It has been quite some time since we last gave a major update on the MegaZone (MZ), but the time has finally come for another major update!

Although we still have a decent way to go, the MZ has progressed a lot over the past 6-12 months and many features and content are pretty much 100% finished and set in stone at this time. I want to use this update to share with everyone some more specific details on what exactly they can expect from the MZ, what newly has been completed, and how much is remaining.

While I still cannot provide an estimated date of completion, that date is indeed approaching and we are working as hard as we can to get it finished as quickly as we can. However, we have taken this long to get it to where it is now, so we definitely will not be cutting any corners just to finish it a few months earlier than it needs.

Table of Contents

I. Wait, What is the MegaZone?
II. Site-Wide Stages, Events, and Contribution
III. The MegaZone Scales With Players
IV. Determining Encounters in the MegaZone
V. Sylesti Difficulties and Trapping Them
VI. Sounds, Music, and Hotkeys
VII. Elites, Named, and Bosses
VIII. What Still Remains?
IX. Conclusion

I. Wait, What is the MegaZone?

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For those who may be new or may have just simply forgotten, you may be wondering what exactly the MZ is and why everyone keeps talking about it!

List of Previous MZ Threads:

https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=23216
https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=26773
https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=27135
https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=32671
https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=35073
https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=38332

The MZ is a massive batch of content that's been under development for a few years now. It will provide content for Levels 61-75. It's basically like a massive expansion pack for Sylestia. Not only that, but it will contain brand new features (some of which have already been integrated into Sylestia), tons of new Avatar Items, lots of new Themed Pets, a brand new species, and many new challenges. In all, I would wager that the MZ provides more content than all of Sylestia combined at this point in time by probably a factor of two. Meaning, however much time it took you to go from Level 0 to 60 and max everything out and get everything you wanted from those zones... multiply that by two and that's about how long it will probably take you to do the same for the MZ. But it could be even more than that as it's hard to really quantify such things.

Just in terms of size, the MZ is currently over 10,000 unique tiles for its map space. This is almost three times the size of the recent Spring Festival map.



The MZ is divided into four unique sections that comes with its own content, Named, Nodes, and other special characteristics. The four sections are as follows:

Section One: Base content for Levels 61-65.
Section Two: Base content for Levels 66-70.
Section Three: Base content for Levels 71-75.
Section Four: Dungeon for Level 75.

The MZ will release in three waves. The first wave will unlock Section One and the Level Cap will be increased to 65. After a certain site-wide accomplishment, Section Two will unlock and the Level Cap will be increased to 70. Again, after another certain site-wide accomplishment, Section Three will unlock and the Level Cap will be increased to 75. At this point, players will be on their own to unlock Section Four.

II. Site-Wide Stages, Events, and Contribution

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For the initial playthrough of the MZ, all players will be working together to advance the storyline and progress through the MZ, unlocking various features and content through the progress.

As a simple example, let's say that Stage 1 requires the entire site to defeat 10,000 enemies. Each player will contribute as much as they can until the entire site, combined, has defeated 10,000 enemies. At this point, Stage 2 will unlock and then everyone who contributed to Stage 1 will now progress to Stage 2 and continue.

Players who did not contribute to Stage 1 or who got to Stage 1 after the site had already progressed to the next Stage, will then have to complete Stage 1 on their own. However, instead of having to defeat 10,000 enemies, they may have to defeat only 200, or whatever the significantly reduced number may be.

The way this works is basically each Stage is set where each player is required to contribute a certain amount for each task. When a Stage is the 'active' Stage for the site, the site-wide contribution is basically that individual player amount multiplied by the amount of players currently working on that Stage. However, if the site has moved on and a player is just getting to that Stage, they are only responsible for that individual amount.

This system allows for flexible site-wide progression while still allowing newer players or players who missed a stage to still enjoy the content in all of its glory and catch up.

For active Stages, player contribution will be recorded and tracked. When that Stage completes, those players who were the top contributors will receive special prizes such as unique items, Pets, Titles, etc.

III. The MegaZone Scales With Players

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Unlike other exploration areas of Sylestia where the content is static and becomes trivial after a certain (usually small) period of time, everything in the MZ will scale with players as they advance.

For example, while Section One will initially be for Levels 61-65, once Section Two has unlocked and a player has progressed to that point, Section One will scale up and will also now be for Levels 66-70.

This continues until eventually a player has unlocked all of the MZ sections and they're all scaled up to Level 75. This insures that content never becomes trivial and always provides a challenge.

IV. Determining Encounters in the MegaZone

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Encountering wild Sylesties, battling them, and catching them will function entirely differently in the MZ than it currently does.

Firstly, Sylesties will start off quite rare in the MZ. The MZ is teeming with monsters and enemies and players will have to work their way through the content to thin out those monsters so that Sylesties can more easily be found.

The MZ uses a population based encounter algorithm which is entirely new. Basically, depending on the current status of the MZ, each enemy type will have a certain population amount. These amounts are then combined to determine the current encounter rate. This makes the MZ feel more alive and more dynamic as you progress. Here is a simplified example.

Let's say that you are in Section One at Stage 1 of the MZ. At this point, the populations are as follows:

Sylesties: 10
Monster One: 20
Monster Two: 30

Encounter Rate: 400

So for every step that you take in the MZ, the algorithm adds up the total monster population, which in this example would be 60 (10 + 20 + 30) and divides it by the rate (400) to find the likelihood of encountering an enemy. Then a 'die is cast' against that chance to see if an enemy is encountered or not.

The Encounter Rate is always static, but the monster populations can change. This means that at certain times you may have a 15% chance of encountering an enemy with each step or it may drop to just a 5% chance. Please note, these numbers are made up and do not reflect the actual percentages / numbers.

But in the provided example, you would have a 15% chance (60 / 400) of encountering an enemy with each step.

If you encounter an enemy, it then determines what you encountered. In the given example, you would have the following chances of encountering the respective enemy:

Sylesties: 16.67% (10 / 60)
Monster One: 33.33% (20 / 60)
Monster Two: 50% (30 / 60)

So now let's say that you've encountered an enemy and it was determined to be a Sylesti. It then performs the same steps to determine which species you encountered. For each Section, each species has its own population number where some species will be more rare than others. In all, each non-Fabled wild species will have the same overall population balance for the entire MZ. Each Fabled wild species will obviously have a much lower population.

A simple example of this is that in Section One (which is a forest environment), a Draeyl is more rare than say, an Aurleon. However, in Section Two (which is a cave environment), an Aurleon will be more rare than a Draeyl.

V. Sylesti Difficulties and Trapping Them

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As we've stated before, the MZ will also be using a brand new trapping system unlike anything else currently in existence in the game. This also means that your current Traps will be unusable in the MZ. You will have to use new, MZ specific Traps. These will be made available from Ethernia's Market when the MZ releases and also from inside the MZ itself.



For difficulty, Sylesties in the MZ have a much higher difficulty curve depending on the rarity of the wild Sylesti. Additionally, Themed Pets are even stronger.

As you encounter rarer and rarer Sylesties, you'll start to notice that they start to use Elemental Abilities against you. This means you will sometimes encounter a rare Sylesti who starts throwing Explosive Fireballs at your party! This is meant to make battling these rare Sylesties feel more unique and make the player adapt to the Elemental Type that they are up against.

The higher the rarity, the more Health and higher the Stats are of the Sylesti. This turns Epic and Legendary/Mythical wild Sylesties into full on Elites/Named and makes for the process to be a whole lot more exciting.

Beyond just being an extra challenge, the increased difficulty actually serves a purpose, as the rarer a Sylesti is, the higher its Base Stats will be when caught!

(I am still tweaking the numbers and deciding on how to fully implement this as I do not want to diminish the value of breeding projects, however, in some fashion, this will be true. Ideally, I'd love to create a system where the Base Stats of wild pets can also somehow be added to Stat increases from breeding.)



In regards to the act of trapping a pet itself, this has also changed. While the process is still exactly the same, the results of using traps will be a bit different.

1. Your traps will still have a higher chance of succeeding as the wild Sylesti's Health is lowered. However, this effect has been dramatically increased. So you will definitely want to get a wild Sylesti's Health as low as you can.

2. All traps will be able to catch all rarities. This means that, yes, you could possibly catch a Mythical Sylesti with the lowest tier trap.

3. Wild Sylesties will no longer have a chance of running away from the battle on a failed attempt!

4. To counter all of these improvements, a new mechanic has been added that triggers every time a trap fails. It is called, "Desperation". Each time a trap fails, the wild Sylesti will receive one rank of Desperation. This will cause the wild Sylesti to permanently (for the rest of the battle) deal more damage. This effect increases with every additional rank of Desperation.



So while there will be no hard coded point of no return, such as the pet running away... or say, at 10 stacks it becomes immune to traps or something, there is instead a flexible coded 'point of no return' where eventually the wild Sylesti will be dealing so much damage that your party can't survive. This is why it will be important to not only lower a wild Sylesti's Health as much as possible before trying to capture it, but also to use the best traps that you can.

Caught pets from the MZ will also be caught at Level 0. This should make max leveled pets more valuable and perhaps make it feel like a bonding experience to take a valuable caught Sylesti and level it all the way up and see it progress from an inexperienced fighter to a war machine. It also lets players use these pets for things like the Arena if they wanted to.

VI. Sounds, Music, and Hotkeys

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The MZ will reintroduce music, introduce sound effects, and improve hotkey function.

While the original battle system allows for battle music, the MZ offers a much more enhanced implementation.



As you can see above, players can adjust their experience precisely to their liking. There will be exploration music available for when exploring the map, various battle music available for when in battles, and various sound effects playing that add to the ambient experience and immersion.

Players can mute any (or all) of the three, mute battle summary music, and adjust volume levels to whatever they want. Here are some examples of some of the new music for the MZ:

Normal Battle Music (~20 mb)
Named Battle Music (~15 mb)
Explore Music (Grove - Night) (~20 mb)

The sound effects are pretty limited and none of them pertain to battling. So for those concerned about excessive annoying sounds while battling, there are none. They are used while roaming the map, interacting with things on the map, or creating a more immersive experience.

Lastly, for hotkeys, we have so far added the following capabilities:

1. You will be able to target enemies by using '1', '2', or '3'.

2. You can press 'E' or 'C' to close most any window with a "Close" button.

3. You can use 'U' to use an item once you've selected the item and the pet.

4. There might be others, but I'm not exactly sure at this point since half were added with the latest exploration update and others I probably have forgotten that they're new.

VII. Elites, Named, and Bosses

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The MZ will be chocked full of challenging and rewarding content of various degrees of difficulty. All enemies come in the following rank of difficulty:

2 Stars: Standard - Just your normal enemy. Quite trivial. However, facing three at a time can provide a challenge.

3 Stars: Superior - A somewhat challenging enemy, such as a Rare or Epic Wild Sylesti. Basically, a Standard enemy with more Health and Stats.

4 Stars: Elite - A challenging enemy. Uses basic mechanics and powerful abilities.

5 Stars: Named - A very challenging enemy. Very scripted enemy that requires a strong party and a good strategy.

5 Stars: Boss - Similar to a Named, however with much less forgiving mechanics and way more Health and Stats. These are weakened as more players battle against it and are virtually impossible to solo.

With that said, Named are still going to be Named as you know them now. They will be the primary loot targets. They can drop rare MZ specific items, Epic quality Equipment, and designs required to craft Avatar Items.

Each Named will have an Elite placeholder. Each Named will also have multiple spawn locations. This means that with each wave of respawns, you will get many chances at finding a Named. In total, excluding the Dungeon Section, there will be about 20 unique spawn locations for about 10 Elites/Named.

Elites can also drop most of the same rare MZ specific items as Named, but just with less frequency/quantity. They also drop Equipment, but only of Rare quality.

Bosses will be very rare and scheduled events dependant on the progression of the MZ. A Boss event will be announced at least an entire week in advance and, as of now at least, will be scheduled to start in the early afternoon of a Saturday. Even if you can't be there for the time a Boss spawns, it will remain there until you yourself defeat it. You literally cannot progress further without defeating it. Additionally, if you are behind, you will still get the chance to battle and defeat this Boss whenever you finally reach that point.

The more players who have gotten to the Stage of that Boss, the easier that Boss gets. Even if all of the other players are way past that point, the difficulty never resets.

This insures that everyone gets a chance to enjoy the Boss, to defeat the Boss, to get its loot, and do so without having to worry about it being too hard because now there aren't enough players to battle against it.

It literally only gets easier and easier as time will go on allowing players to more easily catch up and surpass the encounter.

VIII. What Still Remains?

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It has definitely been a very busy year for us so far in 2017. The MZ has been progressing well over the past few months all the while having the Spring Festival, the Week of Love Event, the Fortune Event, and now the Patriotic Event. We also released the Puffadore Revamp and will soon be releasing the Lunemara Revamp hopefully later this month. We also completely overhauled the Diamond Shop, the Site Tutorial, and the entire battle system from A-Z.

That said, the MZ still has a bit to go, but the end is definitely on the horizon. Section One of the MZ is pretty much 100% finished, tweaked, and polished. Section Two is in the middle of some remodeling at the moment, but it should be 100% finished, tweaked, and polished before the Lunemara Revamp is implemented. This would basically just leave the final Section and the Dungeon to remain.

It is very possible, though, that the MZ releases without the Dungeon being available. It wouldn't even be accessible anyway for probably 4-6 weeks after the MZ releases and that would be plenty of time to get it finished. Even if it wasn't available by the time the first player reaches that point, it still wouldn't be too big of a deal as there would be plenty of other things to stay occupied with.

So, if this month goes according to plan or at least close enough lol, all that will really stand in the way of now and the MZ releasing will be getting that third and final Section created and polished. I would guess that is about a 3-4 week process - uninterrupted.

Pretty much every single thing I listed in this post is already created, implemented, and 100% functional. There really aren't any remaining technical aspects left to be coded at this time. It's just all about adding content, tweaking numbers, and polishing.

All of that said and done, I think the earliest the MZ could release is after the Summer Festival in September. If it's not ready by then, I'm not quite sure when it would launch because it would depend on when it is ready and where we're at in October - December. So we'll just take it one step at a time. =P

IX. Conclusion

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So that pretty much wraps up this, hopefully final, update. I hope this gives everyone a better understanding of just how massive the MZ will be and how much there will be to do in it. It literally is like an expansion pack for Sylestia that doubles the entire game's content and it will be our most in depth, polished content yet. And no, you won't have to buy it. =P You will just have to of finished the storyline through Astryl's Tranquility. That will be the only requirement.

It is meant to showcase a lot of the ideas that we have for the future of Sylestia and to give everyone a small taste of what it will be like when those features are fully created and implemented.

In a short list, the MZ will offer the following content:

-Level your Pets from 60-75, which takes probably 2-3x as long as it does to go from 0-60.

-Max out your Pet's Ability Expertise to further improve their battling power.

-Collect all sorts of new Pet Equipment (4 different tiers) and then enhance them even further through crafting.

-Encounter all sorts of new challenges and difficult tasks and use those buffed up pets to surpass them.

-Battle against over a dozen uniquely designed Named and Bosses.

-Catch buffed up Wild Pets with a new system.

-Search for and collect about ~50 new Themed Pets.

-Search for and collect a brand new Species, exclusive to the MZ.

-Collect and craft literally hundreds of different Avatar Items.

-For those interested, compete against your fellow players for top spots on Leaderboards and earn exclusive rewards.

-Enjoy discovering a brand new realm with its own story, people, and events.

-Build up your own personal MZ exclusive features to enhance your experience within the MZ...
-Unlock new and better items to use in the MZ.
-Unlock and enhance your pets within the MZ.
-Learn to track certain species and increase encounter rates against Themed Pets.
-Craft your own Avatar Items.
-Craft and upgrade your own Pet Equipment.
-Learn how to fast travel around the MZ.

-And who knows what else we'll add as time goes on! New Bosses, new Named, new Sections, etc. The goal of the MZ is to basically be the end-game / last batch of content for Beta Sylestia. Depending on the required length of time required to prepare for our relaunch, we very well may continue to add all sorts of new content to the MZ as time goes on.


Please do not hesitate to ask any questions! I will answer them as best as I can!