Yo yo yo! It's time for the next patch, and a small break from updates with it. I'll go more in depth once I'm done listing all the changes below, but please do check the bottom of the blog if you don't care about the numbers too much. To get back on track though, this update brings the new combat system playtested two weeks prior, alongside QoL changes in the form of adjusting Dungeons' difficulty, fixing EXP acquisition rates and lowering the amounts of EXP needed to level up, revamping the Paragon Level reward table and tidying up the Fusion process! On top of these, there's also a much more emphasis defining each of the two new secondary professions' identities, as well as a new Custom Sword Art creation system, separate from the Custom Skill process! Yes, this means you no longer need to choose between one or the other- so, let's get to it! Here's the numbers for:

The Patch Notes:

Levelling Changes:

First and foremost, the EXP curve has been changed. Check the Resource List for it, as listing it here would be too much. The other thing that's changed is the EXP acquisition rate! First of all, no longer is there a standard page amount. Now, everyone will receive 5*PT EXP per 30 words written throughout the thread- this includes from other players. So, to summarize:

• 5 EXP * Player's Tier will be awarded for every 30 words written throughout the threads, including other players' posts.
  • Players still need to have posted at least 3 times per page of EXP.
  • The Player's Tier used to calculate the EXP gained for each player depends on their theoretical tier. So a player whose levels and paragons total anywhere from 51-60 would receive awards as though they're T6, a player with a total of 71-80 as if they're T8, so on so forth.
• Events with more than six people will probably have different rewarding conventions for EXP.

These two simple changes will make progression a lot faster, letting you move through paragons at a considerably standard pace to improve the endgame player experience. Regardless, be sure to look at more details on the EXP rewards in the Site Guide & Rules.

New SA Changes:

Although the new SA changes have been extensively covered, a few last changes were made for release. These can be neatly summarized in:

• The Rounder Combat Shift has officially been removed. Not only was it non-beneficial to pick this Shift, but making it any stronger would lead to it averaging higher numbers than every other Shift at what said shifts were meant to excel.
• All of the addons, as well as shifts have now been given an SP cost and a change has been made with two of the addons. More specifically:
  • Shifts cost 10 SP.
  • The Precision Addon costs 2 SP, while Stamina, Ferocity and Focus cost 4 SP each.
  • Ferocity and Focus are now mutually exclusive, so a player may only pick one or the other for their desired Weapon Type.
• A new Tech SA has been added, TECH-H, which uses the player's Thorns (as well as Aura and other enhancements) instead of their base damage to deal damage! A helping hand to the tanks, for the time being.

Paragon Level Benchmarks:

Due to the rather underwhelming rewards, the benchmarks were reworked to provide better defined growth for all players that reach them, allowing them to slowly transition into a unique, and demonic gear set. More specifically, it now is as follows:

Paragon Level 5 - Laurel Wreath (Earn Col equivalent to 15% of player’s EXP earned in thread)
Paragon Level 10 - +1 LD to Looting*, (1) Gleaming Scale, (1) Demonic Shard
Paragon Level 25 - Free Skill Respec, (1) Gleaming Scale, (1) Demonic Shard
Paragon Level 50 - x3 Paragon Tier Up Tickets**, (1) Gleaming Scale, (1) Demonic Shard
Paragon Level 75 - Custom SA,  (1) Gleaming Scale, (1) Demonic Shard
Paragon Level 100 - Access to ‘Champion’s Hall’***,  (2) Gleaming Scales, (2) Demonic Shards

* This bonus only applies to looting, searching for and opening chests.
** Limit one per equipment.
*** Posting in this thread will allow the player to choose a list of seasonal consumables that’s shown up in past events and take a copy of one. Limited to one post per month per player. 

Tiering of Content:

Something that proved to be problematic in the past when it came to dungeons, gear acquisition and looting was the tiers. T4 gear could only be obtained inside of the Black Iron Dungeon quest, and any T4 players that wished to farm were vastly limited in the floors they could pick due to their loot minimum exceeding most floors' loot maximum parameters. So, these simple changes have been made to help things pan out much better!

• Tiers will be removed across all floors.
• Floor maximum will be removed to allow players farming anywhere, but it will be enforced flavor wise so as the high levelled monsters on lower floors are rarer.
  • Looting needs to follow player’s loot minimum.
  • Tier of loot dropped by mobs will match the tier of the player obtaining it.
• Dungeons will now scale to the highest levelled player in the party and their tier.

Dungeon System Scaling:

The previous dungeons proved to be much too easy and underwhelming, easily done even in solo play with little risk. In an attempt to fix that without making them anywhere near as strong as 2.6's infamous sub-dungeons were, their numbers have been beefed up. The following changes have been made to:

The waves:

• Wave #1 | (4) Standard Monsters:
  • HP: (Tier * 100) | DMG: (Tier * 45) | MIT: (Tier * 15) | ACC: 1 | EVA: 1
• Wave #2 | (2) Elite Monsters:
  • HP: (Tier * 175) | DMG: (Tier * 70) | MIT: (Tier * 30) | ACC: 2 | EVA: 1
    • Critical (MD 9): Deals (Tier * 55) DMG to every player.
    • Critical (MD 10): Deals (Tier * 60) DMG to every player.
• Wave #3 | (1) Boss Monster:
  • HP: (Tier * 500) | DMG: (Tier * 90) | MIT: (Tier * 40) | ACC: 3 | EVA: 3
    • Critical (MD 9): Deals (Tier * 100) DMG to the target with the highest hate. Also deals (Tier * 60) DMG to every other player.
    • Critical (MD 10): Deals (Tier * 110) DMG to the target with the highest hate. Also deals (Tier * 85) DMG to every other player.

Their standard rewards:

• Wave #1 | (Floor * 2) Materials (ea.)
• Wave #2 | (Elite Monsters' totalled HP * 20) Col (ea.)
• Wave #3 | (Boss' HP * 50) Col, [LD Drop] (party.)

The EXP rewards:

• Tier 1; Wave 1 (100), Wave 2 (250), Wave 3 (400)
• Tier 2; Wave 1 (250), Wave 2 (450), Wave 3 (850)
• Tier 3; Wave 1 (500), Wave 2 (750), Wave 3 (1500)
• Tier 4; Wave 1 (1250), Wave 2 (2500), Wave 3 (4500)

The LD rewards:

• LD [1-6]: Additional (Boss’ HP * 50) Col, (Floor * 2) Materials
• LD [7-11]: Unidentified Perfect Weapons (2), Unidentified Perfect Armors (2)
• LD [12-14]: Unidentified Perfect Armor/Shield with one guaranteed Unique Enhancement.
• LD [15-17]: Unidentified Perfect Weapon with one guaranteed Unique Enhancement.
• LD [16-18]: Unidentified Perfect Trinket with one guaranteed Unique Enhancement.
• LD [19-20]: Unidentified Demonic Equipment of the dungeon's Tier.
  • CD [1-4]: Trinket
  • CD [5-8]: Armor/Shield
  • CD [9-12]: Weapon

Fusion Costs:

Some things were off here and there and the necessity for materials (which are no longer hard to obtained, as they've all been untiered and the secondary professions both gather them with ease) only dragged the process out more. Due to this, the following has been changed:

• Materials have been removed from all fusions! This means now only two items of a lower rarity are needed to proceed.
• Only one Demonic Shard needs to be used to upgrade a Perfect weapon into a Demonic.
  • Players that have used 3 Demonic Shards in order to upgrade the rarity of an item anywhere from the 15th of June up to now may message PST and request that their last slot is rerolled using the unique Appraiser Identification table.
• Players are now also allowed to use 3 Demonic Shards when upgrading a Perfect rarity weapon to a Demonic one, in order to roll their last enhancement slot following only the unique Appraiser Identification table!

Secondary Professions:

Fishing and Foraging (used to be Gathering) have been in a weird spot since the launch of 3.0. They've now been more clearly defined, resulting in Fishing getting better gear without any combat being involved, and Foraging becoming the superior way in obtaining materials and Col, a much better alternative for players with their eyes set on crafting. The changes are too many to list in detail (all available however to view in the site's Resource List), but here's the gist of it all!

• The EXP required to level up for both professions has been lowered significantly, to speed up the process.
• Alongside the lowering of EXP requirements, more EXP is now obtained per attempt, leading to a swifter and smoother levelling experience.
• Fishing's Treasure Chests will now include a lot more gear, as well as a 5% chance to have a Gleaming Scale for Grand Master Anglers!
  • Treasure Chests may also be opened on the same post they were discovered to let Fishing be a much faster process than before.
• Likewise, Foraging's finds have now been changed to include not only more materials, but also various amounts of Col at high enough CD rolls.

Custom SAs:

Previously, you were required to make either a Custom Skill or a Custom Sword Art. However, that's no longer the case. Players are now allowed to have a Custom Sword Art regardless of whether they have a Custom Skill active, without it taking an extra slot either- as long as they've reached Paragon Level 75, they will have forever unlocked the ability to create one, until they do, in which case it's added to their total list of SAs available for use. With its very own section in the Site Guide and Rules, players can look at the new system for constructing a CSA:

First, depending on the player's Shift for their Weapon Skill, the SA's base damage will be determined. Next up, they are required to choose a condition which will lower or raise the base damage of their CSA, and lastly they may pair it with any effect matching their shift. There is an important note to be made here. What is available right now is only a streamlined version of the process. Players may ask staff for their own custom condition and/or effect at any given point in time during the creation process of their CSA, just like with Custom Skills. Staff may turn down any effects or conditions they find to be overpowered, or tweak them for balancing reasons- but this will likely rarely come up. Creation of CSAs is still flexible enough to allow for customization of one's own SA as a final touch to their character's playstyle and identity. That's all on this.

Champion's Hall:

The details will be in the respective thread, however any players that have achieved the 'endgame' will be allowed the most premium of awards. Any and all items that are not limited due to lore reasons will be added to the Champion's Hall once the events in which they can be obtained are over, making them always available to the players at the top. However, only one item may be chosen once every 30 days, and the word minimum of 150 words per post is still required. For more details, check its own thread!

The Closing Notes:

So, what direction are we headed now? Let's try to sketch up a very horribly rough roadmap.

Right now, 3.0 has come, and this patch is the 3.1 iteration. A good place to stay for the time being. Any upcoming updates to be expected in the next month or two would mostly be hotfixes, or special treatment given to balancing various unique enhancements, making certain (even standard) enhancements more viable and fixing numbers for quest content left untouched or made prior to the new SA system. Where to next?

Although I won't reveal the full details of anything, we're expecting a few floors to be done before things begin shifting around again. Some things that we'd like to see done sooner or later, probably later because it'd be nice to stick to one version for a little while, are:

• Detailed examples for the Custom Skills, so players may begin requesting their own.
• More player interactivity with the hate mechanic. A rework of sorts.
• Tweaking the numbers on high-damage dealing unique enhancements (Fallen & Holy in particular, as well as potentially DoT effects).
• Sometime in the far future, reworking some skills to fit better into the site and better help define the combat system. This mostly includes Armor and Combat skills and mods.