Greetings Researchers!
Welcome to our 14th Devblog, this Devblog covers the addition of some new test subjects to Classic PvP, quality of life additions, bug fixes, new features entering development, our Halloween PvP Playtest pick/win rates & more!

Test Subjects

Since the test ended, we have implemented 2 Test Subjects, Daniel & Johann.
We have also implemented and mostly reworked Elena with some minor adjustments based on tester feedback left to be implemented.
As discussed in a previous Devblog, we know many users felt Elena was an underwhelming addition to the cast due to her restrictive field effect which left the player with no control and caused you to be a "sitting duck".
Due to this, we have begun to rework Elena's skills, and are closely working with our team of testers who have been providing us very valuable feedback to bring her to a state where she feels less restrictive and more fun to play. We have performed a multitude of adjustments to her skills, the first of these being converting her Passive Skill to a Field Skill, this now gives Elena the ability to manually cast her Ice Rink similar to other Field Effects like Peace Zone and No Digging. Depending on the current count of Icy Air stacks, Elena will produce either the Basic or Enhanced Rink. Currently you require 11 Icy Air Stacks for Basic Rink and 22 for Enhanced, but these numbers are subject to change based on the feedback of the testing team. An additional effect has been added to Elena's Ice Rink effects which gives her 15% increased search speed while in her Ice Rink, this effect is the inverse of the slowed effect applied by Bernice and we feel it provides Elena a slight competitive experience within her rink and a better feel to her character relation to figure skating. Elena's Ice Rink's are now no longer destroyed when leaving the area and multiple Elena's are able to place an Ice Rink within the same area. Currently Ice Rink's have no expiry time and are only removed when casting the rink at the new location, but this is planned to be changed to a set duration like other Field Effects with the Enhance Rink providing additional duration over the Basic Rink. There is currently a 20 second cool down on being able to recast the Ice Rink at another location or upgrade the Ice Rink at the current location. Casting the Ice Rink consumes either 11 or 22 Icy Air stacks based on the current stack count. Icy Air stacks have also undergone some adjustments, previously when changing area you would lose all of your currently accumulated Icy Air stacks, now when changing area you lose half of your currently stocked Icy Air stacks to provide her slightly more flexibility. The maximum stack count for Icy Air has been increased from 13 -> 22, but this is also subject to change based on the feedback of the testing team. Icy Air stacks are now acquired only from finding Items or EXP and the minimum amount of Icy Air stacks which you can have has been fixed to 1. Danse Macabre has had it's additional damage per Icy Air stack reduced from 2% -> 1.4%, but this is also subject to change.

Perk Kits

Tissue Engineering The Tissue Engineering Perk Kit has now been implemented, but in the future will undergo a rework to make it more effective within Classic PvP as it currently only provides good additional benefits for Team Match.
With this addition, all of the Perk Kits have now been implemented (Hooray)!

In-game Global Chat Service

As those who chat often within the Discord know, we have always been thinking about the implementation of more social features to the game to make the players feel less alone, and make you feel you're all working together in the labs of Aglaia! We've previously teased the addition of a "chat" function within the main lobby to allow players to easily communicate and find friends to play with, and now this is getting closer to reality as we have begun development on what we are calling internally the In-game global chat service (IGCS for short). The IGCS will provide the players with a "Global" chat hub to communicate and is shared across all servers, this is a **opt-in** feature, players will actively need to engage with a toggle button on the right side of the screen to see the chat, this helps protect streamers from violating their platform of choice terms of service and for users who do not wish to engage in chatting with others. We plan to expand on the IGCS as development continues on it with additional features like whispers and group chats.

Matching Effect Customisation Expansion

With users being able to change the background and researcher title which is displayed on their Matching card, we have been implementing the ability to change the frame also displayed on the card and to allow for players to use borders from previous seasons they will have collected in the future. Once the update is finished, players will be able to find a new item type within the inventories "Matching Effect" category, this will allow the addition of more frames for seasonal events, challenges and character grade completion.

Match Found Task Bar Notification QoL addition

Ever missed the start of the match as you we're tabbed out of the game watching funny cat videos or replying to a message? Well worry no more as now when you successfully find a match, the games icon on the task bar will now flash orange to let you know you've found a match!

Bug Fixes

Solved an issue where equipment such as the Imperial Burgonet would reduce damage based on the players currently equipped weapon rather than the enemies currently equipped weapon. Fixed an issue where Aya could not gain Justice stacks while the skill was on cool down. Resolved an issue where Felix would always have his bonus damage reduction effect while his skill was not active. Lenox's blue snake debuff can now be cleansed by skills like Judgement. Rozzi now only correctly gains bonus mastery when the enemy is killed when Easy Shot is used instead of for every kill. Fixed the issue where Nadine's hunter sight would some times not find animals under specific conditions. Resolved the issue where after casting Vital Crash, Eva would always have additional mastery gain. Fixed a data loading issue when requesting match history on the player profile when the player had an empty inventory when they died.

Database request optimisations

We have been working on further optimising database requests which cause time outs on requests such as Techlab Gacha 10 pulls and purchasing characters a goods, this is currently in test on the NA server and will be rolled out to the AS server over the coming days to check for stability of the changes.

Halloween Play Rates

We know many of you have been waiting for the pick and victory rates of the previous testing period, while we we're originally planning to post these a few days after the test, we decided to hold off on posting these as we had additional information to add along side them. Due to Chiara causing lock ups on matches, she was disabled a few days into the test so her rates are lower than expected, we expect to see her within the top 10 played characters based on when she was restricted and the duration left on the test. We've also seen a very unexpected climb within the Victory rates, with Rio reaching 2nd place behind Yuki, which was very surprising to us, it seems like a lot of you really love Rio! :RioHappy: JP's pick rate was also considerably higher than expected with him being the 6th most picked character during the test! During the testing period, there was a total play time of almost 13,000 hours across all players within public normal matches!

Halloween Event Top Ranker Reward

During the event many Hallowcoins were collected their but the user who collected the most was 七只猫猫 with a total of 569 coins and they have earned themselves the exclusive "Halloweens Terror" Researcher Title.

Next PvP test when?!

We want to say a thank you to all of you who took part in the recent Classic PvP test and took their time to report bugs and issues which they experienced during it. We are hard at work resolving the rest of your bug reports from the playtest period and working on implementing the last 3 test subjects and the ambush aptitude, and we hope we can provide you all with a feature complete PvP experience for this upcoming Christmas playtest! While there is no set date for the Christmas PvP test to begin, it can be expected some time around mid to late December before the next Devblog!