San0

1) its already being addressed in next patch. 2) cubics finish the cast if they start it, if you never see your enemy you should not be able to attack your enemy. 3) its already being addressed in next patch. 4) it eventually always becomes a problem when a server lasts for as long as this one, weapon power with enchant always tend to outscale the defensive counterparts. Need to think what can be done around this. In general you guys need to remember something, L2 was a game created and thought out around large scale pvp and boss fights, where balance if ever existent was tuned around this features and classes designed around this feature. there will NEVER be a point where olympiad will be balanced just mostly due to the kits characters have and cuz you have 30+ classes that were designed with different roles in mind and different kits, only way oly would ever be balanced would be in a situation of class based matches only, a point that i think even NCSOFT understood and in the most recent patches that are coming out oly has almost no impact in game cuz all you get from it is some marks to buy some rewards and a glow if you get hero, almost everything else has no impact. just look at the history of olympiad changes with time, and in almost every patch there was changes and in almost every patch after that they made more changes just cuz they never rly ended up having a way it would work good and not piss some people off. they changed arenas, they changed arena types, they changed to be only self buffs, then they changed for everyone to have buffs, then they change to self buff again, they made bonus from augmentations, they changed how this augmentations works, they added talismans, they limited talismans and then added more talismans... they made class based, then try with 3v3 then removed it all and made only normal, now again they remove importance from solo oly and made 3v3 again... now on most recent version you can even use potions. L2 isnt a game that was made for a 1v1 all class to be any how balanced or whatsoever and thats why in every expansion of the game there was always a group of 3 or 4 classes that were always above the others. Having this said, we keep trying to give some nudges and tweaks and see what works where and how (few nerfs at a time for summoners, some extras to weaker classes like bd and sws etc), but its always a blanket that never manages to cover the full bed, cuz you nerf a char on oly, they become weaker outside, people stop using it then you try to bring it back a bit on the outside and they become stronger in oly and so on.

Episode 4 - Skills. When it comes to skills, we gonna try not to touch much on the classes that are strong now, and instead try to work out something for the least played or weaker classes. For this patch, and with some extras to some other classes, the focus was the archer classes and the dwarf classes. Our lovely dwarfs are not only having their functions highlighted already by the adjustments to spoil and the new crafting systems, but besides that they are also receiving some new skills. For the spoiler you will be able to support your party with a buff that will activate when you attack, and provide your party members with some fighting capabilities, in addition the spoiler can consume this buff on itself to explode and deal AOE damage while spoiling and debuffing the targets. This skill together with fact we boosting spoil in some mobs and adding EWA/EAA for spoil might make people want to pick up the spoiler as a class to play. As for the Maestro, not only they will have the new crafting system where they can use improved recipes on their books to have chance to proc extra items from craft, they are also receiving the old armor and weapon efficiency skills and they are also learning how to summon a new companion to let the good old mechanical golem go to garage for a oil change and rest for a bit. Introducing Abyssal Golem This new piece of dwarven technology is able to charge enemies stunning them, use a smash that deals damage and puts targets to bleed, and a AOE skill around it. The archers. Many times we tried to change something on archers to make them more played but never any of the changes really made it so. We believe one of the problems might be related to the fact we tried to make many boosts around their auto attack to make the archer the char it used to be, but, the game is different now and there are too many items, buffs, passives, etc that work against critical and reducing this critical effect making it so that archers hit that point of, against people with this skill, buffs, passives, they need to get their crit damage increased, but then in situations against people without this buffs or skills, they would be too strong if we increase their crit. their for we decided to deviate from the auto attack boost and go other ways. In this patch its our objective to turn the archers into a class that not only will be able to provide some small utility to the group as well as make them have a slightly better AOE farm/PVP possibility while at same time increase the burst they have access to. All 3 archer classes will receive 3 new skills. 1 According to their race humans will get fire based skills, elves will get water based skills and dark elves will get wind based skills this skills are similar on all of them but only the debuff effect changes. Humans will be able to use a shot that will attack in a line in front of them setting the enemies in the path ablaze. Elves will be able to use a shot that will attack the target and enemies around it and slow them. Dark elves will be able to use a shot that will attack the target and enemies around and knock them up. 2 When the target is affected with their respective debuffs, they will be able to use their blast skill, This is a single target burst skill that can only be used IF your target is affected by the debuff. you can think about it as a vortex + vortex crusher situation. 3 Third one is just a simple AOE skill of their respective element, fire for humans, water for elves and wind for dark elves. in addition to this and to bring human and elf up to dark elf burst standards. Human and elf will receive a new skill Quick Shot that have chance of triggering a passive that affects all group, humans can trigger a HP recovery buff and elves can trigger a MP recovery buff. There will also be some new additions/changes to BD, SWS, Daggers, Paladin, TK and SE. but the ones mentioned above are the bigger ones and the completely new stuff. To sum up, MAKE DWARFS GREAT AGAIN, and archers not so good as dwarfs but also good. Best regards.

Episode 3 - Zones. The goal we have in mind for the future is to continue working with Goddard region, This zone still has a lot to offer when it comes to zones to be unlocked (WoA, HS, FOG etc), and with all this zones there's potential to make something cool from it. Although, we feel is not time for a new zone yet and that Ketra/Varka are still not living up to its full potential so we decided to work on it a bit more to make it more interesting and worth for players to venture into this place. With next patch we are making some minor changes to the zone (increased spoil chances etc) but also some a bit more impactful. - Champions. Since the release of this monsters we have been receiving some reports and suggestions both positive and negative, we decided to study the positive ones and learn from the negative ones and try to figure out a way how we could make this mobs relevant, without being annoying for some of the people, and make them more interesting for everyone. With next patch, the following changes will be made to Champion monsters in this locations. - Champions will now give double EXP/SP. - Champions will no longer attack whoever they see right after they spawn. - Champions will have small chance to drop EAA and EWA and higher chance of spoiling EAA and EWA. - Champions will no longer spawn from the weaker mobs in this zone, and from harder mobs chance to spawn them was slightly increased. With these changes together with other changes that have been done already since they went live, we aim to have this monsters being something that people will want to hunt for but at same time make them not be a nuisance for the solo or small group that is just around farming some badges in the weaker mobs. - Soldier Badges We understand now that we were too conservative with the badges feature, being it on amount its needed and on drops, But we decided it was better to start slow and if not perfect later boost it, then starting too high and later have to go and nerf it (contrary to what you guys like to think, nerfs are never fun even for me xD). Now that we spent some time with the 'conservative' option and we got the numbers, we studied them and realized we can go a bit lighter on this, so some changes coming to the Soldier Badges situation. - Soldier Badges will be possible to trade. - Researcher's Guild Box price decreased from 500 to 300. - Hero's Badge conversion cost changed from 50 to 40. And as a little extra in here the Heroes will also have their EXP/SP doubled. And we still have more new stuff in Ketra and Varka zone. Since our reputation with the Researcher's Guild keeps increasing due to your amazing job working with them, they will offer to you a new item for trade. Researcher's Earring. - Researcher's Earring will be available to whoever finished the quest and have access to the trading option for the Researcher's Box. - Researcher's Earring will have the cost of 500 Badges. - Researcher's Earring can be upgraded on NPC Fiero using a item you can get from drop from monsters in Ketra/Varka. - Researcher's Earring can be upgraded to lvl 10. LVL 1 STATS: MDEF:51 MAX MP:19 PVE DAMAGE: +2% EXP/SP: +2% LVL 10 STATS: MDEF: 61 MAX MP: 39 PVE DAMAGE: +10% EXP/SP: +10% SKILL MP CONSUMPTION: -4% HOLD RESIST: 10% MENTAL RESISTANCE: 10% POISON/BLEED RESISTANCE: 10% PARALYZE RESISTANCE: 10% This item will be useful for PVE and can work as a poor man's entry jewels for pvp and Olympiad if you are not one of the lucky ones walking around with epic earrings, being this one of the reasons why it was made a earring and not other type of jewel or other type of item. In addition to this LoA will have some monsters having their levels slightly increased and EXP boosted. To sum it up, better champions, more EXP, more items, new items. Stay tunned for episode 4. Best regards.

- Fixed over enchanted A grade weapons to no longer give more m attack then they were supposed to comparing to other weapon grades when displayed m attack on weapons was the same. - TI/DION

Episode 2 - Castles. For a long time we are not fully pleased with the rewards clans reap from conquering and maintaining a castle and its something we have been taking a look at for quite a while... As so and together with some players complains about lot of people not feeling interested to participate on sieges because there is no reward if you win a castle, we decided to figure out some way that could somewhat make sieges more interesting by making castles more appealing to the players to conquer and maintain. With this new upcoming patch we are introducing Castle Prison. Castle owners will have access to a private dungeon, that only clan members of the clan that holds the castle can join. Players will have to make a group to go in this dungeon and battle some bosses. Only 1 group can enter per time. There will be a reuse timer so it cannot be repeated all time but clans will be able to make it more then once per day. These bosses will have chance to drop normal items as open world bosses as well as a new special item that can be used to upgrade bracelet of duty to a new level. These bosses will also have a small chance of dropping a full bracelet with new level already. To sum it up, new bosses for castle owners, new bracelet of duty level, more worth it to have a castle. Stay tunned for episode 3. Best regards.

- Decreased amount of people required to start Olympiad fights. - Dion/TI.

- .exp_on/.exp_off - added to TI server. - Cubics now checks if target can be seen before triggering skill. If there is line of sight (can see target) to start cast, cubic will finish the cast even if target line of sight breaks after, if there is not line of sight (cannot see target), cubic wont trigger cast.

While we finish the works on what is to be the next patch we want to bring to you a vision into the future and what is to come. To do so we decided to break the info in small notes dedicated to each of the topics that will suffer changes in this next patch and will keep posting these little sneak peaks until all is ready to go and the full patch notes comes out. Episode 1 - Crafting. For some time we have been receiving reports about crafting being either hard, not profitable or in general not worth it comparing with how much easier it is, for example, to just wait item to drop from a boss. We hear you and this is something that we have been thinking about a lot as we always want crafting to be relevant as it is in our view a important feature of a MMO and specially on a MMO that has some classes where part of their kit revolves around crafting or easier access to obtain items for crafting. With this in mind and also wanting to keep both crafting and this classes who are related to crafting relevant and appealing, one of the approaches we took in next patch is to make spoiling and crafting not only more appealing, but also easier and more profitable. In next patch, materials and recipes will in general be easier to obtain, being it by increased chances and by lowering the amount of quest items required to obtain a recipe box from quest Fiero's Assignment, this number will be heavily reduced allowing players to trade more often and there for obtaining more recipes from this quest. In addition to this, we are also increasing SPOIL chances for some of the most wanted materials (in higher level zones) that are sometimes hard to come by if players want to go in a crafting spree, as well as gemstones. Also, we are introducing a new level of crafting and new improved recipes that high level skilled maestros (level 80) will be able to add to their book. To obtain these new recipes players will have to trade with Researcher Fiero and have a maestro adding the recipe to their crafting book if they are capable of doing it. These recipes will be in general same as old recipes with one major difference, on crafting, players will have the usual chance to fail or succeed the craft, and on success players will have the possibility of receiving double the items crafted. This is a system we plan to work further if well received by the player base, and extend it somehow in the lines of player having chance to craft special items with special stats, or items with special enchant levels and so on. For the moment this will be for A grade armors and jewels only. To sum it up, easier crafting, more crafting, more profitable crafting. Stay tunned for Episode 2. Best regards!

Dion/TI: - x2 exp event on - Lucas can now exchange Teleportation scrolls for Nun's Rings - Removed option to buff Cursed Nun / Berserker

- Eviscerator Fox removed from the shop. - Talking Island/Dion. - 3 new hats were added to the shop by players request: Black Gem Mask / Refined Romantic Chapeau / Ribbon Hairband ( female only ). - Talking Island/Dion. - Dying from Epics and their Guards will now lose you experience even during "No EXP lose event". - Dion.

- Varka Altar monsters now counts towards the Goddard progression ( fix already applied ). - Talking Island. - Varka Silenos Great Magus - fixed skills cast animation ( client update required ). - Talking Island.

- Event "Watermelon Rush v2 + Show your Might!" is finished. - Talking Island/Dion. - x2 EXP Event is finished. - Dion. - Ketra Champion and Varka Champion EXP/SP drop increased 2 times. - Talking Island/Dion. - Gemstone (A-grade) drop from Altar monsters in Ketra and Varka increased 4 times ( to 2% ). - Talking Island/Dion.

- x2 EXP till Monday. - Dion. - Castle passive persist after leaving clan fixed. - Talking Island. - Entering Ketra/Varka zones now gives passive "Goddard Guilds Union" ( +20% EXP/SP, +5% PVE attack, +5% PVE defense ). Passive will have progression path. - Talking Island. - Talisman - Denial now removes random debuff, not last. - Talking Island. - Lilith Field mobs chase range increased to 8000. Please provide us feedback. - Talking Island. - New mount: Eviscerator Fox added to Item Vault. - Talking Island/Dion.

- Event passive were removed. You can't get new Seed Pouches anymore. - TI/Dion. - Zaken jewel drop increased to 33%. - Dion. - Goddard Stage 1 requirement were decreased from 100.000 to 30.000 killed mobs. - TI. - Lilith Field mobs will now chase you for 5000 range. Please notify us in case you find any issues. - TI. - Talisman - Denial now removes random debuff, not last. - Dion. - Ketra Champion and Varka Champion will now despawn if not in combat 5 min after spawn. - TI/Dion. - Exp block command were added: .exp_off - to stop EXP, .exp_on - to get EXP again. You will still get SP. - Dion. Dear Talking Island players, unfortunately during passive zone transferring to Talking Island we encountered an issue. While we trying to resolve it we can't install latest changes like Denial talisman change and new EXP command to Talking Island. We will do it immediately after resolving that issue.

- You can't use teleport out of Corrupted Seed placing zone during Combat. - Dion/TI.