Battle

Spent your red and black orbs on things and are now itching to try out your abilities and gain more orbs? Battle is the only way you can do it, so let's talk about that.

You may have already seen this, but periodically the bot will be spitting messages out in channel that look like this:

That means a battle is about to begin. If you want to take part in the battle use the !enter command and you will be entered. As long as one player joins the battle, the battle will happen.

When the 90 seonds are up, a random type of battle will begin. Here are the three main types of battle:

Monster battle

The most common type. You will encounter a number of monsters, and must normally defeat them all to win the battle.

Orb Fountain Battle

This battle is simply to let players gain orbs. An orb fountain monster will join. The fountain can't fight back, so feel free to wail on it.

Boss Battle

One (or more) bosses will join the battle. Players have to work together to defeat this terrible foe. Upon victory, everyone who's still alive will receive a black orb, and the person who's the most stylish will receive an item (more on style later).

The battlefield and weather will change randomly. The weather depends on the battefield, and affects certain types of magical attacks. Then, the monsters will appear, and the battle will begin. When the battle begins you will see something like this:

The Battle Order shows everyone that's in battle and in what order they will attack. Take note of how the monsters' names are spelled and listed (i.e. if it has an underscore or not) as you'll use this spelling to attack them.

When it's a monster's or other NPC's turn, the AI of the bot will automatically control the monster and let it attack or use a technique.

When it's your turn you have a few options. Here are the commands:

/me attacks monster or !attack monster

This command will allow you to perform a standard attack using your equipped weapon. Some things to note here: some weapons have elemental properties that might affect the damage (some monsters are weak to certain elements) and some weapons may make more than one hit per attack. All single-hit weapons have a small chance of performing a double-hit attack in battle.

/me uses his/her/its technique on target or !tech technique on target
For example: /me uses his DoublePunch on Enchanted_Bones

This command will perform a technique you know with your equipped weapon, assuming you have enough TP to perform the technique. As with weapons, many techniques have elemental properties that might affect damage. There's also a lot of different kinds of techniques in this game. Included are status (like inflicting a target with poison), AOE (area of effect, hits all targets on the battlefield), magic (affected by the weather and elemental strengths/weaknesses), and suicide (kills the user).

/me goes boost|ignition

This is the command to use your weapon boost or your Ignition, if you have any. Weapon Boosts will not wear off on their own but are considerably weaker than Ignitions, which require IgnitionGauge to use and maintain. For an example of the weapon boosts: Zangetsu has the TensaZangetsu technique which is a boost. Once you learn the technique you can use /me goes TensaZangetsu when you have Zangetsu equipped to perform the boost. You do not need to keep the weapon on to keep the boost (so you can swap to Zangetsu, use TensaZangetsu, then swap back to any other weapon you own). For Ignitions you must first purchase one in the shop using black orbs, and you must purchase some IgnitionGauge (using red orbs). Your IgnitionGauge will fill up by +1 at the end of every battle and +1 every time you die. Once you have enough IgnitionGauge to use the Ignition, you use /me goes ignitionname to activate it. Every turn your IgnitionGauge will deplete and if you do not have enough to keep the ignition on, you will revert.

/me reverts from ignition

If you want to turn an Ignition off before your IgnitionGauge is empty, use this command.

/me sings songname

This is the command to perform a song that you know. Note that you don't need to supply a target with songs as the song itself will determine who it hits.

!use item on target

If you have any items and wish to use them, this is how you do it. For example, you can use a potion to restore some of your (or an allies') HP. To do that you would use !use potion on yournamehere/targetnamehere. Some items cannot be used on yourself (battle items) and some items can't be normally used on monsters (healing items can only be used on monsters if the monster is a zombie).

/me taunts monster or !taunt monster

This will cause your character to taunt the monster. Your character will gain +1 str and a bunch of style points for taunting, while there's a few different things that can happen to the monster. The monster may either gain str or int, or may actually lose a little str and int.

Or you can use a skill.

There's a bunch of different skills in this bot and they all have their own commands. I'll go into skills later on.

Now you can go out there and battle the forces of darkness.

At the end, win or lose, you will receive some red orbs for your efforts.

Here's a small note about monsters in this bot:
Monsters are leveled based on the current winning streak. And the amount of damage you will do to a monster is partially based on the level difference between you and your foe. If you're a higher level, you should be doing more damage to the monster, and vice versa. If you find yourself losing battles a lot, increase your four core stats (str, def, int, and spd) to increase your level and hopefully make the monsters easier to defeat

I'd just like to say.. don't sweat it if you die a lot at the beginning. At this moment the bot is a bit unbalanced and monsters can be pretty rough towards new characters. Plus there's a bunch of different types of monsters and some are harder than others (Final Guard, for example, has an extremely high defense and almost everyone will do 1 damage per hit to it). There's no penalty for dying, so just roll with the punches (as they say).

Second, if battles drag on too long a 'rage' system will kick in. This is a concept that the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI employed on some of its higher level monsters/bosses to ensure that people don't sit and hold monsters for days at a time. Basically what happens is when a time limit has been hit, darkness will cover the battlefield, boosting the monster to insane power to the point where no players will be able to defeat them. Because I want battles to be ongoing and frequent, I've done something similar. How long do players have to defeat the monsters? Well it varies depending on various battle conditions, between 10 turns to 25 turns for tougher boss battles. You can see how many turns you have until darkness hits by using !bat info. Also note that there is a special skill (Holy Aura) that can stop darkness for a few extra turns.

Status effects

There is a variety of effects that can be inficted upon characters in battle. Here's a description of them.

Poison

Takes off a fraction of your health each turn. It can stack twice.

Blindness, stun, staggering, intimidation, petrification and freezing in time

Renders the victim unable to fight for a turn. Certain monsters, including most bosses, will become staggered once they've taken a certain amount of damage.

Elemental damage

Spells of the fire, ice, lightning, water, earth or wind element will deal an extra 5 % of the victim's maximum health in damage on their next turn, if the caster's level is high enough.

Virus

Prevents the victim from using boosts for a few turns.

Charm

Gives the assailant total control of the victim for a few turns, causing them to attack themselves or allies.

Amnesia

Renders the victim unable to use their techniques or skills.

Paralysis and boredom

Prevents the victim from moving for a few turns.

Sleep

Prevents the victim from moving for a few turns, but they will wake up upon taking certain types of attacksc.

Drunkenness

Gives a chance that each of the victim's next few turns will fail.

Zombie transformation

Creates a weakness to fire and light on the victim, and causes healing effects to damage them instead, but also gives some health regeneration.

Reflect

A barrier that bounces a single magic attack back on its caster.

Confusion

Causes the victim to attack at random for a few turns.

Curse

Robs the victim of all TP, then prevents natural TP regeneration. The victim can still use Conserve TP or items, however.

Slow

Greatly reduces the victim's Speed for a few turns.

Strength Down, Defense Down and Intelligence Down

Lowers the said attribute to 1/4 of its normal level for a few turns.

Defense Up and Speed Up

Doubles the said attribute for a few turns.

Protect

Greatly reduces damage taken from basic attacks.

Shell

Greatly reduces damage taken from magic attacks.

En-Spell

Imbues the target's basic attacks with elemental power, which can cause victims the elemental damage effect, as well as increasing attack power against monsters weak to the element.

Ethereal

Grants immunity to most physical attacks for a few turns.

Auto Reraise

Revives the target with half their health the next time they fall.

Doll transformation

Reduces the victim's attack power and speed for a few turns.

Special battles

There are several special battle types, in addition to the main three described above. They are as follows:

Portal bosses

Special portal items can be purchased in the shop, via !shop list portals. When used, they will transport the heroes to a special battlefield to fight a powerful boss. Portal battles will not affect the Arena level, but defeating portal bosses is the main way to earn allied notes, and unique armour. Portal items can be used to escape battle, but not a boss battle.

Save the President

This is a subclass of the boss battle. If the Allied Forces President has been captured, the heroes may stumble across him, guarded by a boss army. If he is defeated, the battle will end in defeat, so protect him with everything you've got! Are you a bad enough dude to save the President?
However, defeat in this battle doesn't reset the Arena level.

Mimic

A mimic is a monster that disguises itself as a treasure chest. If a player uncovers a mimic, it will attack the heroes. Mimics are very variable in strength, and will drop a valuable item if defeated. However, should you fail to defeat the mimic, the Arena level won't be lost. You simply won't get the prize. So don't worry about challenging a mimic.

Special bosses

In addition to the bosses defined for the game, there are several special types of bosses that are generated on the fly, and can appear instead of normal bosses. These are detailed on the boss list page.

AI battle

This type of battle doesn't occur normally; it must be started by an admin. This type of battle, between two NPCs, is part of the Casino minigame, which is described on its own page.

Gauntlet

A special challenge that must be started by an admin, where players fight monsters continuously until they are defeated. The number of rounds cleared is recorded as part of the !battle stats. This can be tough, as not only is there no break in between battles to recover, but any monster in the game can appear.

Player vs. Player

This type of battle must also be started by an admin. As you'd expect, the players (and NPC, if any) that enter fight each other to the death. It has no effect on the Arena level, and doesn't award any orbs. It's just for fun.

Outpost defense

As battles take place, the monsters will prepare attacks on Allied Forces outposts. When one occurs, the Allied Forces will need to defeat five waves of monsters, including a final boss wave, to defend the outpost.

Outpost assault

As the Allied Forces win battles, they will prepare attacks on Dark Forces outposts. When one occurs, the Allied Forces must keep defeating monsters until the meter shown by !bat info empties to take the outpost.

Supply run

When the Arena has reached level 50, the Allied Forces will start occasional supply run missions, in which they must escort a wagon to their outpost to prepare for an attack against the Dark Forces. If the wagon is destroyed, the battle ends in defeat.

Dragon hunt

When the players' average level exceeds 500, dragons will start appearing. If left unchecked, the dragons will grow in level, and eventually they will attack and kidnap the shop NPCs. Players can search for a dragon's lair outside of battle using !dragon hunt. If they find one, a battle will be started against its dragon.

Torment

An especially tough battle challenge that players must have reached a level equal to 500 times the torment level to enter. It consists of four waves of powered-up monsters. Defeating them rewards challengers with special materials.c Anguish and Misery are even tougher Torment challenges that scale with the highest level player.