Development Updates 2019

[Arelyna]

Greetings, Dragon Lords!

Here at Pocket Gems, 2019 has been all about the player - we’ve collectively focused our efforts on game improvements, bug bashing, and new features to delight and surprise. At the end of 2018, we highlighted our upcoming development roadmap centered around the “Year of the Player”.

As more improvements make their way to War Dragons, we want each and every player to be in the know about these new changes. This living thread is designed to provide a chronological snapshot of all improvements that release in 2019. It’ll be updated anytime we provide a new Year of the Player Update, and can be referenced in-game, on the blog, and among the War Dragons social channels.

We want to continue delivering quality of life improvements throughout the rest of the year. You can expect new Year of the Player Updates to arrive across War Dragons more regularly and consistently, starting with this week. To set the proper expectations, this means delivering new quality of life features closer to a monthly cadence and not weekly.

☆ The Year So Far (Last Updated 10/30/19)

Year of the Player Updates

☆ Update #1 - 5/15/2019

☆ Update #2 - 6/26/2019

☆ Update #3 - 7/30/2019

☆ Update #4 - 8/27/2019

☆ Update #5 - 9/24/2019

☆ Update #6 - 10/30/2019

[Arelyna]

The Year So Far (Last Updated 10/30/19)

2019 has been a busy year, and we’re not even halfway done! Let’s take a walk through the many Quality of Life improvements that have already made their way to War Dragons this year:

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the infamous Cloak bug where the Cloak spell was not functioning properly in-game.
• Fixed the ‘Ghost Notification’ in Event Prizes where the “1” prize indicator would appear even when all obtainable prizes had been claimed.
• Fixed an issue where players’ Dragons would become unresponsive for a few seconds after using a spell.
• Fixed an issue where players were noticing their defense power fluctuating despite no changes on their end.
• Fixed issues with disappearing chest drops, unreliable breeding token bonuses, and disappearing value packs
• [Atlas] Fixed an issue where incoming Primarchs would prevent attacks against Castle Guards and teams from being able to conquer castles.
• In Atlas, an issue was fixed in 5.00 where the camera would pan over the edge of the world’s map.
• Rune functionality fixes were released alongside the 5.01 update. For these specific Runes, the name will remain the same, and functionality will be updated based on the list in our Release Notes.
• A fix to the Southern Cross Spell was released in the 5.01 update.
• Breeding UI scrolling has been fixed as of the 5.01 update.
• In Atlas, an issue was fixed in 5.02 where riders were stuck on a mission indefinitely after a player switched to a non-Atlas Team.
• When defending, an issue was fixed where players could not return their defense items once they had been dragged out from the item slot.
• Another issue was fixed where the Dragon Roster would become unresponsive when panning around the Base View.
• Finally, a mailing system issue was fixed where crashes would occur when trying to open an in-game mail containing a link or scrolling through mails in the “News” section.
• Fixed a crash in 5.04 that happens when a player taps on any Announcement or General buttons on the Zendesk Support page from in-game.
• Fixed a crash that happens when a player selects and cuts text from any text field.
• Fixed a crash that happens randomly when a player purchases Rubies or performs an in-app purchase from the Treasury.
• Fixed an issue where the option to Bookmark, Attack Next, or Share Replay was not displaying on the battle result screen.
• Fixed an issue where a player was unable to search for a team using the Team Meeting Hall’s search functionality.
• Popups related to summoning or expediting are now localised in every supported language.
• In Atlas, the team made some improvements around the waypoint system to reduce “Failed to add waypoint” errors.
• Fixed an issue in the tutorial where the arrow prompting a user to collect egg fragments would disappear if the camera panned to a different section of the screen.
• Fixed an issue with the equipped filter not properly showing the runes according to the description displayed to a player. For monuments, the filter will only show those runes equipped to monuments while the Rune Vault will show all equipped runes, both those on Dragons and Monuments.
• Fixed an issue where Mind-Controlled Towers, from Whispers of Madness, would not always attack other towers when using a form of cloak.
• Fixed an issue where Swarm Strike’s spell icon would flicker or the duration/cooldown timer would reset when using multiple of Orthoptar’s primary spells.
• Fixed an issue where Healing Mark would re-enable a spell taken from an Essence-based spell, such as Leech, as well as the primary spell. For example, this would affect a dragon which equipped a Chain Lightning spell consumable and has Healing Mark and an Essence Spell as a primary spell.
• [Atlas] The delayed improvements around the waypoint system to reduce “Failed to add waypoint” errors that was set to release in 5.04 were released here.
• Fixed an issue where Tier names in Breeder Missions were not showing correctly in several different languages.
• Fixed an issue where the Resource Bars would not update the progress towards full automatically.
• Made adjustments to left-handed mode. Players will now see the health bar on the left hand side of the screen and the flames/destruction counter on the right-hand side.
• Fixed an issue where the order of defense consumables moved around.
• Fixed an issue where the elements of the Gear Forge were overlapping with one another.
• Fixed an issue where Breeder Missions were not correctly populating when viewing from the Attack Screen.
• Fixed an issue where text in the Boosts menu was not legible.
• Fixed an issue where the PvP menu would overlap with the Dragon Consumable equip menu.
• Fixed an issue where the keyboard would flicker when going through the steps of creating a new team
• Fixed an issue where the tutorial video would get stuck if a user accidentally opened their notification panel while watching
• Fixed an issue where the attack button was not disabled when a user would view their teammate’s profile from chat.
• Fixed an issue where the info bar would not always appear or disappear when tapping on the Sheep Farm or Lumber Mills
• Fixed an issue where Deflecting Gale was not blocking attacks from Dragon Perches
• Fixed an issue where a basic attack would be dealt to a tower when Death Gaze was blocked by a Red Mage Tower
• Fixed an issue where Namaka’s Empowered Shot would not activate consistently
• Fixed an issue where the black background in various menus was not sized properly for the iPhone XR
• Fixed an issue where production boosts were described inconsistently across the game.
• Fixed an issue where the tower selection menu would remain open when engaging with other parts of the game.
• Fixed an issue where players would see white squares around their dragons in shareable replays
• Fixed an issue where Breeding Missions were not rounding correctly after Version 5.06’s Release
• Fixed an issue where players using Russian in game would see text being cut off in the breeding screen
• [Android] Fixed an issue where text was misaligned on the Battle Results screen when playing on a Galaxy Note 8

Quality of Life Improvements

• Spell Scaling, released in January, was an initiative to smooth out the scaling of power amongst most spells in-game to provide a more balanced gameplay across levels and Tiers.
• The infamous 300 Wall was broken down thanks to efforts made by PG and the Gameplay Faction to smooth out level progression above level 300.
• Rider Gear Crafting was made available for all players, regardless of having Atlas access or not.
• Rider Skills can now be reset for any Riders that have learned skills in their tree.
• In partnership with XPFarmsLoose, 50 new PvE XP Bases were introduced in-game for players to farm XP from.
• The default Chat was changed from League Chat to Team Chat to see the latest in team discussions upon logging in.
• A ‘System Messages toggle’ was introduced to Team Chat, allowing players to turn off system messages, such as RSS transfers, castle shields, etc, in Team Chat.
• Season Keys were introduced in the Springblossom Season as a streamline way for players to obtain one Seasonal Mythic of their choice.
• Seasonal Dragon Buffs went into effect in the Springblossom Season, allowing current Seasonal Dragons a buff of increased XP gain and decreased heal time.
• Due to Rider Gear Crafting becoming available for all players, Crafting Shards have been added into Season Prizing and Bronze Chests.
• [Atlas] Introduced the Bank Ledger 2.0 for increased control and filter of information.
• [Atlas] Introduced a new Castle Management Menu for increased control and management of Atlas castles.
• [Atlas] Trapper Attack Redirect
• [Atlas] A new Primarch Finder was introduced to filter and narrow down searches of enemy Primarchs.
• [Atlas] Navigation Improvements were made to Atlas so players could copy and paste Atlas coordinates to other players.
• Tier Based Discounting extended to Harbinger Tier!
• Egg Token Missions scaled for Empyrean Tier.
• The amount of energy needed to complete Wildfire attacks have been reduced from 80 flames to 50!
• Last week, improvements to Fight Pits debuted that introduced Minimum Payouts and Pit Bonuses to the event. For more information on that, check out the latest blog!
• Maximum Dragon XP payout from attacks will now scale to level 455 instead of level 387, increasing the XP gain from attacks as player level increases.
• Wars have been reworked to provide a more fun and exciting way to play against your enemies!
• Elite functionality has been updated so players are able to build a second building even if their Elite subscription would run out before that building completed.
• In Atlas, the level at which players automatically receive 100% glory has been adjusted from level 400 to level 500.
• Runes have also gone through an overhaul! The first part of this update released in 5.01, and the second part has recently released alongside 5.02. The final update provides a focus on Tower Runes, completing the Rune overhaul.
• In Atlas, the team retooled Invader Bases to give out more XP per run, allowing players to obtain more experience with less flights.
• Ice & Fire Shard Upgrade Costs: After taking some time to look at the costs of new Tower Levels and evaluating where best they should fall, we reduced the building costs in 5.03. Visit this page for a breakdown of new costs!
• Tier-Based Discounting and new Research Tasks have been added with last week’s introduction of the Abyssal Tier! More information can be found on the blog.
• We’ve implemented the ability for players to sort an enemy team’s roster by player level in a War.
• Sheep Farm Production Update: The production amount of Sheep Farms have increased for tower level 86 - 90, and these changes have applied to any towers from levels 86 - 90 that have already been built. Previously, production of Sheep Farms was capped beginning at level 85. Dragons continue to increase in their hunger for food as they level up, so the Sheep Farms will now produce more food to accommodate your hungry fliers. For more information and details on these changes, check out the 5.05 Release Notes!
• Made some improvements to FPS (frames per second) on older devices by updating their default graphics settings to one that better allows players to engage in the game without memory crashes or slow frame rate
• Fixed an issue where players would not see “Sign Out” displayed in their own language when attempting to sign out of Pocket ID
• [Android] Fixed an issue where the event menus, both in the Main Game and Atlas, were cut off on certain devices using Oreo.
• [Android] Fixed an issue where the game would open the device’s default web browser rather than the in-game version.
• Fixed an issue where a player could not use the copy/paste function in the Team Statement or Description

[Arelyna]

The First Update

So what’s on the horizon for War Dragons? As we’ve mentioned before, there’s plenty in the works. Here’s a few immediate improvements that will be available in-game soon, and by soon, we mean today!

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Tier-Based Discounting

Tier-Based Discounting is a way for previously released lineage Dragons to be bred at a lower breeding token cost and for previously released tower levels to be built with a lower lumber and timer cost. For example: Prior to Tier-Based Discounting, it would cost 20 breeding tokens for every breed of Platinum Tier Dragons. Now with the discounting in effect, it costs 10 tokens per breed.

Now that the Empyrean Legendary Dragons and level 80 towers are available, we’ve extended Tier-Based Discounting up through Harbinger tier for dragons and level 65 towers . For more information, see the breakdown below:

Tier-Based Discounting Details

The following Tiers will be discounted (note that the discount numbers include the previous release of Tier-Based Discounting):

• Harbinger Tier --> 10% off token requirements (currently at 0% off)
• Obsidian Tier --> 20% off token requirements (currently at 10% off)
• Emerald Tier --> 30% off token requirements (currently at 20% off)
• Garnet Tier --> 40% off token requirements (currently at 30% off)
• Sapphire Tier --> 50% off token requirements (currently at 30% off)
• Platinum Tier --> 50% off token requirements (currently at 30% off)

Clarification: For breeding, the tiers above refer to the parents of a particular Egg Fragment.

The following building levels will be discounted:

• Tower Levels 56-65 --> 10% off resource & timer costs (currently at 0% off)
• Tower Levels 51-55 --> 20% off resource & timer costs (currently at 10% off)
• Tower Levels 46-50 --> 30% off resource & timer costs (currently at 20% off)
• Tower Level 45 --> 40% off resource & timer costs (currently at 30% off)
• Tower Level 44 --> 35% off resource & timer costs (currently at 30% off)

Just like in the previous release of Tier-Based Discounting, the amount of food and experience needed for leveling up dragons, the time needed for incubation, and the eggs and time required for research will be reduced in line with the token requirement discounts. In addition, Gold Tier research will be discounted by 50% as well, due to technical reasons.

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Empyrean Tier Mission Balloon

Towards the end of 2018, the Lookout Balloon was updated to scale breeding token missions with your current Dragon Tier. Gone are the days of having a set amount of tokens to obtain from these missions across all Tiers and levels; with this update, higher Tiers now reward a higher amount of tokens, and are doubled for those with Elite!

Now, we’re taking this one step further to include the Empyrean Tier in the Lookout Balloon, so those who have Dragons in this Tier can increase their token payout as with previous tiers. Just like before, the cost to upgrade the Lookout Balloon will be one egg of the new Tier.

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Please discuss your thoughts and ask questions in the Official Discussion Thread.

[Arelyna]

The Second Update (6/26/19)

In the present day, what can you expect to see coming to War Dragons? Here’s a list of upcoming features to expect in the near future.

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Assault Event & Multi-Event Weeks

 

 

 

An event reforged for battle, Assault returns to War Dragons this week! There are tons of prizes to obtain and bases to crush under your power. Additionally, for the first run of Assault, all attacks will cost only 2 energy! All the details can be found on the Dragons blog.

 

In addition to Assault, this week marks the introduction of Multi-Event weeks, where more than one event will run simultaneously alongside another. This week, we have Assault and Breeding that will run concurrently from 6/26 - 7/1. Multi-Event Weeks are a way to get even more prizes in a week when minor events take such little time to complete. This way, you’ll be racking up event points for all five days!

 

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Mega Coin Updates

For those deep in the inner workings of Dragons PvP events, many are no stranger to a combat tactic commonly referred to as “Mega Quit”. This happens when a player attacks using a Mega Coin, then quits immediately after the battle has been initiated. The player loses out on 50% of their possible winnings, but saves quite a bit on time, making it a headache for anyone on the other side of the coin.

 

The team has seriously considered how to best solve this issue around Mega Coin usage. We want players to feel empowered to make destructive attacks with the Coin, yet we feel that a more-than-minimal level of effort should be required to prevent these quits. To make our PvP events feel more competitive, we have modified the way Mega Coin functions to reward players based on the amount of damage they deal to a base as seen below:

Percent of Base Destroyed using Mega Coin	Original Percent of Points Received	New Percent of Points Received
0%	50%	0% - Mega Coin Refunded
1% - 69%	50%	1% - 69%, based on % Completed
70% - 100%	100%	100%

 

These changes will be live during one of the next two PvP events, depending on what our internal testing results return. Once the feature is ready to release, we’ll be sure to notify everyone about the incoming changes!

 

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Please discuss your thoughts and ask questions in the Official Discussion Thread.

[Arelyna]

The Third Update (7/30/19)

Take a look at what’s to come in War Dragons!

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Raiding Returns!

 

Next week brings the revival of a long-requested feature back to Dragons: Raiding! Raiding is a way for players to instantly receive event points in PvP events after fully destroying a base, allowing for major time saves and point accumulation. Here’s how it works:

 

Unlocking and Using Raiding

 

To unlock the ability to Raid on a target base, players must destroy their chosen base with 100% destruction, regardless of the amount of flames obtained. Once destroyed, a Raid button will appear next to this same base, and will open up the raiding interface. From here, players can choose to use an Inner Fire with each Raid (with a max of 1 Inner Fire per Raid) by checking off the “Raid with Inner Fire” box, earning double the amount of points for the run!

 

There will be a short 5 second cooldown period in between raids so that dragons can recover before raiding again. Don’t want to raid? No problem! Any target base that’s eligible for raiding can still be attacked as normal by tapping the Attack button.

 

 

Raiding Limits and Reset

 

Once a base has been fully destroyed and raids are unlocked, the act of raiding does not require Dragons to be flown nor Healing Potions to be used. Players can raid the same target base up to 5 times within the Raid Reset period. Each time a Raid is unlocked on a target base, a 6 hour timer will begin to count down. These 6 hours represent the Raid Reset period, and the countdown begins individually for each target base. At the end of every Reset period, the following will happen:

 

• Previously raided bases must be unlocked to Raid once again by destroying the base with 100% destruction in a normal attack.

• The amount of times a target base can be raided will reset to 5.

 

Raiding Energy Costs

 

Energy costs will increase with each Raid, though the energy required to Raid versus attack as normal will be substantially lower overall. For the first introduction of Raiding in this week’s Kingdom Wars event, energy costs will be reduced to celebrate its return! Here’s a breakdown of each Raid on the same target base and its associated energy cost:

Number of Raid on Target Base	Energy Cost (Launch Discount!)	Energy Cost (Normal)
1	2	4
2	3	4
3	4	5
4	5	5
5	6	6

 

 

Raiding and PvP Events

Raiding will first be introduced alongside the Kingdom Wars event. We’ll be sure to announce when Raiding can be used in future runs of Kingdom Wars online through War Dragons’ social channels, Forums, and in-game messages!

 

 

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Rider/Dragon Menu Toggle

https://wardragons.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/blog-images/2019-7-30%3A+Year+of+the+Player+Update+%233/Dragon+and+Rider+Toggle.gif(image larger than 4096KB)

 

A new menu toggle was introduced in 5.02’s release within the Rider and Dragon menus to allow players to more easily flip between their rosters. After some time with the current roster interface, we’ve heard a lot of feedback that having to back out to the home screen to access the Dragon or Rider roster can expend precious time better used for grinding out Breeder Missions or XP. With this toggle icon, Dragon Lords can seamlessly flip between Dragons and Riders in their roster for ease of access.

 

In addition to the new toggle, the following changes have been made:

• Dragon info have been moved from the bottom to the top of the screen.

• The back button will return a player to their base view.

• Hitting the toggle icon will take a player back to the screen that was previously opened within either the Dragon or Rider menus respectively. For example, if the Bond tab of the Rider menu was open, returning to the Rider menu after toggling to the Dragon roser will go back to the previously open Bond tab.

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Please discuss and ask questions in the Official Discussion Thread.

[Crisis]

The Fourth Update (8/27/19)

Take a look at what’s to come in War Dragons!

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Team Quests Update

On August 7th, an update to Team Quests redesigned the feature to be more player-friendly and easier to accomplish on a daily basis. Some Team Quests now scale by player level and will change based on the current weekly event, making Quests an overall easier endeavor to complete. For more information about these changes, visit the latest Team Quests blog!

 

For when things just don’t feel right...try left!

 

Left-Handed Mode Toggle

 

Shipping in the 5.04 update later today comes the much-anticipated Left-Handed Mode Toggle! This toggle successfully flips elements of the battle HUD (such as spell icons, Dragon HP, and Invoker Ammo, to name a few) such that a left-handed player can easily cast spells with their right hand while breathing powerful fire with their left.

Left-Handed Mode can be toggled on within the Settings menu by enabling the “Invert Battle HUD” option. Once activated, only the Battle HUD will be affected while all other menus will remain the same.

 

 

Flak Tower Upgrade Cost Reduction

 

As part of our efforts to better align the game economy costs with player earnings in a similar way to what was done with Ice and Fire Shards, we are happy to announce that we will be reducing Elemental Ember costs on Flak Towers next week!

 

For any players who have already built Flak Towers to any level between 71 and 85 at the current cost, we will be refunding the difference in Elemental Embers between the current cost and the new cost. This change will occur before the upcoming Fall Season is available next week.

 

The breakdown of new Elemental Ember costs can be seen below:

Tower Level	Current Ember Cost	New Ember Cost	Difference
71	6,300	6,210	-90
73	6,750	6,480	-270
75	7,650	6,750	-900
77	9,500	7,800	-1,700
79	10,500	8,100	-2,400
81	11,500	8,400	-3,100
83	12,500	8,700	-3,800
85	13,500	9,000	-4,500

 

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2019 Development Snapshot

 

At the beginning of 2019, all types of players from War Dragons came together to express the top requested features, improvements, and fixes that they’d like to see in-game. These posts were organized in the 2019 Development Roadmap threads for General Feedback, Bug Bashing, Quality of Life Improvements, and Player Happiness Initiatives.

 

The War Dragons team compiled the top requested features from every one of these posts and sourced ticket data provided by our Support Team. We determined the top 5 “Easy Win” and “Big Ticket” initiatives that were then added to the first post of the Quality of Life and Player Happiness threads.

 

It’s been a little while (since, well, January!) that we’ve provided an update on these initiatives. We’ve made some great progress in bringing a number of these top requests to players this year, and we realize there’s more to go. While we have not guaranteed any of the requests to be worked on or shipped in this calendar year, we still wanted to give all players a peek behind our “development curtain” to learn the current state of these initiatives.

 

Quality of Life Improvements

 

Easy Wins

 

• Left-Handed mode toggle

  • Status: Shipped 

  • A left-handed toggle will be available in the 5.04 update, releasing today!

 

• Font Size customization

  • Status: Product Backlog

  • Font Size customization is not currently a priority in our list of requests since it affects a small number of players overall. It would be difficult to create the perfect solution for all devices and resolutions that War Dragons is available on, which would mean a massive undertaking from our UI team to ensure nothing breaks.

  • The feature will be kept in our development backlog for future consideration.

 

• Move RSS transfer notifications to improve chat flow

  • Status: Shipped

  • A toggle was introduced in Version 4.98 to flip between keeping transfer notifications visible or hidden in Team Chat.

 

• Offer Yearly Atlas Elite

  • Status: Product Backlog

  • We may consider offering Atlas Elite on a yearly basis in the future, but for now, our plan is to focus on main-game initiatives where yearly Elite is currently offered.

 

• Add Slider for expedites and base boosts

  • Status: Product Backlog

  • Adding a slider for expedites is not currently a priority as the “Apply All” button can help mitigate multiple taps to finish a building or incubation.

  • We’d like to provide a slider for Base Boosts in the future, however this is currently lower in priority than other economy-focused initiatives that we are working on.

 

Big Ticket

 

• Improve / Smooth building upgrade times

  • Status: In Progress via Tier-Based Discounting

  • The main issues we’ve seen in regards to smoothing upgrade times seems to be focused on the Storage Hut and its upgrade costs. The smoothing of these upgrade times are lower in priority for the team to focus on compared to larger game economic initiatives.

  • Tower discounts will continue to be rolled out via Tier-Based Discounting!

 

• Scale Gold Chests

  • Status: Product Backlog

  • Scaling Gold Chests by player level would introduce a series of issues with the game’s economy that are more detrimental than it would be to help improve player progression. For this reason, the team has chosen to spend their time focusing on other economic updates that can reach a similar resolution for players.

 

• Make Level-up Rewards global

  • Status: Product Backlog

  • Level-Up Rewards have been removed from the game so that there is no perceived advantage or favoring of certain players over others.

 

• In-game Inventory system

  • Status: Product Backlog

  • Introducing an inventory system in-game is in our development backlog, but won’t be a major focus for the team as we hone in on building features related to the game’s economy.

 

• Atlas Ledger improvements

  • Status: Shipped

  • Improvements to the Atlas Ledger were introduced in Version 4.97 to increase visibility of player actions for team leaders.

 

 

Player Happiness Initiatives

 

Easy Wins

 

• Fix Elemental Ember Economy

  • Status: In Progress

  • Announced earlier in this post, the Elemental Ember cost to upgrade Flak Towers between levels 71 - 85 has been reduced to better align player accrual rates and spend of these Embers.

 

• Add ability to rename Riders

  • Status: Product Backlog

  • Renaming Dragon Riders is not currently a priority in our list of requests since it does not have a major effect on gameplay, and there are other initiatives we are focusing on to tackle those first before returning to lower impact designs.

 

• Scale Sigil Prizes and Drops

  • Status: Shipped (Sort Of)

  • We began addressing sigil prizes and drops internally back in March of this year. Work on this also came at a time when tons more content was added to Season branches starting in the Springblossom Season, which gave Seasons structure a welcomed makeover. Since then, we have not prioritized more work on scaling these prizes due to the changed nature of Seasons.

 

• More Fun Branches like Headless Horseman

  • Status: In Progress

  • Creating more fun branches in Seasons is something the Events and Seasons team is super interested in providing, pending the bandwidth of our Art Team.

  • On a somewhat related note, the team is also planning to incorporate more Limited-Time Branches in Seasons with exclusive rewards, as well.

  • If and when more fun branches like this are released, we’ll be sure to notify everyone on what to expect!

 

• Improve Runic and Silver Chests

  • Status: Shipped (Sort Of)

  • Earlier this year, we launched Super Runic Chests that weren’t met with much interest, so the idea was scrapped.

  • We have no plans to strictly increase the value of these chests as a way to “improve” them overall, but we will continue to add new ways in which players can acquire Runes and Rune Dust, inclusive of Limited Rune Branches in Seasons.

 

Big Ticket

 

• Fix Expedite Economy

  • Status: In Progress

  • Similar to many other economy-based requests, addressing how expedites fit into the economy as a whole is a top priority amongst the team. Ultimately, addressing economic pitfalls and pinch points leads to a more enjoyable gameplay experience, and the team is working towards a graceful solution for improvement in each affected area.

  • For expedites specifically, we’re happy to announce that players will soon have the opportunity to choose between completing Timer or Breeding Token Missions from the Zeppelin Balloon! More information on Timer Missions will be available in an upcoming update.

 

• Reduce / Remove A/B testing

  • Status: Shipped / Done

  • The team is consciously avoiding A/B testing for major features that have significant impact on progression. All players will receive these changes at once and will be able to provide their feedback as they release.

 

• Continue Tier-based Discounting as we roll out new tiers

  • Status: Continuously Shipping

  • Tier-Based Discounting will continue to release as new Dragon Tiers are introduced in-game, the latest coming last week with the Abyssal Tier Dragons.

  • Tier-Based Discounting is an ongoing release, and more details about the next update will be provided as it arrives in-game.

 

• Fix issues with Ryuu (or remove Ryuu if unfixable)

  • Status: Product Backlog

  • Addressing the value of the Shrine Dragon has not been a major priority for the team, as the feature ultimately affects a trivial portion of gameplay.

  • We have experimented with ways to replace Ryuu thanks to our test flight with the first Invoker Dragon, Namaka, so there is absolutely potential to circle back to the Shrine and plan for some proper updates moving forward.

 

• Improve Wildfire Attack / rebalance

  • Status: Shipped

  • As of May, Wildfire flame requirements have been reduced from 80 flames to 50 flames, making the feature more attainable more often during PvP events.

 

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Please discuss and ask questions in the Official Discussion Thread.

[Arelyna]

The Fifth Update (9/24/19)

 

Take a look at what’s to come in War Dragons!

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Timer Missions

Timer Missions have been talked about and confirmed as an upcoming feature for Dragons in Forums posts and other announcements. Now that we are in the final stages of this feature’s development, it’s time to shine the spotlight on its functionality and benefits! Read on below for more information about Timer Missions.

 

Beta Period

During the Withermoon season, we’re pleased to be launching a beta test for the new Timer Missions feature! We’ve heard your feedback about avoiding A/B split tests for income-related features, so we’ll be doing this as a limited-time beta accessible to everyone above player level 50.

 

The Timer Missions beta will be enabled by way of a Seasonal branch released partway through the Withermoon Season, which we’re currently anticipating to be by mid-October. The first prize of the branch will be free to claim and enables the beta for your account. Further prizes will require Withermoon Sigils and allow for claiming mission reward multipliers in a similar fashion to the Egg Token Bonus Branch for Breeder Missions. Since this branch is launching mid-Season, the Sigil costs of the additional bonuses in the Timer branch will be discounted for the remaining time in the Season when the beta period begins.

 

Since we’re not running a smaller A/B test of this feature beforehand, we plan to evaluate how the feature is received at the end of the Withermoon season and determine whether any further adjustments to Timer Missions are necessary at that time.

 

An example of the new Timer Missions feature in the Zeppelin Balloon at the Green Tier.

 

How it Works

Timer Missions allow players to toggle any Zeppelin Balloon mission’s rewards freely between Breeding Tokens and Timers. Each of the 3 missions can be toggled independently. Whichever setting is in place at the time the mission is completed will determine the reward received. Timer rewards will be granted as a set of individual timers that add up to the appropriate value. Mission cooldowns and expedite costs will work exactly as they do today and will belong to the mission, regardless of which reward is chosen.

 

Beta Period Balloon Mission Rewards

Cooldown Time	Breeder Token Reward	TImer Reward
1 Hour Mission	20 Breeding Tokens	60 Minutes
4 Hour Mission	40 Breeding Tokens	120 Minutes
20 Hour Mission	80 Breeding Tokens	240 Minutes

 

Additional multipliers are available for Timer Missions in the same way as they are for Breeder Missions.

• Elite accounts provide a 2x bonus

• Balloon upgrades provide up to a 1.7x bonus at Abyssal Tier

• Seasonal Timer Mission Branch bonuses will be available, as well!

These bonuses stack multiplicatively on top of each other to generate increasingly better returns!

 

An example of the new Timer Missions feature in the Zeppelin Balloon at the Green Tier.

 

When It’s Live

As mentioned above, we are currently aiming for Timer Missions and the subsequent Seasonal Timer Bonus branch to be available around mid-October 2019 in War Dragons. We’ll include more details about its release date in the next major update’s Release Notes on the Forums.

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Tower Transformation

The long-awaited ability to transform towers is coming to War Dragons! As new tower types are released over time, we recognize that players are often faced with a dilemma whether it’s worth continuing to invest in older towers or to transition to building a newer tower type from scratch. Players want the ability to experiment with different types of defense, as well as to convert the older towers on their base or in their storage into progress towards a current, effective base. Tower Transformation will be a feature that can merge unused or unwanted towers into new towers or tower levels for other existing towers.

 

The Tower Transformation feature will launch as a future beta program, and we’re working hard to try to have it in your hands before the end of 2019. We plan to offer options for converting a single existing tower to a different type, as well as for merging multiple towers into bonus levels for another existing tower. As a basic summary, this works by taking a percentage of each transformed or merged tower’s value and applying it towards the value of the new tower being built or improved.

 

We look forward to providing more details and a more precise timeline as we get closer to completing the development process, and we hope that you’re as excited about using Transformation as we are to be building it!

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Tower Stats Updates

In recent conversations, we have heard a concern from players that the effectiveness of high-level defensive towers is insufficient compared to the best offensive Dragons, especially as new Dragons and Tiers release. Based on this feedback, we have continued to work with the Gameplay Faction to decide what the correct percentage increase to high-level tower power should be.

 

We are currently testing tower buffs between 2% - 18% across tower levels 76 - 84, and 20% for tower levels 85 - 90 with the GPF. Once we’re sure the tower changes feel better than where they currently are, these changes will be rolled out as part of a minor update. We are aiming for them to release this week, though this may change depending on the testing process.

 

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Tiered Dragon XP Costs Updates

On the topic of economy, we have discovered that Gold and Platinum Tier XP costs are currently higher than intended, inclusive of the latest Tier-Based Discounting adjustments. We plan to re-adjust these costs to be more in line with their current position in the Dragon collection. This change is planned to roll out this week alongside the tower power changes mentioned above.

 

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Timer Costs of Harbinger + Vanguard Towers

We have identified a particular area where tower traversal costs through tiers in terms of timers is disproportionately difficult for players in the Harbinger and Vanguard Tiers. We intend to smooth out this curve through future Tier-Based Discounting. The plan is to roll out this change prior to when the next Fortification event occurs in October.

 

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Rune Removal

Limited Dragon Rune Removal is also a feature that is slated for release before the end of the year. As more information is ready to be shared, we’ll be sure to post it on the Dragons Blog and provide everyone with the latest information about its release!

 

[Arelyna]

We will be changing the title of this thread to be “Development Updates 2019”

[Arelyna]

 

Greetings, Dragon Lords!

 

This month, we wanted to shine a spotlight on our development initiatives as we plan out the remainder of the year. As we enter the final quarter of 2019, we would like to take the time to acknowledge that every year should be the “Year of the Player” rather than just this one, and as such, we are committed to having player perspectives remain a facet of our development process moving forward. We will be transitioning the next “Year of the Player” posts to be Development Updates that will continue on a similar cadence moving forward

 

We will continue to deliver features that have been promised, such as Rune Removal and Tower Transformation. Read on for all the details!

 

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Rune Removal

 

 

Runes are powerful items that can be upgraded and equipped to boost the strength and abilities of dragons and towers in the game. In the case of Tower (Monument) Runes, players can choose to remove and salvage previously equipped runes for dust. Dragon runes, however, require a lot more commitment, as their attachment to a dragon is permanent.

 

However, with more tiers of dragons being added over time and more seasonal dragons being introduced each season, which dragons players use in their roster are always changing. To allow more flexibility in customizing your dragons’ runes, we’re introducing the ability to remove and re-equip runes on dragons to a limited extent.

 

How it Works

Runes can be removed from a dragon using Chisels, a new consumable made specifically for this purpose, which can be earned from just playing the game. The removed rune will be returned to the Rune Vault, where it can then be equipped onto a different dragon.

 

Chisels can be obtained through event prizing and participation. They’ll be added to existing event prizing across prize tiers in addition to what prizes are currently available; moreover, none of the chisels added to prizing is expected to dilute what is already available. These will not be obtainable from chests at this time.

 

Why not make the feature cost Rubies?

The pursuit of the perfect rune encourages engagement in specific parts of the game beyond just "repeat whatever is the most efficient way to earn rubies". We believe it's important that different non-Ruby rewards in the game continue to matter in the way that Runes currently do.

 

When will this feature be coming to the game?

We're currently working to launch Rune Removal as part of our November Version Release

 

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Tower Transformation

As noted in The Year of the Player Update #5, Tower Transformation is coming soon to War Dragons! In this update, we're excited to share some further details with you. 

 

To briefly recap:

Players want the ability to experiment with different types of defense, as well as to convert the older towers on their base or in their storage into progress towards a current, effective base. Tower Transformation will be a feature that can merge unused or unwanted towers into new towers or tower levels for other existing towers.

We look forward to providing more details and a more precise timeline as we get closer to completing the development process, and we hope that you’re as excited about using Transformation as we are to be building it!

 

How does the feature work?

• Towers must be at least level 10 to qualify for merger or transformation, and you must meet the usual restrictions on player level, builder hut level, maximum per type, island placement, etc. in order to complete the action. 

• To Transform a tower into another, select it in your base, and tap on “Transform” where you’ll be able to select a different tower to transform your tower.

• To Merge a stored or active tower’s value into an active one, select the tower in your base, tap on “Upgrade”, and then select the “Merge” tab on the left.

• In both Transform and Merge actions, the tower's value is determined by using specific conversion ratios for each of its premium resources (Time, Ice/Fire Shards, and Elemental Embers). This calculation is the same for all players and is independent of construction bonuses, but does factor applicable tier-based discounting. More details below.

 

What will transforming/merging a tower cost?

There is no upfront cost for the action of Transforming or merging towers. Instead, the “cost” will be reflected in the reduced level of the resulting tower. We want Tower Transformation to be a highlight of our Year of the Player efforts and to show our appreciation for our most loyal players, so we plan to launch the beta with 95% efficiency on the value of transformed/merged towers.

 

Some examples:

• When transforming between towers that require the same resources, the 95% value efficiency means you'll get back a new tower of only slightly lower level (e.g. Dark Flak L85 to Fire Flak L83).

• When transforming between tiers, the tower level difference will be more significant because of the conversion between resources (e.g. from Time to Time+Embers, for Archer L85 to Dark Flak L60).

• The same value efficiency applies when merging multiple towers into one. 

 

What about the XP I’ve already gained from my towers? Will I lose the levels I already have gained?

In situations where total player XP would normally be reduced by transforming a tower to a lower level, we’ll instead keep your player level where it currently is and increase the distance to your next level so that everything matches up again once you get there. This difference is shown as "Required XP" in the transformation or merger screen.

 

When will this new feature come to the game?

We're currently working to launch Tower Transformation as a Beta in November 2019. There will be no additional cost to join the beta. We plan to run it at least through the end of the year, at which point we'll look at all of the data and evaluate any adjustments which may be needed in hopes of ultimately making this a permanent part of War Dragons.

 

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Coming Soon

We are currently working on developing a few other features that will help out our players before the end of the year! We are hoping to be able to ship out:

• Instant Breed - a feature to improve the amount of time it takes to breed a dragon
• In-game Inventory - a feature to let players see what items they have

We will have more information about these features in our next update!