Perfect World Entertainment and Crytpic Studios have released a new video and developer blog for Magic: Legends, the upcoming free-to-play action RPG based on Wizards of the Coast's popular trading card game, Magic: The Gathering. In the latest trailer, Magic: Legends lead design Adam Hetenyi explains the numberous options for players to customize and tweak the difficulty and complexity in the upcoming ARPG, creating new challenges and experiment with in every playthrough.
The video takes a deep dive into the customizability of the game's challenges and how Regional and World Enchantments offer players a great deal of choice and strategy when it comes to how they choose to play the ARPG.
Regional Enchantments
On Regional Enchantments, here's what Hetenyi said:
"Beginning at the ‘Hard' difficulty and harder, each of the game's regions and their corresponding overworld and mission maps can have a Regional Enchantment. While on Hard difficulty, Regional Enchantments are optional, whereas, on Expert and Master difficulties, these enchantments are automatically applied. Regional Enchantments modify combat in that region in various ways, and the active enchantment(s) rotate every few weeks. For example: Burning covers enemies in that region in mystical flames, dealing damage over time to you and your nearby allies. Final Explosion causes the deaths of enemies to trigger massive, damage-dealing blasts.
Here are all the Regional Enchantments that will be in rotation beginning in the Open Beta:
Regional Enchantment Name | Description |
|---|---|
Color Alliance | Your base mana regen is 50% lower. Whenever you cast a spell, gain 1 mana of any of that spell's allied colors that you have in your deck. |
Burning | Nearby enemies do damage over time to you and your allies. |
Celerity | Enemies move X% faster and use their special attacks Y% more often. |
Final Explosion | Enemies explode after death. |
Unnatural Dangers | Hazards do 100% more damage [to everyone]. |
Mana Overload | Take extra damage (up to 100% more) based on how much mana you're missing. |
Necromantic Aura | Enemies have an X% chance to resurrect with 50% Hit Points. |
Poison | Enemies poison you when they attack, doing X damage over Y seconds. |
Reflect | Enemies reflect 20% of the damage they take. |
Unearthly Durability | Enemies take 50% less damage from player-summoned creatures. |
World Enchantments
Here's what Adam Hetenyi said about World Enchantments:
"In addition to the four base difficulties and the above-listed Regional Enchantments, World Enchantments add powerful, world-altering effects that can add further depth to the gameplay. They are consumable, single-use items that attach to story and ordeal mission maps. The World Enchantments system is in the Prophetic Quill structure of each Planeswalker's Meditation Realm or through the Guide menu once you've completed missions in the Overworld. You can craft these World Enchantments with earned materials gathered through gameplay or purchase them at the Broker, an auction-house style system that we'll detail soon. There are three different tiers of World Enchantments as well, with each tier increasing raw enemy and map difficulty, while the enchantment enhances the complexity of your encounters. These effects stack with difficulty level and Regional Enchantment selections, resulting in a series of augmentations that up the ante for plenty of challenge."
Here are all the World Enchantments that will be in rotation beginning in the Open Beta:
World Enchantment Name | Description |
|---|---|
Overarching Magic | You and your summoned creatures do half damage unless you have an Enchantment spell active. |
Betraying Ground | Every few seconds a damaging hazard spawns beneath your feet. |
Focused Magic | You do 50% less damage, but you gain a 10s +10% damage buff every time you cast a spell of the same color as the spell you previously cast (max +60%). |
Deliberate Tempo | Whenever you cast a spell, you can't cast another for 3s. |
Rotating Shield | Enemies occasionally gain invulnerability shields, which will pass from one enemy to another before expiring. |
Healing Spheres | Magical spheres appear and travel across the map, healing your enemies. |
Air Support | High-flying dragons appear occasionally to strafe your position. |
Paranoia | Enemies target you in preference to your creatures. |
Spell Burst | You do -70% damage unless you have cast a spell within the last 5 seconds. |
Scholar's Benefit | You don't heal out of combat. Heal for 5% of your max health whenever you draw a card. |
Just like the popular card game that inspired it, Magic: Legends offers various ways for players to approach the game with the depth and complexity of Regional and World Enchantments in the game.
Hetenyi went on to talk about the rewards and progression in Magic: Legends:
"Naturally, increasing the difficulty and complexity of missions and overworld activities in Magic: Legends results in reward bonuses to make completing them worthwhile. The benefits of increasing difficulty and applying enchantments include: a higher quantity of drops such as Spell Pages and Relic Fragments, Equipment rewards with more effective Mods, and more significant XP gains. You should choose the difficulty that makes sense for you, based on how strong your Planeswalker is. Prior to taking on these greater challenges, consider a combination of your Class level, Planeswalker level, Spell and Artifact ranks, Equipment, and overall build synergies. With over 25 risk/reward combinations at launch, you can consider a variety of playstyles, classes, deck themes, and more to survive. For example, with the Attenuation Regional Enchantment that reduces ranged damage, you likely want to select the Geomancer or Beastcaller class, and make sure that any creatures in your deck are also melee attackers. Using the Overarching Magic World Enchantment for another example, you may want to include 3 or 4 enchantments across your deck color(s) so that you have a higher likelihood of drawing one, and being able to deal full damage while it's active. If Attenuation is on-rotation as the Regional Enchantment, and you apply Overarching Magic to a mission, you will have to consider both of these modifiers and their ramifications at once."
Read More:Magic: Legends Reveals When The Game Takes Place & 3 Key Characters
Magic: Legends Open Beta is scheduled to begin on March 23 for the PC; for other details and how to sign up, read the details here. It will be fully released for the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One later this year. You can sign up for Open Beta here.
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