Deckbound Heroes
Deckbound Heroes (Open Beta) no longer available
Open beta release notes - December 5th 2017
Incepted abilities
We’ve added the first 2000 (out of a total of 3000) Hero abilities to the first genesis block. This represents a major milestone in the development of Deckbound cards for play in Deckbound Heroes. We’ll be adding demo (and later incepted) abilities for the other card types in the course of the beta as well as adding to the existing 2000 Hero card abilities.
Deckbound cards are incepted into a genesis block of abilities and select abilities near to their location. Because of this, abilities can appear on more than one card but will do so at different levels and in different combinations. Levelling up your cards allows you to unlock more abilities per card and gives you more potential deck options.
The first batch of incepted abilities are built using ability types that you’ll be familiar with if you’ve previously used the demo abilities. There are some variants that are new and some that have been removed or simplified, but the core set of abilities have been well tested in the course of play on the demo collection.
Certain abilities show as “globally locked”, these are abilities that we haven’t yet launched and will be released as we add other card types (Structure, Rune and Minion) to the game. Some of these will interface directly with those card types so don’t currently make sense for Hero card-only play.
Because you can now use the naturally incepted abilities on your cards, we’ve removed the demo collection from Hero cards. If you’d already built decks with demo abilities you’ll need to build new decks with the incepted abilities on your cards.
XP and Levelling
When you play and complete a game of Deckbound Heroes you receive an amount of XP based on how the game ended (currently 7,500XP for a flawless 2-round win, 5,000XP for a 3-round win, 900XP for a loss and 500XP if you lost in 2 rounds).
All XP and card levels will be kept when the game moves from beta to full release. We’ll be tweaking specifics of XP awards, level intervals and ability points costs, but your cards are your cards and their level history and XP will be retained.
The XP you receive through completing games is credited to both the cards in your deck and to your player account. Cards that participated more in the game (i.e. were played more efficiently) receive more XP than others, though all cards will receive some XP in games that they were included in. We’ll be releasing more information about player XP in the course of the beta.
XP is currently granted on the basis that we anticipate using for ranked match games (i.e. those played in competitive ranked games in matches where you use the same deck across multiple maps) even though the current format is casual and single game. We’ll update the release notes for the game with changes to the play formats and XP rewards as we change them, but we anticipate that the current XP granted per game is more than what you would ultimately receive for casual non-match games.
Map changes and games
We’ve changed the mechanics on the Fogaiel’s Pit and Kraetan’s Refuge maps to provide better deck building variety and challenge.
Kraetan’s Refuge now features an automatic “resurrect oldest destroyed outpost at the start of the next turn” map ability when there is more than 1 destroyed outpost, and doesn’t feature outpost burnout.
Fogaiel’s Pit has been reworked to use outposts that do damage (they previously did healing) but the outpost damage power reduces when they are distressed or critical. Players also receive a “Resurrect an outpost (cooldown 6)” ability when they enter the game. We’ve also removed outpost burnout from this map.
In addition to matching in casual games against other players we’ve added AI bots that will match you if there’s nobody available. You should always be able to get a game.
Deckbound Heroes - game server
- changed: round win condition (a player with 0 or less health) is now evaluated after every action so that as soon as a player reaches 0 health they lose the round or game and any secondary actions will not be cast
- changed: Kraetan's Refuge - replaced outpost burnout with 'resurrecting rocks'
- changed: Fogaiel's Pit - replaced outpost burnout with bonus ability 'Resurrect an outpost'
- changed: Fogaiel's Pit outpost abilities changed to damage with decreasing power in distressed and critical states
Deckbound Heroes - game client (build 10316)
- changed: turn number now reads round turn number, not game turn number
- changed: start of turn log messages now read 'Round X, Turn Y'
- changed: improved readability of opponent ability text
- changed: Fogaiel's Pit outposts glow more when healthy
- added: map features information panel now shown in top left status area - clicking on the panel shows more information about the feature
- added: outpost abilities show modified power in ability panel
- added: show end of game XP in 'game over' screen
- fixed: outpost panels now show maximum health correctly
- fixed: neutralize abilities can no longer be cast at player-owned outposts
Game & Collection Manager
- added: deck builder now caches last 500 loaded cards (massively improves load time when editing decks)
- added: changes effecting your decks (eg. points changes or removed demo abilities) are now shown on the deck list and in the game launcher
Open beta release notes - August 29th 2017
Cards & abilities
We've added some new ability types to Deckbound Heroes - drain, claim, neutralize and mend. In advance of them being available on incepted cards, you can play them now with demo abilities. We have replaced about 50 of the lesser-used demo abilities. There's a full list of the new demo abilities at the bottom of these release notes.
Some of your decks may now be over the 2000-points limit. At the moment you can play them as they are, but if you edit them you will need to bring them back under 2000 points.
The ability glossary has been updated to include the new abilities:
Drain -- Reduce the health (and durability if applicable) of an item or player. Heal the caster by the total damage done.
Claim -- Take ownership of a vacant outpost.
Neutralize -- Remove the ownership of an opponent-owned outpost. Does current health in damage.
Mend -- Increase the durability of an outpost (to no more than its maximum value).
We are introducing a new term for outposts -- adjacent -- which is as it sounds, and refers to any outpost/s next to the outpost you have selected as the target. E.g. "Drain 2 health from an outpost; Drain 1 health from every healthy outpost adjacent to target."
Finally, a change to an existing ability type -- capture
Previously, capture would reduce the durability state of an outpost by one level. Capture will now do exactly the right amount of damage to an outpost in order to make you its owner. A vacant outpost will be damaged by its current health and an opponent-owned outpost will be damaged by its current health + its maximum health. The durability state could still change as a result, but you'll have to work this out for yourself!
Deckbound Heroes - game client (build 10299)
- changed: turn counter shows game turn, not round turn
- added: winning/losing a game now shows a reason (including disconnects)
- added: start of round and end of games messages to log
- added: display error message in log if game server rejects a command
- fixed: resolve issues with Steam downloader for Mac
- fixed: opponent actions not shown during opponent winning turn
- fixed: log did not show 'your turn' at start of round
- fixed: log didn't always show correct messages during outpost burnout
- fixed: 'you win' could occasionally be shown to wrong player after a disconnect
- fixed: Kraetan's Refuge could occasionally show duplicate outposts
- fixed: game log showed 'vacate' instead of 'revoke'
- fixed: 'increase durability' abilities showed no particle effect in Dulfaet’s Landing and incorrect effects in Kraetan’s Refuge and Fogaiel’s Pit.
Deckbound Heroes - game server
- fixed: occasional issue where a previous game state could be applied during a disconnect or poor connection scenario
- fixed: non-targeted 'increase health' abilities acted on destroyed outposts
New demo abilities
These abilities have been added in order to test new and existing ability types:
- Claim ownership of a distressed outpost
- Claim ownership of all healthy outposts
- Claim ownership of all outposts
- Claim ownership of all outposts if you own fewer outposts than your opponent
- Claim ownership of an outpost
- Claim ownership of an outpost with 2 or more health
- Claim ownership of every healthy outpost with 3 or more health
- Claim ownership of every outpost with 6 or less health
- Do 3 damage to your opponent. +2 if opponent owns more outposts than you
- Do 7 damage to an outpost. -4 if target is owned by your opponent
- Drain 2 health from an outpost
- Drain 2 health from an outpost; Drain 1 health from every healthy outpost adjacent to target
- Drain 2 health from an outpost. +2 if target is distressed
- Drain 2 health from an outpost. +2 if your opponent owns more outposts than you
- Drain 2 health from every opponent-owned outpost with 3 or more health
- Drain 2 health from your opponent
- Drain 3 health from a target
- Drain 3 health from a target with 5 or less health
- Drain 3 health from a target. +1 if target is your opponent
- Drain 3 health from a target. +4 if target is at full health
- Drain 3 health from all outposts if you have less health than your opponent
- Drain 3 health from an occupied outpost
- Drain 3 health from every opponent-owned outpost with 2 or more health
- Drain 4 health from a target. +3 if target is a critical outpost
- Drain 4 health from all vacant outposts
- Drain 5 health from a target. -3 if target is a critical outpost
- Drain 7 health from an outpost. -4 if target is distressed
- Drain 7 health from your opponent. -4 if you have 15 or more health
- Heal a target by 2. +3 if you have less health than your opponent
- Heal everything by 2. +4 if you have less health than your opponent
- Increase health of a target by 3. +4 if you own fewer outposts than your opponent
- Increase health of both players by 5. +1 if your opponent has more health than you
- Increase your health by 3. +4 if you have 10 or less health
- Mend all occupied outposts by 20
- Mend all of your outposts by 20
- Mend all outposts by 25
- Mend an occupied outpost by 20
- Mend an outpost by 30
- Mend one of your outposts by 25
- Neutralize a healthy outpost with 2 or more health
- Neutralize all critical outposts
- Neutralize all outposts
- Neutralize all outposts if your opponent owns more outposts than you
- Neutralize an outpost
- Neutralize every healthy outpost with 5 or more health
- Neutralize every outpost with 5 or less health
- Restore durability of all occupied outposts
- Restore durability of one of your outposts
- Restore health of a target
- Restore health of everything
- Restore your health
- Restore your health if you own exactly 1 outpost
Open beta release notes - June 15th 2017
Cards and abilities
- changed: secondary abilities are enabled correctly based on state immediately before action in new "before_action" stage
- changed: "occupy" abilities always reset health to max
- added: new min and max active outpost state filters
- fixed: ability NKlRzKl state filter corrected
- fixed: ability xVg7uQ4 state filter corrected
- fixed: ability R3xiRHR state filter corrected
- fixed: ability QPCFlRR action type fixed
Deckbound Heroes - game client (build 10268)
- changed: outpost state shows "P" for power (instead of "A" for attack)
- changed: heal effect is now the same on player and opponent
- added: cooldown icon now shows red when an ability is cooled down but doesn't meet its casting criteria
- added: action log correctly shows action types and uses colours for all types
- added: added turn numbers to log text
- fixed: turn countdown now shows correctly when the opponent has two turns in a row (e.g. at end of round)
- fixed: clicking abilities sometimes showed ability description with placeholder text
Deckbound Heroes - game server
- fixed: durability state was not updated until start of next turn
- fixed: in specific scenarios state filters were assessed for every target instead of as a condition to the action
- fixed: losing a round in your own turn now correctly updates timer for next turn
- fixed: action type flags now logged correctly
- fixed: casting "occupy" against an outpost you owned caused a disconnect exception
Open beta release notes - May 27th 2017
Deckbound Heroes - game client (build 10258)
- added: add Fogaiel's Pit map
- added: new player Hero models
- added: new "select target" notification when in targeting mode
- added: improved Kraetan visual effects performance and lighting model
- changed: ability panel shows background for text and wraps to a single line
- changed: outpost ability text shows description in same format as ability panel
- changed: glossary popup shows full text
- changed: glossary popup can be closed by clicking
- changed: card interaction disabled
- fixed: hovering cards cancels targeting state
- changed: abilities use placeholder image
- changed: cards show default card background
- changed: improved readability of outpost and ability panels
- changed: improve layout of UI elements and notifications
- fixed: hide other expanded description texts when hovering over others
- fixed: occupying outpost sometimes doesn't show dragon
- fixed: AOE abilities show effects and log when no effect applied
- fixed: auto cast actions don't always show in log
- fixed: outpost occupation animation state unreliable
- fixed: outpost resurrect wasn't showing correct outpost log number
- fixed: auto cast and AOE damage can go to / from map caster position
- fixed: abilities panel doesn't show outpost abilities when player owns outposts
- fixed: sequencing of effects can result in delay in turn playback
- fixed: effects sometimes shown in incorrect order
- changed: all playback now as a result of server-side state sequence not client request
- fixed: wrong outpost occasionally shown when clicking on outpost ability in panel
- fixed: AOE effects occasionally not showing players as targets when filter is all
- fixed: end of turn / end of game win/lose messages when disconnected
- fixed: player 2 doesn't see round over when losing to burnout
- changed: improve scale of hit boxes on a per-map basis
- fixed: player model is scaled incorrectly
- changed: auto casts no longer trigger camera transitions
- changed: updated launcher menu screen
- fixed: Kraetan outposts retain last owner effect when made vacant
- fixed: Kraetan off-screen particle effects visible
- fixed: Kraetan effects remaining on outposts when occupation state changed
- fixed: Kraetan outposts 2 and 3 not showing modified power
- fixed: Kraetan staged music layers not changing correctly during play
- fixed: Kraetan music not resuming correctly when reconnecting to game
- fixed: particle effects sometimes timeout before reaching target
- fixed: abilities just played can still show green light in panel
Deckbound Heroes - game server
- fixed: not passing origin player can cause incorrect cast effect
- fixed: default ownership of outposts in certain circumstances could result in player 1 apparent ownership
- changed: turn is processed in a single unit (start of turn action happens at end of previous turn)
- changed: end of game is now at start of losing player's turn, so both players get correct state even if disconnected
- fixed: passing an invalid cast or target index causes exception not cast error
- fixed: occasional race issue when retrieving destroyed outpost information
- changed: trim exported game state (reducing size during auto casts and compound actions)
- changed: origin ability data passed from client is always ignored before passing to processing
- changed: ability processing and game state changed migrated to updated comproc system
Abilities
- changed: resurrect last destroyed outpost now correctly applies to all of the destroyed outposts in reverse order
- changed: updated descriptions for language consistency
- fixed: mend durability should only mend to max value
Game & Collection Manager - deck builder
- added: notification when waiting for filtered data
- added: points and cooldown searched have from and to options
- added: improved support from deck builder and deck list on mobile devices
- changed: text search now searches for ability IDs separately from string matches (ability IDs not searched when there is more than one term)
- fixed: glossary popup scales at lower resolutions
- fixed: send to/remove from deck should not reset scroll position
- fixed: send to deck when no slots available should show message
- fixed: search box overrides default browser text behaviour
- changed: hide left/right buttons when only one card in view
- changed: left/right move between deck cards OR filter cards depending on where opened from
Open beta release notes - April 15th 2017
We've rolled out changes to the Deckbound Heroes game client and the Game and Collection Manager. Highlights include a new integrated glossary system, better ability wording, clearer sequencing of events in the game client and a variety of new features in the deck builder.
We're also ready to start testing a new map!
Falleshi’s Vesba is the first map with passive outposts. Outposts that you occupy do damage to the opponent. Unoccupied outposts charge over time and damage everything.
Play games on Dulfaet’s Landing and Kraetan’s Refuge and you’ll get a notification when Falleshi’s Vesba is available to play!
Game & Collection Manager
- (added) keywords glossary as a full list and integrated into ability text
- (added) selected ability list tab to show abilities sortable by points, cooldown or description
- (added) card filtering now includes cooldown
- (added) filter matched abilities are highlighted on cards
- (added) card view includes left/right buttons (or use cursors) to move between cards
- (added) close card details on pressing ESC
- (added) filter decks by name on deck list
- (added) some edit buttons (e.g. in lists) are now plain links and can be opened by ctrl/cmd+click
- (changed) increased animation speed for showing lists of items
- (changed) improve card rendering performance on larger collections
Cards & Abilities
The wording of abilities has been updated for clarity and consistency.
We've modified 10 demo abilities that were better suited to modification based on target information - eg. "Do 4 damage to an outpost; Then if it's occupied, do 1 damage to it" is now "Do 4 damage to an outpost. +1 if target is occupied" This has been facilitated by ongoing work on the modifier system that is being used for Structure cards.
The demo ability “Increase health of target with less than 4 health by 4” has been changed to “Increase health of a target by 2. +2 if you have less health than opponent”.
Deckbound Heroes - game client
- (fixed) dead dragons appearing on outposts
- (added) new sequenced playback
- (added) glossary text integrated in abilities list
- (changed) "critical at x" to "critical below x"
- (changed) targeted abilities now use a "choose target" button, non-targeted abilities use a "cast" button
- (changed) improve player hit boxes on Kraetan's Refuge
Open beta release notes - March 19th 2017
You can view your cards on the genesis map when you open packs
In addition to ongoing content and feature development, we're currently working on the sequencing of effects in the game, additions to the deck builder, integration of Discord chat directly in the game client and adding information about ability types.
Deckbound Heroes - game client
Outpost popup panel
- (fixed) show full description of active ability, including power (e.g. "Direct damage 4")
- (added) show all passive descriptions (requires scrolling to seem them, applies on Kraetan’s Refuge)
- (added) health shown with current and max values, e.g. 4 (5)
- (added) durability shown as current and max values, e.g. 35 (50)
- (added) list durability state thresholds, e.g. "Distressed at X", "Critical at Y"
Other, in-game
- (fixed) moved outpost burnout panel to bottom to not obscure outposts
- (fixed) hover state for ability descriptions should show full text not truncated, overlapping edge of panel (hide when popup)
- (changed) make opponent ability panel smaller so that it doesn't obscure game elements
- (changed) show opponent ability panel open at start of game
- (changed) remove cast count (temporary, wasn't populated)
- (changed) increased size of opponent hitbox
- (changed) replaced placeholder outpost VFX in Kraetan’s Refuge
- (fixed) music not playing in Dulfaet’s Landing
Main (game) menu
- (changed) added descriptive text and button
- (changed) button to appearance of a button and text "Start Game & Collection Manager"
- (changed) bottom button to "Connect to existing game" with descriptive text
Abilities in demo set
- (fixed) minor fixes for points and descriptions, reworked 1 broken demo ability
Game & Collection Manager
- (new feature) explorer-based pack opening now available
- (new feature) deck builder allows filtering abilities by points cost and text
- (added) deck builder provides feedback for empty decks and unselected abilities
- (changed) card views consistent and deployed to deck builder, collection and explorer opening
- (changed) misc workflows for start games inside and outside of embedded launcher
- (fixed) show card views in Firefox and older versions of Chrome
- (changed) don't show user email on GCM page footer (is shown in profile > settings)
- (changed) misc cosmetic changes, including showing placeholder text on non-Hero card types
- (changed) hide login button when logging in, show error message when logging in by email without email address
More about Deckbound cards
Card types
Deckbound cards come in 5 different types, 4 main playable types and a “Curiosity” type. These will be standard across Deckbound games, but in the context of the Deckbound Heroes open beta this is the current state of those types:
Hero cards -- are the main card type used at the moment in the open beta of Deckbound Heroes. Hero cards allow you to play active abilities in the game. You can get Hero cards in starter packs and purchased bundle packs.
Structure cards -- represent passive abilities in Deckbound Heroes. We’re testing them internally at the moment and you’ll see them show up as demo abilities soon. You get some Structure cards in starter packs and in purchased bundles.
Minion cards -- allow players to create attachment buffs on other elements of the game. We’ll be announcing more about and launching Minion cards later during the open beta. You can currently only get Minion cards in purchased bundles.
Rune cards -- are more powerful versions of Hero card abilities that come with more involved conditions and have different usage restrictions. We’ll be announcing more about and launching Rune cards later during the open beta. You can currently only get Rune cards in purchased bundles.
Curiosity cards don’t have a direct impact on gameplay but they will integrate elsewhere into the Deckbound card ecosystem. Curiosities are currently included in purchased bundles but aren’t yet usable.
Incepted abilities & demo abilities
Incepted abilities are attached to your cards based on their location in the genesis block that the card was created from. We define those abilities and add them to the map in different locations.
At the moment you can play with Hero cards. In preparation for adding the first 500 incepted abilities to the inception map, we’ve added demo abilities onto the Hero cards that you open.
There are 224 “core” hero abilities in the demo set (the first block of cards contains 3000 hero abilities). Demo abilities have a slightly higher points cost than their naturally incepted equivalents. Demo Hero card abilities will be available until we’ve rolled out 70% of the full set of 3000 hero abilities.
The first batch of 500 Hero card abilities will be added to the inception map over the course of March. If you have cards in your collection with these abilities ready to use, we’ll send you a notification letting you know they’re ready to play.
You can’t do anything with Structure, Minion, Rune or Curiosity cards yet, but you can view them in your collection. We’re currently selling mixed bundle packs, but will consider card type-specific packs if there is sufficient demand.
The Deckbound Explorer shows the full maps of abilities and the position of your cards
Starter card packs
Starter card packs and cards you purchase are tied to your Deckbound account and can be accessed from any machine or game client by logging in with your email address. You can access the deck builder and collection manager from a web browser so you can explore your collection when away from your gaming machine.
Starter card packs are yours to keep, but there will be restrictions on trading them. We’ll announce more details on this as we work toward card trading during the course of the open beta.
Card creation
Deckbound cards are created as blockchain transactions. We’ll be announcing more about the specific blockchain technology we’re using over the course of the year.
We’re generating storage addresses (private keys) for each pack of cards you open, and the identity of a card is generated from a transaction that goes from the card type address (e.g. “deckbound:hero:) to your address. As we move toward trading of cards later in the year, you’ll be able to export those private keys and move cards to your own storage addresses inside or outside of your Deckbound account.