Design Notes

March 27, 2023

Monday, March 27th Updates

News, News, News! Come hear all about it!

Haii Everyone! With so many players on so many different platforms, the team and I found that our information had become really scattered over the last few years. Last month, we began these "round-up" Design Notes posts to make sure everyone has access to all of the same info, no matter which platform you use! Read on to see what changed recently.

Recent Bug Fixes

The following issues should have been addressed with today's restart:

• Quests requiring Tendurrr The Assistant as a turn in requirement has been adjusted to just require owning him instead.
  • Assisting Oblivion Blade, Assisting Crag and Bamboozle, Assisting Drudgen, The Game of Gemstones, Nulgath's Messenger, Kiss the Void
• Hollowborn Reaper's Scythe - Now requires Death's Scythe instead of Incarnation of Glitches Scythe.
• Hollowborn Reaper's Daggers - No longer requires Incarnation of Glitches Scythe to merge.
• Hollowborn Reaper's Karma  - No longer requires Incarnation of Glitches Scythe to merge.
• Hollowborn Reaper's Karmas - No longer requires Incarnation of Glitches Scythe to merge.

The First Speaker Updates

The First Speaker is hard. Like, really hard. We’re listening and have heard your praises, complaints, strategizing, and victories. This level of difficulty will remain a one-off, and future bosses won’t be at this level for a very long time. A multi-year saga ending boss that shows that you’ve really conquered the game. 

We spend a lot of time with these bosses in development. Testing different solutions, approaches, and thinking about how different types of players would approach them. Here’s a quick glimpse into some of the questions we try to answer when putting together these fights:

These questions must be positive before a boss can release. We work with many limitations, like system performance and lag, and we do think about them- such as making all bosses have static rotations and allowing at least two seconds to respond to most important mechanics.

• Can you beat it in a party of f2p friendly classes?
• Is the boss unengaging, uninteractive, or unfun?

These questions have strong determinants on difficulty and are generally answered positively before release.

• Can you beat it in a party of 3?
• Are there at least 4 unique class combinations that can beat it?
• Is the difficulty due to execution, gearing, or both?
• Is it possible to beat in a public party? (only ingame chat, people you haven’t played with before)
• Can you beat it without potions or boost weapons?

But sometimes, things still go unseen. Over the weekend, several new tactics and solutions were discovered using unintended interactions that made the fight easier than intended. Because many of you really enjoyed the level of difficulty and accomplishment that came with this, we’ve decided to address those by keeping the boss difficult (but speeding it up a bit), without affecting how most strategies work. As well, we’ve made the rewards faster to obtain and stronger.

The First Speaker boss updated:

• The First Speaker will return to position upon Power Split
• Healing reduced by 25%
• Scintillation defense buff reduced (100% -> 75%)
• Magia Burn magic vulnerability per stack increase (100 -> 300%), duration increased (16 -> 18)
• Sanctity duration reduced, and Equalizer will kill you if you have it and are hit

These changes make the fight faster, and prevent a few unintended interactions. It won’t affect most strategies outside of speeding up the fight.

Vohu's reward shop prices changed:

• Goddess of War damage bonuses increased (40% -> 50%)*
• Goddess of War no longer requires Insignia (5 -> 0), but now requires additional components
• War Blade of Power, Speed, Strength, Wisdom, and Courage Insignia price reduced (10 -> 7), but now requires additional components
• Malgor ShadowFlame Blade Insignia cost reduced (25 -> 20)

*Further update: Based on feedback, the merged armor will remain 40% to races, and instead, a quest will become available later this week to upgrade it to 50% and more rep and class rep boost.

These changes make the rewards stronger and require less boss kills to obtain, while increasing farming time spent outside the boss in return for the power.

Bugs Note from Cemaros

While optimizing inventory flow, there was an error resulting in the buyback shop in the Account manager not showing some items. This issue has now been resolved.

March 05, 2023

Sunday Updates and Fixes!

Sunday Updates #5 - March 5, 2023

Haii! (Yoshino here under the Alina disguise.. shhh) We are aware of the following recent issue:

Combat Issues

• Some monsters gained the ability to be stunned that weren't previously stunnable.
• Some monsters also lost the ability to be immune to stuns.

Fixes? You got them!

With tonight's restart.. (well, double restarts!), these issues have been addresed:

Friendships Bug

• Resolved the issue between being unable to talk/gift every day which essentially locked the option of only doing 1 of those every other day.

Guild Commands

• Resolved the issue between being unable to use any guild commands while in a guild.

Wanna read more like these? Check out the previous one here!

February 25, 2023

Thursday Updates And potentially more?!?

Saturday Updates #4 - February 25, 2023

Haii, it's Yoshino here! (under the Alina disguise...again.. shhh - she hasn't noticed!) As part of the recent updates and bug fixes being made every week, some people may miss out on things, so I will be constantly updating this post over time!

Em-pathetic Connection quest updates:

Mana Residue

• Drop rate increased. (30% -> 100%)
• Max stack increased to 40

Mage's Blood Sample

• Drop rate increased. (30% -> 100%)
• Max stack increased to 40

Warlic's Favor

• Drop rate increased. (30% -> 100%)
• Max stack increased to 5

Prior Updates #3 - February 18, 2023

The following maps will now kick people who are AFK:

• /Archmage
• /Revenant

Prior Updates #2 - February 18, 2023

The Frostval 2022 Gifting Tiers have been updated with their respective items:

• Frostval Giftbox Ebil Moglin Pet
• Frostval Giftbox Ebil Moglin Trophy

The LQS Primal Frost Tiger Shop has been updated:

• Frost Tiger of the Void Pet

Prior Updates #1 - February 16, 2023

The Frostval 2022 Gifting Tiers house shops have been updated with their respective house trophy items:

• Frostval Giftbox Evergreeny Trophy
• Frostval Giftbox Mort Moglin Trophy
• Frostval Giftbox Sage Trophy
• Frostval Giftbox Snowy Moglin Trophy
• Frostval Giftbox Twig Trophy
• Frostval Giftbox Twilly Trophy
• Frostval Giftbox Zorbak Moglin Trophy

Alina note: Noticed more random "info" DNs lately? The team is adding more mid-week Design Notes posts with in-game news and answers to common questions. The goal: to make sure players who don't use social media often can stay up to date as easily as those who do. 

February 04, 2023

Clickable Map Items Issue FIXED!

Server Issue is now fixed!

Thank you all for your patience as Captain Rhubarb looked into the issue that occured after the release earlier tonight.*

Investigating current server Issue

Captain Rhubarb is currently investigating the issue where heroes can't recieve map clickable items which is needed to complete their active quest.

* Unfortunately, if you were working on any active map clickable quest during this time, you'll have to re-accept the quest and gather the requirements once more.

January 30, 2023

Monday Updates

Updates and a Mystery Item Hunt?

Haii, its Yoshino here! (under the Alina disguise... shhh) to get all of the wonderful news updates out. But first, let's start with an update on a few one-time-only quest items:

The following items will also now drop from monsters:

Ground Chunks (House item)

• Now Drops from Heart of Chaos in /lagunabeach

Death Pit Sword (Tier 1)

• Now drops from Drakel Gladiator in /deathpit

Death Pit Sword (Tier 2)

• Now drops from Drakel Gladiator in /deathpit 

Call of Hope

• Now drops from Viridi in /pyramidpain

Mini Energy Tornado

• Now drops from Energy Tornado in /airstorm

Skull-Poms

• Now drops from Level 15 Shelletons 

Glowing Crown Blade

• Now drops from Doomwood Soldier in /doomwood, /necrotower, /necru, /temple

Primitive Bone Axe

• Now drops from Doomwood Soldier in /doomwood, /necrotower, /necru,/ temple 

Fabled Chopper

• Now drops from Earth Elemental in /fableforest 

Elders' Blood (Potions)

• Now stacks up to 20 

Mystery Item Hunt!?!!

Alright fine, since you've made it this far - here's a hint: A monster tainted by ShadowFlame drops this adorable little guy who comes along with a quest to obtain his armor set. Good luck searching!