Jan 3rd Update

Small update tonight so I'll just get right into it, mostly this is about continuing balance on trying to push party play and spread the server out over a variety of maps. This has so far worked out quite nicely as we have seen parties at Thor 3, Abbey 3, and even Thanatos public parties! So far so good, but there is still work to be done.

Byalan 6 Base EXP Buffs

King Dramoh: 63k > 86k

Sropho: 64k > 83k

Sedora: 71k > 93k

Pot Dofle: 64k > 83k

New Individual Loot Roll Maps

So we saw with the success of Niflheim Dungeon that giving everyone their own unique individual rolls has been generally good for encouraging party play. We're going to cautiously expand this out to more maps over time and see how it holds up! The first two are two maps that we feel are still not seeing any play that may see more play with some individual loot rolls and exp changes that we've done recently.

        1.) Byalan Dungeon 6 (iz_dun05) (Ori/Elu drops lowered from 22% > 13% as part of this change since there will be a lot more rolled individually)

        2.) Odin Temple 3 (odin_tem03)

We did tweak this setting a bit. You must be on screen of the monster when it dies to receive the loot instead of on screen with your party member. You must also not be idle so no going afk! Otherwise unchanged, just make sure you are active, dual clients don't count, etc.

Bio Labs 3 Drops Changes

So Bio 3 is a tricky dungeon to encourage anymore. It's already got some of the best loot in the game on some mvps, and the EXP is far and away the best as well when run properly. Nonetheless, we are not seeing parties consistently in Bio Labs 3 despite having plenty of skilled guilds on the server who can definitely do it. So how do we plan to change this?

MVP Drop Changes

The MVP instance as well often has become a cycle of do the Sinx/Sniper then make an alt rather than cycle through all 6. With the rise of the Dress Hat meta and Brocca always being valuable we felt 4 of the 6 MVPs hold value. But Smith/High Wizard in particular are lagging behind their counterparts. These drops changes won't really make them competitive with the Sniper, but thats not the point. The point is that they are enticing enough to at least finish your rotation for MVP instances.

           High Wizard Kathyrne:

                 1.) Bazerald drop added at 15%

                 2.) La'cryma Stick[2] added at 40%

           Whitesmith Howard:

                 1.) Hurricane Fury[1] added at 15%

Regular Monster Drop Changes

We don't just want to see the MVP killed though, we want to see parties! Despite having the best bounty quests of them all, people still don't run bio 3. The mobs have the best EXP, the best bounties, and that leaves only drops to look at. A lot of their drops have kind of been left in the dust. We can't really full address this without lowering value of other locations so we're making smaller nudges here and a new unique drop that hopefully entices people to party at Bio 3 more.

           Cecil Damon:

                1.) Cross Bow[3] replaced with Gakkung[2] at same rate.

           Howard Alt-Eisen:

                1.) Lord's Clothes[1] replaced with Costume Test Subject Aura (Blue) at 0.10%

           Kathryne Keyron:

                1.) Magic Eyes > lowered to 1% drop (this was way too high and flooded inventory with useless hats)

                2.) Old Blue Box > replaced with Old Purple Box

                3.) Small Ribbons: 0.05 > 0.10%

                4.) +6 INT Food added at 0.60% 

                5.) Shoes[1]: 1.75% > 3.94%

            Margaretha Sorin:

                1.) Rod[4] > Replaced with Healing Staff

                2.) Rose of Eden[1] added as a drop at 0.15% (New Shield Item, picture below)

            Eremes Guile:

                1.) Thief's Clothes[1] replaced with Pantie[1]

                2.) Costume Eremes Scarf (Red) added at 0.10%

Field MVP Loot Changes

So with the introduction of MVP instances, people have tended to flock to them over the field mvps for some of the higher tier mvps that require more effort, which means they are often left alive for an abnormally long time. I don't like to see the field mvps lose their value, and their cards are sometimes not enough. (Randgris card, pepehands)

As such for a handful of MVPs were making them roll loot individually like their MVP instance versions. This only applies to the listed MVPs below and only on the maps listed in parentheses. This means Hocus Pocus/Abracadabra and Bloody Branches will not rool loot individually.

Also, cards still roll only once for these to the killer.

Unlike MVP instances however you must be on screen when the MVP dies to get your individually rolled loot. You must also be active and not idle.

We hope this encourages more competition in the field or at the very least some of the more organized guilds feel its worth it to take down the field version of these higher tier mvps now.

            Kraken (iz_dun05)

            Ifrit (thor_v03)

            Valkyrie Randgris (odin_tem03)

            Wounded Morocc (moc_fild22)

            Death Witch (nif_dun02)

            Beelzebub (abbey03)

Bug Fixes

1.) Pets that give or reduce ATK properly reduce the right amount now.

2.) Ifrit Mask Item Description corrected.

3.) Loading Screen Art put back in.

4.) Bounty Quests now properly prioritize party members who have the quest over those that doesnt when dual clienting regardless of order in the party member list.

5.) HP and SP recovery skills like Increase HP Recovery from Swordsman and Happy Break from Taekwon are now ticking at their proper rate instead of 3x their normal rate.

6.) Paradise Shield now properly gives its 3 defense.

Expanded Rework?

For those of you who are not keeping up, yes I am still working on the expanded rework. its well under way and we've made our first real progress on it. Note that this is a mountain of work for me and Ken and will take us quite some time. So please be patient and sit tight. Don't ask for details I won't be giving much out. The document that has my plans is locked now as I'm using it to move forward with the rework. I expect this to take some time, but the expanded rework is on its own server and will not inhibit or slow down progress on the main server. When its ready we will merge it with the test server first so you guys can find potential bugs/crashes and then if it goes cleanly we will push to live. Can't wait to share it with you guys.

What Else?

War of Emperium next rotation begins in 11 days. Over the next week or two I'll be adusting the castles on the dev server, updating the treasure boxes, and implementing the new God Items quests and set up. God Items will be adjusted and rebalanced as part of this update. This will definitely happen BEFORE the expanded rework, so expect it soon. If you or your guild are interested in WOE ask me for the guild leader role in discord. Note that you may have to wait until I can confirm that you are an actual guild leader who intends to participate in War of Emperium, sorry!

Other than that, we'll continue to monitor bug fixes and other changes. But I'm super busy lately so bear with me as I have so much to do.

-Charlie