Patch notes: February 12th, 2016. Version 0.96

Please see the official blog for the latest updates to this patch:

We have a very significant update available for you today, and we need your help testing it. Read on for more info.

Updates

First update 4:50pm CET

  • We are currently working on a fix regarding players who had an active Pandora run prior to the patch and are now unable to keep playing.
  • The ability to purchase Cosmetic Sets with in-game Gold will be restored in the next bug fixing patch. Please note that once the Mythic Chests are re-introduced in the game (Faeria 1.0), Cosmetic Sets will no longer be purchasable with in-game gold.

As mentioned previously, we are releasing Faeria version 0.96 this month.

In fact, we are releasing it today, and we’d like to talk to you about it.

Today’s update contains some very big, fundamental changes to Faeria’s user interface and shop system. These changes are so dramatic that we could not possibly test them well enough internally and still meet our self-imposed full release deadline in March. This means we need your help.

One of the most important goals of Early Access is to get the game where it needs to be with the help of our dedicated community. To put it simply, you help us find and fix things at a much higher rate than we ever can within our relatively smaller team. At the same time, however, we try not to force our players into an unstable playing environment any more than necessary.

We want to communicate that today’s patch, more than any other in recent memory, is going to be much more unstable than what you’re used to. It’s not the ideal situation we want to put our players in, but it’s entirely necessary to meet our release schedule. We know there will be a lot of bugs, and we want to have enough time to hammer them out before our wide iOS release.

We will be working very hard at fixing bugs as fast as we can to keep the game in a state that is not frustrating for you to experience. There may be crashes - well, let’s be honest: There will be crashes. But as we see them roll in, we will turn around and fix them, then move on to the next. Eventually, we will be at a spot where we are comfortable to release version 1.0 and all it entails.

With all that said, let’s get into today’s update.

New features and changes

  • Vast overhauls to the interface have been introduced. These are too numerous to mention in detail. Trust us, you’ll notice!
  • We are introducing a new way to deck build early on: Formulas. Codexes have been removed.
    • Formulas act like preconstructed decks that players can work toward completing. New players are awarded starter Formulas that act much like the previous Codexes by increasing collection size and providing a base to work from. Formulas are designed to teach the player how to construct a deck and walk them through the crafting process. In this update, we are introducing 10 Formulas total, but plan on adding more in the future.
  • Gems have been introduced.
    • Gems are an in-game currency that are only purchasable in the store with real money.
    • All purchases that require real money now require gems.
    • Pandora coins can now be purchased one at a time, at the price of 500 gems each ($1.99).
    • To be as transparent on this as possible, we’ve explained the reasons for this in a post last month:

“As mentioned in a previous update, we have had to conform our prices to meet requirements of the Apple store. After implementing this new economy system, we will be more in control of the prices offered in our store. For instance, last November/December there was a slight price surge in some regions that was outside of our control. We want to avoid things like this as much as possible. Our goal is to keep a solid price consistency across all platforms in order to prevent any favoritism or inequality.”

Gems are intended to provide us this with this necessary control.

  • All gold values have been scaled up by a factor of 10. This means all player gold, all store prices, and all rewards are now 10 times as high. In the end, all relative prices and values remain the same - they’re now just larger.
  • The game will now attempt to reconnect you automatically when your connection is lost. You will only be brought back to the login screen if you couldn’t reconnect in time.
  • Playing non-targeted events now requires that you click twice: once on the event, then once on the board. The event card follows your cursor. You may also drag & drop.

Pandora changes

  • We have made a few tweaks to the Pandora’s drafting numbers:
  • The factor that increased the occurrence of a color each time it gets picked has been tuned down. We’re happy with the rule but the current factor made it way too easy to always play a mono color deck. With the new parameters you will often have to pick more than one color to maximize your deck’s efficiency. This way we hope to increase the variety of decks encountered.
  • In addition, rarity drop rates were tweaked in order to make Common cards less seen, the goal here is simply to make the drafting experience less repetitive.

Belgian App Store & TestFlight players

  • We have pushed the update on both the Belgian App Store and TestFlight. Unfortunately, during propagation, some players might be unable to play. If you are affected by this, the only thing that you can do is wait until you see an update for Faeria on the App Store.

  • The Faeria Team
1 Like

Just wanted to say I like the new interface, graphics, and layout a lot!

1 Like

On the other hand, I think the new interface is meah. Like, why did you bother?

There is no improvement to usability.

Decks are now represented differently on different screens. Confusing for no reason.

You still cannot examine a deck while a match is pending. Or even from the match screen.

The search/filter seems to have vanished from the card collection.

Still no keyboard shortcuts. Escape should at least function as back.

There are fewer options in the Store, including the ones I would have purchased. Why did you not warn us you were going to remove options!

You weren’t kidding, thankfully you’re quick on the draw as far as bug zapping goes, but some of these bugs… they’re really bad.

The Belgium App Store still isn’t showing any update for iOS devices.
Do you have an ETA for the update?
Thanks