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    • Summer 2021 Road map

      Patch 2.1.0 is a giant patch slated at making the server a significantly better place to play and aimed towards this summer. Patch 2.1.0 is aimed at taking flight this Summer period between the months of June and August; while there is no set date yet, there's a lot to look forward to here in this patch.

      While Patch 2.0.2 is rolling out across platforms soon at the end of this month, I want to take a moment to discuss what the future of Schthack will look like coming this summer and I hope that you enjoy what I have planned for you all soon.

      As a lot of you may know, this Spring event had something to be desired (well, a lot to be desired) and I'm sorry if I disappointed you with such a small event. It was to prepare myself and my team the Summer event which is going to be even bigger than the last one. Yeah, even bigger.

      You already know about the proposed non-rare weapon tunings coming in Patch 2.1.0 which touches base on a lot of the changes coming to low tier weapons for lower level players, but I want to touch base with you on some more item changes coming in the Summer that I'm excited for.

      First, and I know this probably deserves its own thread, but I am introducing to you the new changes coming to the Lottery & the Casino.

      The Lottery and the Casino have been a huge part of Schtserv for a long time and for a while the Casino used to be one of our defining features. The Casino has seen a lot of wear and tear over time and I hate to see it in this state much longer so here are some of the plans I have in store for both of these features coming in Summer 2021. By the way, these are the finalized rewards for the Casino and Lottery.

      Casino:

      Tier 1: WORKS JACKET (Max) [4 slot]
      Tier 3: Grass Assassins Sabers 54h
      Tier 5: Charge Slicer 58h
      Tier 6: Parasitic Cell Type D
      Tier 7: Excalibur 100h

      Lottery:

      1-8x Photon Drops
      1-13x Photon Crystals
      Mat Reset
      1-3x Mr. Naka's Business Cards


      I feel like its necessary to touch base with you all on a few things regarding the Casino items. As a precautionary measure to the Casino and trading, we will be blacklisting every Tier 7 reward from the Casino for every list. Other Tiers are subject to the ban in trading as well, but for the moment on this list specifically Tier 7 is banned from trading. The tiers for rewards get progressively harder to get because of the tickets necessary to obtain them. Good luck gamblers!

      Next point of focus is what's coming in the next patch for currencies. Currencies and materials are something that we have in high abundance but there's not a lot of ways to store them in. 99x materials in the bank and up to 10,000,000 meseta in bank, but after that, where do you put this stuff? You can only make so many characters. The solution I bring to you today are a thing called 'Bags' (yes very original).

      Bags are items in concentrate, meaning materials and meseta. There's also one for Photon Drops and Photon Crystals as well. The Bags are as follows:

      Power Mat Bag
      Mind Mat Bag
      Defense Mat Bag
      Evade Mat Bag
      Luck Mat Bag
      HP Mat Bag
      TP Mat Bag
      Money Bag (Meseta)
      Crystal Cluster (Photon Crystals)
      Photon Ticket (Photon Drops)

      The material bags and money bags will be exclusive to the Schtserv features. You can obtain an HP Mat Bag at the Casino at Tier 2 and a TP Mat Bag at Tier 4, Lottery will contain both Mind Mat Bag and Evade Mat Bag, Ult Boxes will contain the Luck Mat Bag and the Defense Mat Bag and there will be special quest drop events created specifically for Power Mat Bag and Money Bags respectfully. Photon Ticket doesn't have a source planned. All of these items can be traded in for their 99x counterparts, Photon Tickets will be 10->1 (Drops to Tickets) and will stack up to 99. Bags also stack up to 99x. Money Bag is 999,999 meseta to 1 Bag.

      All of these bags will continue to be exclusive to these features and will never be available via future (non designated) events or the drop tables. You can always turn in 99x of those materials for the Bags as well.

      Speaking of turning in materials, there's going to be a new quest coming in Summer. Its called Schtserv Exchange Corp, in this quest you can go to an NPC in Pioneer 2 and convert your Bags into materials and visa versa. You'll also find some special vendors there where you can spend some of those bags or other various currencies on special prizes and items exclusive to that quest. Bags themselves will go live only when this quest is out as to avoid giving people the ability to get Bags but with no source to turn them in. 

      In Schtserv Exchange Corp you'll be able to interact with a host of NPC's all eager to take your materials and money. As an exclusive feature, there's an NPC in there that has special non-rare weapons available for sale for Money Bags if you're wanting to add some flare to your arsenal with different colored non-rares with set specials and statistics. You will also find an NPC taken after me in Pioneer 2 where if you have a Letter from Varista, a new and illustrious but also mysterious item hidden randomly on the drop charts for each ID, you can turn in the letter for the exclusive weapon QUICKFANG. This weapon is tracked by the server, so when you turn in and a ticket and get the item you wont be able to get the item again on a per account basis. QUICKFANG is a Handgun with high power and accuracy with fixed stats. QUICKFANG will also be added to the trade ban list. 

      Additionally, we're going to be reigning in some trade restrictions that people may not be fond of. In Summer 2021, the trade ban on Photon Spheres will be lifted from the game server but if you wish to trade a Photon Sphere you MUST show a proof pic of the pick up banner. If you are selling another's Sphere, you must show their proof pic with their account Guild Card. Anyone found trying to trade a Photon Sphere(s) without these required identifications will be subject to account restriction or termination.

      For now, I leave you guys off on a high note. For my fellow players, fret not. The Armory has returned and with it...Ragnarok will rain fire.

      • Like 3
    • Greetings, it's good to see you guys again! I'm sorry I've been so silent lately. I've been hard at work trying to create a really solid Spring 2021 event and toying around with the Episode 4 drop tables.

      Recently, I've made a new quest of my own that I released not too long ago and it received an overhaul. If you are on the BB platform and want to try out a brand new Episode 1 quest, go look for The Gauntlet in the VR section. GC version coming soon!

      But what I am here to talk to you about today is a planned update that I've been working on for a long time. We've been wanting to fundamentally shift the importance of play on Schthack back to the way the game originally intended: through hunting. The game's fun cycle is built through spending the time hunting for the fun stuff. We've worked hard at creating a fun and involved weapon ecosystem where players can equip almost any rare weapon and succeed with them in the early, mid, and end-game of PSO. 

      On Schthack, I still believe in the personal responsibility of maintaining the fun and integrity of the original vision behind PSO's reward structure. I believe that keeping a healthy balance of time spent and personal satisfaction is key to keeping players returning over and over, day in and day out to keep getting that sweet sweet loot. For a long time now, Schthack has not delivered on that personal expectation until now. Coming in March* is an update to the Schthack loot boxes that have been slowly corrupting the gameplay loop of Schthack for years. Gone are now the days of waiting for the next loot box to drop for you in hopes of getting the best stats possible.

      With this update, I want to highlight a few key things I was trying to accomplish:

      1. Keeping players' primary focus on hunting the weapons they want.

      2. Making sure that the loot boxes were worth the time invested in obtaining them, even if they do not contain the best stuff in the game.

      3. Keeping the loot box inventory fresh and interesting over time.

      So, coming with this update are the following changes:

      1. Players can no longer receive stat rolls higher than 45% on weapons. Armors can still be maxed.

      2. Players no longer have to worry about the Epic Luck system requiring them to sometimes wait entire days until their section ID or character class is selected at max luck. Every player with any ID or class has the best chance at all times.

      3. Item inventories will now rotate every 6 months (twice a year) for both of the Loot box tiers.

      Additionally in accordance with the Ultimate Loot Box changes, the regular Normal-Vhard loot box has been changed as well. Now both boxes have the ability to roll for high quantities of materials and other currencies which are scaled depending on the box (obviously Ultimate will have higher amounts of materials than the regular box). Boxes are still on a per-character basis instead of a per-account basis daily, so taking advantage of each of these boxes could net you some interesting material gains if you're lucky enough.

      I mentioned percentages being capped at 45% and this was a decision that was made to reduce the overall quality of the items down. 45% is still a very good percentage to look for in weapons though. This change was implemented to prevent the boxes from having the best stat gear you could get (looking at you 90% Yasminkov 9000M's or Muramasa's) but keeps things at a reasonable level to where if you do manage to land a 45% hit weapon, you're gonna feel inclined to use it.

      Normal Loot Box stats are as follows: Base (Minimum) of 10% to a Max of 20% (hit included)
      Ultimate Loot Box stats are as follows: Base (Minimum) of 20% to a Max of 45% (hit included)

      Individual Box loot pools are as follows;

      The Box:
       

      Spoiler

      Item Pool:
      Durandal 
      Dragon Slayer 
      Cross Scar 
      Vjaya 
      Diska of Bravemen 
      Varista 
      Justy-23ST 
      H&S25-Justice 
      Final Impact 
      Fire Scepter: Agni 
      Double Saber 
      Soul Eater 
      L&K38 Combat 
      Caduceus 
      Ranger Field 
      D-Parts Ver2.10 
      Ranger Wall 
      RA Merge 
      V101 
      V501 
      Heavenly/Arms
      Heavenly/Power 
      Power Material x26 
      Mind Material x26 
      Evade Material x26 
      Defense Material x26 
      HP Material x26 
      Photon Crystal x13 
      Addslot x32 
      Mr. Naka's Business Card 


      The Ultimate Box:
       

      Spoiler

      Item Pool:

      Spread Needle 
      Holy Ray 
      Lavis Cannon 
      Chain Sawd 
      Yamigarasu 
      Monkey King Bar 
      Flight Cutter 
      Master Raven 
      Frozen Shooter 
      Summit Moon
      Yasminkov 3000R 
      Yasminkov 9000M 
      Demolition Comet 
      Ophelie Seize 
      Glide Divine 
      Luminous Field 
      Electro Frame 
      Standstill Shield 
      Gi Merge 
      Sniper/Arm 
      Power Material x53 
      Mind Material x53 
      HP Material x53 
      Luck Material x36 
      TP Material x36 
      Dark Doll x2 
      Kinetic Energy x2 
      Mr. Naka's Business Card x3 
       

      These loot pool changes allow us to not only keep high value and high rarity items rare and valuable through only acquiring them through hunts, but the small pool also allows us to have greater freedom when choosing weapons and armors for future rotations on the loot pools. 

      I hope that this infosplosion was helpful and great for you guys to read. This update will become available later in the month and will be announced ahead of time for you guys to know when it will be coming. Look out for several other updates on server features such as the Ship Lottery system and the long awaited Casino update. Thank you for reading.

      Yours truly,
      Varista

    • There's a new simulator quest in Episode 1 VR for anybody interested in playing a new quest. I can't share any more on it, I don't wish to spoil it. Have fun, and thank you all for your patience!

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