7.0 Update: Underspire

7.0 UPDATE: UNDERSPIRE

The 7.0 Update: Underspire will be released July 19th AEST for all platforms

Underspire is a new weekly game mode that is similar to the old school sprawling dungeons in tabletop RPGs. It is also a mash-up of Explore, Delve and Journey events.

The goal of Underspire is to work your way through a mega-dungeon, fighting through 6 Mini Bosses, earning Keystones to unlock doors and searching for the final boss room, where you can earn Dragonite and Diamonds. There are plenty of other valuable rewards along the way though.

  • Underspire is a mash-up of Explore, Delve and Journey events.
  • The goal of Underspire is to work your way through a mega-dungeon, searching for the final boss room, where you can earn Dragonite and Diamonds. There are plenty of other valuable rewards along the way though.
  • Underspire will replace Explore for the Weekly Kingdom (all other Kingdoms will still have Explore available).
    • Explore Progress will resume once the week is over.
    • The Weekly Kingdom will not get the Mythstone Bonus while it has Underspire active.
  • Underspire is also available from the Games menu (it has replaced Arena near the start of the menu along the bottom).
    • Arena can be found further into the menu.
  • Underspire will be tied to the Weekly Kingdom, so players will need to use Troops and Weapons from that Kingdom in battles for that week.
  • The Underspire Map begins play as hidden (apart from the starting room). Players need to uncover the Underspire map as they play. Only the adjacent Rooms to their current room will be uncovered.
  • Underspire Maps will be unique to a player so everyone will have a different map each week.
    • However, all players will have important locations of similar distance (there is a randomness to the distance but it is balanced to be as close as possible for all players).
  • Each battle will require either 1 Torch or 1 Lantern to play – these are a form of Energy for the event.
  • Torches are the basic free form of energy
    • Torches allow you to play a battle, and players will earn up to 7 Torches per day for free, which will stack when earned each day.
    • Players can purchase 5 more Torches in the Torches bundle up to 3 times per day.
    • Like purchasing further Delve Energy, the cost starts at 50 Gems but will increase with each purchase per day before resetting at Daily Reset.
  • Lanterns are an advanced premium form of energy
    • Lanterns can only be gained by purchasing the Lantern Booster pack, which contains 5 lanterns.
    • There is no cap to how many times you can purchase lanterns, or to how many lanterns you can have. Excess lanterns will be lost at the end of the event though.
    • Lanterns will increase the vision of adjacent rooms by 1 (beyond what Torches show), allowing players to see 2 rooms away, giving more information about possible directions to take.
    • Like the Golden Holiday Booster in Holiday events, players will gain a bonus reward for purchasing the Lantern Booster 3 times, and 5 times.
  • Players will be able to get 1 free Lantern from the first Goblin Merchant they encounter in Underspire.
  • Some paths in the Underspire will be blocked and will require a Keystone to get past.
  • There are 6 rarities of Keystones, and they will all need to be collected in order to
  • progress through the Underspire and reach the final boss room.
  • There are 2 ways to get a Keystone: Defeating a Mini Boss or Purchasing it from a Goblin Merchant.
  • There are 6 Mini Bosses – one for each Keystone. The first Mini Boss can be reached without any requirements, but each following Mini Boss will require the previous Mini Boss’ Keystone to access the area of the dungeon where they are located.
  • Each Mini Boss also contains extra bonus rewards that are unique to that Mini Boss.
  • Players may discover a Merchant Room while exploring the dungeon, which will open up the Goblin Merchant’s shop.
  • There are only 6 Goblin Merchants in an Underspire, and they each sell:
    • 1 Keystone (of appropriate level based on Merchant’s location)
    • 2 Random Trinkets (each can be purchased in groups of 5)
      • The first Goblin Merchant replaces 1 Trinket with his free Lantern offer.
  • Players can return to a Goblin Merchant to purchase more Trinkets from them if they wish.
  • There are 6 different types of Trinkets that players can collect, each with their own effect that will apply to the battle.
    • Frost Trinket – Freezes all enemies at the start of battle
    • Bone Trinket – Creates 6 Doomskulls at the start of battle
    • Death Trinket – Deathmarks all enemies at the start of battle
    • Hex Trinket – Curses all enemies at the start of battle
    • Wild Trinket – Creates 4 x3 Wildcards at the start of battle
    • Resistance Trinket – Gives the Spell Armor trait to all allies for the battle
  • Trinkets can only be used in a single battle before they are consumed.
  • Players can choose which battles they would like to use their Trinkets in, so they can save them for harder battles if they prefer.
  • After players defeat all 6 Mini Bosses (or purchase all 6 Keystones), they will be able to access the final Boss for Underspire.
  • Other battles will use Rooms that players may have encountered in Delves, or Tower of Doom. This includes Start, Boss and Doom rooms.
    • The regular Room rewards from these Rooms are not given as they are unique to either Delves or Tower of Doom.
  • There is a mini map that players can use to view the Underspire that they have revealed so far.
  • Key locations are visible on the Mini Map (i.e. Goblin Merchant, Bosses, Keystones, Undefeated Battles).
  • Players can tap on a location to be taken to that spot in the Underspire.
    • Players will need to close the Mimi Map before they can see that they have moved.
  • Players will be able to access the Deep Shrine menu from the Underspire menu when it’s active. (More on Deep Shrines below)

  • We have updated the visuals for Troop cards to a new style.
  • Troop cards will now focus more on the Mana Colors of a Troop than the rarity.
    • This is to help newer players who get confused what Mana colors they need to collect to power up their Troops and particularly their Weapons. We also believe it looks more aesthetically pleasing.
  • This visual update also applies to the Elite Level look for cards, which have been updated to match the new look.
  • Weapons have colored stars under the weapon image that reflect the Weapon’s rarity.
    • This will match the background for the Weapon spell icon.
  • Troops in Battles have also been updated to match this new style, this includes a new spell ready animation that appears on the card.
  • Enemy Heroes will display their Class icon in battle on their Troop card.

We have introduced Shiny Troops to the game. For anyone who has been playing for 7 or more years, these aren’t like the previous “shiny” versions you encountered – which were reasonably subtle and displayed on cards at max level. Read below to learn more:

  • Troops can now become Shiny Troops, and get a visual and gameplay update.
    • Only 30 Troops will be able to become Shiny when 7.0 launches. (See table below)
    • All 30 troops are Common, Rare, Ultra-Rare or Epic Troops.
    • There are plans for Legendary and Mythic Shiny Troops in a future update.
  • Troops can become Shiny at any time and don’t require that the troop is fully ascended, leveled or traited.
  • Shiny Troops have 3 Levels that each give a small bonus
    • Level 1: -1 Mana Cost to Troop’s Spell
    • Level 2: Enhanced version of the Troop’s Spell
    • Level 3: -1 Mana Cost to Troop’s Spell (stacks with the level 1 bonus)
  • Each Level of Shiny Troop unlocks some lore for the Troop.
  • Players will need to earn Shiny Tokens for a Troop in order to unlock Shiny Levels.
    • Level 1: 5 Tokens Required
    • Level 2: 10 more Tokens Required
    • Level 3: 20 more Tokens Required
  • Each Troop has their own Shiny Token, which can be earned from Shiny Chests.
  • Shiny Chests are a new chest that can be accessed from the Chest Menu.
  • Shiny Chests will give 1-3 Tokens for a Troop.
  • Once a Troop has reached Shiny level 3 and maxed out, their Tokens will turn into 5 Shiny Dust.
  • Players will be able to exchange 100 Shiny Dust for a Shiny Token for a Troop that is not Shiny Level 3.
  • Players can earn Shiny Keys from end stage rewards in weekly events, or from new weekly event offers (read more about that below).
  • Players can view a Troop’s Shiny Level Progress on the Troop’s Overview menu (More Options menu > Overview).
  • Players will be able to access the Shiny Troop’s menu by tapping that area of the screen.
  • Each week one of the newly released Troops will also be able to become Shiny, and their Token will be added to Shiny Chests.
  • We will look to add additional Shiny Troops for other previously released Troops in future updates.
Anubite Warrior Grimmoira Sir Alamir
Ba’el Guardian of the Fields Sparkgrinder
Berserker Harper Spellblade
Bulette Hind Spirit of Rage
Crysturtle Ice Goblin Spiritdancer
Dokkalfar Living Quartz Spring Emissary
Dragon Knight Maid of Envy Sylvasi
Drake Owleth Vlad the Unstated
Dryad Raksha Free-Blood Void Portal
Falconer Scarabi Wererat

It’s time to mix things up a bit with weekly events!

We’ve been running World Events back to back for a couple of years now and we found ourselves missing the variety of week long Raid Bosses, Invasions and Towers of Doom. We also found that Journey were fun and we just wanted to experience all of those more often.

We are returning to a weekly guild event rotation, with Raid Boss and Invasion returning as weekly events alongside World, Journey and Tower of Doom events. Raid Boss, Invasion, Journey and Tower of Doom events have received some improvements as part of this change.

  • Raid Boss, Invasion, Journey and Tower of Doom Overview menu for all events have received an update to clearly show current progress, highlight event troops (or weapon), and clearly show what the player restrictions are for that event.
  • The Event Troops in Raid Boss, Invasion, and Journey Events are now defined as “Event Captains”.
  • Event Captains gain double magic when used in their event, and for Raid Boss + Invasion, they also double the score earned from a battle.
    • E.g. Event Captain will count double the “Towers Destroyed” if used in the Invasion Event.
    • Journey Guides were already multiplying the score for Journey battles, so they have not received this update.
  • Event Troops from older events will not be Event Captains, it will only apply to the Troop who is highlighted on the Event’s Overview menu (a new troop released that week).
  • The Doomed Weapon in Tower of Doom will be the “Event Weapon”, which – in a similar vein – will give the double score bonus when used in its Tower of Doom event. (But not the double magic).
  • Raid Boss has a new Boss Enemy that players will encounter, Ctharrasque.
    • There will be a craftable Ctharrasque in the Soulforge similar to Zuul’Goth.
    • This will be added to the Soulforge at weekly reset.
  • In each Event Shop there is now a Buy Tiers I -VI option, that will purchase Tiers I – VI for the event, and give a bonus Orb of Chaos.
    • This Buy Tiers I -VI option is only available in weekly events, and not the 1-day/ weekend events like Faction Assault. We will look to add this feature to them in a future update.
    • We did not include Tier VII since it is repeatable and could cause confusion whether it was received or not.
  • The Buy Tiers I -VI option is only available when players have not purchased any Tiers, and will disappear if players purchase Tier I.
    • There will be a warning that appears if players go to purchase Tier I, warning them that the Buy Tiers I -VI Option will disappear if they purchase Tier I.
  • The gem cost for Buy Tiers I -VI is the same as purchasing Buy Tiers I -VI individually.
  • We have 2 new Weekly Event Offers that will appear in the game – the Headstart Offer, and the Heroic Booster offer.
    • These new offers will not be available for World Events at this stage.
  • The Headstart Offer will appear 48hrs before the next event begins, and runs up until the event starts at weekly Reset.
  • The Headstart Offer will contain the following rewards:
    • Event Headstart – This will start the player further in the event, and give them some score based on the headstart. The Headstart is different in each event – it is roughly the equivalent of purchasing 20 Sigils and playing those battles.
    • 5 Shiny Troop Tokens – These Tokens will match the new Shiny Troop that will be released at weekly reset with that event.
    • 4 Shiny Keys – These will open Shiny Chests
    • Bonus Reward – This Reward changes depending on the event type.
  • The Heroic Booster will appear 48 hours after the weekly event begins, and will run for 48 hours before disappearing.
  • The Heroic Booster will contain the following rewards:
    • Potion of Heroism
    • 20 Sigils for the Event
    • 4 Shiny Keys
  • The Potion of Heroism will give the player’s hero double magic when used in the weekly event.
    • This only applies to the weekly event, and will not apply to other game modes like PvP or explore.
  • With all these changes we have adjusted the difficulty scaling in Raid Boss, Invasion, Tower of Doom and Journey Events at higher levels.
    • This has been done with free players in mind – players should be able to achieve similar rewards for free as they did previously.
  • Along with these changes we have extended the Stage Rewards in these events from 12 Stages to 16 Stages.
  • Some of the rewards at these higher Stages include-
    • Shiny Keys
    • Cursed Runes
    • Dragonite
    • Tokens for the new Shiny Troop for that week
  • We introduced Weapon Restrictions to Raid Boss and Tower Doom, so weapons being taken into battle match the restrictions of the Troops.

  • Deep Shrines are a new type of Shrine that spawn every 2 weeks.
  • Deep Shrines have 5 levels of rewards that can be earned and purchased.
  • Each level requires a different resource to collect:
    • Level 1: Gold
    • Level 2: Souls
    • Level 3: Glory
    • Level 4: Minor Colored Traitstones
    • Level 5: Runic Colored Traitstones
  • Deep Shrines are tied to the 6 Mana Colors, and require Traitstones matching the Color of the Shrine at levels 4 and 5 (which will be the same as the color of the weekly Kingdom).
  • Purchasing a Deep Shrine Level will also give extra rewards (on top of the resource)
    • Level 1 Bonus: 1 Orb of Chaos + a Underspire Pack
    • Level 2 Bonus: 2 Epic Vault Keys + a Underspire Pack
    • Level 3 Bonus: 25 Cursed Runes + a Underspire Pack
    • Level 4 Bonus: 1 Major Orb of Chaos + a Underspire Pack
    • Level 5 Bonus: 100 Dragonite + a Underspire Pack
  • Purchasing all 5 Levels will give a bonus Mythic Medal of Nysha on top of the other rewards.
  • Underspire Packs contains rewards that can be used in that week’s Underspire:
    • 3 Torches
    • 6 Random Trinkets.
  • Deep Shrines will always appear in the left most side of the Shrines Menu while active.
  • Players will need to go into the Deep Shrine popup menu to purchase the Shrine.
  • In the Deep Shrine menu players will be able to select each level to view them, but they must be earned and purchased in order.
  • Deep Shrines last for 1 week, starting and ending with the weekly event.
  • Deep Shrines are linked to the Underspire (a convenient place to get their rewards) but the resources can be earned in other game modes too.

We have 2 new Achievements for this update:

  • A Diamond in the Rough: Upgrade 3 Troops to Shiny Level 1
  • I’m So Shiny: Upgrade 5 Troops to Shiny Level 2

  • The Shrine Menu has been updated to be a full screen menu and players can slide the Shrines horizontally to view them all.
  • All Shrines will now display half the collectible reward or the current amount (whichever is higher)
    • Rather than players seeing 0 Gold when a new Shrine begins, which was causing confusion for some players.
  • The Priestess from Whitehelm’s art has been updated. She is now one of the tutorial troops and she asked us if she could look her best. You can’t say no to a priestess…
  • Trial Offers (Troops + Starry Pets) will now display a confirmation screen if the player tries to close the menu without purchasing anything.
    • Players gave us feedback that they were accidentally closing the menu
  • The Opening Tutorial Sequence now has a help button that will bring the tutorial back up if new players want to review the tutorial or accidentally close it too quickly.
  • We have made some improvements to the Intro Questline to make the battles quicker and easier for new players to complete.
  • The World Map Menu UI now unlocks when players reach the World Map after the Intro Questline (instead of after the 2nd Quest of Broken Spire)
  • Completing or Skipping a Campaign Task will now animate to make it clear that players have finished a Task and received a new one.
  • We have removed the Settings option to Show/ Hide Spell Mana Details, as the new card layout allows the mana costs to live separately to the Mana Orb.
  • We have added an animation when players complete a task, to make it easier to see when they have started a new Task.
  • Players can now select the Bonus Reward item in flash offers to get the reward’s help text.
    • Newer players didn’t have a means to tell what a reward was.

We have fixed an assortment of smaller issues including, but not limited to:

  • Fixing the visual issue in Advent Calendars where the Heading graphic was overlapping Heading Text for the Calendar.
  • Fixing missing art on Mobile builds
  • Fixing the issue on Switch that prevented players from getting into the game when the Summer Holiday event was active.
  • Fixing a few of the wandering Genie/ Daemon buffs and debuffs that were misbehaving.

We are aware of the following issues which will be addressed in the next update.

  • There is a visual issue where Bronze Troops are not displaying their Bronze card frame.
  • There is a visual issue where returning from the Troop Overview menu for a Shiny Troop, will not display the reduce Mana Cost in the Troop Menu
  • When using Suggest a Troop, it will recommend weapons that don’t match the Kingdom restrictions.
  • If a player returns to the weekly Kingdom’s menu after playing explore in another Kingdom, the Underspire button and Explore buttons appear to overlap.
  • Playstation Lantern Purchases are coming soon.
  • Playstation Deep Shrine Purchases are currently unavailable. (Coming Soon)
  • Playstation Headstart Offer Purchases are currently unavailable. (Coming Soon)
13 Likes

Looks interesting. Any word on difficulty? Do fights scale up in some way, e.g. for each room visited or each boss defeated?

All Doomed Weapons released the past two years have one thing in common, no player would voluntarily put them into their team. Forcing us to use them by making them mandatory for scoring well isn’t going to make them more popular, quite the contrary.

Edit: There’s also the matter of having to upgrade the Doomed Weapon, to improve it from “entirely useless” to “mostly useless”. Forge scrolls are incredibly rare, even buying all shop tiers once and collecting all event rewards (while playing with the hobbled weapon) isn’t enough to fully upgrade it. And it’s now essentially mandatory to do that in order to not lug around some cardboard sword? Because the only other option, picking a real weapon, means getting docked half the event score? Someone sure seems to hate us players a lot to force that down our throats…

What about weekend events? Will there still be Raid Boss and Invasion? If not, any replacement, or can we now except a Vault Event every 4 weeks?

Which means it’s entirely useless for supporting weapons, like gem generators. Shouldn’t such an expensive bundled buff grant benefits in all situations, instead of shoehorning players into a specific role?

It feels like whoever called that shot doesn’t realize how much this turns Raid Boss and Tower of Doom into a slow, boring and utterly time consuming slog.

Edit 2: More questions.

What happens when the Mythstone Bonus is on the Underspire kingdom when the weeks starts? Players can’t bump it out of the kingdom, will they have to be content with 3 markers for the remainder of the week?

Are there any rewards at all for beating regular rooms? Explore battles yield around 3k gold, plus some merchant offers, plus some gnomes, plus some medal tokens. If players are expected to wade through dozens of rooms without gaining anything worth showing, the boss rewards will have to be truly spectacular to not make this as popular as the Arena rework.

Vlad would like to state that he can’t wait to negate the sorry fate his name has met of late.

25 Likes

Is it known from the beta if headstart and heroic boosters are gem or cash purchases?

Can gems be used to open shiny chests when you have no keys, similar to event and vip chests?

Thanks for posting the patch notes early.

3 Likes

Nice list of new stuff, exciting! Would be great to know in each case if “purchase” means gems, cash, or other though.

4 Likes

We need images .that show the changes

1 Like

You broke something that didn’t need to be fixed. Therefore:

Is a nerf. And now I have to make Tower of Doom optional after it being a requirement “for years” due to none of you actually ever doing a level 25 Tower of Doom battle.

Why? Just why? :pensive:

25 Likes

New events, new resources, new chests, new troops, new pay to play offers.

Still no fixes to 3+ year old bug that blocks progression for end gamers.

So basically working as intended.

30 Likes

I am trying to see the consistency. You update the campaign to supposedly allow players to play as they want (I’m ignoring the PvP :elephant:). Yet now you are restricting team selection in things like ToD by weapon choice.

13 Likes

Did I read it correctly that now we can’t buy potion of power any more (no T7 in event shop)?

I think will be the same as before, no change, when you buy all tiers at once, you only buy tier 1 to 6, you can still buy as many tier 7 as you want.

3 Likes

So, I won’t lose this:
imagem_2023-07-18_083638296

Beta tester checking in.

By room, difficulty goes well past D12 later in an Underspire run with no potions or other offensive boosters. Trinkets are minor effects that are consumable on a per-room basis, but only after you’ve unlocked them by finding the relevant merchants on each run.

Not mentioned in patch notes:

Weekly events now have 16 prize tiers instead of 12. Going to need that double scoring thing on the team each week to reach the new prize tiers past the Major Orb of Chaos.

Cash.

Negative. On beta, the only way to get Shiny keys was to earn them through the new Stage 13-16 weekly event rewards (Stages 13 and 16 if I remember right) or buy them with cash through the Headstart, Booster, or Deep Shrine offers.

Always presume that if a purchase is mentioned and that the word “gem” is not tied to it, that the purchase is a cash only purchase.

Also, a word of caution regarding the Underspire. Similar to Seasonal Battles, you can buy extra energy daily (on beta, these were 50, 100, 150 gems per set of 5 torches). However, unlike Seasonal Battles, the player is capped at 3 energy purchases per day with gems. After that, any further purchases of energy that day requires cash.

That means that there is a finite maximum number of moves a player can have each week using only gems to finance the Underspire run.

This also means that it is VERY possible that a player can fail to complete the run before reaching the end boss, especially if their luck is bad (keep running into dead ends, can’t find the merchant or gem dragon rooms quickly, chased gem dragon prizes) and they used up a lot of torches early on or failed clearing rooms (paths are linear in the maze, so if a tough room appears on the critical path you can’t skip it…). In that situation, the player either has to retire the run for the week where it was currently at or spend cash to purchase additional energy with cash in an attempt to complete the run.

ADVICE: Have a game plan for energy usage and stick to it. Choose either to target completing the run, or chasing specific prizes along the way. Unless a player is willing to throw a lot of money at this game mode, they won’t have the energy to get every possible prize each week. Also, keep in mind that similar to Epic Trials, as the Underspire run of the week is kingdom-locked, some kingdoms are going to have a very hard time with level 200+ rooms. Also also, every room that has EVER appeared in ANY delve (including starter/boss rooms), or Tower of Doom (including Doom/Ultimate Doom rooms) is fair game to show up in the Underspire at any time.

EDIT: This mode can result in very high gem expenditures, if the player is not watching their gem wallets. (300 gems * 7 days = 2100 maximum gems on energy) + up to an additional 2100 more gems on top of that if a player buys all 6 keys from the merchants to save time (torches) chasing down gem dragons, + incidental trinket purchases (25 gems for a pack of 5 trinkets, for each individual trinket type). Beware of sunk cost fallacy and “just chasing one more gem dragon prize this week (yes, most of the prizes are actually good)”. Hardest challenge for many players will be determining when to fold on a bad poker hand and walking away from the table for the week.

EDIT 2: Because Underspire runs are tied to the kingdom of the week and 7.0 is launching mid-week, there will not be a full allotment of days tied to this opening run. This means that it is highly unlikely that anyone (unless you are going to spend a lot of money on lanterns) is going to complete the opening week’s Underspire run. Get a feel for how the mode works in this opening short week, and for those that want to go for the glory, plan to make that run starting on next weekly reset.

EDIT 3: Have confirmation from beta… lanterns double up on rewards for the room in which they are used, and this includes the gem dragon prizes. Everyone gets 1 lantern for free, so double up on the room you want (but you only have the one try to clear that gem dragon room for free, so be careful).

45 Likes

Can you give some examples of what the rewards you can earn along the way are?

Sure appears to be more grind and more ways to spend gems…

5 Likes

Subject to change on Live, but on beta as far as the last prize rebalance, from personal experience:

Dragon 1 - 100 Writs + 1 Lesser Orb of Glory
Dragon 2 - 1 Imperial Deed + 1 Epic Vault Key
Dragon 3 - 3 Gem Keys + 1 1 Lesser Orb of Wisdom (yuck, out of place)
Dragon 4 - 1 Epic Vault Key + 1 (Medium) Orb of Glory

Don’t know what are the prizes for Dragons 5 through 7, after the latest prize and difficulty revamp.

23 Likes

Thank you, that’s helpful to get a general idea.

2 Likes

@Jeto Switch also gets the 7.0 update?

Okay, this looks… This looks really cool. I’m actually really excited for this!

1 Like

100 gems says it ships broken

12 Likes

Just out of curiosity, how many rooms are there in total in a single Underspire? I’m guessing a whole lot?

1 Like