An improvement?

Well, there are still no new updates coming, especially no long awaited Sky Garden (seeing how the files for it are coming with every patch in Gpotato, maybe we will see simultaneous worldwide release?), but there is one interesting thing in today’s maintenance notes.

Nexon has changed game login system once again – this time you will have to start the client using a new button at the official website. This will certainly discourage people with too many accounts, as you will have to do everything related to the login screen through your browser. Nexon did not explain the reason behind this change, but it is an interesting one.

But there was also one small change that will have impact on certain ingame functionality. Simply, BACK TO LOGIN buttons anywhere in the game were REMOVED without any replacement. If you have no idea what this means in practice, you have probably never encountered win farmers in PvP. Those are people who use Back To Login button to leave the game when losing, just to prevent negative changes to their positive score. Well, obviously, this ‘feature’ means the end to such behavior, and will certainly be warmly welcomed by the fair part of the PvP community 🙂

So long for now, hope there are any more ingame features coming soon.

More skill balances from Korea

Okay, Japan server is down and even if it was up, there’s nothing much going on as for news, so I thought I’ll just share this for all those impatient people who want to know everything first 🙂

Adults!

Credits to Delyfure from IAH who found this Korean site with patch notes from February 16th (we are all late to notice ^^;). Seems like Dragonica will get 11 new skills (on top of the previous Korean balance patch), with 4 each for paladins and harlequins. I’m not gonna translate this anymore, as my Korean skills are close to none, but if this patch hits Japan sooner than any other version, I will of course do my best to properly translate them. But looks like IAH could get these changes beforehand, so keep checking their forums for more news.

Epic!

Yeah, this blog article sucks, I know, but I just wanted to share these 2 new images I stole from Korean DragoWiki.  Mmm, I wonder how a female dragoon will look like #4

Temporary Service Suspension

Original text

Due to Touhoku earthquake and consequent worries about electricity supplies in the following days, Nexon has decide to stop the following services:

– all Nexon games

– all Nexon game-related websites

– mail and phone support

The approximate period of service suspension is from March 15th 16:00 to March 23rd, 18:00.  The times are subject to change anytime.

I know not many of you would care about this, but it’s still better to warn people who have been (secretly) playing on Japan server. Also, it makes for another blog update 🙂

Fresh Green Forest items

Okay, so here I am with another article related to the new dungeon. This time we will look at all the new items that come with it, and of course their options. It actually looks like there is an overflow of new items, and we are getting more and more sets with each new dungeon, but I’m definitely not gonna complain, as even though all these items are for level 45, there are some with options that would satisfy even people who already reached the current level cap.

So, there are 2 categories of new items – 3 accessories sets for everyone and class-bound full armor sets.  There should actually be 4 accessories sets as announced in the last patch notes, but obviously one of them (Ancient) was either not implemented or is not dropping yet due to a bug. Let’s look at the options (set options in brackets are for 2/4 items, the stats on rings are for items with 0 SoulForce, and interesting stats are bolded):

Purified Revius belt

Purified Revius (800 HP/15% Critical Damage)

ring – 250 MATK
belt – 27AGI / 5% aim
ear – 20 HLT
neck – 10% chance to refill 15 MP on hit

Rapid Revius (10% Movement Speed / 20% Critical Damage)

ring – 150 PATK / 80 MATK
belt – 10% chance on 30 MP
ear – 20 AGI
neck – 20 INT

Fresh Green Revius (15% ATK Speed / 25% Critical Damage)

ring – 200 PATK / 200 MATK
belt – 20% HP Recovery speed / 10% chance on 25HP
ear – 20 STR / 10% Movement Speed
neck – 10% chance on 20 MP

For Fresh Green set, there is one more option for wearing the full set, and that’s new Item Skill called Toxic Tornado. Once you are wearing all 4 parts of the set, you will get the skill’s icon in a new margin tab under your Skills button. For more pictures, you can check this Korean site.

From what I understood, this skill is similar to ultimate skills, as it can’t be used in PvP and has 10 minutes cooldown. I found no info about the damage, but it is supposed to be an imitation of the poison skill this new dungeon’s boss Revius (Levius) is using.

Okay, and now for new armor sets for each class. These are called Mist Elf sets, and are fairly standard for respective level, although obviously aimed to support critical damage. The new thing is that all sets give 2 (two) options on equipping the sixth piece. Here are the stats (for 2/4/6/6 pieces):

Random Mist Elf pieces

Paladin – 25 HLT / 80% Critical Damage / 5% Aim rate / 8% Dodge rate
Myrmidon – 25 STR / 80% Critical Damage / 5% Aim rate / 80% HP Recovery
Priest – 27 INT / 30% Critical Damage / 20% Critical Rate / 100% MP Recovery
Archmage –  27 INT / 30% Critical Damage / 20% Critical Rate / 20% ATK Speed
Ranger – 27 AGI / 40% Critical Damage / 20% ATK Speed / 10% ATK Range
Grenadier – 27 AGI / 40% Critical Damage / 10% Movement Speed / 50% MP Recovery
Ninja 30 AGI / 50% Critical Damage / 25% Critical Rate / 10% Movement Speed
Harlequin – 30 AGI / 50% Critical Damage / 25% Critical Rate / 7% Dodge rate

Sacred Mist Mantle

Also, there is a new back item unrelated to any of these new sets, called Sacred Mist Mantle, and giving 5% critical rate as special option.

Okay, so that’s it, but one more unrelated thing I noticed at that Korean site above. There are base classes avatars that look strangely…GROWN UP?! #7 Now that I think about it, current characters really look like little kids…Let’s hope we will be (physically) growing up with the game #5

Fresh Green Forest videos

So here are the videos from the new dungeon. This time I actually recorded the whole thing in 3 parts, so if you don’t want any spoilers, do not click on these. There is also one new in-game video telling a piece of story (obviously a missing link explaining the presence of Mutisha and Hel Krouzer), but I can’t extract it from game files and Fraps didn’t work there for some reason. But it’s good so, at least something I’m not gonna spoil 🙂

Anyway, enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

March 2nd patch notes translation

Thank you for your continuous support of Dragonica.

We would like to announce contents of March 2nd patch.

■Wedding system was implemented.

◆The flow until wedding ceremony
Couple establishment→Wedding pre-requisite quest completion→Entering the wedding system→Ceremony completion(obtaining rewards)

◆Wedding prerequisite quest
You can obtain 2 quests from NPC Jody located in PoW – 「Love Coach for You」 and  「She Attacks, He Defends」.

☆Main reward

Pair rings
※Disappears when the couple breaks up.

☆Note
You can get the wedding quests from level 18 and higher.

◆Wedding ceremony system

After you have completed the quests, pay an administrative fee at Jody, then talk to NPC Boris located inside the wedding hall.

☆Administrative fee
You can choose in range from 10 to 50 gold.

☆Donation box
・To fully celebrate the wedding ceremony, partners and attendees could donate some gold.
・The total of administrative fee and donation can go up to 100 gold. ・You can start donating with wedding application until the beginning of the ceremony.
・When the NPC Boris announces the ceremony start, you can not donate anymore.

☆Wedding costumes
・After applying for ceremony and entering the wedding hall, both partners will be automatically dressed in wedding costumes.
・This is only applicable within the wedding hall map.

☆Wedding Emoticon
During the ceremony, you can use「/wedding」 command inside the map to perform wedding emoticon.

☆Gold Woodies at the ceremony

・For better experience of ceremony, special monsters (Gold Woodi) will appear.
・The amount of gold woodies appearing will depend on total of administrative fee+donation paid.
・You can get 100 gold woodies at max.
・Gold woodies will not attack.
・They will disappear automatically after 3 minutes.

☆Note
・While there is another couple having the ceremony going on, you can not start yours.
Though, anyone can enter the wedding hall at any time.
・The ceremony is only possible within 30 minutes since application. If you leave the hall within this period, the ceremony will finish.

◆Married pair’s rewards
・You can upgrade the couple skills through couple skill upgrade quest, and obtain new wedding achievement.
・Through pair look equipment quest, you can obtain different couple costume every day.
※Mon/Wed/Fri – LoveLove set
Sun/Tue/Thu/Sat – Rainbow Sky pair set
For the pair look set, you can optionally choose one piece (head/top/bottom/gloves/boots) , but you can only get one item at time. Also, the couple partners can’t choose different part quest.

☆Note
Couple costume color depends on and differs from a character to character.
Once you receive it, the color is fixed.

■Event ‘Welcome newly weds!’ has started.

To celebrate introduction of wedding system, we have started new campaign.

☆Event period：2011-3-2 (after maintenance) until 3-16 23:59

☆Event rewards：Wedding items(Love Warp、Hot air balloon etc)

☆Note：Need to be lvl 18 or above to participate.
Details about reward obtaining will be announced with next maintenance.

New PineCone map & new NPC Olha

■We have added a new dungeon 「Fresh Green Forest」for characters around level 45.

Outline：There are severla unsolved incidents happening in the archers’ birthplace, Pine Cone Hills.
The Fellowship has discovered Fresh Green Forest in the depths of Misty Lane, and continued in the direction of Mist Elves Village, but…

New dungeon entrance at Misty Lane

Main rewards：Purified Revius accessories set
：Rapid Revius accessories set
：Ancient Revius accessories set
：Fresh Green Revius accessories set
：Mist Elf armor set

※When you gather and equip full Fresh Green Revius set, you will be able to use new category of skills – item skills.
When you use currently implemented skill「Toxic Tornado」, giant monster Revius will spawn and perform a toxic attack.

■New costumes were added.

Formal Dress

We have added fashionable Victorian Maid sets and White Tuxedo/Formal Dress sets that are perfect for wedding ceremony.

Black Victorian Maid (Big Wheel)

Blue Victorian Maid (Mixboard advanced)

Rose Victorian Maid (Mixboard special, 4% ATK Speed)

■We have added new items to the cash shop.

The sale of special couple items「Hot Balloon of Love」,「Love Warp」and useful Traveling Merchant ticket has started.

Hot Balloon ( recovers 50 HP&MP every 10 secs for couple in the same map)

Hot Balloon of Love：30 days
Love Warp：consumable
Traveling Merchant ticket：7 /15 /30 days

<Fixes and changes>

・The problem with several objects within Pine Cone Hills map not functioning properly was fixed.
・Several item/NPC/quests descriptions were fixed.

We hope you will keep supporting Dragonica.

Dragonica GM Team

Fashion show

Well, as you might have noticed, nothing much to write about and still one week until next patch (*big hopes*), so I could as well just post some pictures of some cash shop costumes I have seen. I have no idea whether any of these are already existing in any current English version, but I suppose at least more than half of them should be new to you.

These are all female sets, as I have no male character anywhere, but if there will be some demand, I might try to make one and get pics for male sets as well. Let’s move on with the show!

Big Wheel costumes

Violet French Maid (advanced)

Sexy Idol (advanced)

Elegant Hip Hop (advanced)

Yellow Cap Idol (normal)

Pink Food Idol (normal)

Cute Hip Hop (normal)

Casual Winter (normal)

Apple Green Winter (normal)

Rabbit (normal)

Yellow Glitter (normal)

 

Mixboard costumes

Pure Idol (normal)

Red French Maid (advanced)

Pop Idol (advanced)

Black French Maid (special)

Captain Woman (special)

Both special costumes come with +20 to all stats and 6% dodge rate as 5th set option.

February 9th patch notes translation

Thank you for your continuous support of Dragonica.

We would like to announced details of February 9th patch.

■Cookie Factory event has started.
◆Event period：2011-2-9～2011-3-2

Event site

◆Event outline

Yamaki, a guide for Cookie Factory, has appeared in Port of Winds.
He doesn’t know what’s happening inside the factory, yet says he can guide you into it.

At the same time, it looks like there are some problems happening around PoW. Go ask the innkeeper Florence about it, and enter the factory. Cookie Factory is a cute and tasty looking map with cookie motives. But inside you will meet many cute looking, though violent monsters. Invade the factory, help PoW citizens and get presents!

★You can obtain event item 「Sweet Present Box(2011)」 as a reward for clearing any Cookie mission map with SSS ranking, or for clearing the event related quest. This box can give you numerous rewards like new achievement, furniture with sweets motives (5 days), 「L」「O」「V」「E」 balloons and other items.

★ When you collect all「L」「O」「V」「E」balloons and complete the related quest, you can obtain「Special Sweet Present Box」. This box can contain sweets furniture (30 days), Valentine costumes and other items.

★If you use the recipes that can be obtained from mission maps, you can make some tasty candies (1 day). The success rate for these recipes is 50%.

Also, for the duration of the event, there is a limited sale on cute sweets-themed furniture and pets in the cash shop.

■ Time limited event「Happy Valentine」has started.
As there is a Cookie Factory, it’s obvious it will be full of chocolate, chocopies, candies etc. Now you can receive a special item if you send your friends/couple/guildies some candy ingredients.

＜Event outline＞
If you manage to send certain ingredients to your friends/couple/guildies via mail, you can receive a special Valentine item.

＜Main rewards＞
Cheese-cookie mirror

Milk-choco heater
Fruits-cake hat
※You will receive one of the items above at random from the reward box.

＜Campaign period and necessary ingredients＞
2月11日 19:00～23:00　Chocolate piece　10 pieces
2月12日 19:00～23:00　Milk　　　　　　10 pieces
2月13日 19:00～23:00　Marshmallow　　10 pieces
2月14日 19:00～23:00　Stick　　　　　　10 pieces

＜Caution＞
・The addressee must be couple, friend or guild member, and the mail’s title or contents must contain「Happy Valentine」phrase.

・Event is open for any character above level 5.
・It is not possible to send it to another character on the same account.
・Even if you send more mails, you can only receive one present per day.
・Reward items will be send all at once after the event is over（after 15th February).
You will receive amount of items equal to amount of days you participated.
※The reward distribution will be announced on the official site when the time comes.

■New costumes were added.
53 new items were added to the Big Wheel and Mix Board, including costumes that will let you become Dragonica’s idol/star, maid or assistant.

New Rose, 3% SC rate

<Fixes&Changes>

・The problem where using a processing machine in MyHome made the client crash was fixed.

・The problem with several keys not working properly when used for shortcut was fixed.

・The problem causing a text error to appear when buying item from Open Market was fixed.

・Drops from Revived Count VC in both Rare & Hero mode were adjusted.

・The problem with icons for Elga Jr’s message and Holy Armor scroll being different was fixed.

・The problem with several cash outfit item’s modeling not appearing properly was fixed.

・Several quest descriptions were fixed.

Please keep supporting Dragonica.

Dragonica GM Team

Absolute DEF rate’s secret revealed?!

There were some questions about this stat in the comments recently, and today I have seen some interesting post in the forums, so maybe some people might like to read about it. The following post shows the ultimate AbsDEF paladin gear, with all perfect stats.

Disclaimer: I have not tested this, I just give as I found it. Also, this applies to JP server only AFAIK.

Shield Mastery Lv10　 25%
Parry　　　　 Lv10　×1.23
3 pieces Rare Bone set　×1.35
3 pieces Hero Bone set   ×1.4
2 Star Lava Necklace　  ×1.1
★10 socket card（Back）×1.15
★10 socket card（Shield）×1.15
★10 socket card（Belt）　×1.15
Bone Ring 1　　　　　　　×1.05
Bone Ring 2　　　　　　　×1.05
＝107.19% block rate

So, according to this, AbsDEF rate looks like to be an additional block rate that adds up to the base set up by Shield Mastery level. 40% AbsDEF rate actually means 1.4x base block from SM in this case. Also it’s obvious that if you don’t have a skill granting you some base block, there is no point gathering AbsDEF items at all.

So, you still don’t have a paladin? It’s about time to start leveling one ^^

Socketing cards

So this is another new thing we got with the 3rd stage of Production system. Socketing cards are simply cards with additional stats, which you can insert into an item with opened socket to get some good bonuses. They looks pretty similar to Monster cards that come from Wanted quests – every socket card has a picture of some monster for easier recognition, and a text with stats and limitations.

4 star Grade 2 Skeleton card

Let’s look at what it says, taking the card above as example. First you have Grade in [], which indicates from what grade of ingredients you can make this card, and also indicates level restrictions for items this card can be used in. The amount of stars indicates quality – the more stars, the higher the stat will be (1 star lowest, 10 star highest).

Below the title, we have level restrictions once again – if it says 1-30, you can only use the card in items up to level 30 including. Then there is explanation about how the card is used. Next is Socket Position, and this is quite interesting, as so far all cards say First Socket – but of course it implies there are plans for more sockets in one item. Next is Item Type Restriction – for example the card above can be used only in Pads/Helm/Boots/Gloves.  And the last row shows the absolute effect value of the card, in this case +4% HP.

Recovery cards making

There are 5 different categories of cards, and every job can make only one type from their own ingredients (plus using some stuff from other jobs). You will use the ingredients and available recipe to make certain amount of Lucky Dips containing cards, which you then need to open and pray for some lucky drop – needless to say, most cards are crap ranging from 1 to 3 stars 🙂

As for the categories, they are – Defensive cards (Woodwork), Attack cards (Fishing/Cooking), Stats cards (Alchemy), Special Option cards (Engineering) and Recovery cards (Herbs/Cooking). I think most of these are quite self-explanatory, but I’ll try to list all options I managed to find so far

But first, some basics about the card stats. I was pretty suprised when I’ve seen a 10 star card for levels 1-30 with 15% dodge or 10% aim, thinking that higher range cards will have insane stats then, but it’s not true. So far it looks like that it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Grade 2 (1-30) or Grade 6 (61-70) card, they will have exactly the same values on comparable cards. The only difference are monster pictures and of course, level range.

Next basic thing that goes for all cards is how stats are rising with star grade. For 1-5* cards, the stat goes up by increments of 1. From 6 to 10 stars, it goes up by 2 each grade, plus adding an extra (fixed) stat that also rises by  increments of 2. So taking the card above as example, it will have 1-5% HP on 1-5 star cards, and then 7/9/11/13/15% HP for 6/7/8/9/10 star cards, plus another option (I don’t know which one, but as example it could be 2/4/6/8/10% aim rate). This goes for any stat with % value – those with absolute values have slightly different system that I’m yet to discover.

Third – although you can see place for sockets on rings, earrings and other accessories, there are no cards for these so far. Maybe planned for later?

So, those are the basics, let’s see what stats and combinations are available for each category. I’ll list the stats first, then range on 1-5* cards, then 6-10* cards and additional stat in bracket.

Defensive cards (Top/Bottom)

MDEF% – 1-5% / 7-15% (PDEF 2-10%)
PDEF% – 1-5% / 7-15% (?)
MDEF   – 5-9-13-?-? / ? (dodge 2-10%)
PDEF    – 4-8-12-?-? / ? (?)

Attack cards (Weapon)

Minimum&Maximum PATK% – 1-5% / 7-15% (2-10% crit rate)
Minimum&Maximum MATK% – 1-5% / 7-15% (2-10% aim)
Minimum&Maximum PATK – 11-22-33-?-? / ? (? PDEF)
Minimum&Maximum MATK – 8-15-22-?-? / ? (?)

Stats cards (All)

HLT – 1-5 / 7-15 (?)
INT – 1-5 / 7-15 (2-10 HLT)
STR – 1-5 / 7-15 (HLT)
AGI – 1-5 / 7-15 (HLT)
STR+INT – ? / ? (2-10 HLT+AGI)

Special Option cards (Back/Shield/Belt)

Dodge – 1-5% / 7-15% (2-10% aim)
Critical DMG – 1-5% / 7-15% (2-10% HP)
ATK Speed – 1-5%/7-15% (?)
Aim – 1-5% / 7-15% (2-10% MP)
Absolute DEF rate – 1-5% / 7-15% (? PDEF)

Recovery cards (Pads/Helm/Boots/Gloves)

+HP% – 1-5% / 7-15% (?)
+MP% – 1-5% / 7-15% (?)
Max HP – 15-30-45-?-59 / ? (?)
Max MP – 16-?-?-62-77 / 108-? (30-? HP)
HP Recovery – 3-6-9-12-15 / 21-? (7-? PDEF)
MP Recovery – 3-6-9-12-15 / 21-? (7-? MDEF)

These are all I’ve seen so far, so the list will be updated as soon as I see something new. If you consider most of these cards can be used in 3-4 items, it will give pretty nice boost as long as you can get a high star card. But even though Lucky Dips are easily obtainable in tens or even hundreds, I’ve seen only 3 or 4 10-star cards in the market so far.