4.8 Update (Patch Notes)

4.8 UPDATE

With Invasion and Raid Bosses reaching a point where all Kingdoms and Troop Types have had a turn, we’ve looked to what’s next for Live Events and how will this affect Gems of War going forward. We have implemented a new Event system that will slowly replace the existing events (except for Guild Wars), and that will allow us to expand on the Krystara story in a new way. This new system has been designed to allow us more flexibility in how we create and run events, so we can try to keep events feeling more fresh and diverse.

New events, in some ways, have a similar structure to Invasions, Raid Bosses, and Towers of Doom. But they also have some unique attributes, listed below:

  • Scoring: New events will have new ways of scoring. They may score off of items dropped by your enemies, specific troops or troop types killed, colored gems matched, or even 4-or-5’s of-a-kind that you match; every event will be different. And will clearly explain the scoring method.
  • Story: All Events now have a small lore story viewable on the Overview screen. This story will be tied into the theme of the Event and will explain what the event is about.
  • Battles: Battles will now happen on a World Map view (inside the Event Screen… you don’t have to actually go to the main World Map). Different types and difficulties of battles in the event will be shown there with different icons. This allows a lot of flexibility with battles able to appear multiple times, or with certain weightings, as you play.
  • Team Restrictions: These new Event Battles will continue to have restrictions on what Troops may be used, but we have expanded this so that Troop Roles can now be included, and that we can have more than 1 restriction of each type in place.
    • (e.g Having an Orc and Goblin restriction allows for both Orcs and Goblin troops to be used in a team).
  • Weapon Restrictions: These are now also included in Team Restrictions but only for the new World Events, so if you are limited to Troops from a Kingdom, or of a certain color, that also applies to the Weapon used by your Hero.
  • Event Medals: New Events will have new special Event Medals, Badges and Tokens. These can be earnt from some Reward Stages and will also be available in the Event Shop. These Medals will be good for the event they are given in, and at the end of that event will convert to Medals, Badges and Tokens of Seasons, (a new Medal in this update) so you can use them to gain Elite Levels on your Troops. Event Medals may have 1 of 3 different powers:
    • Skull Damage – This will improve the skull damage done by all Troops in an event
    • Spell Damage- This will improve the spell damage done by Troops in a Event. (Only spell damage, buff spells should not be affected).
    • Skull and Spell Damage – This will improve both Skull and Spell damage of Troops in an Event.
  • No Event-Specific Troops each week: These new Medals will replace Event Troops in the Shop, but we may still occasionally have new Troops and Weapons available in the Event Shop for players to collect.
  • Progress Rewards: Players will continue to earn Rewards based on their progress in an event, though now this progress may either be tied to their Guild (similar to Raid Boss or Invasion), or on their own progress (similar to Bounty). This will change from event to event.
  • Access Events from the Guild Popup: You can continue to access these new events from the Guild Popup as you did before with Invasions. The Guild Popup has had some minor changes though to show you the next set of upcoming events in the order they will appear (top to bottom). Guild Wars isn’t going anywhere though (never fear!) so that will always appear in the popup ready for Guild Leaders to register in off weeks.
  • Leaderboards: These will continue to behave the same as before, with identical rewards to previous Leaderboards. Different events may choose to rank solo or guild performance in here though, so it’s worth keeping an eye on the leaderboard in these events to see if you need to mobilize your Guildmates!

New Events will replace Invasions for weekly events from the 4.8 release onwards. But don’t worry Invasions aren’t going away (more on that below).

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We have made some improvements to the Medal System:

  • Existing Tokens, Badges, and Medals have had a graphic update. This is so they match our new Event Medals, and the new Medal of Seasons.
  • The Medal of Cedric has been renamed to the Medal of Orpheus. We made this change as we felt this name better suited the Medal’s bonus.
  • The Medal Menu has had a graphic update to improve player navigation.
  • Players will be able to enter the new menu and look at all their Tokens at once (making it easier for players to see their current token progress in between playing Explores).
  • Badges and Medals will live in a vertical scrolling list, so it is easier for players to select what Medals or Badges they would like to use.
  • We have added support for players to have up to 3 Medal Loadouts that they can switch between. This allows them to have medal loadouts for events or farming that may be different from their normal medal setup.
  • Players will need to change which medal loadout they are using from the Medal screen.
    • We investigated several ideas of players being able to switch between medal loadouts, that included both the team setup or pre-battle menus, however we were left unhappy with how this turned out, as it made those 2 screens too confusing and complicated (especially for newer players).
    • We will be looking into an alternative means for players to switch between medal loadouts in a future update (most likely from the World Map menu), so players don’t have to go into the medal menu every time they wish to change loadouts.
  • The Medal of Seasons is a new Epic rarity Medal (same rarity as Event Medals).
  • Unlike other Medals (like Medal of Yasmine or Medal of Anu), the Medal of Seasons cannot be earned from Explore chests, they are earned from Event Medals when an event ends. Any leftover Tokens, Badges or Medals from an event when it ends will convert into a Token/ Badge/ Medal of Seasons.

As mentioned above, Weekly Invasions will be replaced with the new Event System, but Invasions will be staying around in a slightly altered format. Invasions will be moving to a weekend 3-day format, and will probably take place about every 5-6 weeks.

We have included below everything you need to know about Invasion as a weekend event:

  • Invasions will continue to be a guild event, and accessed from the Guild Popup menu.
  • Leaderboard rewards will not be changing.
  • Towers required for Reward Tiers have been lowered (as players have less time for the event than before).
  • Invasion Shop Tier prices will remain the same for the moment.
  • Invasions will reward the same Invasion troops as have been previously released, but may continue to give new weapons or social collectibles (depending on the event).

What about the other Guild Events?
Here is the plan: Both Tower of Doom and Raid Boss events will continue to run for now, as several Kingdoms have not yet had their Raid Boss Troop released, and we still have some sets of Doomed Weapons set to go. For the time being, only Invasion events will be replaced by the new events. Both Raid Boss and Tower of Doom will likely move to weekend events in a future update, and the New Event System will be expanded to be even more flexible.

Guild Wars will not be affected by the new Events System.

Sunspear Hero Class

Because the Sunspear has access to the Fire Talent Tree, it’s Legendary Trait is the conflicts with the level 20 Fire Talent - Firestarter. We’ve given it a new Legendary Trait that keeps to what we intended.

  • Legendary Trait changed to Gain 2 bonus Red Mana when matching Red Gems.
    • This is similar to the Corsair’s High Seas Legendary Trait.

Queen Moonclaw

  • We have fixed an issue where Queen Moonclaw’s spell was boosting off non-green Troops.

Infernus

  • We have changed Infernus’ spell to retarget his 2nd splash damage if the target was killed during the 1st splash damage.

Nightshade
We wanted to bring Nightshade’s spell cost in line with the Dandy Lion who has a similar style spell.

  • Mana cost reduced from 12 to 10

Crazed Troll
To keep our Trolls following a similar design, Crazed Troll’s troop types will be updated to match the other Trolls.

  • Troop Type is now Elemental/ Giant

Ultra-Rare Weapons
Just as we did a balance pass over the Common and Rare weapons back in the 4.5 Update, we have given a balance pass over the Ultra-Rare weapons. Dagger of the Void

  • Base damage increased from 5 to 8

Falchion of Kings

  • Base damage increased from 6 to 8
  • Mana cost reduced from 11 to 9

Glaive of Storms

  • Base damage increased from 3 to 6
  • Mana cost reduced from 12 to 10

Khopesh of Misery

  • Base damage increased from 4 to 8

Blade of Justice

  • Base damage increased from 4 to 8

Crossbow of Exile

  • Base damage increased from 2 to 5
  • Mana cost reduced from 12 to 11

Javelin of War

  • Base damage increased from 3 to 7

Bow of Betrayal

  • Base damage increased from 4 to 7

Halberd of Might

  • Base damage increased from 7 to 12

Mace of Malice

  • Base damage increased from 3 to 6
  • Mana cost reduced from 12 to 10

Axe of Chaos

  • Base damage increased from 5 to 8
  • Mana cost reduced from 12 to 9

Scythe of Corruption

  • Base damage increased from 1 to 2
  • Mana cost reduced from 15 to 13

Lance of the Divinity

  • Base damage increased from 5 to 9

Staff of the Magus

  • Base damage increased from 6 to 8

Celestial Staff

  • Base damage increased from 4 to 7

  • We’ve added a confirmation popup into the Soulforge to warn players if they are about to craft a Mythic or Legendary (at Mythic rarity) that they already own.

  • We have fixed an issue where Guild Roster amounts were not updating immediately.
  • We have fixed several other minor Bugs.

  • Valraven’s may replace battle bosses in the new World Events.
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We’ve published a couple of new Help Center articles and updated an old article for this update:

World Events
How to equip Medals and Badges
Medals, Badges and Tokens

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Placeholder for my complaints :wink:

K*fka had previously posted “placeholder for help articles”

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LOL. … The permafire storm was part of the charm of Sunspear. Can we veto the change?

Its not the same issue as with Stormcaller where the 3rd trait was 1:1 the same as its Level 1 unlock. Sunspear’s 3rd trait used to allow it to create a new storm every turn instead of the 9 turn timer starting with the storm provided.

What about the older hero classes that could actually use some love? Why was this touched upon first?

thank you for that

31 Likes

Wait, why? Who got the (totally incorrect) impression that the Legendary Sunspear Trait and the Level 20 Fire Talent were the same?

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RIP Sunspear :cry:

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@Kafka
I thought I read that the Enhanced (medalled) troops in Delves bug was fixed?
(I haven’t saw the update yet, but didn’t see anything in the patch notes about it )

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Could we get a list of what the new tier requirements are? Some of us are in guilds that have event-based requirements and this would be quite valuable to be able to plan for.

Slightly off-topic, moving a team-based event to a weekend feels like a mistake. Under the current system, people have 7 days to make their contributions. This is going to cut that time in half and smacks of trying to force more logins (gotta get those metrics up?).

And so that I don’t forget, here’s the obligatory insert random comment about yet more Gem sink shop/energy system sigil BS here.

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I think the XBox achievement for reaching 20000 renown might be bugged. My progress is showing only 12% despite having over 40k. It looks like it might only be counting a single highest faction renown.

Sunspear is the same nothing has changed.

@Campo please try getting some more Renown in any Faction to see if it updates correctly.

Did… they really just nerf Sunspear, a class that people liked and that wasn’t particularly overpowered? What brought that on? It’s just gone from awesome to trash, honestly.

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What if we have max renown currently?

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Steam achievement seems to be bugged the opposite way, Exalted popped for me after the update despite having nothing higher than 1040 in a single faction

Incorrect. The talent creates a Firestorm at the start of battle. The trait created one at the start of every turn.

Essentially the change is that now the Firestorm can expire/be overwritten. This is a nerf.

36 Likes

Unfortunately that is going to be too painful until a new faction is released!

On the whole, I think I like it – the events look fun and the inclusion of weekly lore is great. I kind of wish we had this from the start instead of Raid and Invasion. Brings back a bit of the snotstone event feel as well, but with better rewards and variety :raised_hands:.

Balance passes over weapons and a few troops is yay.

I think the concerns over having weekend guild events are valid, even though I once suggested it myself (it creates economic disparity based on various players’ availability, which isn’t something I’d previously considered; in terms of the flow of “things to do”, though, I like it).

Sunspear… I think it changes the flavour of the class too much, and either needs a better explanation or a more considered approach. Obviously, it’s hard to change individual Talents for a particular class, and giving Sunspear something other than the Fire tree would be weird, but… yeah. I think people have stated well enough that Firestarter ≠ perma-Firestorm.

When I was originally upgrading Sunspear’s third trait, I was a bit hesitant, since it irreversibly changes its function (a bit like adding Stealthy to Bandits, etc.) and means you can’t really have other storms running unless you have Skadi or Umberwolf lower down on your team. Permastorms are a significant strategic tool, though, and even though you can now use Sunspear to start the battle with a Leaf, Fire or no storm, if you so choose, it’s a big change without (imo) sufficient rationale.

I’m assuming

means that the original intent was something along the lines of, “Generate lots of Red Mana”.

8 Likes

Sunspear’s whole thing was that some of its talents sucked and were redundant, but the traits made up for it. It wasn’t unbalanced.

Most classes have their starting storms overwritten by defense teams, making them ineffective for many PVP and GW fights. One of the main strengths of Sunspear was that, since it activated at the start of your turn, it would take precedence over any starting storm. This is a terrible change that loses pretty much the whole point of the class.

30 Likes

Ah ok now i see it.
But the inGame text is the same :thinking:

1 Like

Try opening the total renown rewards menu, and also checking the kingdom → kingdom level screen for a kingdom associated to any faction. The former worked on PS4, and the latter worked for a previous PS4 renown total trophy.