The main changes of the Kamael update: the new race and its classes, the party level gap penalty, transformations, the attribute system, instances, the Isle of Souls, the Isle of Prayer and Hellbound, Dynasty gear, bracelets, fortresses, clan levels 9 and 10, the Great Wolf and the new rules of skill enchanting.
We continue our excursion into the past. We began with the changes in the C5 and Interlude chronicles; now we move on to Kamael.
The new race
As you can understand from the name of the new update, it was in it that a new race was added to the game, called just that, Kamael. If you have never played on chronicles above Interlude and have not seen kamael, I will quickly describe them to you: we take a dark elf woman, shove her into a bath and wash her thoroughly until the blue colour is washed out of the skin completely and the skin becomes pink like a piglet's. After that we take her out of the water and cut her hair short and carelessly with rusty scissors (the shorter and more careless, the better). Then we glue two wings on her back, inspect critically and break one wing off. After that we box her ears twice so that they turn red, and give one in each eye, but lightly, so that not bruises but tender red circles form around the eyes. That is it, we have got a woman of the kamael race, plainly called a chicken.
With kamael nothing is like with other people: the professions are purely kamael ones, which no other race can take as a subclass, and the development of kamael depends on gender (and there is also a hidden third subclass, Inspector or Judicator).
- Women: Warder - Soul Breaker - Soul Hound, or Warder - Arbalester - Trickster.
- Men: Trooper - Soul Breaker - Soul Hound, or Trooper - Berserker - Doombringer.
And even their weapons are their own, kamael ones, which they can convert from ordinary weapons, but only three kinds, depending on the profession: a two-handed sword into an ancient sword, a one-handed sword into a rapier, a bow into a crossbow.
Starting from the first profession, every kamael gets a skill for converting ordinary weapons into kamael weapons. A weapon of any grade can be converted, starting from D; for that it has to be held in the hands. So that the kamael would have somewhere to hang out, a new island was built east of the dark elf village and named the Isle of Souls; a couple of instances were knocked together there which everybody can enter, provided there is a kamael in the party; all of it was painted in gloomy tones, and it was decided that it would do.
Characters and parties
- In this update some characteristics were raised for all characters above level 70, such as accuracy, evasion, magic defence and crit rate, and CP was raised for all the dagger classes (treasure hunters and the like). For characters of level 78 and above a penalty was introduced if they beat mobs 4 (four) or more levels below the character's level. We do not care: we never beat small mobs anyway, since there was a terrible penalty on drop and spoil from them, and now one on experience has been added too.
- In my view the silliest innovation, which migrated to practically all Interlude servers, is the penalty for levelling in a party where the difference between the characters' levels is 20 or more. Starting with the Kamael update (and by no means earlier) it is forbidden to level small newbies in a high-level party: they simply will not get any experience. An explanation: if the difference between the levels is 20 or more, the newbie no longer gets experience, that is, the difference must be 19 levels at most to level at all.
- The newbie buffs in the starting villages and in Gludin and Gludio can now be received not up to level 24 but up to level 39, that is, up to the second profession, which in principle gave nothing special: everybody levels their own buffers anyway. A new fancy of the Koreans is transformations (in detail: Transformations in the Freya update: the types and the Transform Sealbooks); I only want to note that in this update only the transformations for cursed weapons were introduced, the transformations bought from the Black Marketeer of Mammon and from the Adventure Guildsmen, and also the non-combat transformations from bracelets.
The attribute system
One of the important changes that diversified the gameplay. In the Kamael update attribute stones were introduced, six different kinds in all: four elemental (water, fire, wind and earth) and two holy (light and darkness). Naturally the opposition of the kinds was preserved: if you add a fire attribute to a weapon, then on a hit with such a weapon everybody will take additional damage from the element of fire, and if you insert a fire attribute into armor, it will protect you from the opposite element, that is, from water. This point should be remembered: the damage comes from the attribute inserted into the weapon, and the defence is from the attribute opposite to the one in the armor.
- Only one attribute can be inserted into a weapon. If you need to change it, the old attribute is removed at an NPC, and after that a new one can be inserted. Inserting attribute stones is not a 100% chance, but on a failed insertion the amount of attribute already put in is not reset. At an NPC in Aden (next to the smithy) and somewhere else you can exchange attribute stones for the opposite ones, that is, water stones for fire stones and so on, one for one.
- For armor all the rules of adding attributes are the same; into each piece of a set (except the shield) you can insert its own stone, independent of the other attributes in the set. That is, the helmet can be with the earth attribute, the gloves with the wind attribute and so on. Element stones can be inserted only into weapons and armor of S grade and above. And there are also attribute bottles: if you drink one, the defence against one of the elements rises, by 30 as far as I remember.
Instances and new locations
The update introduced the system of instances (Instanced Dungeons): closed dungeons, the entrance to which is limited by some requirements, which have to be passed within a certain time, and the repeated entrance of the same characters is also limited by some amount of time (like the respawn of a raid boss): if you have passed an instance, you can enter it again only after the cooldown of the instance is over (the command /instancezone shows the time left until the next entry).
- Isle of Souls. I already wrote about the Isle of Souls above; two instances for players of level 20+ were added to the location: Nornil's Garden and Nornil's Cave. The first can be entered by a party of 2 or more characters, one of which must be a kamael. In the second the mobs are the strongest on the island, so you should go there closer to the second profession.
- Isle of Prayer. A new island, added to the map next to Alligator Island; the teleport to it is from Heine. The mobs are 78+, all absolutely new, all with pronounced attribute attacks and defence, so it is recommended to go there carefully. So-called shards drop from the mobs, items needed for exchange for key materials and recipes of S80 weapons and armor.
- The following instances were added to the map of the island: Dark Cloud Mansion on a small islet and Crystal Caverns under water in the area of Parnassus, consisting of Emerald Square, Steam Corridor and Coral Garden. All these instances are needed to get the items for farming the raid boss Baylor, to get key materials and recipes for S80 weapons and armor (from the NPC Blacksmith Ram inside Crystal Caverns), and also to do the quests for opening Hellbound.
- Hellbound. The island of Hellbound, not shown on the map, was added south of the Wasteland. The island is seized by the forces of Beleth, and all the local inhabitants are enslaved by them; after Hellbound is opened, upon completion of the quest chain for access for all the players of the server, the liberation of Hellbound begins. This process is long, consists of many stages and needs the forces of all the players of the server; the stages are described in the article Hellbound stages 1-6: what to do at each stage.
- All the new instances have limits on the time inside: Nornil's Garden 70 minutes, Dark Cloud Mansion 30 minutes, Crystal Caverns 90 minutes, dungeons in castles 60 minutes, dungeons in fortresses 60 minutes.
- If you have already passed an instance, the next time you can visit it after a certain time: Nornil's Garden in 2 hours, Dark Cloud Mansion without limits, Crystal Caverns in a day, dungeons in castles in 4 hours, dungeons in fortresses in 4 hours.
- The levels of mobs in the locations Pagan Temple, Monastery of Silence, Primeval Isle and Forge of the Gods were raised again. This was done, apparently, because new weapons with greater damage appeared, and also because of the attribute system. For the same reason the stats of the top epic bosses were raised.
New weapons, armor and jewelry
- In the Kamael update the Koreans introduced new kinds of weapons, armor and jewelry that can be worn starting from level 80, the so-called S80. Without racking their brains, they called all of it by one name, Dynasty: the weapons are called Dynasty Sword, Dynasty Bow, Dynasty Dual-Sword, the armor Dynasty Boots, Dynasty Shield, the jewelry Dynasty Ring, Dynasty Necklace. In general the Koreans' imagination has gone poor.
- Bracelets. Bracelets, like cars, are right-hand and left-hand, that is, for the right and for the left arm. Left bracelets are meant for agathions, right ones for talismans. In the Kamael chronicle the use of bracelets is strongly limited: left ones can be worn only by clan leaders who have captured a castle or a fortress, or by members of a clan that has captured the contested clan halls Rainbow Springs Chateau or Wild Beast Reserve; right ones can be obtained in castles or fortresses. The talismans inserted into right bracelets have a limited lifetime.
- Shirts were introduced as well, from no grade to S grade; no-grade and D-grade ones are sold by traders in towns, all the rest only in castles and fortresses. All these restrictions on obtaining things I already do not like, and what will there be in the following chronicles...
- Soul Crystal: Level 14. For insertion into weapons of S80 grade, special abilities of level 14 were introduced. A crystal can be raised to it from level 13 on the raid boss Baylor in Crystal Caverns on the Isle of Prayer. It can also be raised on the epics Antharas, Valakas or Scarlet van Halisha.
- Raid boss eggs. All the raid boss eggs of the old type and grade (Skull of the Dead, Heart of Dragon, Egg of Earth, False Nucleus of Life and Soul of Angel) are annulled; now new eggs, not divided into grades, will drop from raid bosses. Academy members can now get the academy clan armor from Blacksmith Pinter in Gludio. The quests for clan armor need not be done.
- The most important innovation for us as dwarves: now spellbooks, enchant scrolls and life stones stack in single slots and do not take up the whole inventory. The Auction System was introduced, but there is no particular point in talking about it.
Sieges, fortresses, clans and pets
- All the clans registered for the attack of castles are now united during the siege into a temporary alliance until the end of the siege, and now cannot hit each other even with a forced attack. The level of the NPC mercenaries defending castles was raised considerably. Each time a clan successfully defends its castle, it receives the item Blood Alliance for raising the clan level.
- Fortresses. At last the forts were launched, as promised. A fort is like a small contested clan hall, and if you have captured it, you own it until the next siege. Forts differ in size (small and big) and in location (situated on castle territories or border ones). The siege of forts is described in a separate article: Fortress siege: registration, barracks, flags and what a fortress gives.
- Manor: small seeds were added to Aden, which can be sown in the area of the Kamael village. Clans are now allowed to raise their level to 9 and 10; the number of members is 140+, and for each level-up 40k clan reputation points and various items obtained in forts and castles are needed.
- At last all those who ask on Interlude "why doesn't my wolf grow?" will be happy. Now it will become almost grown-up: at level 55 the old wolf can be exchanged for a Great Wolf. And at last pets will start getting experience as a percentage of what their owner earns. Hooray, comrades! But the owner's level must not exceed the pet's level by 6 levels, otherwise there will be penalties. And if the pet's level exceeds the owner's by 11 levels, the pet will get additional bonuses at the expense of the owner's experience. Summons that eat up the summoner's experience will now eat much less of it as their own level rises. For example, all the summons obtained at level 56 (Feline Queen, Unicorn Seraphim and Nightshade) will stop taking experience from the owner altogether at level 70.
Quests
- Many new quests were added; the only bad thing is that they are listed nowhere, so I never managed to understand with which quests Dynasty gear can be crafted on this chronicle. It seems that so far it is only by exchanging shards on the Isle of Prayer and after the opening of Hellbound. No mobs have either key materials or recipes for Dynasty gear and weapons in their drop.
- Key materials for the best A weapons from the dinosaur island were added to the reward of the quest Stolen Dignity, so now these key materials can be farmed by the quest starting from level 58. Some books were added to the reward of the quest Rise and Fall of the Elroki Tribe; which ones I do not know, and hardly anybody will tell now.
- Kamael were forbidden to do the quest Mimir's Elixir for the subclass; they have their own quest, Seeds of Chaos. Charging of soul crystals of level 14 was added to the quest Enhance Your Weapon.
Interface and skills
- Substantial changes were made in the interface of the game client: the locator and the design of the windows were changed, the map, skills and so on were split into separate buttons, and much more was changed, including the inventory window and the window of slots for armor, weapons, accessories and talismans. Now players can show their items to other players without a trade: it is enough to click on the item with the Shift key held down.
- The window of active skills is now divided into different types: ordinary skills, buffs, debuffs and toggle skills (switched on and off). There is one more unclear point in the description; literally it says there: if a dwarf or an artisan deletes a thing, it will be crystallized automatically. That much is clear, but what is meant by the difference between a dwarf and an artisan? Does it mean that in this chronicle spoilers started breaking things into crystals too? This has to be clarified.
- A heap of new high-level skills was added; to be honest, I understood nothing much in them, nor how they are learnt; it is quite possible that the books added to the quest on the dinosaur island are needed precisely for that. And since we are talking about skills, I will mention that in the Kamael update the principles of skill enchanting were changed. Safe skill enchanting: with the item Giant's Codex - Mastery skills can be enchanted safely; when this codex is used, the enchant is not reset on a failure.
- Changing the direction of a skill's enchant: with the item Giant's Codex: Discipline you can change the direction of the enchant, that is, if you used to enchant a skill for lower mana consumption, then by using this codex you can change the enchant and enchant now not for cost but, for example, for the chance of landing. When the direction is changed, the level of the skill drops by three enchants. Lowering the enchant level of a skill: why this is needed I never understood, but by using the item Giant's Codex: Oblivion you can lower the enchant level of a skill by one point.
- In general the already existing skills were reworked heavily, but I am not ready to lay out all their changes now, there are too many of them; what struck the eye at once is the change in Vampiric Rage and similar skills when a pike is used: now they work depending on the number of mobs in the train. That is, from the first mob you get as much HP as before, from the second much less, from the third less still and so on. I never understood the mechanism: what will happen, for example, if more mobs join the first train, since they were not in the train initially, at what moment exactly the counter of these mobs is reset, and much else.
Changes at the Olympiad
When you are moved to the Olympic stadium, you can choose 5 buffs for yourself, and they are not applied automatically, they have to be chosen. You are moved into a closed zone, the door of which opens 10 seconds before the start of the fight, and you can come out onto the field and see who is waiting for you there. Phew, that seems to be all; I spent a whole day on this description, and even became curious myself whether servers with this chronicle still exist anywhere.