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DEVELOPER'S BLOG
Weekly Question and Answer – September 9th, 2016
Q1. Being unable to trade items between characters in my team makes it much harder to level other characters. Will we ever be able to share currently untradable items between characters in the same team? A1. We are considering the removal of sharing restrictions on items up to the 'Rare(purple)' tier. However, we do not have any plans on removing the restrictions on 'Unique(red)' tier items which will continue to be character specific. While slightly off topic, recipes that use other recipes as ingredients will appear in the future to add more variety to the crafting system. Q2. Lower level players are having trouble in the Siauliai mission since the level of boss monsters are set to the highest level player. Are there any plans to make things more fair for all the players? A2. We realize that the large level gap may have made it much harder for lower level players than we had intended. We plan to balance the monster levels according to each party. We expect that this will alleviate this issue and this feature is expected to be implemented soon. Q3. It has been a while since we had our last event. Are there going to be any more events? A3. We are currently planning and testing various types of events in order to provide more things to look forward to every time you log in. We hope that you will enjoy the next event we have planned for you. Q4. It has been a while since the x4 and x8 EXP Tomes have been introduced in kTOS. When are we going to be able to use them? A4. We had decided to postpone their introduction in order to make sure that players would be able to get their full potential. You will soon be able to craft them in the enhanced form that is currently available on kTOS.
New Vaivora Weapons, Guild Quest: Ancient Being Adjustment, and Other Development Plans
Greetings, Saviors. This is Tree of Savior Developer Team. We would like to share the new and improved contents that are currently under development. New Vaivora Weapons Upon the arrival of the 4ever Update, we introduced Vaivora weapons which improves certain skills of some classes to provide a better experience in item setup. We are aware that there are still many classes that do not benefit from the Vaivora weapons, thus we are planning to bring more Vaivora weapons as soon as possible. We would like to introduce some of the Vaivora weapons that would be interesting to you. We will provide more information about the other Vaivora weapons when they are implemented. 1. Vaivora Rod - INT +140 - Critical Chance +490 - Ice Property Attack +1885 - Ice Pike skill level +3 Eternal Frozen Land - Eternal Frozen Land buff stacks by 1 per freezing an enemy - Any basic attack will trigger a special skill at the cost of all Eternal Frozen Land buff Special Skill "Gust" - AoE Attack Ratio 20, Ice Property Attack - Skill factor equal to current Ice Pike skill level - Each stack of Eternal Frozen Land buff will increase the Gust skill damage by 7% - Additional Gust skill damage by 100% and inflicts [Freeze] debuff if the Eternal Frozen Land stack is full 30 The new Vaivora Rod will provide high Ice Property Attack and designed to assist areal attack capacity of Cryomancer. You will get a stackable special buff by freezing the enemies and can spend the buff to unleash the special skill of the Vaivora Rod. The special skill of the Vaivora Rod inflicts damage to enemies in front of your character. The damage will be multiplied up to 4 times by stacking the buff with some other skills such as the Ice Pike of Cryomancer. 2. Vaivora Dagger 1 - STR +148 - Physical Critical Attack +1152 - Strike Attack +996 - Granata skill level +3 - Granata AoE Attack Ratio +10 Carpet Bombing - Throws a grenade every 0.25 seconds while using Taglio. Each grenade deal 12.5% of current Granata skill factor - The grenades of Carpet Bombing do only 50% damage to bosses and characters The new Vaivora Dagger for Ardito will drop grenades while Taglio skill is active. Ardito with the new Vaivora Dagger will be able to do areal damage and we hope this will increase the role of Ardito in contents that need areal damage such as Challenge Mode. 3. Vaivora Dagger 2 - STR +148 - Physical Critical Attack +1152 - Stab Attack +996 - All Rogue skill level +1 Phantom Blade - After using Knife Throw skill, next 3 basic attacks within 10 seconds will throw knives. Each knife will have 40% of the current Knife Throw skill factor - Damage +30% for 3 seconds after the last basic attack knife throw Unlike the Vaivora Dagger 1 for Ardito, the Vaivora Dagger 2 is prepared for Rogue's Knife Throw skill. This weapon will allow the Rogue to throw additional knives, which will aid Rogue's DPS. 4. Vaivora Two-handed Sword - STR +215 - CON +120 - Accuracy +744 - Block +744 - Cartar Stroke skill level +3 - Cross Guard's block chance increment effect +100% Dual Sword - Buff activated for 2 seconds while Cross Guard is active - Resist to all normal removable status ailments while the buff is active - Uses [Reverse Slash] upon successful block while the buff is active Reverse Slash - Attacks an enemy within 200 units in front. [Magic Circle] or [Damage over time] skill will not trigger this skill - Charges to the attacker - Deal damage 300% of Cartar Stroke skill factor The Reverse Slash can be used right after previous Reverse Slash is successfully activated by Cross Guard skill The Reverse Slash will not be triggered for next 5 seconds if failed The new Vaivora Two-handed Sword is for Highlander. Its high Accuracy and Block values and special ability will distinguish the Highlander in the PVP environment. Using Cross Guard skill while equipped with the new Vaivora Two-handed Sword on the right time to block an attack, the Highlander will charge to the attacker and deal the damage 3 times of Cartar Stroke skill. The Stagger debuff of the Cross Guard skill will be applied as usual, thus the Highlander can continue with other skills after charge. 5. Improvement of the previous Vaivora weapons. The Development Team is also preparing to improve previous Vaivora weapons. We would like the characters with the Vaivora weapons to outstand but in parallel performance among the other Vaivora weapons. Therefore, we would improve some Vaivora weapons with minimal difference than before which are considered as relatively low performance. Guild Quest: Ancient Being Improvement 1. Reason for the Improvement The Guild Quest: Ancient Being is for both guilds with and without the GTW Spots to face the mighty dragon to obtain great rewards. Since the first introduction of the quest, its difficulty has been based on Episode 11. But after Episode 12 update, we believe it is less competitive and challenging. Therefore, we decided to improve the Guild Quest: Ancient Being for difficulty, rule, and reward wise. 2. Difficulty Guild Quest: Ancient Being Battle in Sulivanis Lair Dragon Boruta Lv 450 450 Dragon Boruta HP x5 x14 Dragon Boruta Attack x3 x5 3. Rewards The rewards for the Ancient Being will be improved as the difficulty is increased. Both Guild Quest: Ancient Being and Battle in Sulivanis Lair rewards will be improved. 4. Maximum Participants Limited Both Guild Quest: Ancient Being and Battle in Sulivanis Lair are affected. Before After Maximum Participants 60 30 5. Battle in Sulivanis Lair Ranking Improvement You will be able to check your record in the Instanced Dungeon Panel (F10) in real-time. This is to provide basic information for the participating guild and improve convenience. Guild Master will be able to retrieve the rewards from this panel after the season of the Battle in Sulivanis Lair is ended on Sunday. 6. Changes in Urbas Seal and Boruta's skills Some of the patterns and skills will be changed. This includes the activation condition of previous patterns being unified into Boruta's HP status. Before After Rein Spawns monsters periodically Spawns monsters and elite monsters according to Boruta's HP Roar Spawns periodically and deal areal damage upon explosion Spawns according to Boruta's HP and deal areal damage upon explosion * Damage is 3 times higher than before Echo Spawns according to Boruta's HP and inflict [Echo] debuff to all party members of random party Vengeful Fever Spawns according to Boruta's HP and creates Vengeful Fever magic circle at the location of the character with the highest threat value You may use 200 Urbas Seals to lighten one of the 4 patterns. Challenge Mode Expansion and Hard Mode 1. Challenge Mode Expansion The Challenge Mode is expanded to stage 10. For your pleasant experience, you may choose between the Challenge Mode of 1~7 stages or 6~10 stages before entering the Challenge Mode. The new stages will yield similar EXP and silver with that of previous stages, but will increase the chance to obtain the Episode 12 zone elite monster exclusive items. 2. Challenge Mode: Hard The Challenge Mode: Hard will require an entry voucher in order to enter. You will be able to get the materials for the new Unique grade armor for 100%. As a compensation for the hardship, you can craft the armor of your choice with the materials. The new Unique grade armors will have their names originated from a goddess and a demon goddess. They will improve status specialized for the Challenge Mode or the basic attack ability or the summons. 3. New Legend grade equipment from the fields. The new Legend grade equipment from the fields is limited to Lv. 440 or above, and can be crafted from the new material which can be obtained from Challenge Mode stage 5~10. The new material will not be obtained from the filed like Planium, but can be crafted from the fragments of the material. The higher stage will have higher chance to drop the fragment, and stage 8 or higher will drop the fragment for 100%. The new Legend grade equipment is specialized for the field hunting, Challenge Mode, and Dimensional Collapse Point. It will have unique options such as damage increment in non-PVP zone, increment on the Movement Speed, and bonus Looting Chance. Design Cut The Design Cut is an itemized hairstyle like wigs. The Design Cuts can be shared within the team and contains various colors of the hairstyle in the item. The price of the Design Cut will vary as each Design Cut contains a different number of colors. Since the Design Cut does not benefit from the dye, the price will be generally cheaper than the price of the wig. After the Design Cut is integrated into the system, the hair can be changed as the following methods. Wig Hair Design Cut Equip O X O Team Storage O X O Dye O X Fixed color upon purchase X Color Change O X O Beauty Shop Coupon X O X Thank you for reading the Future Update Plan for June 2020. ※ Please note that all contents, concepts, values, and plans from this post may change in the future.
New Class Update! 4 New Classes!
Greetings Saviors, Introducing our 4 New Classes Update. Check it out below!
New Unique Armor: Goddess' and Demon God's Armor
Greetings, Saviors. This is Tree of Savior Developer Team. We would like to share our new Unique Armors that will be updated this fall! New Armors will be categorized into Goddess’ and Demon God’s Armor. Each of them will have its own stats, and equipping the same Goddess’ or Demon God’s Armor in various parts will enhance the stats. Equipping all the Armors in every part with the same God’s Armor, special effects will be applied as existing set stats. Goddess’ Armor The Goddess' armor is a state-of-the-art piece of equipment that the followers of each Goddess tried to use the power of the goddess in a specially crafted Armor to confront the Demon God's power. Vakarine Armor - Midnight Baptism STR 84 CON 60 Critical rate 277 Physical Critical Attack 554 Block 277 Activates Midnight Baptism effect in every region except for PVP region when equipped. When succeeding in Block with [Midnight Baptism] shield, the damage of skill with the next armor within 3 seconds increases by 100% per every part. Decreases cooldown of attack skill with the armor by 20% when equipped in 4 parts. Zemyna Armor - Saint Oath STR 84 DEX 84 CON 60 Critical rate 277 Physical Critical Attack 544 When equipped, stackable [Saint Oath] effect that lasts for 15 seconds when every attack except for the basic attack is accurate activates in every region except for the PVP region. (Cannot be stacked with same skill continuously, up to 5 stacks) Increases [Saint Oath] Basic attack damage by [Number of equipped part x Number of (Saint Oath) stacks x 20%] Attacks that does not activate the [Saint Oath] effect are following: - Continual AoE skill - Magic Circle skill - Continuous damage debuff Dalia Armor - Infinity Blessing STR 84 INT 84 CON 60 Critical rate 277 Physical Critical Attack 544 Magic Critical Attack 544 Activates [Infinity Blessing] effect in every region except for PVP region when equipped. Direct attack skill damage by [Infinity Blessing] channeling (effect activates while pressing the key) increases by 100% per equipped part , Damage taken decreases by 5% per equipped part when casting channeling direct attack skill, decreases cooldown of channeling direct attack skill by 20% when equipped in 4 parts. Austeja Armor - Devine Enigma STR 84 CON 60 Max. SP 593 SP Recovery 89 Increases Healing by 7.5% when equipped. Increases Movement Speed by 3 when equipped in 4 parts. Gabija Armor - Holy Flame STR 84 INT 84 CON 60 Critical rate 277 Physical Critical Attack 544 Magic Critical Attack 544 Activates [Holy Flame] effect in every region except for PVP region when equipped. Increases direct attack skill damage occurring after the [Holy Frame] casting is completely done by 50% per equipped parts, decreases damage taken when casting direct attack skill by 5% per equipped parts, decreases cooldown of casting direct attack skill by 20%, Even if you stop during casting, the skill that activates the skill receives only half of all effects. Demon God’s Armor The Demon God’s Armor is a specially crafted Armor created by the inferior demons that emulated their superior demons’ power to get more strength. Rumpelstiltskin Armor - Reckless Gambler STR84 INT 84 CON 60 Critical rate 277 Physical Critical Attack 544 Magic Critical Attack 544 Activates [Reckless Gambler]effect in challenge mode when equipped. [Reckless Gambler] - Increases damage by [3 x number of equipped part]% per activated installation you have installed. - Vakarine Statue is excluded. - Installation that has been installed with the same skill is counted as one. Kartas Armor - Harsh Imperator INT 84 CON 60 SPR 84 Critical rate 277 Physical Critical Attack 544 Magic Critical Attack 544 Activates [Harsh Imperator] in every region except for the PVP region when equipped. [Harsh Imperator] - Increases damage by [1.875 * Number of equipped part] per summon - Increases up to 60% Ziburynas Armor - Overload Raid STR 84 INT 84 CON 60 Critical rate 277 Physical Critical Attack 544 Magic Critical Attack 544 Grants [Overload Raid] for 20 seconds when using Gung ho/Concentration/Guardian Saint/Double attack/Magic Shield in every region except for the PVP region. [Overload Raid] - Increases damage by 25% per equipped part. Defense of each part of Armors: Top Physical Defense 1,602 Magic Defense 3,204 Bottom Physical Defense 1,602 Magic Defense 3,204 Gloves Physical Defense 1,068 Magic Defense 2,136 Shoes Physical Defense 1,068 Magic Defense 2,136 ※ Contents, values, and attached materials described in this posting may be added, deleted, or changed when applying to the live server.
Dev Interview: Random Item Stats
Greetings, Saviors! Our most recent dev teaser included a quick snippet about a new system of random stats on equipment items (previously introduced through the PvE roadmap) that sparked more than a little curiosity among players. We thought it was time to shed some light on this feature, so we met with the TOS developer in charge of the random stat system to find out how it can be used and what it really means for the game. Staff: Hello, it’s such a pleasure to meet you! We’ve all been wondering about this random stat system since the PvE roadmap, and I was told you were the one to bother about it. IDev: Yes! I’m in charge of planning all things item-related for Tree of Savior. It’s nice to meet you, too. Staff: I see, we shall call you the I(tem)Dev, then. If you read any of the other Dev Interviews you’ll know I always find the most original nicknames for our devs. Moving on. I would like to start by asking how the random item stat system came to be, and what your intentions behind it were. IDev: Our goal with the random item stat system is to address the excessive gap that exists between equipment items, in terms of both difficulty of acquisition and actual performance. We believe that the random stat system can help make it easier for players to obtain better gear that fits their needs. Staff: I’m not sure I get it. In what way does the system make it easier for us to get better items? IDev: Currently in the game, it’s easy enough to get your hands on low-performance equipment. If you want to take your gear a step further, however, you either have to enhance/transcend your “okay” items to a high enough stage, or dedicate hours and hours to farming for the right materials. With the random item stat update, not only do equipment drop rates increase, but the items come to you in their finished state, so you have a better chance of finding gear you’re happy with. Staff: Okay, that makes sense. I was hoping you could also tell us, specifically, what is the maximum number of stats and sockets per equipment item under the new system? IDev: Hm… For this one I think it’s better if I show it to you in a table, hold on (*scribbling*). Here you go. Type Sockets Stats One-handed weapons 3 1-4 Two-handed weapons 5 3-6 Armor 1 1-4 We’re still working out the details on accessory items so I don’t have that information yet, but in any case this is just our initial plan and it could suffer some changes before the system is actually applied to the game. Staff: So the number of stats allowed is different depending on the type of gear. In that case, what determines the maximum value of the item stats you get? Are you setting a maximum value based on the sum of all the item’s stats, or is it applied individually for each stat? IDev: The maximum value of each stat is going to be individually influenced by the item’s equip level and grade. Staff: I’m also curious to know if perhaps gear stats are going to have any influence on skill levels. IDev: We don’t have any plans to make that happen, no. But who knows, that could change in a future update. [WARNING - Fake item stats ahead.] <A girl can dream, can’t she? T^T> Staff: Fair enough. You mentioned in the PvE roadmap that players will need to identify the new items at an Appraiser in order to reveal their random stats. If that’s the case, will Appraisers with higher skill levels have any advantages in terms of what stats are revealed in the identified items? IDev: The Appraiser’s skill level is not going to influence the type of stats that get revealed in the item, but it will somewhat increase the chances of revealing a higher number of stats. Staff: I can see it’s going to be a good era for Appraisers… Speaking of the future, what other plans do you have for after the random stat system is implemented? IDev: Well, I don’t want to spoil too much – and please take this with a grain of salt – but if I were to summarize it in three words… Kite Moor, property resistance, Chaplain. Staff: I’m pretty sure that was more than three words… I’m not complaining, though. Whatever Kite Moor is, it sure sounds luxurious! And… those were all the questions I had for you. Thank you so much for the interview; your answers were very enlightening. IDev: The pleasure is all mine. Glad I could be of help, and thank you to the player community for the continuous support!
Balance Talk: Jan 26, 2017
Greetings, Saviors! Today, I’m following up on our last Balance Talk with a few more updates on the classes we’re currently working on. I will only be talking about what has changed since the last update, so do read the first and second Balance Talk posts in this series if you haven’t yet. Also, remember that these changes aren’t set in stone yet. We’re still testing and reconsidering our plans for the next balance patch, so these may look a little different once they’re actually introduced in the game. Cannonneer Updates: - Distance restrictions removed for skills used with Bazooka (excluding normal attacks) For the past couple of weeks, I talked about a good number of improvements we made to Cannoneer skills; increasing ranges, reducing casting and cooldown times, and all-around bolstering the Cannooneer’s explosive abilities. One of our devs was actually cured of indigestion while testing the new version of this class: that’s how refreshingly powerful it is. Overall, we were very satisfied with how the class became a lot less frustrating to play, which inspired us to give it one extra boost and allow the Bazooka skill to be used from short ranges as well. We sure had a lot of fun exploding things, so we hope you are as excited to start blasting your cannons once the new changes arrive. Monk Updates: - Double Punch side-to-side range increased to match range of normal attack - Additional damage dealt with Palm Strike, equivalent to the enemy’s defense - Additional damage dealt with Hand Knife, equivalent to the enemy’s INT stat Previously I mentioned how we finally managed to free the Monk of some of the class’ most discouraging restrictions, especially after the big Golden Bell Shield reform I explained in the last post. We noticed, however, that as far as Monk skills go, players continued to resort almost exclusively to Double Punch (then Energy Blast and Golden Bell Shield). This time, we decided to show a little love to some other Monk skills in an effort to balance out and strengthen the purpose of this class. Palm Strike and Hand Knife especially, which so far were mostly used as debuffs with their corresponding attributes, will now aid primarily in dealing, with each skill delivering extra damage based on the enemy’s stats. We look forward to making all the Monks out there answer with a firm ‘YES’ anytime someone asks if the class is any good. Rune Caster Updates: - All skills in the Wizard class tree allowed with Rune of Giants If you read my two previous Balance Talk posts, you’ll know we had two things in mind for Rune of Giants: we wanted to lift the restrictions on this skill safely and gradually. As you can see from the update contents, this lift was anything but gradual, as this time we decided to allow the use of all Wizard skills in combination with Rune of Giants. We did stick to the “safe” part of the plan, though. We ran tests after tests, using every single skill in the Wizard class tree with Rune of Giants, but we arrived at the conclusion that there really were no drawbacks to full-on liberating this skill. We’re very pleased with the results, and we feel even more motivated to keep improving other skills in this class from now on. Warlock Updates: - Mastema applied to flying-type enemies The demon of hatred summoned with Mastema is one that cannot exist on its own; it needs a target to latch on to. This time, by allowing Mastema to apply to a wider range of targets, our plan is to increase the scope of this skill and further reinforce the role of the Warlock. You see, compared to other classes, we still feel that the Warlock’s identity as a dealer is a little ambiguous. As such, this is the first step towards a series of changes that we hope will continue to build up on the efficacy and versatility of Warlock skills. We hope you understand that we aren’t yet done with these balance changes, and we will get to work on other classes eventually. Meanwhile, we want to keep updating you on the progress through the blog, where we can also keep an eye on your reactions and opinions on the new plans. Thank you for sticking with us throughout the process; I look forward to writing to you again on the next Balance Talk.
[iTOS EXCLUSIVE] Dev Comments: Intense Balancing (Feb 20)
Greetings, Saviors! As you may know from this week’s patch notes, today’s content update includes a serious balance rework in classes of all trees. We at the dev team have previously discussed many of these changes in the Intense Balancing post series, and now that they’re being applied to the game, we thought we’d chime in with some additional comments for our iTOS audience about how certain skill adjustments came to be and what our intention behind them was. Keep in mind that this post doesn’t cover all that’s being applied in this patch. For the full list of changes, check the patch notes for February 20, 2018. : Falconer Roost - Falconer skills within 100 range from the roost will now deal 50% more damage. - Duration decreased from 120 to 20 sec. - Cooldown decreased from 60 sec to 20 sec. This one is simple: Roost didn’t serve much of a purpose before, but with this change the skill takes on the role of focusing the Falconer’s attacks. Circling - Will now decrease AoE defense ratio to 1 regardless of skill level. - Effects will now be maintained even when the character moves (the Hawk will follow). - Duration changed from 10 sec to 10 + (skill level * 1) sec. Circling is one of the most recognizable Falconer skills, and a very appealing one at that. The downside to its unregulated power was that, not only were bugs frequent, but under certain circumstances it could become too much of an overpowering skill. To address this, we cut the AoE defense ratio decrease and made it a “mobile” skill where the Hawk follows the casting character. With this, Circling can no longer be used for unlimited attacks, but it remains just as powerful and important in the Falconer repertoire. Pheasant - Damage to Beast enemies increased 50%. - Max. targets changed from unlimited to 15. - Skill factor changed from 660% with 36.3% per skill level to 990% with 54.5% per skill level. - Cooldown reduced from 40 to 25 sec. Despite being a red icon dealer class, Falconers didn’t really have a representative attack skill. What’s more, considering the unique concept of the class, it was lacking a true attack that made proper use of the Hawk. Pheasant was the obvious choice for the role, so in this patch we wanted it to be reborn as the skill to go to for a powerful blow. Along with its various attributes, we hope Pheasant will become the staple Falconer tile skill in the eras to come. Pre-emptive Strike - Skill can now be turned ON/OFF at any time. - Increased damage of Sonic Strike and Hovering activated by Pre-Emptive Strike (skill level * 10%). - Added cyclical SP consumption effect that applies whenever Pre-Emptive Strike is active. - The buff disappears if SP is low. - Duration changed to unlimited. - Cooldown changed to 0 sec. We at the dev team were happy with the concept of Pre-emptive Strike, but we had a few issues with its low performance and lack of overall convenience. In this patch, we applied a solution to those problems by allowing the skill to be switched ON/OFF and increasing the damage of Sonic Strike and Hovering under its effects. Hawk Hunt - New attribute. - After performing its skills, the Hawk remains in standby mode and does not leave. - Max. level 1. Circle 3 Falconer may have Pre-emptive Strike and Aiming, but we felt like it was missing a certain charm, so we decided to add a new attribute that would facilitate the process of managing the Hawk. It’s at C3 that Falconers can really prove themselves as veteran hawk hunters now. : Musketeer The Musketeer is a widely attractive class with a fanbase of its own, but its skills weren’t quite living up to the appeal. Our main gripe (and that of many players) was that the most powerful attack skills were all concentrated in Circle 1, so making a satisfying investment of your early skill points was almost impossible. Our goal with these Musketeer changes was, then, to redistribute and improve the performance of the class’ skills in order to simplify skill point investment while staying true to the original Musketeer concept. Subweapon Attack - Musketeers can now use subweapon attack (C) when equipping a Musket. With Butt Stroke gone, we brought in subweapon attack so that players can use it in conjunction with the new attribute as an escape move. This, we hope, can add to the technical repertoire of the class. Covering Fire - Charging time removed. - Reduced pause after casting from 2 sec to 1.5 sec. Covering Fire is a good option for making up for the lack of AoE attack in the Musketeer class, but the long charging time and cast delay meant that it was far from practical. With these changes, the skill becomes considerably easier to handle. Snipe - Skill moved to C2. - Skill factor increased from 2266% to 2833% (567% increase). - Damage increase per level increased from 124.6% to 155.8% per level (31.2% increase per level). - Reduced pause after casting from 2 sec to 0.5 sec. Having Snipe in Circle 1 was somewhat of a disadvantage to Musketeers due to the limited performance of the skill and the amount of points required for properly investing in it. By moving it to Circle 2 and adjusting the damage, Snipe can now be free of its main restrictions. Bayonet Thrust: Reduced Recovery - Attribute removed. Butt Stroke and Bayonet Thrust were not only ignored by most players, but they also didn’t fit right with our vision of the Musketeer class. For this reason, instead of finding a way to make players use these skills, we decided it was better to delete them (with our sincere apologies to bayonet fans) and create new skills that more accurately represent the Musketeer technique. Grooving Muzzle - New skill. - Maximum level 15. - Increases accuracy +100 when using skill. - Ignores 15% of enemy defense. - 30% chance of changing basic attack to 3 consecutive critical attacks. - Duration 10 + (skill level -1) sec. - Cooldown 35 sec. In order to improve on the Musketeer’s compatibility, we decided to add in a new basic attack skill. Not only is Grooving Muzzle a handy addition to any class build, it can be used during the cooldown of your other skills in place of raw basic attacks. Volleyfire - Changed from AoE ratio of 5 to fixed value of 8 targets. - Changed from “effect” multi-hit to true multi-hit. - Overheat increased from 1 to 2. - Cooldown reduced from 26 sec to 20 sec. While Covering Fire and Volleyfire can both be considered as the go-to Musketeer skills for AoE attack, the latter was significantly less popular. Now, with increased overheat, reduced cooldown and differentiated features, players will have to think twice before forgoing Volleyfire. Sniper’s Serenity - Added ability to walk slowly when in Sniper's Serenity status. - Movement speed is fixed to 10 and unable to move during basic attacks. - Using skill while on the buff deactivates it and applies cooldown. - Cooldown reduced from 20 sec to 1 sec. - SP consumption changed from 370 (+41 per level) to 111 (+12.3 per level). We at the dev team are very satisfied with how Sniper’s Serenity performs. It’s a favorite of in-game Musketeers, too. However, we did feel like the way it was structured resulted in too many gameplay restrictions. Because of this, we wanted to make a few changes that would improve the feel of the skill without tampering too much with its performance. Prime & Load - New skill. - Maximum level 1. - Cooldown 25 sec. - Using skill resets Musketeer's C1 and C2 attack skill cooldown. - Additional cooldown is applied according to the reset skills. As we said earlier, although the initial concept of the Musketeer is fairly attractive, it was lacking in compatibility with lower Rank classes. We tried to amend this in previous patches, but it wasn’t enough to solve the main problem at hand. Here, too, we came to the conclusion that instead of forcing the use of unrelated skills, the answer was to reinforce combat in the style of the Musketeer. That’s how we came up with Prime & Load, which can be used to deal powerful blows without interruption or fill in the gaps of other skills. : Hoplite Stabbing - Increased piercing speed by approx. 2 times. - Damage now increases up to 2 times with consecutive pierces. Stabbing is an appealing skill, but due to its subpar efficacy it was never a favorite of Hoplite players. We wanted Stabbing to become a somewhat risky skill with the payoff of dealing large amounts of damage from one spot, so we had damage increase over time to make that risk worth taking. We also improved on the general feel of the skill by upping the stabbing speed. Long Stride - Damage now increases with weight (100% weight = +100% damage). - Increased range by approx. 2-3 times. - Targets increased from 5 to 10. - Cooldown decreased from 49 to 30 sec. Long Stride was originally intended as the go-to Hoplite AoE technique, but in reality it turned out to be a little too impractical. For this skill, we doubled the range and number of targets, and we reduced the cooldown time to improve the overall utility of Long Stride. : Cataphract As developers, we always felt sorry for how the Cataphract class was being used mostly for Trot. We tried to come up with ways of improving it more than once, but it wasn’t enough to transform the class in the we had hoped. This time, we decided to go all out and not only add different effects to the skills, but also develop new skills to help cement the Cataphract’s offensive side. Earth Wave - Changed to increase damage by 50% on knocked down enemies. - Removed casting time. - Overheat changed from 1 to 3. - Cooldown decreased from 12 to 10 sec. Our goal here was to make Earth Wave a more quintessential Cataphract skill. The increased overheat and shorter cooldown make it more readily available, while the absence of casting time gives way to an easier application. Steed Charge - Reduced staggering effect that occurs after the skill is cast. - Skill can now be used one more time within 1.5 sec of being cast. Although charging is an important concept to the Cataphract class, it wasn’t always explicitly represented in skills other than Trot. That’s why we’re reducing the staggering effect of Steed Charge, allowing players use the skill again within a shorter amount of time. Hopefully, Steed Charge can now be used as a better technical tool to quickly rush to the enemy or retreat when necessary. Acrobatic Mount - New skill. - Increases the damage of skills only able to use while riding by + (skill level *5)%. - Increases SP consumptions by + (skill level *10)%. - Only able to use while riding (deactivates when dismounted). - Duration 40 sec. - Cooldown 60 sec. Another distinctive trait of Cataphracts is mounted combat. Sadly, the heavy mounting restrictions on skill use all but nullified any merits the class had in cavalry play. Our solution to this was enhancing mounted skills with an added buff, which gives Cataphracts the ability to deal high degrees of damage in exchange for increased SP consumption. With Acrobatic Mount, it’s up to the players to decide whether they want to take the high risk, high return route or give up some of the damage boost for a more comfortable management of their SP. : Dragoon Dragon Soar - Damage on Flying enemies increased 30%. - Overheat changed from 1 to 3. Our plan for Dragon Soar was to create a handy skill players can use to fill in the gaps of other Dragoon techniques. We think the skill’s damage and overall performance are good enough for its purpose, so we went for an overheat increase as the main change. Dragontooth - Casting time changed to 1 sec regardless of skill level. - Critical rate now doubles when the skill is accurate. - Additional effects are now applied according to the type of spear equipped. - Two-handed spears ignore 50% defense. - One-handed spears increase critical damage by 10%. The problem with Dragontooth was that, as you increased in level, the casting time grew significantly longer, which severely constricted the skill’s usability. That is far from the vision we had for Dragontooth, so in this patch we worked towards improving its synergy with other aspects of the class. We added weapon bonuses and reduced the casting time in order to give Dragoons enough room to play around with the skill and make the most of its performance. : Quarrel Shooter Running Shot - Additional attack calculations changed from multiplication to addition formulas. - Base 80%, per-level increase 30%. - Buff can now be right-clicked to cancel. - Duration changed to 300 sec. We know Running Shot was already a fairly popular skill, but with the introduction of Double Gun Stance and other high rank skills, it was threatening to become a little too OP. So, in consideration of future basic attack skills, we decided to modify Running Shot’s calculation formulas into producing more reasonable results. : Linker Hangman's Knot: Splash Defense - Name changed to Hangman's Knot: Focused Attack. - Effects changed to set the AoE defense ratio of linked enemies to 1, and increase damage received by 5% per attribute level for 3 sec. Having Hangman’s Knot reduce the AoE defense ratio of enemies below 0 could sometimes make the skill unintentionally overpowering, so we limited that reduction to a maximum of 1. To compensate, we added new effects to Focused Attack in an attempt to maintain some of the performance of the original attribute without restricting it excessively. : Matador With our tweaks to the Matador class, our goal is to cement its role in situations where the casting character is being targeted, as well as increase its overall technicality. This was only our first step towards achieving that goal, but we have more plans to continue working on the Matador in future patches. Muleta - Added buff that increases critical rate by 10 per skill level for 20 sec when the counter-attack is successful. - Changed cooldown and SP consumption to apply immediately when the skill is cast. - Blocks physical melee attacks when counter-attacking. - Duration increased from 0.5 sec to 1 sec. - Cooldown increased from 8 to 10 sec. Muleta was a rather difficult skill to use against continuous enemy attacks. Because of this, we made a few changes to help it block consecutive attacks more easily after the first counter-attack. Paso Doble - Skill range increased by about 33%. - Skill length increased from 40 to 60. - Cooldown reduced from 25 sec to 20 sec. - Character no longer takes damage while the skill is being cast. - Increased AOE ratio by 5. We felt that Paso Doble wasn’t performing as well as we had hoped, so we started by adjusting the cooldown, range and AoE ratio. Then, we added the “no damage taken while casting” effect to give players better control in escaping dangerous situations. Black Slide - 100% chance of evasion during the maneuver. Allowing Back Slide to be used at the right time to evade enemy attacks is one example of the measures we took to increase the technical aspect of Matador combat. : Lancer We were already pretty satisfied with the situation of the Lancer class as a whole. We only felt like the SP consumption was a tad excessive for a Swordsman tree class, so we decided to reduce the overall SP requirements of its skills. : Inquisitor Breaking Wheel - Breaking Wheel: Additional Damage attribute activates up to 15 hits regardless of the wheel's durability, and the wheel remains even after 15 hits. - Breaking Wheel can no longer be destroyed, even when hit by enemies. Using Breaking Wheel with an attribute to deal additional damage is in no way a flaw in the design of the skill. However, under certain unconventional situations, this skill did allow for unlimited hits, or for the number of hits to be increased beyond what we intended. Since we had no problems with the basic performance of Breaking Wheel, instead of nerfing it, we simply put a stop to its unintended use. In fact, now that the wheel can’t be destroyed by enemy attacks, the skill can perform even better than before in normal circumstances.
Future Improvements: Character Slots, Inventory and More
Greetings, Saviors! For us at the dev team, there have always been certain UI/functionality improvements that we’ve wanted to bring into the game, many of which were also requested by players. We’ve been working on a few of them recently, and today we thought we’d share a little preview of the updates we’re preparing. As always, remember that the details of these updates can look different when they are actually applied to the game. Personal Shops (Repair, Spell Shop) What’s changing: - Comma (,) used to separate numbers. - Total amount included in new confirmation window. It’s not always easy telling how much you’re spending on a personal shop. Important price information doesn’t really stand out from the rest of the UI, so many of us end up clicking that confirmation button without fully knowing the total amount we’re paying. Less honest shop owners can take advantage of that to sneakily hike up their prices or otherwise cause trouble for unsuspecting customers. <The new confirmation window.> To combat that kind of problem, we’re going to start using commas in numbers (displaying “1000” as “1,000”, for example) and add a new confirmation popup window that tells you the total price of what you’re about to purchase. Lodge (Character Selection) What’s changing: - More character slots. - New character list organizing function. - New popup alert about items not transferrable via Team Storage. - New popup alert about deleting characters with cards equipped. We’re finally bringing in the much needed maximum character slot expansion. Also, we have plans for a new function that lets you reorganize the order of your characters in the list; that way you don’t have to fumble through the pages of your Lodge every time you want to login with your favorite characters. <This window alerts you when you are receiving items not transferrable via Team Storage.> As you know, some items in TOS cannot be transferred between characters through the Team Storage (namely timed items). To avoid mistakes by receiving this kind of items on the wrong character, we’re going to add a new popup window that asks for your confirmation before sending the items to the target character’s inventory. Gem Enhancement What’s changing: - Processed equipment items no longer used as materials for gem enhancement. We’re sure some of you will have made the mistake of accidentally using an important equipment item as gem EXP. All those resources spent on identifying, enhancing and transcending that one item, only for it to disappear in the blink of an eye… We know that can be tough, and we don’t think anyone would feed important equipment items to a gem in any case, so we’re going to remove processed equipment (items that have been enhanced, transcended or added sockets/gems) from the range of items that can be used to increase gem EXP. <Processed equipment items are blacked out and cannot be selected when you’re enhancing a gem.> <A message pops up when you right-click a processed equipment item.> Market What’s changing: - New categories. - Character name included in ‘sale completed’ message. - Less restrictions on search term length. Our plan for Market categories is to reorganize them into more specific subdivisions, in a way that makes it easier for players to find the item they’re looking for. In the future, this will also include advanced search options that let you filter items by stats, added sockets, etc. <This popup message will include the name of the character that sold the item.> If you’ve seen the alert that pops up whenever you have Silver to retrieve from the Market, you’ll know that it isn’t the most informative, especially when you have multiple active characters. Because of this, we want the popup message to start including the name of the character that sold the item, so you’ll always know where to go to pick up the Silver. Guild Hangout What’s changing: - Time frozen inside Guild Hangouts during maintenance. Guinea Pigs and guild crops can only be grown inside the Guild Hangout, with players needing to regularly check on them for food and water. <Guinea Pigs and Dilgele need to be fed/watered regularly.> This system can sometimes work against guilds when there’s a server maintenance going on, since guild members aren’t able to access the Hangout. That is why we’re working to stop time inside Guild Hangouts whenever the server is down, so you won’t have to worry about your growing crops or Guinea Pigs even if maintenance gets extended. Inventory What’s changing: - Improvements on the problem of undiscardable items. - New function to batch-delete selected items. - New function to filter and display items. - Grade/enhancement/transcendence displayed even with the tooltip off. <What do you do with a Kepa Doll?> Kepa Dolls and potions obtained from quests are only some of the items which can’t be deleted from your inventory. We want to allow players to delete these items at will, so we made plans to revise the Inventory UI in a way that lets you filter out the items you want and batch-delete those you don’t need. Dungeons What’s changing: - New ‘Return’ function for Mercenary Post missions, Saalus Convent missions and Uphill Defense. - New Hunting Grounds info UI. We would like missions to have the ‘Return’ function that allows you to go back to the original map without having to wait, the same way you can do with instanced dungeons. We would also like to add a proper Hunting Grounds UI like the Instanced Dungeons window (F10) since, currently, there is little information on them outside the World Map (N). <Instanced Dungeon cleared vs. Mission cleared.> We also considered suggestions to add a Storage NPC in Saalus Convent to make storing Blessed Shards easier after each mission, but we didn’t want to encourage players to permanently move their characters there, so in the end we decided against it. Error Popups What’s changing: - New execution error popup messages. We’re preparing new popup messages for errors related to the execution of the game. We’re trying to improve the source of the errors too, of course, but we also think the error messages should provide more information on how to deal with the issue when it occurs. <Example of a possible popup error message.> Other Future Improvements - Customizing the location of buff UI and monster HP bars. - Improving character stat visibility. These are only a few functions we’re working on at the moment, but we hope they give you an idea of the kind of improvements we’re hoping to implement in the future. As for when you’ll see these updates in the game, their development will likely depend on the progress of higher priority issues like bug fixes, new content, balance adjustments, etc. We will keep releasing more details about these and other improvements through the dev blog and the patch notes, so keep an eye on our official pages.
NPC Profile - Miko Master
Greetings, Saviors! Get to know the Miko Master, Hitomiko through this week's NPC Profile.