Strength tells again in PvP, and the stakes show their wounds
A short restart tonight. Everything below is live.
The gap between two players is no longer capped
Battle power has always swung a blow between players, but the swing stopped growing at twice normal -- so past a certain point, more gear, more gems and more levels bought you nothing at all against a weaker opponent. A level-124 archer could empty a quiver into a newcomer and take an age about it.
That ceiling is gone. The lead keeps paying all the way up: 2% per point of battle power, with no upper limit. The floor stays where it was, so a blow from someone far below you still lands for 40% -- being outgeared is a losing fight, never a hopeless one.
Battle power is your gear: quality, sockets, gems, plus levels, rebirths. It is what you built, and it now shows.
The Training Grounds stakes take real damage
Every stake and scarecrow now carries health matched to its own level -- about fifteen blows from a character of that level -- and the bar falls as you work on it. It used to refill silently on the very next tick, so what you saw had no relation to what you were doing.
Leave one alone for five seconds and it mends itself. They still never fall over: a dummy that despawned would break the auto-attack that keeps you sparring.
Skills train on the damage that lands
- Overkill trains nothing. If a monster can only take 100 more damage, a 5,000 blow trains your skill by 100, not 5,000. This applies to every skill in the game.
- Passive weapon skills train on the Training Grounds again. A proc was being refused there as though it were a cast, which is why Rage would not leave level 0 no matter how long you swung. Rage, Phoenix, Seizer, Boom, Earthquake and the rest all train there now.
- Rage reaches about a fifth less far. Its cleave was a square that stretched noticeably further than the animation it draws.
The forge opens sockets four times as often
Every Meteor you spend on a level upgrade at Artisan Wind also rolls for a socket. The odds are now 2% for a weapon's first socket and 1% for its second, and 1% and 0.5% for everything else. The whole server hears about it when one lands.
Offline training pays what your character earns
The Boxer's offline training paid a flat rate that had nothing to do with who you were. It now measures what your character actually earns hunting -- your attack, your casting, your battle power -- and pays 5% of that, capped at a tenth of your current level for a full night.
It is a cut, and at low levels a deep one: the old rate could hand a level-60 character more experience than a whole night of real hunting. At the endgame, where a night of hunting is worth a great deal, a well-built character now gets considerably more than the flat rate ever gave. The Boxer tells you what he judged you by before you go.
Two swirls in the far lands lead where they should
- The Adventure Zone's only swirl threw you out to Ape Mountain. It now returns you to the Far Canyon you walked in from, so that pair works both ways.
- The Far Canyon's northern swirl into the Fairy Plain did nothing at all -- it was wired a few cells from where you actually stand when you step on it. It works now, and the way back sets you down clear of it.
Also live since the last notes
- The Eight-Diagram Tactics (the MoonBox quest) rebuilt the way it was originally built: each command token carries its own tactic's name, and the maze tells you which tactic you are standing in.
- Fourteen pieces of gear that no class could wear at their own level have been corrected -- among them the level-85 CarvedBow, which no archer could equip until 86.
- Voting: the level 40 gate is back, but a vote cast below it is accepted, counted for our rank and paid automatically the moment you reach 40.
- The minimap star answers when you hover a team portrait.