#* THREAD. ‘ it’s boeling down now. ‘

[theofficersacademy]

It’s May! We’re nearly halfway through the year! But more importantly, it’s the month of TOA’s annual Ethereal Ball event! Please keep reading for more information.

Housekeeping

Current Month in TOA: Ethereal Moon

We’ve added new missions to the Golden Deer mission board. Check them out here, but don’t forget that you need a Golden Deer-affiliated faculty or student to participate in the mission tasks.

The Ethereal Ball will officially begin on May 15th this year, but before that, we’re offering the opportunity for single individuals to signup for a blind dating mini event! Anyone who wants a date to the ball but hasn’t managed to get one yet can fill out a dating profile here. From May 8th until May 14th, participants will be shuffled and half will receive a single line from a random dating profile. They will have to try to guess who it belongs to from the list of potential suitors. If they guess incorrectly, they’ll receive a new line, and so on until they find their perfect match! More information will come on May 8th when the mini event officially begins.

We would also like to introduce a new beginner class: Recruit. This class can be accessed by achieving D rank in Authority, Heavy Armor, Riding, OR Flying. Upon mastery, it will grant Resistance+. If you qualify for this class, please send a message to the masterlist to claim it.

For those of you in our Discord server, we have now allowed all Members and Veterans to create their own events (Smash tournaments, Mafia, movie nights, liveblogging, Hunger Game sim, etc.)! To schedule an event, simply click the drop-down for the Officers Academy, then “Create Event.” Fill in the information and the notification will display at the top of all of the channels once you’re done. Other members can RSVP through the notification as well, so you can get an idea of who might be interested. If you wish to stream an event in our voice channel, set the event location as the #gamenighttext channel and a mod will open the voice channel when it’s time for it to begin. 

We would like to remind everyone not to reblog threads or asks from other members without adding anything to them unless they’re intended to be archived as thread/interaction closers. Bloating your archive with posts that aren’t yours makes checking activity at the end of the month more difficult for the mods.

Please don’t forget to leave feedback on our feedback poll for this month! Last month we received many good suggestions to improve BOEL and combat in the future. Feedback is an invaluable resource for making TOA the best community it can be; however, feedback is only useful when it provides explanations. Simple “Yes/No” responses to questions that ask for more are difficult for the mod team to use and don’t contribute much.

Combat Updates

The combat manual is currently being worked on for our next big combat event. Below are descriptions of the updates that have been made so far.

The Iron series has been updated. Iron weapons are balanced relative to the Iron Lance, which represents an average. The Iron Sword has one step higher accuracy for one step lower damage, and the Iron Axe has one step lower accuracy for one step higher damage. The Iron Bow is the ranged equivalent to the Iron Lance, and the Iron Gauntlets are intended to consistently output roughly the same amount of damage as the Iron Sword by attacking twice in a row. Since Iron weapons are received for free upon reaching rank D in their respective categories, they are used as the baseline for all other weapons.

The Steel series has been updated. Each steel weapon deals one step higher damage than their Iron counterparts for no change in accuracy or crit rate. These weapons are the most basic reward one can choose from the rank chart and are reliable to use.

The Training series has been updated. Every training weapon now has Increased Hit and Training damage. This ensures that weaponless new characters can manage to consistently deliver a small amount of damage no matter which type of training weapon they choose.

The hit rate categories have been updated. In the combat manual, each category shows the percent chance to hit (for example, Increased Hit shows 95 - 85%). These numbers previously included the chance of a barely hit, which made some weaker weapons more unreliable than they were intended to be. While the Iron Sword was listed as having an Increased Hit, in reality it had only a 65% chance to deal damage since its barely hits deal 0. The hit rate categories have now been changed to reflect the chance of landing a true hit, and the window to land a barely hit, in most cases, as been shrunk to balance the damage stronger weapons with low accuracy can deal on a barely hit.

A new hit rate category has been added: Broken Hit. This is the opposite to the Never Miss category and falls below Gamble Hit.

The wording for the Beginner class masteries (HP+, Speed+, Strength+, Magic+, Defense+, Resistance+) has been updated to be more clear about how they affect stats. HP+ will grant a 20% increase to HP in any setting, Strength+ and Magic+ affect base damage, Defense+ and Resistance+ are calculated after the attacker’s damage is calculated, and Speed+ grants a speed increase to the unit (Speed as a stat has been reconceptualized - more information below).

To be more comparable to the exponential damage increase that Strength+ and Magic+ grant to all weapons, thus making them more viable to bring to events even if your muse is a veteran, the damage reduction of Defense+ and Resistance+ has been increased from 0.5 to 1. We hope this makes these masteries more worth claiming and bringing to events.

The combat manual now has a section explaining each of the stats used in TOA’s combat. Most notable of these is the Speed stat, which is treated separately from the Avoid stat, and will grant a character the chance to attack twice in a turn once it reaches +6. This buff can be stacked with Avoid buffs, but only the Speed stat will grant the extra attack.

There is much more to be done, so stay tuned for future updates!

Other

May Mun Birthdays: Erica (3rd), Toca (17th), Elf (25th), Sam (28th)

May Muse Birthdays: M!Morgan (5th), F!Morgan (5th), Elice (6th),  Cynthia (14th), Linoan (17th), Luthier (17th), Seliph (24th), Chrom (27th), Siegbert (28th)

First-year mun anniversaries this month: Lucius (1st), Nel (4th), Nic (4th)

Second-year mun anniversaries this month: N (23rd)

First-year muse anniversaries this month: Elincia (4th) 

Second-year muse anniversaries this month: Leo (14th)

Muses who have been in the group for a solid year will also be granted an Academy Brooch to put in their inventory. It doesn’t do anything. It just lets others know your character has been around the block. These characters are also granted a new opportunity to change houses if they wish to do so.

- The House Leaders

#toa newsletter #may newsletter