Hello everybody! I hope this finds you all in good health.
But let's get right to it.

I'm making this announcement as an array of short bans are being put into effect, with the purpose of making the thoughts of the GM team very clear going forwards.

For the most part, we're very lenient. It's rare that we're ever moved to ban anybody- far rarer than almost anywhere else I've seen. When GM action has been taken in the past few years, it has almost always only been in the most serious, cut and dry cases we're made aware of.
Truthfully, and to speak personally, I love that about this community- that the vast majority of serious administrative work involves speaking on a personal level instead of taking the harsher route.


But let me be clear now, on behalf of the team.
Our leniency is not to be taken for granted.

A measured hand in the past, warnings and verbal exchanges in place of punishments- these are not excuses for you to play fast and loose with the rules.


So. The crunch here.
BYOND has it's own rules. We have ours, on top of those. It's frankly embarrassing that I have to explain this so regularly, but rules about sexual content on the server exist for a damn reason. In part to uphold ToS, in part because minors actively play this game, and in part to keep it out of the faces of everybody else.
We have logs of everything that happens in game. They are exact logs that we can extract ourselves, and thus clear and without tampering.
It doesn't matter if it's in public or in private- if you're seen ERPing on the server, either ongoing or in the logs, you're eating a ban. Yes, even if you're walking right up to the line to intentionally skirt along it.

Here is a guide, in the hope that it'll help prevent confusion- real or feigned.
-If direct nudity is involved.
-If affection, clothed or otherwise, is taken to an amorous extreme.
-If there is extensive or heavily explicit sexual discussion or dialogue.
-If- and this one's a familiar classic -you're trying to make an in-game IC trade of insert your clearly lewd, non-canon product here.
Then the case of any of the above, there is absolutely no need for that scene to be on the server. It's as easy as taking whatever you're trying to do to DMs. Are you unsure about whether a scene is too much of an edge case? Be safe rather than sorry.
Context matters, but the ERP rule is one we're going to be cracking down on much, much harder.

If you, as a player, see something you deem as clearly inappropriate, report it to any of us and you'll be kept anonymous. Thank you.


However. This isn't the only flagrant abuse of our prior leniency.
If we find that, during an investigation by a GM into an ongoing situation that may result in punishment put into effect, you've been lying- directly or by omission -for the sake of saving your own skin or making the other involved party seem worse...
This should be obvious, but you can expect a ban. Straight up. Don't be stupid. Again, we can see your logs.


And, as a final note, if you're going to drag IC dirty laundry into being a highly public situation, please check at least two things.
One, make sure it isn't OOCly motivated.
Two, make sure it isn't a topic that's verging on the ERP rule.

If you, as a third party player, think an ongoing situation may in fact be to do with potentially explicitly sexual themes, it may be best to avoid getting involved in that drama if you can.


In conclusion, what I'm sure everybody gamewide would prefer is that there is an absolutely minimal need for administrative action to be taken. As it stands, however, far too many people are trying to skirt by as close to the rules as they can, which takes a toll for all the rest of us. Accordingly- and regrettably -the team is going to have to be stricter with certain rules because of them.
For the vast majority of you, this will never become an issue. And for that I personally thank you.

In the hopes that there's never a need for an announcement like this again, please be mindful of your conduct.

Isn't this a Martial artist perk?
http://prntscr.com/1rg2nuz
I'm not a Martial artist, And i don't have a trait/talent that does this either.
2.49 that wasn't there at all.

Ban messages are not displaying in the new chat.

So when you get banned, you just get disconnected without the additional reasons why you got banned, nor it displays for anyone using the new chat.

Back before the change to what mining deposits looked like, Coral had its own unique icon to differentiate it from normal mining spots.

Can we have that back? It's really weird that the coral you mine looks like... A rock. I don't know why it was changed as part of the blanket replacement.

Automated Housekeepers are amazing, and so useful already. Can we add a pawn shop to them?

Even if this means grabbing another donation item to unlock it in the Housekeeper, it'd be such a nice QoL enhancement for everyone, I think.

The Alex's Fishing Stamp quest to fish ten times near this npc in Dormeho is currently impossible, as the tiles below said npc are impossible to fish in.

Per title. After the update, most youkai have become incapable of getting past common evade values, with Suzaku being the only plausible survivor to these recent changes.

I'd really love to see something done about this, since this has hurt plenty of Summoner builds.

Guidelines for Lore Questions
1) You are limited to one question per topic. You may ask follow-up questions related to your initial question provided they are mainly 'yes' or 'no' questions.  For instances where you are clarifying lore details, or for minor questions, it is recommended to ask in the #lore-questions Discord channel instead of in this thread.
2) Questions should avoid being overly specific when the topic is unknowns. (IE: Was anyone on Sigrogana ever killed with a spoon? Has there ever been a scandal involving a noble family on Kysei?) For this reason, it's best to ask questions pertaining to subjects that already have some establishment in the lore.
3) Avoid asking questions on the basis that you are trying to invalidate someone's RP or otherwise harrass them, etc. If you have concerns that someone may not be RPing properly, or has an outlandish concept, please take them to a GM in private.
4) Refrain from asking questions that have always been answered. Use the forum search function, view the lore compendium, or the wiki pages for the specific races (both on wikia and this site's wiki) to double check.
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Questions may be answered at any time, but the general expectation is that all questions will be answered during the first week of the following month. Answers will be added to the lore compendium, which will be updated after the topic is closed.

One big disclaimer before we move onwards, okay?

This thread focuses on PVE aspect of the game, meaning dungeon delving, event situations, raids and npc fights. I do NOT have extensive knowledge in PVP and I trust all the people who have posted about it to know better than me when it comes to PVP balance. Now, with that out of the way? We can move to the main topic.

As it stands currently after GR2 changes?

HEAVY ARMORS ARE NOT REALLY WORTH IT

So, what do I mean with this exactly is quite simple. The drop to def/res for each point was fine and I get it why it was done, but less known change is moving damage reduction from armor/magic armor from its original position of applying AFTER damage reduction sources to applying BEFORE the said sources. While I can understand why this change was made to some extent, it has hurt ability to effectively utilise "tank" playstyle with everything starting to hit relatively harder (around +20-30 damage from all attacks at level 60, assuming you had high armor).

And that isn't even my main complaint here. Its the fact that this change has made the main selling point of heavy armors, that being high armor and magic armor, near useless *when* compared to other armor types. Unarmored, light armor and medium armor have items with more desirable effects over what heavy armors can provide. And even in cases of good effects like dragon king armor, there is sadly one problem which makes lot of people steer away from them:

Heavy armors require investing into battle weight!

The above can be smaller or non problem on some races or people using light weapons, but the moment someone wants to use something heavier, they are going to need to invest more into the battle weight. Be it by putting talent points into packrat, investing more into strength, using lighter materials or floating enchant, they have to adjust their build for that which means they can't go the same way as other people when it comes to gear. They will be missing on few talent or stat point or have to use less than desirable materials/enchantments compared to just using lighter armor type. 

Speaking of lighter armor types, we need to bring in another issue:

UNLESS ENEMY NPC HAS AUTOHITS, DODGE IS MORE USEFUL THAN DR WHICH LEADS HEAVY ARMORS BEING LESS USEFUL!

Let me explain: When you roll dodge, one of three things happens.
1) You fail and get hit. Will barely ever happen in PVE after you get dodge build going.
2) You don't dodge fully, turning the glancing blow which is 70% damage reduction.
3) You dodged it fully, taking no damage.
With heavy investment into defense (BK/Hexer, shield, facing the enemy), I managed to get around 77% damage reduction. This sounds like a lot and to be honest, it is pretty good. The problem here is that the 70% damage reduction you get from glancing blows is the LESS desirable result for dodging. Even if it would happen most of time, dodging attack fully negates the damage. And sadly, you can't really dodge in heavy armors (none of them give evasion at base) so after all that investing into using heavy armor? There is high chance that dodge build will actually survive longer... Oh and get buffs too if you have right class going.


As last thing I would like to discuss is one of the reasons defense/armor changes were a thing in first place: Tanky mages were considered too strong with combination of earth/dark/water attack and def/res/vit, meaning they could get best of both worlds. I know this goes bit into PVP but since its in past and reasoning, I do not think its too much to mention following:

Basically none of the "tanky mages" ever used heavy armor in their builds!

From what I have learned, they stuck to no armor for power boost or some utility. None actually went out of their way to get bellplate or anything to cover themselves so there wasn't exactly reason to change up armor/magic armor for this reason.


TL:DR;
- Heavy armors and their main selling point of high armor numbers lost its value when armor was moved to apply before DR, causing increase of damage taken.
- Heavy armors will in most cases require at least some additional investment into battle weight compared to using lighter armor type.
- You can't really make evasion work with heavy armor, so you are kinda stuck into taking his.
- One of reasons for defense nerfs, "tanky mages" did not use heavy armor themselves.


So, I would humbly request either buff to heavy armors or making armor apply after DR again.

Been playing Papillion for about a month or two at this point. And i got to say, Their racials are unique but feel underwhelming at times.

Illusion Wing, As a perk it's fine.

Invite Insanity, Personally i have a few issues with this
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Blind - 1 Duration / 3 LV final hit capped at 50
Fear - 1 Duration / 3 LV -15hit to causer
Charm - 2 Duration / 10 LV reduce damage by level%

Silence - 1 Duration / 3 LV cannot cast spells(Unless you're a mage, Which can ignore this making it pointless, Sure it costs 50% more, But theres plenty of ways to mitigate it, Like high mage cape, Evokers absorb power skill +50)(If you're a curate you have silent prayer and gain immunity for a duration)(Both of the classes this was designed to counter, Can negate or ignore this effect.)

Poison - 2 Duration / 3 LV 10% hp damage at 3*level = 9 Damage a turn. (Do i even need to say more? Yes actually... This aint gonna kill a level 1 jammer unless you just end your turn like 4 times. We got other races that are designed around poison too like Wyverntouched.


Personally, I'd remove both the Silence and Poison effects from Invite Insanity.
Add Clumsy as a new fourth random Ailment.
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Aposemagika, I'd rework this entirely but with the same effects...
As it is now, It gives you 12 spell power assuming you're L60 + the same status ailments Invite inflicts, But only to melee attackers.
Compared to other racials, Its really gimmicky giving both a spell boost with a niche anti melee, But what if that inflicts silence or the shitty 9 damage poison? You just got shit on by the game.

My rework idea for Aposemagika is as follows...
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I'd split this into 2 seperate skills. - Not sure what to call this. (Spread your wings? Welcome to the Forest? Pollination?)
Going with the "and can inflict a variety of status effects against melee attackers"
6M
Not an invoke.
Still applies the "Passive: Upon using Invite Insanity the first time, deploy a permanent Aposemagika LV0 field effect, which increases the Status Infliction of Aposemagika users by LV%."
Applies a random status effect from the list of "Blind, Fear, Charm, Clumsy"
This lasts for 6 rounds -> Change to 2 rounds but with a 3 Round CD
This would make it much more viable in both pve and pvp, While still only applying to melee based attacks.
----
A new Invoke skill - The new Aposemagika
Active: This skill requires a Rank D Invocation
Once cast, increases the Power of your Spells by 4 Per Debuff your target is suffering from.
Spawn two Butterflies randomly on the field.
This lasts for 6 rounds. Aposemagika field LV20 lets you cast this skill without an invocation, but it gains an 8 round cooldown.
----
In short
Invite Insanity would be more reliable and viable and would be more about impairing the natural senses.
Aposemagika would be split into 2 parts which would reward spell types more if they go out of their way to inflict ailments, While giving other builds that want to use the 'On melee attackers' a quicker option.
You'd still get spell damage and you'd still only counter melee, So it's still easily countered by ranged weapons and magic.
My changes to Invite Insanity would require a Trait rework(Because snake mirage would be pointless if we remove a 9/39 damage poison)
Fairy Mirage would stay, Barghest Mirage - You inflict fear a bit easier, -20 hit with your fear instead of -15.