Puzzle Quest 3 (All Platforms) Update 3.0 (2024 March 25)

Celebrate our 2nd Anniversary!

We can’t believe it’s already been 2 years since Puzzle Quest 3 officially went live worldwide! It’s been an amazing journey so far and we’re so excited to kick things off with our huge new 3.0 update which introduces the Gear System Rework, New World Map, and the next season of adventure in Etheria. 

But that's not all - we are celebrating our birthday with a whole month of special events! Starting March 26th until April 30th, all adventurers can enjoy: 

FREE LOGIN REWARDS: PQ1 PORTRAITS

Sport your favorite Follower from the original game in the chat for free! Log in this month to redeem free in-game portraits based on the Followers of Legend from the original Puzzle Quest - available to redeem until April 30th. 

WEEKLY ARCHIVE VAULTS AND DOUBLE ANCIENT COINS

Take part in weekly unlocked Seasonal content to earn double Ancient Coins, starting with the original Season 1.1 on March 26th! Each week will unlock a new Archive worth double the coins. We'll also have matching Adventures each week for new heroes to join the fun! 

SPECIAL OFFERS AND MILESTONE EVENTS

In addition to the ongoing Anniversary reward and Archive events, we’ll have daily login and milestone events, alongside special anniversary offers this month, starting with our Anniversary Event on March 28th! 

Without further ado, let’s jump into the official 3.0 patch notes!

New Season - Immortal Wounds

The Season begins at daily reset (00:00 GMT) on Tuesday 2nd April

• Start - Tuesday 2nd April (Release of Season 3.0, variant gear, spells, minions and Legendary)
• Chapter II unlocks - Tuesday  16th April (00:00 UTC)
• Chapter III unlocks - Tuesday 30th April (00:00 UTC)
• Hard mode - Tuesday 14th May (00:00 UTC)
• Elite Mode - Tuesday 21st May (00:00 UTC)
• End date - Monday 27th May (00:00 UTC)

Teaser Text:

“Dreams of peace shatter far too easily”

New Gem: Gem of Dreams

• Matches with Green
• When matched, randomly either gain a random Buff or inflict a random Debuff on the enemy for 3 turns.
• Gem of Dreams will spawn normally when fighting all Fae-type enemies

Introducing: Variants

Variant Gear Pieces are Gear pieces with a twist!

• A Variant Abilities takes the place of a gear piece’s original ability
• Variant effects count each other equipped variants of the same kind with no limit
• The Variant Gear piece will still also count towards its original gear set!

Fae-Touched

• Gain 1-6% Power for each Positive Status Effect on you per Fae-Touched gear equipped
• New Legendary Item
• Available only in the Cache items in the Season shop, this item will drop at Legendary rarity.
• Amulet of the First
• At the start of battle, convert 3 Green Gems to Gem of Dreams with a 70-100% chance to create 3 Gems of Dreams
• A remnant of the first dragons who came to Etheria

New Spells

Values in bold are affected by the Spellbook Level or Rarity of the Spell.

• Field of Dreams (140 Green Mana)
  • Explode 3 Gems, then convert 2-8 Green Gems to Gems of Dreams
    Conversion increases with Spell Rarity
    
• Den of Nightmares (125 Purple Mana)
  • Deal X Dark damage, +15-27% extra for each negative status effect on the enemy
    Dark Damage increases with Spellbook Level, Extra Damage increases with Spell Rarity

New Minions

• Efredi
  • Mighty
    Might: 8-160     Speed: 5-100   Cunning: 2-40
    
  • Versus Spell: Burning Wishes (60 Mana)
    Deal X Fire damage. If the enemy is already Burning, explode a random Red Gem
• Mothling
  • Speedy
    Might: 3-65     Speed: 10-200   Cunning: 2-35
    
  • Versus Spell: Invoke Dream (60 Mana)
    Deal 1x Dark damage and spawn 2 Gems of Dreams.

New Skins

• Dreamhold Shamans
  The Dreamhold has an intoxicating effect upon those who venture in… Better just lean into it.

Gear System Rework

For more detailed information about these changes, including a compensation breakdown, you can read our Gear Rework blog!

Versus Updates

We have heard your feedback, and have made the following adjustments to Versus Tourneys

• You can now fight yourself if you are one of the top players in a Tourney
  • Your opponent self will appear as a ghostly version to help signify that it is a copy of yourself.
• A player’s defensive loadout will not be updated in the last 24 hours of a Tournament
• Opponents that are taken from outside of the Tournament are now weaker. 
  • These opponents are provided if the Tourney has not been populated with enough players yet so that players can get started on working towards their rewards without interruption. 
  • They should get phased out as stronger players in the Tournament are fought, but we will keep an eye on if we need to address these further.
• Heroes now receive a Stun Barrier after recovering from Stun.
• The Turns Taken Goal scoring has been updated
  • < 3 Turns: 10%
  • < 5 turns: 5%
  • 5-7 turns: 0%
  • >= 8 turns: -5%
  • Penalty increases by 5% for every 2 turns afterward, to a max of 50%.
  • We don’t want to bring back the One-Turn meta, however, we also don’t want players being forced to spend large amounts of turns trying to maximize their bonus to be competitive. By having a steeper penalty for longer battles, we aim to make the decision of which goals to target per battle more interesting. 

New Achievements

Update 3.0 will be our first new update introducing new Achievements for all platforms. There are 5 new achievements that are being added, which are:

• Divine Intervention: Defeat the Scourge of Light (Season 1’s Final Boss)
• Apocalypse Then: Defeat Yog'Thadassa (Season 2’s Final Boss)
• A Dream Broken: Complete all Chapters of the Story in Season 3.0
• Going on an Adventure: Complete 10 Adventures
• Rogue’s Gallery: Collect 15 Portraits

Rest assured that if you have already completed Season 1 and Season 2, then Divine Intervention and Apocalypse Then will unlock automatically when you first run the 3.0 update.

New World Map

Cartographers of Etheria have finally finished the most detailed map of Etheria so far. The world map has been completely overhauled to provide 4x the detail of the previous world map, along with being able to take a closer look at any point of the world map.

• As the world map is now larger, map nodes can now be more accurate to the story that is taking place
• Zooming in and out of the World Map also changes the camera tilt
  • Zooming further out looks more flat like a world map
  • Zooming in adds more tilt to the camera, showing off the depth and detail of Etheria
• Map Nodes have a shiny new base

Other

Goal/Quest Updates

• Replaced “Level an Item” Quest Pass Task with “Win a Dungeon Battle”, this may require a daily reset to take effect before the task is replaced.
• “Upgrade an Item” Quest Pass Task also triggers on fully honing pieces of gear.
• Updated Goals for getting any gear to a specific level to trigger on battle scroll levels instead.
• Updated Goals involving getting elemental items to specific levels, and replaced them with the equivalent rarity.

Gem Ownership

• As some players in Versus may have noticed, in certain circumstances an activatable Hero Gem can be spawned by the enemy that only the player can use. In order to level the playing field, we have introduced Gem Ownership - where a gem can only be used by the character that spawned it. This Gem ownership is denoted by an Icon in the gem help display, as well as an idle effect for gems owned by an enemy. 
• A Gem can only be activated by the character who owns it (no more stealing the other player’s Treasure Gems in Versus!). 
• If an owned Gem is destroyed by the opponent, there may be a limited effect for the owner, but the full effect of the gem won’t be triggered.
  • Rage Gems will grant the Owner Rage, but won’t explode
  • Juju Gems will give the Empower Juju buff, but won’t spawn new gems
  • Shield Gems will give the Owner a Barrier, but won’t destroy the column
  • Shadow Gems won’t spawn new Purple Gems
  • Treasure Gems will give the Owner Greed, and possibly spawn another, but won’t destroy the Row & Column
  • Imp Gems will give the Owner Brimstone and their opponent Wither, but won’t explode.

New Goals

• We have also added some new Goals to complete in Season 3.0 and later, including:
  • Completing Adventures
  • Collecting Portraits
  • Collecting Portrait Frames
  • Visiting Merchants during Adventures
  • Unblocking Blocked Paths during Adventures
  • Collecting Fae Gifts during Adventures

Quality of Life

Balance

• Heroes will now receive a Stun Barrier when recovering from Stun
• This applies to your own Heroes, as well as Heroes in Versus

Gameplay

• Damage reflected by the Reflect status effect is now considered Non-Lethal damage, leaving the recipient with at least 1 Life remaining (even if at 1 Life). 
• Visual
• Item 1

UI

• Resource descriptions for Shards, Runes, Scrolls, Glyphs, and Relics have been updated to match their new functionality
• Added a continue button to the map screen for seasons that use the map.
• The battle reward menu now shows the bonus resources gained due to stats, altars, and kingdom titles.

Other

• Increased the number of available Loadouts from 8 to 16

Bug Fixes

Gameplay

• Plague Witch ‘Infuse Poison’ can remove Hero Gems (Imp Gem)
• Godslayer Weapon explosion now gives Mana
• All issues relating to Reflect have been resolved by the change to non-Lethal Damage
• Reflect can be triggered after an enemy is defeated- this can cause a loss with the player taking reflected damage before the battle resolves
• Taking enough damage to lose all health from Sharkskin robes effect causes defeat
• Both the opponent and player dying (that results in a loss) causes the Shrine to pop up
• Defeat after Enemy takes fatal damage
• Fixed PvP opponents not including the stat boosts from their spell collection
• Adventure Energy purchased in the shop is no longer lost on daily reset

UI

• "End Turn" appears/remains when there are matches available
• Salvage All text is now appropriately pluralized
• Updated loading screen tip for hunts to be clearer
• Fixed percent complete display for seasons showing incorrect values
• Salvaging items in the reward screen now shows the correct number of items being salvaged
• Added missing replay button to story complete panel in the Season Archive
• Spell pages gained in the reward menu now exclude page count from previous levels in the total, to match the display in the spell info menu

Other

• Fixed upgrading spells to any Plus rarity not triggering upgrade goals

Known Issues

• Preview Spell missing buff from Spellbook 
• Leaving the game in the background causes a black background
• PQ3 client is causing some devices to overheat (iOS/Android/Xbox Series X)
• Attribute bonuses displaying incorrectly when viewing tooltips
• Risen Gems affecting linked gem matches
• Fixed in 3.1
• Gear rewards in Seasonal Cache display as duplicates with different chances
• Updated in 3.1