Party Up (New Feature)
- Squad up with friends. Create a party of up to 3 players from the main menu — the leader gets a 6-character party code, friends punch it in to join.
- The party sticks together across matches: queue as a group into 3v3, land on the same team (opponents fill the other side), and regroup automatically in the party lobby after each match instead of disconnecting.
- The leader drives: they pick the mode and confirm the queue; members' confirm unlocks once the leader is ready, and if the leader backs out, the whole party returns to the lobby together.
- Party codes are separate from friend match codes — you can still use a friend code to matchmake against a friend without forming a party.
Bots Are Now Bot Sages
- Bots play the game the way players do. Every bot is now a real sage with a class, a coven, a gamertag-style name, and a working spell kit — all 15 sages have bot kits (demo/limited editions field the base six, matching the player roster in those builds).
- No duplicate sages on a team — classes are drawn per-team without replacement, so lineups read like real ones.
- Bot sages fight with personality: individual aggression and roaming tendencies, combat strafing, priority dashes to evade or close gaps, health-potion runs when wounded, team-colored outlines, and mode-aware objective play (Nomad's Relic, Shattered Legacy, Idol Curse, Soul Chaser).
Rewards Rework
- The gacha is gone. Pull tokens and random banner/amulet pulls have been removed entirely.
- Banners and amulets now unlock two ways: reach the required level, or buy them outright in the shop for gold at a fixed price — no more luck involved. Amulet tiles show a dedicated gold-price line alongside the level requirement.
- Battle pass expanded to ~100 tiers, covering all 15 sages with rebalanced rewards across the track.
- The daily-rewards claim icon now also lights up when battle pass tiers are ready to claim, so nothing sits unclaimed.
Training Revamp
- Guided training completely rebuilt. The old RiftWalker dummies are gone — real sage bots now spawn on the enemy team while the tutorial runs, creating an actual sense of danger. Both guided and open training now field a fixed squad of 3 enemy bots, matching a real 3v3.
- Curated training rosters. Training enemies are always Pyromystic, Frostbinder, and Veil Whisperer (one of each). Your teammates in the finale are always Terramancer, Aetherweaver, and Penny.
- Training bots are sparring partners, not opponents. In training they wander the grounds instead of running objectives, never touch or harness the relic, only engage when you come close (~9m), and give up the chase when you back off. All training bots deal reduced damage.
- Relic is locked until it's time. In guided training the relic accepts no progress until the tutorial reaches the "charge the relic" step — then harvesting runs ~6× faster so the final step doesn't drag.
- Post-training finale. After completing all prompts and charging the relic, players get a congratulation, a call to battle, and drop straight into the final round of a real bot-filled Nomad's Relic 3v3 in Crystal Cavern — then round summary, match summary, and back to the main menu.
Bots — Spell Overhaul
A full audit compared every bot spell against its player version. Bot casts now look and behave like the real thing:
- Bots now fly. Malglimmer's Fae's Wrath lifts her into the air, raining ~2 lightning strikes per second on random nearby enemies (allies caught in a strike are healed — previously she wrongly healed herself). Atalia's Vortex Slam is a true leap: spring up, fire the apex arrow volley, slam down. Spiritbound gains Eagle Eye: takeoff, glide to the target, and a diving slam that stuns.
- Rift Walker bots now use the real player kit — Reality Warp (chaining blink), Dimensional Anchor (pull zone), Echo Self (hunting clones that detonate), and Quantum Entanglement (vacuuming rifts). The two legacy bot-only spells were removed.
- New defensive tools: Terramancer bots raise a blocking Stone Wall and summon two Stone Skin earth-golem bodyguards; Frostbinder bots chain up a three-segment Glacial Barrier, raised in sequence like the player cast.
- Signature mechanics restored across the board: Inferno Surge's 3-second burn, Dark Bolt's rot, Blizzard's per-tick knockback and freeze, Death Grip's team lifesteal and whiff shards, Marking Arrow's 3-stack ×10 pop, Predator's Snare as a real planted trap, Phantom Strike's 3-second pull-and-blind collapse, Realm Corruption's silence + airborne suspension, Tornado Fury's knock-up (now 5 tornadoes), Hexweaver's Cursed Earth painting six cursed tile patches, Hex Bags that actually fly and stick to the victim, and Fae Nightmare's three seeking blasts (new to the Malglimmer bot).
- Support bots got honest: Penny's Vitality Brew is a visible homing potion with an AoE heal, her Blast Flask is a persistent zone at her feet, Healing Wind is a real channeled cone that heals allies and knocks back enemies, and Sigil's Might heals and buffs allies in the ring (radius corrected 5 → 10, knockback removed to match the player version).
- Wrong visuals fixed: Soul Drain, Warden's Surge, Void-era rift effects, Water Serpent and Hex Bag detonations, and Astral Pulse no longer borrow other spells' prefabs.
Combat Fixes
- Every player spell verified against bots. A dozen player abilities (tornadoes, fire trails, vines, golems, barriers, rifts, portals, and more) that previously passed through bots now damage them correctly.
- Spirit Exile, Astral Pulse, and several other AoEs had misfiring bot-damage calls fixed along the way.
- Matchmaking & Lobby
- Realm voting now fast-forwards. When every player in the lobby has voted for a realm, the countdown compresses to 3 seconds — matching the existing enhancement-vote behavior.
UI & UX
- Spell cards show their type again. The C / L / A / P (Close, Long, AoE, Projectile) letters on spell cards were stuck showing "P" for everything; they now update correctly per class and after class changes.
- Series summary XP recap: press any button. The clickable Skip button is now a prompt — "Press any button to skip", then "Press any button to close" — and any keyboard key, gamepad button, or mouse click works.
- Owned shop amulets no longer display "Owned" text, matching pre-owned amulets.
Combat Fixes
- Every player spell verified against bots — a dozen abilities (tornadoes, fire trails, vines, golems, barriers, rifts, portals, and more) that previously passed through bots now damage them correctly.
- Several AoEs (Spirit Exile, Astral Pulse, and others) had misfiring bot-damage calls fixed.
Matchmaking & Lobby
- Realm voting fast-forwards: once every player has voted for a realm, the countdown compresses to 3 seconds — same as enhancement voting.