Community Update – January 2023

The team has been hard at work on our biggest release yet! While our past few releases focused on bug fixing, we’ve also been developing major changes that will significantly improve the game visually and functionally. Keep reading to learn more about what’s coming to DC Heroes & Villains in the near future.

Before we get into the future of DCHV, we wanted to update you on our current roadmap, which highlights some future releases and gives you a bit of a timeline of what to expect next:

PRE-REGISTRATION REWARDS

After some internal discussion with the team, we’ve decided to revamp the pre-registration rewards for everyone at launch. Upon the worldwide release, every player who has pre-registered on our website will receive Coins, Metatopes, Hardcash, an Exclusive In-Game Portrait, and Player Title, and Catwoman as a playable character!

Make sure to pre-register today to ensure you don’t miss out on these rewards at launch!

CHARACTER BALANCING 

Every character in the game is being updated. After the change to a single Power Move and analyzing how Groups were designed, we took a step back to lay the groundwork for a strong metagame. Character Roles will be more clear, Group Bonuses (previously called “Group Synergies”) will work better with the characters involved, and Power Moves will have more intentional utility.

We’re also revisiting Ally Synergy Moves. After listening to feedback, we agreed that they simply weren’t living up to their potential. Ally Synergy Moves need to be more impressive across the board, and players should never feel like a character’s Power Move was wasted. Although they’ll be removed temporarily in the next release, they’ll return bigger and better than ever before the worldwide release!

CHARACTER MANAGEMENT

To go along with our re-balanced characters, the Character Management screen is getting a huge UI improvement. Aside from looking more polished, Group & Faction affiliation will be more obvious, Gear functionality will be improved, and Leveling will be streamlined. Upgrading characters is a significant part of the daily game loop, so we want to make sure it’s a satisfying experience.

UI POLISH

Aside from the Character Management screen, you’ll see a ton of UI polish throughout the game. Buttons, pop-ups, backgrounds…pretty much everything has been improved!

HOME SCREEN

Perhaps the most obvious addition to the game is our new Home Screen! We always wanted the Location Maps to be front and center in the game, but they quickly became cluttered with all of the other UI that’s typically associated with a home screen—so we decided to create a brand new screen that serves as the base of operations for your Heroes & Villains. You’ll literally see your characters hanging out, have quick access to features, and then enjoy Location Maps that can focus solely on the Campaign and Event Missions. 

LOCATION MAPS

We promised a huge visual improvement to our Location Maps, and our art team delivered! The holographic style is way more detailed, the effects are more engaging, and you can even zoom into each Sector to see the individual missions. With this change, you’re able to interact more directly with the map, and we feel like we’re delivering the quality that cities like Gotham deserve.

With this new view, we’ve also added Side Missions and Star Rewards for each Sector of a Location. 

• Side Missions: Faction-specific Missions that challenge you to assemble your best teams of Heroes and Villains.
• Star Rewards: Earn stars on every mission to collect more of those sweet Gems!

CHOICE MISSIONS

Another big change to the game is how Choice Missions work. Whereas previously Choice Missions randomly spawned throughout the day, we’ve found that it’s more fun to actively scan for these missions.

• Everyone gets a Scanner that’s available in the Location Maps.
• The Scanner has a fixed amount of scans that recharge over time.
• Tapping the scanner reveals one Choice Mission, which will be available for a limited time.
• Choice Missions now have rarities—sometimes you’ll come across a petty crime that you can prevent or help; other times you’ll discover a rare event that comes with greater rewards.

EPIC BOSS FIGHTS

Everyone really seemed to love the new Darkseid and Enchantress battles at the beginning of the game, so we’re making a bunch more! We won’t spoil who you’ll fight, but you can look forward to many more fun moments throughout the campaign. 

BATTLE PASS

Although we liked having separate Hero and Villain tracks in the Battle Pass, ultimately we found that it made the screen too busy and overwhelming. So we’ve decided to simplify down to a single track. This not only makes the screen more inviting—it also provides an opportunity to highlight better rewards and add specific Battle Pass Missions.

NARRATIVE

We’ve implemented a brand new narrative across all of the available campaign! Most of the narrative in the last release was holdover material from when we had separate Hero and Villain tracks, and it didn’t make much sense after the first Sector of Gotham. Now the story has been overhauled to work with the new structure, punctuated by moments brought to life through the new Epic Boss Fights.

BATTLE UPDATES 

You may have already noticed some of the improvements to battle through our smaller updates, especially when it comes to the pacing. We have a team dedicated exclusively to making the battle feel as good as possible, and they’re delivering even more: 

• Enemies now have hit reaction animations.
• We’ve improved the VFX when using the Target Tile (created with a 2×2 match).
• Even better pacing throughout the battle.
• Allowing Power Moves to be triggered simultaneously.
• Improved communication of different combat states (Buffs, Debuffs, Melee vs. Ranged Power Moves, etc.).

PVP – ASSAULT MODE 

We’ve gathered a ton of feedback on PvP, and we’ve decided to make some significant changes. When players first unlock PvP, they mostly just want another way to experiment with their teams and earn more rewards—so we’re focusing the initial experience on just that.

Instead of Leaderboards, early PvP is all about advancing in Leagues and earning valuable items along the way. We’re also not restricting it to Hero and Villain teams, and opponent selection has been simplified.

The entire thing also looks a lot better!

FUTURE RELEASES

As you can see, we’ve packed a ton into the next release. In many ways, it’s going to feel like a brand new game! We’ve got a lot more planned though, so here’s a peek at what’s coming in the near future:

SHINY POLISH 

The next release sets the stage before our worldwide launch! A lot of our attention afterwards will be on polishing the experience to make sure it’s ready for everyone to enjoy. We’ll be listening closely to feedback, ensuring everything is balanced, fun, and working as expected.

COMPETITIVE PVP

While we have high confidence in the new “Casual PvP” we’re building, we’re not stopping there. We know that our most competitive players need a place to assert their dominance, and that will come back with renewed focus in a future release. This will include the return of Leaderboards, PVP Events that encourage creative team construction, and some of the best rewards available.

GUILDS

Although Guilds and Guild Raids are functional, we know we can do better. Aside from UI improvements, we want to add more Raid Bosses and better incentives to be active in your Guild. We’re keeping details light for now, but this is definitely high on our list.

PREPARING FOR RELEASES

As we prepare for upcoming releases, most of the missions, all of the characters and the map itself have undergone major changes. Because of this, the team has decided it would be best to perform another global reset. Just like our last reset, current players who have access to the game will be compensated with in-game resources based on progression and monetary investment during the time played since the last reset. 

The compensation is based on 3 factors: 

• Account Progression
• Character Progression
• Current Currency Balances 

Players will receive an in-game mail with their respective compensations upon launching the game after the reset. 

Note: Please contact our support team directly for any questions or issues related to the compensation package

WORLDWIDE LAUNCH

It’s 2023, and we’re launching this year. With so much coming in the next release though, it’s still too early to give an exact date, but we promise that we will let the community know as soon as we can on what the exact release date will be!

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

If you’re a player who has access to the Soft-Launch build that is available in our many regions (Belgium, Denmark, the Philippines, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands!) then we are always looking for your feedback! 

Join our Discord Server and drop your suggestions in the appropriate channel.

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