TOStory Event - Best Storyteller
By STAFF_Sawyer
Oct 18th, 2023
Greetings Saviors!
Again we thank all the Saviors who have shared their most wonderful memories with us in this event! :)
Here are the Best Stories we chose and hope everyone enjoys reading them as we have.
[Narcissus – NA(Klaipeda)]
There are way too many great memories to list, but making my guild ranks way up there. Starting the alliance to take down the big bad guild on the server at the time in Boruta and GTW, recruiting certain people I am still very close friends with, overcoming big challenges... The most notable would be the original server first Giltine. We were fiercely competing with another group and there were many issues with the patch. Chat server was down, the server came up many hours after maintenance was supposed to end. We needed to level up and were excited when we were the first group inside the raid. We also were running a very unorthodox group: Crevox was our high DPS on the summoner build, NewSavior was our tank (like an actual tank, running pelt/templar), Adorish was solo healing (which was mind-blowing at the time to some), and myself and nobodyweed were running archers, particularly falconers for aiming. We also had rotated a few other people in when Nobody had some internet issues and had other people to jump in and help, such as Wyldrin, Angeles, Itou, and the entire guild was supplying moral support which was so desperately needed. The four of us minus nobodyweed had done server firsts before, but none were like this. None took more than a few hours. My PC was dying, the screen was tearing in various places mostly at the bottom of my screen, causing me to not see various effects but mostly just covering my hotkey bar. There was no way to fix this reasonably without jeopardizing server first, so I just rolled with it.
After 5 grueling days of attempts, we shifted our strategy and changed some gear, switched gears to do territory wars that Sunday, and decided we would run attempts more after it. For someone who works on Monday mornings, this is unheard of, even GTW running until 10 PM my time is rough for me. Right after GTW, NobleJack traded me his Steampunk wings for good luck. The runs were still as stressful as ever in those few hours; random extra spears nuking us into the ground, getting to Avataras only to wipe very quickly with no soul crystals left, having Guillotina Tristeza play in your head such that sometimes you could hear it before the music even changed over...
"This is the run," we joked, three or four times before it even was. The chat server died again, New was running the loop countdown timer on his phone and had a macro in /say chat which sometimes got missed so I was verbally calling it (the other ongoing joke of course being that the run was sponsored by online-stopwatch.com, which persists to this day for blockade). It was after 1 AM. I was personally exhausted, staying up this late for this many days in a row was not for me.
It started with a visual bug and I thought the sleep deprivation was making me see things. New's mount was stuck off in a corner somewhere and his chatbox hidden from my view, but it didn't stop me from calling condensation. We reached 40% flawlessly, but a rogue bugged spear nearly ended it right before the change to Avataras causing our first consumption of soul crystals. "But we were so careful, why?"
"Whatever, it's only one soul crystal, it's fine."
Avataras spawned, spun around, and used the shotgun attack on Crevox almost immediately. "It's alright, three soul crystals left."
Avataras was the very essence of her name, chaotic and brutal. It was mechanic after mechanic after mechanic, but we managed to get her to about 10% without another death. Taking it slow and steady, 7%, then 5%, 4%... The panic was setting in. Two soul crystals left, no room to move due to the donut in its smallest safe spot iteration. Nobodyweed was down and had to stay down to preserve crystals for Crevox. 3% and I finally went down myself, but aiming was at max duration. Crevox died, managed to get up and blast her to 1% but I still felt like it wasn't real.
"Don't even look at her HP bar, just kill her," I remember getting out weakly, New called condensation wasn't for a while.
Crevox's exhaustion was finally noticeable, he felt like he could have done this forever, but all he said at that point was "Die, die, die, die..." 0%, Adorish--our healer--down.
Why wasn't Avataras dead? "Fifteen seconds," New called on condensation, as Avataras started the dash animation. Was this really going to happen? Were we going to wipe at 0%?
Then, the camera zoomed in. The scream played. "You have obtained the [Fallen Goddess] achievement." running across our screens. The global announcement posting right as the chat server came back up. The screaming, God, the screaming. The loudest I've ever heard nobodyweed, surely. "Wait, roll. Roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll." New brought us squarely back to reality--we needed the glimpses (we wouldn't get any for several months).
The whole thing played out like a dream. I don't even remember when I fell asleep that night. It's certainly the memory that will stay with me for the longest time when I think of Tree of Savior.
[Cherrywell – EU(Fedimian)]
In just over a year of playing Tree of Savior, I have met some truly remarkable people and have made so many wonderful memories that would not have been possible without this game. My favourite memories include constantly duelling my friends in Orsha and Klaipeda, and I would never stop requesting to duel until I made sure that I won! It took forever to win, but I managed it!
I have fond memories of joining the GM events, anxiously searching around trying to find the hidden GM, or trying to find that annoying item that the GM wants - but I always enjoy meeting up with people in the server and making new friends through these events!
However, my most special memory, one truly dear to my heart is meeting some of the most brilliant people within Fedimian - I log on every day just to see them, to talk to them and to enjoy their company. My friends have brought me out of my shell, and I feel like I have become a better person after meeting them. They are so insightful and truly amazing people who never fail to make me laugh and are always there to help me out, even when I'm stubborn and say that I can handle things on my own! I always think about sitting with my friends in Spell Tome Town, listening to the music there and looking at the beauty of the map whilst I laugh, cry, or rant with my closest friends.
Playing Tree of Savior every day with my friends is one of my favourite past times, and I truly cherish every moment I spend with them. As I continue to play, I hope I can make more memories with my friends and guild members, memories that will be really significant and ones that I will always remember.
[Winderie – SA(Silute)]
Trying and trying. This story is about trying and trying. A story from years ago, when a Crow from the dark side of the moon terrorized us, and we barely had Legend Gear to face it. We all were just starting raiding, not knowing what "meta" is or how to properly gear ourselves, and saw that this big Crow, Skiaclipse, gave us a cool title after clearing it. We wanted the title, so we tried. Tried and failed.
At first, we couldn't even take the first phase of the Raid. Skiaclipse, chackled, threw us mobs that make him imnune, but we didn't notice it until many tries later. So we tried and learned. Bosses had certain mechanics to do and pay attention to. And we started to enjoy discovering them. Devicing strategies to go around some mechanics, some of us even had to change Classes because we lacked a proper Tank for the Raid. It was fun learning a Raid, and that experience hooked us to the game, we didn't even wanted the rewards, we wanted the eternal glory of defeating the shackled Crow, we wanted to overcome the challenge.
So we tried and learned. Tried and laughed. Tried and failed. I watched how Skiaclipse, once released, will oneshot everyone but the tank if it hit them with its autoattack. I watched how the lightning it summoned rooted my friends, and with sad background music and slow motion, saw the Crow fly towards them and slam them on the floor. I watched my party members summon a horde of mobs because of the white pools on the floor. We learned when the lightning was summoned, why the white pools appeared, to rotate the Boss around the arena, so we didn't die because of the many black pools Skia summoned.
We grew as friends, as players, and as Raiders. We didn't have the superpowers of veterans just brute forcing their way with huge damage on 5 or 10 minutes. We didn't want to compete with them, we wanted to clear our challenge. We helped each other progress so it was easier each time. So we tried and failed. Tried and laughed. Tried and learned. Half an hour runs lost because of late mistakes we made. Because we learned late how to deal with the tornadoes he summoned at the last parts of the Raid. And finally, the golden run. Weeks and months of effort for that one moment. We freed the Crow, fought the Crow, half an hour of lightning, music, orders, nervous cries while we tried to free ourselves of the cage, or dash/teleport outside of the flying slam, clearing the tornadoes once they appeared so they didn't get bigger. We saw its life go from 15% to 10% in agonizing and adrenalinic minutes. And then to 5%, and then...
We tried, and succeeded. We cried of joy, jumped, took screenshots, weeks and weeks of progress, learning, effort and trying coming to a beautiful closure. We bested the hardest content of the game, without being carried by anyone. We, the "new and weak players" got the Skiaclipse Feathers. But we didn't get the title! It was too late for us when we cleared it, and the title was no longer available, but we didn't care about the title anymore. We climbed the mountain, we achieved eternal glory, together, that was all that mattered.
We lived the story of trying and overcoming the challenge.