The Year of the Player Update #5 - Timer Missions and Tower Transformation
Quality of Life Improvements and More!
Greetings, Dragon Lords!
This month, we wanted to shine a spotlight on our development initiatives as we plan out the remainder of the Year of the Player. While some exciting updates are already planned to come out this week, let’s take a look at the road ahead and what you can expect to arrive in War Dragons. Read on for all the details!
Improvements to Date (as of 9/24/19)
Between these Year of the Player (YotP) Updates, we’ve introduced a variety of additional features and perks that can be seen below:
Bug Fixes (from 5.05)
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Fixed an issue in the tutorial where the arrow prompting a user to collect egg fragments would disappear if the camera panned to a different section of the screen.
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Fixed an issue with the equipped filter not properly showing the runes according to the description displayed to a player. For monuments, the filter will only show those runes equipped to monuments while the Rune Vault will show all equipped runes, both those on Dragons and Monuments.
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Fixed an issue where Mind-Controlled Towers, from Whispers of Madness, would not always attack other towers when using a form of cloak.
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Fixed an issue where Swarm Strike’s spell icon would flicker or the duration/cooldown timer would reset when using multiple of Orthoptar’s primary spells.
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Fixed an issue where Healing Mark would re-enable a spell taken from an Essence-based spell, such as Leech, as well as the primary spell. For example, this would affect a dragon which equipped a Chain Lightning spell consumable and has Healing Mark and an Essence Spell as a primary spell.
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[Atlas] The delayed improvements around the waypoint system to reduce “Failed to add waypoint” errors that was set to release in 5.04 were released here.
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Fixed an issue where Tier names in Breeder Missions were not showing correctly in several different languages.
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Fixed an issue where the Resource Bars would not update the progress towards full automatically.
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Made adjustments to left-handed mode. Players will now see the health bar on the left hand side of the screen and the flames/destruction counter on the right-hand side.
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Fixed an issue where the order of defense consumables moved around.
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Fixed an issue where the elements of the Gear Forge were overlapping with one another.
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Fixed an issue where Breeder Missions were not correctly populating when viewing from the Attack Screen.
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Fixed an issue where text in the Boosts menu was not legible.
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Fixed an issue where the PvP menu would overlap with the Dragon Consumable equip menu.
Quality of Life Improvements
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Sheep Farm Production Update: The production amount of Sheep Farms have increased for tower level 86 - 90, and these changes have applied to any towers from levels 86 - 90 that have already been built. Previously, production of Sheep Farms was capped beginning at level 85. Dragons continue to increase in their hunger for food as they level up, so the Sheep Farms will now produce more food to accommodate your hungry fliers. For more information and details on these changes, check out the 5.05 Release Notes!
Improvements Today and Beyond
Take a look at what’s to come in War Dragons!
Timer Missions
Timer Missions have been talked about and confirmed as an upcoming feature for Dragons in Forums posts and other announcements. Now that we are in the final stages of this feature’s development, it’s time to shine the spotlight on its functionality and benefits! Read on below for more information about Timer Missions.
Beta Period
During the Withermoon season, we’re pleased to be launching a beta test for the new Timer Missions feature! We’ve heard your feedback about avoiding A/B split tests for income-related features, so we’ll be doing this as a limited-time beta accessible to everyone above player level 50.
The Timer Missions beta will be enabled by way of a Seasonal branch released partway through the Withermoon Season, which we’re currently anticipating to be by mid-October. The first prize of the branch will be free to claim and enables the beta for your account. Further prizes will require Withermoon Sigils and allow for claiming mission reward multipliers in a similar fashion to the Egg Token Bonus Branch for Breeder Missions. Since this branch is launching mid-Season, the Sigil costs of the additional bonuses in the Timer branch will be discounted for the remaining time in the Season when the beta period begins.
Since we’re not running a smaller A/B test of this feature beforehand, we plan to evaluate how the feature is received at the end of the Withermoon season and determine whether any further adjustments to Timer Missions are necessary at that time.
An example of the new Timer Missions feature in the Zeppelin Balloon at the Green Tier.
How it Works
Timer Missions allow players to toggle any Zeppelin Balloon mission’s rewards freely between Breeding Tokens and Timers. Each of the 3 missions can be toggled independently. Whichever setting is in place at the time the mission is completed will determine the reward received. Timer rewards will be granted as a set of individual timers that add up to the appropriate value. Mission cooldowns and expedite costs will work exactly as they do today and will belong to the mission, regardless of which reward is chosen.
Beta Period Balloon Mission Rewards
| Cooldown Time | Breeder Token Reward | TImer Reward |
| 1 Hour Mission | 20 Breeding Tokens | 60 Minutes |
| 4 Hour Mission | 40 Breeding Tokens | 120 Minutes |
| 20 Hour Mission | 80 Breeding Tokens | 240 Minutes |
Additional multipliers are available for Timer Missions in the same way as they are for Breeder Missions.
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Elite accounts provide a 2x bonus
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Balloon upgrades provide up to a 1.7x bonus at Abyssal Tier
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Seasonal Timer Mission Branch bonuses will be available, as well!
These bonuses stack multiplicatively on top of each other to generate increasingly better returns!
An example of the new Timer Missions feature in the Zeppelin Balloon at the Green Tier.
When It’s Live
As mentioned above, we are currently aiming for Timer Missions and the subsequent Seasonal Timer Bonus branch to be available around mid-October 2019 in War Dragons. We’ll include more details about its release date in the next major update’s Release Notes on the Forums.
Tower Transformation
The long-awaited ability to transform towers is coming to War Dragons! As new tower types are released over time, we recognize that players are often faced with a dilemma whether it’s worth continuing to invest in older towers or to transition to building a newer tower type from scratch. Players want the ability to experiment with different types of defense, as well as to convert the older towers on their base or in their storage into progress towards a current, effective base. Tower Transformation will be a feature that can merge unused or unwanted towers into new towers or tower levels for other existing towers.
The Tower Transformation feature will launch as a future beta program, and we’re working hard to try to have it in your hands before the end of 2019. We plan to offer options for converting a single existing tower to a different type, as well as for merging multiple towers into bonus levels for another existing tower. As a basic summary, this works by taking a percentage of each transformed or merged tower’s value and applying it towards the value of the new tower being built or improved.
We look forward to providing more details and a more precise timeline as we get closer to completing the development process, and we hope that you’re as excited about using Transformation as we are to be building it!
Tower Stats Updates
In recent conversations, we have heard a concern from players that the effectiveness of high-level defensive towers is insufficient compared to the best offensive Dragons, especially as new Dragons and Tiers release. Based on this feedback, we have continued to work with the Gameplay Faction to decide what the correct percentage increase to high-level tower power should be.
We are currently testing tower buffs between 2% - 18% across tower levels 76 - 84, and 20% for tower levels 85 - 90 with the GPF. Once we’re sure the tower changes feel better than where they currently are, these changes will be rolled out as part of a minor update. We are aiming for them to release this week, though this may change depending on the testing process.
Tiered Dragon XP Costs Updates
On the topic of economy, we have discovered that Gold and Platinum Tier XP costs are currently higher than intended, inclusive of the latest Tier-Based Discounting adjustments. We plan to re-adjust these costs to be more in line with their current position in the Dragon collection. This change is planned to roll out this week alongside the tower power changes mentioned above.
Timer Costs of Harbinger + Vanguard Towers
We have identified a particular area where tower traversal costs through tiers in terms of timers is disproportionately difficult for players in the Harbinger and Vanguard Tiers. We intend to smooth out this curve through future Tier-Based Discounting. The plan is to roll out this change prior to when the next Fortification event occurs in October.
Rune Removal
Limited Dragon Rune Removal is also a feature that is slated for release before the end of the year. As more information is ready to be shared, we’ll be sure to post it on the Dragons Blog and provide everyone with the latest information about its release!
The YotP Forums Thread
As more Year of the Player Updates are released, we maintain a living thread on the Forums to provide the latest update and a chronological snapshot of all 2019 improvements. Give the page a bookmark or check back anytime a new YotP releases for the latest information!
Year of the Player - Living Forums Thread
What are your thoughts on the latest Quality of Life updates? Head over to the War Dragons Forums to discussion with fellow Dragon Lords, and give War Dragons a follow on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more news!