Here is the official announcement thread for the Winter Festival of 2019!
Festival Begins: Monday, December 23rd at 10:00 AM
Forum Games End: Sunday, January 19th at 11:59 PM
Festival Zone Closes*: Sunday, January 26th at 11:59 PM
Festival Ends: Wednesday, February 12th at 11:59 PM
* = The Howling Pass and Snow Wars will Close at this time
Festival Bulletin Board
The Winter Festival is when Sylestians take time to give and share with their friends and family. It is an especially celebrated time of the year because it marks the yearly return of the Griffis! Over the next few weeks, you can participate in many various activities to obtain unique rewards, to find unique pets, and to, most importantly, have a lot of fun!
Happy Holidays from Sylestia!
Diamond Sale
https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=84192#forumtop
We will be having a Diamond Sale running through Sunday, January 5th.
Visit the link above to see everything that's available both during the sale and for the duration of the Winter Festival!
Lots of New Pet Traits!
These aren't in quite yet, but we do have a lot that should be in game sometime this week. This includes a new Restricted Trait Set for Griffi (Monarch Frostfeather) and for Ny'vene (Frost Dragon).
Themed Pet List
https://www.sylestia.com/festival/festival_winter/themed_list/
Visit the page above to see all of the available Themed Pets from this year's Winter Festival!
The Howling Pass, Festival Zone
https://www.sylestia.com/explore/newzone/?zone=thehowlingpass
This zone is recommended for players using pets of Level 10 and above!
The above will take you to The Howling Pass, which is the Festival Zone for the Winter Festival. Please note, if you are exploring another zone in Astryl's Vale, you will have to exit the zone first. If you are in a battle, you will have to finish your battle first.
The zone is currently host to 34 Wild Themed Sylesties (17 of which are new this year), 12 different Named, Wrapped Presents, Sylesti Nests, and hidden Treasure Chests! The Howling Pass is located in the snowy plains north of the Umbra Forest region and home to many mysteries!
Many items can be collected from The Howling Pass, including many exclusive Avatar Items, Frost Essences, Ice Sculpting Supplies, Snow Wars Items, and Frost Tokens!
I have also completely changed the back-end code for how the game determines Avatar Item drops. While you probably won't notice too much of a difference at this point, the new system greatly increases my ability to adjust drop rates compared to how it was prior. Basically, prior, a die is cast and there was an order of precedence for determining if a drop. If one hit, the rest would be ignored. This made drops cascade-like and basically, if I adjusted the drop rate of one set of items, it would affect all of the others. This has always made it very difficult to tweak drops and get things exactly right.
The new system now instead piles each set of items into their own pools and rolls them all independently with each die cast. This means you could potentially get a handful of items all at once - one from each pool.
Obviously, it's a new system, so it's going to take some work to adjust and get it just right. However, it should be a lot easier to do that moving forward.
Sylesti Ice Sculpting
https://www.sylestia.com/festival/festival_winter/sylesti_sculpting/
While I wouldn't necessarily call Sylesti Ice Sculpting a brand new feature, it technically is brand new to the Winter Festival in this format. Instead of being the odd one of the bunch, we have now brought the Winter Festival up to speed with its very own 'pet growing' feature!
Unfortunately, due to severe time constraints, I didn't quite get the chance to customize the feature and make it have its own twist like I intended to. So for this year, it basically works identically to how the Fall Festival's Sylesti Brewing feature works.
Next year, the plan will be to adjust it some so that it's more of a unique feature and not just a clone.
All players will start out with 3 Free Pallets to use. You can always purchase additional one-time use Pallets for Diamonds, Gold, or Frost Tokens! To begin sculpting, just click on your Pallet and purchase an Ice Block. After that, you will need to infuse a Frost Essence with your Ice Block, which will determine which Themed Pet that the Ice Sculpture will produce when completed. You can find Frost Essences by participating in almost any of the Winter Festival's features or by purchasing them directly from the Festival Shop or the Diamond Shop.
Please note, some Frost Essences are marked with "Aged". This means that is was a Themed that was available from the previous year.
Once you have your Ice Sculpture started, you will need to watch over it and keep it in good condition. Occasionally, the Ice Sculpture will decline in condition and you will have to use an Ice Sculpting Agent to repair it. Doing so will decrease the amount of time that the Ice Sculpture take to complete.
There are also Quality and Bonus measurements. Preventing your Ice Sculpture from having lingering Conditions and continuing to counteract Conditions will improve its Quality. If you keep your Ice Sculpture at Perfect Quality, it will receive a Bonus every hour. If an Ice Sculpture has certain amounts of Bonuses by the time it is completed, it will receive up to two special bonuses to the resulting Themed Pet! This may be a tad confusing, so I will try to break it down further.
There are four different tiers of Quality:
Normal: Slowest rate of Hourly Progress and Agent Progress towards completion. No Hourly Bonus. No Agent Bonus.
Good: Double rate of Hourly Progress towards completion. Slowest rate of Agent Progress towards completion. No Hourly Bonus. No Agent Bonus.
Great: Triple rate of Hourly Progress towards completion. Double rate of Agent Progress towards completion. No Hourly Bonus. Single Agent Bonus.
Perfect: Quadruple rate of Hourly Progress towards completion. Double rate of Agent Progress towards completion. Double Hourly Bonus. Single Agent Bonus.
Using an Expedient Sculpting Agent on an Ice Sculpture will increase all Hourly and Agent Progress and Bonuses by 300% until the Ice Sculpture is completed.
If a Condition is ignored for too long, then every Hour an Ice Sculpture's Quality will decrease by one tier until settling back at Normal.
Each Ice Sculpture can unlock two Bonuses. This can easily be tracked in the list of information for each Ice Sculpture. For any Ice Sculpture, the first Bonus is an additional boost to the resulting Themed Pet's Statistics; equal to two additional Ranks of using Frosty Fairy Dust. For Majestic Frost Essences, the second Bonus is an additional two Ranks boosted to Statistics. However, for all other Frost Essences, the second Bonus is an additional Carried Trait to an empty slot.
Furthermore, you can also use Ice Sculpting Additives to alter characteristics about your Themed Pet!
Exceptional Ice Water: The completed Ice Sculpture will be a 3-Visible Pet (2-Visible if Majestic).
Greater Ice Water: The completed Ice Sculpture will be a 2-Visible Pet (1-Visible if Majestic).
Lesser Ice Water: The completed Ice Sculpture will be a 1-Visible Pet (2-Carry if Majestic).
Expedient Sculpting Agent: Removes the waiting period between incurred conditions. This allows repeated application of Ice Sculpting Agents until the Ice Sculpture is complete. Additionally, triples both the passive growth and the Ice Sculpting Agent growth until completed, as well as Bonus gained if in Perfect Quality. These can only be used once that specific Themed Pet has already been created once by anyone on the Site.
Frosty Fairy Dust: Boosts the Base Stats of a Pet by 100 Health and 5 Str, Int, Dex, and Agi. Can be used four times. Requires 2 per use.
Frosty Jewel: Allows you to guarantee a Visible Trait in a specific eligible slot. Requires 2 per use.
Super Chilled Ice: Guarantees that a Visible Trait will have a hidden Carried Trait. Requires 2 per use.
Blue Frosty Coating: Guarantees that the Pet will be a Male. Requires 6 per use.
Pink Frosty Coating: Guarantees that the Pet will be a Female. Requires 6 per use.
There are a total of 49 unique Themed Pets available from Sylesti Ice Sculpting. There are 5 Restricted Trait Majestic Themes, 16 Fabled Themes, and 28 Regular Themes.
Lastly, there are a handful of unique Titles available from Ice Sculpting!
Premier Ice Carver: Awarded to the first player who collects the very first Pet from Ice Sculpting.
Majestic Ice Carver: Finish a Majestic Ice Sculpture.
Fabled Ice Carver: Finish all Fabled Ice Sculptures.
Ice Carver: Finish all Regular Ice Sculptures.
Frosty Grandmaster / Frosty Grandmistress: Complete the Ice Sculpting '25 Sculptures' Task.
The Perfectionist: Finish an Ice Sculpture with 2 Bonuses.
Frosty Hands: Use Ice Sculpting Agents on other players' Ice Sculptures 25 times.
Frost Essence Exchange
https://www.sylestia.com/festival/festival_winter/essence_exchange/
This feature allows you to exchange unwanted Frost Essences for specific Frost Essences you are wanting.
You can directly exchange Melted Frost Essences for higher quality Melted Frost Essences or specific Frost Essences. You can receive Melted Frost Essences by melting down unwanted Frost Essences from Sylesti Ice Sculpting.
You can first obtain Frost Essences from the various Winter Festival features, the Festival Shop, and the Diamond Shop. Both Frost Essences and Melted Frost Essences can also be obtained directly from other players.
Winter Wonderland
https://www.sylestia.com/festival/festival_winter/winter_wonderland/
In order to access the Winter Wonderland, you must purchase an entry with either 250 Diamonds, 500,000 Gold, or 1,000 Frost Tokens. If using Frost Tokens, be sure to consume them from your Inventory first to add them onto your account.
There are 3 Stages to the Winter Wonderland: the Majestic Snowfield, the Frozen Lake, and the Christmas Tree. You begin in the Majestic Snowfield with 8 Shovels and must dig from the available spots to find either buried treasure or the Wonderland Wand. Finding the Wonderland Wand allows you to advance to the next Stage, the Frozen Lake.
In the second Stage, you get 6 Fishing Poles and again must cast for hidden treasure or the Wonderland Wand. Finding the Wonderland Wand again will allow you to enter the third and final Stage, the Christmas Tree.
In the final Stage, you get 4 Scissors to cut open presents before the game ends and you can play again.
For each Stage that you advance to, the available prizes get better and better.
As you play, you will notice various tiles in all Stages covered with different Objects. Objects can be removed by consuming one of your Tools for that Stage and often hide the more rare prizes underneath!
Additionally, if you run out of Tools on a Stage, you can opt to purchase more Tools for Diamonds. However, you can only do this once per Stage.
You will also sometimes find the Genie's Lamp! The Genie's Lamp is a special item that allows you to summon a Genie and be granted one of three available wishes. The Genie's Lamp also carries over from one game to the next until it is used, meaning you do not have to use it during the game that you found it! You can wait to use it at anytime! However, once used, it will be consumed until you find it again.
The available wishes will change depending on the current situation, but are grouped into 3 basic functions:
Remove All Objects
Grant the Wonderland Wand
Grant Additional Tools
For all available prizes from the Winter Wonderland, please refer to the bottom of the Winter Wonderland page where all prizes are listed. While in a specific stage, the prize list will automatically update to show all available prizes from that stage.
Snow Wars
https://www.sylestia.com/festival/festival_winter/snow_wars/
For an entire guide on How to Play Snow Wars, please refer to the Snow Wars page and click the 'How to Play' button. The guide pretty much covers all aspects of the game.
Snow Wars is back again!
The basic premise is that you start a match, either against another Player or against the AI (computer). Difficulty of the matches are controlled by your personal Ratings, which will change as you win and lose your matches.
The game is somewhat of a dressed up version of Checkers or Chess. Your goal is to select your pieces, place them onto the board, and take turns with your opponent attempting to either destroy their Fort or their Units before they do the same to you.
Win or lose, you will always earn rewards for having played. If you win, the rewards will be slightly better. Additionally, as the challenge of the match increases, you will win a larger amount of rewards per game.
Playing a match of Snow Wars costs nothing but a Snow Wars Token. All players start with 5 Snow Wars Tokens and one replenishes every 30 minutes, indefinitely. However, you can never have more than 5 of these. Additionally, you can unlock Bonus Snow Wars Tokens which you can add and they do not expire. The bonus tokens function the exact same as the regular tokens, however, they are only used when you are out of the regular tokens. They basically just allow you to play more matches than once every 30 minutes.
Available prizes from Snow Wars include the exclusive 2-Visible Nutcracker Ballerina Nephini, Retired Avatar Item Boxes, Frost Essences, Ice Sculpting Supplies, Snow Wars Items, and Frost Tokens!
There are also Leaderboard Rankings for Player Rating and AI Rating and those who place on these Leaderboards will receive various prizes and Titles. There will be two ranking periods for Snow Wars this festival. The first will end after January 7th.
Lastly, the following Titles are available from Snow Wars:
Snow Wars Mastermind: Win a match against a Tier 6 AI Opponent.
The Tactician: Win a match against a Tier 3 AI Opponent or higher without losing a single Unit.
Snow Wars Combatant: Win a ranked match against another Player.
Snow Wars Champion: Place 1st on a Snow Wars Leaderboard.
Snow Wars Veteran: Place 4th or higher on a Snow Wars Leaderboard.
Snow Wars Challenger: Place 10th or higher on a Snow Wars Leaderboard.
Task Log
https://www.sylestia.com/festival/festival_winter/task_log/
The Festival Task Log is back and is full of 40+ Tasks for all sorts of things during the Festival. How this works is just simply complete whatever is required of the Task and credit will automatically be tallied into your Task Log. Once you have completed the Task the required amount of times, you will receive whatever the reward for the Task is. It's that simple!
There are both Daily Tasks, which reset every day at midnight, and Festival Tasks, which can only be completed once per Festival.
Leaderboard Contests
https://www.sylestia.com/festival/festival_winter/sylesti_contests/
Throughout the duration of the Festival, there will be a total of 132 Contests running! There are 2 types of Contests: Enemies Defeated and Pets Nurtured. The 1st Place winner of each Contest will receive a 3-Visible Ice Sculpting Pet of that Species. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Place finishers of each Contest will receive a 2-Visible Ice Sculpting Pet of that Species. All top 15 winners will receive a Leaderboard Reward Pouch which can contain some of the Festival's best items!
Enemies Defeated: In order to earn points for this Contest, you must defeat enemies inside the Festival Zone with pets of that Species. Having multiple Pets of the same Species counts as multiple points. Additionally, having various Pets in your Party counts for each of their respective Contests.
Pets Nurtured: In order to earn points for this Contest, you must nurture Pets of that Species. There are no other restrictions.
Lastly, all players can earn [Contest Reward Pouches] by earning so many points per Contest. There is no limit to the amount of pouches a player can earn. So the more you participate, the more that you'll receive! Reward pouches can contain various festival rewards.
Contest Schedule:
Enemies Defeated Contest #1: January 3rd at 12 PM - January 7th at 11:59 PM
Enemies Defeated Contest #2: January 11th at 8 AM - January 15th at 11:59 PM
Enemies Defeated Contest #3: January 20th at 12 PM - January 24th at 11:59 PM
Pets Nurtured Contest #1: January 3rd at 12 PM - January 7th at 11:59 PM
Pets Nurtured Contest #2: January 11th at 8 AM - January 15th at 11:59 PM
Pets Nurtured Contest #3: January 20th at 12 PM - January 24th at 11:59 PM
Festival Shop
https://www.sylestia.com/shops/holidayshop/
There are over 100 *NEW* Avatar Items available from this year's Winter Festival, not including the items available from the Retired Avatar Item Box, which can be purchased from the Festival Shop and the Diamond Shop, or be obtained by participating in various Festival activities.
So be sure to participate so that you don't miss out!
Forum Games
https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?forum=24#forumtop
Throughout the Festival, we will be hosting many various Forum Games. Visit the link above and look for any stickied thread that begins with "2018 Winter Festival".
Don't miss out! Participating in many of the games will guarantee you a prize. Others offer such great prizes for winning that you won't want to miss out! |
