Posts by Tycon

Today marks the first month of my involvement with the Iron Bank and the organization is better than they advertise it as. Seriously, no pictures, no words, no stories can adequately explain just how amazing the Iron Bank is, from the GMs to lower management to the average player, everybody has a voice and is having fun well before we have even been given an actual launch date. Part of this comes from the fact the guild is more than just a group of people who come together to play one game, we are a community looking to be the best we can be.

This sense of community runs deep within The Bank. Everybody I have talked with has been incredible in their own way and brings something unique to the guild. This is doubly true for management. Sharka, our GM easily spends more than 8 hours a day managing the guild but avoids pitfalls many other leaders fall into. He is transparent but doesn't micromanage, he has expectations but they are fair, he leads by example not with words. Rompeheuvos, one of our community leaders values work and fun. He has read the entirety of Sun Tzu's The Art of War and applies real, working philosophy to the game. While this is done mostly through memes and overused quotations it simply adds to the easygoing nature of the guild. Trenial... well... every group has somebody like him. He is quiet until he isn't and once he starts talking it seems to be his show - At least until he gets tired and stops for a while. Despite the fact that these three people are the 'leaders' they understand they can't do everything alone. As such they use their distinct personalities to lead groups and projects unique to them. I can't share all of them here now or Hawks will /gkick me faster than I can type "oops".

The strong leadership allows people to step up. The Iron Bank utilizes a unique leadership system that emulates that of a government moreso than a gaming community. As I said before each of our community managers runs a division, each of which is designed to handle certain guild activities. By having these divisions more people can get involved with guild leadership, leading to both a better and stronger community but also more time to play the game. It is the best of both worlds, you get an exceptionally organized guild that promotes the choices of the individual player, you get focused and motivated leaders who know what they are doing, how to do it, and are still seen as human, you make progress due to our tested, peer reviewed, and proven systems while still having fun playing the game. And honestly, that is what the guild is all about the ability to be part of an organized and highly motivated community while still having fun.

Our systems promote all playstyles from crafting, to PvP, to PvE, to anything in between and as we are a global community anybody can join. Just follow the application process on the webpage and get going. It takes about an hour of your time and is the first step to being one of the best with the best. Those who deal with the applications are honest and fair and typically process you within a week. The interview is simple, non-intrusive, and entertaining for all involved. Those who make it past this point are officially part of the Iron Bank community and will be treated as such. The process is so simple and you have nothing to lose! If you are committed to playing Bless Online, at least semi-competitive, and don't have a guild yet fill out an application greatness awaits us!

I'm already running numbers to find the most efficient way to get through them monotony of Bless's early game. I have been playing on KR and JP off and on for years now so leveling another new character isn't something I am really looking forward to. Luckily, the game is being changed enough to keep things fresh without invalidating all of my prior experiences. Since I will have limited time at launch due to finals I am researching confirmed and speculated changes as well as what is remaining the same to find the fastest way to level a character assuming my go to leveling system is ruined. Hurrah for over complicating life for a video game!!!

Since I value time and love math I like quickly adapting to metas and try to find the best way to clear PvE content keeping time, efficiency, and enjoyment. Yes I can get carried away but I try to use my knowledge to help those around me instead of scorning them, that is assuming those around me are willing to learn and progress at a reasonable rate.

I approach PvP in a similar way, I analyze the meta and keep documents which explain in-depth strategies and simple guidelines to how to approach situations. With time I memorize these 'rules' and adapt on the fly in an attempt to win through superior strategy, communication, and mechanics whenever possible.

I also record all of my playtime for personal review, I look at things both big and small in an attempt to improve my play on all levels. As such I enjoy PvE and PvP content equally, especially when playing with friends or helping others learn and improve. As I have been playing Bless for so long I feel like I will be spending more time in PvP in the late game once my character has been fully developed, until then my focus will remain on PvE and optimization of closed systems, after all there is more variance in PvP as you are working both with and against real players.

So, I guess I will be doing both really, but there will eventually become a time where I will be doing much more PvP.

For me joining a guild shows your connection with the core ideals of that community. Joining a hardcore PvP guild shows your devotion to the PvP ladder and that side of the game, joining a hardcore progression guild shows your devotion to PvE content and drive to clear the hardest endgame content, potentially getting it down to a science, joining a casual or meme guild shows your appreciation of the game and your desire to be part of a community, but acknowledges that you just want to play the game and treat it as it is - a game. Naturally there are different guilds of the same type, launch is still about 20 days away (at least) and guild recruitment has already started and players are starting to find communities that they mesh with and are dedicated to. This leads to the question of "why should I join a particular guild".

Like most social questions, there is no true answer here, as it is ultimately up to the individual to decide what is best for them. Would I join an LGBT guild? Probably not, what about a meme guild? Still no. This isn't because I dislike memes nor the LGBT community, I am just happier in more diverse communities that are created by guilds that don't care about who you are. I don't mean this disrespectfully either, I simply mean guilds that advertise themselves using in-game terms and promote their in-game ideologies are simply more important to me than guilds which care more about who you are as a person; simply because these guilds naturally create diverse groups who are friendly to their guildmates even if it is on the sole grounds of being allies. While there are many people who are openly against the LGBT community, a lot of it is due to their perception of the community and many of these people are often willing to see and treat somebody as a decent human being if they prove themselves to be a decent human being.

Of course many people feel more comfortable when they identify themselves as part of a group and do things with people who are part of that group and go to places that accept these types of people and this actually causes more problems that it solves. If people keep only interacting with people they identify as being "in a group with" and only do things with these groupies problems like this will continue to exist. If people feel the community isn't friendly towards the LGBT community go out there and prove them wrong. Identify yourself as a person first, do things you like first, take care of yourself first and if your ideas and ideals align with that of a larger community or group great! Join, do your thing do their thing and have fun, but always remember to identify yourself as yourself before you identify as part of a group or organization. Taking Bless into example I'm not a member of the Iron Bank who plays a Paladin, I am somebody who plays the game as a Paladin, who is part of the Iron Bank. Always look at the bigger picture first (your humanity) then go down, this will help loads in life as your situation and 'group' you identify with or as part of may change with time. I'm not suggesting your sexual orientation will magically change overnight, in fact that can be an important part of your sense of self and self-identity, just don't explain your entire existence in regards to being part of the LGBT community.

Now I'm not trying to tell anybody how to live their lives or what they should be prioritizing in life. I am just trying to share some information that actually helped me when I was in the middle of a existential crisis last summer, I had no priorities, I had no idea who I was, I had no long term goals and was a mess. After some reflection I figured out this was partially because of a mix of unmanaged depression and me identifying as part of a group instead of as me. One not so quick change of perspective, a change in scenery, and a broadening of my horizons helped me understand that putting my identity first would help me make decisions down the line. I stopped thinking "is this something a computer nerd from a small town would do" and started thinking "is this something I would do" sometimes the answers were the same, sometimes they were different. Ultimately it is up to everybody to figure out what their priorities are and to find a guild, group, and path that is right for them. For some it may be an openly LGBT guild, for others it may be a guild that is open to all players, some may join meme guilds, and others may be known as the servers "trash pack" and thats all fine. Assuming the player is having fun and enjoying their time playing Bless we really have no reason to be critiquing their choice in guild or surroundings.

This post will be a bit sloppier than usual. I get back into using the forums and I break my wrist setting me back to step zero. Not trying to share my problems with the entire world, just know for once the formatting of this post wont be do to exhaustion or sheer laziness on my end, I just have one good arm at the moment.

While the idea of having a casual and hardcore server has worked with some games in the past, I don't see it working with Bless. There are already so many large guilds that are full and claim to be hardcore or semi-hardcore, such as the Iron Bank, and Envy it will be extremely difficult to have these guilds get together and decide to play on the same server to improve the gameplay experience of unaffiliated players. On the other hand, players who are truly casual wont care enough about being behind the hardcore players anyways. MMOs reward players based on the time they put into the game and therefor players who put the most time into playing the game will naturally get ahead. Attempting to divide players up based on their play time only highlights this issue.

Putting all the "tryhards" together will make progression sillily difficult for some and can create an unbelievably toxic community where elitists will berate the players who try to join this server post launch, or even players who can't keep up with the initial grind when they thought they could. On the other hand, putting all the "casuals" together could create the opposite issue. Players who are at the top could be seen poorly in a casual community as being somebody who should be on the other server. By dividing the playerbase you can potentially create unrealistic expectations on both sides.

Unrealistic expectations aren't even the worst case scenario here, if we did do this at launch and everything goes well, there are problems you create down the road. The hardcore players would consume content much faster than the casuals (to be expected) on normal servers this problem isn't as noticeable as players have lots of things to do in game, things they can do on the premise of 'not everybody tries hard so I can mess around for some time and not lose my ranking'. All but the hardest of hardcore players would quickly suffer from burnout as they are expected to do so much just to remain relevant on an artificially created competitive server. Once again, on the other hand, casual players may feel like lategame content is almost unclearable due to the lack of competitive players on a casual server. World bosses would be a mess and when Neowiz eventually releases new content they would need to consider not just a whole community, but two distinct communities and how they would react to change. They can't balance the servers differently as that would be like playing two different games and the quality and direction of new releases may suffer.

Also players who don't identify as either casual or hardcore would have a hard time finding a home with a 'community agreement' such as this as would friend groups who don't all play the same amount. For example me and some friends are planning on playing Bless. Three of us are casual, four are 'hardcore' and two are self-proclaimed "Semi-Hardcore Ninja Looters of the Fourth Zerg". This eclectic group (and those similar) would suffer, as would all players who feel they are somewhere in-between.

Its understandable to want to enjoy playing a game and worrying about the game itself but splitting the community (one of the highlights of MMOs) isn't the way to ensure everybody can succeed. Sadly to say Bless is a competitive game at its core, the majority of late game content is locked behind large amounts of competitive PvP and PvE; however, there are systems in place to 'protect' casual players, here are a few of them.

• Players can opt out of world PvP until level 45
• The 3v3 arena has an MMR system, the 100v100 has something similar.
• World Bosses are on a first-come first-serve basis, anybody can get in as long as they show up first
• The hardest of hardcore content (capital wars) are only available to top players
• As the game is social, you can call for help if you are getting ganked / killed in the open world
• Players who are significantly stronger than you probably don't care about what you are doing anyways

If these protections don't feel like enough, Bless probably isn't the game for you. I hate to say it, but it really isn't. There will be plenty of people to fight who are at your skill and equipment level in the world and you won't win the majority of (or even 50%) of your fights until you spend time learning the game like everybody else does. The majority of the playerbase won't be hardcore, there will be a casual community and those in-between.

Time to rest my arm. If this post is too miserable I will edit it some more soonish.

If Neowiz decides to use the same cash shops they use in JP and KR I don't see the game becoming P2W. The cash shop on the other servers is simply convenience, they offer cheap items that are easy to find under normal conditions. For example 'dragon souls' are a rare item used for crafting and gear progression which can be found through disenchanting gear and killing elite mobs or purchased with Lumena or Adventure Points (earned through clearing PvE content). These souls are easy to find and can not be sold on the auction house; however, players who wish to save small amounts of time can buy them instead. This isn't like being able to buy rare crafting materials that exponentially speed up your gear progression as they are relatively common, any player who is level 50 can easily farm them.

The rest of the cash shop on both Korea and Japan is similar. They offer other convenience items, cosmetics, and player services. The only item that could be considered pay to win instead of pay for convenience is the ability reroll scroll. This item allows the player to reroll the abilities on their pets or mounts and can circumvent hours if not days of grinding. If a player uses the ability reroll scroll on a legendary tier pet, they get around the process of having to train a new pet to the legendary rank which even then doesn't guarantee you get anything good. Pets and mounts are easily the largest time-sink in Bless and this tool allows players to only go through it once. (Instead of 50+ times if you are extremely unlucky)

Depore wrote:

Bns only worked for 1v1 and was only balanced around 1v1 When it came group battles however it became a mosh pit and mostly luck based. thats not real PvP. Wow? Wow's PvP is active but it serves no purpose other than amusement or something to pass the time. the Rng for pvp gear from arena and Battlegrounds was to nearly as good as the things you'd get from doing PvE. So in the end PvE gave better rewards over PvP and made People want to run PvE content a lot more than focus onPvP for the chance of getting a rng item level rolled gear piece. Honor points were also removed in Legion so you couldn't get gear from spending your hard earned points only transmogs. Which made PvP a lot less competitive. When they added honor talents instead of allowing all skills to be used by a class as well as making everything gcd they limited game play a lot more and made it very linear certain class comps just decimated every other comp because of their kits. Tera pvp was strong in the beginning but became very unbalanced later on especially now with the awakening patch. Pvp also serves little to no purpose now but for Ego. In the old days it served the purpose of getting resources for professions, holding a spot for the faster levels by grinding mobs, and gearing up to get the best endgame gear from alliance, and Nexus. FF14 PvP is not rewarding in the slightest. and sure as hell is not balanced. Guild wars 2 had a great idea however PvP was all instanced in Battlegrounds and certain areas and did not have open world PvP which makes a game a lot more lively.

It sounds like you enjoy PvP content that is meaningful, balanced, and heavily integrated into all the games systems. While I can't say how PvP will be like with the new combat overhaul, I can say that in the games current form PvP does not meet these conditions. Certain groups and builds are meta and god tier groups and strategies exist, for a long time it was Zerker + Sin + Paladin focusing the other healer and winning from there. This composition did struggle against double heal groups but those were rare as they were absolutely awful during the 'pile on' and 'death ball' (literally two Zerkers and a Paladin) metas of the time. This imbalance is also seen in open world PvP, 100 v 100, world boss fights, and castle sieges, simply because a meta does form and the best players will attempt to either fit into or counter the meta for effective results. For example, the best counter to the double Zerker + Paladin team was Ranger + Mage + Mystic and they won through kiting the relatively immobile Zerkers and Paladins. Strategies in the open world and larger instances will be more complicated, but with time they will be forged and recreated as changes are introduced.

Luckily for you and other players (like myself) who enjoy PvP content, the game is full of PvP opportunities. Every player who is higher than level 34 is in a PvP zone, ever player who wants late game equipment needs to participate in world bosses which are PvP zones, players who want to be part of the best guild need to do PvP AND PvE to receive enough points to even be close to successful in the capital war. This means players will be incentivized to participate in 3v3s and 100v100s for both honor and influence points in an attempt to progress both their character but also their guild. So the integration and importance are there, but the rewards for this journey are pretty bad on the JP and KR servers. (Again, they may improve during the EA)

The rewards for honor points are pretty mediocre at best. Players get titles, some unique items that are used as substitutes for PvE enhancement materials (3:1 conversion rate on some though) as well as some materials they could have gotten more of through just doing PvE content. The big reason the rewards feel bad though, is because the rewards for being at the top are pretty coveted and exclusive. Unique titles, unique mounts, unique pets, unique costumes and the list goes on. So either you participate in PvP for the chance of getting these exclusive rewards or treat it as a byproduct of different system.

For example, you want your guild to be known as the best in the server. In order to do this you need to control your factions capital and in order to do this you need to PvP, so you do. In this case players wouldn't be PvPing because they want to increase their rank, they are doing it for the influence points. Another example is you need a few enhancement materials from a certain world boss to upgrade a piece of armor. It is Wednesday and tomorrow a new boss cycle begins so the one you are farming won't be back for another two weeks. Todays boss is set to spawn in a highly contested PvP area, you don't like PvP but you know if you don't try you won't have another chance to get these gems for some time. In this case the player wouldn't be PvPing because they want to, but because they like they need to in order to progress further.

Hope this makes sense, I just woke up and haven't had my coffee yet.

Bless is a game that has had an interesting history with its PvP content. On the Russian servers it was the only thing worth doing as PvE was a joke, on the Japanese and Korean servers they 'rebalanced' the system making PvP rewards much less powerful and important as they were on the Russian version, to the point where some Japanese players are saying that PvP is currently 'useless' due to the imbalance and fact that it is easier to progress through PvE content. Luckily for us, the revamping of the combat system will most likely lead to a more balanced experience which players can enjoy and be rewarded for.

As for all PvP content that will be available on the global release there is:

• Open World PvP
• World Bosses (an extension of open world PvP)
• 3v3 arena
• Instanced 100v100
• Capital Wars

Open world PvP is fairly self explanatory. Certain zones in the open world have PvP enabled, within these zones players of opposing factions are free to fight one another outside of safe zones. Players who do not want to participate in PvP can use an item available from shops which allows them to become immune to all effects (including buffs and healing) from players that are not also immune to PvP. This buff lasts for 10 minutes and can be dispelled on command. Players that are max level can not use this item.

World bosses are extensions of open world PvP. World bosses create instanced versions of the zone around them, inside this instance PvP is enabled and the two factions must fight one another for control of the boss. These instanced zones only spawn once a day, every day for 40 minutes at a time. Rewards are given to the winning faction once the boss is killed.

The 3v3 arena is a way for players to earn honor points in a semi-competitive environment. Players receive honor points for participating and winning arena matches. The 3v3 arena is available at all times and to all players.

Similarly to 3v3s, the 100v100 arena also allows players to earn honor points in a semi-competitive environment. Players receive honor points for participating and winning matches. The 100v100 arena is only available during certain times of day and is open to all players.

Capital Wars. Capital wars are only available to players who are part of a guild. Unlike in other games, the Heiron is not fighting for the Union's capital and vice versa, instead guilds are fighting against guilds in their faction for control of their capital and the unique benefits and bragging rights that it gives. In order to participate in the capital war guilds require to spend their realm points which are acquired through owning territories (which then in turn costs influence points earned through daily activities). Only players who are part of top guilds should expect to be successful in capital wars.

Since influence and realm points aren't exclusive to PvP I won't be referencing them here. If anybody wants to know about the guild progression system I will address that once I get some sleep. I will; however, talk about the basics of honor points as I haven't seen a decent translation for them yet.

Honor points (sometimes called rating or rank points) are a way the game keeps track of and rewards players for their participation and success in PvP based content. Once a week honor points are processed by the system and players are rewarded based off of what band they fall in. Depending on their band they are given a rank and some rewards based on their rank and a soft reset occurs. The soft reset multiplies each players honor points by .70 after their rank is calculated. In other words, every week you lose about 30% of your existing honor points. I sadly don't know the rewards for every rank, the names for all the ranks, and the threshold for all the ranks. What I do know is that the rewards are scalar and relatively minor, often containing things such as repair tools, mount taming scrolls, gold, and various crafting materials in addition to more gold (gold is pretty useless in the late game). Players who are in the top 50 for their faction also receive exclusive rewards. The top Union player unlocks temporary access to the Commander in Chief title while the top Heiron player unlocks temporary access to the Emperor title. Due to this system you can not spend your honor points on anything specific - such as gear - like you can in other games. Instead, you pay 30% of your current balance in exchange for a rank and rewards. This system also slowly decreases the scores of inactive players while also encouraging competition at the upper ranks.

The formula for earning honor points is also unknown but there are some general guidelines. Players receive honor points at the completion of PvP events and on a per-kill basis in the open world. The points that are earned from events, such as the arena, are based on who won, and your contribution score. Contribution is based on damage dealt, damaged healed, damage prevented, kills, assists, and deaths. There are also some other factors that are only considered during world boss attempts and capital wars, but they are so insignificant to the big picture they don't really matter.

EDIT: My grammar is awful when I am half asleep. Went through and fixed some errors. The rest stand as they are minor and I am too lazy to fix them.

Recently I haven't been playing new games and instead opting to polish off some older ones in an attempt to have more platinum trophies on PSN than my friends. This means I am revisiting some games I have come so close to completing but just haven't managed to do so (until recently) the list is pretty long and includes:

• The Witcher 3 (I only have 63/79 trophies for this game. Listing what I need would take up some serious space)
• Infamous Second Son (Just need to clear one last district and that will give me 3-4 trophies, I will need to go out of my way to get Double-Smoke-Stack-Attack, Excessive Force, and Hat Trick though.
• Nier: Automata (Need to get two more of the 'joke' endings. Probably will be the easiest one for me to finish)
• Persona 4 and 5 (Need to do NG+ with P5, just need to catch the Sea Guardian in 4)
• Final Fantasy 10-2 (I need to do some 'hidden bosses' and finish clearing the tower)
• Final Fantasy Type 0 (I need to do the last two missions and hatch 3 more chocobos)
• Until Dawn (I need to kill everybody for the final trophies, I just don't want to kill everybody)
• Resident Evil 7 (I still need to play The End of Zoe and get better at resource management...)
• Outlast 2 (Can't get the Messiah trophy for the life of me)

I have also been playing online games such as League of Legends and Hearthstone and a little bit of Bless JP every now and then. Oh, I also pulled out my old GameCube and PS2 games just to get in my yearly dose of nostalgia, I never knew Luigi's Mansion and Soul Calibur 2 are so satisfying. Yes I have been all over the place and I am making no real progress when it comes to anything, but its fun all the same.

If you don't like the so many words those can go. I create long posts in an attempt to show respect to all involved, they show engagement and understanding of the topics at hand and typically receive positive responses from those who take the time to read them.

To keep this short, I'm not calling the combat changes small, I am saying how they will impact the game as a whole are unknown and that these changes do not invalidate the knowledge of players who have spent hundreds of hours playing Bless before. Saying that the changes are known is correct, but it is incorrect to state that existing knowledge is invalidated due to these new systems. In fact many of these new systems don't change anything in a significant manner.

• Party Buffs: Group up to receive buff. Cool, the late game was already unsoloable as it stands in KR and JP, now it is better to get into groups early, doesn't invalidate the advice and knowledge of veteran players.
• Tutorial: Good for new players, does very little for returning players.
• UI: Only changes to the UI are those that are coming in the combat revamp. Everything else seems to be the same and intuitive, no major changes here.
• Revamped Questing: Sadly to say but this won't matter. Unless other parts of the game are also changed (and it doesn't seem they will be) quests are mostly dismissal and will be skipped over in favor for other content and many veteran players will continue to say the same thing.
• Revamped guide quests: Again, doesn't impact the knowledge of veteran players at all.

All of this points to one thing I have been saying this entire time. As things currently stand all information veteran players have about the game that doesn't delve into combat specific advice can be considered accurate as other parts of the game are not being changed in any meaningful way. There is a difference between the size, magnitude, and scope of changes. A large change to one system won't necessarily bleed into other aspects of the game.

Again, I'm not trying to disprove or stop the practice of giving up to date information regarding the state of the rebuild project, you just can't assume that these changes invalidate the collective knowledge of everybody else, especially when it comes to something as general as "what class should I play". The big problem Pentrep and myself seem to be having with your claim is just how general it is. Yes change is coming, yes it will inevitably, well... change things, but these changes don't inherently falsify all the information veteran players have. Especially information regarding systems that are not being directly changed and the generalization of common knowledge.

I don't want to derail this thread any further so I will try to put this little debate down right here.

While the changes coming to the combat system are undeniably large in scale we know nothing about it other than the fact that is is: a large scale change of unknown magnitude that will only directly change two parts of the game at most. Additionally, we know that it is only a change to abilities through the combo system, skill tree, and rhythmic combat it goes no further. This means that things such as class identity will remain largely the same as the only thing that is being changed is combat and skill progression. Paladins most likely won't start out DPSing Assassins and you won't see Mages tanking next to guardians other aspects of the game such as crafting, leveling, pets, mounts, and even the world map won't be seeing any meaningful changes before EA. Since the changes are only occurring to one system, veteran players are still very much able to share valid and relevant information with others. If I didn't play the game I would have been unable to give the OP a satisfying answer and guilds would be unable to plan content rushes and guides for their players.

Lets say that the changes to the combat system and skill trees end up being both large and meaningful, they truly end up making the game different and allow players to create their own builds and react to what is going on around them. In this scenario, veteran players once again have a leg up over new players, Why? Simply because they are already more familiar with the game than other players are, they already know boss rotations, AoE radii, efficient farming routes etc and don't need to focus on learning these parts of the game, instead allowing them to focus on these new systems entirely. Furthermore, many experienced players are already part of large guilds who are actively creating groups of people to dedicate their time and effort into researching these new systems the minute they receive information (May 11th at the latest). Again this is only true if the system is as significant as some are claiming, this whole rhythmic combat + combo system could just simply be giving things global cool-downs and giving abilities bonus effects when used in conjunction with their stance skills. (This seems unlikely)

Ultimately it isn't the size of the changes that are important, it is the relative size of the changes. In other words, how big are these changes in the grand scheme of things? Changes to combat in a combat driven game will always be felt, no matter how small they are; however, players with more experience with both the genre and the game in general will be able to adapt to these changes as they already know what to expect out of them. Of course we currently don't know what these changes entail; nevertheless, the experience of veteran players is not instantly invalidated due to these changes. Even if combat becomes almost unrecognizable from that of Bless JP, RU, and KR veteran players still have plenty of valid and useful knowledge about the other relatively unchanged systems.

Arguing about the significance of change is pointless when we haven't even seen working footage of these new systems in comparison to what we have now. It is for the best for us to just sit back and wait to see what rhythmic combat entails before we start talking about how the collective database of all things Bless related were just thrown into an incinerator.

To recap:

• The combat system is being changed
• These exact impact these changes will have is unknown
• The exact scope of these changes are still unknown
• The exact magnitude of these changes are still unknown
• Veteran and common-sense knowledge and logic will still apply
• It isn't the end of the world
• Even if it is, many other systems are still unchanged and experienced players can freely share their knowledge regarding these.

As for the OP themself, I am happy I was able to help out Perfson, if you have any questions feel free to ask. I will get to them as soon as I can.

While there has been some wonderful (and accurate) information dropped here, the questions you asked still haven't been explicitly answered.

Perfson wrote:

So, first question is, are bosses/mobs in this game prefer to punish melee only?

Bless is a game in which players are asked to group up for PvE and PvP content, be it instanced (E.g. dungeons and arenas) or open world. If for whatever reason you are playing alone you will find some content to be harder to solo as a melee class; however, if you play a ranged class and fail to initially kite the mobs you are fighting you will struggle. If you think you will be a solo player during the leveling process I recommend you play either an archer (great single target and burst damage) or a mage (great AoE with some CC and burst). This isn't because the content is harder when you are melee, but rather these classes are - in my experience - the easiest to level with when playing alone.

When you reach late game content and dungeons in general there are bosses and mobs that punish solo players, poorly geared players, and uncoordinated groups. Bosses have AoE attacks that melee players must watch out for if they aren't cancelled (and not all can be) a group with with competent players will be able to position themselves to circumvent the majority of the threat these attacks pose to the party. In other words, the Bless systems that exist in JP and KR only punish melee players more than ranged players if they fail to respond to the mechanics they must respond to, additionally, there are mechanics which ranged players are better suited to handling and failing to respond to these will cause problems as well.

So no, the game really doesn't prefer to punish melee over ranged, it is just a natural byproduct of cleave attacks and short-ranged AoEs that use the boss as the attacks epicenter. As stated before, melee solo players will struggle with these attacks more as will melee players who are unfamiliar to the content they are currently exploring.

Perfson wrote:

2nd question, what classes do you want the most in your party? Or maybe there is classes that necessary to have in dungeon party

As Bless uses the trinity system, the average party of five players will require a healer. As the mystic won't be available at launch, each serious party will have at least one Paladin with some groups having two or even three (although I don't recommend having more than two). Additionally, due to the trinity system, each group will require either a Paladin, Berserker, or Guardian to serve as their primary tank (this is why you can see groups with multiple Paladins). While Guardians have the easiest time holding aggro they lack any kind of meaningful damage, Berserkers on the other hand, deal more damage while tanking but are less durable and can struggle with keeping aggro, Paladins who tank are between the two, they deal moderate damage, can hold aggro for some time, and can survive on their own for a fair bit as well.

With this in mind it becomes clear that the class that will be in the highest demand once EA hits is the Paladin. Historically speaking healing and tank classes are in the highest demand in any MMO even though they make up the smallest percentage of a 5 man group (20% heal 20% tank 60% dps) taking these numbers into consideration, at least 1 in every ~7.5 players (not everybody will be online, max level, and looking to do dungeons at once) will need to play a heal based Paladin for there to be healthy late-game scene with competitive groups in both PvE and PvP. If we look beyond EA, people always like seeing Mystics as they are the games other healing class and while the two cover two different sides of the healing spectrum and therefore are better in different scenarios they are both nice to have in groups.

Outside of healers different classes have different merits, the four party slots that are not devoted to healers typically consist of three DPS players and one tank, with seven eventual classes (eight with WL) a few will always be missing. Ultimately, most content is doable as long as you have the following:

• A tank (either a Guardian, Berserker, or Paladin)
• A healer (either a Paladin or Mystic)
• A source of AoE damage (Berserker who isn't tanking or a mage)
• A source of single target damage (Assassin or Ranger)

Assuming your party is able to check off everything on this small and manageable list you will be fine for the majority of content. You also need to know that different classes are able to shine in different scenarios, as are different builds, also player skill is very important. I would rather be in a group of good coordinated players with a slightly bizarre party than be in a group of bad players with a great party.

Perfson wrote:

3rd question... is there any class that especially good for gold/items farm?

In Bless the majority of the good gear will come from dungeons, elite mobs, crafting, and PvP. As the majority of the best gear comes from late game (unsoloable) content, there really isn't a class that is the "best" at farming for gold and or items. It is instead better an investment to get good at the class you play and the game as a whole: the gold and items will naturally come as part of that process. Therefore, I can't tell you what class is the best for farming items in the late game as there really isn't one. The rate at which you get usable items is decided by how often you play, your individual skill, the skill of those around you, your communication with those around you, and some luck.

For the leveling process, it isn't even worth farming gold and items then. Any items you farm for will be useless in a few hours of playtime anyways and gold really isn't important until the late game either. Honestly, you will end up wasting more time and potential resources by farming for gold and items in the early - mid game than you would have if you just focused on leveling instead.

Hope this answered some of your questions.

Yesterday Neowiz stated that the EA server will feature a combat system that is non-existent on KR, JP, or RU. As the combat system called "rhythmic combat" in the dev-blog is bringing a new combo-system, new ability selection, and new ability progression, and potentially new abilities and interactions with the combo system, it is impossible to give information on any class that is guaranteed to be relevant for EA.

Despite this, the ranger class will most likely retain its core identity: a reliable source of physical damage. The reliability of the ranger comes from the fact it is a ranged class and if positioned properly will take very little damage in group content. This means that you want to focus on doing as much damage while positioning properly.

To meet these two goals a ranger player needs to know the range of their abilities and be able to judge distance and movement speed well. Once this skillset is mastered the ranger will be able to kite all but the most mobile enemies and proper communication will keep them safe from roots + slows that otherwise shut them down hard. The rangers ability to kite is enhanced through player movement speed, dodge and haste (speed at which animations are played and auto attacks triggered) while these attributes are helpful they aren't necessary and shouldn't be sought out in the early - mid game. In fact, DG, MS, and HST are end-game stats and finding the right ratio between these "supportive" and your more aggressive attributes will be a major difference between good and bad players.

Speaking of aggressive attributes, late game content isn't easy to solo and having a good, organized party is important. In these parties a ranger uses their high damage and safety to focus down mobs and keep an eye out for enemy players (in the open world) to do this they need to have damage that isn't based on their ability to cast spells, move fast, or repeat attacks quickly. To do this the ranger requires strength, dexterity, critical, and hit.

Damage that doesn't stick or simply doesn't apply is a massive issue, a missed attack not only wastes a cooldown but also resources and in the new rhythmic combat system can completely ruin a combo. Since you want to be doing damage you need to have high enough accuracy to actually land attacks. This makes hit (accuracy) very important to have but not something you need to focus heavily on.

Finding the right critical / damage ratio is hard. If you have high crit but low damage you haven't optimized your build in due to the relationship of multiplicity effects, the same can be said with high base damage but low crit chance. This ratio is highly dependent on how the new combat system works though.

Strength and Dexterity are both flat damage increases and are where the majority of your damage will come from. Increasing these two stats are some of the easiest ways to increase your damage output throughout the entirety of the game, only consider sacrificing strength and dexterity for other stats once you understand the new combat system, your class, and build more.

Naturally to survive in PvP and other ventures you need defense, although this should be no surprise increasing your maximum HP, physical defense, magic defense, and dodge are all great ways to increase survivability and should be considered at all points in the game. After all, you can't do damage when you are dead.

All of this information shouldn't be new to anybody who has played a DPS character in an MMO before so it may not be of any help to you. If I read this post before they announced the changes to the combat and progression systems I would have been able to share more information although it would have been outdated. I hate to say it but you will need to participate in EA and figure it out yourself or wait for other people to do the experimentation for you (this will take weeks if not months of optimization, especially as the game is new).

QcDiablo wrote:

Random Number Generator

While RNG does indeed stand for a random number generator simply giving a definition doesn't truly answer the question. If somebody asks "what does this mean" and somebody answers with another term that isn't necessarily common knowledge can simply create more confusion. Now I'm not saying midnasan can't look up what a Random Number Generator does with this information, I'm simply saying writing it down here doesn't help either, especially if others are certain. So here, we, go.

RNG is a system used in computer programs to create a sense of randomness. By looking and loot and crafting in Bless we can see what this random number generator does for the game. Whenever you kill any creature in Bless you receive loot, the loot you receive is based on a 'loot table' which is controlled by a random number generator. Depending on the game, the loot assaigned to each mob is determined either on spawn, on death, or upon looting, either way, when the mob has received a certain tag from the system it starts the random number generator's process and gives loot in accordance to the number.

For example lets look at a simple mob many players are familiar with, the final boss(es) of the level 22 Union Dungeon. When the bosses are killed the system 'rolls' a 100 sided die, the result of this die determines how many pieces of loot drops, how much money is dropped, and what those pieces of loot are.

For crafting, lets look at the capabilities of the armor-smith. Armorsmiths are able to craft high-level reinforcement materials (names won't be accurate because of translations, but they are a horn, some skin, and something else) these items have a chance you fail in the attempt to create them. When the game determines if you were successful or not it 'rolls' another 100 sided die. If the result is between a predetermined range (say 1-30) the attempt fails. This gives the action a 70% success rate (not accurate in game) and is controlled through RNG.

There are many other parts of games controlled by RNG, critical hits, blocks, evades, and more. It is simply a way to create variance in a system and prevent binary (and geometric) responses based on even odds (50-50, 25-25-25-25, 33.333-33.333-33.33 etc).

To give you a more substantial answer to your question there isn't going to be public Alpha or Beta test for Bless's global release. Instead players will be able to buy (or win) access to the Early Access (EA). The early access will be available for download over Steam just over a Month from now as it is stated to begin in mid-May. While we do not know the costs involved with EA or the "actual" release we do know it will involve founders packs with various bonuses and boosts for those who purchase them (again no idea when these will be available, how much they will cost, and what they will offer)

This early access period will be open for all who purchase it and last for approximately six months before the game is officially released some time in the winter of 2018-2019 or early spring of 2019.

Welcome to the forums Drachesoul, while your visit may be brief it sure is a welcome one. While it will be fun playing with you that conversation can be had within The Bank itself.

One thing I find interesting is your passion for creative writing and MMOs so I have a question for you. As the MMO genre has grown and evolved, how they tell their stories has remained relatively stagnant. As they are multiplayer games they can't use the "chosen one" or "sole survivor" tropes that their RPG counterparts use and often rely on an inter-faction or global conflict to serve as the crux of the story. Do you feel that moving away from this almost cliche format will be beneficial for MMOs as a whole? Are there any games that you feel have particularly compelling storylines and or characters?

Have a great day!

Talked with Sharka the other day. From what I heard and saw the guild doesn't mess around. They are looking to be one of the best and they have the systems, leadership, and membership to get it done.

The guild is filling up pretty quickly. If you want to be part of a highly organized, content-competative community I recommend you apply pretty quickly, even if you don't think you will get in. I mean, it is better to try and fail than not try at all.

Pentrep wrote:

Companions were eliminated from rebuild as far as I know. They were silly in practice and served very little purpose from what I remember.

I can confirm that companions were eliminated from the rebuild (KR and JP). Neowiz did state that the global release would change some of the systems from past iterations so there is a chance that companions will return for the global release.

I honestly hope they don't though. As Pentrep said, they served no purpose and were exceptionally annoying to work around. They were simply tools to augment your income and the fact you could only run three a day meant you got very little out of it, even if you ran the maximum amount of adventures (3) every single day. Additionally, they are like the companion missions in WoD, but worse. You got nothing essential out of them, they didn't help you progress at all, and many of them also had silly conditions that made success fairly difficult. Not to mention that if you failed a mission it still counted towards your daily maximum. Simply put it was partly an RNG fiesta which nobody benefitted from.

The system was inherently flawed and one that shouldn't return to the game even if it is fixed.

Hello Jerome of Germany!

One of the most beautiful things about MMOs is the sense of community that they foster. There is no doubt in my mind that somebody as positive and relatively successful as you will find a guild to call home.

If you want some more information before launch just message me. I can answer most questions about the game or at the very least, point you to somebody who can.

Oh, and I too will be playing a Paladin, at least until the Mystic is released.

Have a nice day!

The problem with Bless is that it has had a different identity on every server it has been released on.

The Original Korean build was practically underdeveloped on every front: players could do anything but the fatigue system, unbalanced crafting, and poor rewards, ruined the game for many.

The Russian Beta failed because of the cash shop's invalidation of progress: Players could buy end-game dungeon gear from the cash chop for very little money. This made dungeoning almost useless and alienated many PvE players, leading the game to its downfall.

The Korean Rebuild fixed many of the problems of the original Korean system, but the community views it as "too western: it hasn't been successful in Korea, where games such as BnS have control of the majority of the MMO market.

The Japanese server is a complete 180 from the Russian Beta: The system does not reward players who focus on PvP the same way other servers (and games) have. Rewards for controlling and maintaining control of territory has been substantially "nerfed" due to this it is almost the same as the Korean Rebuild. It doesn't have enough meaningful content to be considered a PvE game, but the rewards for doing PvP are so minor you can't call it a PvP game either. It is simply a sandbox (PvX) MMO in which players can participate in either PvE or PvP for rewards.

If Neowiz wants Bless to be successful on the Global Release they need to chose an identity and gear the game towards that identity. Even if that means being another PvX sandbox (the route they have gone on JP) the issue with choosing to be another sandbox game is that they need to compete with other sandbox games notably WoW (Battle for Azeroth is dropping soon) in order to do this they need to offer either a better PvP experience or a better PvE experience than BfA is going to for it to have prolonged existence which Neowiz can be proud of.

Luckily for us, Neowiz seem to be exceptionally proud of what Bless has become (at least internally) due to this pride they are motivated to make the game the best it can be and cater to the most amount of players, and surprisingly enough if the game is better than the JP build on launch it has already succeeded.

PvP in JP is somewhat clunky and imbalanced with almost meaningless rewards. Since I have already used WoW as an example I will continue to do so. On launch WoW PvP was almost useless, many people only used it as a way to show off, murder the enemy faction, or get achievements. This is exceptionally similar to the system Bless uses on JP, just add in castle sieges and an inner-faction struggle for territory.

PvE in JP is exceptionally linear, with difficult content and an actual 10 man raid (Tomb of the Warrior King) It provides players with a clear sense of progression through both boss drops and crafted materials (assuming it will be similar to JP and KR Rebuild) this is, once again, similar to how dungeons worked in early WoW. Very few had actual 'unique' mechanics, they were just a difficult PvE encounter which you needed to overcome with a group, mid-late game dungeons in Bless are very similar to these. (Also Lineage II)

Where this comparison begins to lose its merit is when you begin comparing raids. On release Vanilla WoW had a single raid and lots of large party content. Large party content simply means anything that required more than 5 people to clear. Scholomance, Strathome, and UBRS all required 10-15 people to clear properly (Tomb of the Warrior King is the same). This multi-party content is when we began to see unique mechanics and the same is true in Bless.

On launch, the game will most likely only have content up to level 45, different PvP rewards for holding territory (as JPs system is pretty bad and they know it). Once we receive the level 50 patch we will receive content such as ToWK and the first proper step towards a raiding environment for the global Bless community.

After the level 50 patch hits live, that will be the state of the game for some time. Naturally there will be patch to patch changes, nerfs, buffs, adjustments, etc, but new content wont be out for some time. At the time of the games second major change we will see just how Neowiz means to treat the game. Will they add more dungeons, and raid progression, or will they add more PvP content, maybe even add both and see how it goes.

To get this post back on track before I forget about its existence in about half an hour, I do need to say current late game content is actually fairly difficult (both in and out of dungeons) and nobody should expect to be able to solo it.

As for what the remake will do for Bless, it has been in the works for years now, and we may see a game that is very similar to vanilla WoW content wise, but with the polish of FFXIV's re-release. We can't say anything for sure as the developers have said that "things will be different than JP KR and RU" but they haven't told us what will be different or how it will be different.

Welcome Henmoro!

I am currently studying game design, I'm only half through my first formal year of college though so there has been lots of learning things I already know.

Speaking three and a half languages is pretty impressive. I spent three years trying to learn French and got nowhere with it, I actually learned more Korean by playing with people on the KR server than I did trying to learn a language the traditional way. Trial by fire can be surprisingly effective.

Talk with you later!