Hello, Guardians.

We'd like to share the details on the patch notes for the update scheduled for March 18th.
In this update, measures to address the previously mentioned "increase in final wave levels" outlined in the last developer's note will be implemented as the first step.

See Development Note#6: Current Game Balance and Future Development

Major Issue

Increasing Final Wave Level

The level of the final wave has been increasing since the launch of Defense Derby.
The development team considers this a primary reason for the current balance issues.

Defense Derby is becoming a game that is hard to play casually since the time of each match is increasing.
This increased play time reduces the effects of rewards from events, quests, and Derby Requests.
Playing for these rewards feels like homework
and reduces the perceived value of rewards in higher leagues. This leads to players not wanting to advance beyond a certain league.

In this update, we plan to raise the wave difficulty to an appropriate level as it had decreased due to the upward leveling of deck power following the introduction of new units and balance patches. Additionally, several bugs will be fixed.

While changes in wave difficulty can significantly impact the playing experience, we kindly ask for your understanding as this is an unavoidable change aimed at resolving balancing and other issues in Derby mode.

Internally, we have applied and tested balance adjustments for several decks, but these will be applied sequentially after this wave difficulty adjustment, following data analysis, feedback from our players, and monitoring.

Update Schedule: 3/18 (Mon)

Update #7-1

Derby

In this balance patch, adjustments will focus more on elements related to wave difficulty, which have a significant impact on the overall game, rather than on heroes, units, or artifacts.
While some issues related to the increasing final wave levels will be addressed in this patch, we also recognize the need to alleviate the difficulty in utilizing existing decks. Therefore, the following two adjustments will be applied.

Monster HP per wave will be increased overall.

• Only acquiring guaranteed cards and actively scouting units will make it easier to defeat monsters in each wave.
• Monster HP will increase at varying rates depending on the wave level, ranging from approximately 5% to a maximum of about 50%.

Monster attack power will be decreased.

• Even though we've increased monster HP, we've also adjusted monster attack power to prevent early mistakes from causing players to fail quickly in surviving the Derby.
• We expect players to be able to continue playing until acquiring the second guaranteed card or being given several scouting opportunities.
• The attack power of all monsters will be reduced by up to a maximum of 22%.

Initially, these adjustments to wave difficulty will be implemented in Derby Mode and [Themed Mode] Rival Mode. We plan to gradually extend these changes to other modes over time.

Below are the balance-related issues under consideration apart from this balance patch:

Post-Balance Patch Adjustments

• We expect that by adjusting wave difficulty, the difference in performance between decks will be reduced. However, we're also planning to adjust the balancing of decks that are either too weak or too strong.
• As for wave difficulty, we may make further adjustments based on monitoring and data analysis.

Scheduled Adjustments

• Adjustments to faction and type combo effects will be applied in the next update.

Under Consideration

• We are conducting a review of overall healing performance, which may lead to adjustments in related heroes, units, artifacts, talents, and castle HP.
• We are also conducting a comprehensive review of crowd control (CC) performance, which may result in adjustments to heroes, units, artifacts, talents, and potentially additional considerations for system enhancements.

2. Event

Puzzle Event

Event Period    3/18/2024 - 3/31/2024 00:00 UTC

• We have prepared a puzzle event to welcome the spring.
• A new puzzle will open each day starting from the beginning of the event.
• Complete missions to get all the puzzle pieces, then claim the final reward of the puzzle.
• A small reward will also be provided for getting each puzzle piece.
• You must complete the previous puzzle and claim its rewards to start the next puzzle's mission on the next day.

Event Rewards

3. [Themed Mode] Rival Mode

In this themed mode, adjustments will be made to the faction and type combo effects, potentially affecting game balance significantly.
To gather extensive feedback on these adjustments, we've increased the rewards, providing players with more incentives than usual.

After this testing period, we intend to implement the combo effect changes across the entire game.
Various events will accompany this process, and we kindly ask for your active participation and feedback.

Playable Time: 3/22/2024 (Fri) 00:00 - 3/25/2024 (Mon) 00:00 UTC

Rewards  

700 Gems in total

Rewards per Rank

4. Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the guide text for Hero's Journey was displayed in an excessively small size in Thai.