Adventurers,

Dropping by to share some more news. There were a few hiccups that needed to be adjusted in The Advent. The biggest issue being a nasty collision error that would allow a boss to be safely attacked indefinitely. With these fixes in place we will begin final testing starting Tuesday 6/30. The aim is to get a release out within 2 weeks from then.

The Advent Update

While playtesting it was important to try to balance around the theme, PvE, and PvP given that there are restrictions to teleports. The map features four areas that have a boss.  Advent keys have an increased drop chance and when opening the Advent Chest you will receive 3 items per key. There are three types of monsters here:

Base: Frost Giant and Decayed. Smallest chance of Advent key but easily dispatched

Enforcers: Korrin, Arion, Syris, and Mirael have their local enforcers which are tougher and best suited for group play.  Chances of Advent keys are increased.

Bosses: Each Boss will prove demanding if PvP breaks out. The bosses will respawn every 4 to 5 hours. They guarantee 1 Advent key with a high chance of another key dropping.

Loot!

Loot is being expanded. The next loot will be in place for the final testing. A few honorable mentions!

• Arion, Korrin, Syris, and Mirael class sets
• Pristine set
• Advent Ring
• Advent Bracelet
• Advent Mantle
• and more!

Removals

Recycling assets is reasonable but there is an effort not to overdo this. The monster designs have been cut and use their base designs. A graphic update will be applied at a later time or just overhauled when the monster editor is complete. Just for fun here are a few designs cut. 

Questions and Answers!

Lately several people have seen me in game. Naturally questions and conversations followed suit. So I decided to take some questions and post them here!

Whats the deal with drop rates especially with Frontlines?

My first website post I mentioned a path to drops being better. This was placed on hold due to a new drop system that would be implemented however this has fallen out of priority. So, we will return to my onboarding message.  The intended goal was to cut out the lower prefixes from dropping so players had better chances for what they wanted. An example would be cutting out Baruch(1) to Baruch(5) so your rolls would be better for the item you wanted.  This worked a bit too well because Frontlines was planned to drop with the Prefix expansion. With the expansion your number of prefixes, even when cutting out the lower ones, in most cases have doubled which resulted in the harder rates again. 

What about unused prefixes?

Many prefixes are not used by players. One of the biggest pools of prefixes unused is the elemental resistance prefixes.  There are plans to make these useful in some way. This may involve cutting some out which will help with drop rates.

Can you tell me why elemental resistance is not working?

Elemental resistance is working correctly. Those attempting builds around Styx Castle monsters will find their attempts not working. The reason is Styx Castle monsters do not use elemental attacks. Magic attacks in the game are Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Non-elemental, and poison. 

Will accuracy become the new meta?

Not exactly. Accuracy will be more pronounced soon, but the goal is not to outright replace "power" builds, focusing your class stat only. Each build will offer an advantage to players. This is part of the horizontal memes players have mentioned!

Will Advent armor be Grade 12?

These will be Grade 11.

Are the stats changed on the Advent armors?

Yes. The main change is the evasion and dexterity. Information will come soon on these.

Whats the point of the Advent armors?

The Advent armors are offensive sets with dodge. For offense specifically - they will not include striking power. Striking power on armor as a permanent item are off the table. Instead they will give higher core stats (Strength, Agility, Concentration, Wisdom). Defensively these can perform at a much higher level than current boss armors. Even though the AC is weaker the dodge in the original design was reducing up to 2/3rds of the damage players took. Example: Successful attack hit 600 but with dodge the attacks were 200.

Are Holy Elixirs being changed?

Saw a ticket on this and honestly could not remember speaking to players about this. Yes these will be changed. Instead of giving percent based it will give a flat amount. The amount will be lower than Regal Health potions.

Max attack speed is?

Physical classes (Knight, Spearman, and archer) are 4 for skill attacks. You can go over this limit but it will not provide any boosts except if you were under a debuff or a buff fell off.  More information will come about attack speed because there are balance changes involving these.

Is Etana Caverns still coming?

Indeed! It will focus exclusively on low level players though. This is part of a series of dailies players can take. Etana Caverns will be the starting point with new instances will come to players all the way up to Frontlines.

What do you mean more dailies?

Some content will be designed like the Doom Arena. The goal is to expand this to several activities the player can daily to fund their experience gains. This is to offset directly placing Experience potion in the Plus Shop or level boosts. When all systems are in place it should be a smoother ride to level 130.  

Where are the events?

New monthly events were underestimated. While no event has been a copy and paste - there was a desire to do something besides more experience. Throwing out an experience, luck, increased weight, etc can now be done almost at any time now but have been restricted. Moving forward there is a place to throw some of these events out to players until Monthly events and Holiday events are smoothed out.

Will unique items be upgradable?

While the Reforged system has been canceled there is a chance to revive the idea. No commitments here but looking at the available pool of items and future system expansions are key. I would much rather have a system upgrade where items changed their stats rather than inputting each item as an entry which may limit future system expansions. If applying this to uniques there is still an opportunity. There will be a poll on this soon for players to vote to see if interest is still there.

Will Gardion be adjusted?

Yes.

Will Ares Discord be open again?

Currently there are no plans for this. There are plans for an internal platform for players to talk but in the meantime, I would like open discussions with players. Up front - if approval to open Discord is given then there will be numerous restrictions imposed to prevent former issues from appearing.