Dune Reavers Gamplay Update

Greetings, sheiks and sultanahs!

The next update for ORX is already here. Bringing enhancements for Dune Reavers, user interface and quality-of-life improvements.

Just like with Rune Guardians before, the 2nd faction – Dune Reavers, – have also received multiple deck archetypes and enhancements to their core gameplay. We’ve added multiple new cards and rebalanced some of the old ones, but most of them fall into next three categories:

• Cards that allow you to raise a huge army and control it more efficiently.

• Cards that make resurrecting units more accessible and provide buffs for doing so.

• Cards that help the builds through the Veterancy mechanic from the previous major update – making it easier to stack huge buffs on fully armed camps to create an “elite” squad.

The 3rd archetype isn’t fully implemented yet, but you can somewhat play using it, since it’s the “default” playstyle for the faction. Steam post image

We also continue working on improving the user experience for the game’s interfaces. In this update we’ve implemented a properly visualised comparison mechanic for card upgrades. Now the things you’re getting by upgrading the cards should be much clearer and easier to see.

What’s Next?

The next update is going to be considerably bigger. Apart from the aforementioned 3rd deck archetype for the Dune Reavers it will also introduce multiple other enhancements and new mechanics for the game in general. This time around we’re not trying to completely redo major parts of the game, but rather spice them up. One of such additions is going to be card Mutators.

Steam post image Work in Progress demonstration.

Currently, there are two scenarios where you can receive a Mutator for a card: after every defeated wave and after winning a mission. The first scenario grants you a temporary Mutator for this mission. The second option allows you to keep a Mutator for an entire campaign.

Our goal here is to make certain cards more appealing to pick and help players with card rotations during missions. Which is why the effects granted by the Mutators don’t grant raw power. They’re mostly utility and help you play cards quicker or get them back faster – in one way or another.

Patch Notes

Gameplay

• Rebalanced Dune Reavers cards, units, economy, and artifact rewards.

• Tuned a set of artifact rewards: Silver Thread, Raven Claw, ORX Seal, Bucket of Concrete, Backpack, Star Map, Architect's Vision.

• Added War Horn as a Dune Reavers starting relic option.

• Improved artifact descriptions so artifacts with multiple mission effects now show them all.

UX

• Improved logic for card rewards in scenarios where the eligible card pool is small.

• Rewards are less likely to include a card which the player already has in their deck.

• Smoothed on-hover scaling for reward cards and cards in hand.

• Improved card viewing in the post-mission rewards window.

• Introduced sorting for cards inside Encyclopedia.

• Added info window button.

• Added element tooltips.

• Encyclopedia now clears exclamation marks on card hover.

• Missing lore fallback now uses ORX-language placeholder text.

• Improved popup visuals.

Shops

• Enchant Shop highlights the gained enchant.

• Added tooltips and clearer slot hints for shop/enchant slots.

• Enchant icons were repositioned for better readability.

• Upgrade Shop highlights upgraded card tier.

• Shop buttons now use Continue when at least one card is selected.

• Added the option to clean/remove a card from the shop's slots.

Campaign & Missions

• If the next act is locked and all available missions are completed, the run now counts as a victory.

• Added mission difficulty display in act view.

• Added campaign victory window.

• Rewards and random events are hidden in the final mission of the final act.

Visuals & Audio

• Restored Giga-ORX beam visuals.

• Added/updated camp movement cursor.

• Recolored HP bars.

• Added building area of effect display for auras.

• Reduced in-combat sound volume for arrows.

• Fixed lighting issues on runes, rune animations, and boss cast bar.

• Improved final boss preview visuals.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed cards getting stuck in an on-hover state in between screens.

• Fixed ORX pathfinding when placing Bastion-type tiles on top of an ORX squad.

• Fixed curse cards getting stuck on screen during redraw.

• Fixed artifact reward error from the first pre-mission event.

• Fixed card removal option in random events and the Crown Shop.

• Fixed Wizdomniac spawning infinite totems.

• Fixed mission/card click flow where clicking a card stopped the act window from opening.

• Fixed boss mission completion blockers.

• Fixed visibility for Wisdomniac’s lightning VFX in dark environments.

• Fixed lightning VFX animation for golden colored subvariant.

• Fixed night visibility for aggro indicators and HP bars.

• Fixed ORX spell description issues.

• Fixed campaign statistics button placement and stale statistics across consecutive runs.

Known Issues

• Currently there are too many artifacts with the “Castle” tag, which can be useless for any other faction than Rune Guardians. We’re looking to remedy this in the next hotfix coming up not long after this update

• When playing as Dune Reavers, sometimes the roads might not join into the Military Zone, failing to extend it. Intermediate solution is to place the Lighthouse on that road, to forcibly spawn a Military Zone and connect it with the existing one. This will be solved in the upcoming hotfix as well.

That is all for this update. Thank you for keeping the fight against the green Horde alive. See you real soon, and then some more!

johnbell & CRITICAL REFLEX