Episode A 2 0 Card Captor Sakura

New Client

With this update you will have to re-download the client in full since we have the latest patch/grf are in this download and we're clearing out the patch files server side. This new client is in preparation for the expanded rework, but it also provides a quality of life adjustment that lowers the input delay noticeably allowing you to change direction much faster.

Master Accounts

Master Accounts are an addition to the server to help smooth the integration of Card Captor Sakura. However it's not limited to only use with that system.

With the Master Account system you will find that we now have Master Storage and Item Bounding to protect items that you want to only be tradeable within your own game accounts. We have future plans for more master account stuff, so it will be MANDATORY that every account is under a master account.

We'll have more information on this in the future when the changes go through, but for now save yourself the hassle and just put all your game accounts under one master account.

Note that players are only allowed to have ONE master account. Those who are found with two master accounts will be permanently banned if caught.

View the master account page linked above for more information on how it works.

Card Captor Sakura

After being in planned for what feels like a lifetime, Card Captor Sakura is finally here.

This system is a collecting system where you turn in cards on your master account to Sakura in the main office. (Just below the desocket npc to the east).

Through the system you will gain both points with the NPC and a tangible item called Sakura Badges that are master account bound, meaning you can only trade or store them on accounts that are linked to your master account.

Through Sakura you rank up your tier by turning in cards for either 1, 2, or 3 points based on relative difficulty of acquiring the card. Most cards will 1 or 2, with some particularly rare ones like Bloody Knight being 3 and a luxury.

There's a lot more to the system, but just know that through this system you will be able to exchange your badges for various shadow gears, costumes, and exclusive consumables/gears to this system. The shadow gears take up the weapon, shield, and footgear slots and you can only use 1 of each of these types at any time, so you'll have to choose wisely.

Note that the gears offered to you get progressively stronger as you rank up. For more information click the link above to learn more about the ins and outs of the system.

Nightmare Clock Tower

Nightmare Clock Tower is a new addition found through the normal clock tower in Aldebaran. At the entrance to the 2nd floor simply talk to Belljamin Button like you would on officials and travel in time with him by paying a small zeny fee to either the 2nd or 3rd floor nightmare versions.

Like in renewal, this content is aimed more at leveling and mid game players rather than super end game players and should be manageable for most. Its more difficult than normal clock tower, but is more rewarding appropriately. Solo players should be able to get decent EXP and loot through the unique drop system.

However, even though the normal mobs are manageable, the mini bosses and rare spawns do not mess around so you should seek to avoid them if you are not end game ready for them.

Also, Time Holder, the dungeons MVP, is not for the faint of heart and should be approached only by an organized party. (NOTE: Time Holder will be included with the A3 Patch, and is currently unavailable)

For more information on Nightmare Clock Tower click the link above.

Horror Toy Factory

This content update brings back an event content we had on launch way back in December of 2021, Horror Toy Factory! Only this time, it's here to stay permanently! But with it comes an adjustment to the way we've been doing new content. This time you'll find a mix of play of solo and party play like normal, but all items will be obtainable purely as a solo play if you so wish. You'll have to grind a little more and collect some other items like you did for the Niflheim items, but the idea here is to enable players to achieve their goals without relying on having to find a party to do so. This includes MVP items as well as all gear drops that drop from mobs that are found only on the 4th floor. To learn more details about this system and what items are available click the link above.

Winter Event Costumes

For the next couple months until spring comes, due to popular demand I'm bringing back the winter event costumes to be obtainable through an "event". Since I don't have time to quite do a proper event with currency from silvervine or bounties, I'm instead allowing players to simply farm a costume egg that includes all the winter costumes at random.

Both the 3rd and the 4th floor contain the costume egg so you'll be able to farm them both ways. Celine Kimi even drops it at 100% chance so if you can join a party for her you'll always get one!

This costume egg includes ALL of the costumes from our winter events.

How to get to Horror Toy Factory (TF3)

Since Horror Toy Factory in renewal was normally an instance with a proper story, we've had to make some very minor adjustments to the xmas_dun02 or toy factory 2 map. In the top right, you'll now find an open doorway and path with a portal to the 3rd floor.

The 3rd floor is not aimed at super end game players, but is not aimed for brand spankin newbies either. It should be somewhere inbetween, but with our current power levels it should be no problem for any established Alfheim veteran.

4th Floor

Once you reach the 3rd floor of Horror Toy Factory you can work your way to the bottom left of the map and find another modified entrance and portal that will take you to the 4th floor. The 4th floor looks identical to the 3rd but the monsters here are much stronger. They should be much easier than previous party based maps like Niflheim Dungeon or the more recent Old Glast Heim, but they're quite bulkier and intended to be taken down by a diverse (hint hint) group of players.

Due to the difficulty being toned down compared to other content, we're expecting potentially some players to attempt and successfully solo the 4th floor, which we're ok with! Here you'll also find the MVP instance of Celine Kimi, we recommend not trying to take her on alone.

Individual Loot and Party Changes

For a long time now, individual loot maps have been a big plus to partying on alfheim, but over time players have adapted and began to run parties where leeching is the primary meta. While we're not entirely against leeching as an option, it should never be the meta or most viable strategy for leveling as it results in people basically not playing the game. These changes below are aimed at hurting leech style parties as a dominant strategy for gaining loot at the very least. Leeching for EXP will still be viable, but now people will be less encouraged to run out of party characters and then fill them with leechers.

1.) Individual Loot on maps that have it only functions when no party member on the map has a secondary client on the map. This means even if you have a character out of party but on the map, no one in the party gets individual loot because of it.

2.) Individual Loot will no longer roll for the party if the last attack/hit by the mob was on someone not in the party. This means your tank must be in the party now when the mobs are killed.

3.) Performer Songs no longer work out of party on individual loot maps specifically. They will still function the same everywhere else.

4.) Tapping EXP Bonus only applies if you are within 20 cell range of the mob when it dies.

Class and Skill Updates

So with this update we've made some changes that will make bringing out of party/dual client performers to carry parties significantly harder as a counter to the leech for loot strategies that we've seen. We foresee some issues, however, with parties being harder to put together if finding someone to play performer is not easy to do anymore.

As such, we've determined that there is a fundamental problem with the performer classes if the majority of players will not consider playing them and those that do are rarely active in a party. Below you'll find more of an explanation on the changes we've done along with some other changes we think will help with classes lacking play rate.

Resets

Important to note that Performers (trans only) and Stalkers (both pre trans and trans) who are undergoing heavy changes this patch, will all be given forced full resets both skill and stat resets. You'll be given two total full resets that you can use to try out the new skills and swap back if you dont like them, or just keep them and not use the second reset.

Performers

Peformers are usually considered an "AFK" class where you press a button every so often while the party does all the work. At best you'll walk around and while the class does have some neat offensive utility like Slow Grace, Frost Joker, and Scream, you rarely see it being used.

As such our goals are to implement Severe Rainstorm in an attempt to encourage players to be more active in parties by further buffing the party or providing critical utility based on the last song they played.

Further, we're giving Performers Reverberation so they have an AOE skill for farming once they transcend like other classes so people won't feel bad about maining them for their solo farming adventures as well. We also feel reverberation, which is useable while performing songs gives the party extra dps and further encourages them to be active. Between Reverberation and Severe Rainstorm we are hoping we won't see AFK performers anymore and instead a class that is engaging and fun to play.

Lastly, as a quality of life we're lowering the skill cooldown of Adaptation to Circumstances, solely so you don't have to awkwardly swap your instrument with a dagger to swap songs quickly. While this is one way to show skill expression as a performer, its also kinda jank to us and we think just swapping with Adaptation would feel more natural even if it is a bit easier.

1.) Adaptation to Circumstances skill cooldown lowered to 0.2 seconds and is spammable/swappable between songs. (swapping with daggers no longer necessary)

2.) Severe Rainstorm added to Clown and Gypsy's skill tree. Click the link to learn more about how it works on Alfheim. Severe Rainstorm

3.) Reverberation added to Clown and Gypsy's skill tree. Click the link to learn more about how it works on Alfheim . Reverberation

Champion

These changes have been in the pipeline for awhile, but they're finally here. Combo delay was something we lowered to 1.5 and made it a rolling window awhile back which helped the class significantly, but the result is still pretty clunky to play in the end and the class isn't seeing much play.

Given the class's combo fantasy revolves around ASPD it feels weird to have your combos slow down your dps at times due to the awkward delays. As such we're basically lowering the forced delay to that of ASPD limits (0.2 = 5 times per second so if you have 190 aspd you wont feel it). This should result in the class feeling significantly easier to play, with the same forgiving windows, but now smoother combos.

We adjusted Steel Body to allow you to end it early yourself, since you can already do this by relogging anyway, and we felt it was awkward that you had to do this. Super Novice is being looked at with the upcoming expanded rework so we'll have more info on their version of steel body in the future.

1.) Combo delay lowered from 1.5 seconds to 0.2 seconds allowing for smoother combos.

2.) Steel Body can now be manually ended early by attempting to recast the skill. This recast has a 2.5 second fixed cast time and can also be cancelled if attempted by mistake.

Rogue/Stalker

This one has been a long time coming, but its finally here. Stalker's are getting a heavy overhaul to how they copy skills and getting a new batch of skills they can copy as part of a new skill called Utility Plagiarism which you can get for free if you have Plagiarism 10 learned as a Rogue.

Rogue in general has felt like just a poor man's version of another class for a long time now, so we're hoping with this rework you'll be able to feel more creative with your builds and also find some fun combinations that really enable your build.

There were two major goals with this rework. The first was to making learning and copying skills feel good. The second was to make stalkers feel like a creative copy cat class instead of just a generic one.

You'll find more details on the pages linked below, but for now just understand that Stalkers should function more like Blue Mages in your typical Final Fantasy games of old. This means they will now learn skills simply by being in the area around them when they are cast, and they are learned permanently.

Additionally, the utility plagiarism allows for the learning of support skills you previously could not learn because plagiarism required you to get hit by a skill to learn it.

Also, you'll be able to swap your skills freely now with hardly a cooldown and only a short fixed cast time on plagiarism to prevent quick swapping shenanigans.

And lastly, there's now some fun monster exclusive skills that only rogue's will be able to learn and have access to for both the regular plagiarism and support plagiarism. These will be adjusted over time as needed if we see any problems, but we're honestly not expecting any. We may also add more upon request if there's some that sound fun (and are not op) in the future!

1.) Plagiarism has been completely reworked for ease of use and new possibilities. Click the link to learn more about how it functions now!

2.) Utility Plagiarism is a new skill that functions just like the new plagiarism only for support abilities and utility skills that will hopefully enable some whacky combinations. Click the link to learn more about what you can learn.

3.) Rogue and Stalker can now learn Arrow Crafting through the same quest NPC that archer classes can.

4.) Preserve has been reworked and now is a toggle that will apply your Plagiarism's spell cast at 1% chance. It will always cast the lowest spell rank possible of that spell. (i.e Level 1 Storm Gust instead of 10)

Additions and Changes

First and Second Class Job Change Tickets

Starting this patch, every time you complete a job change the old fashioned way you'll be given either a first class or second class job change ticket depending on which job change you completed.

Then, whenever you are ready to job change normally you simply talk to the NPCs you would normally try to job change with and it will interrupt the normal process initially and ask you (pictured above) whether you want to skip the job change or do it normally.

Note there are 3 exceptions: the Taekwon Kid, Sage, and Super Novice job change skips have a separate NPC that you talk to instead of the normal NPC to skip your job change for those jobs specifically. You can find these right next to the normal NPC you attempt to job change with. They will be labeled very obviously as a skip so you know what they are.

However, once you start the quest normally you cannot skip anymore and must do the quest traditionally.

Choosing to skip the quest will change your job immediately, but you will not be given a job change ticket like you would as if you had completed the quest, but will instead consume a ticket as cost depending on the job.

You also will NOT receive any items for skipping the quest like the Hunter Bow for the Hunter job change as one example.

The two exceptions to this rule is the Novice Mace[3] for the Acolyte job change and the Archer receiving a bow[4] and some arrows to help you get started on the character.

Below you will see a picture of what one of the NPC quest skippers looks like that is separate from the normal NPC you would start the quest with as an example.

Also note that Ninja and Gunslinger do not interact with this system at all since their quests are already basically skipped on Alfheim by default.

Job Change tickets are fully tradeable so new players can do the quest and sell them to established players for a quick profit!

WOE Testing Arena

The payon PVP map has been adjusted to be GVG flagged instead of PVP flagged and labeled the WOE Testing Arena. You can reach this new testing area by talking to an NPC upstairs in the main office near the God Item exchange NPC in the top left.

Inside you'll find that its a normal functioning PVP room but instead with GVG settings and rules applied so you can see how your builds would theoretically work in War of Emperium.

Inside you'll be warped near a Kafra for taking out items as necessary and an exit NPC to leave whenever you wish.

Note that you should save with the Kafra here for extended testing where you may die, because it functions like a GVG map and you will warped back to your save point every time you die.

New Command: @bigmob

The @bigmvp command has been removed and reworked into this new command. Under @settings you will also find the settings to set to default for this command.

When you enter this you will have the option to make slaves small as a setting as well as making slave masters (non-mvps) and/or MVPs big.

New Command: @hideslave

@hidepet, @hidepettalk have now been condensed down into one command also found under @settings.

You will now be able to hide your own pet only and other people's pets separately so if you want to see your own pet still you can do so or if you want to see everyones but your own for some weird reason you can also do that. But the settings are individual.

Pet talk is included here and you'll be able to globally turn it on or off for all pets.

New Command: @cookingstats

Just like the title implies, this command will list your cooking stats that are normally hidden from the player for greater clarity. You will still need to likely use an outside calculator to determine your success rate.

WOE Adjustments

1.) FE Castles Reduced to just Payon 5. Treasure drops very significantly reduced across the board. 1 WOE supply box removed from table entirely.

2.) SE Castles treasure drops very significantly reduced across the board. 1 WOE Supply box removed from the table entirely.

3.) Owning the FE castle now grants access to all 4 guild dungeons instead of just 2.

Adjustments

1.) Spell Breaker chance to work on MVPs reduced to 0%

2.) Monster skill "Max Pain" now has a visual indicator at the start of its cast (visual wings flash out from the mvp/mob)

3.) Quadrille[1] now socketable with Sieyablem socket enchant NPC. Requires a Quadrille[0] and 2,000,000 zeny for standard reroll or 25,000,000 to keep options.

4.) Battleground's happy hour now happens the hour after WOE:FE on sundays as well.

5.) Iron Wrist's level requirement lowered from 50 > 25.

6.) Ascendant Crown is now wearable by regular Novice class.

7.) Gunslingers Bullet, Silver Bullet, and Bloody Shells lowered from 0.2 weight to 0.1 weight.

8.) Spider Queen, Polluted Dark Lord, and Unidentified Creature added to Bloody Branch pool.

9.) Legacy Costume Box cost lowered from 15 silvervine to 10.

10.) Bloody Branch silvervine cost increased from 15 > 20.

11.) Inventory Expansion Ticket lowered to 1 silvervine cost.

13.) All figures in silvervine shop lowered from 50 silvervine > 30 silvervine.

14.) Acolytes now receive a novice mace[3] upon becoming an acolyte.

15.) @refresh cooldown lowered from 5 > 2 seconds.

16.) During WOE, when an Emperium break occurs, it will also include who broke the emperium in the announcement of which guild broke the castle.

17.) You can now create/purchase Sharp, Sleep, Silence, Cursed, and Frozen arrow quivers in payon with the arrow quiver NPC.

18.) Byalan 6 (iz_dun05) and Juperos 1 (juperos_01) added to the list of maps you can create a cloned map instance on.

19.) Brain Sucker element changed from Shadow 3 to Undead 3.

20.) Elemental Converters buff duration increased from 10 to 15 minutes.

21.) Big Defense Potion duration increased from 3 minutes > 10 minutes.

22.) Super Novice can now wear Odin's Blessing.

23.) Piece of Fish item from the New World's quest that is character bound now weights 0 so it will not impede transcending.

24.) Lucius Fire Armor[1], Water Spirit Armor[1], Wind Spirit Armor[1],and Earth Spirit Armor[1] can all be socketed with the Seiyablem socket enchant NPC. Prices vary check the Socket Enchant page for details.

25.) Remove Trap now works on monster's deployed traps in PVM. Traps sell price lowered to 1z as a precaution.

26.) Asura Strike now has a maximum range of 3 (Long Mace equivalent) regardless of other gears/skills/weapons/etc.

27.) First Job EXP Table is now the same for both pre-trans and trans classes speeding up the job experience of becoming 2nd job when trans.

28.) King Schmidt's attack speed significantly increased, and he now casts a high level NPC PRESSURE in attack state. (this does not affect chase state)

29.) Guarana Candy now has an item cooldown equivalent to that of a Yggdrasil Berry.

Bug Fixes

1.) Dark Shadow Card now properly provides resistances and damage to shadow element mobs.

2.) Death's Dance now properly requires +9 to get its +10 atk and 2% aspd bonus.

3.) Berserk Potion now properly mentions that Gunslingers can use the item.

4.) Warrior's Balmung now properly displays a sword instead of a mace.

5.) Blank map added to mosk_in so you don't get an error pop up.

6.) Expanded Tool Dealer added to Moscovia.

7.) Acid Terror properly works with leech effects (this was actually done in October but not noted so posting it here)

8.) Vital Flowers for feeding Incubus and Succubus are now properly labeled in their name which one is for which.

9.) Big Defense Potion is now properly tradeable.

10.) ogh_cas2 gat cells fixed so monsters cannot spawn in unreachable areas.

11.) prt_gld's warp portal to prt_fild02 at the top of the map re-added in.

12.) gefenia04's gat cells fixed so monsters cannot spawn in unreachable areas.

13.) Gigantic Majestic Goat is now properly able to be stored in guild storage.

14.) Dark Priest is now able to be selected as your mob of choice for the Item Captor NPC.

15.) @spb command cleaned up to properly check party members and statuses.

16.) Spelling errors in Red Square Bag's item description fixed.

17.) Champion's "Chain Crush Combo" and "Tiger Fist" can now properly be cast if you have 1 spirit sphere remaining and no longer require 2.

18.) Death Valley no longer bypasses Hell Power's revive preventing debuff.

19.) Gigantes now both properly count towards the item captor for their card in the same way Kobolds and Goblins do for theirs. (this was done previously but not noted in a patch notes so mentioning here)

20.) Fixed a bug where stalkers that were spider webbed by a Professor and then went into hiding would be indefinitely locked in place until they relogged.

21.) Regeneration Potion's description no longer erroneously states the item's buff is lost upon death. (it is not)

22.) Shinobi's Sash[1] and Shinobi's Sash[0] can no longer both be worn to get the set bonus with Ninja Suit's. Wearing both will cancel out the effect of the second only giving you one still.

23.) ogh_step gat cells fixed so players cannot teleport to an area where they get trapped.

24.) High Fashion Sandals description now properly lists that they require level 40.

25.) Curved Sword's description updated to properly reflect that non-trans classes can wear it.

26.) Black Rosary can now be worn by Merchant, Thief, and Acolytes if you for some reason leveled one to 90 (????)

27.) Greed skill now properly has 0.2 second cooldown instead of 1 second after cast delay.

28.) Gospel no longer removes the fury buff on champions when it removes negative debuffs.

29.) Daily EXP now properly applies if you attempt to use the @dailyexp command while dead.

30.) Inn Buffs are now properly visible with @spb

31.) Slaves on individual loot maps now roll loot for the party on their first kill. (this mainly affects ogh_church's Little Demons)

Item Additions

1.) Speed Potion Box 100 (20 Silv), Beelzebub Wing 3 day (10 Silv), Beelzebub Wing 1 Day (5 Silv) added to the Silvervine exchange NPC in the main office.

2.) A bunch of Pet Accessories added for pets into the shop at the Prontera Pet Groomer dealer.

3.) Undead Shot (Special) added in as an option to craft at Niflheim for the same requirements of a normal Undead Shot. This item version will instead roll "special" category options instead of ranged.

4.) New Costume Boxes added in for March 2024. Preview them here: March 2024 Costume Boxes

5.) Patreon Returns with a reworked system! No more going on Patreon itself, instead purchase Patreon Tier 1, 2, or 3 tokens in the cash shop. For more details check out the Patreon page.

Quality of Life Changes

1.) Rachel Sanctuary's portal on the first floor now lets you select whether you want to go to the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th floor as a choice instead of being random.

2.) Kiel Dungeon 2's entrance only requires that you have luxurious keycard in your inventory when you click on the npc to enter. It no longer has any dialogue unless you do not have the keycard/have not completed the quest.

3.) Airships now cycle through slightly faster.

4.) Stylist NPC now lets you properly reset to default hair color and clothes in the event you can't find one you like.

5.) MVP Instances now have one extra step to check if you sure you want to pay either the material costs or use MVP Instance Tokens as a confirmation. (default is No if you button mash)

6.) Dancer job change time between dance steps in the final phase is reduced by over 50% time. (still much longer than vanilla time to account for higher ping)

7.) Tempered Steel now has its own colored icon to differentiate it from regular steel.

8.) You can now buy guarana candies in bulk from the same NPC you could buy them from before in brasilis. Quest is still required, and they still cost 4000 each. You can buy up to 1000 at once.

9.) New Worlds food exchange post quest now allows you to trade your items in bulk instead of one at a time. Each one still has the same material costs, but you can purchase up to 40 at a time now with no inventory restriction other than carry weight.

10.) WOE Warper now remembers your last warp and will allow you to choose it as an option instead of having to go through the menu every time.

11.) Weapon Perfection, Adrenaline Rush, Full Adrenaline Rush, Power Thrust, and Wind Walk all no longer use a movement interruption animation and instead simply cast without interrupting what you are doing.

12.) Swapping to weapons of the same type will no longer cause specific aspd buffs to be lost such as Adrenaline Rush or Spear Quicken. (i.e. swapping from a two handed spear to another two handed spear will not lose spear quicken)

13.) Warp unlocker added to Assassin Guild for ease of getting back to purchase Venom Knives. (under the "special" category)

14.) All warps are now unlocked Master Account wide instead of only on the current character. All warps already unlocked will automatically update with this update once you assign a master account using a character that has unlocked warps.

Old Glast Heim

1.) Contaminated Raydric's Freeze Bubble skill chance to cast lowered to 0.5% chance on chase, cooldown increased to 30 seconds.

Niflheim Dungeon

1.) Pierrotzoist/Blue Moon Loli Ruri/Grote/Disguiser Base and Job EXP reduced by 75% of its previous values.

2.) Pierrotzoist/Blue Moon Loli Ruri/Grote/Disguiser Old Purple Box drop rates reduced by 66.7% of its previous values.

3.) Pierrotzoist/Blue Moon Loli Ruri/Grote/Disguiser Elunium/Oridecon drop rates reduced by 25% of their previous values.

Byalan Dungeon 6

1.) Sropho, King Dramoh, Sedora, and Pot Dofle Base EXP reduced by 60% of its previous values.

2.) Sropho, King Dramoh, Sedora, and Pot Dofle Oridecon and Elunium drop rates reduced by 20% of their previous values.

3.) Pot Dofle > No longer casts defender.

4.) Pot Dofle: DEF: 45 > 35, MDEF: 35 > 90