Elphame's Arena Beta

We have opened up our beta seasonal server for testing purposes. During the test as well as at the end of the testing phase, all character data will be erased in preparation for the formal launch.

Seasonal Servers are a way for us to launch branch new disruptive mechanics in a server that has a limited life span. When a season starts, every character will be brand new starting from scratch and at the end of the season the server will be deleted permanently. During the season, you will be able to earn unique rewards which are claimable on our Finvarra's Fortress server.

Being able to start a new server with a limited lifetime allows us to build radically new content in a way that isn't a continuous treadmill of progression. It also allows everyone to capture that initial wonder of entering a new world again with absolutely nothing, scrapping for every bit of gear you can find.

A summary of the ruleset that this server has at the moment is available by reading the "Server Ruleset" book in your inventory when you create a character.

We would love to hear your feedback about what you like/don't like. Please provide this on our forums to make sure we can all see and collaborate on that feedback.

Summary of Ruleset

World Area
The World Area has been significantly compressed to only include two towns: Leinster and Kurz. Along with this reduction in world size, there are fewer dungeons and the dungeons locations have changed.

Exploring the world will be more challenging as city Gatekeepers can no longer teleport you.
 
Experience Rate
The max level for this server is level 100. The experience rate has been reduced as well as the experience cap per fight in order to slow progression down.

The decisions you make about where to invest your build points will matter here!

In addition to experience rates decreasing, the experience penalty for dying has increased as has the price it costs to insure your inventory from dropping items. Be careful, as you will begin to lose experience and items starting at level 10!

 
Magic
Mana crystals are now a constrained resource - they can no longer be bought from stores and can only be found by exploring the world. Be careful when choosing which spells to cast as you may run out of mana before you know it!

 
Player versus Player
Player versus Player is now permanently enabled for all players. You should also keep a close eye on thieves nearby as the pickpocket rates have been increased!

Player versus Player is disabled while in the Havenwood zones but other open world zones will leave you vulnerable to attack by your peers!

 
Grouping
In order to level the playing field for players, the maximum group size has been reduced from 6 to 2.

 
Gold
Gold will be a more precious resource as sell prices have been decreased and repair costs have been increased.

 
Items
Enchantments and permanance on items has been disabled. You will now need to find items that have the innate stats that support your character the best!

But fear not - item binding has been DISABLED. Feel free to acquire, trade (or steal!) items from each other at will.

As mana becomes more scarce, you may find yourself relying on magic items such as orbs or wands more often. These now are dropped fully charged - however they cannot be recharged.

Lastly, level requirements on some items have been decreased to conform to the new level cap.

FAQ

 
Does this mean Finvarra's Fortress is dead?
No - Finvarra's Fortress is our permanent "home" server. While playing on the seasonal servers after they have formally launched, you will earn rewards which are claimable on Finvarra's Fortress. Mechanics or items that players find compelling will be retrofitted into Finvarra's Fortress assuming it makes sense.

Also, we will continue to push content to our permanent server as we normally have!
 
How long will the beta be around for?
We intend to launch the first season formally early next year. Ultimately, as we collect feedback and hunt down bugs that may affect this.

 
How long is a season?
Right now we are targeting between 1-3 months. However we are very open to player feedback on this. The only non-negotiable is that the season must end eventually.

 
Will my characters be wiped?
Yes, your character data will be wiped before the formal launch.

 
I read that there are rewards for playing on the server, what are they?
At beta launch time, there are none available. We want to play test the mechanics changes and hear feedback from players to make sure the ruleset is fun before building a new reward system.

In terms of what to expect, are experimenting with many reward types such as new cosmetic items, house decorations, banners, awards or statues.

Elphame's Arena Patch Notes - December 6th

• Increased base carry capacity of all players
• Adjusted some overperforming dungeons drop rates
• Increased price for Repair and Insurance
• Adjusted Targoth's Tomb layout

Planned Downtime - Elphame's Arena

Thank you to all who have taken time to play test a radically new ruleset. We appreciate the candid feedback and have lots of bugs and mechanics to tweak based on it. As a reminder, if you would like to provide feedback, the best way to do that is on our forum in this post:
https://realmserver.com/forum/feedback/elphame-s-arena-ruleset-feedback

We will be taking Elphame's Arena down tonight at 10PM EST in order to begin developing the second round of ruleset changes. These changes are in direct response to the feedback players have provided us. The server is planned to return this coming weekend with a fresh set of changes to play test and collect feedback on.

Elphame's Arena is a canvas for us to collaboratively paint together. Thank you to the players who have taken time to help create it!

Regards,
TRO Staff

Elphame's Arena - Ruleset Changes

Here is a quick summary of the changes going in for this weekend's testing phase:

• Mana is now a regenerating resource. Mana pool based on intelligence + level. Mana regen rate dependent on meditation skill. Mana will regenerate out of combat every 30 seconds.
• To compensate for the lack of enchantments, the threshold for encumbrance penalty has changed from 35% to 65%.
• Experience earned is now computed on a bell curve in order to ramp up low levels and slow down progress as you level up.
• The experience penalty for dying has decreased from 2000 to 1000.
• The maximum experience earned in combat has changed from 1000 to 2000.
• Re-Enable Gate Keepers teleporting to homes
• Removed all FF-style magic items (e.g. familiar, proficient armor and magic weapons)
• Restored classic 3.x drops (Plate of Invulnerability, Vulcan's Edge, etc…)
• Removed Mythril armor and weapons from stores - these can only be found via drops now.
• Admantium and Obsidianite armor and weapons added as rare drops.
• Adjusted NPCs in open world to better distribute NPCs based on level.
• To encourage open world hunting, all open world areas are permanently hot zones. Dungeons can no longer be hot zones.
• Decreased default flee chance from 100% to 50%

There are more changes planned in future testing phases. As always we'd love to hear your feedback on the test to ensure that when we formally launch we have a great experience for everyone!

The best place to share feedback is in this thread:
https://realmserver.com/forum/feedback/elphame-s-arena-ruleset-feedback

Elphame's Arena - Ruleset Changes

Thank you to all of our testers so far. We have collected some fantastic feedback and are back with a fresh set of changes. These changes will be deployed shortly after the Finvarra's Fortress holiday patch later tonight.

 
Key learnings from last weekend's test were:

1. Fixed mana pool works well but the mana pool starts too low and grows too fast.
2. The bell curved experience was good although perhaps a little too fast.
3. Magic items like potions, wands and orbs were underperforming with Theurgism.
4. Melee focused players struggle quite a bit when it comes to fighting more than one NPC.
5. Although PvP is great, instanced dungeons are still the hot spot for players to go to which negates the impact and danger.

 
Summary of Changes:

• Tweaked Maximum Mana calculation to be based on mediation rather than purely intelligence and level.
• Increased frequency of regenerating mana from 30 seconds to 15 seconds.
• Increase effectiveness of Armor Rating and Shields for damage reduction. When a shield blocks damage it has a chance equal to it's armor rating to completely negate damage received.
• Increased default damage of cleave from 10% to 50%.
• When attacking with melee, players will now stay focused on their target until it dies. This means your attacks won't be consumed by "retaliation" hits when fighting more than one creature.
• Tweaked the peak of the bell curved XP from 50 to 35.
• Lowered XP rate.
• Increased impact of theurgism on magic items.
• Increased base duration on many spells.
• Fixed starting skills for wizards to add points in short sword versus dagger. Also grant 1 skill in meditation.
• Lower Wolf and Fenris NPC base acrobatics skill to make them a little less annoying to fight.
• Warrior NPCs are now more likely to have an actual weapon when fighting.
• Lowered amount of gold stolen by NPC thieves.
• Lowered repair and insurance costs.
• Rebalanced NPCs in Targoths to bet a better lower-level dungeon.
• Ogre caves has been added as a playable dungeon. Fuloran's Abode and Tulors have been removed for now.
• All dungeons (with the exception of the newbie 'Unknown' one) are now open world shared zones.
• Hot zone experience moved from all open world zones to all shared dungeon zones.
• Dungeons now have own unique world bosses that may spawn within and carry the rare loot for that dungeon.

 
There are more changes planned in future testing phases. As always we'd love to hear your feedback on the test to ensure that when we formally launch we have a great experience for everyone!

The best place to share feedback is in this thread:
https://realmserver.com/forum/feedback/elphame-s-arena-ruleset-feedback

Elphame's Arena - Changes (Dec 21)

• Fixed bug where Imp City was not being treated as an open world dungeon properly.
• Increased drop rate of rare items on miscellaneous dungeon mobs
• Lowered level of dungeon bosses to be more in line with the monster level of the dungeon itself
• Increased density of monsters inside of dungeons

Changes for Dec 22nd

• Moved Targoth to correct dungeon
• Significantly lowered repair and insurance costs
• Added better debugging to trace down pesky content bugs
• Fixed unintentionally locked door in Ogre Caves

Elphames Arena Changes - Changes (Jan 7th)

Itemization
Troll Leather, Mythril, Obsidianite and Admantium armor now has rarity values applied to it in descending order. In addition, any dropped item that has rarity may go through a randomization algorithm that will:

1. Randomize Damage, Weight and Armor ratings.
2. Apply an enchantment or permanence.
   Weapon perms may be any of: Fire, Lightning, Cold, Poison or Acid damage.
    
   Armor enchantments may be: Improve Armor, Regeneration, Immolation (Any of fire, cold, lightning or acid), as well as Elemental shields>
    
   This list is intentionally omitting adding enchantments for base stats such as strength, dexterity, endurance or intelligence.

Items with higher base rarity have a higher chance of receiving good "rolls" on stats and enchantments.

 
Misc Changes

• Properly applied rarity to magic items that were missing them (e.g. Boots of Nimbleness)
• Upgraded rarity of many items to compensate for new randomization logic
• Lower out of combat animation speed
• Show mana bar as a resource that regenerates in UI
• Lower charge count on shift from 25 to 10
• Change rings and amulets that drop around the havenwood area
• Increase damage mitigation of plate armor from 65% to 75%
• Lower damage of multiblade to be more proportional to its mana cost
• "Plugging" in pvp combat will instantly kill the player instead of decreasing health by half
• Updated randomized NPC placement in open world dungeons to be in better locations
• NPC spawning in open world dungeons will now automatically group with any other NPC on the same screen
• Removed Master and GM spells from stores. They are find-only now
• Tweaked drop rates all around

Elphame's Arena BETA Changes (February 6th)

Greetings Realmers! We are back with another set of ruleset tweaks to test leading up to the formal launch of Elphame's Arena. This round of changes is meant to be the last of the major mechanics changes - and hopefully the last testing cycle before we launch.

 
As always we would love to hear your feedback to ensure when we formally launch the season we have the best experience possible.

• Duration on tempoary weapon enchantment spells have been drastically reduced (E.g. Cold Steel, Venom).
• The max monster group size in a dungeon has been increased from 3 to 4.
• Rebalanced loot tables into four tiers of items. Tier one items will drop from lower level areas and tier 4 will drop exclusively in the hardest areas.
• Tweaked world boss respawn rate. Boss spawns will now be announced in the bosses tab.
• Increased base in-combat movement rate to compensate for lower overall strength on characters.
• Changed calculation for in-combat movement rate to be exclusively based on acrobatics instead of a mixture of stats
• Lowered cost of learning Theurgism. Cost should be more consistent across all classes.
• Lowered hotzone bonus experience from 100% to 50%.
• Removed magic longsword/shields from loot table.
• Adjusted bell-curved experience rates to be less severe on either end of level cap.
• Updated description for level caps on items: Wrath, Bonecrusher and Executioner's Axe.
• Added Fuloran's Abode and Tulor's Cavern as open world dungeons. Fuloran and Tulor are now open world bosses that spawn in these shared dungeons.
• Disabled NPCs jumping players in open world to be consistent with NPC behaviour in dungeons.
• Changed baldric reward increments to reflect early 3.x days.
• Adjusted spell mana cost and spell strength across the board. Spell costs are now determined based on the usefulness of the spell.
• Added Mana Points and Hit Points as a randomized stat to magic items. The amount of mana or hit points granted increases with tier.
• Lowered base mana pool to compensate for mana points on equipped items.
• Change mana regeneration calculation. It is now a percentage determined by your meditation skill and your max mana pool.
• Increased mana regeneration rate. In general you will regenerate quickly out of combat to compensate for spending more mana in combat.
• Added new tiers to caster gear: Troll Skin -> Imp Skin -> Daemon Skin. Higher tiers award more mana points needed to cast powerful spells.
• Removed potions of shift and greater invisibility. These spells must be learned in order to be used now.
• Orb of Healing and Orb of Greater Healing are now targeted-spell heals. They can also be used in combat now.
• Changed Myticism success chance to be a challenge of your mysticism skill versus your target's

 
Please post any feedback about these latest changes to our feedback forum!
https://realmserver.com/forum/feedback

Elphame's Arena BETA Changes (February 13th)

Greetings Realmers! We are back with another set of ruleset tweaks to test leading up to the formal launch of Elphame's Arena.

 
As always we would love to hear your feedback to ensure when we formally launch the season we have the best experience possible.

• Added HP and MP to shields. Round shields give higher mana. Tower shields give higher hit points.
• Removed Improved Armor as possible enchant for rings, amulets and belts
• Changed peak bell curve XP rate to be at level 50 instead of 35. This should improve the levelling experience in the 40-60 range.
• Mysticism success calculation has changed; The success increases or decreases by 1% for every level difference between the caster and target.
• Decreased strength of theurgism on spells slightly
• World Bosses will spawn much slower now
• Lowered drop rate in ratling run
• Reduced value of drops in The Unknown
• Increased base mana pool of all characters equal to their intelligence.
• Lowered SDM across many NPCs
• Lowered base movement rate in combat
• Increased effectiveness of acrobatics on combat movement
• Fixed bug which could cause both insurance money and items to drop in PvP combat.
• Changed some monster composition in open world zones. Increased chance for mobs to group with each other in the open world.
• All zones are hotzones now
• Lots of balancing changes to existing NPCs - in some cases increasing power and in some cases decreasing
• Removed drop chance of high end bounties from lower level mobs in specific zones
• Increased range and damage for life leech and fangblade
• Increased max damage on Vulcan Edge, Defender and Stinger
• Increased base weapon skill for new warrior characters to be proficient in all weapon types
• Added bonus mana to wizard hats
• Changed short sword skill book costs to be based on player intelligence
• When dying in PVP as a defender, you will no longer lose items or experience if you are outside of a predefined level range of the attacker. The formula as it stands is: Highest level attacker compared against highest level defender: within 10 levels OR 25% of each other. Attackers always lose items and experience when they die.

 
Please post any feedback about these latest changes to our feedback forum!
https://realmserver.com/forum/feedback

Elphame's Arena BETA Changes (February 13th)

Greetings Realmers! We are back with another set of ruleset tweaks to test leading up to the formal launch of Elphame's Arena.

• Fixed bug preventing players from equipping items in combat
• Spells from orbs and wands used in combat will now be cast later in the round order
• Tuned down melee damage from Tulor, Fuloran, Kilrogs and King Kilrogs
• Adjusted some other NPC damage
• Increased number of attacks when grandmaster on all weapons except for two-handed swords
• Lower theurgism power a little more
• Increase buildpoint cost to learn theurgism
• Increase spawn rate of bosses
• Increase base hitpoints of shadow warrior summon
• Adjust breakpoint values for summoning spells to take into consideration max level of 100 (Summon Undead, Night Friends and Summon Daemon)

 
Please post any feedback about these latest changes to our feedback forum!
https://realmserver.com/forum/feedback

Elphame's Arena BETA Changes (February 20th)

Greetings Realmers! We are back with another set of ruleset tweaks to test leading up to the formal launch of Elphame's Arena.

• /bosses will now display all bosses alive
• Removed boss spawn notifications from bosses tab
• Fixed bug where items that were identified as crafting components sold for much more gold than intended
• Fix sell price on consumable items like orbs and wands
• Fixed bug where amulets can get an improved armor enchant
• Removed The Unknown dungeon
• Lower base in-combat movement rate. Slightly lower multiplier of movement rate on acrobatics.
• Adjusted several zones monster composition and densities
• Fix bug that was giving Daemon-Skin mana bonus to Imp-Skin armor
• Increase base mana bonus of Troll Hide armor
• Changed Faery AI to no longer shift first round
• Adjusted many spell damage and mana cost values based on player feedback
• Increase all dagger and claw range from 1 to 2
• Shuffled some locations of spell drops
• Change monster composition for summon undead and summon daemon spells

 
Please post any feedback about these latest changes to our feedback forum!
https://realmserver.com/forum/feedback

Elphame's Arena BETA Changes (February 27th)

Greetings Realmers! We are back with another set of ruleset tweaks to test leading up to the formal launch of Elphame's Arena.

• Slightly increased base movement rate
• Every rank of acrobatics will now give an exponential impact on movement rate
• Fixed bug where Fuloran may spawn twice as a world buss
• Fixed bug which cause loot table on Tulor and Fuloran to behave incorrectly
• Lowered the insurance cost on some magic weapons
• Increased duration of rust spell
• Changed Summon Undead monster composition
• Added boss spawn notification back to bosses tab
• Lowered power of theurgism
• Changed Theurgism buildpoint costs to mirror what's currently on Finvarra's Fortress
• Decreased density of thieves in forest of death
• Changed spawn location of Spirit of Kal'Dar
• Changed NPCs in Bloodwood and Leinster Kurz road
• Updated mana cost of some spells

 
Please post any feedback about these latest changes to our feedback forum!
https://realmserver.com/forum/feedback

Elphame's Arena Beta Update

Greetings Realmers,

Thank you to all the players who have provided feedback to get Elphame's Arena into great shape over the past couple months. The beta period will officially end on March 6th at 12PM. After this time, Elphame's Arena will be brought down and wiped in preparation for the official launch. The official launch date will be announced later but it's expected to be 4-8 weeks after the beta is closed.

Pre-Season 2 Elphame's Arena (September 22)

We have brought the Elphame's Arena server back up to play-test some ruleset changes. The flower baldric has been removed although other rewards are still available.

• Set max group size to 1 (In other words, solo mode)
• Decrease strength of theurgism
• Increase experience rate
• Increase max xp per fight to 5000
• Increase loot rate across the board
• Loot tables are now more distinct and flow less into each other. For example, a table with mythril armor will no longer have a rare chance at dropping obsidianite
• Loot tables that dropped higher tier items now have a higher chance of dropping those higher tier items
• Decrease base power of: The Wrath, Executioner's Axe, The Bone Crusher
• Increase drop rate of illusion rings
• Increase HP / MP bonus of hybrid (chain) armors
• Fix bug causing dungeons to be locked closed from the inside
• Increase max level to 150

We are doing another round of ruleset tests. See below for the changes:

• Overall reduced the number of zones which permit PvP in them. Zones that permit PvP are now typically higher level areas and will be denoted with (PvP) in their zone name.
• Adjusted loot tables to be more exclusive from each other
• Increase world boss spawn rate
• Ramp up randomization values on hitpoints, mana points, armor and weapon damage.
• Tweaked enchant chance on items to incentivize higher end items more
• Disabled item insurance
• Loot rates in PvP enabled zones are significantly higher than non-PvP zones