March General Update

Hey there! We know things have been pretty quiet here on the News page outside of our regular annual events, so this news post was put together to let ya'll know what we've been working on & consolidate some changes. We have some general updates for you all, including some gene updates, system changes, and looking to the future, and more. Get comfy, this is a long one.

Gene Updates

After several discussions, we've decided to update some rules around a few genes to better reflect current design rules and bring a few genes in line in function with other similar genes. We've also added some new smaller gene interactions in an official capacity. Below are the listed genes, the changes, and our reasoning for making those changes where applicable, along with the interactions.

Vapor

Vapor can now have an unlimited number of bright colors

This is a big change that was the result of several discussions over time. The admin team has decided to remove the numerical color restrictions on Vapor. We have a few reasons for doing so, including being able to mimic real life nebulae with more accuracy. So if you really like the Rosette Nebula or Eagle Nebula, you could potentially recreate them on your ketucari! The other major reasoning was that functionally, you could already make a lot of colors by layering/mixing the within the 3 color limit as long as the original 3 were distinct somewhere. This bleeds back into the earlier point of being able to mimic various nebulae as a marking. The other major point is that during design approvals, Vapor hasn't been held strictly to the 3 color rule. Hence, we're dropping the limit.

Radiance

Radiance by default now allows for two  colors to be used in the marking

This is to bring it in line with other any color genes such as Vent, and allow for interesting effects with other markings and mutations!

Blaze

Blaze can now cover up to 60% of a ketucari

The 25% minimum is still in place, but the hope is this allows for more design freedom with the gene.

Luster

Luster can now restrict to Fondue

When Fondue was first made, Luster was overlooked as a gene restrictable to Fondue. When this was found we agreed to let Luster restrict to it.

Spotting + Speckling & Spotting + Moonspots

Spotting and speckling may now interact by officially allowing them to overlap each other's sizes when both are present together.

Spotting and Moonspots may now officially form larger clusters of spots when both are present together.

This one is a twofer and was suggested to allow these different spotty/patchy to officially be allowed to overlap and form clusters together. This was already partially allowed in some circumstances, but this makes these interactions official allowances and to cluster to greater extent.

Pale

Pale has gotten an inheritance pass rate bump. Its new base pass rate is now 40%

Darker Than Marking Update

This is something that's been in practice for awhile in design approvals, but wound up poofed from the main design page. Markings that can be darker than the base coat can increase in saturation by a reasonable amount for the base coat. Like it was mentioned before, this has been in practice for awhile and saturation levels will be continued to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

Regarding Guides

Not all of these changes have been updated in their relevant guides yet along with getting the rest of the new wanderer gene guides up. We've been busy behind the scenes with several things at once while our admin team has also had a lot of things going on in our personal lives so we've fallen behind in this regard. We'll get these updated ASAP, so keep an eye out. 

These changes are available now for use in designs.

Matchmaker Update

You may have already seen it, but for matchmaker this year we decided to allow players to "rent" a starter or use another player's ketucari with permission for the breeding portion of Matchmaker if they don't have any uploaded ketucari with Breeding Eligibility. We decided to allow this so new players are still able to fully participate in the event.

Some Big System Stuff

We have a few big things we're working on related to the game, and here's a few that we're able to share with you all now.

Lorekeeper Porting

So, if you have a ketucari you've submitted activities for recently who's also uploaded on DeviantArt and our website you may have noticed that their activity comments have been ported over to the site. We've been focusing on ketucari who are actively being used/ played, but we will eventually be porting over all activity threads to the site. This will need to be done by hand and we have quite a few kets with long and storied histories, so it'll be a long project. Once a ketucari's activities have been ported to the site, we will no longer be updating their DeviantArt imports outside of breeding slots.

Regarding breeding slots, they'll be ported over to the site, and we plan on updating both locations when slots are used. This is so that way records are all in one place (the site) while recognizing that not all past written slots are owned by people who are on the site. We do ask that if you're sold/traded/given a slot by someone who doesn't have an account and it's on the ketucari's dA import, to please let admins know in our discord so we can get that information updated.

Database Import Number Updating

If you've been here awhile, you may have heard about our Import Database. This is the reference sheet we use when rolling various activities that has information such as stats and skills. Awhile back import numbers fell behind the number of ketucari that are actually in game, and this was discovered when initially putting ketucari on the site. At the time the focus was on getting all existing ketucari onto the site, so it was left be for the time being. The reason this is important is we need the import ID that your ketucari has in the database when rolling, otherwise it'll pull the wrong stats for a different ketucari. 

This is one of the reasons why we have still required players to link both site imports and DeviantArt imports when submitting activities. With the porting of ketucari activity threads to the site, this need has become more pressing.

What we're doing about this now is going back from the last import ID mismatch in the database between the site and DeviantArt and working back to the oldest ketucari with that mismatch. We're doing it in this order so that way there aren't any issues with the roller trying to pull stats for two different kets with the same ID. 

At this time activities that require the database for rolling are on hold until this update is finished. You may still submit activities, they just won't be rolled until it's done. Quests and skills are unaffected and will be processed as normal.

Players don't need to do anything at this time, but you may inquire how far back we've gotten with IDs if you're curious. We'll make a new announcement when this process is finished. 

Alchemy + Archaeology Crafting Update

Some of you may remember that our Alchemy crafting discipline got a fresh new coat of paint last year, making utilizing it both more acessible and making the crafting process feel more like, well, crafting! We also had an update to the artifact pieces system, so that the different pieces are interchangeable. What this looks like is that pieces 1/X are now the default ones that drop from our loot tables, and for crafting you only need however many of those pieces for that particular item.

As an example, how this looks is that you no longer need Ancient Medallion parts 1/3 + 2/3 + 3/3 to craft an Ancient Medallion. 

For more in depth information on these changes please see the Crafting Rebalance Update news page for these changes. We decided to include this information in this update to catalogue what we've worked on in the last year and for returning players who may not be aware of these changes yet.

Site Shuffling

You may have noticed a few things have been moved into the navigation menus and shuffled around! We're working on getting other parts of the site linked up in the navigation menu. We hope this makes finding key areas easier. If you find any broken links please let us know!

Future System Updates

While we don't have anything we can show here today, we wanted to let you all know that we have some other planned system updates, including what's looking to be a complete overhaul of an existing system. We also have some new additions planned that we're excited to show you all when they're closer to being ready for the game!

You're Talented!

If you've been keeping an eye on the Magic and Skills page you'll see that we've added two new talent skills that'll give you benefits in battles! We have some other things we're preparing for you all, but these are the ones that we're ready to release to the player base.

Beast Tamer

Your ketucari has a chance to pacify a creature during battle, guaranteeing they will take home a pet. (passive skill)

Dodge Roll

Your ketucari has the chance to avoid taking damage if an attack hits during a battle. During a raid the attack does half damage. (passive skill)

Events

There's a couple events coming up, both annual and player driven. Here's a brief rundown of what we're looking forward to.

What a Load of Shift!

This April will see the start to our well loved What a Load of Shift event (WaLoS).

We look forward to seeing you all there if you want to participate, and we hope our new players have fun with our take on an April Fool's event that lasts all month long!

The Gods are Displeased...

We've been keeping an eye on the Zone Status page and it hasn't escaped our notice that the Viridian Tangle and Jordskarn have crossed the 200 point mark for triggering a raid! Whatever ketucari are in the activity that tips the zone over the 250 point mark will gain the Harbinger title...

When this happens we'll make an announcement with the acitivity submission and ketucari that have tipped the zone into a Raid, earning the Harbinger title.

We haven't had a raid in nearly two years now, and we've had some new and returning faces since then. As a quick cliffnotes; when a zone reaches 250 points it will be unavailable to adventure in once the announcement is made and will be marked as closed. The raid event will be prepared on our end, and when it's ready we'll announce the start of the raid and post signups! Feel free to check out the Raids page to get an idea of what prep you may need or want to do to participate!

To Be Announced...

As we mentioned earlier, we have a couple events in the works that aren't raids or our regular annual events. While we can't share too many details with you all, they're bound to be out of this world...

Conclusion

There's been a lot going on since we last had a major news update like this, so we wanted to make this announcement to keep you all in the loop of what we've been working on, new changes that go into effect, and future plans!

-Much Love, the Ketucari Admin Team