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February 23rd
Idle Champions: Guide and Collection Quests 
Posted in Idle Champions.

Table of Contents

Collections

An expansion to Collections has been a long time coming, and is something we've wanted to focus on for several years now. Whereas the original Collections dialog only tracked your Champion's equipment progress, the updated and expanded experience allows you to track your progress across nearly every aspect of Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. It's also home to our new Guide and Collection Quest system, which you can read about later in this blog.

Note: Screenshots in this blog reflect a work in progress version of the Guide and Collections Quests systems. The finalized versions may differ in layout or appearance.

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms Collections

At launch, the updated Collections dialog will track the progress of your Campaigns, Blessings, Patrons, Champions, Skins, Feats, Equipment, Enemies, Familiars, Achievements, Time Gates, and Modron Cores. However, that's just the tip of the iceberg! For example, on the Champions page you can see % of Champions Unlocked, % of Champions with full Epic Equipment, Evergreen Champions Unlocked, Event Champions Unlocked, and % of Champions unlocked by year.

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms Collections Champions

A few additional highlights of the updated system include:
  • Search and sort options for individual pages. (Search for adventures with specific enemy types when you have quests or challenges to defeat those enemy types as just one example!)
  • Finally re-read the adventure dialog from adventures you've already completed!
  • Preview Champion skins at a high resolution!
  • Use a 'Premium Progress' toggle that includes or excludes progress that can only be made with premium purchases in the game (set to 'Off' by default).
  • And there is even more to discover!

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms Collections Enemies

Guide and Collection Quests

Starting Idle Champions can be daunting for newer players. With over one hundred Champions, eight campaigns, twelve annual events, and a plethora of systems to unlock, it isn't always easy to know where to start.

That's where Guide and Collection Quests come in.

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms Collections Guide Quests

Guide and Collection Quests can be found in the main Collections menu. There are over 300 Guide and Collection Quests, starting with the tutorial adventure and carrying through to every feature unlock and completion in the game. Guide Quests have gold or silver borders and lead to feature unlocks or unique rewards, while Collection Quests have normal borders and mark the individual milestones as you complete your collection.

Progress across both Guide and Collection Quests is retroactive. When you first open the Collections dialog and go into the Guide Quests menu, you will have the option to claim your completed rewards either individually or by clicking the 'Claim All' button to claim them all at once.

As we add additional Adventures, Variants, Champions, Campaigns, and other updates to Idle Champions, the Guide and Collection Quests will continue to be updated as well.

Rewards

As you complete Guide and Collection Quests you will unlock Silver Chests, Gold Chests, Electrum Chests, Patron Gold Chests, Champion Gold Chests, Corrupted Gems, and Scales of Tiamat.

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms Collections Guide Quests Rewards

What's Next?

Barring any last-minute issues, Guide and Collection Quests will go live on Wednesday, February 28, 2024. We're eager and excited to receive your feedback and make further improvements to this system based on how you're using it!

February 23rd
BW2: Creature Collector - Utahraptor mounts! 
Posted in Bush Whacker 2.

Coppers of the Creature Collector

The eccentric Creature Collector has returned to the Commons, this time with a trio of vicious utahraptor mounts!



Head to the event area and choose one to train. You have until noon on Wednesday February 28th to complete the collector's four daily quests, level up your chosen creature, earn Creature Coppers to spend in their store, and get another page to your Creature Collector's Compendium!

The Compendium Page will be given after the event ends. If you don't have the Creature Collector's Compendium ranch item, you'll get it when you get your first page.

After the event, the collector will be taking their creature back unless you adopt it by purchasing its corresponding mount pack, available starting Monday February 26th.

Train hard, Bush Whackers!

The training quests unlock at noon on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Those busy on the weekends can still catch up!

Notes
- The VIP "Quest Reset" power does not reset these mini event quests, and they are not affected by the Time Turner and Timey Whimey Watch.
- Swapping your event mount with a higher level mount doesn't count towards event progress.
- These three mounts earn double the experience compared to other mounts for the duration of this mini-event!
- Expiring mounts cannot have their bonuses swapped.

Ye Olde Creature Collector's Galleria - Mounts

When you speak to Tanela Tiva in the event area, you can select the "What past mounts are for sale?" chat option.

This will open a new store, which will contain 3 non-event premium mounts you have never owned! They cost Bush Bucks, like in event stores. The selection will change next time Tanela Tiva visits to event area.

We've done this in response to players asking to see old premium mounts they've missed out on, to help you fill out your pet collection. Snag those old-school mounts you're missing out on!

Read the Release Notes!

Discuss on the forums!

February 23rd
BW2: February 23rd, 2024 Release Notes 
Posted in Bush Whacker 2.

Creature Collector Mini-Event 15 (February 23rd, 2024)

- Rerunning Coppers of the Creature Collector mini event with 3 new mounts and custom items
- Added more mounts to the collector's un-owned mount store pool

- Updated Leap Year mini-event for its second run:

- New leap year reward
- Leap Year quest now counts how many frogs right on quest bar
February 21st
Idle Champions: Fleetswake 7 
Posted in Idle Champions.

You've been recruited by a merchant guild in Waterdeep to look into a number of mysterious missing ships over the past year. The Fair Seas Festival is a good time to look into this as people are quite open about the dangers of the sea, the fury of Umberlee, and so forth.

Many people blame Umberlee for the missing ships, but the merchant guild isn't so sure...

Fleetswake 7 introduces Dynaheir, the Wychlaran wizard from Baldur's Gate 2! Also returning is Solaak, the kalashtar ranger, and Desmond, the werewolf ranger! Players have until Monday, March 4th at 12 PM Pacific to complete their Fleetswake 7 unlocks and objectives.

Dynaheir



    Dynaheir is a Wychlaran Invoker hailing from the distant land of Rashemen, who travels with her stalwart bodyguard, Minsc. She carries a deep-seated animosity toward the Red Wizards of Thay, and the mere mention of these hated adversaries sparks a fiery determination in her eyes and a steely edge to her voice.
Dynaheir the Invoker is a Support and Speed Champion who buffs hardy Champions while helping increase quest progress. This human wizard can be found in Seat 3 opposite of Nayeli once she is unlocked.

For more information on Dynaheir and her abilities, check out her Champion Spotlight!

Year Seven Variants


The Wychlaran of Rashemen - Search for some missing ships during Fleetswake in Waterdeep with Dynaheir!
  • Dynaheir joins the formation. She can be moved, but not removed.
  • You may only use Champions with a CON of 15 or higher.
  • Getting to know Dynaheir: Dynaheir increases the damage of resilient heroes. Use as many as you can to get the most from her abilities!
  • Reach Area 75.

Thayan Threat - Search for some missing ships during Fleetswake in Waterdeep while fighting Red Wizards!
  • Dynaheir joins the formation. She can be moved, but not removed.
  • Quest requirements are increased by 25% in non-boss areas.
  • A Red Wizard spawns with every wave in non-boss areas.
  • Getting to know Dynaheir: Humanoids (and therefore Red Wizards) are Dynaheir's favored foe, and her favored foes have a chance to drop double quest progress when defeated!
  • Reach Area 125.

Minsc's Dajemma - Search for some missing ships while helping Minsc with his journeys.
  • Dynaheir and Minsc join the formation. They can be moved, but not removed.
  • You may not use Tanking Champions.
  • Getting to know Dynaheir: Minsc is Dynaheir's bodyguard. Use Dynaheir's specialization choice to turn him into a durable defender!
  • Reach Area 175.

We would love to hear about your experiences in Idle Champions on the Idle Champions Subreddit, on the Steam forums, or on the Official Idle Champions Discord!



February 16th
Idle Champion Spotlight: Dynaheir 
Posted in Idle Champions.

"Any protection would be courtesy, not necessity. My power is no less than thine!"

Folks native to Rashemen have proven themselves to be fierce individuals displaying great bravery and tremendous arcane power, and Dynaheir is no exception. She's confident in her abilities, and will not hesitate to use her archaic speech to be critical of others. But her faithful bodyguard Minsc has earned her loyalty and respect as they have traveled together across the Sword Coast.

I. Dynaheir



    Dynaheir is a Wychlaran Invoker hailing from the distant land of Rashemen, who travels with her stalwart bodyguard, Minsc. She carries a deep-seated animosity toward the Red Wizards of Thay, and the mere mention of these hated adversaries sparks a fiery determination in her eyes and a steely edge to her voice.
Dynaheir the Invoker is a Support and Speed Champion who buffs hardy Champions while helping increase quest progress. This human wizard can be found in Seat 3 opposite of Nayeli once she is unlocked.

II. Dynaheir's Stats

Race: Human Alignment: Lawful Good
Gender: Female Pronouns: She/Her
Age: 28 Affiliation: Heroes of Baldur's Gate Class: Wizard

STR: 11 DEX: 13 CON: 16
INT: 17 WIS: 15 CHA: 12

Role: Support, Speed

Eligible for Patrons: Mirt, Vajra, Strahd

Seat: 3 (Nayeli)


III. Dynaheir's Design

There is no greater enemy to the Red Wizards of Thay than this powerful wizard from Rashemen. Dynaheir goes out of her way to hunt them down wherever she goes, while also helping the rest of the formation go after their chosen targets. Humanoid enemies, like those Red Wizards, are her Favored Foe. Thanks to her support, all Favored Foes of ANY Champion in the formation will have a bigger chance of dropping double quest items or counting for double quest progress.

The formation won't get far on their mission without healthy Champions, so Dynaheir increases the Overwhelm of Champions in the front-most column in the formation. She also increases the damage of Champions with a high Constitution, and that bonus grows as her allies are attacked. She can boost that even further if she specializes in Circle Magic. Otherwise she can put extra focus on dealing damage to Favored Foes with the Iron Lord's Justice, or support her Loyal Bodyguard Minsc by giving him the Tanking role and all of the buffs needed to fulfill his task!

Dynaheir uses An Old School Sling most of the time, but when necessary she can call upon two different Ultimate elemental attacks! She will alternate between a gigantic Fireball that damages and knocks back enemies, and a Lightning Bolt that will injure and stun a line of creatures.

The ranks of the Heroes of Baldur's Gate are bolstered with Dynaheir joining them, and she's ready to show just how powerful a Wychlaran Invoker can be!

IV. Dynaheir's Abilities

Basic Attack

  • An Old School Sling - Dynaheir attacks the closest enemy with her sling, dealing 1 hit.

Formation Abilities

  • The Resolve of Rashemen - Dynaheir increases the damage of all Champions in the formation with a CON of 15+ by 400% for each Champion affected by this ability, stacking multiplicatively.
  • Enemy of Thay - Humanoid enemies are Dynaheir's Favored Foe. There is a 50% chance that an additional Red Wizard spawns with each wave in non-boss areas.
  • Spoils of War - All Favored Foes have a 25% chance to drop double quest items or count for double quest progress.
  • Defensive Position - Dynaheir increases the bonus of The Resolve of Rashemen by 20% each time an ally is attacked, up to a maximum of 100 stacks. If Minsc is in the formation, the base effect is increased to 44%. Stacks apply multiplicatively and reset when changing areas.
  • The Unapproachable East - Champions in the front-most column of the formation have their Overwhelm increased to 25, if it wasn't already higher.

Specializations

  • Circle Magic - Champions that are adjacent to Dynaheir get +1 CON and the base effect of The Resolve of Rashemen is increased by 10%.
  • Iron Lord's Justice - Champions deal 1000% more damage against all Favored Foes.
  • Loyal Bodyguard - Minsc gains the Tanking role and is now eligible for this adventure regardless of other restrictions. Dynaheir increases Minsc's base health by 200%, and then further increases his health by 75% for every 50 areas completed in the current adventure, up to area 600. She also increases the health of all Champions, other than Minsc, by 25% of Minsc's max health.

Ultimate Ability

Dynaheir alternates between two different Ultimate attacks, Fireball and Lightning bolt:

  • Fireball - Dynaheir casts a gigantic fireball that engulfs the entire enemy's side of the screen, dealing 1 ultimate hit to all enemies and knocking them back a short distance.
  • Lightning Bolt - Dynaheir casts a lightning bolt through the target with the most health remaining, dealing 1 ultimate hit to all creatures in a wide line and stunning them for 5 seconds.

V. Dynaheir's Epic Equipment



Slot 1: Global DPS
Slot 2: The Resolve of Rashemen
Slot 3: Spoils of War
Slot 4: Defensive Position
Slot 5: Specializations
Slot 6: Ultimate Cooldown

VI. Conclusion

Are you excited to another familiar Champion from Baldur's Gate? Let us know:
February 14th
Idle Champions: Turn of Fortune's Wheel Part 3 
Posted in Idle Champions.

This week the Turn of Fortune's Wheel continues! With the help of Farrow, the Champions find themselves in the titular Fortune's Wheel - a casino in Sigil. There they meet the owner, Shemeshka, and get more information about their glitch situation. After that, they must delve deeper into the Mortuary to find another glitched Champion and make it out with their souls intact!

Note: You will need to have completed the previous two Turn of Fortune's Wheel adventures, Welcome to Sigil and Fast Food, in order to access these new adventures.



The Fortune's Wheel

The Champions are kept on their toes with the pandemonium at the Fortune's Wheel casino!
Play Reward: Gnome Avren Skin
  • Variant: The Misfortune's Wheel - The Champions deal with the chaos of the Fortune's Wheel casino while broke!
    • Gold Find is reduced by 99%.
    • You may not use Champions with the Gold Find role.
    • Complete area 550

A Glitch in the Mortuary

Descend further into the Mortuary and find another glitched Champion!
Play Reward: Gnome Glitch Avren Feat
  • A Gnome in the Mortuary - Explore the depths of the Mortuary with Gnome Avren!
  • Prerequisites: Must have Avren unlocked.
    • You may only use Champions that are partially or totally neutral.
    • Avren joins the formation.
    • Complete area 600


We would love to hear about your experiences in the Outlands on the Idle Champions Subreddit, on the Steam forums, or on the Official Idle Champions Discord!

February 9th
BW2: February 9th, 2024 Release Notes 
Posted in Bush Whacker 2.

Valentine's Event 2024 Update (February 9th, 2024)

- Updated Valentine's Event
- Added new customization and ranch items
- Added new ribbons and 100% reward
- Updated 2 of the VIP event rewards
- Added new event mounts in Bush Bucks sale and mount packs, available the first weekend of the event
- Added 3 new pets available the second weekend of the event
- Rebalanced turn-in progress. You can get 100% by completing all the quests and turning in station items found while whacking a minimum of 3 energy bars worth of bushes
- Removed XP rewards for Pick-a-Date, Pick-another-Date, and Crawling Back quests since they don't require whacking
- Added new music selections to Marvin the band leader: jungle, cloudland, tropical, and north pole
- Added new quests featuring the dragon from Nate's birthday (This quest replaces Nate's Teddy Bear quest after you've completed his "Crawling Back" quest the previous year)
February 9th
BW2: Be our 2024 Valentine? 
Posted in Bush Whacker 2.

Happy Valentine's Day Bushwhackers!

The residents of the Commons are putting on a Valentine's Day dance, so you know what that means! Helping with the set-up through one-time and daily quests, plus turn-ins!

It's not Valentine's without presents! Help stock the stands with Chocolates, Teddy Bears and Roses by turning in Candy Hearts as the stations unlock.

Getting Organized

The event organizer seems a bit frazzled. Why don't you help her out by doing her set-up quests each day? And don't forget to keep those party supplies topped off!

Once the Valentine's dance has started, you get to look for the partner of your choice to share a moment on the dance floor.

Jim & Sasha <3

Jim and Sasha's relationship quests are around. If you haven't married them yet, you'll see either their Dating or Proposal quest line. If they are married, you get to help the pair pack for their honeymoon, or celebrate their anniversary.

Your Secret Admirer

And who is that mysterious note from this year?

Like Rabbits

Aaron's bunnies, Cinnamon and Snowball, have run off and are making like, well rabbits! This is a challenging quest that might take you the better part of the event to complete, as you've got to catch not only Cinnamon and Snowball, but their 100 little bunny babies as well! Good luck!

Nate's Complicated Relationship

Nate's needs your help setting up a date with his one true love: Adventure! When he returns from his "date", he'll bring you back a Trophy for his sister Natalie. Later on, one of the girls will need some support after her Kindler Date dumps her. Ice Cream daily quests ought to help, until it's time to help them through the 5 stages of grief. All five quests will unlock right after each other and then she will have a new daily quest for you.

Battle of the Bands!

If you're all caught up on Jimmie's quest series, he'll challenge Marvin to a battle of the bands! You're the judge, assuming you can stay conscious during their face-melting guitar solos!

Changing Sanctuary Partners!

Now's the only change to break up with your current partner in Sanctuary Village. Sounds harsh, I know. But we've gotten requests to be able to switch who you're dating, so this is how you do it: Talk to your partner, Burl or Faun, and choose the "I think we should break up" chat option. After which you'll be able to date the other person, or even them again. Note you can only do this during the Valentine's event, and cannot do it during the Gift of Love quest.

New for 2024

This year's update includes:

- new quests featuring the dragon from Nate's birthday (see details for requirements)
- new costume items in the store!
- new ranch items in the store!
- new pet packs!
- new mount packs!
- new ribbons and 100% reward!
- Updated 2 of the VIP event rewards
- new music selections to Marvin the band leader: jungle, cloudland, tropical, and north pole
- Rebalanced turn-in progress. You can get 100% by completing all the quests and turning in station items found while whacking a minimum of 3 energy bars worth of bushes

Holiday Trees!

If you can complete the event, you'll earn this awesome 100% reward: the Valentine's Tree!



The Dragon Flight

Remember that dragon that was invited to Nate's birthday but continued to burn the Commons because it was sick? It's back!

This quest replaces Nate's Teddy Bear quest after you've completed his "Crawling Back" quest the previous year.

Achievements

-- POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT
There are a total of 21 possible achievements to earn this event.

Returning Achievements

Party Planning Committee - You helped at least once at each Valentines Station.
Party Planning Leader - You helped 50 times at each Valentines station.
Pet Detective - You found each of the lost pets at least once.
Nate's Date - You helped Nate pick a Date.
The Five Stages of Grief - You helped Nate's rejection get through her pain.
Two Left Feet - You danced at the Valentines Dance.
Setup Wizard - You helped the party organizers with all their tasks.
Guitar Training - Follow through with Virtuoso Guitarist Jimmie's lessons.
A Secret Admirer - Find a note from a true secret admirer.

New Achievements

Love Store(y) - Purchase all of the 2024 Valentine's Event Item!*

We also have 11 achievements from previous years which may be earnable by spending Bush Bucks if you missed getting them the first time around.

Customization Lover - You bought all the Valentines things from 2013!
Customize Your Love - You bought all the Valentines things from 2014!
Heart-wearer - You bought all the Valentines things from 2015!
Hearts Hearts Hearts! - You bought all the Valentines things from 2016!
Passionate Purchases - You bought all the Valentines things from 2017!
Romantic Acquisitions - Purchase all of the 2018 Valentine's Event Item!
Winsome Wardrobe - Purchase all of the 2019 Valentine's Event Item!
Smitten Shopper - Purchase all of the 2020 Valentine's Event Item!
Beguiling Garments - Purchase all of the 2021 Valentine's Event Item!
Looking Lovely - Purchase all of the 2022 Valentine's Event Item!
Romance Novelties - Purchase all of the 2023 Valentine's Event Item!

*The Valentine's mini-golf piece is not included in the Love Store(y) achievement.

New Mounts!

Follow your passions and tame a Phoenix mount during the first weekend of the event!



New Pets!

Starting next Friday, the 3 new Valentine's themed pets for this year will be available to purchase over the weekend! Can they woo your heart?



This event runs until Friday February 23rd @ Noon PST (8pm GMT).

Post your love for the event here!
February 8th
Idle Champions: 2024 State of the Game 
Posted in Idle Champions.

Table of Contents

Welcome!

Hello! I'm Chris Dupuis, the Executive Producer for Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. In my role, I plan the release schedule and coordinate with our incredibly talented team throughout the various stages of production, from initial concept to final release. It's a genuine pleasure to finally be able to share the exciting updates our team has been tirelessly working on over the past few months.

2023 was a fantastic year for Idle Champions, and I want to thank our dedicated community for joining us on this adventure! We have a small team here at Codename, but we all work together towards the same goal of releasing fun and exciting content for you, our players. Last year:
  • We launched 18 new Adventure & Variant updates, 17 Events & Champions, four Seasons, and four Celebration Events.
  • We introduced and released four Emergence Events, starting with the Red Wizard Emergence around the release of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
  • We featured two Idle Champions Presents in-game events and Dungeons & Dragons 5E actual play campaigns with our community of incredibly talented content creators, introducing everyone to new original Champions: Miria, Solaak, Thellora, and Jang Sao.
  • The Idle Champions community came together to raise over $30,000 for some amazing charities, including One Tree Planted, Lambert House, Take This, and Extra Life.
  • Last but certainly not least, we worked with many fantastic partners last year including Deerstalker Pictures, Penny Arcade, and Cryptic Studios/Gearbox Software. We'd also like to give an extra special shout out to Larian Studios, who helped us to bring characters from the award-winning Baldur's Gate 3 to Idle Champions!
2024 is shaping up to be another big year for the game. We'll celebrate the 7th anniversary of Idle Champions this September, but before we get there we've got some big updates planned. We've got a lot to discuss, so let's get started!


Pausing Seasons for Core System Updates

We introduced Seasons to Idle Champions in September of 2022. Since then, we've rolled out seven Seasons featuring 35 Champions. However, Seasons are very resource-intensive to design and develop, and even though we have been able to keep up a steady stream of Season content, the time we've had available to work on other major system updates has been minimal. With that in mind, we put Seasons development on pause following the release of Season 7: The Rivals so that we could shift resources towards two major core system updates that we are very excited to finally be able to share with you now.

Without further ado, I'll let designers Peter Lee and Justin Stocks introduce you to Collections & Guide Quests, and Events 2.0.


Collections & Guide Quests

I’m Peter Lee, System Designer for Idle Champions. You may best know my work from my career at Wizards of the Coast, where I worked on the development of the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons and on board games like Lords of Waterdeep. I’ve been at Codename Entertainment since October 2021, where you’ve seen my hand in Champion designs and Adventure Variants. I've endeavored to make each new Champion feature an ability that makes them stand apart from the others, like Dungeon Master's Special Guest Star and Karlach's ties to the Zariel Patron. Today, I’m here to talk about Collections and Guide Quests.

Our revisions to Collections and the introduction of Guide Quests have two goals:
  1. Help players to more effectively track their progress within Idle Champions.
  2. Guide players (especially new or returning players) through the vast and ever-growing content of Idle Champions.
To start things off, we’re greatly increasing the usefulness of the Collections dialog. The current implementation shows the Champions and Equipment you have collected, but there is a lot more to the game than that! The updated dialog will feature Familiars, Skins, Campaign progress, Patrons, and so much more. There will be progress bars to show your overall completion, filtering to make it easy to search your Collections, and requirements to unlock major features like Trials, Campaigns, and Patrons.

It can be daunting to know what to do next in Idle Champions, especially for newer players. Guide Quests help players to determine what they should do next. These will work similarly to how Quests worked with Seasons, however, Guide Quests do not expire, and you can complete them at your leisure! As you complete these Quests, you’ll unlock additional, more difficult quests which will continue showing your potential paths through the game.

Each time you complete a Guide Quest you will earn rewards. In many cases it will be Corrupted Gems, but you’ll also find various Gold Chests and even some Scales of Tiamat. For our experienced players, there will be a button that lets you claim all the rewards at once, so you won’t have to click through hundreds of completed quests when they go live.

We’ll periodically add additional Quests as new content goes live, and I’m excited to see how this helps players progress through the game!


Events 2.0

Hello, my name is Justin Stocks and I am the Lead Designer for Idle Champions. You can interact with me and my co-founder David Whittaker on our Dev Insights stream every Thursday at 2PM PT at twitch.tv/CNEGames. I am here to talk about the next major system update for Idle Champions: Events 2.0.

The event system was the first system we added to Idle Champions after we released the game in September 2017, and aside from some small tweaks, events have remained mostly unchanged. Events 2.0 is an evolution of this system, using everything we have learned over the past six and a half years.

Our goals with Events 2.0 are three-fold:
  1. Give players more choice over which Champions appear in events.
  2. Increase the depth of events with additional goals and rewards.
  3. Give more opportunities to update Champions outside of seasons.
So how did we approach each of these goals? Well, let me tell you.

Our first objective is to give players more choice over what Champions they recruit and gear up in events. This has become an increasingly important design task over the past couple of years, and even more so now that the number of unique Champions in the game has surpassed 100. Gearing up all of those old Champions is a daunting, time-consuming task! In Events 2.0, players will have the opportunity to customize their event by picking from a list of Champions associated with the event. There will be two Featured Champions in each event that everyone has access to, along with three other "flex slots" that allow players to customize the event to their liking. Flex slot Champions will include previously-retired Champions, going all the way back to year one superstars like Gromma, Strix, and Zorbu. This, combined with the ability to get more Gold Chests by completing the higher event tiers, should make it much easier to fully equip your entire roster of Champions.

Let's talk about goals and rewards next. In Events 2.0, after you finish all three variants, that Champion's event will upgrade to the next tier up. This allows you to replay the variants, each with a higher area requirement and another gold chest reward. Additionally, each completed tier will award a powerful buff for that Champion that will last during the event and continue for a period of time after the event ends. Finally, the highest tiers will award unique Feats and special consumable items. These tiers will reward players who have built powerful formations and geared up their Champions to meet the game's hardest challenges. If you don't quite have the power to beat them yet, don't worry! The next time you pick that same Champion in a future event, you'll be able to start from where you left off the last time and push for those high-tier rewards!

We mentioned that there will be two Featured Champions in each event, and this is related to our third objective. Not all Featured Champions will be new Champions -- some will be reworks of existing Champions! Most events will have one new Champion and one reworked Champion, but some could have two new Champions or even two reworked Champions, depending on what cool designs we've been cooking up.

Now, you might be thinking that having five event Champions to recruit and gear up in just 12 days is a bit much. You'd be right, but we are adjusting the cadence and length of events to account for this! Events in this new system will typically start on the first Wednesday of each month and last for three weeks. Time gate weekends and content releases will occur during the weeks between events. This will reduce the number of events per year from 17 to 12, but it will increase the number of Champions you can recruit and gear up during events from 51 to 60.

To cap this section, here's a quick summary of the changes from Legacy Events to Events 2.0:

Legacy Events
Events 2.0
Recruit and gear up to three Champions per event (51 Champions per year)
Recruit and gear up to FIVE Champions per event (60 Champions per year)
Three set Champions per event (no player choice)
TWO set Champions, then up to THREE additional player-picked Champions per event
One new Champion per event
TWO new or reworked Champions per event
Up to three Gold Chests from variants (per Champion)
Up to 12 Gold Chests from variants (per Champion)
Max variant area requirement of 175 (not scaling based on progression)
Max variant area starts at 175 and increases alongside event tier (scaling based on progression)
Generally no unique rewards (ie. feats/skins/buffs)
Cool unique rewards for the new/reworked Champions, and buffs for all Champions
One event every three weeks (on average, but with confusing exceptions)
One event per month (predictably starting on the first Wednesday)
Events last 12 days
Events last 21 days


What's Next?

Hey, it's Chris Dupuis again! Right now we're working to polish up both systems for their releases on February 28th (Collections & Guide Quests) and March 6th (Events 2.0). However, I'm sure you have a bunch of questions! Tune into Dev Insights over the coming weeks with your questions about Collections & Guide Quests and Events 2.0. We also plan to roll out dedicated preview blogs for each system before their release – here’s what to expect over the coming weeks:
  • Collections & Guide Quests Rollout:
    • Collections & Guide Quests Preview Blog on Friday, February 23rd
    • Collections & Guide Quests LIVE on Wednesday, February 28th

  • Events 2.0 Rollout:
    • Events 2.0 Preview Blog on Friday, March 1st
    • Champion Spotlights for [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] on Monday, March 4th & Tuesday, March 5th
    • Events 2.0 LIVE on Wednesday, March 6
Before we sign off, I want to share a heartfelt thank you to all of our players from our team here at Codename Entertainment. Thank you for reading through this blog, playing, and joining us on this fantastic adventure. We look forward to hearing your questions in the coming weeks, as well as your thoughts and feedback once we release these updates in the coming months!


February 1st
BW2: February 1st, 2024 Release Notes 
Posted in Bush Whacker 2.

Groundhog Day Limited-Time Quest (February 1st, 2024)

- Re-running Groundhog Day limited time quest line

- Added cooldown to opening the Casino Bonus Chest of 2 days

- Fixed the "Your gift has been sent!" popup not showing

- Made the gift reply message box pretty