Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

2.58 Questing

When Flora entered the Cetviwos, a boxing glove smashed into her face. Nonetheless, she was happy. The part of her mind that housed her AIs was finally active again.

"Hello, dears. I missed you!"

"Welcome back, Milady."

*beep*

Flora dodged the next attack. She was in a boxing box on the simulation grounds because Eddie had told her about his offline training trick. There were two kinds of ways to log out. With the first one, your body vanished. With the second one, your body stayed in the Cetviwos. Eddie used only the second one and trained in a box while he played with his grandkid. He had learned about it while sailing. If you used the first method, your body reappeared at precisely the same coordinates. If your ship isn't there anymore, you had a very wet login experience.

Although Flora wasn't sure if the trick still worked with the patch, she didn't lose anything to try it out.

"Do you want to read the patch notes, Milady?"

"No. I absolutely don't want to. I want to ignore it... Can you give me a rundown on the points I can't ignore? It would help if you integrated a lot of toasters and toast."

"Of course, Milady. Your Toasters and almost everything, and everyone has more hitpoints according to their rating. This is important for the entourage selection because now A-rated candidates like Zander and Yl have a bigger advantage than B-rated candidates."

"I think good teamwork and the will to do your best counts for more than rating and stats."

"Nonetheless, the difference is quite pronounced. I estimate that Yl might have around 30k hit points at level 1 while Deriga might only have 5k."

"Burned toast! How much do I have now? And did the damage scale, too?"

"1801 HP, Milady. The damage formulas haven't changed."

Flora grinned. She still felt confident about winning a duel against Deriga. Okay, she thought she could take anyone.

"Generators in Toasters and other devices won't count towards their MR-bolster. Additionally, you have to invest more mana-regen at the lower tiers to reach the difficulty ratings."

"That sounds bad. Please explain it in more detail. MR-bolster is the thingy − can I call it a factor? – which makes companions better the more mana-regen I invest, right?"

"Yes, Milady. Before the patch, you needed to invest 30 MR for a C/Soldier-rated companion. Now, you have to invest 50 MR. They nerfed the companion playstyle for the lower levels but increased the effectiveness for the higher levels. If you were level 100 you had to pay less MR for the same effect than before."

"Okay, so they didn't make it worse; they only made it worse for low leveled players."

"Yes, Milady. That is relevant for you because now your It's a Trap-Turrets will only have 12 HP when you invest 1 MR/min in them like you used to."

"Burned Toast! They break if I sneeze at them! What about the Octopussy and the Mover?"

"230 HP for 16 MR for the Octopussy. 560 HP for the Accordion-Golem for 20 MR. 532 HP for the Mover for 32 MR."

"Okay, that's in the same ballpark as before. Wait, I'll get a 32 MR Establish Connection from a 20 MR Golem? The System said less."

"Actually, we leveled Establish Connection and Animate Companion to such a degree that I expected more. The implemented algorithm must have changed since we spoke with them. I suspect that the positive aspect came from the increased importance of the materials. I tested animating the Golly, and it has a lower mana-regeneration, but better physical stats."