A Garden For Butterflies

The butterflies are out there somewhere, and this weekend's visitor is looking to attract them to the event area! This is their SIXTH visit, so complete their tasks and get another one of their butterfly companions!

There are a total of 7 companion options to choose from, should you manage to attract them all to the event area in time.

Plus, if you've missed any of the past runs of this quest and cannot wait for another butterfly companion, you can spend 150 Bush Bucks to unlock the choice of another, including the other quest rewards! You can only do this till you have 6 of these butterflies.

Butterfly Gardening

Head to the event area in the Commons to get started. Attract different species to the event area in two ways:
1 - Help Harrow in the event area with her quests, unlocking at Noon PST (UTC-8) on Saturday and Sunday. There are 2 species to unlock this way.
2 - Collect Rare Flowers! You can do this after completing Harrow's first quest, available on Friday. There are 5 species to unlock this way, which will be much more challenging to get!

At the end of this colourful quest, you'll get to choose a butterfly companion from the different species you attract.

You have until noon on Tuesday to attract as many as you can, and until noon on Wednesday to choose one as a companion. Good luck!

A Garden For Butterflies

The butterflies are out there somewhere, and this weekend's visitor is looking to attract them to the event area! This is their fifth visit, so complete their tasks and get another one of their butterfly companions!

Updates

There are two new butterflies to collect this year via Rare Flowers! This makes for a total of 7 companion options if you can attract them all to the event area in time.

Plus, if you've missed any of the past runs of this quest, or cannot wait for another butterfly companion, you can spend 150 Bush Bucks to unlock the choice of another, including the other quest rewards! You can only do this till you have 6 of these butterflies.

This quest will run for a day longer than it has in the past, to give folks more time to collect Rare Flowers and unlock more species.

Butterfly Gardening

Head to the event area in the Commons to get started. Attract different species to the event area in two ways:
1 - Help Harrow in the event area with her quests, unlocking at Noon PST (UTC-8) on Saturday and Sunday. There are 2 species to unlock this way.
2 - Collect Rare Flowers! You can do this after completing Harrow's first quest, available on Friday. There are 5 species to unlock this way, which will be much more challenging to get!

At the end of this colourful quest, you'll get to choose a butterfly companion from the different species you attract.

You have until noon on Tuesday October 11th to attract as many as you can, and you'll have until noon on Wednesday October 12th to choose one as a companion. Good luck!

Amass a Fortune with the Lion King Cats

While you're there, don't forget to check out the new Lion King Cat pet! The more there are, the higher the max level bonus is for everyone who has one! It's only available until Wednesday October 12th, so grab one and help everyone get the most powerful pet while you can! Talk to the lion maned visitor in the event area for updates on the bonus.

Read the Release Notes!

By Bush Whackers, For Butterflies

The butterflies are out there somewhere, and this weekend's visitor is looking to attract them to the event area! This is their fourth visit, so complete their tasks and get another of their 5 butterfly companions!

Head to the event area in the Commons to get started. Attract different species to the event area in two ways:
1 - Help Harrow in the event area with her quests, unlocking at Noon PST (UTC-8) on Saturday and Sunday. There are 2 species to unlock this way.
2 - Collect Rare Flowers! You can do this after completing Harrow's first quest, available on Friday. There are 3 species to unlock this way, which will be much more challenging to get!

At the end of this colourful quest, you'll get to choose a butterfly companion from the different species you attract.

You have until noon on Monday February 28th to attract as many as you can, and you'll have until noon on Tuesday March 1st to choose one as a companion. Good luck!

Grow the Mandrake Community

While you're there, don't forget to check out the new Mingle Mandrake pet! The more there are, the higher the max level bonus is for everyone who has one! It's only available until Monday February 28th, so grab one and help everyone get the most powerful pet while you can! Talk to the floral visitor in the event area for updates on the bonus.

Read the Release Notes!

Well met, friends! It's-a-me, Justin Stocks, the Lead Designer for Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy Lunar New Year! Welcome to our regularly scheduled (though thoroughly delayed) "year-end" blog for 2021. What a fast year! In this blog, we're going to take a quick look back at some of the highlights of the past year, and then glance forward (into the future!) to see what 2022 will have in store for us.

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 12 11 months will (hopefully) bring:

• 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

Conclusion

After the never-ending slog that was 2021, we're hoping there's light at the end of the tunnel that is 2022. If not, at least there will be some cool new stuff in Idle Champions for us all to enjoy. We're very excited about our plans for 2022, and we hope you're excited too.

It's time. Time for Tier 5 Objectives! Look no further than this fresh batch of Tier 5 content for Idols Through Time! Eight new challenges await you... time will tell if you're fit to meet the challenge.

Idols Through Time Tier 5 Objectives


Don't Blink

• All changes from Tier 4 remain in effect.
  • New for Tier 5:
  • Godo spawns randomly, living for at least 1.5 seconds.
  • Cherubs randomly petrify a Crusader when they spawn, disabling that Crusader for 10 seconds.
  • Areas get harder much more quickly.
  • Note: This will require having cleared the objective To Infinity and Beyond on Ghostbeard's Greed to complete.
• Beat area 650.
• Awards 725 rubies.

Lost In Time

• Most changes from Tier 4 remain in effect.
  • New for Tier 5:
  • Godo spawns randomly, living for at least 1.5 seconds.
  • The relics now move every 100 areas.
  • Areas get harder much more quickly.
  • Note: This will require having cleared the objective To Infinity and Beyond on Ghostbeard's Greed to complete.
• Beat area 650.
• Awards 725 rubies.

Time-Lost Bosses

• All changes from Tier 4 remain in effect.
  • New for Tier 5:
  • Godo spawns randomly, living for at least 1.5 seconds.
  • The bosses now kill one of the 4 random Crusaders they target.
  • If Imani is in the formation, she prevents the bosses from shielding the other monsters.
  • Areas get harder much more quickly.
  • Note: This will require having cleared the objective To Infinity and Beyond on Ghostbeard's Greed to complete.
• Beat area 650.
• Awards 725 rubies.

Nostalgia Trip

• New for Tier 5:
• Only the last 10 original Crusaders may be used.
• Godo spawns randomly, living for at least 1.5 seconds.
• Areas get harder much more quickly.
• Note: This will require having cleared the objective To Infinity and Beyond on Ghostbeard's Greed to complete.
• Beat area 650.
• Awards 725 rubies.

Echoes

• Most changes from Tier 4 remain in effect.
  • New for Tier 5:
  • Godo spawns randomly, living for at least 1.5 seconds.
  • If Imani or Garnet target the Echoes, they can be killed quicker.
  • Taskmasters can't be assigned to click monsters.
  • Areas get harder much more quickly.
  • Note: This will require having cleared the objective To Infinity and Beyond on Ghostbeard's Greed to complete.
• Beat area 650.
• Awards 725 rubies.

Hamstrung

• All changes from Tier 4 remain in effect.
  • New for Tier 5:
  • Godo spawns randomly, living for at least 1.5 seconds.
  • Crusaders with the Good tag also cannot be used.
  • Areas get harder much more quickly.
  • Note: This will require having cleared the objective To Infinity and Beyond on Ghostbeard's Greed to complete.
• Beat area 650.
• Awards 725 rubies.

The Lost World

• Most changes from Tier 4 remain in effect.
  • New for Tier 5:
  • Godo spawns randomly, living for at least 1.5 seconds.
  • Fire Phoenix has their missing ability back, and now you can just reset the world using any reset Crusader, even if they're locked.
  • A giant rat occupies a slot in the formation and provides a 50% additive buff for each special dinosaur monster killed to any Evil tagged Crusaders in the formation.
  • Areas get harder much more quickly.
  • Note: This will require having cleared the objective To Infinity and Beyond on Ghostbeard's Greed to complete.
• Beat area 650.
• Awards 725 rubies.

Atrophy

• All changes from Tier 4 remain in effect.
  • New for Tier 5:
  • Godo spawns randomly, living for at least 1.5 seconds.
  • Damage and Gold reduction are increased to 5%.
  • Areas get harder much more quickly.
  • Note: This will require having cleared the objective To Infinity and Beyond on Ghostbeard's Greed to complete.
• Beat area 650.
• Awards 725 rubies.




New Achievement!

Unlock the new Perils of Time Travel in-game achievement for killing 10,000 Godos over the course of these new objectives, or the higher tiers if you miss out!



More Tier 8 Talents!

That's right, this update also includes new Talents!

New Tier 8 Active Talents

• Speedy Masters
  Increases the chance that monsters will drop quest items or count for quest kills if you have at least 3 taskmasters assigned to applying Spawn Speed buffs. Max levels: 20.


• Scars to Your Powerful
  Increase Global DPS if Savage Strikes is active. Max levels: 200.


• Work Experience
  Increases the Global DPS for every 10 Experience Points on Crusaders in the formation. Max levels: 200.



New Tier 8 Passive Talents

• The Powers of Old Renewed
  Increase Global DPS, stacking multiplicatively, for every Crusader with all 5 Rune slots filled. Max levels: 200.


• Runic Hoards
  Increase Global DPS for every 5 levels you have in slotted runes. Max levels: 150.



New Tier 8 Utility Talent

• The Powers of Old Renewed
  For every 500 areas completed beyond the required area to complete an objective (excluding dungeons, free plays or challenges) gain some common crafting materials, up to 16,000 areas total. Max levels: 45.




Plus the Hustle master cap has been increased from 30 levels to 100 levels, and the Bounty of Idols talent has been revamped.

By Bush Whackers, For Butterflies

The butterflies are out there somewhere, and this weekend's visitor is looking to attract them to the event area! This is their third visit, so complete there tasks and get another of their 5 butterfly companions!

Head to the event area in the Commons to get started. Attract different species to the event area in two ways:
1 - Help Harrow in the event area with her quests, unlocking at noon on Saturday and Sunday. There are 2 species to unlock this way.
2 - Collect Rare Flowers! You can do this after completing Harrow's first quest, available on Friday. There are 3 species to unlock this way, which will be much more challenging to get!

At the end of this colourful quest, you'll get to choose a butterfly companion from the different species you attract.

You have until noon on Monday June 7th to attract as many as you can, and you'll have until noon on Tuesday June 8th to choose one as a companion. Good luck!

Fill the Vastness of Space

While you're there, don't forget to check out the new Space Whale pet! The more there are, the higher the max level bonus is for everyone who has one! It's only available until Monday June 7th, so grab one and help everyone get the most powerful pet while you can! Talk to the spacy human in the event area for updates on the bonus.

Read the Release Notes!

By Bush Whackers, For Butterflies

The butterflies are out there somewhere, and this weekend's visitor is looking to attract them to the event area! This is their second visit, so complete there tasks and get your 2nd of their 5 butterfly companions!

Head to the event area in the Commons to get started. Attract different species to the event area in 2ways:
1 - Help Harrow in the event area with her quests, unlocking at noon on Saturday and Sunday. There are 2 species to unlock this way.
2 - Collect Rare Flowers! You can do this after completing Harrow's first quest, available on Friday. There are 3 species to unlock this way, which will be much more challenging to get!

At the end of this colourful quest, you'll get to choose a butterfly companion from the different species you attract.

You have until noon on Monday February 1st to attract as many as you can, and you'll have until noon on Wednesday February 3rd to choose one as a companion. Good luck!

Strengthen the Smolder Horses!

Smoldering Intensifies

While you're there, don't forget to check out the new Smolder Horse pet! The more there are, the higher the max level bonus is for everyone who has one! It's only available until Monday February 1st, so grab one and help everyone get the most powerful pet while you can! Talk to the smoldering fellow in the event area for updates on the bonus.

Read the Release Notes!

Hey everyone. I'm Justin Stocks, the Lead Game Designer for Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. In the lead-up to our Third Anniversary Celebration, I wanted to take a few minutes to look back over everything we've accomplished in the last year...

Fall 2019

September 2019: Patron System (part of the Y2 anniversary)

We kicked off our third year with a bang, adding the Patron System, which allows players to replay variants and free plays with additional restrictions to earn unique rewards and powerful perks. While we started out with just two patrons and a handful of rewards, we have since expanded the system with a third patron (Strahd von Zarovich) and numerous additional rewards for purchase, such as familiars, skins, and sought-after modron component chests. We plan to continue to expand on the system with additional patrons, store items, and perks, including some new skins during the upcoming Anniversary Celebration!

October 2019: New Campaign (Descent Into Avernus)

October saw the release of our fourth permanent campaign: Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus. This fiendish campaign has been expanded upon multiple times over the year and will continue to get updates moving forward. This update also managed to sneak in an update to our in-game effects descriptions, helping players to better understand how their formation abilities interact with each other. Usually.

Winter 2020

New Year's Day 2020: New Evergreen Champion (Dragonbait)

The new year brought about another Evergreen Champion to join the ranks of Hitch, Drizzt, and Azaka. Dragonbait was a challenging unlock from a variant of the final adventure in the Tomb of Annihilation campaign, and while he is still trying to make a name for himself in a very competitive bench slot, he's nevertheless a highly sought-after saurial.

January 2020: Updated Time Gates & Offline Progress

The new year brought exciting new updates, many of which were included out in our Idle Champions in 2020 dev blog at the end of December last year. The first of which was an expanded Time Gate System. Gone were the days of gambling six time gate pieces and hoping you got a Champion that you liked. Now you could pick precisely the Champion you wanted to gear up or recruit, and the time gates themselves were made more lucrative, with up to three gold chests and numerous silver chests up for grabs. Players flocked to earn Mystra's favor and recruiting and gearing up missed event Champions became easier than ever before. And at the end of the month, Offline Progress arrived, allowing players to continue to progress during their adventures even while logged out!

Spring 2020

March 2020: Spring Extravaganza with Updated Formation Saves

The first of our 2020 seasonal events, the Spring Extravaganza, brought with it a week of free rewards, including an awesome Champion skin, but more importantly a revamped formation save system. Instead of being limited to only three formations per campaign, players could now save up to 50 formations with customizable names, and their formation saves now included familiar placements as well as Champions. Getting back up to speed after a reset had never been more convenient.

March 2020: Leaving Early Access on Steam

As a personal milestone for us at Codename, in March we also left early access on Steam. This was a big moment as it meant that Idle Champions had finally reached a point where we felt it was deserving of a full release, with features such as the Patron System really fleshing out the replayability of the existing content.

Summer 2020

July 2020: Summer Spectacular with Modron Automation & Multi-Party Play

The Summer Spectacular at the end of July was host to the game's largest evolution yet: Modron Automation & Multi-Party Play. These two new systems combined to add incredible new depth to the game. With two adventuring parties running at the same time players had to dust off several underutilized Champions to fill every slot, a trend which will continue as additional adventuring parties are made available over the next year or two.

With Modron Automation we started to put the "Idle" back "Idle Champions", letting players set up their adventuring parties to reset automatically, fill the formation automatically, and farm gems and favor to their heart's content. Finally, the Modron Components mini-game added some new strategy to the game for folks who couldn't get enough of the pipe mini-game in Bioshock or the latest Spiderman PS4 game.

August 2020: New Focus on Bugs & Performance

Modron Automation and Multi-Party Play was a big tech investment for us, and resulted in an unacceptable backlog of bugs and unoptimized code. In August we refocused our attention on bugs and performance with the addition of our public-facing bug report system. Through the month we managed to track down several memory leaks and patch them up, leading to a noticeable improvement in stability and performance. As no more major features (on the scale of Modron Automation) are planned for 2020, we will continue to iterate on these improvements and fix bugs as quickly as we can.

August 2020: Finished Waterdeep: Dragon Heist Campaign & New Evergreen Champion (Ulkoria)

Most recently we released the final adventures of the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist campaign and included alongside them our fifth Evergreen Champion: the reclusive mage, Ulkoria Stonemarrow. Ulkoria is a magic specialist who can do some incredibly powerful things for a full formation of spellcasters. While her full potential hasn't yet been released, future Champion releases will no doubt add to her repertoire and increase her play.

Third Anniversary & Beyond: The Future

So what does the future look like for Idle Champions? It's bright! While we don't plan to release any major features in the next few months, we do have a new campaign on the horizon. You can also expect us to continue with bug fixes and performance enhancements. We also intend to continue to iterate on the offline progress system, which runs your background parties during multi-party play and should result in speed improvements to everyone's progression, especially if your background party is farming gems.

Coppers of the Creature Collector

The eccentric Creature Collector has returned to the Commons, this time with mounts! And they've been upgraded to a mini event!

Head to the event area and choose one to train. You have until noon on Wednesday the 11th 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 at noon on Wednesday the 11th. 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.

Train hard, Bush Whackers!

Note: The VIP "Quest Reset" power will no longer reset these mini event quests, and they will not be affected by the Time Turner and Timey Whimey Watch. Those who made use of them before we made the change won't get their progress removed.

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 mount collection. Snag those old-school mounts you're missing out on!

Coppers of the Creature Collector

The eccentric Creature Collector has touched down in the Commons! Help them train one of three unique creatures so the collector might see its full potential.

You have until noon on Tuesday the 25th to complete the collector's four daily quests and level up your chosen creature, earning Creature Coppers to spend in their unique store! After noon on Wednesday the collector will be taking their creature back, unless you adopt it by purchasing its corresponding pet pack.

When you hand in the main quest, you'll receive a unique collectable reward! Stay tuned to find out!

Train hard, Bush Whackers!

Ye Olde Creature Collector's Galleria

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

This will open a new store, which will contain 3 non-event premium pets 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 pets they've missed out on, to help you fill out your pet collection. Snag those old-school companions you're missing out on!