2021 Review
Everyone here at Codename continued to deal with the challenges of working during a global pandemic, but through it all, we managed to get most of what we were hoping to do done. Let's look at some of the things we released in Idle Champions in 2021:- Bardic Inspiration Vol 1 & 2
- New Champions
- Trials of Mount Tiamat
- Modron/Multi-Party Fixes
- Idle Champions Presents
- Bug Fixes
Bardic Inspiration Vol 1 and 2
Music got a make-over in Idle Champions in 2021. If you haven't done it yet, click on the Jukebox feature in-game and rock out to the amazing music tracks composed by Jason Charles Miller and you, our awesome community. Bardic Inspiration Volume 1 and 2 were released in 2021 and were an instant hit. Want to help make the next generation of music for the game? Tune into our weekly Bardic Inspiration stream on our Twitch Channel.New Champions
Unlike previous years with a measly seventeen or eighteen Champions added, the past year saw twenty new Champions added to the game, including seventeen event Champions and a record three Evergreen Champions. Let's take a look at some of the highlights:- Hew Maan - A community favorite, while Hew Maan themself might swear they're human, they look an awful lot like three kobolds in a trenchcoat. This unique Champion has cemented themselves in many players' formations as a powerful speed option.
- Shaka - A powerful Champion who rewards players for solving his formation puzzle that changes on every run. This Champion arrived during the Running event and has seen high usage in many players' formations.
- Ellywick - Ellywick Tumblestrum was an exciting crossover Champion from Magic: The Gathering that we were honored to announce to the world in mid-2021. A daring Champion, they risk everything to draw from the Deck of Many Things every 50 areas.
- NERDS - An Evergreen only available through an exciting promotion involving some tasty candy. This was a fun Champion to design, but they aren't super impactful in players' formations (somewhat intentionally, due to their limited availability).
- Reya - The reward for a very challenging variant in the Descent Into Avernus, Reya Mantlemorn is integral to the story of Avernus, and while she may not be integral to many formations yet, her time may still come.
- Xerophon - Xerophon started out their design as a very different Champion, but the one thing they retained is their very wacky ability to transform. Players have had fun transforming Xerophon into all sorts of abnormal creatures. Find them in the Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign.
The Trials of Mount Tiamat
September saw the rollout of a major new feature for Idle Champions: The Trials of Mount Tiamat. This cooperative asynchronous multiplayer adventure is a first for Idle Champions in terms of starting to test the waters of multiplayer. While the system was relatively bug-free (at least compared to last year's Modron Automation/Multi-Party mode), the system is not perfect and there are still a number of issues that will need to be resolved in the future. Look for changes starting soon in 2022.Modron/Multi-Party Fixes
The team made substantial progress this year at addressing some of the more impactful problems players were experiencing. Some of the biggest fixes included establishing instant recall of Champions from other parties and fixing a number of formation-loading issues, including an oft-requested fix for back-filling familiars when the originally saved familiar wasn't available. We also made numerous stability improvements behind the scenes. With these fixes in place and more on the horizon, we're hoping the end is nigh for the beta tag on this system.
Idle Champions Presents
Not to be overlooked, the last quarter of the year saw the release of season two of Idle Champions Presents, our very own table-top D&D game integrated with Idle Champions in such a way that you, our esteemed players, could influence the outcome of the game. It was a wild ride to be sure, as two completely separate teams battled through their own trials of Mount Tiamat in order to banish the dragon queen herself. I won't spoil the ending, but needless to say, things got Epic (and in-game, players were awash in free loot)!Bug Fixes
Efforts were made to renew our focus on bug fixes throughout the year, with additional resources being brought in to help cut down the list. The team meets every monday to go over recent and highly upvoted reports in our online public Bug Tracker, and nearly every patch includes numerous fixes. These efforts will continue into 2022 as we try to strike that balance between creating new and interesting content and ensuring the game works smoothly for the vast majority of players.Looking Forward - 2022 Preview
Right. So. That was 2021. Let's look into our crystal ball for 2022 and see what these next- Additional Modron/Offline Progress Updates
- Updates to the Trials of Mount Tiamat
- Localization
- New Evergreen Champions
- New Stuff?
Additional Modron/Offline Progress Updates
First on our priority list for 2022 is getting Multi-party Offline Progress to a better place. While we made large improvements in 2021, there are still a number of obvious and oft-reported issues that we would like to nail down. Once these issues have been resolved, we are hoping to make some tweaks to the Modron pipe game to further reward fiddling and optimization of those exciting little components.Depending on the success of these fixes and additions, we would like to be able to take the beta tag off of multi-party mode sometime in 2022. Fingers crossed!
Updates to the Trials of Mount Tiamat
Even though the feature was very well received, the Trials of Mount Tiamat needs some love. We have a large list of changes, ranging from small tweaks to complete rebalances, in the pipeline and will hopefully be dolling these changes out over time. We have already started, with a change of the campaign cooldown from 7 to 6 days in order to prevent or at least reduce drifting start times, so you can start a new campaign at roughly the same time every week. Additional changes to the campaign itself and the legendary items that are the fruits of your efforts are coming soon.Localization
Localization will be a big focus for 2022, with translations for the game nearly ready in roughly half a dozen languages. With tens of thousands of strings and hundreds of thousands of words, this has been a huge endeavor for us. Stay tuned for more information about this in the coming weeks and months. Our hope is that this work (it has been a lot of work) will make the game accessible to tons of new players around the world.New Evergreen Champions
In keeping with tradition, several new Evergreen Champions are planned for 2022, with the first coming sooner than you might expect. Evergreen Champions are generally awarded for completing challenging campaign adventure variants, so make sure you're up-to-date in all the permanent campaigns!New Stuff?
New stuff is fun, so this year we're planning some new stuff. While I can't directly speak to the specifics of any of the systems yet, I can talk about some of the goals of the new stuff this year:- Semi-regular rebalances of less popular/underpowered Champions
- Eliminate or mitigate some of the grind of patron challenges
- Add more longer-term goals (and progress bars) to the game
- Some ways for players to more directly compare their formation building expertise
- Offer more rewards for playing regularly (indirectly; not login bonuses)
- New community challenges to increase chatter and engagement
- Some other stuff that is only half-designed but will be really cool, we promise