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Weekly Question and Answer – October 7th, 2016
Q1. I would really like to ride a Guinea Pig companion. Will there be a way for me to do it in the future without a mounting skill? During our initial closed beta tests, Guinea Pig companions were actually mountable by all classes. Later, however, we ended up considering the possibility of it hurting the uniqueness of mounted classes, and that’s when we put the restrictions in place for Guinea Pigs. We don’t think we’ll change the current setup that soon, though, so it seems the only way you’ll get to ride a Guinea Pig companion is by creating a character in a mounted class. Q2. Will we ever get the current trading system of kTOS in iTOS? We did make some changes to the trading policies in our Korean servers which we trust would be welcome in iTOS as well. Currently, the new trading policies are undergoing a few internal tests in order to stabilize them before we bring them over to the international version. As always, you can keep an eye on our News page for future announcements with more details about these changes. Q3. Having the bosses in Siaulai Mission match the level of the highest-level character in the party can be a bit rough for those with lower levels. Any plans for improvement? We are well aware that this is an issue affecting auto-matched parties playing the Siaulai Mission. Because of that, we decided to make boss monsters match the average level of all party members, instead of the highest-level character alone. Development of this feature is fully complete now; it’s already been applied to our Korean servers, too. You can be sure we’ll bring it to Steam as well, you’ll just have to wait a little longer for this update. *P.S.: We would like to take this chance to clarify something about the new Dumpling items, as it seems to be confusing some players. When there are 20 or more levels of difference between your character and the monsters you're hunting, they will not drop Dumpling materials. Please keep this in mind, and our apologies for any confusion this may have caused.
[COMPLETE] Temporary Maintenance Notice - October 4th
Greetings, Saviors. We will soon be performing a short maintenance on all servers in order to fix this issue. The maintenance will take place during the following period: [EDT] 07:00 AM to 07:30 AM Thank you for understanding.
[RESOLVED]Known Issue - Only One Bracelet Equippable
The issue has been resolved. Please, let us know via support tickets if the problem persists. Greetings Saviors. We are aware of the issue that prevents players from equipping two bracelets at once. The matter is currently being investigated and we will update you on the progress. We apologize for any and all inconveniences this may have caused. Sincerely IMC Staff
[Complete] Scheduled Maintenance for October 4th, 2016
Greetings, Saviors!We would like to announce the details of our weekly maintenance for October 4th, 2016. Make sure to check below for the maintenance schedule and patch notes.Please note that other issues and bugs are also being worked on even if they are not mentioned below.
[COMPLETE] Temporary Maintenance Notice - September 30th
MAINTENANCE COMPLETE: The servers are now back up and you may log into the game again. Compensation for the extended maintenance has been sent via GM message (EXP Tome x1). We apologize once again for the inconvenience. UPDATE 2: We regret to inform that today's temporary maintenance has been further extended. We will work on completing the maintenance as soon as possible and will update this announcement once the servers reopen. UPDATE 1: Maintenance has been extended until EDT 08:00 AM. Our apologies for the inconvenience. Greetings, Saviors. We will soon be performing a short maintenance on all servers. The maintenance will take place during the following period: [EDT] 07:00 AM to 07:30 AM Thank you for understanding.
Regarding Client Performance Optimization
Hello, my name is “Chase”; I am the TOS Dev team programmer in charge of client optimization. As we all know, client optimization has been one of the most requested features from the ToS community. There has been some improvements through other fixes, but there is still work to do. We are currently investigating solutions to this problem and we’d like to update you on the process. Current Status To optimize effectively, measurements are very important. A regular play pattern should be recorded and measured so that it can be compared with future results. In this process, replay function and performance visualization tools are used. So far, the optimization process has been focused on scenarios of either a situation involving one player or multiple monsters. The work has been done with the data from such scenarios. Through this, we have successfully achieved a few positive results in PvE environments. What we are focused on at the moment is the situation where a player is placed in a crowded place i.e. at big cities. City Environment Analysis We have captured a crowded city from our Japanese server and measured it via the replay tool. From our observations, we determined that a considerable bottleneck effect was occurring during animation updates, and after a more detailed analysis we concluded that the major source of the problem was in the morphing function. Morphing is the process that gradually changes one image into another. We use this process in ToS to create our unique style of animation you see in character hair movement, for example. The function itself is quite simple, but the intensive CPU processing it requires does tend to create some bottleneck issues. To solve this, we applied multi-threading, allowing each of the different objects to be simultaneously processed by its respective CPU core. Results The results we obtained after applying the multi-threading function exceeded our expectations. In our internal tests, we observed performance improvements of up to 1.5 to 2 times in a 4-core CPU, and 1.5 to 3 times in an 8-core CPU. FPS was steadily increased and occasional framerate spikes were significantly reduced. For reference, the specifications of the PC used for testing are as follows: CPU - i5 3570; graphics - GTX650; OS - Windows 10. One thing to consider, however, is that this multi-threading process might cause hidden bugs that are unseen at the time of testing. That is why testing sessions to see if newly worked-in codes do not cause any errors are needed. After this process goes through the testing and is included in a patch, we expect a great performance increase especially in areas crowded with player characters. Future Plans First, we intend to continue exploring multi-threading. Starting with morphing, we want to extend the process to gradually start separating other tasks that occur before and after it, such as effects where there is room for further improvement. Another aspect we’re tackling is related to resource loading. The slight performance drops that can happen whenever a character meets a new NPC or monster in-game are a problem we are seriously taking in consideration. We expect resource management measures will help a great deal in solving this. I am constantly keeping an eye on the feedback our players leave on the forums concerning FPS drops in their particular gaming environments. Rest assured that we will continue to work hard to solve the main issues that affect a considerable part of our player population. As you can see, there is still room for further optimization besides the measures explained in this blog post. Also, after the optimization patch is applied, there might be some discrepancies between the observed results from our development environment and the actual result on the environments of our users. Your feedback after the patch on how much it improved and what your computer specs are will help our development immensely. We strive to solve the client performance issue until the day it no longer is a top issue. Well, that’s it for now, I’ll keep working hard to bring you guys even more good news. Thank you for reading this rather long and technical stuff; cheers.
Weekly Question and Answer – September 30th, 2016
Q1. Limiting guilds to 35 members feels a little restrictive. Would you consider raising the maximum number of members allowed in a guild? We are in the process of preparing an update patch that will increase the current maximum guild level of 15. We believe you’ll be glad to hear that our plans for this patch also include raising the current maximum number of members allowed in a guild. You can keep an eye on our patch notes for any future updates. Q2. Do you have plans to develop any features to change the appearance of weapons or attack effects? We’re currently working on the development of a unique design item intended to be used with the Alchemist’s Briquetting skill. We have yet to decide how this item would be obtained in-game, but we expect it to be used to change the appearance of other items, including weapons. Q3. The first fan art event was a great idea to get the community involved and participating. Any chances of a part two? We were honestly touched by the positive reception our first Fan Art Fest event had in the community and would like to sincerely thank all the participants and winners once again for their wonderful contributions. You may have seen in our News page already that we have a new fan art event happening until October 18, this time with a Halloween theme. Those interested should make sure to click the link to the announcement here and read the submission details for more information. Q4. When are you fixing the ranking bug in Regional Guild Battles and Team Battle League? We are aware that the rankings in Regional Guild Battles and Team Battle League aren’t always displaying correctly and we apologize for the misunderstandings this bug may be causing. We want you to know that we are working on tests to fix this issue and hope to update you with a more stabilized version of the rankings as soon as possible. Q5. Some skills seem to have an effect on things other than enemies or monsters. Is this intended? Certain skills, like the Peltasta’s Swash Buckling, the Chronomancer’s Haste, etc. do interact with and apply to other objects in the game besides enemies and monsters. This feature is in fact intentional; we mostly designed the skills this way so that they could be used to interfere with other players’ AoE debuffs in PvP and GvG play, for example.
EXP Boost Pack Coming to the TP Shop
Greetings, Saviors! We’re pleased to announce the release of a new item pack about to arrive at the TP Shop, the EXP Boost Pack. This pack will include a set of premium items at a special price and will be available for purchase for a limited period of time. Make sure to read the details below. [EXP Boost Pack] TP Shop Price: 79 TP Contents: - x8 EXP Tome (x1) - Enchant Scroll (x1) - Honey Dumpling (x2) - Instanced Dungeon Reset Voucher (x1) Important: - Honey Dumpling effects: 30 minutes of +4 movement speed, +1 AoE attack ratio and +25% EXP gains for you and your party members. (Honey Dumpling items will not be retrieved from the game after October 25th.) - The effect of the Jumbo Dumpling that can be obtained from the ‘Taoist’s Secret Recipe’ event will not stack with the effect of the Honey Dumpling. - When using the Honey Dumpling, please make sure to have party members close so that they can also receive the effects from it. The effects may not apply if they are too far away. - The Honey Dumpling buff duration on party members will be reset if they already have effects from other Honey or Jumbo Dumplings. E.g.) If you use a Honey Dumpling around party member A, who has 5 minutes left on another Dumpling effect, and party member B, who has 20 minutes left, the effect duration for both party members A and B will be rest to 30 minutes (i.e., the effect duration will not stack up). ▶ The EXP Boost Pack will be available for purchase in the TP Shop until October 25th, 2016.
[UPDATE] The 'Taoist's Secret Recipe' Event is coming!
Greetings, Saviors! We would like to announce our new event, ‘Taoist's Secret Recipe’! In this event, you will be able to collect ingredients and recipes to create two different types of dumplings that can give you and your party members special buffs in combat. Make sure to check the details of this event down below. [Details] 1. Event Period - From: scheduled maintenance on October 4th, 2016 - Until: scheduled maintenance on October 25th, 2016 2. How to Participate - Obtain ingredients for dumplings by hunting monsters. There are four kinds of ingredients: Sesame, Sugar, Flour and Chestnut. - Dumpling ingredient items have a chance to be dropped by regular monsters, but the newly-introduced monster Golden Vubbe will be more likely to drop them. - There are two types of dumpling you can create: Sweet Dumpling and Jumbo Dumpling. One Sweet Dumpling requires one of each ingredient, while one Jumbo Dumpling requires five of each ingredient. - Find the Taoist event NPC in either Klaipeda or Orsha maps to obtain the recipes for your dumplings. - Sweet Dumpling effects: 15 minutes of +2 movement speed, +5000 max. HP and +5000 max. SP for your character. - Jumbo Dumpling effects: 30 minutes of +4 movement speed, +1 AoE attack ratio and +25% EXP gains for you and your party members. 3. Important - The duration timer for dumpling effects counts down even when you are logged off. - The daily limit on Jumbo Dumpling recipes resets every day at 00:00 EDT. - After the end of the event, all dumpling materials and recipes will be deleted from the game. - The effects of the Sweet Dumpling and Jumbo Dumpling count separately, so players can apply both simultaneously. [Updated Rewards - From October 11th, 2016] - In the areas newly added during the scheduled maintenance on October 11th, 2016, the chance of obtaining Dumpling ingredients will be doubled. - Additionally, Five Jumbo Dumpling recipes can now be exchanged for one Instanced Dungeon Reset Voucher (14 Days) at the Event Notice Board. - Remember that this event is running until the scheduled maintenance on October 25th, 2016. After this date, you will not be able to obtain items related to this event (dumplings, recipes, ingredients), but you will still be able to craft and use the ones you already have. - All items related to this event (dumplings, recipes, ingredients) will be deleted on November 1st, 2016. Note that Honey Dumplings, obtainable exclusively by purchasing the EXP Boost Pack, are not related to this event and therefore will not be removed.