We are planning a patch for April as well as one for May, the exact dates are yet not set but you can expect the following updates:
Clans
You will be able to create and manage your own Clans in the Bloodgate giving you access to a private clan channel as well as a clan tag. A Clan will consist of an owner, managers and members, an owner can promote members to managers which will give them rights to invite and kick players from the Clan. The owner can also disband the clan or hand over ownership to another member.
In the future we are looking into additional benefits for joining a Clan; Clan achievements, Clan progress and clan perks like additional Blood Coin generation, Clan Team Slots and more. Clans are planned to be released in April.
Invite a Friend
We want more players to join the action in Bloodline Champions so we will give you the chance to help out, by inviting your friends via mail or Facebook you can earn unique in-game items and exclusive packages. Exactly what rewards that will be available for inviting your friends will be revealed soon! Invite a Friend is planned to be released in April.
Tournament System Updates
We are planning to rework the requirements for joining a tournament to make it easier and faster to participate. We want to remove the need for playing placement games for all tournaments and also better prevent top teams from participating in Amateur Tournaments and instead making sure that they can participate in the Pro Tournaments.
Another update to the tournament system is the BLC-TV server which will remove the limitation of 64 observers so that everyone can jump in and follow a game. These changes and a few other updates to the Tournament System is planned to go live in April.
Replays
In the replay system you will be able to watch a replay in the same way you observe a game as an observer, by following a player, using the free camera or the smart camera. You will also be able to jump back and forth in rounds and speed up and down the game speed. We have not yet decided if replays will be stored locally on disc or on a separate replay server. The first version of the replay system is planned to be released in May.
Gameplay & Balance
We will most likely see some minor tweaks and changes to most bloodlines but primarily we are continuing to look into the performance of the different Tank bloodlines. We will most likely be seeing some bigger changes to Glutton and Thorn, we want these bloodlines to act more as Tanks.
When I say that we want them to be more like Tanks I don’t mean that their role should be to “Tank” damage from the other team but rather to be somewhere in between a Healer and a Melee/Ranged DPS bloodline. A tank should pose a threat to the opposing team if left alone with average to good damage capabilities, we also want a tank to have a disruptive role with good control abilities but the most important thing is that we want tanks to be aware of their allies and also to be able to use their abilities to save them. Currently we see most Tank bloodlines being played more like DPS bloodline and we would rather take away a little of their DPS and replace it with some kind of support; be it damage mitigation, crowd control or healing.
Besides the tanks we are also looking into reworking parts of the Stalker, we are keeping a close eye on the Reaver which will most likely get some tweaks after we’ve seen how this new bloodline performs in ranked play. We’re also looking into some hard counters such as Ravener mace stun vs Alchemist. Overall we believe that the balance is at a pretty good level but we’re always striving to perfect it. These changes are planned to be released in April.
Other Updates
Other than this we are working on a couple of Bloodgate updates such as Match history and Season history, we are working on new hats! And also… a new Bloodline! I’m going to reveal a tiny bit of information about it; what I can say is that it will most likely not be a Melee DPS bloodline.
Guess that’s all I have for you today.
See you all in game!
Peter Ilves
Lead Designer – Stunlock Studios
