Chapter 49
"Ah, it's the day for the event launch."
Tofu left the machine room.
He'd been busy with work these past few days.
It had been two days since the Sea of Flames event occurred.
He practically lived at the headquarters during that time.
On the table was a half-drunk cup of cold coffee, and the clock that struck midnight.
The event announcement had been prepared and was likely posted by now.
The game would have about 15 minutes of maintenance updates.
During this time, even the admin account would have to log out to prevent any glitches.
This event is the "Festival of Flowers."
It will last about two weeks.
The event mainly takes place in the City of Flowers - Aeterfloris.
The story goes that the flower symbolizing Aeterfloris, the Solmist, disperses its petals throughout the city and neighboring areas when it blooms. The petals then regenerate into new buds.
When the Solmist petals have "ripened" and scatter with the wind, they have very strong medicinal properties.
During the festival, players completing daily quests will receive "Solmist Petals."
In Aeterfloris and the nearby farming grounds, these Solmist Petals will randomly drop as well.
This Solmist flower is originally modeled after the sunflower, but it is purple and turns pink when exposed to sunlight.
An event NPC named Aether The Alchemist can use Solmist Petals to craft miraculous potions.
Players can collect petals to exchange for valuable items, event-exclusive costumes, as well as a special event item, "Essence of Solmist."
【Essence of Solmist】
【Processed by Alchemist Aether. Can be used to bestow the "Blessing of Ten Thousand Flowers" onto weapons.】
【Blessing of Ten Thousand Flowers】
【Weapons will emit a fragrance and a light pink skill effect when attacking.】【If used on an enemy under a psychological control effect, it will turn that effect into Charm - attracting the enemy to move towards the weapon's position.】
【At any one time, only one blessing can exist on a weapon.】
This will be a new type of Blessing in the game.
Typically, since blessings appeared, gift exchange events following a major update will feature a new blessing.
The three previous blessings were the Blessing of the Thunder God, which changes the stun effect into paralysis.
The Blessing of the Fire Dragon, which turns burning effects into an explosion, dealing total damage instead of damage over time.
And the Blessing of Saint Saol, which enhances healing abilities.
According to the company's plan, the blessings will rotate among the classes: control, damage-dealing, and support.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Therefore, the Blessing of Ten Thousand Flowers now causes the Charm control effect.
However, Tofu is quite concerned.
The current meta in PVP relies heavily on psychological control effects.
These mainly include Fear and Sleep.
Because stun effects prevent players from moving, attacking, or using skills, making it a hard control effect.
But Fear and Sleep prevent players from even activating passives. The difference is that Fear causes players to move erratically while Sleep makes enemies stand still.
Tofu is seriously planning to nerf this type of control soon. This may involve significantly reducing activation time and increasing cooldown times for those skills.
The Blessing of Ten Thousand Flowers was created to make enemies under Fear move toward the player instead of moving erratically.
But it is being introduced at a time when Fear and Sleep are very powerful.It will cause some trouble.
Tofu doesn't dare to make changes right now. Testing is needed first.
Last time, due to inadequate testing of Musician, there were countless lashback.
It's all because of Snow Vixen! Always complaining!
Frustrated, he gulped down the last of his cold coffee.
Then immediately spat it out.
Taste Horrible.
.
.
.
At this moment, the game news forum, after seeing the new event, naturally began to complain.
[MOTHER OF GOD! ARE YOU BRAIN-ROTTED? HOW IS THIS BLESSING ANY DIFFERENT FROM A BUFF FOR FEAR AND SLEEP?]
[Back then, we were afraid that after causing Fear, the enemy would accidentally dodge the attack, now we won't have to worry anymore, LOL.]
[Forget it, I'll quit PVP and wait for Fear and Sleep to be nerfed.]
[Do the developers not know how to balance the game?]
[Dear developers, this update has been enough with Avery Snow's Blessing, we don't need this blessing.]
Snow Vixen was also reading the update information at this time.
Sigh. Everyone in the company had anticipated this would happen.
They even predicted that soon classes with Fear skills would increase.
The Fear and Sleep effects were previously added to buff the Plague Doctor. They were also incorporated into some other classes like Berserker and Falconer, and existed in certain skills of the Mage, Taoist, and classes related to dark arts.
Before the class update, the Fear and Sleep effects didn't lock passive abilities.
During internal tests of new classes, the Plague Doctor was quite weak, as its poisoning and healing abilities weren't very impressive.
So the design team decided to add a powerful control effect.
Who would have guessed that because of this ability, some skills became nearly useless?
For example, the faction skill of the Holy Nation is a passive ability that allows players to escape death once.
But if Fear is cast on them and they're killed, they die immediately without the passive activating.
That's why Plague Doctors, though rarely seen in PVE, are very common in PVP.
The Plague Doctor is in the OP tier for this meta change.
They have many skills that induce Sleep and Fear and if belonging to the Atrum Pestis faction, also resist to the Fear and Sleep effects.
It is also on the list of things to be nerfed soon.
In summary, upcoming nerfs will affect the Plague Doctor, Musician, and Shadow Assassin.
Oh.
And the Emperor's Gauntlet too.
Even though this equipment has traditionally been used frequently in PVP due to its pulling ability, it is currently being overused.
Almost every melee class brings it along when facing long-range opponents.
The immortality effect on the target from the gauntlet was previously used to avoid death in team battles, as the entire team would whittle down the target's health while they were still airborne.
The game severely limits combos that are inescapable.
However, No One exploited it to pull the entire team through the Sea of Flames.
This was something the game did not anticipate.
Just yesterday, in PVP, there was a “trend” going around.
The whole team would bring the Emperor's Gauntlet and then use it to pull each other to receive the immortality effect.
Then, a Flying Blade executes Ten Thousand Swords Return To Origin while being pulled, dealing damage almost across the entire map.
It may look funny, but it's truly disruptive...
Ten Thousand Swords Return To Origin by the Flying Blade is very easily interrupted, compensating for its high damage potential if left uninterrupted.
Even a normal attack can make it lose that state.
Therefore, the Emperor's Gauntlet will no longer provide the immortality state when pulling teammates.
In return, if the Emperor's Reach skill is charged instead of immediately activated, it will increase the activation range.
This is known as "softening the blow."
Many game developers tend to employ this strategy.
When they nerf a skill’s power in one aspect, they enhance it in another.
It doesn’t entirely weaken the skill but somewhat shifts its strengths elsewhere.
This method is widely used in online games. However, it has both advantages and disadvantages.
Redistributing power incorrectly can lead to more issues arising.
Probably nothing will happen, right?
Right?