... um... I don't care if other BDPs have this nonsensical stacked doors jutting out of walls stuff. This has always been dumb and I'm guessing this isn't intentional from the door's angle.

Please read the entire post before replying. Not skim. READ. Missing an already addressed point and arguing it while ignoring everything already said about it (of course, bringing up other points is welcome and encouraged) will get you slapped with a rubber chicken. A spiky edgelord rubber chicken named Melvin who's sick of being used to smack people who don't read. The last person smacked by Melvin bled out within a minute and got the bludgeoner 25 years in prison. Please think of the enforcers trying to keep things running smoothly. And forget the victims; it's for your own good.


Many games have differing mechanics for PVE and PVP. Sometimes, these seem stupid and arbitrary (Example: DC Universe Online has "Defense" for PVE and "Toughness" for PVP, items don't sport both, with mixed open world PVE/PVP, lolwut.) Other times, they're a brilliant balance that allows anything to excel in any game mode. I used to not be a fan of such arbitrary mechanic changes, but I've since come to appreciate them from a balance perspective. PVP is a logical endgame point for any game, and continuing to use the exact same rules from the rest of the game can be problematic at times.

Let me talk strategy and team roles for a minute: Crowd Control, often shortened to "Control" or even just "Troll," is a common role in many MMOs. The role of the controller is to even the playing field by temporarily neutralizing certain enemies, via stuns, polymorphing, causing a status to make them behave erratically, and other such actions. Bosses are of course immune, but when 4 players are up against one boss and 10 of his goons, being able to temporarily remove 2-3 from the equation turns a massacre into a fighting chance. But what happens in PVP? You'd think that being able to stun enemies for a bit would be gamebreaking. Enter PVP mode, where stun chances/durations are dramaticaly reduced, or even replaced with different effects, like slowing someone instead of completely locking them down.

(For comparison, the closest things SL2 has to proper control are Celcius Shell, Cripple Leg, Entangle Traps, Ruby Beam, Earthbound Vengeance/Fog, Spirit Pain, Skull Caver, and until recently, Light Tomahawk. Many of these skills see/ have seen a/numerous cries for PVP balancing. Yes, I am actually suggesting we make those skills have different PVE and PVP effects.)

So why am I bringing this up?

SL2's balance is presently a joke;
- Mages completely dominate PVE while melee just suffers. An old but still relevant eample: http://www.neus-projects.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=65
- Physical (generally) dominates PVP due to it being harder to get Slash/Pierce/Blunt resist, as well as crits and such.
- As such, almost everyone just has friends use mages to grind their melee characters up for them.

Any attempt to balance something for one makes it too strong/too weak in the other. So this may be a good time to discuss implementing different PVE/PVP skill mechanics to bring some GLOBAL balance, making everything a bit more universally standard and not requiring Class A to prepare Class B for things.


Examples:
- PVE stuns to counteract major threats (Example: Sliders vs Low Def characters) that don't work in PVP.
- Reduced PVP healing potency so fights don't become a boring slog while still keeping them powerful in PVE
- Reduced PVE FP costs on some things, like Youkai upkeep, and increased PVP FP costs on some things.
- Changing overly crippling movement reduction effects into something else in PVP while retaining that PVE function.
- And many more! Order now and I'll DOUBLE your examples!


"So, how could this be implemented efficiently and not taking abhorrent amounts of work for Dev?"

Simply put, every battle is already either PVE or PVP; there is no mixed battle. You cannot join a PVE battle on the monster team to ambush a character, for example. So, options for how Dev can implement this are numerous. One skill could have two effects based on a hidden PVE/PVP toggle, or there could be two entirely different skills (with the same name/animation, of course) with one loaded at battle start based on the battle type. Battle type could be determined by either method of initiation, or possibly environment (because who makes a habit of PVP in BDPs, as an example?) I propose we leave this part up to Dev, if the idea is used; I'm just tossing out ideas to try make Dev's life easier.

"And just how, exactly, do you propose to seperately balance both PVE and PVP!?"

Look at Balance Fu. Who makes PVE balance threads? Some people, but not nearly as many as PVP. Most balancing is already done around PVP, and sometimes, it impacts PVE pretty hard. This way, balance threads for one type don't need to impact the other. We can make PVP more fair without worrying about PVE issues arising from it, and also make more things good in PVE without becoming overbearing in PVP.

Yes, we can expect to see a surge of PVE tweak ideas shortly after implementation if this goes through, but it's a small price to pay for the potential benefits (see below) and that should die down decently fast once PVE isn't "use magic or suffer."

"And does this affect anything other than letting filthy casuals enjoy the game without partaking in our meta?"

Absoutely! I wouldn't suggest this for no reason! Go back to my earlier statement about Crowd Control in other games: I wasn't just using that example for no reason. With more things like that available in PVE without PVP getting completely one sided, we can finally deliver the harder dungeons and bosses many people have asked for! We can see a proper PVE Meta (Think Raids in MMOs; parties grouping up for major challenges they could never tackle alone) instead of PVP being the only real Meta.

"Ranylyn, you're a fucking retard, this idea sucks and you suck and I hate you."

If you truly legitimately think this is a 100% bad idea with no merits worth considering, I'll take that "retard" comment as a compliment, coming from you.


So, now that you're done reading the wall of text, do your thing. Disagree, Agree, Argue, Debate, Criticize, Applaud, whatever you want, it's your choice.

(*This is a joke. Not directed at any player or party specifically. Please especially do not do strategy two for the sake of everybody's sanity. All characters under the alias spoiler are mine.)
The Roxy Guide to making TOTALLY ORIGINAL NAMES™.

There is three ways to find a name for a character, obviously.

STRATEGY ONE:

1.
Google a generic adjective, the character gender, and name.

2.
Pick the link that sounds the most douchiest!

3.
Pick the one with the definition that fits your character and sounds the worst and profit!

1.
Pick some popular anime you like, and steal the first name/surname of your favorite character(s)!

2.
PUT THAT INTO ACTION EVEN!

1.
Google this!
2. PROFIT.

PUT A BIG WORD IN FRONT OF ANOTHER BIG WORD/YOUR RACE/YOUR GENDER/OCCUPATION!

PROFIT!

The Winged Serpent boss isn't in the statue of memories, and you can't exactly visit it again, can it possibly be in the Statue of Memories?

So, can we have the snake statues give their buffs to your entire party instead of just the person who pays for it? If not I understand, just seems like it makes sense.
Edit: I now see only one statue dissapears, well, for that one can we have that happen?

For some reason, End Turn or Skip Turn no longer work for me on the shortcut bar (in battle). I know this is not like this for everyone, but I have tried clearing cache and reassigning an entire row of End Turn/Skip Turn. Nothing seems to work.

The only difference I can cite is I got the Utility Belt shortly after the update and assigned stuff to it. I believe someone else had this issue (sarin maybe?) but again, it is not a universal issue.

EDIT: I can confirm on my other accounts, end turn works fine. For some reason on my iDarkCara account, the Utility Belt seems to have bugged end turn and skip turn..and I have no idea why.

Level 59. Level sixty gets 9 duration and if I'm not wrong, +14 str.


Easily obtainable in a chest. Only downside being no material. (Hardly enough to equalize.)

It grants Guard, gives this for three momentum.
Comparable item - Metallic Magic gauntlet. Gives +8, has no material, but requires you getting a drop of two items, combining them together through alchemy. Guard only usable when effect is in use and it also doesn't last as long as this.

I'd hazard a guess that this is a mere oversight given that Byakkos roar is rather fine and that this was a lazy copy of the skill. (But, it has the downside of the grind to sixty.)

Suggesting reducing effect to 3 rounds, or lowering str bonus by half/quarter

When it comes to the trait: Maneuver: Special Attack, there are a lot of really cool options to every weapon using these, Axes being able to fight multiple things at once in 1 range, Spear being able to do the same, Fists being able to hit a tile in 2 range, Tomes being able to cut an enemy's action by 1 whole action, Guns being able to condense all their shots into 1 and get extra critical damage, all of that is REALLY cool, but when it comes to Swords and Daggers, they are very lack luster.

Slash: Do slash damage with a dagger
Thrust: Do pierce damage with a sword

Those are honestly pretty...un-worthwhile has special attacks, I just want to make a suggestion for them to change slightly to be more worth it to get, and synergize better with various classes..

For Swords, I couldn't come up with many, but the one I thought about suggesting was a basic attack that would your enemy airborne, when used, the main point of this is getting fleur bonuses while also knocking an enemy airborne, ways this could be used is something like...Wazabane -> Special Attack -> Sharenzan...a lot of synergy could come from this, other than equipping crane hop for easy 1m airbornes.

For daggers, a few things came to mind, but I couldn't decide on one, one was suggested to me as well and I liked that sorta..But the over-arching theme of them is that Daggers are in a really bad spot at this moment, because of tanks being strewn around everywhere, and I mean everywhere, and it doesn't help when they put their backs to walls, no VA can function when an enemy's back is to an invisible wall or bush or stump.

1.) Spin Around strike, strike the enemy with your dagger and if it crits, it would spin them to where their back is facing you, to substitute this, I would suggest this cost 4m

2.) Shuffling strike, Strike the enemy with your dagger and switch places with them.

Any thoughts?

Ammendum, Sin, and Purpose still doesn't have its displayed bonus resist updated to reflect the actual value of 25% instead of 50% yet. Very misleading.