Champions! I've been hard at work (both on this project and my two jobs irl) to prepare and push more polish out for you to enjoy before moving on to the next update, which will be attacking the problem of guiding new players through the layout of the Arena. For now, however, I've done a lot of work since the last update and you should read about it below.
New Addition! Pick Two
At the start of the game, you'd select your character and be off in the Arena without much to get you started, except for the gear on your back and the 750AC given to you by the current-standing Champion. This is no longer the case, after you start the game and select your character you'll be given the option to start the game with two skills. This is mandatory, you can not choose to have no skills (why would you though?) Here's a screenshot of it, so you know what to expect.
Clicking on a skill will tell you what it does and ask for your confirmation. This will make it easier on starting a new game from now on.
Skill Standardization
A lot of the default skills were created at a time of exploration, with very little proper thought and structure going into them. You would have noticed this in the higher rank of skills you saw. Some descriptions would be wrong and some would just not do what you'd expect them to do. Everything is standardized based on the skills you would receive in the level up unlock selections.
That means cooldowns, warmups, and status infliction percentages are all standard across the board now.
Skill Unlock Grants
Speaking of Level Up Unlocks, that has also been adjusted. When you level up and select to unlock a skill, any skill you choose will be immediately be given to you at its lowest rank, very useful if you're still holding onto that F Rank gear, but also useful so you won't be spending AC to learn that skill after unlocking it, which is really unintuitive to its design.
Formulae and Costs
With this update and the standardization mentioned before, all the skills throughout the game that haven't been properly standardized saw treatment given to them to fix up their costs and their battle formulas. Formulas for skills have been streamlined to fix a pesky bug that's an extremely silly corner case. None-the-less, that bug has been addressed. You'll see it in the patch notes.
As for costs, skills now have higher costs for each character, due to how combat plays out and to encourage the use of various other support items and skills in battle before using the really good skills. The important ones are noted in the patch notes, but almost all skills received this treatment.
Extras
Aside from all the good stuff mentioned above, I wanted to quickly talk about a few changes and fixes I think need to be mentioned.
EXP is awarded based on successful hit and the damage you do is a factor in the EXP rewarded. Another factor is, but hasn't been that noticeable, is your rank in the Arena. It's been changed to be more noticeable. The higher your rank in the Arena, the less EXP you gain from grinding the lower rank fights. The punishment is a little less severe if you're attacking the Rank+ encounter enemies, but it's still there.
A unique identifier has been added to the game to prevent save scumming to give yourself infinite gold with the AC Transfer system.
For some reason, the game would disallow you into a rank or clicking the C Rank would place you inside of the D Rank. This has been noticed and fixed twice now. Either the game hates me, or someone is pranking me. I hope this issue doesn't pop up again.
That's all for now, below you can find the patch notes in all of their wordy glory:
ADDITIONS:
- ✪ Select 2 skills at start of game
CHANGES:
- ✪ AC Transfer can't be exploited
✪ Decreased total EXP gain to grinding a lower rank arena
✪ Level up unlock skills are now granted to the player upon unlock
✪ Status infliction chances for many skills have been standardized
✪ Cooldowns and Warmups for many skills have been standardized
✪ Less text if Story Mode option is Off
✪ Denira's healing skills can now have a chance to critical hit (Crit heals!)
✪ Combat magic skills can now have a chance to critical hit (Crit magic!)
✪ Learn cost of Denira's Evade Magic has been lowered
✪ Denira's Prayer skill now has a chance to inflict Smiting Sickness
✪ Shield Spin (Ralph/Derack) now 100% causes confusion to a single target
✪ Critical value variance for many skills has been adjusted
✪ Formula for the following skills have been adjusted:
- ✪ Damage of Ralph's Shine Smash ✪ Damage of Leora's Power Shot ✪ Damage of Leora's Barrage ✪ Damage of many of Derack's skills ✪ Healing Power of Denira's skills ✪ Damage of many elemental magic skills
✪ Casting costs for the following skills have been changed:
- ✪ MP Cost for Drel's Flicker has been increased ✪ MP + HP Cost for Drel's Force of Will has been increased ✪ MP Costs for Denira's healing and holy skills have been increased ✪ MP + TP Costs for Denira's elemental based skills have been adjusted ✪ MP Costs for combat magic (Drel/Molly) skills have been increased ✪ TP Costs for Leora's elemental based skills have been adjusted ✪ TP Costs for Derack's elemental based skills have been adjusted ✪ TP Costs for Ralph's default skills have been increased
FIXES:
- ✪ Right Click Leave option now functions as intended ✪ All current ranks are now properly accessible ✪ A first time use of a skill in a rank you have 0 wins in would deal 0 damage. That is no longer the case for all skills ✪ Borrel's Dropkick can now properly be learned ✪ Drel's Force of Will skill line can properly be learned ✪ Derack can properly learn Slice n' Dice now ✪ Learn Cost for Shield Spin and Shield Bash requires the proper armors now ✪ Ice (C) can now properly be learned ✪ All of Leora's skills now can critical hit ✪ All of Derack's skills now can critical hit ✪ Icon for Leora's Wind Shot has the proper icon ✪ Minor text fixes
Thanks for keeping up with Mythic Victory Arena!