Great Arena Patches

[Railen]

If you want to react, go to the bug report/ideas/etc section in the great arena!

Patch 2.3 (05-07-2011)

- New rule: no ressuplying of items during battle.
- Items now have a maximum limit of how many you can have with you at any time.
- All posts have been updated. Be sure to check 'debuffs, bonus damage and some extra' in the practice hall.
- Carthage now offers more valuable opportunities for the arena.
- Added a new range: short range.
- Penalties do medium and long range have changed: from 5 and 10% to 10 and 20% respectively.
- Special feature of the Ranger has changed accordingly
- Melee range now gives a +10% bonus to accuracy.
- Special Feature of mystic has changed to regenerate 1 energy per 5 posts. Other classes do not regenerate energy.
- Special feature of defender has changed and now reduces the exhaustion penalty by 10%.
- Exhaustion now deals a 30% penalty to all stats instead of 20%.
- Durability has been added to all armor: when durability hits zero, armor breaks. However, it can be repaired at the shop.
- All critical hit chances have been altered. For details, look in the 'debuffs, bonus damage and some extra' section in the practice hall.
- All weapon releases requirements can now also be viewed at the 'Classes' section, together with most important stats.


Coming soon: members will be able to roll dice themselves, so you don't have to wait for me anymore during challenges etc.

[Railen]

Patch 2.4 (14-07-2011)

Members can now roll a dice themselves for any action that requires a d20 (so basically any secondary stat). Whenever he or she uses any of those skills, a die should be thrown and his/her stat point is added to that result.

For example, if you're going to try and jump a far away cliff, you roll for a jump. You roll 12. Your skill with 'jump' is 1, so the final result is 13. You are free to decide whether or not your action succeeds. Try your best to be fair. Since it's a far away cliff, perhaps you shouldn't succeed (things that are hard to get usually require 15 or above and your result is only 13). Likewhise, for 'normal' things it's usually 10, for easy things 5. Near-impossible would be 20, and that can go up for epic unattainable acrobatics to 25 or even 30, but those are only for higher levels anyway.

As for the fairness, I'll be keeping an eye on it, but I'm sure everyone can be realistic about this and not-cheat. That will make things way easier and faster. ^^

Currently no new updates are planned, but suggestions can always be given!

[Railen]

Patch 2.5.1 (30/07/2011)

- Killing mobs does not grant xp anymore. Instead, you gain xp by completing missions, discovering secrets or performing something big (like defeating a boss). Still under construction.
- Exhaustion now gives a 40% penalty, up from 30%.
- Some errors and typos are fixed among all threads.
- Melee range now gives a +10% to accuracy.
- Inventory now gives a penalty to agility instead of accuracy, because accuracy already suffered a penalty from short or long ranged weapons.
- A two-handed weapon will be way stronger than a one-handed weapon, but while wielding a one-handed weapon you can also carry something off-handed.
- Short range, medium range and long ranged weapons will be stronger, in that order.
- Assassins now receive a 50% penalty reduction from inventory, down from 100%.
- Cooldown now translates into actions instead of posts, in order to make things go faster. For example, if a skill has a cooldown of 2 actions, after casting that skill, the player has to complete two actions before he can use it again (jumping, attacking, hiding, drinking a potion, anything really). That way, you can use the same skill in only one post. But for every action you make, the opponent can respond with an action too!
- Secondary stats now act slightly different, mainly when it comes to debuffs:

keen eye protects vs blind,
standing solid vs fear or burn,
speed vs frozen,
survival vs bleed,
concentrate vs distract,
reflexes vs poison,
balance vs stun.


Way more updates are coming.

[Railen]

Patch 2.5.2 (03/08/2011)

- Both auto info and die results are now gone. Important info about your character will always be posted.
- There aer now three classifications for debuffs and buffs: weak, medium/normal and strong.
- Items in the shop are now limited.
- Items now have a maximum amount that can be carried.
- Some skills might get casttime.
- New debuff: cursed.
- New buff: blessed.
- Unique, rare and normal skills will be gone.
- A dictionary was added in the practise hall.
- A new thread was added in the practise hall for people who want help with their character.
- New primary stat: wisdom. For every point in wisdom, chance that status effects will happen is increased by 5%.

More coming soon.

[Railen]

Patch 2.5.3 (05/08/2011)

- Players can now roll a d100 for status effects.
- some threads have been corrected.
- The way critical strike works has changed. How to trigger it is still the same, but damage is nos as follows:
critical hit: 150% damage.
lethal damage: 200% damage.
reduced damge: 50% damage.
crticial failure: weakened state (so enemy has an opportunity to counterattack)
- New debuff 'sleep' has been added.
- All adventures and xana alerts have been updated with recommended level, rewards and secrets.
- A standard has been set to all weapons, armor and skills. They now have a level that you can increase by gaining upgrades (in the shop or by completing missions). That way, everything is more balanced. All characters and their abilities have been updated too in order to balance things out.

Coming soon: balanced pvp, huge shop upgrade, some skills for participants, a lot of sweet stuff in Carthage.

[Railen]

Patch 2.5.4 (08/08/2011)

- Members can now roll a d100 for percentages.
- The shop has been updated.
- Carthage has been updated.
- pvp mechanics have been updated.

That'll be all for now!

[Railen]

Patch 2.5.5 (22/08/2011)

- Durability has been disabled for now, so no need to worry about that.
- Death: when a character dies, he'll automatically be ressurected with half of his/her health and energy, at the cost of CP.

[Railen]

Patch 2.6.1 (29/08/2011)

- Spells no longer benefit from spell power. Instead, each spell will use spell power in a different way.
- Some weapons will be able to deal either physical or mage damage. When dealing magic damage, only 50% of spell power is used.
- Spells can no longer cause a critical hit.
- Critical hits now deal 200% damage (up from 150%) and lethal hits 400% damage (up from 200%).
- Debuff classifications are gone.
- Info has been updated quite a bit (including character sheets).
- Primary stats work differently: they are no longer rolled. Instead, rolls or done for weapons.
- 'Earth' has been gathered for character development.
- Every class received four more health.
- Mystics now have a skill 'Energy regen' that they can activate at will. It does what the name suggests.
- Patches have been cleaned up.
- Exhaustion still has a 40% penalty.
- Skills, armor and weapons now have a level cap: 30. However, short ranged weapons may go up to 35, medium range to 40 and long range to 45. A two handed weapon can go up another ten levels.
- Level cap is now officially 20.
- Railen is working overtime and thus quitting for today.

Coming soon:

- shop updates.
- weapon updates.
- Skills will be balanced again.
- Some more character sheet updates.
- Some other, lesser things.

[Railen]

Patch 2.6.2 (31/08/2011)

- Combat system has enhanced. All spells and attacks work differently. NOTE that balance is still hard to get, if you spot something over/underpowered, to tell!
- Shop has been updated a whole lot.
- New stat: crit rating, increases damage when dealing a critical hit or lethal hit.
- Spellcasters weapons now have two attacks.
- Other weapons have been updated.
- When a spellcaster uses his second normal attack, only 40% of spell power is used (down from 50%).
- Any other spell will have its damage rounded up.
- Fixed a glitch.
- Added the medical centre which can now be used.
- Added a reputation system: stay neutral, or choose sides and benefit with new sweet rewards!
- People can now edit their posts in the Earth section.
- New blue and purple skills/items were added. Note that blue skills often work very well against purple creatures/players with negative reputation, while purple skills barely work against them, but are overall better. This is not always mentioned.

[Railen]

Patch 2.7 (25/10/2011)

- A program now exists that automatically calculates the outcome of a battle.
- Distract now has a slightly different effect, effectively prohibiting any spell being cast for the duration.
- No more lightning magic.
- Armor and weapon releases were added because they were op/weren't used.
- Shields and trinkets were added.
- The shop has been updated greatly, including many weapon effects (no more abilities).
- The armorsmith now can grant you reputation and convert your skills to blue or purple.
- Xana alert has merged with adventure.
- Missions work slightly differently: more puzzles and a recommended amount of players.
- Simulation battles can now be fought in the challenges.
- Weapon accuraccy gains are now 5%, -5% and -20%, down from 10/20/30%.
- Exhaustion still is 40%.
- A lot of behind-the-scene work, including storyline, bossfights, creatures, classes, ...
- Dividing and gaining points has greatly been changed. 2/6 at the start of making a character, 2/2 at each level, 2 for each weapon/skill level, 1 for each shield/trinket level.
- Introducing the threat system (works mostly behind the scenes, too).
- All classes and their talents/primary stats have been drastically changed.
- Battle system has improved once more.
- A lot of updates in the practice hall.
- Probably forgetting some, still.

For comments, remarks, ideas, please do go to the feedback topic!

[Railen]

Patch 2.7.1 (25/10/2011)

- Weapon effects and spirituality only activate upon a succesful hit.
- Damage reduction through parry/dodge/absorb/block has been reduced.

[Railen]

Patch 2.7.2 (26/10/2011)

- Both weapons in dual wield now only deal 50% damage.

[Railen]

Patch 2.7.3 (01/11/2011)

- Quite some primary stats have been nerfed a bit for all classes.
- Level cap will be 10, for now.
- Happy halloween!

[Atlas]

Patch 2.7.4 (06/12/2011)

- Small monster A.I. slightly buffed. This is your warning.
- New Missions added in "Adventure"
- Trial PvP Modes added in "Challenges"
- Opening submissions for Character Missions. More info in "For you arena goers."

[Atlas]

Patch 2.7.5(23/02/2012)

-Character sheets updated to standard form.
-Character sheets color coded to indicate status. See "Color Key" topic for more info.
-Characters will have full Health and Energy should they level up in a mission where they were devirtualized.
-Character sheets have a new "Current Status" tab. Indicates the overall condition of that character.
-Upgrades are now listed in the "Inventory" tab of Character sheets.

[Atlas]

2.8 Patch Notes:

Released 7/31/2012

- "Professions" tab and prep work has been removed. The Professions, while an interesting idea, proved to be too unwieldy and complicated in concept and alpha-testing. Specifically in the area of item creation and balancing between the separate professions. It has been cut from the game as of 2.8, but perhaps will be brought back to the table at a later time. The system has been succeeded by the Traits system.

- Character Sheets will now be partially spoilered in order to condense the size they take up on a screen.

- When Inspecting any item/creature/magic, the results of that will now be posted in the Lore section for future reference. Extra exp will be provided to the players who expand upon any knowledge of entries.

- Character Sheets will now be re-formated to accommodate the removals and additions of the new content. Character sheet intro and how-to will be updated accordingly.

- Missions Storylines will now be less random, as well as more personable to the overall story. After debate, this is the replacement to the previously thought of Character Missions, which would be difficult to manage.

- Removed Recommended Level from Mission Briefings. Mission difficulty will adjust slightly by your level instead.

- Shop now includes an "Armory" section which deals in weapons to use on Earth.

MAJOR ADDITIONS:

+ Death Enabled Missions on Earth

X.A.N.A. has now stepped up his game, and fully intends to wipe people out. On Earth, missions that are colored red will now carry a possibility of your character permanently dying. You have been warned. Of course, these missions will pay very handsomely in terms of Cp and Exp, so it is a balance of risk reward. In the event that your character's HP reaches zero, you will then be able to pay CP to keep the character alive. That is only a one-time chance per mission though, so don't depend on it. The amount of CP paid depends on the individual situation. If you don't pay the CP, your character then becomes archived and is unable to go through missions or RP any longer.

+ On Earth, characters will now be able to carry Earth-specific weaponry.

To help counter X.A.N.A.'s new aggression, we'll be requiring players who participate in the Death Enabled missions to carry a weapon of some form in order to defend themselves. By default, you'll be armed with only a small pocket knife. However, should you feel the need to upgrade you will find plenty of options in the Shop ranging from melee to ranged, from lethal to non-lethal and more. Keep in mind though, you can only carry a maximum of 2 weapons at a time, but you are free to switch them out between missions. Of course, particularly extreme actions will not be tolerated by the LWs, so use what you have been given wisely.

+ Traits are now added to characters.

To see a more comprehensive guide on Traits, go to the Index page.http://www.xanaslair.com/t1565-traits For characters already in the Arena, you will see a prompt in your character sheets indicating how many and which traits you can get shortly. Simply select those you want and you will be updated.

[Sponsored content]