If you’ve played Berserk: Vulcanites Unleashed lately, you would have noticed that it feels more stable and fluid than ever before. That’s thanks to the hard work of our Berserk development team, who have been working diligently behind the scenes to bring you the best CCG on the block(chain).
We wanted to take the opportunity today to lift the curtain and give you a deeper look at the patches that have come out over the past three months. It’s been a massive few months, so to get up to speed on all the changes in Berserk, just keep reading!
V2.21.5
V2.21.5 was released to Beta Testers on 10/10/2022, introducing a bunch of important changes to Berserk. Most notably, the New Beginnings card set (with 24 never-seen-before cards!) was released to all Beta Testers ahead of Season 3.
Some of the new mechanics such as Mirror Shield were reworked in this version following internal testing. Silence was also updated to remove both positive and negative stats in addition to ability text. Additionally, server stability was addressed in this release, with some improvements to address poor ping tolerance.
On top of all that, we also brought in some hefty bug fixes:
- Blacklisted cards from Season 2 were fixed and reintroduced to the game.
- In the past, the HP and attack score of a card were sometimes overlapped by Vulcanite frame. This will no longer occur.
- Multiple error message issues were rectified (400, 500 & 503).
- We also fixed a bug where «No Internet» and «Inactive Session» messages were appearing at the wrong time
- A memory issue that appeared on older mobile devices after multiple reconnect attempts was also fixed.
- We squashed a bug where RicardoBot was being allowed up to 8 cards on the table!
- An issue where some card effects weren’t working properly when there was a VFX loading error was corrected.
- We also rectified an issue where the Surrender button was not active in some cases.
V3.0.6
Beta Testers were given access to V3.0.6 on 04/11/22. Like the update before it, some important gameplay changes were added to the game.
The order of operations for Lifesteal cards was modified so that it should now correctly heal in all scenarios. The Card Draw rate was adjusted down to 1 per turn, changing the pace of the game for the better. There were a few more changes too, like Hero Empower no longer dealing counter-attack damage and Spell cards becoming playable even if they don’t have a valid target on the board.
This Beta Testing version did introduce two unintentional things: Taunt cards could now have immune cast on them, and Resurrected cards could no longer trigger EtBs. We will be fixing these in a future update.
The bug fixes and technical work included in this build were huge, but some of the big milestones were:
- A complete rebuild of the game engine. massively improving performance on weaker devices or in heavy board states
- Brand new server architecture.
- All interactions now fully moved from Client Side to Server Side.
- Improved security features, stability, game synchronisation and action delays.
- Remaining blacklisted New Beginnings Cards were also enabled.
V3.1.1
V3.1.1 rolled out on 22/11/22 to our Beta Testers. This release only included one significant gameplay change, where the card draw rate was adjusted from 1 per turn to 2 per turn from Turn 7 onwards — changing the tempo of the late game.
There were, however, some important bug fixes included in this patch. They mostly addressed UI issues, such as:
- Fixing the Vulcanite ability, so that it doesn’t appear to be activatable even after the hero has been silenced.
- Fixing scenarios that resulted in players being locked into a false pre-start match with no escape.
- Ensuring that button presses and turn timer get muted as well when the volume slider is set to 0.
- Making sure certain cards don’t overlap when played by the AI.
- Stopping some cards from falling “behind” the cards in hand when deployed.
- Making sure that the Good Game button notifies the opponent more consistently.
V3.1.3
Released on 04/12/22, this version included some tweaks to previous gameplay updates applied to the beta version. Big thank you to the Beta Testers who provided feedback on these changes!
The card draw rate was adjusted from 1 per turn to 2 per turn from Turn 7.5 onwards. That means that Player 2 now gets 2 cards first, and Player 1 gets 2 cards per turn from Turn 8. This stops the late game from dragging out into a grindfest, and we found giving Player 2 the slight leg up can help shift game momentum favourably, helping to close that Player 1 advantage.
We made it so that Spell cards can no longer be played without a valid target (that was a short lived change that didn’t pan out!). We also toned down the 10 second turn timer warning a bit so it was less demonic, and adjusted the XP earn rate to 20–6 W/L (up from 10–3). The $LAVA earning ratio remains the same as before, which means that the earning rate for Berserk has essentially doubled.
In this version, we did have to temporarily disable cosmetics for stability reasons.
Some of the most significant bug fixes are as follows:
- Sunfire Strike will no no longer destroy itself when played.
- A disconnect issue that would kick players out fully, and require a re-login was corrected.
- We continued work to prevent scenarios that result in a player being locked into a false pre-start match with no escape (we think we’ve got all of them now…)
- We fixed an issue where “Cannot attack Stealth/immune/taunt” was appearing on every attack, regardless of actual target, or who controlled the relevant card.
- We also corrected a UI issue where sometimes tooltip text would remain on the screen for the remainder of the match.
V3.1.4
V3.1.4 is our most recent release, which went live on 09/12/22 to all platforms! This applied all of our hard work from previous releases to the live version of the game. We hope you’ve been enjoying it.
This version also squashed a pesky bug where if you had a connection problem right when you played a card, it would become impossible to play or interact with any cards until you disconnected and reconnected (twice!). This was an annoying issue so we are glad to share that it has now been addressed.
New Initiatives and Milestones
So with the game in a more stable place than ever before, what else is coming down the pipeline?
Heading into Season 3, we’re introducing a new leaderboard to go with the new earning restrictions. These will be accompanied by some community milestones which everyone can work together to hit. These milestones will include total players and total games played, and reaching these benchmarks as a community means everyone will be rewarded with higher season prizes. The new board will track these milestone stats alongside the regular rankings you’ve come to know and love, but in general the board is also just prettier than what we’ve had in the past!
We’ve also introduced something in October that’s known as the Vault. Vulcan’s Vault is all about giving back to NFT owners and rewarding the player community who have supported us over the years.
How does it work? 50% of the revenue from New Beginnings Booster Pack sales will be distributed amongst all those who lock up their NFTs in the Berserk Vault pools. Vault Pool lock ups open on the 1st of every month and are open for 7 days to allow people to lock in their cards. All profit from the month is distributed at the same time that cards are returned. Then, new pools open and the cycle continues. The more cards you lock up, the higher your percentage of the payout!
We’re also working on a neat new card gallery to show off all Berserk cards to date. This tool is a great resource for collectors and deck builders alike!
As you can see, there’s a huge amount of work going into Berserk especially as we prepare for the launch of Season 3! We’re endlessly thankful to our Beta Testers and the wider Vulcan Forged community who love our games and give us great feedback to continue to make things bigger and better.
Bug fixes and stability improvements are an ongoing process, so if you run into any issues in-game and want to report it, let our team know in Discord.
We look forward to sharing more about Season 3 in the near future. See you in Berserk!