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Monday, April 25, 2016

Blade and Soul Shattered Empire Update is coming! Are you ready?

On April 27th Blade and Soul is getting yet another update called Shattered Empire. In this video I explain what to expect and what are some of the changes that are coming our way.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

New Blade and Soul Update Shattered Empire Arrives April 27!


  
Blade and Soul content continues to come out at break neck speed and on April 27th we will be getting even more content! 

Awesome news for players that are kind of bored right now and bad news for players that are still trying to catch up. Anyway lets take a look and what we're getting for the new blade and soul update.

The 2.1 update brings new dungeons, a new section to Mushin’s Tower, and brand new PvP game mode.

The Shattered Empire update arrives April 27, and brings a variety of new content and rewards to the already vast world of Blade & Soul.

Among the features in the update are two new Heroic dungeons, Cold Storage and Sogun’s Lament—which is the greatest group content challenge yet.

 When you’re not succumbing to soul-crushing defeat in Sogun’s Lament, you can climb a new section of Mushin’s Tower (F9–15) to face brutal new tests of skill in this unique solo experience.

And when it’s time to blow of some steam, you’ll experience a brand new objective-based PvP game mode—Whirlwind Valley—in fast and furious 6v6 team-based combat.



Let's take a look at the two new dungeons.


Cold Storage

This is what I know so far about Cold Storage. It is going to be one of the shortest dungeons yet even shorter than yeti dungeon. There is only one group of trash mobs to clear and after that the boss. There is also a mini boss that you can summon by using a green orb, blue orb, and red orb.

These orbs drop randomly from the main boss and are trade-able and can be sold on the market place for a nice amount of gold. The entire dungeon gives you the most xp in the game towards your hongmoon levels.

The first boss gives 46,000 xp and the secret boss gives 146,000 xp. Its also the only place where you can buy hongmoon xp talismans. When you down the main boss, a secret merchant will appear where you'll be able to buy several rare pieces of merchandise.

Also Cold Storage will have limited entry so that players will only be able to play it a certain amount of times a day. Players can only do Cold Storage every 8 hours.

Sogun’s Lament
This is the one everyone has been waiting for. This is the dungeon that has the famous Asura boss and is supposed to be one of the hardest dungeons in Blade and Soul history whoa! This dungeon has four bosses in total including Asura.

 In order to succeed in this dungeon you will need to have your Scorpion belt equipped to reduced the effect of Asura's brand. You will also need about 120% accuracy and need to have the Silverfrost Dungeon Antidote. This boss fight will not be your typical tank n spank type of fight and does require a lot of coordination between party members in order to successfully defeat Asura.





http://www.bladeandsoul.com/en/news/shattered-empire-arrives-april-27/

Monday, April 11, 2016

NCSoft announces new Blade and Soul event: Spring Treasure Trove!

 Today NCSoft announced the Spring Treasure Trove event for the game Blade and Soul and so far the event is looking like it's going to be a ton of fun. If you're someone who is behind the curve and hasn't had the chance to upgrade your items, this event is going to help you a ton!

 

 About the Blade and Soul event

Unlock treasure chests for amazing rewards from April 13–27.

The Spring Treasure Trove event offers adventurers the ability to unlock random treasure chests, and then purchase the highly sought-after rewards within for rock-bottom prices.

Unlocked Opportunity

While the event is active you can click on the Treasure Trove icon at the bottom of your screen, and once per day per character unlock a treasure chest for free. Additional chests can be opened by purchasing and using Spring Treasure Trove Keys. When opening a chest you’ll be presented with a selection of items to purchase from with gold.

After opening a treasure chest you’ll have the opportunity to purchase one of the items presented to you. Choose wisely, as you’ll need to wait until the next day—or by using a Trove Key—to show a new selection of items, and the opportunity to purchase another item.

 Only two Treasure Trove item slots will be unlocked to start, but you can unlock six more by purchasing and using Spring Treasure Trove Expansions. By unlocking additional slots you’ll increase your chances at items, and since you can only buy one item per opened chest, it’s a good idea to increase your odds by unlocking additional slots early on. Unlocked Treasure Trove expansion slots are character specific.

Rewards

Opened chests will provide a wide array of items to purchase from. There are many different lists of items the Trove may present you to purchase from, and it’s random which list you’ll be presented (and in what order they’ll appear) when a new chest is opened.

 


Light Specter


Dark Specter

Flawless Sparkling Hexagonal Gems
Hongmoon Skill Books
Honorary Ornament
Silverfrost Transformation Stone
Frozen Stinger
Moonstone
Soulstone
… and more! Over 100 different types of items can appear in the Spring Treasure Trove.

Guide

STEP 1
  • Click the Treasure Trove icon—only available to characters level 36 and above.
STEP 2
  • You can open a Treasure Trove chest for free once per day (resets at 6am server time) for each character.
  • Spring Treasure Trove Keys can be purchased from the Hongmoon Store, and you can use them for additional chances during the event period.
STEP 3
  • After unlocking a chest, you can purchase one item of your choice out of the random items in the chest.
  • Over 100 different types of items can appear, and can be purchased for gold.
EXTRA
  • Spring Treasure Trove Expansions can be purchased in the Hongmoon Store, and allow you to unlock up to 8 total slots, increasing your chances for rewards with each chest you open.
  • Spring Treasure Trove Keys can be bought in the Hongmoon Store, and allow you to open additional chests beyond your free unlocks each day.

Spring Treasure Trove Keys

Spring Treasure Trove Key
49 NCoin or 49 Hongmoon Coin (limit 10 per day)
Spring Treasure Trove Key (x50)
2,327 NCoin
Spring Treasure Trove Key (x100)
4,410 NCoin

Treasure Chest Slot Expansion Voucher

Spring Treasure Trove Expansion
199 NCoin or 199 Hongmoon Coin
Spring Treasure Trove Expansion (x6)
955 NCoin or 955 Hongmoon Coin

The Spring Treasure Trove event runs from April 13–27, and during that time you’ll receive one free chest unlock per day. Treasure Trove Keys and Slot Expansions will be sold until April 26 (9am server time in NA/5pm server time in EU), and you’ll be able to continue to use them to open chests until the standard Wednesday maintenance downtime on April 27. After that the event will no longer be accessible, and any purchased keys or slot expansions will no longer be usable—so don’t let them go to waste!

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Why players are starting to leave blade and soul NA

This was taken from a post on the blade and soul website and although it's only one player saying this i'm sure many players that have quit or about to quit can relate to it. Anyway here you go.

Why I'm considering leaving this game forever. I don't want to, per se, but it feels as though the game is fighting against me; every second that I am logged in, it fights harder for me to logout and never return. The general experience is quite an unpleasant one - there are many issues, some of them lingering since launch, and a lot of them either caused by or perpetuated by NCWest.

This is not a whine post, or a hate thread, so please do not respond here if you are blindsided by absolute righteousness - this is where we apply logic, rationale, and constructive criticism to encourage NCWest to support the game as they should do, not as they currently are. Here I will be outlining some very glaring issues with the game. Constructive criticism of the game and all its issues is welcome here.

Firstly, we have the main in-game social issues: Almost all of these issues have very simple solutions and can be solved relatively easily; the alienation of individuals with subjectively 'low' attack power (1),  progression and economy relative to the rate of content updates (2), the large amount of bots intruding the most played aspects of the game (3).


--


1. The alienation of individuals with subjectively 'low' attack power.
The cause for this alienation is seemingly the increase in HP that NCWest applied to our version of the game, supposedly due to complaints in Beta that the content was too easy. The problem is the enrage timer - technically, all of the heroic dungeons have weapon requirements, and all of these requirements were implemented with purpose by NCSoft Korea. That is to say, they are enough for the dungeon they are the minimum requirement for - before the increase in HP by NCWest. NCWest, however, increased boss' HP without adjusting the minimum required weapon, and without adjusting the enrage timer in accordance with the increase in HP.



What this means? This means that the weapon requirements on heroic dungeons are too low and those meeting the requirements are not enough to beat the enrage timer, or that the increase in HP was too high and that the required weapon would be enough to beat the enrage timer if it weren't for the increased HP. As a result, players are being bullied and excluded from running certain heroic dungeons, making the experience for these players a very negative one. This hinders their progression by disallowing them access to quests and materials that earn the most gold, thus not allowing them to upgrade their gear and actually run these dungeons - an endless cycle - decreasing the likelihood of them continuing to play the game.



Solution: Either revert the HP values back to the original Korean ones and allow the social dynamic to revert to its intended design, or increase the weapon requirement to match the increased HP. However, increasing the weapon requirement will cause another issue to occur. It will keep undergeared players behind an eternal wall of catch up. Meaning, if they weren't there at launch, they will never get to current endgame because they will always be stuck behind a method of earning less gold. You could say they would be eternally trapped in outdated content, and stuck in that content's state of economy.


--


2. Progression and economy relative to the rate of content updates.
The release schedule for the content updates seems to have been put into place without making changes to the game's trading system to make up for the time not available, that other regions had in-between such updates. So, although the speed at which we are receiving updates is no issue whatsoever (more content is good), NCWest not making the necessary changes to accomodate the little time we have to catch up between these updates is a problem.



What this means? This means that the initial crafting time limits, and the average resource gathering time were designed for long periods without new content updates. NCWest should have reduced such limits on crafting to create the time-equivalent in the shorter period of time we have to 'catch up'.



Solution: Let's say Korea received Silverfrost one year after launch of their vanilla client (example, not fact), and we received Silverfrost two months after launch of our vanilla client. We recived Silverfrost about 83-84% sooner than they did. Therefore, the time we had to craft and gather, to upgrade, to catch up, was 83-84% less. The limits on crafting should have been shortened by 83-84% to make it time-equivalent. The drops on materials should have been increased by 83-84% to match that time-equivalent.



This would have produced a healthy economy. Not the game of 'catch up or be left behind forever' that we're playing now.


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3. The large amount of bots intruding the most played aspects of the game.
It started with premium bots, farming PvE content in huge numbers for copper. Then it was Wheel of Fate essences and weapons. Next it was daily quests, Arena for Soulstones and dungeon farming for Moonwater Tears and Merry Potters Recipe. Now we have Soulstone Plains and Awakened Necropolis, on top of the old methods. The only exception to this is Arena.



So why are there so many bots? Well, to begin with, bots will always exist, they are in every other region's servers too, however, not to the intrusive extent that they are in ours and at a much smaller number.



So why is it different for us? Mainly the economy. It is highly likely that the solutions in the previous two points above would result in much less bots. No solution could ever make it impossible for bots without making it impossible for players too, so there will always be bots, but reducing the number is a simple task and after achieving that goal, the next task is secluding the bots to an aspect of the game that players do not care for.



Solution: Fix progression. Fix trade. Fix  the economy. And people won't feel pressured to buy cheap gold from external websites.


--


Those are the three main issues. Next up, I have some personal issues that some may agree with, some may not. However, this is simply a warning that there may be a bit of anger, a bit of disappointment in the following words.



NCWest and its communication:
The way NCSoft communicate with us, even directly through the forums, is very disconnected. Like at the beginning when Julianne used to be in the livestreams. She would respond to concerns, without actually responding to them. She showed such little care, and when she was called out on it by the community, she conveniently disappeared from the stream. This seems to be the pattern with the whole company, issues seem to be ignored and brushed off, and when they are responded to, they aren't actually responded to. It's as though you're talking at us, not to us. Are we even here? Is this real life?



A recent example of this is Hime responding to the thread for the removal of Gameguard. She was probably not the right person to respond to such an issue. And this leads me to...



Gameguard: In the West, is not an acceptable application, and has not been for many years. There is even a stigma attached to any company using it. NCSoft is seen as cheap, ignorant, and non-caring for their customers simply as a byproduct of using Gameguard. Keeping it enabled is nothing short of suicide.



Personally, my game stutters every few seconds when Gameguard is enabled. And so far the pattern has been Gameguard disabled>bad performance but no stutters>Gameguard enabled>bad performance and constant stutters. The game runs bad generally, but Gameguard makes it almost unplayable, completely ruining the experience for me.



Bots bypass it. Hackers bypass it. Google 'antigg.dll', it's not difficult to bypass at all. Anybody who wants to can with no effort at all. So everybody with malicious intent, like hacking, botting, or even the not so malicious, like modding, don't even deal with Gameguard - they just bypass it. Your legitimate users on the other hand, are suffering bad performance because of Gameguard, and yet you refuse to disable it, despite the fact that hackers bypass it, botters bypass it, and even modders bypass it. The people you're trying to target with it are not even affected by it. It's having a detrimental impact on the legitimate paying users, and you have people like Hime, fueling the fire with that disconnected response again.



And finally...



The way content is released:
The way NCWest is releasing content seems to be based on when that same content was released in other regions, rather than how much content there is to release. I think that is quite odd. I don't really know what to propose for this, especially with all the issues the game suffers from right now. I will say that, if the main two points were applied, a more practical release schedule would have been Warlock and Bloodshade at release. Mushin floors 1-8 and Naryu with legendary weapon in the following patch. Then Silverfrost, including part two with chapters 33-38 of the story, Chi Master, Cold Storage, Sundered Nexus, and the Floating Alter.



Chi Master for instance; surely it would have been more practical to have released that in the Silverfrost update. With the current concerns and issues, rerolling a new class is not many peoples' priority. As it stands it is the least played class in the other regions. I think those who want to play a new class have already reserved themselves to it. And the later you release it, the less likely they are to play the game now.



Closing notes:
Overall, my experience up to now on EU has been a mish-mosh of unpleasantness. I was one of the first to reach True Pirate (without use of the Currency Exchange) and True Siren Accessories. I was doing 4-man Bloodshade Harbor while everybody else was stuck at Profane. I feel as though the game offers not much reward for anything.



On the other regions' servers, it always feels like I have something to do, or something to aim for, that I enjoy doing. There are plenty of costumes, and many unique ones to do different dungeons for. There is a legendary weapon that I can invest into, have fun using, and be proud of having full stop, and with it I can solo dungeons for achievements and even rare drops. There is the new 24-man turtle instance. There is 6 vs 6 PvP, like Arathi basin. There is Arena with all current classes available (Chi Master), and the most recent balance patches, so everybody is able to perform to their full potential. There are skills to unlock that aren't even released here yet. There are more Mushin floors to enjoy (I've always loved that tower), and dungeons, so many dungeons.



On Chinese and Taiwan servers, there is no rush to catch up. Everybody (new characters and alts included) can basically get to a gear 'standard' in a short space of time that allows them to do most dungeons without issue, and this is due to numerous differences in how they handle their versions as opposed to NCWest.



NCWest's version of Blade & Soul is objectively speaking, crap. It's actually disappointing to see a game I love have its potential ruined like this.



Blade & Soul from its first reveal years ago has been a highly anticipated game, and has grown to success in every region that it has released in so far, including our own. If the financial earnings report is anything to go by, Blade & Soul seems to be the second highest earner to Lineage, so it isn't going anywhere soon, as long as there is some core playerbase that keeps spending money on it, just like Lineage.



If it's gonna be here for a while, at least take care of it NCWest. Don't make the experience a crappy one for the playerbase. Disable Gameguard. Fix progression. Fix the economy. Get all the classes released and the balance patches out. And give us content to do.



I really hope you sort the issues out NCWest.



/end

Best Soul Shield for level 50 players Blade and Soul NA

There are two really good soul shields you should be aiming for once you reach level 50. They are the yeti soul shield which you can get from Avalanche Den and the other one is the Scorpio Soul Shield which you can get from Awakened Necropolis. Both soul shields are really good depending on the type of player you are.


 If you're someone that wants as much crit as possible but doesn't care about having low health power, than I recommend going with the Yeti soul shield. On the other hand if you're more of a defensive player, that wants to have a lot of HP, than the Scorpio soul shield would be the best for you. Both soul shields are really good and you can mix and match them as you please to get maximum amount of stats for your character.


Friday, April 8, 2016

Blade and Soul NA: How to unlock hongmoon skills / secret techniques




Currently in Blade and Soul NA there are several different secret hongmoon tecniques you can unlock. You can unlock your LB (Left Mouse Button ability), your RB (Right Mouse button ability) and one utility spell depending on your class. Today i'll how you how to unlock them all.

Unlocking your Left-Click Hongmoon ability (LB) 

You will need the following items to unlock your Hongmon Left Click (LB) Ability. All of these items can be purchase from the achievement vendor granted you have 1250 acheivement points and 50 naryu silver in total.The hongmoon pellet is the only item that you cannot purchase from the achievement vendor. Instead you will either have to have your guild craft one for you. alternatively you can buy them from the pvp vendor in mushin's tower.

-Hongmoon Pellet
-Deep Sea Kelp
-Ocean Life Force
-Golden Honey
-Fog Mushroom
-Evil Spirit Root


Unlock a secret hongmoon skill by eating a Royal Zen Bean 


For this you will have to visit your local zen bean trader and purchase a Royal Zen Bean. This will cost you 5000 zen beans and the zen beans can only be earned by participating in arena pvp either 1v1 or 3v3. Even if you aren't a fan of pvp I highly recommend you do this because it's well worth your time. Also there are several daily pvp quests  you can pick up that will reward you a total of 600 zen beans when you've completed them all, so it's still worth it to try to do these especially if you wanna unlock one of your secret hongmoon skills.



So what skill does the royal zen bean unlock for your class? 
The following skills (with default key in bracket) can be learned by consuming a Celestial Bean:
T = Tier; S = Stage

Blade Master: Lightning Draw (4) T5S4
Force Master: Inferno (X) T5S2
Kung fu Master: Comet Strike (4) T5S2
Destroyer: Emberstomp (3) T5S4
Assassin: Shadow Slash (3) T5S2
Summoner: Rumblebees (RB) T5S4
Blade Dancer: Lightning Draw (C) T5S3
Warlock: Dragoncall tier 5

Alternatively you can press U to bring up your achievement page go to Character than go to skills to see which hongmoon skills you can unlock

Unlock a secret hongmoon technique by acquiring a HM SkillbookVolume 2


Another way to unlock one of your secret hongmoon skills is by acquiring a HM skill book. These are skill books that drop in certain 4 man dungeons (Bloodshade Harbor, Avalanche Den, The Awakened Necropolis).

These books are a rare drop and they only drop in 4 man dungeon mode however they are trade able so you will be able to purchase them at your local market place, but expect to pay a nice chunk of gold for them since almost everyone wants / needs them.

So what skill do these HM Books unlock for your class?

IThe HM Skill book from Bloodshade harbor will unlock the following skill for your class

Blade Master: Lightning Draw Tier 5, Stage 1, 2, and 3 
Force Master: Inferno Tier 5, Stage 1 and 3
Kungfu Master: Comet Strike Tier 5, Stage 1, 2, and 3
Destroyer: Emberstomp Tier 5, Stage 1, 2, and 3
Assassin: Shadow Slash (3) Tier 5, Stage 1, 3, and 4
Summoner: Rumblebees (RB)Tier 5, Stage 1, 2, and 3
Blade Dancer: Lightning Draw (C) Tier 5, Stage 1, and 2
Warlock: Dragoncall Tier 5, Stage 1, and Dragon Helix Tier 5, Stage 3