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Hydra Update FAQ

Hydra Update FAQ

Hello, Raiders!

We know many of you have asked for clarification about the balance changes coming to the Hydra, Shield buffs, and Trunda Giltmallet. In response, our Community Managers have gathered up some of the most frequently asked questions and passed them to our development team, so you can get answers directly from them. We’ve compiled all their answers in a comprehensive Hydra Balance Update FAQ! Check it out! 

  • Hydra just seems to become a harder boss for everyone, especially due to the modified Devouring mechanic, 100% DMG decrease for the [Serpent's Will], and limited HP bar for Hydra heads. Why did you decide to increase the level of difficulty? - These changes are intended, first and foremost, to cap the performance of teams that endure very long battles by abusing specific Hydra vulnerabilities, especially by decapitating new heads as soon as they grow back. Also, we intended the battles to finish with all the Champions either dead or devoured instead of reaching the turn limit. Thus, avoiding Champion devouring becomes increasingly more difficult. By the way, the limited HP bar for an exposed neck creates a good opportunity for Champions whose DMG scales up based on the enemy's Max HP.
  • My modest Hydra teams might be severely affected. Will I be able to achieve even minimal Hydra rewards? - The changes are specifically designed to cap immense amounts of damage certain teams dealt by far surpassing 100 turns, roughly speaking. It is the competitive aspect of Hydra Clash that we aspire to make fairer with these rebalances. If your team manages to deal enough damage for a certain Chest, we expect it to continue doing so with minimal adjustments.
  • Why not just nerfing one single specific Champion instead? -  We consider the issue of overpowered Hydra teams a complex one. By changing the boss's mechanics, we want to prevent new overpowered teams from appearing in the future. We aim for a better balance in this game mode in the long term.
  • Will Trunda become useless? - We want Trunda to remain a good and useful Champion, but at the same time, we want to bring her damage output against Hydra in line with that of other Champions.
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  • Why change Shields? - We think that infinite Shields bring imbalance to the battle gameplay to such a degree that some cap is necessary. Still, we decided on a cap that would allow Wixwell to shine when fighting Demon Lord. However, we will be closely monitoring in case the Shield cap or any other change listed here needs any adjustments.
  • Why Change the way Taunt interacts with Mark of the Hydra? - As is briefly mentioned above, we intended Hydra battles to finish with all the Champions either dead or devoured instead of reaching the turn limit. That is why, for considerations of consistency, we are going to change the interaction between Taunt and Mark of the Hydra and also to make sure there are no specific strategies that provide a large advantage over the others or pave the way for abusing Hydra mechanics.
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  • We might need to readjust some gear on our Champions after the rebalance goes live on October 16. Will there be anything to help us with it? - Yes, we decided to reschedule this month's Free gear removal event to October 16-20 so that you will have an easier time tweaking your Hydra teams, if necessary.
  • Will you reset Badge achievements after the rebalance is activated? - No, all your badges and achievements will remain in place.
  • Will there be changes to milestones for Hydra Chests or Hydra Clash Chests? - Most of the changes are designed to make a larger impact on the later stages of a battle, so it is scoring hundreds of millions of damage that is going to become more challenging. We expect that securing Hydra and Hydra Clash chests won't become considerably harder for those who have already been able to earn them. However, we are ready to reconsider Hydra Clash point multipliers if necessary.
  • Will the excessive damage dealt to an exposed neck count toward the total score? - Yes, if you manage to deal more damage to an exposed neck than it has HP in one blow, all the damage will count toward the total score.
  • In light of new changes, some players think Trunda will remain overpowered. Alternatively, others presume she will become nearly useless. What fate awaits Trunda, actually? - We never wanted to make Trunda irrelevant, but instead, we wanted to make her DMG capabilities correspond to those of other Champions across the board. For instance, we expect her A3 to become more relevant against Hydra due to HP burn, not dependent on Stun, and also in PvP due to an increased effectiveness against Stone Skin. If her damage is still far beyond the reach of any other champion, we will take further action to rebalance her.
  • Will the rebalanced [Serpent's will] with 100% DMG reduction make it harder to cease devouring a Champion by a newly grown Head, especially considering that devouring becomes increasingly more difficult to stop over the course of battle? - No. The [Serpent's will] buff lasts only one turn, and swallowing a Champion requires the Head to make a turn, after which it loses the protection of the [Serpent's will].
  • If two new Hydra Heads appear at once, only one receives the [Serpent's will] buff. But what if I manage to kill more Heads at the same time? - If you cut down 3 exposed necks at a time, 2 of the 3 new Heads will have the [Serpent's will] buffs. If you dispose of 4 necks at once, still only 2 of the new Heads will have the [Serpent's will] buffs. If you kill exposed necks one by one, this rule doesn't apply, and they might all end up with the [Serpent's will] buffs. However, we expect that facing all the 4 heads at once with the buffs will be a rare occasion.

The mentioned rebalances will be applied starting from the next Hydra rotation on October 16.

Thank you for taking a look! We hope that the introduced changes will make Hydra a fair mode in the long run. However, we are ready to consider further tweaks if necessary.

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Comments
108
Oct 11, 2024, 15:0910/11/24
Oct 11, 2024, 21:3610/11/24
01/27/21
293

Wow, you guys obviously have never played the game.  Every single one of these changes hurts the low to mid spenders who are working their way up through hydra.  Of course they aren't going to make the milestones anymore if they were barely doing it before.  It is only the most endgame of endgame folks who have multiple dps champs in there.  Most people struggling up through hydra build a team that can survive 1500 turns first and barely makes it by on dps with a burn champ and some other damage dealer who has some sort of other utility.  You are just telling most people who play the game that you have made this way harder instead of lowering the barrier for entry.  Why not just have a new difficulty where you threw all of these terrible changes?  Give it 50x hydra clash points and all of the folks you claim to be targeting will do it.  And all of the other players won't be screwed beyond belief by these horrendous changes.

Oct 14, 2024, 09:2810/14/24
09/09/20
28

..... I will "keep my French", but will tell you... with all these "for your good" mess, you could simply have said: "Give me more money..."


I doubt that majority of the players could barely reach the so called "exploits" of the Hydra and make tens of billions of damage for the clash...


A simple solution would be to fix your team matching algorythms to put "crazy powered teams" WITH DEEP CREDIT CARDS, your main aim ;), in same groups.

Thus, whoever wants to compete and measure their "cards" ;) they can please their egoes as much as they can...

But NO, with your "for your good" updates you had to mess up the game one more time and make it more demanding and expensive to regular users...


Just keep in mind that "no good, comes with good intentions"... :/

Oct 14, 2024, 11:2310/14/24
Oct 14, 2024, 11:24(edited)
02/20/22
2

Trunda is a bad hero. She hits an unrealistically high amount of damage, so we need to cut her damage. But we released a new hero who will be better than Trunda. Why do you release heroes who do this unreal damage?

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Oct 14, 2024, 11:2710/14/24
01/31/20
1

We don't need more Information about your mess Update. The only thing we need is more Information if you REVERT these changes or not. If you don't you loose players and if you revert these changes the Playerbase will see your good will. NOTHING MORE.

Oct 14, 2024, 11:3810/14/24
Oct 15, 2024, 07:30(edited)
12/18/22
2

@Olenka   

First plarium promotes this AMAZING event for us. Now this event allows us (the players) to decide this champion (wixwell) skills. SO we all do the thing and play along with the event. THEN they tell us that this cool champion is a fusion (not an easy fusion for most players), So we go for the fusion cause of the buildup for this cool champ we got to choose the skills for. 


THEN plarium releases another event where we get a chance at wixwells 5 star soul and a LOT of us do this (including myself). These 2 "events"  take a lot of resources time, and money from players.


THEN plarium releases another fusion for a champ (Shy ek) that just so happens to work hand in hand in a good wixwell comp because he does a 2 turn taunt on a 3 turn cooldown.  So...we go for that because we see the success that content creators are having on the test server with this team.


THEN plarium just so happens to randomly release a post updating us about how this taunt buff is working exactly as intended and that they have NO PLANS to change it at all.


So we all go ahead and book and level these champions using a ton of resources. We ALSO level up other vaulted champions and book them because they finally have a use in this wixwell comp. 


Once plariums analytics tells them that most of us collectivey have put millions of dollars of resources into this whole thing along with 10s and 100s of hours building and playing these teams is when they decide to pull the rug out from under our feet. 


This is just ONE of the many aspects of the MANY changes plarium are making to hydra.


But don't you worry. plarium will sell us a solution for the new hydra puzzle next month anyway. 


Also...Those who have Trunda, double yumeko teams will likely still come out on top in hydra. This just eludes to 1 thing only and that thing sure isnt to improve the economy of the game from a players perspective. Noone was complaining about taunt and wixwell shield. Everyone has complained about Trunda though.


Dear Plarium: @plarium @Olenka

This is how you lose the trust of your players. Please stop doing these types of things. You cant just keep releasing better champions and than decide to randomly move the goal posts as a "fix" after we spend our hard earned money and time chasing these champions. It leaves a really bad taste in everyones mouths. 

btw. I myself wont be happy and comfortable enough to start spending again till I start pulling the meta champions again. Its been a while. That Ieyaso guy and Krixia chick look pretty cool. :) Just sayin. AND to add on to that.....Maybe 2000 accessory and artifact spaces would calm us down and bring spenders back. WAY too many 9 piece sets for the little room we have. If we have no room for artifacts then most of us wont spend on energy to get new artifacts Especailly if we do NOT have space for new artifacts. When you take you gotta give, My friends at Plarium. I would for SURE start spending again with these things happening. again...Just sayin.

P.S. I went from spending thousand and thousands and thousands with an absolute MINIMUM of $1k a month like clockwork to maybe spending $250-$300 a month and that number is honestly getting lower. Go look at my account statistics. If you want guys like myself to start spending big again you gotta go back to how things were and make changes that benefit the players. I like the game. But not half as much as I used to and your making it really easy for us to NOT spend money. 




Oct 14, 2024, 11:4810/14/24
06/25/19
1

This is an unnecessary, overly complicated "fix" that has gone way too far. Please watch Tyraku's video on how all you had to do was change the way hydra clash was scored which would solve the issue.  A simple solution that doesn't piss off your player base.  It's as if you feed off making the player base angry.  It's in bad taste and makes people quit or stop spending  money.  The decision making is so bizarre and I can't imagine why such poor decisions are being implemented.  I've never seen anything like this and it's quite shocking.  

Oct 14, 2024, 11:5610/14/24
02/09/21
4

I know I'm not going to be like after what I say but it's only fair I hear everyone always talking about trunda damage is too high she's too powerful for Hydra well in my opinion the Nerf was not needed currently right now that are going to be new meta champs to take the shine away from trunda and they are teox,toshiro, and onryo I'm going to be completely honest this new rework to Hydra shield and trunda is only going to hurt the f2p all the way to mid game so I have told my clan I'm done with Hydra there's no point of me always trying to build a very powerful team if every time I get so close you guys take it away this is going to hurt a lot of players especially those that put in a lot of time and effort of grinding gear grinding sand devil grinding Shogun honestly I wouldn't be mad if I had either one of the three new damage dealers or all of them but I guarantee by the time I do get them they will probably be some new and stronger damage dealers and by the time I can get my hands on them they will probably get reworked or rebalanced or nerfed because plarium decided that they are just too strong......... But yeah at the end of the day they don't want to see the f2p to mid-game players succeed without opening their wallets like the whales and krakens do even though I'm pretty sure the majority of their player base is nothing but free to play no I hope this works out for them but I'm done with Hydra at this point I'm just going to go as high as minimum chest and then I'm done

Oct 14, 2024, 12:2010/14/24
12/24/20
2

really hate this game

Oct 14, 2024, 12:3210/14/24
05/01/23
4

Plarium, if your shield modifications make my CB UNM 1 key team fail, I will quit the game. 

I am a paying customer, I buy some things in the game.

I invested time and resourced specifically for that team. Your fix makes me feel cheated. This is a line I won't tolerate

Oct 14, 2024, 13:1310/14/24
02/09/21
4
gjosephyu

really hate this game

You're not wrong it is getting to that point to where I hate this game too everytime I spent countless hours farming gear farming accessories ascending gear just finally be able to get somewhere in this game and then they slap Us in the face and say NOPE..... Another thing I really don't understand is why just Nerf trunda and wixwell they're not really doing anything to the other champions that just got released probably because the only people that have those are most likely spenders and you know how they think they don't want to upset the spenders and run them off

Oct 14, 2024, 13:1610/14/24
02/09/21
4
jp-tm

Plarium, if your shield modifications make my CB UNM 1 key team fail, I will quit the game. 

I am a paying customer, I buy some things in the game.

I invested time and resourced specifically for that team. Your fix makes me feel cheated. This is a line I won't tolerate

Honestly if you think about it I don't think this patch was actually meant towards spenders really it was mostly meant to hurt free to play players that's just how I see it even though they were the ones who stated taunt is there to work as intended to keep your champions from being devoured oh it's working too well let's get rid of that shield teams let's get rid of that powerful nukers let's get rid of the one that 70% of the players own and not touch the ones that are new that most likely only about 10% of players own

Oct 14, 2024, 13:2910/14/24
07/27/21
1

You should have "fixed" trunda when you "fixed" madman. Exploit of shield growth is on you and i cant understand why you didnt see that one coming after the last time with cadaver - since we sure did. Taunt on its own was never a viable strat outside of onekey hydra and never too impactfull on the clash so its a pointless move removing it. hopefully you bring that back.  Two final comment before i go and do something else: offer a way where we that are affected by this can get some resources back -i have 6 champs i built only for hydra and i dont care for em any place else in this game - i dont like em and i regret building em so a way to "unbook" or get my masteries back in gems would be a compromise i could accept personally - rebalance all the blessings so that the blessings "made for hydra" actually is a viable option in hydra. <3 

Oct 14, 2024, 13:5210/14/24
10/22/22
1

Zero people like what you are doing to the game.  I wish i never invested any time or money into this game. 

Taking away the things people have paid for is called theft isnt it. 

You sell things to us based on an idea, that you then change later saying you as a company never actually wanted that idea, that we just advertised and sold as the thing needed for said idea, so for our good (the players) we are taking them away. But heres the next thing you need that we are definately not going to take away....


You guys are doing this on purpose aren"t you? It has to be some kind of business model that is making us all suckers.

Im never spending on this again. Wish i never had to begin with. And i would quit if i didn't have so much invested.

I bet theres an overwhelming number of players who feel this way, and that's a disgusting feeling when its just supposed to be a game.

Oct 14, 2024, 13:5810/14/24
12/30/21
3

GoodWoWow, so tonuch a tone deaf reply.FAQ. ItsI wish you guys lckluck maintaining a player base when you go out of your way to do things like this.



Oct 14, 2024, 14:4110/14/24
04/16/22
1
Pharmer

Zero people like what you are doing to the game.  I wish i never invested any time or money into this game. 

Taking away the things people have paid for is called theft isnt it. 

You sell things to us based on an idea, that you then change later saying you as a company never actually wanted that idea, that we just advertised and sold as the thing needed for said idea, so for our good (the players) we are taking them away. But heres the next thing you need that we are definately not going to take away....


You guys are doing this on purpose aren"t you? It has to be some kind of business model that is making us all suckers.

Im never spending on this again. Wish i never had to begin with. And i would quit if i didn't have so much invested.

I bet theres an overwhelming number of players who feel this way, and that's a disgusting feeling when its just supposed to be a game.

And i would quit if i didn't have so much invested.  This is how a lot of people seem think and part of the reason they get away with pissing off the player base, again, again and again...

Oct 14, 2024, 14:4610/14/24
1

Not happy , struggling to even play raid right now I am that unhappy , you get us to work on 3 fusion toons with blessings , masteries , gear , enchants , ascensions , dust used , energy , elixirs , brews , gems and kegs . For those characters to have absolutely no function whatsoever . 

What would anyone want from Shyrek Wixwell or Emic right now ? Trunda is a random drop from a sacred shard not everyone has her , she gets a rework , but everyone who wanted , could of put the work in to get the above toons , now you have broken them that they do not function that they would have had . I want you to realise the effort put into getting those toons and getting them ready for hydra which is their only function and then you take that away . What is your plan for these toons ? 

The reason I am struggling to play is when is your next fusion toon nerf coming through ? What is to stop you from nerfing every single one ? Nothing , and we get nothing from you in the way of recompense or apology , not even a " we are working on fixing them , eventually , maybe" . You ask us to value your time and effort when you do not value ours . 

Oct 14, 2024, 15:1610/14/24
01/02/24
1

this is the most ridiculous update. I'm a player that just got to the point of almost reaching maximum turns. And I dont come close to the kinds of damage other teams do. I'll play but def no more spending for me. thank you.  Ill spend my money elsewhere. 

Oct 14, 2024, 15:4910/14/24
Oct 14, 2024, 17:12(edited)
01/02/20
2

You guys said it all , i can just agree and say , i quit before , and im thinking to quit again with all this bs..


haha , next update , kill all unkillable teams hahaha,.... kidding, i hope

Oct 14, 2024, 15:5010/14/24
12/23/21
1

I spent thousands of dollars to build up my champions like Trunda so I could maybe get into tier 1 of hydra and now not only are you nurfing her your making it harder to play hydra. I will not spend another dime on this game if you just waste my money. This is greed plain and simple. Who cares if these whales can play their teams forever what does it do??  Nothing!!! it is an excuse and everyone knows it. I am done with this. Seriously your losing my money.

Oct 14, 2024, 15:5110/14/24
Oct 14, 2024, 15:52(edited)
04/15/22
20

Such a witches brew of PR-Nightmare.

First off, the ONLY thing you needed to do was finally code Trundas A2 the way it is written, and then reword Yumeko's A3 to say "Will not decrease the cooldowns of any Yumeko skills".  Boom! In two short strokes, THE ONLY team that exponentially beats any other teams gets it just rewards.

Take the damage packet going out to the target after calculation from the initial hit, copy it to a new variable, multiply it by 0.6 and assign that damage to the other enemies.  NOT start another calculation stream at a 60% of the original target damage, then re-add the A2 damage multiplier, Crit damage % and decapitation bonus again.

Ensure Yumeko doesn't reset any Yumeko, regardless how many there are.

That's ALL you needed to do.

But you can't do that, because whales and krakens would leave en masse.  That's why The Supreme Club exists: so that whales and krakens have someone personal to bitch to when you thwart their plans, so that representative can enact damage control.

So what you do instead is implement another overly-complicated system that doesn't really address the real issue.  Yumeko's blatant flaw is ignored.  Trunda's blatant flaw is only 1/3 addressed.  Her A2 STILL gets the recalc, except the Crit Damage % is now not multiplied in.  You did remove the ability to chain-decapitate, so that will thwart her, And Anyone Else, but she will still dominate the upheavaled playing field, because her true issue was not fixed.

Which brings me to my next point: the upheavaled playing field.  What good do these changes do to the Trunda team that's the issue, when you pushed back the average player by an order of magnitude?  Lengthier devour-damage requirement, no-damage-spawn-time hurts everyone.  Nerfing Wixwell, Emic, Shy'ek (and effectively Nia and Anchorite too), removes the major teams that had a chance to oppose a janky Trunda team.  NO TEAM opposes a well-crafted and tuned Trunda team.  So basically you said, "Ok, we'll rework Trunda, but don't worry, she will still dominate and everyone else will still be far behind you.  Now, no cheese team will stand in your way, you will still have smooth sailing to first place in Hydra Clash."

Then there's the nerf to the Community-created Fusion Champ.  THIS is a PR-Nightmare for the ages, and it helps solidify the main issue of the game;  Plarium does not playtest sufficiently, sometimes, not at all.  Making it worse, Plarium doesn't whiteboard end-cases enough either.  You KNEW Brogni could do amazing things with shields, and Wixwell was just a diffferent flavor to that.  You really couldn't extrapolate just how large Wixwell's shield could get?  Seriously?  How hard was it to create an initial Wixwell team and test it in first UNM Clan Boss and then Hydra.  My first draft of a Wixwell team doubled my previous UNM high score, which took ages as it was a finely-tuned Myth-Heir team, that still had a chance to mess up against Magic UNM CB.  It wasn't that hard to create!  How could you NOT see this coming during development?  Either A) you didn't care or B) you don't let the high-score accounts playtest for you.  I'm a software developer; I know what Test-Driven Development does and how it works.  I've done enough regression-testing for one life.  Whatever Plarium management thinks is testing amounts to: "Did it crash?  No?  Ship it."

Basically, I have two days to figure out how to get the Hydra avatar frame, otherwise that will elude me for the forseeable future.  Plarium has made this game a part-time job where you can't trust the Boss anymore.  With their PR-Nightmares, it's only a matter of time people jump to games crafted by gamers, like Godforge, not greedy accountants.