Test Games/2021-09-19

Test games are special games occasionally launched by admins to test updates, experimental features and maps.

As test games are run to test specific things, they may not progress in the normal way (for example, heroes may be spawned artificially or monsters may be given additional mana) so that we can more easily test new features. They may be buggy or unbalanced, and may need to be restarted multiple times. Quest, achievement and stats progress may or may not be saved as normal. In-game tutorials and other text may not be updated to reflect changes being tested.

Test games help us ensure new updates work properly and allow us to get player feedback on possible new features and maps. If test games are running, anyone is welcome to join through the main portal in the lobby. We might miss some comments in game chat, so it's helpful to post feedback in the Discord afterwards.

What are we testing?

Today's test games require updated server resource packs. If you normally play with a custom or locally-saved resource pack, please switch to the server resource packs for these test games. The resource packs might be adjusted further before these updates go live.

These test games follow on from those last week. The main things we're be testing are:

Hero (Myra the Unseen)

We're continuing to test a new minor hero, Myra the Unseen. Myra is an agile assassin hero, whose dagger allows her to blink forward in short bursts while damaging monsters along her travel path. This is a charge-based ability (like Durendal's sword beams) and can currently hit up to three enemies at a time. Currently, Myra can also climb walls by crouching next to a wall and looking up. Crouching while falling next to a wall will slow her descent, and releasing crouch allows her to wall kick.

Myra's stats and abilities aren't finalised and may be changed before she's added to live games. We're interested to hear what players think about her, including how she feels to play against.

Since last week's test games, Myra's dash has been changed slightly and is now based on the direction you are looking rather than the direction you are moving.

Update game 4: Myra now has two blink charges, down from three.

Slimes

If you've joined any of our recent map tests, you may have noticed that slimes currently spawn as regular special monsters on the test server. This is a change we're considering making in the future, so your feedback is appreciated.

We're currently testing an experimental rework to slimes. Slimes no longer grow when a dwarf they're riding dies, but will now grow (up to three times) after riding dwarves for a prolonged period. Larger slimes are tougher, with the largest slimes being much more difficult to kill. Slimes will get smaller again if they fail to mount any dwarves for too long.

Note: The tutorial has not been updated to reflect these changes.

Since last week's tests we've fixed an issue which was causing slimes to take too much damage, and also fixed a bug which could prevent them from giving dwarves rampages.

Update game 2: Knockback resistance (shields/hero armour) no longer prevents slimes from mounting dwarves.