The "Coming Soon" Thread

[GM-Ciar]

Fear the Birdocaplypse!




(Above is image of new stat-ed Filir with Alchemist rework in testing)

[GM-Ayu]

Hey we haven't posted in here for awhile, so let's do a quick rundown of what's in the pipelines!


January 2021

We have a lot planned in January 2021 and we hope to deliver it to you soon!

• A new end-game instance dungeon: expect the challenge level to rival that of Nydhoggur's dungeon. We haven't had any new challenge dungeon since biolab, so we hope that the veterans will look forward to this!
  
• 6 new pieces of equipment from new end-game dungeon along with new cards from monsters of said dungeon; mostly supporting existing mainline builds emphasizing High Wizard and High Priest
  
• New hatter update: so hold on to your Old Red Boxes from Hatter! Say goodbye to some old hats such as Autumn Leaves and Dragon Skull in place for some new ones.
  
• Massive quality of life changes, such as faster renting/returning to private DB rooms, quiver NPC returns, and a new NPC for Gunslinger/Ninja ammos
  

What is further down the road for 2021? In no particular order, here is a non-exclusive list:


Gunslinger Rework

It's still on the table and in the works but it won't be happening in January. We aim to touch up almost all skills for the Gunslinger similar to Ninja, but making all 5 gun types have some niche from each other is proving difficult.

Costumer Expansion

It's not RO without new hats to gather. Nobility Costumer will have his options expanded, so be sure to keep working towards those nobility points! We are looking at a minimum of 10 new costumes for the nobility costumer, including the ones from player suggested wishlist of costumes in 2020.

Faeheim Archipelago

You had a sneak peek at the town and one of the new Schematic Costumer available in the archipelago, thanks to Ciar's custom map work. In year 2021, we hope to bring the vast majority of the archipelago to the players. Archipelago fields will most likely be similar to Faeheim mainland where it's more for mid-level adventurers, or small duo party/well-geared solo hunting at the highest. Gears will most likely support extended classes and secondary builds.

Holiday Quests

As is tradition, the first half of the year has plenty of holidays such as Valentine's Day and Easter. Look forward to new quests to earn new and old holiday hats!

More Class Touchups

There are some classes that do not require such drastic change as extended classes and will have some of their skills lightly touched upon, such as Blacksmith, Assassin, Hunter and so on.

Class Combo Cards Redo

Similar to how Ninja and Alchemist have been either given a class combo set or have its class combo set revised, when a class's base skills are touched up, we'll also release/update their card combo to be fitting for 2021 standards. Hold on to your class combo cards if you are interested in it!

Drop Rate Re-Review

We did massive drop rate overhaul in 2017, and we'll revisit drops 4 years later again to make drop rate for old items reasonable by 2021 standards. As the concept of "one easy source to grind it out, and one harder source to trade difficulty for drop rate" seems like a welcomed approach, we'll go through some old items to see if we can make them come from multiple drop sources of varying difficulty.

What about Taekwon?

We'll definitely look at Taekwon but unfortunately I'm still stuck on what their niche is and how they differentiate themselves from other melee classes: Knight is the generalist with a bit of everything and can mob. Blacksmith is the highest single target damage class. Star Gladiator got a niche against very selective boss monsters (but is very good at that one thing), while Soul Linker is a slower super novice that can't buff but is tankier and got the rare holy/shadow magic. We gave Ninja the niche of having hybrid-like stats. But what about Taekwon itself, even if ranking? We haven't really figured it out yet, but when we do, we'll definitely take a large scale look at Taekwon as a class.

[GM-Ayu]

We haven't posted a "Coming Soon" in a long time with all the stability issues lately. Hopefully server will stabilize and we can focus on content again.


Trial of Heroes - New Rewards

It has been many years since there are new gears using ToH Vouchers. We are happy to announce that 1 new headgear for each allegiance will be coming soon. Trade in 1 voucher for members of the Light Allegiance to earn a "Triumphant Order[2]" and 1 voucher for members of the Dark Allegiance to earn an "Anarchy's Reign[2]".





They are special headgears that take up both Upper and Middle headgear slot. They have 0 def and cannot be refined. Their special attraction is that they are 2 slotted, serving as a reliable way to get mid slotted cards if you are willing to sacrifice defense and base effects of your normal headgear.

They should be available for trade after June's Trial of Heroes.


Battleground and WoE Shop Changes


We will remove the 1 hour timer so that Battlegrounds can be conducted at all times. Keys will no longer be needed to open Battlegrounds (Keys will become a consumable for an automatic refund for points if you want.)

The mentioned WoE Shop items will be changed as well. That one should be implemented very soon.





Gunslinger- Soon™


Due to all the delays, gunslinger work is yet again, delayed. However, we'll share some of the work and changes done so far (though everything is still pending to further changes.)

There's a general SP cost decrease to a lot of the skills so that Gunslinger can keep up in skill usage a bit more compare to other classes.

**Increase Accuracy**

- Duration increased from 1 min to 2 min 30 seconds

Reasoning: changing duration to be better than level 4 blessing (which is also 4 agi/dex, and similar SP cost, but it's not personal while this is)

**Piercing Shot**

- Revolver damage: 100 + 20*SkillLV => 100 + 40*SkillLV
- Rifle damage: 150 + 30*SkillLV => 150 + 50*SkillLV
- Allow critical

Reasoning: Rifle has high built in crit chances as their gimmick so Rifle should have a skill that can do critical damage.

**Desperado**

- The base chance of desperado hitting is increased by 5%
- SP Cost: 30 + 2*SkillLV => 20 + 2*SkillLV

General buff for a higher Desperado pay-off to be in melee range of monsters.

**Madness Canceller**

- further increase BATK by 5 per level

Gatling Guns focus on auto-attacks so we will increase its base attack accordingly for a better steroid buff.

**Spread Attack**

- (80 + 20 * Skill Level)% => (200 + 30 * Skill Level)% ATK

General boost to spread attack for Gunslinger's AoE as the current version is just pitiful.


These are not all the planned changes though.



Future Equipments

Glimpse of other weapons and equipments that are in the work down the pipeline.


Crow Tengu Mask[0]
Mid Headgear
A mask of fallen shinobi, made in the image of the sly monster, Tengu. The mask grants the wearer mysterious power, but it may lead the user astray.
1 def
1 mdef
All classes
*STR + 2
*INT + 2
*When dealing Magic Damage, there is a 5% chance to cause the Confusion on the user for 6 seconds.
*When dealing Physical Damage, there is a 1% chance to cause the Confusion on the user for 6 seconds.

Found in Wrapped Mask


Enchanted Cloak[1]
Garment
Long ago some cloak were bewitched to benefit certain adventurers. It seems to have become a trend once again.
3 def
3 mdef
Novice, Taekwon, Gunslinger, Ninja
*Reduces damage from Non-Boss monsters by 5%.
*Flee + 10

Dropped by a regular monster


(spoiler)[1]
Footwear
1 def
5 mdef
High Wizard only
*Maximum SP + 10%
*INT + 2
*Reduce the casting time of Amplify Magic by 25%

This is the next in line for class specific footwear equipment.

Dropped by a regular monster


(spoiler)[1]
Dagger
150 Atk
Level 3 weapon
Trans Swordsman Class, Trans Merchant Class, Trans Thief Class, Trans Archer Class, Trans Mage Class
*AGI + 3
*ASPD + 2%
*Pierce the Defense of all enemies by 10%
*If (this weapon) is equipped in both hands, this weapon deals more damage depending on the target's Defense instead of piercing the Defense of all enemies.

Dropped by a regular monster


(spoiler) of Striking[0]
Garment
2 def
All Trans Class
*STR + 2
*AGI + 3
*Increase damage against non-boss monsters by 3%
[Refine Rate >= 9]
*Double the basic effects granted by this equipment
*Increase damage against boss monsters by 3%

Dropped by: MVP


(spoiler) of Tactics[0]
Garment
2 def
All Trans Class
*INT + 2
*Decrease cast time by 5%.
*Increase magical damage against non-boss monsters by 3%
[Refine Rate >= 9]
*Double the basic effects granted by this equipment
*Increase magical damage against boss monsters by 3%

Dropped by: MVP

[GM-Ayu]

Reminder about something we said on March 24 patch that we'll bump again now as it's likely to take place in June:

A few "miniboss" cards are also slightly nerfed so that they are suitable to be added to OCA in a future update (no ETA).

Pre-emptively speaking for inevitable question: "should I hold on to OCA/DCA?" If you fear pool dilution and likes the content of them now, open them. If you want to wait for the potential expansion to venture into the unknown, save them if you can wait. There's no ETA for when this will change, so I don't know how long the wait will be either. That depends on network related issues to see if we can get test servers back up and running, which is still dead since early March.

[GM-Ayu]

It's been a long time. With birthday coming up to an end, let us resume regular updates to what is happening in heRO and what is coming down the pipeline.


heRO Database


Thank you to our talented T&D members who tested this, but Ange is in the final stretch of developing our own RMS that has all the custom items and monsters of the server. Those who are familiar with RMS should be familiar with what it can do.

If/When we can sort out the current website woes, then we can deploy it to be part of heRO website. If not, we may deploy it elsewhere for the time being.

Once again, we thank you Ange for his contribution to develop this on his own initiative.

Mob view:

Item view:

Old Card Album and any "container item" can show you what they have, a feature that even RMS is lacking:

An item can tell you if it's also obtainable via another "container item"

Quality of Life: Guild Storage in Lutia/Faeheim

It's been a long time coming but we finally got this "basic" feature in. Guild storage will be available to multiple Kafras for the convenience of our players.


Class Rebalance Resumes

We said it for years, but we'll keep going at Gunslinger revamp to make them more usable and on par as a class that should be between non-trans and trans. In the past, we tried to focus on particular classes at a time, but understandably, that may leave some classes out in the cold. For classes that may not need any "drastic" revamp but just some look at certain skills, we will have "small" changes to other classes a bit at a time as well, instead of only doing everything for one class at once.

We'll continue to follow our published philosophy that skills will NEVER be worse than a vanilla pre-renewal scenario.


Priority classes- we want to push changes to at least one of the following within 2021

• Gunslinger
  
• Whitesmith
  
• Assassin Cross
  

Drop Rate Re-evaluation

Expect balance changes about drop rates, especially for gears, yet again. On regular 5/5/3, heRO always used 0.3% as the base line for gear drop rate, and 0.45% on "tougher" regular monsters. This design reference is probably dated, and does not do well with places that should require a duo, or a small party. We'll look at rate increases for locations where we expect a duo or a party, and increase drop rates accordingly even for top of the line items from regular monsters.

[GM-Ayu]

Has it really been 7 months since the last post?


So what is heRO T&D working on now?

It's been awhile, so we'll be trying the push again: WoE and PvP update.


Last time it didn't go well and admittedly it split the server into 2. So what is giving us confidence to try it again? We want to breath life into PvP by addressing a couple of glaring issues:

• Weekly prep time for WoE takes more time than any of us would like
  
• Winners snowball to win harder because WoE chests provide helpful consumables for future battles
  
• There are certain gears and cards where their presence or high refine effect are so powerful that instead of the usual logarithmic scaling, they provide a major exponential power boost, which makes it harder for newer players to catch up
  
• WoE First Edition is a relative solved meta for pre-renewal servers: 15+ years in heRO resulted in a very static meta, even with custom items in play
  
• GMs need to recognize that some changes will remove some strategical aspects of WoE, and accept that some strategical elements will be removed for the sake of the overall health of the WoE scene that is in desperate need of help
  
• GMs need to be willing to make certain sacrifices in pursue of the team's vision of how the game should be played in 2022: and that is to accept that some people aren't going to be happy, and they may leave because of it
  

We were already on our way to implement some of these changes in preparation for this: such as the brewing room to reduce the need for guilds to spend large portions of multiple guild members to sit in down to click buttons instead of going out there to play the game, and adding more sources for white herb/blue herbs so they are more likely to be farmed passively in other activities.

To address these issues, we look to introduce War of Emperium Second Edition in heRO as our solution to these problems

• WoE2 will replace Saturday WoE:FE with 1-2 open test runs in mid/late July, and then implemented for real in August
  
• Make changes to classes, regardless of how they behave in default pre-renewal servers. What default servers have decided on almost 20 years ago no longer have any bearing on how heRO envisions the game to be played.
  
• Rework all Glorious Weapons to be more in line with heRO customization instead of taking them as-is from the default game: standardizing their refine breakpoints to be at +6 and +9, and close the gap in differences between the weapons so some weapons don't overshadow all others so blatantly. We customized everything else, so why wouldn't we customize these too?
  
• Prepare to rework any other BG weapons or gears as we see fit, if necessary
  
• Make BG gears be tradeable: to allow easier time for players and guilds to share gears like anything else
  
• New banning of gears, cards and items: Yggdrasil berry, Yggdrasil seed, Deviling card, Ghostring card
  
• Add items on watchlist to either ban them from further gameplay or rework their effects if they are to be reintroduced in WoE2: such as Maya Purple card or Ghostring card
  
• Make balance changes on monthly basis as necessary for things on GM's watch lists
  
• Randomize all chests between all castles of the same WoE type to avoid any potential where guilds are more/less active depending on which castle is in rotation
  
• Update all WoE chests with new rewards to justify the time devotion/resources for WoE2
  
• Introduce 2 new God items: Asprika and Brynhildr, which require WoE2
  
• Reduce the insane item requirements for food cooking items
  
• Change rule to require video (not screenshot or ingame replay) evidence to address GvG induced PvM frictions, especially in MvP
  
• Implement @noks and remove FFA rules the moment it gets out of hand: if we can't handle PvM competitions cordially, then it'll be gone for everyone
  
• Give compensation to nerfed/banned gears and cards to all affected player
  

Other things we'll like to do, though it will not be in July:

• Introduce more items in "boxes" such that fighting monsters or completing repeatable quests will reward multiple etc item or common consumables that are usually needed in WoE2 preparations
  
• More BG accessibility: have some of the current BG rewards be accessible outside of BG
  
• Release gears targeted at WoE scene to introduce potential build diversities and introduce small changes to the meta via item changes
  
• Investigate on ways to reduce the tedium of skills that require someone to be outside of a guild party on purpose in GvG settings (Provoke, Mind Breaker, Sharpshooting)
  
• Port any changes that seem effective from WoE2 back to WoE1 later after any potential launch issues for WoE2 are addressed (Sept and onward)
  
• Look into ways to bridge the gap in effectiveness of a ranking and non-ranking brewer
  
• Investigate into technical know-hows for new Twilight Alchemy skills (specifically, to mass brew Blue Potions)
  

I still don't plan to WoE, so what else is happening?

Other things we'll like to do, though there's no time line for these:

• Access to Guild Dungeons by paying for it (if you want free access, you'll need to be a castle owner)
  
• Do more source edits to change the game as we see fit in 2022
  
• Custom monster skill creation to introduce new PvM challenges unique to heRO
  
• Release more formerly exclusive items via regular quests- specifically the 3rd class hats that were previously art contest rewards exclusive (after stat rebalancing)
  
• Rework the Thanatos Tower Quest and the Monster Extermination Quest to be less asinine
  
• Prepare a new town + a new instance as the next end game dungeon, which we want to be on the same level of difficulty as Blackout Clocktower instance
  

The next class update should be Assassin Cross. Though EDP-Sonic Blow is understood to be a powerful burst attack, they don't have much else going for them anymore. They are still stuck in Juperos for mobbing while many other viable classes moved on to new locations. Half of their skill trees are completely unusable because they are janky and extremely restrictive. We hope to get that done within year 2022.


There's going to be lots of changes. There's undoubtedly going to be some anxiety as heRO heads for even more customization. However, we see that RO player base is far more accepting of source engine changes now compare to even 5 years ago. We will no longer be confined by rules set 20+ years ago by some other game company, and we'll change heRO to however we see fit. We want heRO to be a game where we don't have to worry about fear of missing out. We want heRO to be a game that's not like a job where you MUST do certain things every day. We want heRO to be a game where it's recognizable as the same underlying game from 20 years ago, yet there's exciting changes as if pre-renewal is continuously developed with new custom balance changes and content.

We ask the heRO player base for support and understanding: give feedback to us but also to embrace change and try out new things with us~

[GM-Ayu]

A late night post about the upcoming future of WoE, and some insight to what GMs are considering:


List of WoE Changes That Are Being Tested and Considered For Release


Again, the goal of our changes is to get rid of over-farming. Even for a low rate, your farming should be limited to things that once you have it, you always have it (aka, gears.) Consumables and other maintenance/sustaining style ought to be removed, or changed to be much less time consuming. We're all adults now and no longer have the time for this.

We can't solve all WoE maintenance problems within one update, but we'll take our first step and go from there.

• War White Potions and War Blue Potions will make a return. They will cost you 100z or less. Essentially, server will sponsor all of your HP/SP healing needs for free. Your days of weekly witched starsand hunt and BG time for war blues are over.
  
• War Concentration/Awakening/Berserk Potion returns, also at near free of charge.
  
• War White Potions will be buffed to be the same as a Mastela Fruit for WoE only
  
• War Whites and War Blues do not count as a "Potion" for the purpose of any item/skill effects that specifically boost the healing effect of a "Potion" instead of general healing items (such as Rogue Link)
  
• Newly banned items: Ghostring Card, Deviling Card, Yggdrasil Seed, Yggdrasil Berry. De-card will be offered for all items with Ghostring Card and Deviling Card with no drawback.
  
• Selkie card is reworked completely: "that build" is not living past July. De-card will be offered for all items with Selkie card with no drawbacks.
  
• Stunning Star Eyepatch will be buffed from 10% stun resist to 20% stun resist. De-card will be offered for all Stalactic Golem carded sunglasses/glasses, with no drawbacks.
  
• Normal condensed red/yellow/white potions will be buffed to weigh 1/2/3 respectively
  
• We are aiming for the removal of all skill catalyst costs in WoE such that you do not consume any items or ammos for skill usage in WoE. Bombs away!
  
• Guardian Stone Repair and Barricade Repair will not cost you any stone, oridecon, elunium, steel, trunks, emveratcon, or any gemstones. Instead, they will only require a "Guardian Stone Repair Kit" and "Barricade Repair Kit" respectively. These kits will also be sold by NPC, at near no cost. However, you still need to play the corresponding "mini-game" as if you used the proper material.
  
• Almost every glorious weapon will be reworked to bring all of them closer to each other. Everyone will be given a chance to exchange any glorious weapon for any other glorious weapon, at the same refine. This way, all +9 glorious gears will not be "wasted" as you can transfer it to be "the next OP +9" glorious weapon, be it for WoE or for PvM against demihumans.
  
• You cannot ask to exchange glorious weapons for points or enriched oridecons. You can only exchange for another glorious weapon of the same refine.
  
• Some glorious weapons are buffed, and some glorious weapons are nerfed.
  
• Yes, the most asked one of all, Glorious Fist +9, is part of the nerf list. Instant-cast asura is not staying, in WoE or PvM. Go punch things while you have it before WoE2 changes arrive.
  
• We admit that not all glorious weapons will be equally useful, even though they will all target a specific niche. Said niche is not going to be practical all the time in WoE situation (such as the crit katar)
  
• Guild dungeons will be accessible to all guilds even if they do not own a castle. You can pay 400k to unlock ALL guild dungeons for 24 hours for you and everyone within your guild (so you can pool your resources across your guild for the 400k).
  
• All chests will go through an update to catch up to 2022 standards to reward your WoE victory
  

Things that we already have on watchlist cause we are already aware of their problems

• Maya Purple card vs Box of Sunlight: farming both of these suck. But if we give out free box of sunlights, then you might as well give maya purple to everyone? Do we even want Maya Purple in WoE2? In a world where you need to win multiple fights due to barriers instead of emp rush, is sinx even good?
  
• Creator is obviously the power suspect because previously AD is being gated by an unfun mechanic called "insane upkeep required inbetween every WoE" so even if you have multiple creators available, your guild cannot possibly sustain multiple creators with ease in the long run. Now that you can, and with DR/GR gone, are they out of control? We'll wait and see. However, if creator turns out to be overpowered, we will not be balancing them by making their skills expensive/time consuming to use again. Rather, we'll address power of AD directly via damage edits for WoE only (similar to how Assumptio works differently in and out of WoE).
  
• There's a few other classes besides Creator/skills on my watchlist, but out of respect of not to "give away secret builds", I'll just say that I acknowledge their existence from your PMs with me and I am aware of these concerns. We'll see how they do in August and go from there. I appreciate all of your willingness to share your opinions and theorycrafts on discord with me.
  
• Ghostring card: got dumpstered by being banned in PvP and that's all it's good for. We'll think of redesigning this iconic miniboss card later
  

Things that we'll like to visit in the future (late 2022?)

• Stunning Star Eyepatch needs to be moved out of V4P and into an easily accessible place that is not time gated
  
• Adjust Food cooking ingredients list to be less ridiculous
  
• Based on how free healing HP/SP potions work, consider if there should be an expansion to free consumables for WoE, especially Box of Gloom since shrooming is unbelievably boring
  
• Consider looking at other BG items or glorious defensive equips: if they also need to be revisited and rebalanced accordingly- to bring them more in-line with the existing glorious gears as the standard
  
• Another 2 pairs of watchlist skill: Scream and Frost Joke. They aren't necessarily overpowered in a vacuum, but they are overcentralizing in small population WoE since you are forced to deal with stun/freeze, and all your gears/builds twist in a really restrictive way that you have to handle these 2. If we want to introduce changes to break the prison of a solved pvp metagame, then being freed from these 2 skills' highly reliable stun/freeze rate should at least be considered.
  
• We're also very aware that melee has the clear short end of the stick compare to ranged damage dealers (be it physical or magical). They got many fundamental problems to solve, but that is a problem we've decided to tackle later since there's already many other changes happening.
  

Note: heRO GMs will definitely re-evaluate any and all changes related to WoE, or add custom changes to address issues observed freely as we see fit, with no advanced warnings. We will balance the WoE2 scene as GM deems necessary.

[GM-Ayu]

It took a very long time to assemble the information, but you can read about the details and philosophies behind the upcoming WoE changes:

Warning- long read: http://www.pandoraonline.net/heRO_wiki/i...um_Changes

July's "ToH" will be replaced by the public WoE:SE testing that will take place on one of the Saturday WoE slot in August. More information will be posted once we are ready for the public test run.

[GM-Ayu]

So certainly... woe2 changes did not happen in August as we liked. I have been extremely busy myself at work for things that are mostly beyond my control. I have like 35 hours of banked time in lieu such that the moment I am allowed to claim them to get time off work, woe2 is probably instantly complete... August happens to be a month where lot of GMs changed jobs too so they needed the time to settle in and was unable to pitch in and take over. I am sad to admit that GMs have never been so absent in heRO for years in comparison to Aug 2022.


Update on where things are at and what needs to be done by GM team:
- need to finish some item description updates
- need to finish some of the described BG item script changes
- need to finish with the shop that sells the new WoE etc items (can only be done after the above is done and sent to players as a patch, so that new shop doesn't crash everyone on sight)

T&D has done all the things within their power. The fault lies solely with the GMs, and I apologize for the broken promises and endless delays.


For all explained changes and exchanges/uncard/decard offers, we'll extend the deadline to be "20 days after the next item patch is released, whenever that is".

We'll also consider further "simple" compensations for GM inactivities and absences this summer, but said compensation this time will not be something to pick up from a NPC to benefit having multiple accounts, and instead it should be something to reward people who are actively playing the game.

[GM-Ayu]

It has been 17 long years. The world will finally know of your supremacy.