Curtain Call

by Maltet
Curtain Call
A Journey to the West inspired role-playing game
ID:2280079
 

Curtain Call Guide

Hello, and welcome to the game ... or back if you're here to revisit something you may have missed! This is a basic guide that I hope will cover the fundamentals of the game and, hopefully, leave you with something you might have not known before. Feel free to skip this introduction if you know how to play, but make sure you at least see what kinds of things we cover before you skip over everything all together.

What is roleplay?

Roleplay is creating a character and acting as if you are them. I'm sure that the idea of roleplay doesn't need much explaining, but it is important to keep in mind that this game is roleplay oriented. More so than the kinds of games Tens (the creator of Finale) makes these days. I don't mean to scare anyone off, but if the idea of restraining yourself from killing people just because you think it would be cool or fun sounds like a bad time, or maybe acting out as a someone else seems boring, then maybe this game isn't for you.

The rules of the game are listed under the rules command, but looking through all of them can seem daunting if you've never played a game like this before. It's fine to look over them as you go along, and if you're confused on a rule it's perfectly fine to ask an admin on the matter. if you ever need to ask an admin a question or request their help you can use the "Admin Help" verb, but be careful not to spam it, and make sure you're clear on what you need.

The most important rules are involving negative actions, such as stealing, combat and killing. If you find yourself in a situation that may warrant that, make sure you read the rules before going through with it to make sure you're not breaking any rules.

With that out of the way let's get on with the good stuff: Character Creation.

Character Creation

So, you want to make a new character? There are a lot of races in this game, some of which are not immediately available or not available to players at all outside of admin intervention. It's important that you look through the race list and see if there's anything in the list you might want to play. Selecting a race gives you a general idea of what kind of race you'll be playing as, giving you a description that might not always be accurate, depending on the wipe's direction and story.

It is imperative that once you select your race you come up with a good build for your character. All too many times I see people just put in whatever and say, "Yes, this is fine." and then proceed to get decked by everyone in the game.

"But I thought you said this was RP!" you cry. Yes, but it also has a PVP system in place. It doesn't matter how well you can RP if you can't at least back your skills up a little bit. There will always be people who say they're just trying to create a good RP experience. I get it, I really do. What I don't like to see though is someone who creates roleplay getting killed by their enemies because they decided to put all their points into something nonsensical, which is even worse if these people end up as ranks.

"But I just want to put points into what I find is cool" - that's nice and all, but please, be considerate to the people out there who don't want to have to worry about "that guy" of the group and learn that the demon lord put all his points into defense as a large because it was "too low." If you create cool RP and then die the moment someone shows up, you're probably going to let some people who enjoyed that RP down.

Here are the fundamental basics of making a build: Don't put points into low stats that aren't offense. Put points into mods that are already high. Accentuate your strengths rather than focus on the low stats you may have. Not every race or size was designed to be good at everything. That conveniently segways into my next point: Sizes.

In this game, there are three sizes that most races (but not all) can choose from. These are: Small, Medium, and Large. Each size has its own benefits and its own stat mods, and not every race will have similar stats for each size. What you can expect in general from each size is an increase and decrease in each stat. If we consider Mediums the balanced normal size, then smalls would be squishy characters that are speedy, good at force, recovering from damage and from energy loss, evading, and accurately hitting the enemy... however they can't hit very hard physically or take a hit very well. When they do get hit, they typically get hit hard. Larges on the other hand are slow. They're typically not good at force, not good at hitting or dodging attacks consistently, they don't recover or regenerate quickly either. If you want to be a fast character you might wonder "Why even play as a large?" Well, because they hit like a truck. Larges can take damage like they can dish it. They might not be able to power up as fast as smalls, but they're fierce damage dealers and are not to trifled with.

Now that you know what sizes are and have a general idea of what kind of builds accompany them, it's time to explain what stat mods are and what the stats themselves do.

Major Stats

In this game, there are 11 main stats that affect your performance in combat. From top to bottom on your status tab they are: Battle Power, Energy, Strength, Durability, Speed, Force, Resistance, Offense, Defense, Regeneration and Recovery. These stats play a role in combat, and some of them play a role outside of combat. It's important that you know what they do, and how effective they are. I'll tell you what they do, give my opinion, and from there it's up to you to decide whether it's a stat you care about. But first let's briefly talk about the difference between stats and mods.

Stats are the number that's factored into equations. Sometimes the mod will be brought up such as when speed, regeneration or recovery are involved. Speed, Regeneration and Recovery cannot be increased; however, they may be affected by various other factors such as buffs. Otherwise these stats remain the same as what they were when you made your character. Stats are based off the mod that's attached to them. Mods exist as an amplifier of sorts, though not a direct one. When training you will gain stats, and the stats gained per tick will be influenced by the method of training as well as the mod. There are other factors, but the most important thing to take away from this is that the higher your mod is the easier it is to raise that stat higher. Keep in mind this is a general explanation and that it's not perfect, as there's a lot of information I can't tell you right off the bat. With that out of the way let's touch on what the stats do.

  • Battle Power: Unlike every other mod on this list, the mod cannot be altered on character creation. The mod is solely determined by what race you chose when you made. The stat is increased by doing virtually everything, some things more effective than others. Everything bar things speed, recovery and regeneration related will affected by Battle Power, making it one of the most important stats, and an easy one to identify. There are two ways to compare battle power to someone: Sense and Scanners. You can get a numerical value from scanners but sense will only return a percentage. Battle power acts as a straight multiplier for the effectiveness of your actions and those done against you, so keep that in mind. Battle power isn't everything however. Battle power without stats is just as worthless as stats without battle power.
  • Energy: This stat starts off low but only gets higher. Most actions use up energy, so be careful to make sure you have enough energy to last in a fight. For most builds, you won't need to raise this stat, but if you plan on making a force build or a power up build, it's worth considering if you think you can make full use of it.
  • Strength: Determines how much damage your physical attacks do. It also determines how strong your grabs are and how difficult they are to escape. Honestly, I think this stat speaks for itself.
  • Durability: Determines how much damage you take from physical attacks. Not much else to say!
  • Speed: Finally, a stat worth talking about. Speed does a variety of things, but first and foremost it obviously makes you faster. The higher this stat is, the faster you will attack physically, the stronger Zanzoken will be, the faster your ki charge times are, and the stronger Dash attack will be. Speed is a stat worth considering at any rate.
  • Force: Same with Strength, but for Ki attacks instead. Determines how strong energy based attacks are by a handful.
  • Resistance: Resists Ki attacks.
  • Offense:Determines your ability to hit other players. Should always be a decent amount of points that you put into. Affected directly by the invisible Zanzoken mastery stat regardless of whether you have the skill or not.
  • Defense: Helps you dodge attacks! Doesn't work into every skill, so be careful of beams and other skills that don't take it into account.
  • Regeneration: Helps you get HP back faster and helps you get up from KO faster.
  • Recovery: Helps you get Ki back faster and affects how fast you power up. So, if you have a recovery of 3x, you'll gain 3% of power every tick. Also lowers the drain on some forms.
  • Power percent: Although you may overlook it, this is an important stat that will have the biggest role out of every stat out there. You can power up to increase it. You can power down to decrease it. You can die to lose your body and have limited access to it. If you're a child you won't have full access to your full power either, and it will be all visible to you in the status bar near health and energy percent. When powering up it will also tell you how much additional power percent you have from powering up. Useful so that you can keep your power and energy drain in mind, as energy drain determines how much power is available to you as well. Using up all your energy will leave you weak and vulnerable. Having low health percent will also leave you vulnerable. While Anger can nullify your health percent's effect on your power and give you a sizeable boost to power, energy will still play a role. Keep that in mind when playing. Unique to androids alone, their power is not affected at all by Health or energy percent. They are always at 100% power, so keep that in mind if you ever choose to play them. Androids, however, may never be angered.

And that wraps up every major stat there is. Before we continue, I would like to touch on Magic and Technology and minor stats. We'll start with minor stats.

Minor stats

  • Experience: Probably the most important stat you can't see. It affects your BP growth directly, and is leeched instantaneously from sparring someone. This stat is increased by training of all kinds, some more than others. If you see someone strong, or you just logged on for the first time in the day, you may want to spar.
  • Zanzoken Mastery: Above you may recall I touched on a stat called "Zanzoken Mastery". "Zanzoken mastery? But I don't have the skill!" you say confusedly. Well, Zanzoken mastery used to be a stat that only increased by training Zanzoken, but that system proved to be too strong with people hoarding the skill. As such just training by sparring or punching a pbag will give you a small amount of Zanzoken mastery. The stat caps out at 1000, so don't feel too worried if you don't have it too high. The stat is a flat multiplier to your offense and defense, so if you just made and are wondering how someone is managing to hit your sick nasty only defense build, it may be because you don't have much Zanzoken Mastery.
  • Skill Mastery: Most skills can be mastered by using them. Some things that aren't skills can be mastered too. Fly can be mastered, Swimming can be mastered. If something can be used, it can probably be mastered. Mastering a skill means it will be more efficient. Maybe it charges faster. Maybe it costs less energy to use. Before judging a skill immediately, try using it more. You might be surprised to find it's not mastered. Not all skills are masterable. Some skills come mastered. If you're unsure, ask an admin.
  • Zenkai: Every race has a Zenkai mod. When knocked below 50% or knocked out, you will gain more battle power for getting your ass whooped by a tough opponent. Some races have higher mods, some have lower.

Technology and Magic

These two systems group together nicely because they share many similarities. Obviously, you can tell the difference between them based on their names, but they have fundamentally similar systems, with each having an efficiency mod, and a level up system that determines what items you can make, and how well you can upgrade them. To make things easy, I will refer to Resources and Mana as "Cash", as they are both currencies used for their own respective system.

  • Efficiency: Also known as your intelligence mod and magic mod. They determine how much cash is required to make something, how effective putting cash into something like Armor is. You can Enhance magic items, where as you Upgrade tech items. Sometimes these terms are interchangeable, but keep this in mind when improving gear. Efficiency also determines how much experience is required per level. Someone with a 4x intelligence mod will level up twice as fast as someone with a 2x mod because their required EXP is half as much starting out.
  • Resources: You can get this by digging or by using drills. Digging is effected by hand drills and shovels, and is required to start setting up drill farms.
  • Mana: Acquired by meditating, and is effected by sitting one magic circles or having a magic book in hand. Pylons, which are basically magic drills, will pull you in mana every so often, so try to set those up when you can.
  • Resource pools: Although I said I'd refer to these two terms as Cash, it feels more natural to refer to them as resource pools. Resource pools exist on every single planet in the game. Some planets have multiple, and some only have one pool. Some planets have more resources per pool. Pylons and Drills can be placed inside of these areas with separate pools to extract their cash. But why bother with that? Resources are limited. They start off high and quickly dwindle as you draw from them, only restoring resources after a reboot, or after a month tick. You may wonder why someone else has all the cash in the world. Well, it's because they have drills or pylons in different pools, gathering up more cash than you. The more people that are concentrated into a single pool, the less likely you are to get -any- resources out of that pool. Be smart about it. Experiment and figure out where pools are. I would touch up on them within this guide, but we're likely to change where pools are in the future, which would make this guide dated. Also on an ending note, do not put drills or pylons on player built tiles. Leave them on natural tiles. Building tiles over an area destroys their resource pool by designating that area as "Inside", even if you rebuild ground or grass tiles over it.
  • Level ups: In the future, we may have a way of showing you when you get what magic or tech item, but we don't quite yet. All I can say is that they determine upgrade levels and when you unlock new items.

Skills

Now that we've explained the basics of tech and magic, we can move on to mechanics. I'll be explaining some skills, while not touching on others. I will be leaving Expand and Focus out of this guide, as they do exactly what they advertise. Skills like Zanzoken on the other hand...

  • Zanzoken: This ability allows you to warp around by clicking the ground. It also allows you to warp around players while attacking. Damage is reduced while warp is active, so if you don't like the reduction, you can disable it until needed. Damage for this skill is determined by reducing the normal damage you would do by 10, and then multiplying it by speed mod. So a person with a 4.5x speed mod would be dealing 45% of a normal attack every time they warp around their opponent. This may not seem too impressive, but the ability allows you to attack rapidly, can be crazy strong in the right hands. Just keep in mind that Zanzoken is not right for every fight, and that it can be walked out of.
  • Ki Fist: Allows you to use a portion of your force stat for your physical attacks. As of right now, it doesn't go well with Zanzoken, so please avoid doing it. Every time you use an attack Ki fist will use up 0.5% of your energy total, so attacking fast is a bad idea. Don't do it. The damage this skill hits the target's resistance rather than endurance. All physical damage that would be done with your attack will still hit endurance, even with this on. It's only your force that hits resistance.
  • Power Control: Increases your power percent based on your recovery mod. For every % over 100% you go your energy will drain based on how much power you have. You will not recover energy when using this ability, just like you do not with Focus, so be careful about your strategy. This affects your BP directly, so it's a very strong technique. It's just one that you need to be cautious with.
  • Dash Attack: It's a normal attack that rushes you forward. Damage is amplified by speed, and accuracy is amplified by how many tiles traveled. It's 5% additional accuracy per tile traveled, so if you're having difficulties hitting someone, this may help.

Training

You may have some confusions regarding training. That's perfectly fine, that's what I'm here for. I won't give any numbers I'm not confident on, and a lot of this game leaves me perplexed myself, but I feel I should share what I do know. The best way to catch up with people by far is sparring. It has crazy catch up gains for BP, stats, and you can even leech energy. However, if you're on your own your training is a lot different.

The train verb affects strength and endurance alone, and is the favorite verb of larges everywhere. It gives decent enough gains, but won't yield you any energy using it.

The meditate verb affects force and resistance, and gives you a bit of energy too. How much BP it gives is directly tied to the meditation mod you have. If your stat focus is set to intelligence or magic, you won't gain any stats at all, and your energy gains will be lowered.

Pbagging is an effective way of training energy and your stats. It gives fair BP, even better when accompanied by flying. Doing it in water gives higher energy gains than standard pbagging, and using super fly slightly increases your battle power gains, so if you have the energy to do it, then go for it.

And... that's it for now! If you have any requests for the guide, please notify the admins or drop a suggestion in the Discord. We're constantly trying to improve the game, and hope to keep the players in the loop.

I saw many paragraphs, I closed BYOND :s
What generation of zeta rip are we on now? Is it over 9000 yet?