For some reason, the battlefield Ring in the Vale keeps losing the ability to access the Max Parties tab in the modifier menu. It just. Poofs. Even without people touching the battlering all day.

Which means that groups of 2 people cannot use it, and only a full set of 4 parties can activate it.

I wish I could give more details, but this has been something that's been happening at seemingly random for the past few months.

To give a simple TL;DR before the post even begins:
If you have two parries, the lower priority parry should be allowed to activate for attacks which don't apply to the higher one.

For the more detailed explanation:

My understanding (from a small talk with others mind you so take with a grain of salt) is that parry skills have a priority system.

If you have multiple, the game will always default to the highest one. If you have stalemate for example and know no pain, stalemate will always be the parry the game uses due to its higher priority.

This prevents multiple DR skills stacking on each other to make a high damage move essentially become zero.

But the system doesn't care about conditions. It always uses the higher priority.

So if you're attacked by a weapon that KNP applies to but stalemate doesn't, it doesn't matter. KNP is completely ignored over stalemate.

I think in those circumstances, the other parry should be able to attempt a proc. This would apply especially to something like holy shield, which is omi-dimensional. Should you have stalemate equipped, holy shield will never apply it's parry even if you're attacked from the back.

Obviously if the higher one has the conditions needed and fails its chance (i.e. stalemate CAN parry the attack but does hit the percent chance) it shouldn't look for other parry skills.

Applicable BYOND Key - Nobleed
Character Name - Klaus Handdonwerk
Request Type - Character Transformation
Request Details -  Merging together the dead and the living in a synchronious amalgamation of flesh, steel, and corruption.
Specific Request - Re-Evaluation of application due to using the wrong channel.

• "ENOUGH BATTLES! I WANT A WAR WITHIN MYSELF THAT WILL EITHER KILL ME OR SET ME FREE!"
  

• (Can spirits take over?) All types of possession run that risk, yes, Installing Youkai included. And it's close, but not extremely, because a 'real' possession means bending your will to the possesser, which you don't do when you Death Knight.
  

TL;DR

There is far too much of an overlap between what finished, high level characters want to farm and what low level characters wanting to progress want to farm to level comfortably. Especially when the high level players are often incentivized to solo so as not to lose desired drops to other characters, as outside boss fights the bonus for having other party members (10% IDR) is negligible compared to the cost (1/4th murai gain + 25% per member chance to lose your item to another character, vastly increased fight time if others aren't ending/taking their turn immediately).

We have far too few items that can be crafted that are only obtained via the global drop pool.

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Why it sucks.

Here we are again. Trex complaining about how much they hate grinding, yet they do it anyways. Curious!

How far have we come since the last thread? Well, Dev gave all non Terra Flamma dungeons extra spawns (1 extra mob per 5 levels) in the 5-60 range. It helped a little bit for the earlier grind so I must concede we have made at least some progress.

But why am I making a whole new thread again?

The most recent update, the Dark Amplifier, introduced Dark Shards as a desirable currency which comes, primarily, from random mobs that spawn with a suffix called Wrapped in Darkness that guarantees a Dark Shard. Some mobs were given a 5% drop chance but as it stands it isn't lucrative to target farm these specifically for dark shards compared to farming content you can more comfortably clear and hope for the suffix to appear.

This is a problem in that we now have yet another incentive for high level players to be farming content far beneath them and depriving lower level players the means by which to progress because someone's hosing down all the easily farmable mobs for dark shards. This isn't a unique problem to this update, either. Before it was for the sake of farming random drops quickly since the drop table, by nature, does not care what the mobs are. So naturally power farmers will take whatever is fastest and easiest. Thus when you are levelling, you are often stuck with the content no one wants to do, that is slow and tedious. Making the already slow and tedious nature of grinding for levels even worse.

"But Trex" you say, "You can farm an LE out in about two hours in Lava Lake!". Yeah. If literally no one else goes there for two hours. Someone else is going to go there, almost always, likely for that reason if not to farm gunpowder/dark shards/random nine stars.

Of course, as touched upon in my prior thread, levelling isn't the only issue when it comes to grinding. What comes after. Item farming. Is made extremely tedious due to the absence of determinism in how one obtains the majority of items in this game. The vast majority of items come from the global drop pool, with a very small number made craftable. Not a single non-puzzle item added post Korvara (2022 Q2) has been made craftable. We were at least given new material kits for the new materials, that's about it.


How it can be better.

I've already made numerous suggestions, including making more difficult mobs like those in the Minotaur Labyrinth have a much higher if not 100% rate of Dark Shards to make them a desirable target for those farming for Dark Shards.

Ultimately, whatever provides levelling characters a path to progression that wouldn't be contested by already finished characters is what we're aiming for. How this manifests is up to Dev. Ideally we'd get something akin to the Badlands Arena where you can farm mobs that only award badges + experience so players can always access something for EXP without competing with players for mobs that yield drops.

As for items, it's pretty straight forward. Making more crafting recipes would help alleviate the issue of determinism when it comes to finding the items you want. It would create more desirable items in the market, and reduce people's compulsion to bank swathes of almost never desired items in the off chance someone might want an otherwise uncraftable item. Another suggestion I made in another thread was to have dropped 8-9-10 stars break down into material to make other items of the same rarity, so it sucks less to drop the undesired high rarity items. Since Raremetal stopped being special as soon as we got a vendor that just sold you 8 star items straight up.

Oh yeah. And it'd be great to get the crafting recipes we're still missing from G6. Such as those for the hand-slot items like Ghosthands, Green Gloves, and the Bands of <x> series.

I think it's been long enough that we can have Boulder items break down into a sub material that can be smelted into Boulders, much like all other ores that smelt into their Hard variants.

They could be Boulder Fragments. Or Pebbles if you wanted to be funny. Either way it just feels bad to drop a Boulder item that isn't desirable and have it breakdown into literally nothing.

It'd still take a fair few breakdowns worth to get enough boulders to fashion a material kit so I'd think it reasonable, considering how saturated the material list is.

Sometimes when I'm idling in a dungeon the game likes to freeze once the hour changes, and if I don't tab back in to send an action I'll never know the game froze in the first place (the woes of a single monitor). Then when I do get caught up to present I'm three turns deep into a fight.

I've noticed this only really happens when the hour changes, the lag caused by it sometimes locks up my client if I don't attempt to send any actions.

A solution to getting jumped mid-freeze would be for players to have the same immunity they get post-battle and on login to monster encounters when the hour changes until they move.

This would not only solve my problem of getting Za Warudo'd to death but also allow players to roleplay in dungeons without fear of being interrupted by monsters if they wish to continue the roleplay or bring it to a natural halt to resume killing monsters, instead of needing to sprint off like maniacs wordlessly the second monsters repop lest they get jumped first.

Female sprites with red undergarments have their eight frame (the fourth back frame) slid one pixel to the right. This only exists with the red undergarments sprites; all others appear to be fine.

This causes disjoint with clothes, and for a "drunken-style" head movement due to the bobbing of displacement.

Tested by going into the test server and choosing all the female base icons and walking north with them. Male sprites, while all not tested, do not seem to have this error (it was discovered when making clothes using the base sprites provided on the forum).

Hey. It's ya' girl Vivi with a lore question and a request for an application of galdr, depending on your answer. I apologise if this sounds like it has a lot of moving parts, because it does, but I'll do my best to break it down.

This application is also extremely goofy. There are zero hard feelings if this gets denied at any step.


Applicable BYOND Key - Violet Hearts.
Character Name - Beatrice de' Foscarina.
Request Type - Magical Application + Lore Query.

Request Details -  Query regarding the use of magic/magical abilities in non-humans, and a potential application of it.

Specific Request -

As a bit of context; as part of the Meiaquarise Bard College in Korvara I have been running a light-hearted quest chain I have affectionately called Frog Quest along with the help of Filia as our EM. The contents of the questline are jovial with a focus on a mild but mostly forgotten application of galdr. It involves a charming effect on small animals, like being able to more accurately guide a carrier pigeon to deliver letters to a specific location it has not been trained to fly to, or to calm a panicked horse in a moment of danger. It is, broadly, meant to be a weaker and more specific use of certain Bard/Performer abilities like Pied Piper or Bewitching Melody, which allow you to charm or completely convert a target to your cause. I apologise if this might have required an application all on its own, but I thought since these effects work on dangerous, terrifying monsters and people, that it working on dogs, birds, or frogs was not much of a stretch. After some attempts it has worked, albeit with some kinks that still need to be worked out.

This application was born out of a wonder of how this could be applied, especially in regards to certain Watcher events moving into Meiaquar. This application doesn't require any knowledge of them, or any oversight on Karidan's part to answer questions, but it does form a small root of why I am making this application.

I'm going to break up the elements of this into individual questions, and applications, for ease of understanding.


1. Do non-humans, namely animals like frogs, songbirds, etc, have any potential to wield magic or magic-like abilities?

There are clearly non-humans in the setting which wield unnatural abilities. Monsters cause earthquakes, throw fireballs, and shoot laser beams. However, is there any possibility for normal, mundane animals to wield any of these things if successfully taught?

My focus is primarily on galdr, and on certain animals well known for vocalisations and noise, like songbirds and frogs, which I imagine would be slightly better at it than other animals. This application does not need to be strong in any capacity, I really just want to know if it is fundamentally possible. I am not expecting a tree frog the size of my thumb to summon lightning and I am not looking to produce a bunch of fireball-spewing guard dogs, but perhaps frogs could be taught to croak and ribbit or birds taught to sing in a certain way that influences mood is still within the realms of reason. On its own it could be so mild it is totally unfelt but in unison with other animals it might produce a small, localised effect.

This mood improvement properties are an important crux of where I am going with this, so in terms of direct application, I am only interested in very subtle results out of this.


2. Can this charm effect be long-lasting and persist without a great deal of direct input on behalf of the user?

Basically, if using this galdr to charm or convert a small animal, would it reasonably require a constant input of orders or focus to maintain? I am likening it in this case to a hex, a curse, or a blessing of some sort, where the effect is simply applied to the target and then can be safely left alone while the magic maintains an effect. Charm and confusion effects, mechanically, do not require a constant input or use of FP to maintain, but they do often have a duration before they expire. Similarly, most spells that enhance your abilities are cast once with an upfront cost, then maintain for a set duration. In terms of lore and roleplay, a witch cursing someone with ill fortune is a classic trope for fantasy and magic, and does not require constant effort on part of the user to maintain. When it does, these kinds of things are usually much more powerful, and tie the two people together intensely.

Say we use the carrier pigeon example from earlier, where this kind of galdr could be used to guide them not to a location they've been trained to visit, but a similar, more precise location nearby. If this effect was only able to last for a short period of time, once expired presumably the natural instinct and behaviour of the animal would be to go toward the location or thing they have been formally trained to go to. Once departed, the user of galdr is no longer present to reapply the effect, rendering it broadly pointless. It would need some degree of longevity to be useful.

Similarly, say this property was used to calm a horse that was skittish around dogs. Would this kind of property have to be reapplied regularly, like every single exposure to a dog, or would it help to soothe them over a long period of time with multiple encounters?

If the answer to the main question is yes, it stands to reason that this might also be used to teach behaviours to several animals at once, where if it requires constant effort and focus, it would no doubt be exhausting to maintain on several targets for an extended period of time.


3. Finally, if the answer is yes to both: can this be used to slowly train local wildlife to use an extremely low-level, passive amount of galdr?

I mentioned the Watcher earlier. It is a threat that wields negative emotions as a weapon, and so positivity is ultimately its bane. Galdr, as an innately emotional and personal style of magic that often deals with emotions, mood, and morale, seems uniquely fit to counter this kind of enemy. Kari said they liked the idea of this if I can get proper GM approval, so here it goes: 

Bluntly, I want to teach wild animals like frogs and songbirds to use an extremely rudimentary amount of galdr to produce a ward that pushes back on the Watcher's worst effects.

Duyuei has some magic emplacements that do this, we can have a bunch of stupid wild animals. This kind of ward would have almost no effect on the people of Meiaquar, or Korvara as a whole, and I am not even sure it has a broader application beyond this eventline. It is just meant to be a gentle, passive push against its effects by stifling negative emotions and promoting positive ones. The intent is meant to be passive, and while not permanent, it is something that can be done to a small group of animals and then does not need to be tended to for a while. For example, Beatrice and any others helping can visit a lake and use this galdr to gently shift things like the tone, rhythm, and regularity of the cries of a local frog population. Then they would subtly produce an extremely weak amount of galdr, having a tangible effect due to quantity of "singers" rather than quality and focus, and help contribute to this ward.

Presumably it would have to be reinforced after a set period of time. Not immediately but perhaps after a few days, or a week, or maybe several if you are going to be really generous. Without regular content it will dwindle out, returning them back to their natural behaviours, but if maintained it will have a benefit for this event exclusively. Maybe there are broader applications, like warding off galdr to some degree, but I have no major plans for that sort of thing at this stage.


Reason why you are making this request (if applicable) - I want to be a frog witch.

Enemies with Set HP values (Usually event mobs) are immune to the effects of Cursed Wound. They get the status, the status powers up.

It does not reduce their max HP.

Azure Knight used Weapon Shift (Rexys).
Azure Knight takes 34 Darkness magical damage. (Earthbound Vengeance / Worldwide Conflict)


Weapon Shift skills are counting as offensive skills.


Sanguine Fluffball used Fox God's Fortune Cookie.
Sanguine Fluffball breaks a fortune cookie and chomps down on it. They then read their fortune... "A good marksman may miss."
Sanguine Fluffball takes 36 Darkness magical damage. (Earthbound Vengeance / Worldwide Conflict)

Fox God's Fortune Cookie counts as an offensive skill.