Huuuuuge patch for OMDU coming Tuesday

Robot Entertainment are lining up a massive patch for Orcs Must Die! Unchained this coming Tuesday. This isnt no ordinary Microsoft Patch Tuesday, Robot are dishing out some pretty major changes to OMDU. Lets dig in to some of the highlights that this patch brings.

Account Wipe

Yes, unfortunately there is going to be an account wipe. If you’ve been fighting hard to ascend through the levels, after this patch you will be set back to level 0 again and all decks erased. This is unfortunate, but has to happen owing to the number of changes made to the store (see more below). However, for those who have been diligently playing all is not lost. Robot will be giving those players additional skulls after the reset. It works out like this:

• Levels 20-29 – 10,000 Skulls
• Levels 30-39 – 30,000 Skulls
• Level 40 – 80,000 Skulls

So this isnt too bad. Remember after any wipe all gold will be refunded. So if you have been awarded gold by means of a founder pack or you have purchased in-game gold via the store you will get ALL your gold returned to you after the patch. This means you can go ahead and re-purchase heroes, vanity and of course, card decks!

Store Changes

So why the account wipe again? Well alot of the reason comes down the store changes. The good news is there are 40 new cards coming to OMDU with this patch. Thats a whole bunch of new cards! Here is a taster from the patch notes:

• Boulder chutes filled with chunks of icebergs? Check.
• Rapid fire wall blades? Yup.
• Glory seeking… shock zappers!? You bet.
• Good old Ring of Lighnting? Yes.
• Ring of Last Stand? Gnomish Repair Kit? Frost Weaver? Arcane Weaver? More than a dozen new waves?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Now thats certainly good news. In other changes card packs now cost less. But.. now wield 5 cards instead of 6. This might initially seem like a negative, but actually its not because….

• The chances of obtaining a hero in a pack are far more likely. (Still not guaranteed. Still not the primary way we intend people to get heroes. Still possible to open 200 packs and see zero heroes. BUT, far more likely.)
• The chance of a Mythic is more likely.

Overall, its all good news. For more details on this changes check the full patch notes.

Card Grinder and Gib Store is here!

Wondering what you can do about all those duplicate cards you’ve got building up in your inventory? Finding it a bit annoying when you get a card pack only to find you’ve got more of those same cards… Well things are about to get better on this front. The new Card Grinder system lets players grind up cards for gibs. Gibs can then be used to purchase cool things from the gib store. No word yet on what these things might be, but the patch notes indicate the things in the gib store are likely to change.

If you are a Master Founder there is an interesting discussion going on about the card grinder and gib store over in the developers forums.

New Heroes!

Can you believe that after the recent announcement of the Ball and Chain, Prospector and The Master, Robot already have two new heroes to give us! Thats right, say hello to Sir Winston and the Kobold King. Both of these new heroes are of Unchained alignment. Sir Winston is an ex-Paladin of The Order who has now turned evil and joined the Unchained. He wields a cursed sword.

Sir Winston was father to eight famed paladins, all of whom fell in battle serving the Order. Unfortunately, such loss has proven too much, even for one as stoic as Sir Winston, and now he has become… somewhat upset with the Order.

Armed with a dark blade that weakens those it strikes, he can also curse minions and heroes (doing a pulse of direct damage to them that also heals his allies around the victim) and inspire mortal fear (preventing enemies nearby from using their abilities).

The Kobold King is the ruler and leader of the pesky kobolds (or runners as you might better know them!). His primary attack is his whip. From the patch notes:

The Kobold King is short, dark, and regal. He enjoys long walks on the beach, sunsets, and PRESSING Q TO TURN ANY KOBOLDS AROUND HIM INTO MINIATURE KILLING MACHINES.

His turn-offs include seeing any kobolds die (each one killed near him increases his damage and movement speed for a short period of time) and being tied down (he is the fastest hero in the game and his second ability, Flee, breaks any CC for him and allies around him).

A teaser of these new heroes can be found over on IGN.

New Skins

Everybody loves new skins! On this occasion Stinkeye, Midnight, Kobold King and Sir Winston will be enjoying a new wardrobe.

Guardians

Killing Guardians currently rewards players with 5000 leadership points. It was felt that this was contributing to an in-balance in the early game where by the team that kills a guardian first gets a significant leadership boost that the other team can find difficult to recover from. Therefore to help balance things in this patch killing guardians rewards players with no leadership. This doesnt mean killing guardians is worth nothing at all. Guardians are a key component of defence and once they are killed that team looses a significant aspect of their overall defence, this makes them still well worth killing and still very important to protect.

The changes made here are just to balance and reduce the “snowball” effect where the team that kills the guardian first so no longer have such a huge leadership boost.

Bug Fixes and Hero Changes

There are a ton of bug fixes and alterations to heroes skills and abilities. Be sure to check the patch notes to see how your favourite heroes may have been adjusted. Some particular stand-out changes are:

• War Mage has been reclassified as dishing out lightning damage rather than physical.
• Hogarth – Now deals ice damage. Frosty!
• Ivy –  Balm (Q) now heals Ivy for less, but heals minions and fellow heroes for slightly more.

• Pride Hunter DPS has been reduced to 40 from 50. Additionally, their HP has been reduced to 210 from 230. (Bleed was not fully valued in the balance model.)
• Dwarf priests and hobgoblin shamans will no longer occasionally freak out and start attacking one of their own.

• Bots now use doors and gates.
• Bots should now retreat if outnumbered.

Get the full patch notes

As always here at REF we just break down the patch notes to give you a summary. There is a TON of additional info on the full patch notes. Make sure you check those out, essential reading for avid OMDU fans!

Remember the patch is landing Tuesday, July 22nd.