5.6 Patch Notes (Gnome-a-Palooza)

5.6 UPDATE

We have introduced a new special event, Gnome-a-Palooza.

  • Gnome-a-Palooza is a timed event lasting 15 minutes.

  • Gnome-a-Palooza can be started by crafting in the Soulforge, after collecting 4 unique Verses.

  • These Verses are only dropped by the 4 members of the Gnome band, Mana Surge, Cindi Savagelips, Freddi Fretfiddler, Hoagi Humbucker and Baz Bonebeater.

  • These Gnomes will crash battles in a similar way to regular Treasure Gnomes.

  • Each Gnome will drop 1 of the 4 Verses, so players will need to find and kill all 4 to get enough Verses to craft Gnome-a-Palooza.

  • Once Gnome-a-Palooza has started, a new music track will play for the duration of the event. Also, a timer will display on the World Map, showing the remaining time left for the Gnome-a-Palooza event.

  • While Gnome-a-Palooza is active, 4 random Gnomes will appear in all PvP, Quest, Challenge, and Explore Battles.

  • Also, while Gnome-a-Palooza is active, all gold earned from battles is doubled.

  • Gnome-a-Palooza only applies to the person who crafts it (so it is not shared by anyone else).

  • If you craft Gnome-a-Palooza, while Gnome-a-Palooza is running, the time will stack.

    • There is a known issue where the Gnome-a-Palooza timer will not display if it runs for more than 1 hour (you’d have to craft 5 at once for this to occur, so not very likely).
  • There is a known Issue where the enemy Hero is not replaced in PVP during Gnome-a-Palooza, however Gnome rewards are still being given like normal (as if the Hero was replaced).

  • To ensure that the Mana Surge Gnomes will always give a verse, they do not have chance to give a Vault Key (even during Vault Events).

  • Mana Surge Gnomes will be added as a possible drops to Cedric’s & King Cedric’s loot at weekly reset next week. This gives time for players to update their game to the 5.6 update.

As part of the celebration for 5.6 release, we will be running a special Gnome Vault event for 4 days starting daily reset on Thursday July 13th (AEST).

We have added several new Heroic Gems in this update. Some of these we will reveal in future Campaigns or special Events.

With the introduction of Heroic Gems, we wanted to prevent the rare case where the board gets locked up without any available moves. We have added a board reset to the puzzle game. If there are no available moves on the board, the board will be completely cleared and refilled with new Gems. All troops will also be completely Mana Drained (even if they are normally immune to mana drain), to prevent any spell combination that could cause the board to lock up in an endless loop.

We have introduced 2 new Warbands for you to try out, Dark Assassins and Poison Fangs. We will be removing 2 Warbands – Armored Legion and Entangled Woods, as the new Warbands will be replacing them.

Armored Legion and Entangled Woods will return at a future time.

To ensure that everyone has a chance to update their game, the new Warbands will be released at Daily Reset on Thursday AEST. This helps prevent the new content causing issues for players still on 5.5.1 version.

We have made some changes so that Lycanthropy should behave more like the spell Transform effect.

  • Lycanthropy will now halve the level of the Troop when it is transformed.

  • We have changed the visual effect when Lycanthropy transforms a troop. As the previous version was causing confusion due to the similarities to devour.

  • We have added a new sound effect for Lycanthropy when a troop is inflicted with Lycanthropy and when Lycanthropy triggers on the troop.

  • We have made changes so if a Valraven or random Gnome is transformed by Lycanthropy, they will still give their rewards.

  • We have made changes so if an Enemy required for a Campaign Task is transformed by Lycanthropy, it will still count as a kill for the Task.

We have added 2 new Achievements for this update (applies to Steam, Xbox One, PS4, and Android only)

  • The Rolling Gnomes – Craft a Gnome-a-Palooza Event.

  • Mic Drop – Earn a Verse from a Mana Surge Band Gnome.

  • With Gnomes causing mischief all over Krystara, they have caused the first time Gem Purchase bonus to be reset, allowing everyone to take advantage of it again.

  • The Skip Button for Campaign Tasks should now display the gem cost on the button.

  • Players will now be able to select and view popup help or information for different rewards on the Warband Booster Pack menu.

  • We have made some changes to Uber Doomstorm so it has it’s correct graphics for while the Storm is active, and adjust the chance of an Uber Doomskull appearing.

  • We have added a new Storm, Howlstorm, that will increase the chance of a Lycanthropy Gem appearing while it is active.

    • Like Uber Doomstorm, this storm can currently only be conjured by spells or traits that create a random storm.

  • We have fixed an issue where Doomskull damage was sometimes calculated incorrectly in complex gem matches.

  • We have fixed an issue where Create Gem spells that target Doomskulls, or Uber Doomskulls were just creating Skulls.

  • We have fixed an issue where Players were unable to equip a weapon card by dragging once the card is removed from the team by selecting the remove button.

  • We have fixed an issue when a new Event Medal’s graphic would have a display issue when they were equipped over an old event medal.

  • We have fixed an issue where the background for War Cache or War Hoard in the Daily Deal did not fit correctly.

  • We have fixed an issue where Troops in Advent Calendars were not displaying in the ‘Today’s Offer’ reward section.

  • We have fixed an issue where a Tiered Offer’s stock would display as restored after purchasing all stock from one of the offers.

  • We have fixed an issue where the Total Banners in the Collection Progress Screen was not counting Warband banners.

  • We have fixed an issue where the scroll arrows disappeared when a filter was used and there were less than 11 results.

  • We have fixed an issue on Switch, where teams with Doom Troops could not be shared correctly.

  • We have fixed an issue where the Gem cost for skipping a Campaign Task was not displaying on the Task Option menu.

  • We have fixed an issue where the player’s equipped pet would go missing after the hero’s spell is cast a 2nd time or more.

  • We have fixed an issue where the total number of pets in the collection progress screen was incorrect.

  • We have fixed an issue where a player was unable to select a player profile in the Leaderboard when using the controller for the first time.

  • We have fixed an issue where players kicked from a guild could still chat in the guild chat.

  • We have fixed an issue where the Guild Menu background would not display after completing a Guild Wars battle.

  • We have fixed an issue where Lycanthropy Gems’s power to inflict Lycanthropy to a random Troop would still trigger if the Gem was removed.

This update will be available on Steam, iOS, Android, Xbox, PlayStation and Switch. Please be aware that it can take up to 24 hours to propagate across multiple platforms and regions.

19 Likes

Vault event starting this Thursday?

Also, why is the worst mechanic in the entirety of Puzzle Quest 1 added to Gems of War?

7 Likes

Happy to see such detailed patch notes and what look like such great changes.

Is it two new achievements or three?

2 Likes

2 new cheevos

2 Likes

yeah, is the board locking up really that common? A reset of all mana sounds awful but hard to say until I see it I guess.

Once the campaign is over the chance for Lycanthropy gems randomly dropping in will be zero. Will this still be zero with a Howlstorm active? That would mean that random storms will have a steadily increasing chance of pulling a dud as additional campaign storms get added to the game.

Depends on the meaning of “locking up”. If this replaces the current mechanism of reshuffling the board whenever there’s no move available then we have the perfect candidate for an even more unpopular feature than Lycanthropy. Can easily happen several times during a single battle.

16 Likes

yeah, locking up and reshuffling wasn’t an issue. I meant it sounds like people were locking up with no move even after shuffling? that seems impossible so why even fix/break what’s not broken?

1 Like

Not broken YET :smirk:

Actually, it did happen occasionally, most notably with troops that create stone blocks.

2 Likes

Oh, my goodness. PQ1 LIVES!

I want to see a new stream meme the first time this happens to Salty on an official GoW stream. :)~

/starts quiet timer until some game mode in PQ3 is developed with this “feature”. :smiling_imp:

1 Like

can we meet new Gnomes in explore now?

Of all things listed on these patch notes, I’m actually glad they listed what their bug fixes were. Nice.

No idea how previous patch notes were able to get away with saying random unspecific things were fixed.

24 Likes

I think skull hits are bugged - is the first one doing double damage? Explore E12 my Slayer will go from full armor/life to only 61 or so life left after a single hit. Others in my guild are reporting the same in Arena

EDIT: Just tested it and I can verify the first skull hit is doing 2x dmg. Is devastating in E12 explore.

5 Likes

Not just the first one. I got a similar second hit as well. I adjusted the game speed to 1x and the issue is resolved. Maybe it is a trigger thing. Or maybe the game is just excited about the update.

1 Like

Okay, but do the gnomes spawn in Arena? I may come back to play this game for more then just getting the occasional ‘oopsie we did a f-ckyw-cky here’s some small smattering of in-game stuff we know you barely use or is worth it’ if I can trigger this stuff on command and fight nothing but gnomes for 15 minutes with whatever I draft.

also buff Arena and Treasure Hunt for the love of Zuul’Goth

But if you change it back to 4x the double hit bug returns

1 Like

Could I please get some more information regarding this double hit skull bug? Is it only affecting certain speeds?

1 Like

But … gnomes do appear in Arena though, right? certainly pet gnomes do, those are the ones I notice most.

1 Like

Seems to only be in 4x speed and yes it’s double damage from skull hits. Others in my guild are reporting that two troops died to a single skull hit in Arena (4x speed) so is skull dmg bleeding over to the next troop (like Trample dmg in MTG)?

5 Likes

Thanks for replying, please let me know what console you are on @Emos. Our team are looking into this and as much information as possible will help us.