Tag Archives: Patch
Did you catch the Insider Access stream earlier this week? If you have not had a chance yet you will surely want to watch the VOD. Community Manager SixOkay sat down with our friendly Mother, OMDU’s Design Director to discuss the state of the game. The stream started with Q&A from things posted in the forums and on the stream chat.
As the stream progessed we began to talk about patch 1.7 and “phase 2” of the beta. The 1.7 patch is expected to land pretty soon and it will contain a number of things in similar vein to the kind of things we saw in patch 1.6, though there is no word on any new heroes, maps or specific detail at this time. Though expect Guardians to change a bit. More details will be revealed later next week.
In even bigger news we learned about the projection for OMDU’s development over the next few months. Following patch 1.7 Robot is going to take a break from regular patches over the holiday season. Instead they are going to focus on delivering a much bigger round of content in changes in what is being called “Phase 2” of the closed beta.
There’s been a lot of great discussion going on lately in the meeting rooms and hallways here at Robot. We’ve been digging in deep to review the mountains of detailed feedback we’ve received from Closed Beta players. You guys are really good at this. As we’ve continued to play the game and to watch you play, we’ve come up with a long list of ideas that we think greatly push the game forward. We’re eager to start adding these ideas to the many plans we’ve already outlined to you on the forums, and some of them are pretty big. Like, Mountain Troll big.
Robot are going to be spending time looking closer at the overall game and working on some much bigger core changes to the game. Taking into account both internal feedback and feedback received from the community. Phase 2 of the closed beta is expected to land some time in February 2015.
Whilst we await patch 1.7 to be released and whilst we wait for details on Phase 2 of the closed beta the community will no doubt have a ton of questions. Robot are very keen to keep the community engaged as we enter this longer stretch of content releases. As such the studio has announced five important dates for our diaries.
- December 2, 2014
- December 16, 2014
- January 6, 2015
- January 13, 2015
- January 20, 2015
These dates correspond to the Insider Access streams which take place each Tuesday. Be sure to make a note of these dates as each will contain an exciting announcement about OMDU. In the meanwhile check out this weeks Insider Access VOD below and the forum post on the community forums to read more about what is happening with OMDU over the next few months.
The Halloween season is soon to be upon us and Robot Entertainment is set to get us ready early for the spooky season with the V1.6 patch for OMDU due to land on October 14th. The patch is, as always, jam packed with not only changes but also some brand new content. Here we go with the REF summary!
New Hero – Ancestor
A brand new hero is set to join the OMDU line up and in-keeping the season we’ll soon be seeing the Ancestor as a playable hero.
As you might be able to guess from his purple themed powers, the Ancestor is an arcane based hero. He has some very interesting abilities. His passive ability lets him increase his Mana pool as others die around him. Primary and secondary abilities are as follows:
- Primary: A Vampiric main attack that costs Mana to do Arcane damage,
but also grants Ancestor a portion of that damage done as health.
- Secondary: Area of Effect centered on Ancestor that heals allies and
damages enemies proportional to the size of his Mana pool.
In addition:
- A convert-health-to-mana burst that allows Ancestor to keep going
without the need for an afternoon nap.
- And an Area of Effect terrain ability called ‘Hallowed Ground’.
Enemies that die on Hallowed Ground are worth double the Ghost Link Mana
increase. Also, the ghostly hands of his Bridge buddies reach up and
will randomly Root enemies in the area of effect.
Three-lane map “Highlands” is back
Those who have been in the OMDU beta for some time may remember the three lane map which was released for initial testing a few months ago. The map was only available for a short period before being taken back into development. Patch 1.6 now brings back this three-lane map which will be selectable only via the custom game type at this time.
It is worth noting that there are some interesting things about Highlands. The number of placeable traps on this map has been increased to 20. This suggests we could be looking at a varying number of placeable traps in the future depending on the chosen map or game type.
Creepy Cliffside Clash
The default map will be changed in patch 1.6 to a halloween themed version of the existing two lane map, Cliffside Clash. The newly themed map is aptly named “Creepy Cliffside Clash”.
Featuring Jack-o-Lanterns, hanging skull decorations and a night time theme. Along with the inclusion of the Ancestor as a playable hero you can now get into the holiday spirit without leaving your home!
More skins!
Hogarth gets an excellent new Lumberjack skin which suits him well. Blackpaw decides to expand his wardrobe with the amusing Tutu D-Loo skin and Ivy “peaces out” with her knew skin. The Sorceress and War Mage keep things a little more seasonal with their spooky costumes which will be free for all players. Here are the all new skins:
Chat & Dashboard sound
The chat system in the dash has been improved – chat messages are now persistent which means messages won’t disappear as you move through screens. How about that! Also this patch introduces music in the dashboard.
Hero changes
As with all patches there are some changes to heroes. There are not too many changes this time round. The most notable are changes to the Prospector and these are as follows:
- Tunnel (Name change! “Underground Roads”):
- ‘Dig’ Mana Cost reduced from 50 to 30.
- Delay between player uses reduced from 5s to 3s.
- Killing one tunnel end no longer kills the entire Underground
Road.
- Sand Cloud (Name change! “Dust Devil”:
- Mana cost reduced from 50 to 30.
- Cooldown reduced from 15s to 12s.
Gear Updates
There are some changes to two items of gear. We’ll just list these verbatim from the patch notes:
Gnomish Repair Kit
- Mana cost reduced from 60 to 50.
- Cooldown reduced from 5s to 2s.
- Now clears trap disables when it hits a trap.
- Now penetrates through allies or enemies to target.
Anti-Trap Vambrace
- Now penetrates too, instead of incorrect previous settings.
For other hero and gear changes check out the full patch notes which also include full details of all the changes and some miscellaneous changes not covered here. We will also be updating our statistics database on the day of the patch go-live which is October 14th. See you in-game then!
The latest patch for OMDU is now ready for download. Just start the beta client and it will begin updating straight away. Be sure to read our update summary to be in the know of the changes.
We have also updated our number and statistics database with the latest changes.
Next Tuesday 23rd September is poised to be the next patch day for OMDU. There are a fair few changes lined up as we have come to expect. REF is here to bring you the highlights!
New selectable difficulty levels
Co-op players will now be able to choose from four different pre-set difficulty levels before starting a game. These difficulty levels will impact how the bots play and the four levels are defined as easy, normal, hard and for the brave amongst us, “nightmare“. The difficulty level system changes variables such as bot HP and damage to scale to the appropriate difficulty level.
All new players must have first played at least one game on the “Easy” difficulty and beyond before they unlock the next. The rewards players get for playing difficulties is shown as below. If players can stick it out with the nightmare difficulty they can sweep up 150% worth of rewards.
- Easy games are 75% (base reward – they also provide a bonus to players under 10) until level 10.
- Normal games are 100% until level 15.
- Hard games are 125% with no level limit.
- Nightmare games are 150% with no level limit.
Guardians
Some much improvements have been made to Guardians to better bring them in line to the end goal, though its worth noting the Guardians are still very much still a work-in-progress. Some of the headline changes are that Guardians no longer care about damage type and they do unmitigated damage. They also provide +50 worth of armor for every type when players are near by.
Heal and Mana regeneration from Guardians is granted as an aura, applied to allies in proximity. BUT… players who are in combat no longer receive the health and mana regen boost.
Ball and Chain
The lovely Ms Ball and Chain bags herself some extra HP taking her from 560 up to 610HP. Her motivation now lasts longer and While motivated, orc minions (sorry Bloodspike) now do an additional 20% damage.
Prospector
Dwarven fans should be pleased the Prospector’s mana cost for dynamite has been decreased from 50 to 40 mana.
Sir Winston
Sir Winston has had a few nerfs that players need to be aware of, so for Sir Winston here are the changes in full:
- Curse heal on minions changed to 60 HP + 15% of maximum HP from a
flat 120 HP heal.
- Curse heal on players to 100 HP from 120 HP.
- Curse mana cost decreased to 35 mana from 40 mana.
- Curse cooldown decreased to 8 seconds from 10 seconds.
- Primary damage reduced to 32 from 40.
- Secondary damage reduced to 40 from 50.
Smolder
She has had her mana costs reduced for Fireform, Ignite and Flamethrower.
Sorceress
Mesmorize now works on players! (3 seconds). Broken by any damage.
Stinkeye
Stinkeye also enjoys some mana reductions:
- Spawning either totem mana cost decreased to 15 mana from 20 mana.
- Arcane Bomb mana cost decreased to 80 mana from 100 mana.
Tundra
Tundra has had a number of buffs with HP going up from 560 to 610 and his heal going up from 100HP to 150HP. Winter mode will now keep going until mana runs out (it won’t just stop after 30 seconds). There are some more changes too so be sure to read the patch notes in full.
War Mage
The War Mage is a trustworthy hero indeed. So in this patch Robot have increased the effectiveness of his “Trust Me” ability.
- Trust Me, duration increased to 10 seconds from 7.5 seconds.
- Trust Me radius increased to about three traps from about one trap.
- Trust Me movement bonus increased to 40% from 25%.
Traps
As players would expect the patch brings a number of tweaks and changes to traps. Its worth reading the full patch notes if you want to dig into these. The main changes are with Boulder Chutes which now gives more damage the higher the trap is placed. Maximum damage is achieved at a height of five trap spaces. For a regular boulder chute, the worst placement will yield 215 DPS and the best will yield 484 DPS.
Some amendments to Cursed Ground are notable:
- Cursed ground cost increased to 2000 from 1750.
- Greater Cursed Ground arcane armor debuff dropped to -40 arcane
armor from -70 arcane armor.
On the less notable front, decoys can now be rotated – how about that.
Lightning Ring
The popular lightning ring is getting some changes. Instead of firing one single large bolt of lightning it will now be numerous smaller shots. Quite a significant change. Robot says:
The general sentiment is that the one-big-pulse items aren’t fun for the user (when they miss and then have nothing) or the target (when they suddenly get hit as part of a burst for a giant chunk of HP).
Considering its high use in game it will be interesting to see what feedback comes out of this change from players.
Wrapping up
The above pretty much covers the main changes. However as always, be sure to have a peruse of the full patch notes to be fully in the know of all the changes that are taking place in patch 1.5 next Tuesday!
Today is the day of the huge expansion patch for Orcs Must Die Unchained! Now is the time to open up your client and update!
If you haven’t already, check out our summary of the patch changes. We have also updated the numbers and stats database with all the changes from the patch. We’re working on getting the new data for heroes, cards, traps etc as they become available. Stay tuned!
Happy patch day!
The Orcs Must Die! Unchained expansion pack as previously detailed now has a shiny new trailer to show off the tons of extra stuff coming in this weeks update. If the 3,500 word patch notes proved too daunting for you here you can see the changes in visual form!
Robot Entertainment are poised to do it again with another MEGA PATCH due to come out next week, August 27th. The patch notes are so incredibly long at over 30,000 words that we can’t possibly post them here. Instead we have summarised some of the highlights from the update notes below. We do of course recommend you check out the full patch notes over at the official forums.
Patch notes quick summary
- Mandatory tutorial is now in-place for new players.
- Guardians have new art! A sun and moon guardian depending on which side of the map.
- Almost unkillable trolls have been fixed – now slower and easier to kill.
- Hunters and Gnolls nerfed to encourage different things to slot in the early game.
- Added bonus XP and Skulls for playing co-op games up until level 10 to encourage newer players to co-op.
- Special packs are now being awarded. At level 10, 20, 30, and 40, a special pack is awarded (containing 3 uncommon, 2 rare, 1 mythic, or 1 heroic, respectively).
- Matchmaking buckets – If you search for a game as a member of a four or five player team, you will ONLY be matched with other four of five player teams. If you search alone, with a single friend, or with two friends, you will have the same type of group added to your team and you will play against a team composed of other singles, teams of 2, or teams of 3s.
- Population of matchmaking buckets is now shown in the dash.
- It is now possible to surrender in a match if the majority of players agree. (Triggered by typing /surrender)
- Leading minions now ONLY earns leadership and killing enemy minions now ONLY earns coin.
- On defense, you now earn more coin (2x) if you kill the enemy minions sooner and less (the normal bounty) if you kill them after they have crossed the first scoring gate
New Hero – Tundra!
Tundra has both a ranged and melee attack, can disable large numbers of enemy traps, can ignore crowd control on occasion, and is capable of making allied grizzlies even scarier than they were before.
New Captain system!
As previously discussed from the preview at Gamescom, there is a new “captain” system added. This is an interesting concept where by at waves 3 and 4 a strong captain minion will be spawned at the upgraded war camp. For the team he is a burden as he is worth no leadership when escorting or past enemy lines, though is worth 2 rift points. For the opposing team however he is an interesting target. If the captain is killed by the opposing team they are awarded 5000 coin and 5000 leadership for a level 3 Captain and 10,000 coin and 10,000 leadership for a level 4 Captain. The rewards are split evenly amongst the teammates.
The captain systems adds another exciting dynamic to the game and helps spices things up. It should also be a mechanism to break out of a snowball, if the team things they are on the slippery slope they can prioritise killing the captain by going all defence for a wave. Then using the rewards get back into the game with better economy.
It should be pretty exciting to see how the captain system pans out. As always this is the first release of the captain system and is in testing so expect to see it refined some more down the line. The Paladin’s have been called upon as stand-in art once again for the captains.
New Cards!
There are 20 new cards including:
- Water Sprayer (like Naptha Sprayers, but for frost-based damage)
- Anti-Magic Field (enemy players atop this cannot use their abilities)
- Glory Seeker Arrow Walls
- Barbed Floor Spikes
- Glyph of Frost Resist
- Firewall Bracers
- Ring of Storms
- Hobgoblin’s Charm (strong targeted heal)
- Mobility Weaver (a lot of speed, escape, and anti-CC upgrades)
- 4 new minion waves
New Vanity Skins!
- Bear Slayer Bloodspike Skin
- Adventurer Master Skin
- Helter Swelter Smolder Skin
- War Chief Tundra Skin
We will be updating our numbers and statistics database on the day the patch comes out. If you’re thirsty for more patch information – check out the full patch notes!
