Hi all,

found it on Steam:

Patch 0.12.9 will be released next monday
Hi everyone, we've been a little quiet but very busy since the last patch. The next patch is ready to go live next monday. We don't want to release it before a week end, in case something goes wrong but also because it's the final days of the weekly tournament and not the best time for balance changes...
Anyway, here's the changelog, this way you can see what's coming and ready yourselves for monday. Enjoy !

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Patch 0.12.9 Changelog
COMBAT
- Wolfen with Crossbow: -2 DOD
- Grave Guardian: -1 DAM
- Fang Warrior: -1 TOU
- All Primal Attacks now always have a damage of force 10 (instead of a WIL-dependant damage)
- Reduced "The Middle Way" Miracle duration to 1 turn (instead of 2)
- Changed the duration of Ice Ring and Mist Ring : they now last for the next 2 activations of the target
- Increased the base difficulty of many Spells and Miracles
- Luminous Remission no longer heals upon the call (now only the regeneration applies)
- Scourge of the Impure range reduced to 1
- Increased the "Bad Omen" penalties to -12 (instead of -8). Bad Omen penalties also affect Fear resistance rolls now (rerolls on success are still only for attacks and casts).
- Exhausting Touch max range reduced to 1
- Changed the range of Devotion and Martyr skills to 1
- "Occult Erosion" and "Exhausting Touch" are now dispelled on the Caller's elimination
- Renamed the Heal skill of the Sparkling to "Luminous Healing", and reduced the healing effect by 5 (from a 10 HP heal to a 5 HP heal)
- Reduced Sparkling MOV by 1
- Fixed Fear bonuses not triggering Fear computations immediately
- Fixed "Ruthless" being applied on a unit's path when the unit dies from opportunity attacks
- Morbid Puppets TOU reduced by 1 (it was increased by 2 in the last patch)
- Added a new skill in the Alahan Swordsman skilltree, named "For the Light!" (instead of the "Mighty Blow" skill)
- Decreased the AP multiplier for Elite and Legendary units. This means that all the concerned units will now cost less at all levels. As a result, some units in those categories saw their base AP cost change.
- The Sparkling unit AP cost was reverted to its intended value (21).
- Following the changes introduced in the last patch (about the AP costs of the skills depending of the status of the units), most "Regular" status base units saw their AP cost increase.
- Respite of the Dead and Pillar of energy are now working as intended (they can not heal their Caster anymore)
- The "Heal" skill for the Sparkling can no longer target other Sparklings
- "Scourge of the Impure" spell was updated to use the "Scourge" attribute mechanics (it now gives "Scourge: Living-Deads", "Scourge: Constructs", and "Scourge: Demons" instead of the +4 raw DAM previously applied)
- Updated all "Fear Resist" scripts; Bad Omen and Divine Favor now affect resistance to fear (as intended)
- Removed "Gandhar Mask" from the Rune Guardian tree and added "Yllia Love" in the Rune Guardian tree instead.
- Reduced the "Seal of Dellar'n" spell max use per activation to 1
- Increased ingame tooltips size and placement to middle-right position
- Improved activation mail system to prevent "spam" button to send activation mail
- Disallow run movement on war-casters once they cast a spell

GAMEPLAY
- Changed the 200 AP bracket into a 250 AP bracket; removed the 300 AP bracket. As a result, starting decks are now in line with the new 250 AP bracket.
- Restored the gameplay objectives popup at the start of a match
- Added new deployment patterns for all maps and modes.
* Added many map sizes variants with various placements
* King of the Hill update to have:
* Multiple areas to control
* All sorts of deployments
* Some scenarios with a "line of scrimmage" allowed during the deployment
* Some scenarios where the map is reduced in size.
- King of the Hill mode rules were changed:
* No unit can score during the first turn
* Each unit now scores its own AP each turn, individually
* Only half of the AP is scored if the unit is engaged in close combat
* First player to get to the score limit (depending of the selected AP bracket) wins the game (instead of the 5 points game)
- Updated VIP rules to allow a player who lost his VIP to kill the opponent until the end of the turn
- There is now a chance to drop items at the end of each match (concerned items: customization colors, healing cards, units rename tools)
- Slight change in the Ducats gains formula; hardcore players should now see their Ducats income increase on long game sessions
- Fixed some matchmaking issues with the formula. Matchmaking should now be approximately two times faster
- Added small color customization rewards for ending the Tutorials for the first time
- Minor text changes in tutorial steps
- Updated Practice mode difficulties:
* Easy Practice from 100 AP to 250 AP
* Medium from 275 AP to 400 AP
* Hard from 550 AP to 750 AP

LOBBY
- Updated last step of company creation to only display the unique roster available for each faction
- Added units tooltips on this last page
- Remove choice for full company creation in for post-tutorial popup company creation choice since only 1 choice is left for each faction
- 1st connection flow now leads to the unique roster page
- Fix ladded "around me": now display only results for current season
- Addef window flashing in taskbar when a match is found
- Reset of FindGame timer when a game is found
- Updated Ladder formula: Win is 2 points, Draw is 0.5 point
- Ducats earning is now bigger with bigger matchmaking brackets
- Removed Rewards/Loss fields display in missions and events when empty list
- Improved renown and cost display for additional slots in in CompanyManagement
- Added level selection option when buying a new unit
- Added unit renaming shortcut to shop/inventory items in CompnayManagement
- Units in mission page now display units from any company, not only the current one
- Added level-up objective in Profile
- Shop : Removed Guild ranks restriction on units

MISC
- Fixed the Loyal attribute English tooltip
- Russia localization update
- Added Polish localization for the game
- Localization changes for the Guild Ranks tooltips
- Fixed some AI locks

Looks like all the APs are changing, should be interesting. I'm assuming we are getting a skill reset as well.

A lots of changes indeed!

I like a lots the Gameplay and Lobby ones, only thing I noticed is that unfortunately it seems the "reset the unit abilities" item was not implemented in this patch...

About the Combat changes, there are soooo many that it isn't possible to evaluate the final effect they will have all at once. Among them, reducing the spell range and the healing abilities will have surely a big effect on various army compositions.

I'm curious to see them on Monday!

For the new players of the game can you provide some details regarding resets? I've been told in chat that units, levels etc are reset. can you confirm?

You don't lose any unit and your units don't lose their gained experience, however their abilities are reset and you simply have to select them another time, keeping in mind that they may have different effects and that the total AP of each of your units may be different and so you have to be careful or your company will not fit anymore in the AP range of your choice.

Sometimes it seems you "lose" 1 lvl, but this is only because they changed the EXP necessary to get to that lvl and so your unit still needs a bit more exp to regain it (viceversa, gaining a lvl, is also possible).

Woww I just read it all and sparklings got nerfed bad. heal -5, can't heal other sparkling AND ap increase...

Wow lots of changes. Curious to see how that will affect gameplay on monday.

I can only speak for lion but:

RIP: lvl 2-3 sparks

RIP: scourge of the impure, noone will be stupid enough to refresh or apply that skill on turn 2+ if they have to put their mage in the middle of the action.

Agree with seal nerf, but it will hit very hard. Wouldve prefered a limit of 2 casts per turn and a range/dmg nerf on celestial scourge. Going to make it harder to fight zergs.

So which changes in specific are the ones that combat the use of zerg tactics? None are poppin right out.

Well, I think:
- "Decreased the AP multiplier for Elite and Legendary units. This means that all the concerned units will now cost less at all levels. As a result, some units in those categories saw their base AP cost change."
And:
- "Following the changes introduced in the last patch (about the AP costs of the skills depending of the status of the units), most "Regular" status base units saw their AP cost increase."

And also the reduced efficacy of all low lvl Wolfen units: "Wolfen with Crossbow: -2 DOD; Fang Warrior: -1 TOU" and the reduction of the efficacy of mages (e.g. among others: "All Primal Attacks now always have a damage of force 10 (instead of a WIL-dependant damage)") and healing will make more difficult to stay in a Zerg turtle formation, since your healing & high damage outputs seem to be both gone.

They added so many changes that it is difficult to evaluate them all without trying, however I too think the Spark was over-nerfed! -1MOV, -5HP from healing, cannot heal another Spark, relatively big increase in its AP cost and cannot be used anymore in swarms with the Seal of Dellarin...

mayby someone start to use this 2nd skill on sparks

why -1TOU on fang warrior IMO better will be -2DOD like on crossbow they should be better than other core units on def but easyer to hit when they starting to dance around enemy units cause disengage is actually rly big problem especialy when unit can make 3 atack on other units and come back to fight to stun enemy and make next 2 attack and he suffered penalty for this like 1 max 2 hit

so mage will be overnerfed once again ;P
same for the sparks... heal nerw would be more than enough...
same for Valkyrie and Luminous Remmision

so im only curious about new Swordsman skill/cost