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December 19th, 2019
Dev Blog: Idle Champions in 2020 
Posted in Idle Champions.

Well met, Idle Champions! Welcome to another installment of our developer blog. I'm Justin, the lead designer on Idle Champions, and today I'll be revealing our high-level plans for Idle Champions in 2020. It's going to be a big year for the game, so buckle up and let's get to it!

A Year In Review

2019 has been a big year for Idle Champions. We released nearly 100 updates, taking us from v186 at the start of January to v279 at the end of the year. We added 17 new Champions to the game, including fan favorites like Spurt, Jim Darkmagic, and Artemis Entreri. We also added a new campaign, 16 new adventures, and numerous challenging variants. We did two big balance patches with the Core Champion Balance Update and the Year 1 Champion Balance Update (Part 1). We also added the Locked Chests & Combinations system to all platforms, unveiled Patrons, launched on the web, and reworked ultimate damage with the BUD system. Our roster of monsters has grown to over 1000 (including special monster variants), and players have redeemed more than 7 million free chest codes since release. Wow!

But this blog isn't really intended to look back. We're more interested in sharing what's coming up! So, without further ado...

Offline Progress

Dungeons & Dragons Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms

This is a big one. Early in 2020 we hope to roll out offline progress to all platforms. This will have its biggest effect on console and mobile platforms, where leaving the game open for days on end is a challenging prospect to say the least.

Offline progress will advance your formation through the game even when the game is closed. It will not be a full simulation, but will attempt to mimic online play as closely as possible, including stopping on bosses or areas that would wipe you, completing patron challenges, and farming gold at your wall. Our intent is that offline progress will not allow you to cheese challenging variants (like "Never Split The Party"), as it will take into account changes in the formation and the challenge levels of new areas as it progresses you along.

Offline progress is currently undergoing beta testing with a small group of volunteer players, and our goal is to have it tweaked and ready for prime time early in the new year. Based on feedback from our current testers, we're confident that this will make Idle Champions a much more enjoyable experience on both mobile and console platforms, as progression should feel much less punishing. It also feels really good on Steam or web platforms if you're forced to close the game for a longer period of time. Who doesn't like coming back to the game 300 areas later and with a bunch of gold and gems to spend?

Time Gate Rework

Dungeons & Dragons Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms

An update we often see requested is improvements to time gates. We've seen a lot of great suggestions over the past year, including increasing the number of available Champions, allowing players to re-roll the available Champions, and so forth. We've decided to go above and beyond those suggestions, though, and make time gates truly a feature you can use to recruit and gear up any Champion you want to over time.

Early in 2020 we'll be rolling out our new time gate system. Once it's live, you will be able to open a time gate for ANY Champion at ANY time. The cost will remain the same (6 time gate pieces), but rather than opening a gate and having a choice of 3 random Champions, you'll be able to choose from a list of all of the available Champions. No more rolling the dice.

Additionally, we'll be updating the actual content of each time gate. In addition to two basic adventures with ever-increasing area requirements, one of the Champion's original three event variants will be offered with each opened gate, allowing you to complete their event variant achievement even if their event is not active. This extra variant will award a gold Champion chest, bringing the total number of chests you can earn per gate up to 3. This also means that the only Champion achievement you won't be able to complete outside of an event is the one to beat certain area targets in free play.

One thing we aren't changing is the free time gate weekends. They will still only offer three random Champions for free, so you'll still be able to debate amongst the community which of the three is your best option, and/or which of the three is utterly trash. The difference now is that you can choose to just ignore those three free Champions and open a different gate for time gate pieces, removing a previous restriction on time gates that the old system had. The three Champions will remain free throughout the weekend if you want to open one of their gates later, but as soon as you've opened one of the three, the two others will go back to their normal price.

To help new players from being overwhelmed by all the Champion choices, we will be providing several sorting options for the list of Champions, including popularity, which will be determined by the number of time gates recently opened for a given Champion. This should help newer players get a glimpse of the current meta and make informed time gate choices.

We will also be removing the Time Gate Fragments premium pack from our in-game store when this update rolls out.

Year 4 Events

Dungeons & Dragons Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms

The time gate section is a good segue into our next topic: Year 4 events. There was a lot of discussion around our original implementation of Year 3 events, so we want to get ahead of that by letting you know our plans for Year 4 as far ahead of time as we can -- that's now!

One of the reasons we are opening up time gates to all Champions is because we feel events are right on the cusp of having too much content to complete in the available time. This was a significant concern for us at the beginning of year 3, and why we initially reduced the freely available champions to two during the first year 3 event. While we did relax this after player feedback, it still remained a concern. As such, starting in Year 4 only the three most recent event Champions for each event will be available in their respective events. For year 4, that will be Champions from years 2, 3, and 4. When we reach Year 5 events, only year 3, 4, and 5 Champions will be available, and so forth.

With time gates being expanded, players will still have an opportunity to recruit and gear up specific older Champions if they wish, now that the randomness of time gates has been removed. While we appreciate that some players would prefer all event Champions be available during their events, we feel that would simply be too overwhelming during events, particularly for newer casual players. For any year 1 Champions considered to be at the top of the meta, the revamped time gate system will allow players of all levels to recruit and gear them up in their own time without having to wait for an event to start or feel rushed during it.

"But wait," you say, "won't that leave you wanting to run Time Gates more often? Don't they distract from doing normal adventures, or doing patron challenges, or farming gems?"

That brings us to our next big feature...

Multiple Adventure Mode

Dungeons & Dragons Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms

By the time we finish our cycle of year 3 events, Idle Champions will be home to at least 67 unique Champions (and possibly 1 or 2 more). With only 10 slots available in any given formation, this presents us with a very real problem: 57 Champions sitting on the bench doing nothing. 57 Champions you have recruited, geared up, and learned to use, but have no use for. Our solution to this is to let you run multiple adventures at once, with a unique formation of Champions in each one.

We are still in the process of optimizing and building out this system, which will likely piggy-back on the offline progress system we are developing. The end goal is to allow you to make use of 20, 30, or even 40 of the Champions on your roster at once, so that you can take advantage of all that time spent recruiting and gearing them up.

Now, your first thought after hearing this might be the same as ours -- running twice as many adventures as once sounds like twice as much work. Won't this make the game more onerous? Well, that brings us to our last update of this blog...

Modron Automation

To go along with being able to run multiple adventures at once, we want to provide players with some utilities to make those additional adventures easier to run, and start to close the gap between normal players and those who enjoy scripting the game to play itself.

Modron Automation will allow you to set the game to play up to a certain area and then potentially reset and run it again. You'll be able to use this feature to run time gates, farm for gems or chests, complete patron challenges, etc, and you'll be able to use a different script on each adventure you're running with Multiple Adventure Mode.

Both Multiple Adventure mode and Modron Automation are still in early stages, so you shouldn't expect them too early in the new year, but they're important pillars of our plans for Idle Champions moving forward.

Closing Thoughts

Aside from these big picture items, we are of course still hard at work on new Champions, balance patches, soft cap increases, new blessings, and new adventures and variants. We have no plans to slow down in 2020 and we thank you for joining us for the ride!
December 18th, 2019
COTLI: The Nate Before Christmas 5! 

    O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree -- how angry are thy branches...!
    O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree -- how much you embody the rage of nature and bring the wrath of the elements down upon us all!

Once again The Nate Before Christmas blesses our doors, and this year we are visited by the rage of nature: Kris, the Enraged Elemental!

The Nate Before Christmas 5 runs until Tuesday, December 31st at 12PM PST, introducing Kris, the Enraged Elemental and bringing back Frosty the Snowman, RoboSanta, The Dark Helper, RoboRudolph, Xander the Xmas Dragon, and Wrena the Fair!

New Tier 5 Crusader: Kris, the Enraged Elemental

Kris, the Enraged Elemental brings all the buffs to the formation you've come to expect from an angry tree: they reduce damage for Crusaders the furthest from them with True North, they are able to redirect angry monsters away from them with their Decorations, and they increase party damage with Festering Foliage.

But that's not all: the Fresh Air that Kris brings increases Global DPS for each Flora Crusader in the formation, including Kris, and they are able to increase the maximum health of Crusaders with Forest Furor. Take Root prevents your DPS and Click Damage from dropping, while Winter Vigil can revive your formation once per area to save the day!

New Tier 5 Objectives

  • Recruit Kris, the Enraged Elemental | Kris, the Enraged Elemental takes up a slot in the formation. Only Flora Crusaders can do DPS.
    Reach area 400.

  • Home Alone | You can only use one Crusader in the formation.
    Reach area 450.

  • O Tannenbaum | All enemies are various tree monsters, and all bosses are various tree bosses. Enemies spawn in larger waves. Area quest requirements doubled.
    Reach area 475.

  • It's Elemental | Five different new elemental monsters spawn. Only projectile damage can kill these elementals, but all crusaders are allowed on the objective.
    Reach area 500.

  • Koliada | Two carolers take up places in formation. Sun monsters spawn randomly and either drop lots of gold or reduce your gold find.
    Reach area 525.

Help! Where’s the Loot?

Equipment for event Crusaders can be found in Silver and Jeweled Christmas Chests, which you can earn from objectives and the free play or buy in the shop. Each non-recruitment objective will drop a chest for its given tier of Crusaders, and free play will drop All Tier chests. Gear for Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 and Tier 5 Crusaders will only appear in All Tier chests once you've unlocked the respective Crusaders. You can select the tier of chest you buy in the shop when you go to purchase chests with real money or event currency.

What About Older Event Crusaders?

Previously-available The Nate Before Christmas Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4 Crusaders are once again available to unlock as part of The Nate Before Christmas 5. For more information about those Crusaders, check out our Event Blogs from previous years:


Players will have until Tuesday, December 31st at 12:00PM PST to complete The Nate Before Christmas 5. Good luck!
December 12th, 2019
BW2: Christmas Time Is Here! Christmas Event 2019 
Posted in Bush Whacker 2.

'Tis the Season for Giving!

Get into the giving mood of the holiday season by tackling the Bushwhackia Christmas event.

You'll want to get started by heading to the event area in the Commons to meet up with the stranded elf and help him fix his teleporter. (It's delicate, OK?) Once you've got it operational, you'll be able to make the journey far to the North Pole where you'll find a bevy of characters who need your special skills to make the holiday celebrations work!

Your primary task will be helping the elves make presents by bringing them Candy Canes (that you find in bushes), but there is a veritable smorgasbord of holiday related quests to complete as well. All of these quests will unlock over the course of the event, with the last ones unlocking on Christmas Day.

Once you've found reindeer chow for the poor reindeer, then you can help out Santa by delivering a present to a random house daily.

New for 2019:
This year's update includes: a new Christmas tree for your ranch received from completing the Decorate Tree quest; a new Snowman companion from the Build a Snowman quest; another custom item for ice fishing; 4 new quests that unlock on Dec 22nd; and more!

Presents all Around!!

Here's the event that started the gifting tradition! Once a day, if you have excess tokens, you can send a Present to a friend! These presents will contain a random amount of gold, energy, mana, power and come with some other treats as well. If you want to send more presents in a day, it will cost you a few Bush Bucks. Talk to Sasha in the North Pole to learn more!


Sasha has the power to gift your friends!


Event Achievements - POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT!!

There are a total of TWENTY-SIX possible Achievements to earn in the Christmas 2018 event:

Achievements Returning in 2019:
Apprentice Elf Helper - You've been responsible for at least one present!
Journeyman Elf Helper - You've been responsible for at least 20 presents!
Professional Elf Helper - You've been responsible for at least 50 presents!
Expert Elf Helper - You've been responsible for at least 50 presents from each Elf!
Santa Man - You've delivered a present to someone's house!
Diverse Santa - You've delivered a present to several houses!
Schoolyard Victor - You won 5 snowball fights!
Reindeer Herder - You've saved the reindeer 5 times!
Yay! Presents - You've opened a present from the Developers!
12 Days of Bushmas - You completed all 12 days of Bushmas!
Christmas Savior - You've helped all the citizens in need at the North Pole!
Snow-ho-ho! - You built yourself a snowman!
Well-arranged Caroling - Find all the special arrangements of famous Christmas carols. Sweater Weather - Buy one of Mrs. Claus' specialty sweater weather.
Grumpy Cocoa - You helped fix Grumpus a hot cocoa!


Added/Changed for 2019:
Stocking Stocking Stuffers - You bought all the 2019 Christmas event items!*
Burglar Burglar - You stole an item from the cluttered house!


We also have 9 achievements from previous year's events, which may be earnable by spending some Bush Bucks, if a player was not present during the initial years:

Santa Santa - You're practically Santa! (deliver a present while dressed as Santa)
Materialist - You bought all the Christmas 2012 event items!
Reverse Grinch - You've delivered a present dressed as a Grinch!
All The Toys - You bought all the Christmas 2013 event items!
No Returns Allowed! - You bought all theChristmas 2014 event items!
Season of Shopping - You purchased all the Christmas 2015 event items!
Winter Solstice Souvenirs - You purchased all the Christmas 2016 event items!
The Gift of Getting - You purchased all the Christmas 2017 event items!
Boxing Day - You purchased all the Christmas 2018 event items!


* The Christmas Mini Golf piece is NOT included in the Boxing Day achievement, and therefore it is not required to purchase it.

Note: The achievements Reverse Santa, Reverse Santa 2.0, Napping Nate Nabber, The Gift of Taking, Naughty Nabber, and Perks of the Job are not available during the 2019 event.

Mount Packs

New 2019 Mounts!



New mounts are available from Dec 12th to 16th!
The Flying Reindeer mount comes free with your first purchase of 100 Bush Bucks or more!
The Magic Reindeer and Nightmare Reindeer are in packs containing 100 Bush Bucks, 10 Pristine Feed Vouchers, and a VIP Voucher!

Pet Packs

New 2019 Pet Packs:



COMING SOON! Keep an eye out for the sale pop-up!

Other Pets available**:

2012 Reindeer - The pet for getting 100% in the 2012 Christmas Event (available for Bush Bucks.)
2013 Reindeer - The pet for getting 100% in the 2013 Christmas Event(available for Bush Bucks.)
2014 Reindeer - The pet for getting 100% in the 2014 Christmas Event(available for Bush Bucks.)
Snowman - Earned for completing a specific quest in this event.

** Note that these four pets start out as ranch items only, and can be converted to real pets by talking to Hank the Farmhand in the Commons (once you've built the stables)

Share the holiday spirit on the forums!

The Christmas event will run until Monday December 31st at Noon PST (8pm GMT.)