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Play both adventurer and dungeon master in an immersive 3D world! Labyrinth combines the depth, replayability, and customization of a CCG with the look and feel of a classic dungeon crawl RPG.

Post news Report RSS Labyrinth CCG + tactical RPG : June Update

BIG BALANCE UPDATE! Plus other new content and features.

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What's New

  • Card Set Rebalanced
  • New Perk System
  • Crowns in Ranked
  • Partial Wins for Bosses
  • New Boss: Celestial Giant
  • Change in Free Bosses
  • Unlock Cards Shown in Store
  • Discipline Card Packs for Completing Tutorial
  • Hero/Boss Price Change
  • New Item: Korghan Skin
  • Backer Rewards

Rebalance

In the last update, our goal was to re-establish the difference between the abilities that affect health: melee attacks, ranged attacks, and healing. The efficiency of ranged attacks and healing abilities were reduced to account for their greater flexibility. This mostly affected Heroes, which reduced their overall damage output, and as a result the balance of the game shifted in the direction of Bosses. Our data have shown that since the last update, both Heroes and Bosses were winning about 50% of the time. In another game, this might be the ideal balance, but because of the nature of Labyrinth's asymmetrical gameplay, we feel that the active human player should be winning more often that not. All things being equal, this means that the overall balance should favor Heroes. We've spent the last month doing a thorough pass on the card pool to shift things back toward the Heroes. We've also identified and corrected some outlier cards that were way above the curve in terms of power level.

We've also made a significant number of changes to the basic (free) cards. Our intent is to further simplify the cards that players are first exposed to in order to reduce the complexity of the game in the first several hours of play. Some of the staples have been moved from basic to common, and simpler versions have taken their place at basic. Other staples have been kept at common in a simplified form, but may be modified with Perks to regain their original complexity (and sometimes gain new power.) These changes should help new players understand the game a bit better, and grow into the complexity of the game over a longer period.

Perks

We have also taken a fresh look at Perks. Our experience showed that common perks had kind of a clunky role within the card pool. Some of them were very powerful and were crafted by players early, but then those same players would later open several duplicates that were only good for Stardust. In general, it wasn't clear what made a Perk common or some other rarity. We've introduced a new keyword: Stack. Stack is always accompanied by a number. You may add a number of copies of a Perk with Stack equal to the Stack number. From now on, common Perks will generally have Stack. Higher rarities may also have Stack, but its main home is common. To go with the new keyword, we've designed a new suite of Perks at common. Most of these new cards modify specific spells. Our intent is evoke the feel of adventurers leveling up their key skills and abilities. Perks that affect the whole deck have been shifted to higher rarities, which is a better place for powerful, "build-around" cards. The big-picture goal is to make common Perks more collectible, and have their own role within the design.

Ranked

As active players in Ranked mode are probably aware, there have been several ongoing issues with Ranked mode in the time since it was introduced. Some of these issues have to do with the unique nature of Labyrinth's matchmaking. Traditional ladder systems assume that gameplay is symmetrical, but Labyrinth isn't. This results in some strange dynamics, as players rocket to the top of the ranks based on the performance of their Heroes, and their Bosses make very little contribution.

With this update, we have added a new (experimental) feature to Ranked play: Crowns. Crowns are similar to Skulls, but with a few key differences:

  • In order to gain a rank, you need to gain a Skull when you have both the maximum number of Skulls and Crowns for your current rank.
  • You earn Crowns only with Boss victories or partial victories (battles where you have at least 1 Hero kill.)
  • Unlike Skulls, Crowns are not lost by losing games.
  • When you lose a rank, you lose the Crowns for that rank.

The purpose of Crowns is give Bosses more input into a player's ranked performance. We also hope to slow down progression through the ranks, which will hopefully improve the quality of matches. This is an experimental feature as we figure out the best way to combine the two modes of the game into a single competitive experience.

Partial Wins

There are now partial wins for bosses. So, if a boss kills a hero they will get 5 Stardust, even if the heroes kill the boss. If the boss kills all the heroes, it will get an additional 5 Stardust, for a total of 20 Stardust.

New Boss: Kairon, the Watcher (Celestial Giant)

We welcome our eighth Boss to the battlegrounds of Labyrinth! Kairon, the Watcher is a servant of Nethra, the god of Time, and stands guard over his domain on Urix, the most distant and mysterious of the planets. Kairon has the Celestial and Giant traits, giving him a range of some of the most powerful spells and minions in the game.

With the addition of Kairon, we have completed the first eight Bosses, and now have a set that gives you two different choices for each boss Trait. Starting later in the summer, we plan to release a new set that adds a third boss for each Trait. We will release more details as those patches approach, so watch for future updates!

Unlock Cards Shown in Store

Now you can see all the cards that you are getting before purchasing a hero or boss. After selecting a hero or boss in the store, click on the 'More Info' button to see the list of cards.

Discipline Card Packs for Completing Tutorial

We have replaced the 3 random booster packs that we were giving as a reward for new players completing the introductory tutorial with 4 random Discipline specific card packs. This change gives more options for new players in deck building early in the game.

Hero/Boss Price Change

Thank you to everyone who purchased one of the new heroes or bosses. We appreciate your supporting Labyrinth development while it is in Early Access. In order to run Labyrinth as a free to play game that can sustain its operating costs and better cover the cost of development for a given hero or boss and their associated level-up cards, we have increased both the cash and Gold prices of the non-basic heroes and bosses. Heroes and Bosses are now 2900 Gold and $9.99 USD.

Skins! Korghan the Reckless

Give Korghan a new look! The Korghan the Reckless skin--the younger version of Korghan Twice-Born, how he looked in his first life--is available in the store for 2000 Stardust or $4.99 USD. After purchasing, go to My Decks, select Korghan Twice-Born under Heroes, and then click on the 'Skins' button in the bottom center of the screen. After that, you can toggle the available skins in the window on the left.

Backer Rewards

Emails with codes for certain backer rewards will be sent out later this week. After redeeming the code, backers will have a nice green "K" in front of their in-game name.


Known Issues

  • Warfare Epic Hold the Tide provides +2 Armor but does not trigger the Turn the Tide card being added to hand after five attacks.

Development

Since last week the team completed the following items.

  • The engineering team worked on caching inventory for mobile; optimized opening packs for mobile; worked on saving Explore mode data to database and messaging back and forth from server; and cleaned up highlights.
  • The art team created elemental caster; created card art; added animations to Blaster; textured Pyro skin; worked on shadow boss; and created animation for Blaster's ranged attack.
  • The audio team fixed a crossfading issue.
  • The design team revised lair slots; changed card rules; and created content for Explore mode.
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