Dec 18 2025 Devblog

No Fun For Christmas

We want to quickly address the issues observed in War of Emperium yesterday and give all players an update on the GM team's plans on addressing the issue. We are aiming for an emergency update before the next War of Emperium on Dec 24th to try to fix some of the problems so that WoE can operate as usual, and to avoid GMs potentially giving bonuses to any particular guilds by leaving known issues as-is. As current players obviously have an appetite for PVP, we want to make sure that the guild that owns the castle does so because of their PVP skill and not because of bugs in the server.

Eliminating Potential Crash Causes

As the "no fun allowed" patch, we will enforce the following in WoE as soon as we can:

• Limit palettes to RO default palettes only
• Limit hairstyle to RO default styles only
• Banning every costume available

The exact implementation method is still being discussed: whether it's randomly assigned to guilds or selectable. But we'll greatly narrow down what players get to look like to only the defaults.

Last night, a client-related issue crashed every player in sight. This is a typical sign where the client is unable to display "something." This has happened before in heRO where a specific assassin cross palette and a specific clown palette had issues with ONE particular frame that causes everyone to log out. It took us a very long time to narrow it down to which specific palettes are causing it and fix it. As this is happening to WoE and we do not want to let this issue drag on for months before we can find a fix, our solution is to eliminate personal customization during WoE to narrow the possible causes of problems significantly. This is the best solution to future-proof issues. Furthermore, there's an element of costumes having issues because they are "too big/too small", so instead of selectively banning specific costumes for WoE, we are going to eliminate all of them instead.

Reminder on Guild Emblems

As we'll be eliminating a lot of personalization in how a player looks, we expect players to have questions about impersonation/palette/headgear since the options are much lower now. We will remind players that a different player can be identified by their guild emblem; if they are unguilded, they will have no emblems. At the same time, heRO does have a specific rule for WoE: if you are in a guild, you MUST have an identifiable guild emblem that doesn't mislead other players into thinking you are a different guild member. We will be enforcing this rule very strictly.

Bugfix: Venom Splasher

GMs are NOT here to eliminate experimental or non-meta builds that are unique to heRO. Players should be rewarded when an underutilized skill works well. However, it seems like an unexplored skill set leads to deeply nested bugs in the emulator that nobody knew about because nobody uses Venom Splasher in a default setting. We have discovered that Venom Splasher is doing 30% more than anticipated in WoE because Venom Splasher's delayed bomb does not remember who casts the spell, so the bomb is recognized as a "no race attack", bypassing Thara Frog. Regardless of your thoughts/opinions about the hero customizations (be it in the skill or equipment), I think we can all recognize that any attacks from a player should be recognized as a Demihuman source in WoE, so that Thara Frog applies. We will hard-code Venom Splasher to consistently be recognized as a Demihuman attack as the source in WoE.

This bug affects PvM as well, which may be why Venom Splasher seems to do absurd damage even by monsters. We may lower the skill level of Venom Splasher used by monsters to compensate, as we may not have a clean way for Venom Splasher always to recognize the proper race for the source. The priority for changing Venom Splasher will be WoE first, and we'll use a bandage workaround for PvM.

We are not sure if we can fix this before next WoE. Our priority is to address the client crashes first and balance later. We'd rather have an environment where players can at least play the game without client crashes, and fix balance issues later as necessary.

On Watch: Soul Breaker

SBK returns yet again to the point of discussion, but like Venom Splasher, this will be from the point of view of mechanics instead of "number balance" for how much damage the skill/jitterbug can do. The argument concerns SBK's 2 damage portions and their interaction with long-range reduction. There's potential inconsistency with its intention: does it go through pneuma? If it ignores pneuma, it is "not a range attack" right? Long range should apply to magic skills as well, but is SBK's magic portion really "magic"? It is a INT based damage, but it is not magic itself. If it's not ranged and not magic, does it mean SBK is close-range? But if it's close-range, does that mean SW should block it? Or is it unique as a "none of the above" and is in the same classification as Pressure/trap-damage? We want to be transparent that we acknowledge that this is a POTENTIAL problem, but more research is needed. We appreciate and recognize all players who submitted reports that SBK is overperforming/"bugged", but we'll investigate further before we make a ruling regarding how SBK should work vs Noxious garment/Horn shield.

Christmas Quest Delay

Due to the emergency, dedicating all hands on deck towards fixing WoE before next Wednesday, I'm afraid that the Christmas quest is going to be delayed after Christmas. We need to rush the fix in before December 24th, and after that, it is the Christmas holiday, when GMs will be busy. By the time we are back, Christmas will be over. We will move the intended windows for Christmas accordingly, so players have ample time to complete the quest and earn this year's holiday costume series. We apologize in advance if players were expecting to grind out the quest during your vacation. This is why this next update will be the "no fun allowed" patch instead: because PVP is serious business.