This article is a discussion of the Battle Arena Update made on 12–20–2020
Introduction
Time really flies. It’s been a year since Drakons.IO have been released. Since day one, players have been enjoying the idle nature of the Drakons Battle Arena. When you send your Drakons to the battle, they wait for their Rune Level matches and those that met their match will instantly return with results — whether victorious or not, Drakon Masters still love reviewing their card moves.
Actually, anyone can argue that we can just leave the Battle Arena as it is from day one, but the Drakons team has been obsessed with innovations and improvements. And these obsessions have been reflected from the past months with a lot of improvements and changes not only in the Battle Arena but also in different section of Drakons, like the marketplace.
And when it comes to battles, Drakons have already released a couple of new moves for different elements. We even introduced unique battle cards for specific Limited Edition Drakons like the Epic Rat Earth Drakon with its Plague Bite. And recently, the Epic Air World Drakons also had its unique card move called Counter Gale. The only card move that can neutralize the powerful effect of Plague Bite.
In September of this year, we also introduced a new scoring system in the battle arenas replacing the old medal system for both Ranked and Ultimate Battle Arenas. And this is the Drakon Master Power (DMP) — Drakons’ own tweaked version of Elo formula.
We also recently introduced the Card Boosts feature to further boosts your own Drakon’s attack powers. This is in addition to the Food Boosts that was made available in Drakons own marketplace.
Well these boosts are very useful specially for Drakon Masters who have been busy playing in side the Ultimate Battle Arena since the time we introduced it inside Drakons World. And everyday, the said arena has been full of active participants where the best Drakon Masters battle it out to win awesome rewards including $DRK — Drakons’ own utility token.
And since day one, we have been observing the battle arenas and try to find things that we can improve and find what areas of the game we can enhance. And now, we believe that it’s about time to introduce another set of updates and enhancements for better and more exciting and challenging battle experiences.
These updates are to highlight more the strategic aspect of the game. We also wanted things to be different from time to time so players can also find renewed excitement in the game. And we believe that these updates will also balance the aspect of the game when it comes to using the appropriate battle cards.
Adjusted move Cost and Damage
Since the beginning, the main goal of Drakons team is to make battles inside Drakons World to be more about strategy and of course we also want the game to be more exciting to all Drakon Masters. However, it seems that the most common card moves being used in battles are the basic lower AP cards, the blast and stun card moves for attack and the aegis and defend moves. Seldom that Drakon Masters used those unlockable offensive moves on higher rune levels maybe because of their high AP cost. And another reason maybe because their actual damage effects are not that considerable high compared low rune level card moves.
For instance, Earth Drakons common moves on rune level 25 are mostly composed of Earth Blast, Stoning, and Earthquake. These are the same card moves you see in levels 15 and 20.
Therefore, Drakons Team decided to make several changes on the card moves across all elements. And the main objective of these updates is to increase each element’s offensive damage in relation to its level and AP cost. This is to motivate Drakon Masters to use and invest more AP to higher level cards because these cards can definitely inflict more damages to the lower level and cheaper AP cards.
Critical Damage
Critical Damage has been part of the Battle Arena since the start. For the past months, it’s been a love or hate relationship for both the players and the developers.
For some it might be the cause of excitement, and joy in the arena. And for some, it might be the cause of a lot of frustrations.
Our Critical Damage is based on a Random Number Generator game mechanic, or some game developers simply call it RNG. In game development community, there is a lot of contrasting opinions regarding this game mechanic, as it can make players just rely on luck instead of players’ skills and strategy. It can also ruin the experience for some.
The team knows that a Critical Damage can greatly influence the outcome of a battle. Because of this, the Drakons Teams have taken a number of noticeable changes on the Critical Damage mechanic.
The team believes that the RNG mechanic can bring extra spice on a battle, but also believe that too much reliance on an RNG mechanic can also ruin it.
Hence, on this update, the Critical Damage has been greatly reduced.
Also, all elements have basically no critical chance to begin with from level zero. The only exception for this protocol are the Metal Drakons because they already have a critical chance attribute from the start.
Magic, Physical, and Hybrid Damage
Each Drakon has attributes called Physical Attack and Magic Attack. And to supplement these attributes, they also have attributes for Physical Defence and Magic Defence.
All Drakons’ offensive cards are using Magic Attack in their Damage Calculation.
This makes the Physical Attack and Physical Defense attribute less relevant. As they are only being factored in the Attack Cards (1 AP card from rune level 0) which are rarely used, and on Double Attack damage computation.
On this update, any card can now have the ability to either be a Magic Damage Move, or a Physical Damage Move.
Aside from making moves either physical damage or magic damage, we also updated our formula so it can factor both physical and magic attack at the same time. We call this type of attack as Hybrid Damage.
The simplified new formula now looks like this:
mgc_dmg = card_magic_multiplier * drakon_mgc_atk
phy_dmg = card_physical_multiplier * drakon_phy_atk
total_ mgc_dmg = (mgc_dmg * mgc_dmg) / (mgc_dmg * opponent_mgc_defense)
total_ phy_dmg = (phy_dmg * phy_dmg) / (phy_dmg * opponent_phy_defense)
total_damage = mgc_dmg + phy_dmg
For moves that were only magic, only the card_magic_multiplier variable will have a value, and its card_physical_multiplier will be zero.
Physical damage only moves will have its card_physical_multiplier set, while its card_magic_multiplier will be set to zero.
For Hybrid damage, both card_magic_multiplier and card_physical_multiplier will have value.
Drakons Elements
In the beginning, we introduced the four basic Drakon elements: Air, Earth, Fire and Water Drakons. And recently, we unleashed the evolved elements: Metal and Frost Drakons. And obviously, there have been a couple of noticeable unique characteristics on every element.
For example, Air Drakons have greater offensive damage to opponents but with very low HP. The Fire Drakons are actually known for their burning skills and burn per turn but doesn’t seem to be enough. The Earth Drakons are actually known for their unique move that can petrify or totally disable an opponent’s car move. Unfortunately, they have very low AP hence not much offensive moves could be used even on higher rune levels. The Water Drakons, the only common Drakons that have healing powers and a fountain of HP. The Frost Drakons, the only Drakons that has a move that has both stun effect and at the same time healing powers. And of course, the Metal Drakons, the evolution of Earth and Fire Drakons that have a unique move that can damage an opponent with critical damage, and at the same time stun the next move and electrify at the same time. That’s why both Frost and Metal Drakons are basically considered to be the most powerful ones.
And because of these behavior in the battle arena, Drakon Masters seem to just focus on specific elements and most of the time on the most powerful ones. And so we wanted each Drakon element to have its own characteristics and more of a focused speciality other than judging the strength of an element by stats or one of there moves. Hopefully this time, Drakon Master can use the best Drakon depending on the situation, their strategy, or their play style.
In this article, it will also be explained the added rating on four key areas to further illustrate each element’s characteristics: Damage, HP, Defense, and Mastery.
Damage = How much damage a Drakon can possibly inflict to its opponent.
HP = How much health a Drakon has.
Def = How much a Drakon can endure damage.
Mastery = How much mastery is required to effectively use this element.
AIR DRAKONS
“Deals huge amount of magic damage but very low on HP and defense”
Damage: ☆☆☆☆☆
HP: ☆☆
Def: ☆☆
Mastery: ☆☆
Air Drakons have been the notorious one for dishing out huge amount of damage effects. And in this update, we want Air Drakons to be characterized by being the best burst damage dealer in the game.
Because of this characteristics, Air Drakons now has an increased attack base damage.
We also gave Air Drakons additional magic attack attribute. Now Air Drakons have a superior magic attack attribute compared to other elements.
But great power comes great err… weakness. Air Drakons have basically the element with the lowest HP, and with a below average magic and physical defense. Making them very vulnerable to attacks too.
EARTH DRAKONS
“Physical Damage Dealer, with good HP, and with good defense”
Damage: ☆☆☆
HP: ☆☆☆☆
Def: ☆☆☆☆
Mastery: ☆☆☆
If you are a strategic player, and you focus more on countering the opponents move, you might have loved Earth Drakons especially their Stoning card.
The Stoning card move has been very effective in battles as it can completely render an opponent’s move useless which is an important move on your move set. However, it could probably the only reason why Earth Drakons are being used. This is because Earth Drakons’ attack moves deal a bit less damage because they are the Drakons with the lowest magic attack.
So in this update, we made Earth Drakons as the Physical Damage Drakons. All of their moves are now based on their Physical Attack attribute.
Also, the updates now make Earth Drakons harness the power within the lithosphere. This enables them to have the highest physical attack attribute in the game.
The updates also give significant buff on Stoning as its AP cost is now lower.
FIRE DRAKONS
“Versatile Drakon which can use both magic and physical attacks, with fair HP, and fair physical/magic defense. Also burns its opponent with its mastery of fire.”
Damage: ☆☆☆☆
HP: ☆☆☆
Def: ☆☆☆
Mastery: ☆☆☆
Magic?… or Physical?… Why not both?!
Fire Drakons will now be known as the Drakons who mastered both magic and physical attacks. This makes them very versatile Drakons. Flame Burst and Burning Scratch now deals physical damage instead of magic damage.
Because of this, players can plan ahead if they want to use magic or physical moves against an opponent.
Fire Drakons have been known as the Drakons that can boil opponents because of their Flame Burst skill’s Burn effect.
For this updates, why boil an opponent, if you can turn them into barbecue! That means that Fire Drakons’ skills, aside from Flame Bursts, can now deal small amount of burn effect for one turn.
Chain Eruption have also been hugely buffed. Its magic multiplier have been greatly increased, its AP cost have been lowered, while also adding additional burn effect for 2 turns.
WATER DRAKONS
“Huge HP with decent defense but low damage output. Can sustain through regenaration, annoying to play against when used by good players.”
Damage: ☆☆
HP: ☆☆☆☆☆
Def: ☆☆☆
Mastery: ☆☆☆☆☆
Water Drakons have the highest HP in the game. And because of their regenaration ability, they are also known as a Drakons who can sustain against heavy hitters for 8 turns.
In fact, Water Drakons have been notoriously known by their Zero Damage strategy. Where Water Drakons can out heal its opponent’s damage, making them win with 0 damage received.
But even with good HP and healing capabilities, Water Drakons have the lowest magic attack across all elements, making them the lowest damaging Drakons.
Hence in this updates, Water Drakons are given with significant fight back powers.
Hydro Explosion has been hugely improved as it can now deal huge damage comparably with the same rune level cards of other elements, at a lower cost.
This might not be enough, but there’s a lot more for Water in the upcoming updates.
FROST DRAKONS
“Good HP, Good Magic Damage. Can sustain through healing.”
Damage: ☆☆☆☆
HP: ☆☆☆☆☆
Def: ☆☆☆☆
Mastery: ☆☆☆
Do you know that Frost Drakons are the evolution of Water Drakons? Yes they are, that’s the reason why they also have healing powers. Frost Drakons inherited Water Drakons’ healing and HP regeneration traits, and at the same time having really good magic damage.
In these updates, Frost Drakons will have additional magic damage. But, its healing ability is now present in its Artic Rink skill at level 20 rather than in Frozen Shot.
METAL DRAKONS
“Great HP, Hybrid Damage, Great defense, and can Deal Critical Damage.”
Damage: ☆☆☆☆
HP: ☆☆☆☆☆
Def: ☆☆☆☆
Mastery: ☆☆☆
Metal Drakons have been the best Drakons in the arena for a long time. They have definitely high HP and deliver a lot of status effects moves. Aside from that, Metal Drakons can deal a lot of damage specially with their leveled up card moves. That’s the reason why they basically become over powerful in any arena.
So we feel like in these updates, these god mode for Metal Drakons must be balanced.
That means, in these updates, changes made Metal Drakons to be the master of both technology and magic. Hence making their attacks a combination of both physical and magic damage.
All of Metal Drakons attacks will now become hybrid damage that deals both physical and magic damage at the same time.
Although Metal Drakons attacks are now hybrid, the update still significantly balanced out the Metal Drakons damage output. This means that because of these updates, other elements can now confidently trade blows against Metal Drakons.
Drakons also noticed that Thunder Storm card has become too powerful because it has great damage, and at the same time provide a stun effect that can extend its damage on its opponent’s next turn. And aside from that, it can also deliver a significant critical damage to the opponent. Aside from being too powerful, it also makes other Metal Drakons’ cards less useful.
So in these updates, a number of adjustments were added to the Thunderstorm card. The Critical Boosts effect from Thunderstorm skill has been transferred to Meteorite skill at level 20.
Even though their damage have been lowered, Metal Drakons is the only Drakon which can deal Critical Damage from the start.
Nerf on Full Rage Strategy
It has been observed that a lot of Drakon Masters have been practicing the full rage strategy in the arena. So we nerf the defense moves.
Defense move effectiveness will now decay much faster when used consecutively.
Specular Reflecto
Since its released, Specular Reflecto have been standing behind the shadow of Aegis card. Specular Reflecto has been cost equally with Aegis, while only deflecting a portion of damage the Aegis can deflect while just returning a portion of damage.
But with these updates, Specular Reflecto now only cost 2 APs, And the Damage blocked is now increased from 50% to 60%.
It is also now unlockable on a much earlier rune level, that’s on rune level 4 instead of rune level 12. This is to give lower rune level Drakons to have more options.
Specular Reflacto now have a special ability to return additional 25% damage on top of its original 50% damage when it defended a full rage attack.
Drakons Note: Please note that details such as game play, UI/UX, game implementations, etc. may change in the future as Drakons is continuously improving the platform for all Drakon Masters, and if these changes are major, we will announce them either on separate articles in the future, or in Drakons official Discord Channel and Telegram Channel. We encourage that you keep in touch and always #BeADrakonMaster!
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