Blockborn Tournaments are in full swing, now on Week 3, but this isn’t stopping us from making changes to the overall gameplay and meta.
We are going to be pushing out a Power Rating update on many units, especially those deemed over-powered (in the AR3 class) —these changes have come after about a month and a half of AR3 reign. We are hoping to deter that by raising PRs to stop a spamming of Mek-20s, Juggs, and White Guards especially.
Doog, our avid battler and expert on the field, has stated the following about the PR changes:
Biggest changes are Juggernaut and mek20 and white guard, currently you can bring 5 juggernauts/mek20 into mid tier, With the PR update to 400 youd be able to bring 4 and 1 ttop. This team would most likely still be very strong but with tenok being released it could be a potential affordable counter (area conflict) encouraging diversity in the team build.
If we increase jugg or mek20 PR much higher, it makes them not viable for mid tier at all players who bought them may rage, and big mack loses one of his best counters. White Guard increase to 340 would allow a max of 5 white guards and no other units in the mid tier limit, a very beatable team from even the lowest skilled players, this would encourage only using one or two white guards and trying to use other units to protect them whilst they kite.
Leaving Sentinel Corsairas pr at 295 finally makes him a useable unit, less PR than white guard!!!! Not many players own more than 1 Sentinel, so it shouldnt become and OP meta.
Tz Orasaur, an ar3 unit that is very rarely used, this is because his current pr cost is close to mek20 and jugg which are much better options, there are only 30 orasuars in circulation at the moment a slight reduction in his PR while juggs and mek20's increase is needed to make him worth selecting. These units are also wave 1, so will be a good ar3 selection once the wave changes are live. (multiple of these perhaps could become the new 5x juggernaut, mass Tenok will counter this)
I suggest leaving Ttop and light sentry as are, Light sentry with 4 hp is terrible, Light sentry with 5 hp is pretty good lol NAMAN! With these 2 differing hp's its impossible to give a 'fair' PR, one unit constantly gets 1 shot, the other does pretty well in battle.
A slight reduction in tz cyphers PR, we never see him used might allow him into some teams.
Ottez spam could become the new meta with higher Pr for its best counters, id suggest an increase on this unit especially since hes another very strong essentially free unit, players who bought hogtoad for 60+ tez vs ottez and they are mutual destruction buddies Ottez to 330 allows max of 5 ottez per team should be fair to beat. Current Pr allows 6 and they are very hard to beat. Hogtoad slight increase to 300.
Wraithlord increase to 380, he is the strongest ar2 unit next to protus anubis, I normally favour protus due to his larger move boost range so have protus Pr at 400 (previously was 410 and doesnt fit into many teams)
I have suggested leaving DEVI PR as is, this unit could become the next 5x spam champion though, Devi is very inconsistent in death, sometimes she is killed in one flurry, sometimes she deflects all shots and runs riot, this unit will be one to keep an eye on.
All in all, these changes should see a change from the AR3 domination time, Melee units may now have their time at the top however the changes to wave throws a spanner in the works, now some of the same unit types will not be equal, wave1 will have a slight advantage over their wave 2 counterparts Example, I own 1 wave 1 wraithlord, 1 wave 2 wraithlord, I will always pick the wave 1 to drop in behind wave 2 white guards.
Betron is a really difficult PR to set as he can sometimes hit very hard suggested 340 but this unit is currently all down to the roll of a dice, Discuss.
Above are the suggested changes, with the changes highlighted in yellow.
The new Power Ratings will go live August 29, 2022.
PR Multiplier
We have been fielding the idea internally of a PR Multiplier, meaning that for every unit you bring in, the next one that is the same gets a PR multiplier, in essence your subsequent White Guards would come in at x1.25 the original PR (340x1.25 = 425). But we are holding off on that and simply raising the current PRs to see what effects this has on the gameplay.
Roadmap
This week, the road to better Wave dynamics is being paved. Wave 1 units now have the advantage to deploy at will, while later waves must deploy earlier, giving Wave 1 the advantage of dropping on top of later waves, and dominating the battlefield with knowledge of troop placements.
This is the first step toward righting the promises made related to waves; creating advantages to movements for earlier waves (as promised) is coming.
Next phase of the roadmap is focusing on unit perks. Unit perks will allow every unit to finesse their special ability and use it on the battlefield. The actions and abilities will match the lore text behind each unit.
This new feature is coming September/October 2022.
We are also working on an auto-battler and direct battle feature.
The direct battle feature should be out within the next few weeks. This will allow players to create a wager challenge for any amount of UNO, and later we will support a list of FA2 tokens that we’ll integrate into the UI.
We’ll keep Classic battles up as well with lootboxes, and be introducing a new Auto-Battler feature, where we want to integrate some other fun features to integrate Diplomats, Air, Artillery into the equation. An Auto-Battler gives us the ability to update and adjust at a quicker pace than waiting to upgrade the Classic Battle mode.
We hope to incorporate some fun elements to the Auto-Battler design and welcome community ideas.
Tenok & Kamitron
Tenok and Kamitron will be released next week, August 31, 2022.
In an effort to be more transparent about the quantities of new unit releases, we are putting out the following numbers here so you know exactly how many Kamitrons and Tenoks will ever exist:
Wave 2 Tenoks: 100
Wave 3 Tenoks: 200
Wave 2 Kamitrons: 50
Wave 3 Kamitrons: 100
That concludes the battle updates, we will continue to do the most we can to improve battles and make them a rewarding experience for everybody!