Bug Fixes · Fixed an bug where the initiative player wouldn't have actions available after hero deployment in some cases and would eventually time out. · Fixed not being able to hover health, attack, combat previews, and status effects on cards in play. · Fixed Temple of War not being allowed in decks. · Fixed Vhoul Elder reducing mana costs on factionless cards in hand despite the Vhoul Elder…
Tutorial Beta 2.0 We've been working on a new tutorial that can teach the game's basics to players who never played Artifact 1 (or any other card game, for that matter). We're shipping an early version of this tutorial out to our existing players so you can try it over the holidays. Like everything else in Artifact 2.0 Beta, we approached the tutorial's gameplay before anything else, so the vis…
We've been trying a ton of different things with game design over the past year or so, and have been developing and testing the game in public since April. Everything has been in flux. As the design has begun to settle down some, we're ready to enter the tightening phase: teaching the game, polishing the game, and completing game features, eventually all leading up to a push to grow the game. A…
Card Changes Heroes · Arc Warden 's Spark Wraith now triggers before your turn. · Drow Ranger 's Gust may target an empty slot. · Rix 's Act of Defiance now silences an enemy hero for two rounds and the other enemy heroes of that color for one round. Counts as a Vhoul Rebellion spell. Creeps · Abyssm Flesh Render gains Devour. · Acolyte of the Forbidden Gate cost decreased from 3 to 2. · Arclig…
Card Changes Heroes · Treant Protector now includes Leech Seed instead of Roseleaf Druid . · Treant Protector 's Branches of Iron gives regeneration instead of armor. Items · Mjollnir only triggers once per player action, rather than for every strike individually. Creeps · Rebel Rabble Rouser has been moved from red to green and lost its armor. · Red Mist Pillager has been moved from red to bla…
Matchmaking · Introduced faster turn timer (halfway between the speed timer and the normal timer) for ladder games between players of Divine or higher ranking. · Loosened matchmaking parameters for players on the extreme ends of MMR. Gameplay · Prellex 's Barracks no longer wastes charges if you have more Barracks in a lane than empty slots. · Homunculous now devours creeps or bounces heroes (a…
Gameplay Heroes · When Lycan transforms, he no longer transforms back until death. · Lady Anshu , Rix , and Rix, Oathbound now have 2 round cooldown on Rapid Deployment and on their Death Effects. · Rix now gains +2 Attack per death rather than +1, and it no longer uses charges (and can be purged). · Mazzie 's signature cards are now the items themselves rather than spells. They are still drawn…
Experimental Rules: Multicolor Casting We’re experimenting with a rule change: Heroes now enable other heroes in their lane to cast cards of their color. So if you have a red hero and a blue hero in a lane, for example, the blue hero can cast red spells and the red hero can cast blue spells. This should reduce the disadvantage multicolor decks have as compared to monocolor decks with regards to…
Shop v2.1 Shop mechanics, item costs, and the shop UI have all been reworked. The base cost of each item Tier goes up by 10 rather than 5. Mid-tier costs have also been added, so Tier 1 items can cost either 10 or 15 gold, Tier 2 items can cost either 20 or 25 gold, up to Tier 5 items costing the maximum 50 gold. Upgrading the shop no longer costs any gold, skipping shopping gives you 5 gold (a…
Mazzie · Mazzie's Gear Head ability changed to "May equip any number of unique items." · Mazzie can now be unlocked for hero draft. · Mazzie unbanned from constructed. · Mazzie's extra items appear as tiles on the card rather than just disappearing. · A new playtest deck has been added to the deck selector featuring Mazzie. UI · Added a setting to keep hero and card names in English when playin…
UI · Status effect identification on cards now have iconography. Gameplay · Storm Spirit’s Overload lasts until end of round rather than until Storm spirit's next combat. · Abaddon’s stats changed from 3/6 -> 2/8 · Abaddon’s Borrowed Time purges Abaddon and may be used when stunned or silenced. Cooldown reduced from 3 -> 2. · Abaddon’s Mist Coil self-damage reduced from 3 -> 2. · Corpse Horde i…
UI · Added wording on A Thousand Cuts to specify that the unit damages itself to clarify the interaction with heroes like Venomancer. · Fixed wording on Silver Edge that said it disabled passive abilities when in fact it disables native abilities. · Fixed a typo in Plague Hex. · Removed some unnecessary words in Mjollnir's text. · Removed built-in "STARTER" decks from the deck loader. They were…
UI · Implemented support for Steam’s new abusive text chat filtering for in-game chat and global chat. See the Steam Labs blog post to opt-in. · Fixed a bug where players were listed as "Leaderboard 1" on their profile if they were unranked (hadn't played 5 ranked games in the previous 5 days). Gameplay · Reduced Winter Wyvern’s Winter's Curse cost 5 -> 4. · Reduced Mirana’s Sacred Arrow mana c…
Gameplay · Damage reduction now applies when a unit is hittin’ itself. · Increased Enchantress health 4 -> 5. · Decreased Bloodseeker stats 5/6 -> 3/5. Decreased Exsanguinate mana cost 4 -> 3. · Increased Storm Spirit’s Ball Lightning mana cost 1 -> 2, and only has Quickcast if the caster lands in a previously empty slot. · Increased Storm Spirit’s Static Remnant damage 1 -> 2. · Tidehunter’s G…
Gameplay · Attacking for X battle damage counts as a battle (e.g. interacts with Legion Commander's Moment of Courage and Mjollnir). · Repeated cards now show it in the repeated card's text. · Glossary entry for Repeated now states that Repeated cards do not trigger abilities. Bugs · Mazzie's Mazer Beam MK-179 no longer disarms permanently. · Clear the Deck no longer effectively gives quickstri…
General · Fixed private lobby constructed giving you a random deck rather than the one you selected. · Changed private lobby hero draft to use all unlocked cards rather than just the unlock order 0 cards. · Various localization updates.
General · Added a matchmaking queue for playing Constructed against human opponents. · Added six basic pre-constructed decks comprised of only unlock tier 0 cards to the deck loader. UI · Standardized the UI flow for playing against bots and humans. · Ability flyouts for heroes that have been deployed to a lane, but not yet committed, are now accessed by a click rather than a hover. · When clic…
We heard a lot of feedback from all corners of the Artifact community about which areas of the game we need to work on in terms of adding more game modes. We heard from players newer to the genre that they wanted a more detailed introduction to the game in the form of a tutorial and expanded introductory campaigns. We heard from players experienced with deckbuilding that they would like a bette…
Gameplay · Removed Golden Ticket from the pool of possible items that resolving a Golden Ticket can give you. · Main Gauche changed to a 15 gold armor item: +2 Armor. Equipped hero has +2 Attack per empty item slot. · New item: Strength Potion Twin Pack, 10 gold: Give a unit +3 Attack for two rounds and heal it 2. When you buy Strength Potion Twin Pack, get another one. · Storm Spirit’s Attack…
Matchmaking The raw elo rating of players in the beta spans a range of about 1100 points, indicating a top player would win 95% of their Hero Draft games in the absence of any matchmaking. We've been tightening matchmaking parameters to increase match quality. Over 80% of matches are being made within 10 seconds, so this patch tightens the matchmaking parameters further. Additionally, we've add…
Gameplay · Dragon Knight stats changed to 3/5. Dragon Form changed to “Transform into a Dragon for two rounds. While in Dragon form, Dragon Knight has +2 Attack, +2 Cleave, deals +2 damage to towers, and the first time it deals battle damage to each tower or unit, gives them +2 Decay for two rounds. This effect cannot be purged.” · Necrophos’ Reaper's Scythe requires that the unit actually be d…
Card Text · Moment of Courage clarified to indicate that Legion Commander must survive combat. · Objective Vision text clarified to indicate its effect is based on the hero's maximum health. · Veteran's Insight text clarified to indicate that its effect triggers on battle damage to units, rather than any battle damage. Gameplay · Reflected damage of all kinds does not count as battle damage. ·…
Item Survey The results are in for the second item survey! The biggest losers were Hero’s Cape, Guardian Greaves, Holy Locket, Spirit Vessel, Vladimir’s Offering, and Radiance. Aside from Radiance, these items all have a very heavy protective angle that sometimes overshadows their other value, and they mostly don’t seem worth their gold cost overall. It seems like they could all be tweaked a bi…
Card Text · Added Break to the glossary. · Updated Keenfolk Golem text to say that it doesn't discard your whole hand. Gameplay · Plans Within Plans attack buff reduced to 1 round duration. · Wildwing Bait now starts with 3 charges and uses a charge each time a Wildwing replaces a Melee Creep. · Ventiloquy causes taunted units to deal 1 battle damage to their new target. · Tidehunter replaces K…
Item Survey 1 Results The most popular items overall in the survey were Blink Dagger, Phase Boots, and Force Staff, which did well in all categories. These are all items that provide mobility and have a strong Dota identity. Mobility items dominating the list matches our belief that we haven't quite reached the right amount of that mechanic in the game yet. The biggest losers were Claszureme Ho…
Hero Draft and Random 2-Color · Added a synergy system to the deck generator that generates decks where more of the cards work well together. UI · The courier is no longer referred to as a Tower Enchantment when you hover it on the board. · Trample now displays as a status effect on cards in play. Gameplay · Devour no longer consumes stats granted by Auras. · Arc Bolt deals 1 more damage. · Res…
Blue Hero Survey Results Blue heroes overall were less exciting for players to pick than the other colors. This matches the data we see in hero draft, where blue underperforms compared to the other colors. In addition to working on overall misses, we will be making a pass on some of the less effective supporting blue cards to make the color work better in hero draft overall. Venomancer could st…
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Announcements are the developer’s own posts to the game’s Steam news feed: updates and their patch notes, in-game events, releases and sales. The important ones are marked on the players chart.