Game Design

Welcome to Olindale, the heaven of games. Our soul watchers have placed you in this heaven because of your proclivity for play and procrastination above being responsible.

If you believe you’ve been placed in the wrong heaven, you can take a ticket, and a soul worker will be right with you.

Your ticket number is 3,456,715.

“Thank you for holding. Your eternal satisfaction is important to us. Please continue to wait on the line for the next available soul watcher. Estimated time, 9,318 days.”

Skip.

You are now reading Heaven Information. We hope the content here will be valuable during your eternity in Olindale. Once you finish your initial training, could we trouble you with a small survey of 284 questions?

No.

Gods & Divinities

Gameus is the high god of Olindale. Beneath him are the divinities of Light and Shadow, locked in a carefully orchestrated war meant to last forever. Each side of this conflict has twelve divinities, lesser gods created to empower souls in their pursuit of victory.

For those of Light, the divinities are Bat, Bear, Dolphin, Hawk, Lion, Monkey, Owl, Rabbit, Raccoon, Rooster, Snake, and Weasel. These entities use the powers invested in them to create unique skills and abilities for their followers.

For those of Shadow, the divinities are Ant, Bee, Beetle, Butterfly, Cricket, Dragonfly, Firefly, Katydid, Mantis, Scorpion, Spider, and Termite.

Experience

When the followers of the divinities kill something within Olindale, the divinity receives energy. With this energy, they can grant their followers skills and attributes.

Unlike the video games that Olindale has so recently mimicked, all entities of life have a certain amount of energy they can release upon death. This energy represents experience and cannot be boosted or lowered based on relative level difference.

For efficient farming, it is advised that parties do not exceed three members unless they are attempting one of the raids. In some cases, it is more efficient to kill lesser mobs—monsters or beasts—without the assistance of others.

Experience requirement per level goes up gradually, following the formula [Current Level × 100 + Previous Level Requirement]. Every twenty levels, the 100 multiplier is increased by 3×.

To illustrate the experience requirement between levels, we have provided some numbers.

• » 100xp to Level 2
• » 300xp to Level 3
• » 600xp to Level 4
• » 1,000xp to Level 5
• » 1,500xp to Level 6
• » 2,100xp to Level 7
• » 2,800xp to Level 8
• » 3,600xp to Level 9
• » 4,500xp to Level 10

As you can see, by the time you have reached level 10, it can take a considerable amount of experience to progress.

For additional experience, we recommend completing quests, dungeons, raids, tower floors of Heaven’s Mountain, or descending one of the pits of trials, which may also reward adventurers with rare loot.

But to challenge these more difficult tasks, you must understand how your attributes and skills work.

Attributes

You have four attribute types: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality. Upon leveling, you gain a +1 to your Vitality and a +1 Skill Point.

There are many skills to provide you with options in building your character. Each skill has an attribute type that best relates to the skill’s effect. When learning a new skill or advancing a skill to its next level, you gain +1 to whatever attribute type the skill has.

For instance, a Root skill may have an attribute type related to Strength. Learning this skill will provide you with a +1 to Strength and make the Root skill better.

Skill descriptions are provided as if they were chosen, and your attribute increase has already been accounted for. This helps you identify the final effect of choosing a skill.

The four attribute types each provide a different benefit beyond their effect on skills. These benefits have been detailed below.

• ¤ Strength
• » Each point affects relative strength
• » Each point above 10:
• » — Physical damage +1

• ¤ Dexterity
• » Each point affects relative speed
• » Each point above 10:
• » — Critical hit damage +5%
• » — Skill cooldown -1%

• ¤ Intelligence
• » Each point affects mental acuity and motivation
• » Each point increases mana by 5 points
• » Each point above 10:
• » — Mana regeneration +2%

• ¤ Vitality
• » Each point increases health by 5 points
• » Each point increases stamina by 4 points
• » Each point above 10:
• » — Out-of-combat healing +2%

When you arrived in Olindale, you were assigned a soul watcher to determine your attributes. Humans start with a combined total of 40 attribute points. A 10 in any attribute is considered average.

The soul watcher weighs your life and assigns implicit attribute points. If in the last life you exercised a lot, you may be given a higher Strength than those who spent their time playing dumb NFT games in desperate hope of striking it rich.

If you do not agree with the soul watcher’s assessment, you can send an appeal to Gameus, god of the realm, at Paradeise Vono. (Please note, this is an unadvised action and may result in an abrupt race and affinity change.)

Skills

Skills—in addition to gear—are the very foundation of character building. They determine your attributes and play style.

You start with three skill options to choose from at level 1, gaining an additional option every other level, up to level 15, and then every five levels.

Different classes have different skills, which can be triggered, channeled, or invoked. Items may contain a skill from a different class, or if the skill is already known, grant the player +1 to that skill’s level.

Some advanced items contain one-use skills and effects or can be used a set number of times. Please read Scrolls & Relics Guide for more information.

Nonrefundable

Please note that skill points are nonrefundable. You can forfeit your current level and all experience toward the next to erase a previously chosen skill or skill level, then by leveling up again, gain the skill point back.

The higher your level, the more it will cost to make adjustments to your character. If there is a problem early on, it makes sense to pay the price when it’s lower.

Alternatively, hold on to your skill points until you know the best way to invest them. While this will leave you weaker at the beginning, it may help mitigate painful character rebuilds later.

Cooldown

All skills have an implicit cooldown time of 2 seconds. This can be reduced by increasing Dexterity over 10. Some skills have an explicit cooldown time that might be significantly longer, forcing you to decide the best timing to use the skill.

Skills with a long casting or cooldown time often require little mana since time and availability are the true costs. It is smart to build your character in such a way that it’s not entirely reliant on mana, so look for these types of skills.

Implicit & Passive Skills

All classes receive implicit and passive skills that further differentiate them from other classes. An implicit skill is similar to an actionable skill given by default. A passive skill doesn’t require triggering for the effect.

These skills are not chosen but unlocked at specific levels, detailed below. You may lose your implicit or passive skill bonus if you sell a level to get back a skill point.

• » 4 Skills at Level-1
• » 1 Skill at Level-5
• » 1 Skill at Level-10
• » 1 Skill every 10 levels

Gear

You are made of skills, attributes, and gear. Your weapons, armor, rings, source, and artifact provide new options to be considered when character building.

All gear has a rarity and item level. Rarities include Junk (gray), Common (white), Uncommon (green), Rare (blue), Epic (purple), and Legendary (orange).

Gear can be crafted or found as loot from mobs or Points of Interest (chest events, portal challenges, dungeons, etc.). Deconstructing items provide crafting components of the various rarities.

There is a five-minute cooldown on changing equipped gear after receiving damage. Should the gear be manually changed—withdrawing a new non-equipped weapon, for example—item perks will not work for the full cooldown duration.

Armor Slot

Unlike other role-playing games, armor in Olindale is treated as a single item with a defined appearance.

When you take damage, whether or not the damage was dealt to the armor, the armor will lose Armor Points (AP). While the armor has AP, you will not experience pain from damage taken.

Armor does not typically repair over time. If it loses all of its AP, it becomes broken but remains equipped. Broken armor continues to grant perks, such as bonuses to attribute points.

While broken, any damage you receive will also count toward the armor. If the armor’s durability reaches 0, the armor will be destroyed.

The more damaged an item is, the more it costs to repair in both coin and the item’s maximum durability.

Main Hand & Off-hand Slots

Weapons come in different styles: one-handed, two-handed, one-handed with an off-hand resource, or dual-wielding. There are slicing, piercing, bludgeoning, and magical types of damage.

Each combination of main hand with off-hand counts as a set. You can have two sets of weapons equipped at any one time, limited only by what can be physically carried on your person.

Ring Slots

You can equip a total of two rings. Rings provide attribute bonuses, energy armor (similar to normal armor but recovers with time), skills or skill bonuses, and more.

Rings can be equipped with special gemstones to further increase benefits and provide options to better tailor your gear to your build.

For further information on gemstones, gemstone leveling, and legendary gemstones, please read Gemstone Mastery: She’ll Surely Like You Now.

Source Slot

A source is contained within an amulet. It empowers a linked skill. Some can be linked to a skill of your choice. Others require a specific skill to be known before it offers any benefit.

All attribute bonuses the source provides are limited to the linked skill. As such, a +5 Intelligence to a skill that doesn’t use Intelligence would be wasted.

Sources may also augment skills. This changes the behavior of the skill in some predefined way, such as increasing the number of projectiles while reducing each projectile’s damage.

Artifact Slot

Instead of physical gear—gear that can be seen—artifacts are equippable gear for your soul. These items come with a free-to-use effect. Like all other items in Olindale, artifacts can be found across the different rarities and levels.

Some artifacts may contain more than one quick-cast ability or none at all, electing for a smaller, constant effect. Examples of abilities include quick heal, mana replenish, empower the next skill or attack, quick movement, armor repair, improved crafting quality, party effect auras, and others.

In addition to these effects, the artifact grants you attribute and skill bonuses. The lower-quality artifacts may not do much beyond a minor heal, though higher-level artifacts play a key role in character building.

Artifacts cannot be crafted and, once equipped, become bound. Removing an artifact destroys it.

Crafting

There are numerous crafting jobs in Olindale. Everything from armor and weapons to furniture and pastries can be learned through the crafting system.

You are not required to seek an apprenticeship with a master craftsman, though doing so will speed up your progress. Since crafting is a matter of experimentation and knowledge, receiving such knowledge early will improve how fast you discover recipes.

Further, more experienced craftsmen may sell or trade their recipes with you, allowing you to skip the often long and expensive journey of trial and error.

All things that can be crafted require components, be it wood and metal or sugar and flour. This is often where learning a craft becomes expensive.

Some items, such as weapons and armor, can be deconstructed for components. The rarer the item, the better the components. Food, or items with expiration dates, often cannot be deconstructed.

To learn more about crafting, please refer to the guide How I Made 10,000 Copper A Month, Working From Home.

Conclusion

This concludes the Player’s Guide. Other guides are available to provide specifics about each facet of our increasingly complex world. The next advised guide to read is Your Guide to Loot: Why Did That Boar Drop This Sword?

Please note that the following guides cannot be checked out at this time: The Truth of This World by Michail Kuznet, The Lies We Know by Akemi Tanakai, and My Stats Are Wrong! by [Redacted] Pip.