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[Re:Build] Dina's Special Shop
Greetings Saviors! Kupole Dina has set up shop in commemoration of the new [Re:Build] update! Play the game to earn [Re:Build] Coins and trade them in for wonderful prizes! Event Period FROM the scheduled maintenance on January 15, 2019 TO the scheduled maintenance of March 5, 2019 Who Can Participate - This event is open to players of all levels How to Participate STEP 1. Collect [Re:Build] Coins by completing different in-game content. STEP 2. Visit Kupole Dina in Klaipeda and Orsha to trade the coins for special rewards. STEP 3. There will be a special reward available for purchase during the first and second weeks, third and fourth weeks and the fifth and seventh weeks, so don't miss out! How to Earn [Re:Build] Coins Content Number of [Re:Build] Coins Earned Connect to the game 10 For every 30 minutes a player is logged into the game (maximum of 300 minutes) 10 10 successful catches while fishing 20 Level Dungeon Completion 10 Unique Raid Completion 30 Legend Raid Completion 50 Challenge Mode and Hunting Grounds Drop chance when hunting monsters List of Rewards Item [Re:Build] Coins Required Attribute Point 1,000 (14 days) 300 Miracle Seed (14 days) 30 Golden Anvil (14 days) 200 Silver Ichor Extraction Kit (14 days) 200 Premium Awakening Stone (14 days) 80 Attribute Point 100 (14 days) 50 Enchant Scroll (14 days) 80 Goddess Sculpture (14 days) 30 Fortune Cookie 30 Challenge Portal Scroll 50 [1st & 2nd Week] Attribute Point 1,000 (14 days) 30 [3rd & 4th Week] Skill Reset Potion (14 days) 300 [5th Week ~ March 5] Character Slot Voucher 600 Important - Coins earned for connecting to the game, fishing and staying logged in can be earned once per team per day. Coin earnings are reset at 0:00 AM server time. - Kupole Dina NPC and [Re:Build] Coins will be removed from the players' inventory during the scheduled maintenance on March 5, 2019.
Leticia's Secret Cube Item List: Updated June 20
※ IMPORTANT: Please note that your character must be above Level 40 to use this content.
'King of the Tower' Event!
Greetings Saviors! We are pleased to announce that our event, the "King of the Tower", will start soon. Please make sure to check all the details below for information about the event. [Details] 1. Event Period -Start: Scheduled Maintenance on July 26th 2016 -End: Scheduled Maintenance on Aug 16th 2016 2. How to participate -You will automatically be eligible to participate during the event period if you go to the Earth Tower. 3. Event Benefits A. Clearance Rewards -1 extra cube drop per person 4. Important -Please remember that abuse bugs may result in your account being restricted. -Please note that the content above might be adjusted due to changes of the development plan.
Scheduled Maintenance and Patch Notes - April 19th, 2016
Greetings, Saviors!We would like to announce the details of our weekly maintenance. 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.
[CLOSED] Ways of the Mercenaries
Greetings, Saviors! Schwarzer Reiter Master Warsis Creek and his Golden Note mercenaries are always busy with requests from the locals in Klaipeda, but lately their pay seems to have been delayed… Join the Golden Note mercenaries to collect certificates from their clients and win prizes! Event Period FROM the scheduled maintenance on August 1, 2017 TO the scheduled maintenance on August 16, 2017 Who Can Participate - Characters of all levels How to Participate STEP 1. Head to the city of Klaipeda and talk to the Golden Note Mercenary NPC to accept your mission. STEP 2. The Golden Note member will assign you one NPC from whom you will need to collect a certificate proving that the mercenaries have completed their request. Find your assigned NPC and retrieve the certificate. - You will be assigned 1 NPC per day, although you may be assigned the same NPC on two different days. - Participation in this event is counted on a per-team basis, meaning you can only acquire one certificate per day. STEP 3. After talking to your assigned NPCs, you can exchange the certificates for different rewards at the Golden Note Mercenary (see Golden Note Rewards). - Each reward item will cost you a different amount of certificates, so make sure to plan ahead. - To check your current certificate count, type the command ‘/Golden Note’ in your chat box. STEP 4. Accumulate a total of 12 certificates received to win the title of ‘Honorary Golden Note’. - This title is automatically delivered to the character that receives the 12th certificate, so make sure to check your certificate count beforehand. Golden Note Rewards Collect certificates from your assigned NPCs daily and exchange them for these rewards! - Soul Crystal = 1 Certificate - Keista Restoration Potion Lv3 = 1 Certificate - Firecracker = 1 Certificate - Golden Note Potion = 2 Certificates (Golden Note Potion effects: HP +3000 for 1 hour) - Bubble Stick = 10 Certificates Important - The daily count for this event resets at 00:00 (server time). - The Certificates, Soul Crystals, Golden Note Potions and Bubble Stick obtained from this event can be moved via Team Storage. - You can receive a maximum of 1 certificate per day during this event. Make sure to calculate the number of certificates you can obtain and the number you need to exchange for your desired rewards. Wrongfully exchanged certificates will not be refunded. - Golden Note Potions will be automatically deleted on August 29, 2017. - The certificates in this event can be obtained until August 16, 2017 and exchanged until August 21, 2017. After August 21, the certificates will be automatically deleted.
[UPDATE] [CLOSED] Fedimian's Secret Night Market
Greetings, Saviors! Not long ago, an unknown group entered the city of Fedimian asking for shelter, claiming they were being chased by monsters. They have since occupied the old Mercenary Post building, and the residents are starting to suspect them. What's with all that luggage? And why the guards...? Event Period FROM the scheduled maintenance on January 30, 2018 TO the scheduled maintenance on February 20, 2018 Who Can Participate - Characters of level 300 and above How to Participate STEP 1. Head out to the old Mercenary Post building in the city of Fedimian (near the Item Merchant) and investigate. According to the locals, there’s always a man standing guard in front of the building. STEP 2. Talk to the Gatekeeper and see what you can find. But be warned: it will cost you. If you want access to the building, the Gatekeeper demands that you pay in Talt (x10). STEP 3. You’re in! The inside of the abandoned building has been turned into a secretive night market filled with the most unique items. However, the merchants only accept payment in Golden Coins. You’ll need to defeat monsters close to your own level to collect them before entering the market. STEP 4. Once you’ve collected enough Golden Coins and enter the market, waste no time. You only have 10 minutes to make your purchase. When your time’s up, you are automatically kicked to the outside of the building. Or, if you’re done with shopping and want to leave early, you can ask Security to see you out. The Goods - The following goods are available for purchase at the secret night market. - Make sure to collect enough Golden Coins before entering the market! A. Secret Recipe Selection Box (14 Days) * Price: 200 Golden Coins * Purchase Limit: 5 per team * Contains Lv 315 Unique equipment recipes * Crafting consumes original materials in smaller amounts, but consumes no Practonium B. Lv 315 Unique Top Selection Box (14 Days) * Price: 190 Golden Coins * Purchase Limit: 5 per team * Choice of Cloth, Leather or Plate C. Lv 315 Unique Bottom Selection Box (14 Days) * Price: 170 Golden Coins * Purchase Limit: 5 per team * Choice of Cloth, Leather or Plate D. Lv 315 Unique Gloves Selection Box (14 Days) * Price: 150 Golden Coins * Purchase Limit: 5 per team * Choice of Cloth, Leather or Plate E. Lv 315 Unique Boots Selection Box (14 Days) * Price: 150 Golden Coins * Purchase Limit: 5 per team * Choice of Cloth, Leather or Plate F. Zemyna Necklace (30 Days) * Price: 90 Golden Coins * Purchase Limit: 5 per team G. Lord Hamondale’s Bracelet (30 Days) * Price: 50 Golden Coins * Purchase Limit: 5 per team H. Knight Commander Uska’s Bracelet (30 Days) * Price: 50 Golden Coins * Purchase Limit: 5 per team I. Limited Edition Red Ox * Price: 10 Golden Coins * Purchase Limit: None * Effects: Unlimited STA, max. SP increase, AoE attack ratio +1 Important - Golden Coins and Limited Edition Red Ox will be automatically deleted at the end of the event period. - Golden Coins can only be obtained from monsters that are up to 25 levels below your own (or monsters of a level higher than yours). - Golden Coins CAN be transferred via Team Storage but they CANNOT be traded. - Recipes from the Secret Recipe Selection Box and equipment items from the Unique Selection Boxes CANNOT be transferred via Team Storage and CANNOT be traded. - Items with time limits (14 Days, 30 Days) CANNOT be transferred via Team Storage and CANNOT be traded. - [UPDATE]: Equipment items obtained from this event are NOT timed, i.e. they will not expire after a given period of time. - [UPDATE2]: You CANNOT use TALT[EVENT] in order to pay the Gatekeeper. In otherwords, only Talt that can be sold or traded will be excepted. - Purchased market goods cannot be exchanged or refunded.
[UPDATE] Summer Festa
Greetings, Saviors! It's a hot summer. How about a cool vacation in Klaipeda with your friends? Event Period FROM the scheduled maintenance on August 20, 2019 TO the scheduled maintenance on October 15, 2019 How to Participate STEP 1. You can collect [Event] Vasalos Coins from Summer Vacation in Klaipeda and I Love My Guild events. STEP 2. Visit the Event Help NPC to exchange the [Event] Vasalos Coins with various rewards. Here are some of the available items. [Event] Savinose Weapon Selection Box for [Event]Vasalos Coins x 6,500 up to 1 time per team [Event] Savinose Armor Selection Box for [Event]Vasalos Coins x 600 up to 4 times per team [Event] Stage 8 Transcendence Scroll (90 days) for [Event]Vasalos Coins x 3,445 up to 4 time per team [Event] TOS Beach Ball for [Event] Vasalos Coins x 50 up to 1 time per team [Event] Popolion Pirate Costume (Male) for [Event] Vasalos Coins x 2,000 up to 1 time per team [Event] Popolion Pirate Costume (Female) for [Event] Vasalos Coins x 2,000 up to 1 time per team [Event] Shark Pirate Costume (Male) for [Event] Vasalos Coins x 500 up to 1 time per team [Event] Shark Pirate Costume (Female) for [Event] Vasalos Coins x 500 up to 1 time per team And More! 1. Summer Vacation in Klaipeda Who Can Participate - Characters of level 50 and above How to Participate STEP 1. First, you’re going to need some currency, so login to Tree of Savior and start collecting that Magic Ice! Whenever you’re logged in, you will automatically receive 5 cubes of Magic Ice in your character’s inventory every 30 minutes for 2 hours. STEP 2. If that’s not enough, head out to any regular field or Hunting Grounds for a chance to get even more Magic Ice from defeated monsters. STEP 3. Pay a visit to the Beach Bar in the city of Klaipeda (in front of the Fishing Spot!) and talk to the Bartender to exchange your cubes of Magic Ice for refreshing treats and [Event]Vasalos Coins! You can purchase each treat 3 times per day, per team. Here’s what’s on the menu. Exchange Magic Ice x 5 for: [Beach Bar] BBQ Prawn Skewers and [Event] Vasalos Coins x5 - HP +500 and SP +500 every 10 seconds for 30 minutes Exchange Magic Ice x 10 for: [Beach Bar] Blue Lemonade and [Event] Vasalos Coins x10 - Movement speed +2 for 30 minutes Exchange Magic Ice x 20 for: [Beach Bar] Fresh Coconut Water and [Event] Vasalos Coins x20 - Looting Chance +300 for 30 minutes STEP 4. Become a regular of the Beach Bar for even more rewards! After purchasing the same treat 20 times, a permanent version of that treat and more [Event]Vasalos Coins will automatically be sent to your inventory. Permanent treats are not consumed and can be used 1 time per day. Their effects are the same as the [Beach Bar] items, but with a 1-hour duration! Also, you can keep these treats as toys even after the event! STEP 5. Enjoy your time at the Beach Bar for additional buffs! Relax near the Beach Bar tables for 1 minute to receive +20% EXP gains for 1 hour! You can receive this buff 1 time per day, per character. 2. I Love My Guild Who Can Participate - Characters of all levels How to Participate STEP 1. Start a new guild. The Guild Master will receive a Guild Lv. 4 EXP Card upon creation of the guild. Using this item will raise your Guild Level to 4 instantly. This item is available only once per guild, per team, and can only be used at Guild Level 1. STEP 2. Or join an existing guild. Visit the Event Helper NPC to receive Attribute Points: 1,000 x1(Players already belonging to a Guild can receive them too). Come back every week to receive an additional Attribute Points: 500 item (resets every Thursday midnight, server time). STEP 3. Enjoy the game as a Guild member to receive the following benefits. - All guild members gain an additional 20% EXP - All guild EXP items(Talt, [Event]T alt, Guild Quest Reward Coins) will yield 20% additional Guild EXP - Players now have DOUBLE the chance to obtain a companion egg for completing Guild Quests. - The outcome from the farm of the guild hangout gets double - Attribute Points: 1,000 x3 will be added to the reward for completion of weekly guild quest Guild Foundation - Enter the Guild Hangout every day and receive Megaphone x5 (resets at midnight, server time) Additional rewards are also available for completing Guild Quests (Guild Missions and Guild Raids). - 1 time completion: Soaked Monster Card Album - 3 times completion: Symbol of Guild Membership x10 (Looting Chance +200, 30 minutes duration, 5 minutes cooldown, individual only) - 5 times completion: Title - Core Member Box x2 STEP 4. Visit Event Help NPC and receive [Event] Vasalos Coins x400. Important - All unspent [Event] Vasalos Coins, all items exchanged using [Event] Vasalos Coins will be removed during the scheduled maintenance of October 22, 2019, a week after the end of the event. Summer Vacation in Klaipeda - Daily participation counts for this event reset at 00:00, server time. - Total daily time is counted on a per-team basis, meaning you can play with different characters throughout the time you are logged in and still receive the Magic Ice every 30 minutes. - Automatic Magic Ice rewards also reset at 00:00 (server time), so if you log in after 23:30, you will NOT receive all the rewards for that day. - Time is NOT counted in the server selection screen, Lodge or Team Battle League matches. - The first batch of Magic Ice is sent to your inventory as soon as you log in. The Ice is always sent to the inventory of the character with which you are currently logged in. - Magic Ice will drop only from monsters up to 30 levels lower or higher than your character. It will not drop from monsters in instanced dungeons and missions. - [Beach Bar] items can only be consumed inside the cities of Klaipeda, Orsha, and Fedimian. Their effects can be stacked with other items. - Permanent treats can be used anywhere. Their effects can be stacked with other items, except [Beach Bar] items (e.g. you can’t stack a ‘Fresh Coconut Water’ with a ‘[Beach Bar] Fresh Coconut Water’). - If you use a permanent treat more than once in a day, you will still see the animation but the buff effects will NOT apply. - All items received from this event are untradeable, but they CAN be transferred via Team Storage. - All unspent Magic Ice and [Beach Bar] items will be removed during the scheduled maintenance of October 22, 2019, a week after the end of the event. - The permanent treat items will NOT be removed, but their buff effects will NO LONGER be activated after the event period. I Love My Guild - You can receive Attribute Points as long as you are a guild member. You do not have to stay in the same Guild through the event to receive Attribute Points. - Guild Lv. 4 EXP Card will only be given to new Guilds that have been started during the event period. - You can declare war on other Guilds through the Guild Tower. If you don't want a guild war, don't forget to set your Guild status to Neutral in your Guild UI. - Guild Quest completion count will be counted per Team and not the entire Guild. - All unspent items and non-permanent items from the event and Event Help NPC will be removed during the scheduled maintenance of October 22, 2019, a week after the end of the event.
Future Plans for Class/Skill Balance
Hello, this is the developer in charge of skill and class balancing over at the TOS team. We have been closely monitoring all the opinions and feedback you guys have been sending in from in-game, the forums and other sources about class balance. There are a good number of possible class trees that have allowed for some creative builds from players of TOS. As developers, we appreciate all the enthusiasm you’ve shown. Unfortunately, we also understand that not all of our players are happy with their class trees and builds. Some classes show their true beauty the way we intended them to and are consequently loved by many, but some classes weren’t as lucky and have often been ignored… We at the dev team feel the need to reduce this ‘class disparity’. We have implemented five class patches so far. These are the goals we have been aiming to achieve with them: 1. Each class should have its own characteristics and roles. 2. Adjustments should be carefully planned to avoid one class dominating its rank or being left out, and to achieve a fairly equal distribution of classes in each rank. 3. Rather than letting one class become too good to the point of self-reliance, we should devise a plan to encourage different types of classes to work together and develop new play strategies. The sixth and seventh balance patches we want to implement will be to renovate the classes that have yet to fully show their true potential. For example, classes such as the Cannonneer will be undergoing changes to their AoE range, damage, play convenience and so on. Some classes have already had similar changes implemented in previous patches. Now, let’s talk about some specifics of the sixth and seventh balance patches we want to implement. 1) Barbarian - Our goal is to make Barbarian skills easier to use with other Swordsman skills. - Upcoming patches will therefore focus on maximizing the potential synergy of Barbarian skills and Swordsman skills. 2) Rune Caster - We plan to continue expanding the list of skills available when in the Rune of Giants state. - After considering which classes are the most often used in a Rune Caster build, we will examine the skills of those classes and see which ones can be used alongside Rune of Giants without any problems. 3) Cannonneer - We find that the Cannonneer is not fully living up to the promise of being the explosive AoE nuker it’s meant to be. - That is why we intend to lengthen the Cannonneer’s range and improve the tactical use of this class. - Also, we are figuring out ways to improve its performance by utilizing skills from other classes in the Archer tree. 4) Monk - The most urgent problem with the Monk class, we find, is that the skills have too many restrictions. - Removing these restrictions could have a huge ripple effect, however, so we’re proceeding with caution. - Generally speaking, though, we want to improve the Monk’s go-to skills by changing certain restrictions and aspects of the skill system. Aside from the alterations mentioned here, we are still working on other changes to come in future patches. Moreover, in 2017 we hope to emphasize PvP balance patches to answer the needs of players from all around the world. We’re attentively examining all issues regarding the Team Battle League, Regional GvG and general PvP. One thing we want to start on is dealing with the skills considered either too OP or make PvP otherwise boring. The balancing process is never complete, as many seasoned gamers will know, and neither is our quest to improve the Tree of Savior that you and we love. We cannot thank you enough for all the love and support we have received. Thank you.
Dev Interview: Fishing, TBL, DPK and Balance
Greetings, Saviors! This week, we had a talk with our Head of Development (HOD) to find out more about a couple of updates that are coming to Tree of Savior in future patches, including PvP improvements, drop rate system changes and balance tweaks. Please note that the updates mentioned here are still being tested and can differ from the actual content that is applied in iTOS. The dev team is, however, working to bring these updates into the game within one or two months, as soon as testing is complete. Any changes will be announced in advance through the patch notes. That said, go ahead and read the full interview below! Staff: How are you, Mr. Head of Development? In our previous interview about renovating the city of Klaipeda, you and Maggi briefly talked about introducing fishing spots in-game, which is now becoming TOS’ first real “life” content. May I ask why you decided to go with fishing over other activities? HOD: I’m a little hesitant to call it Tree of Savior’s first real “life” content, considering how simple the fishing function is. Our goal is to introduce a sort of relaxing farming activity to contrast with more intense types of gameplay that require higher degrees of concentration. We figured fishing was the right answer to that. We also considered mining, but we didn’t want to risk abusing anyone’s graphic cards, so we crossed that out for now. Staff: Another question; you already made clear that you’re going to introduce a fishing function in the city of Klaipeda, but will there be fishing spots in other maps as well? HOD: Adding a fishing spot to Klaipeda was our original plan, following the renovation of the city. Besides that, some players may be surprised to hear that we’re also adding one to Cobalt Forest, and in the future we have plans to continue introducing fishing spots in other maps with streams or lakes. We expect the items from each spot to be different from the ones you can fish in the city of Klaipeda. Also, right now fishing is completely automatic, but we’re considering the addition of a couple of simple manual controls. We don’t think it’ll be anything too complex, just simple actions that can give the player an advantage. Staff: If you have plans to expand the fishing function, do you also want to develop other life contents for Tree of Savior? I would love to see a fishing spot in Goddess' Ancient Garden, by the way! HOD: That’s what we’re hoping to do, yes. We believe a good game should be able to offer the player the chance to live out their dreams, so we want to delve into that idea for our next projects. We’ve considered things like sailing a yacht, car racing, exploring deserts, jungles, oceans; any challenge or adventure that’s hard to come by in the real world. We’ve also thought about letting the players do fun things like car tuning, farm tuning, island tuning (we’re just really into tuning)… Or, if you want to enter more into the realm of fantasy, open a fancy bar and invite celebrities to exclusive parties, collect designer clothing or watches, sports cars… Basically, we want this kind of experiences that aren’t always feasible in your everyday life to be more readily available in Tree of Savior. Staff: In a way, the game is already letting us do that, I think. We get to become a Savior of a fallen kingdom and communicate with goddesses. That’s certainly an experience. I can’t wait to see what other dreams we’ll be able to live out in-game. Now, moving on to a different subject, after the big combat changes last May, the dev team announced the following: For our PvP sports content, the Team Battle League, we’re focusing on improving synchronization issues between server/client and location, as well as server speed. First, we want to change Team Battle League matches from the current 2:2 and 5:5 formats to a single 3:3 setup. We also intend to balance out a few skills and systems that hinder the concept of TBL as sports content. Some of the aspects we’re thinking of including in this rebalance are the immunity to multiple target devices (knockdown, stun, freeze and other ailments that cause the inability to control your own character), the duration and effect of long buffs/debuffs, and the stat gaps between different items. Any changes we make related to these, however, will only apply to TBL or other battle-type contents played in similar instanced zones. Finally, regarding TBL, we also feel inclined to add some improvements to the current point and ranking rewards. I heard you’re doing some real progress on these updates, and I’m sure players are looking forward to seeing them applied. I’m excited about them too, I think I’ll finally bring out my mighty musket! Hahah. From what I saw, however, there was no news on the synchronization issues or the point and ranking rewards. Can you let us in on how that’s progressing? HOD: For the location sync issues, we increased the processing speed of PvP-specific server machines, which slightly minimized the location differences that happen between client and server with high movement speeds. For one, we fixed the error that made characters appear in a different position after being knocked down or becoming incapable of combat. Our next goal is to monitor PvP controls in Team Battle League to create a better environment for GvG battles, which we also want to update. We aren’t done with Team Battle League improvements, though. We also have a patch ready with new point and ranking rewards, and we plan to introduce new timed costumes for top-rank players of the season. Finally, we created new PvP rules regarding stacked mass control instruments, movement speeds and debuffs. These rules are going to be applied to characters equally in all enclosed combat areas like TBL and, of course, we’ll keep tweaking them as required by the circumstances. Staff: Enclosed combat areas “like” TBL, you say…? Could that be a hint? In any case, there’s another subject I would like to discuss today. In kTOS, you recently announced that you're going to change the current DPK item drop rate system to a probability-based one. If I remember correctly, the DPK system was put in place to guarantee that an item gets dropped after a certain threshold is reached, whereas a probability-based system means that there’s a chance you won’t get the item even after farming for an entire day. I’m curious about the reason why you decided to remove DPK and go for this probability-based item drop system instead. Also, I would like to ask if a “personal” DPK was never an option you considered as a viable drop system. HOD: Ultimately, for a system like non-personal DPK to thrive you need an environment in which you have several players farming at the same time. If only one or two players are hunting in the same zone, the advantages of DPK (regular and consistent supply of items in the server) are lost, and it inevitably creates tension and rivalry between the players. Because of this, we can see why so many of our players spoke out in favor of a “personal” DPK counting system. The problem is that Tree of Savior is serviced all over the world on Steam, kTOS and other local servers, and in each of those the farming environment is different. Changing to a personal DPK system wouldn’t solve the fundamental issues of DPK itself, and besides, your personal kill count rewards already come from the Adventure Journal. So all in all, we felt that a probability-based item drop system was more appropriate for the game. Now, after moving from a fixed count DPK system to a top-down one, and now to a probability-based system, I’m sure the players will be wondering, “So what’s the new drop rate?” It’s not our policy to reveal the exact drop rates of each item, but we ran thorough simulations to ensure that the items weren’t dropping less than before, and then we set the drop rate a little higher than that. One thing we did was double the supply of Monster Gems, which under the DPK system was rather low. For Hunting Grounds cubes, we added ⅛ pieces of those cubes to the Grounds so that players can get items from them more frequently. Another thing I would like to mention is that, as pointed out by many of our players before, a lot of the fields in Tree of Savior often get ignored after the quests are complete or they’re “skipped” altogether. We’re only trading DPK for a probability-based system now, but we have other things in mind to improve the fun aspect of farming in fields, which we hope will help bring more life into those forgotten maps. Staff: It’s certainly sad to see so many of those beautiful maps go unnoticed; good to hear that you’re working to change that. Now, another subject that’s always been much discussed is balance. According to your latest kTOS test server balance patch, any additional SPR a Pardoner gets from stat-enhancing buffs is going to be excluded from the total SPR counted when opening a shop. Would you like to explain the reasoning behind this decision? HOD: There was some lack of foresight from our dev team when creating the big combat changes earlier this year, in that we didn’t consider all the possible ways in which Pardoner buffs could be affected. This led to certain shop buffs becoming powerful enough to visibly affect the game. Overall, we wanted to adjust the balance of Pardoner shop buffs in a way that doesn’t make them vastly superior to Priest buffs, but without taking too much from the convenience or performance of general Pardoner buffs. We’re still considering other changes to Pardoner shop buffs, but we’ll announce more details after we have something more concrete. Staff: I see what you’re saying. Hopefully everyone playing a Pardoner will understand, too. If possible, I also want to ask about the other contents of your latest balance patch, which sounded very interesting. From what I saw, it was divided into 3 categories: 1) increased overheat, 2) stacking skills and 3) other changes. Let’s start with overheat, then. I’m sure an increase in overheat is good news to anyone using those types of skills, but I have a question. Consider a skill that can be used in 3 times and has 15 seconds of cooldown time. Using the skill only one time will still require 15 seconds for it to be restored back to the full 3 hits. If each hit is worth 5 seconds of cooldown (considering the total is 15 seconds), why doesn’t the skill restore 1 hit every 5 seconds? HOD: We at the dev team can see how having to wait for a period of time that’s the same as the entire cooldown of a skill to restore a single hit is not the most reasonable option. We’ve been meaning to tackle this inconvenience for a long time now, but I guess it was always pushed back by bigger, more urgent issues. We aren’t ready to apply the “3 hits / 15 secs = 1 hit / 5 secs” rule you suggested just yet, but we are considering restoring the hit count after the skill’s total cooldown time has passed when one or more hits have been used. Staff: So you don’t know when that’s going to change yet, then? Well, I hope you have a chance to work on it soon. Would you like to comment on 2) now? Your notes state that you’re going to allow players to stack certain skills with the same skills of other players. You know, every time there’s another Plague Doctor in my party I always feel like they’re “stealing my spot”, so I’m glad that’s going to change. You’re not allowing all debuffs to stack, however. Both the Fletcher’s Broadhead and the Highlander’s Crosscut can inflict Bleeding, but I didn’t see any mentions to Crosscut in your plans. Is that intended? HOD: Those plans concern only skills where DOT (damage over time) applies, so shared debuffs are not included. Black Death Steam, for example, is an attack that only Plague Doctors have, and its DOT merely borrows from the common debuff structure; in reality, it deals damage equivalent to other attack skills. The Highlander’s Crosscut, on the other hand, is simply a skill with an added Bleeding debuff, the same way some skills can have Stun, for example. The Fletcher’s Broadhead is a skill where the DOT comes in the shape of the Bleeding debuff, making it similar to Black Death Steam or the Wugushi’s Needle Blow. Staff: So the difference is that those skills are damage-dealing skills, but they happen to be structured like a debuff. I see. I won’t bother you much longer, but I have one final set of questions about your balancing plans. First, what do you intend to achieve with your next balance patch? In other words, what direction can we expect TOS balance patches to take in the future? How far along do you think you are regarding your ultimate balance goals? Finally, how much more do you want to change with future patches? HOD: After the big combat changes, PvE difficulty was reduced by a lot. It’s hard to tell where the next patches will take this aspect of the game, since our goal is to follow whatever needs are felt at the moment, whether that implies a more difficult or an easier gameplay. What I can tell you is that we did consider the connection to future new regions and contents when applying the big changes, so we don’t predict anything too drastic. We haven’t reached all our balancing goals yet, of course, even considering the next couple of updates we have in store. We have a summon behavior improvement patch that’s already been developed and is now awaiting review. We are also working on a series of other aspects of the game, including more class-specific issues. One thing I want to say is that we hope players don’t think we’re done with a class after it’s been patched one or two times. We’re always looking to improve class balance. And lastly, I can’t tell exactly how many balance patches will make it into the game in the near future, but our plan is to keep working on them until new classes arrive. Staff: Ooh, new classes *_* I would love to hear more about them, but I can tell you’re busy so I won’t take any more of your time. Thank you so much for this interview. HOD: No problem. Thank you to our players for reading!