We're closing out the year with some holiday cheer! Santa Orc is here to dispense some goodies if you're okay with abusing him repeatedly. How dare you.

Seasonal Decorations

We've dressed up the login screen, character select, and Skitzovania with festive decor!

Lots of things don't have collision, perfect for hide and seek...

Seasonal Event: Santa Orc's Run

Access [Santa Orc's Run] via the Skitzovania [North Portal], select [Garden of Solace], and then follow the very obvious Christmas decorations to the [Event Portal] and select [Santa Orc's Run].

If you've never done Santa Orc before, your goal is to knock Santa Orc up repeatedly until he gives you all 10 of his goodie bags before time runs out. You monster.

If you don't have good knockup skills on your class, you can make use of the [Giga Bombs] that are dropped throughout the stage.

Entry Passes

A [Snowflake Pendant] pass item is required to enter [Santa Orc's Run]. Every day, all accounts will receive [Snowflake Pendant] x10 via special server storage. You must claim your daily passes every day; unclaimed passes will disappear at the end of each day except for the first day. You can earn more passes by clearing content:

• 4-man nests give 1 pass
• Kaeron Trial Nest gives 2 passes
• RuDN 8-man, RuDN 8-man Hardcore, Black Dragon Nest Time Attack, and Ice Dragon Nest Vahrcore 8-man give 6 passes
• TKN Berserk gives 1 pass
• Solo/duo nests, Cerberus Nest, and dungeons do NOT give any passes

[Snowflake Pendants] are server storagable but not tradable.

Rewards

Santa Orc will drop either [Santa Orc's 2022 Material Bag] or [Santa Orc's 2022 Cosmetic Bag] each time he drops a bag. Bags are tradable and marketplaceable, so feel free to trade or sell your bags to get what you need.

You also can get 1 [Quality Lucky Gold Pouch] from breaking the right crate box which gives anywhere from 500 to 3k gold when opened.

Each bag gives you a random item:

Rates are available on Minerva after the patch goes live.

Previews

Here are previews of some of the cosmetics!

Cold Ice Leaf Decal

This special decal adds additional particles when you tumble!

Perfect Santa Claus Snow Orc Mount

Mei Event Shop

Mei's shop has been edited to contain a select few items. The item used to purchase these are the Snowflake Pendant so be wise with how you use them!

This shop is for the people who really don't want to grind Santa Orc but just want a certain item. It also kinda functions as a pity system.

Client

Updated Audio Engine

We've updated the audio engine from a decade-old version of FMOD EX to the most recent version of FMOD Studio. This update includes:

• The game now properly handles the Windows default audio device changing (no more restarting your game every time you switch between headset and speakers)
• More efficient CPU utilization for processing audio
• Audio processing now happens on a separate thread from the logic and rendering thread
• More sounds can be handled at the same time
• Improved spatial audio support and higher fidelity 3D audio
• Support for more advanced audio effects that we will utilize later...

Misc

• Removed the informational text whenever you run a raid that tells you to hide party effects (plus it's technically not entirely correct)
• Removed the "Press ALT-M" helper text since ALT-M is gone
• If you're using borderless windowed, you can now move your game window around while in ESC --> Settings
• Grass no longer goes completely black in dark environments

[PvE] Content

Power Hours

Helping out a bit with dragon gem farming, also this is one of our more commonly run nests

[Professor K Nest] is now included in the nest Power Hour

Black Dragon Nest Time Attack

The safe area size at Black Dragon phase 3 (the one you have to stack for) has been increased

[PvE] Class Balancing

Mystic Knight has been Dynamic Balanced for a very long time now simply because the class is a pain in the ass to edit due to how many internal moving parts it has. We also don't have very many levers to pull on it (its class mastery has NO attack modifier so there goes the easy way).

Now you can finally stop complaining about seeing the dynamic balance notification (and new players stop getting confused and pushed away from the class). Its a psychological thing, yknow.

/\c10\Knight

As part of nerfing Mystic Knight we're getting rid of [Flare], since that gives us 10% of the 20% that needs to be made up for, plus its a meme skill in PvP so two birds one stone yadda yadda

[Flare] skill removed

/\c70\Mystic Knight

Baking in dynamic balance

[Dynamic Balance] Deal 20% less DMG --> removed

[Overline] DMG 17600% --> 15840%
[Awakened Bang Sword] DMG 9245% --> 6009%
[Celestial Wave] DMG 16185% --> 15376%
[Vision Blow] DMG 14327% --> 13611%
[Awakened Valiant Hail/Mystic Blade] DMG 57000% --> 54150%
[Rash Drive] DMG 6486% --> 6162%

/\c71\Grand Master

Making up for the removal of [Flare]

[Class Mastery] Now grants +10% MATK

/\c42\Crusader

Baking in dynamic balance

[Dynamic Balance] Deal 10% less DMG --> removed

[Class Mastery II] Gain 10% --> 0% MATK

[PvP] Class Balancing

See above for why [Flare] is being removed, making up for the damage in both Knight class masteries

/\c10\Knight

[Flare] skill removed

/\c70\Mystic Knight

[Class Mastery] Now grants +10% MATK

/\c71\Grand Master

[Class Mastery] +5% --> +15% MATK

Cash Shop

Recolors

Bugfixes

• Fixed Windwalker's [Momentum Blooming Kick] not having a proper debuff icon
• Fixed an occasional crash at game startup
• Fixed [Rune Dragon Nest (4-man)] not actually being included in nest Power Hour
• Fixed several pets that when purchased from the F11 Cash Shop would already be expired (and continue to require [Pet Alicorns])
• Fixed an issue where having a UI menu of any sort open would prevent your base class buff from applying its secondary buff effect

Screenshot Event

Similarly to our previous screenshot contests, this one will be judged based on the following ruleset:

Rules

1. Your screenshot must not contain any UI elements (including FPS/ping meter!)
2. Your screenshot must include at least two people (NPCs do not count) and a maximum of five people
3. Winter/Christmas costumes (or at least winter-looking)
4. Everyone must strike a pose other than the default standing/combat pose
5. Screenshots must be taken in town (Skitzovania)
6. Screenshots must be taken with high quality settings (auto disqualified otherwise)
7. Your submission must include you and all participants in the photo IGN (Example will be shown below)
8. Characters in the background/not primary subjects of the screenshot do not count
9. Frame/compose your screenshot well!
10. 10. You can only participate in one submission. - Example: If X submits an image with you in it, you CANNOT participate in another image or post your own submission.

If you have any questions regarding the event details/rules, feel free to @Joorji in #question-and-answer. Serious inquiries only

Rewards

1st - Perfect Santa Claus Snow Orc Mount + 30,000 QC + "Wintry Wardrobe" title + 100 Zephyr
2nd - 30,000 QC + 50 Zephyr
3rd - 30,000 QC

All participants in the winning screenshots will receive the reward

Event Duration

Start: After patch 817 release
End: December 29th, 11:59 AM PST

QC Rebate

Get more QC when you donate! There will be a 20% QC rebate active from when patch 817 is deployed until December 31st, 23:59 PST.