Revelation Online just had its first major update for the NA and EU version on April 12th. In this update, there were two massive events that were added along with other fixes and…well broken content that was working before. In this post, I’m going to go over what Starshatter Island is, and why it is important for guilds to go into. I’ll follow-up with an overview for Faerie’s Funland as well once I can participate in that event on Saturday.
In terms of the other small fixes and updates, there are a few things of note. First, the cash shop received new content in the form of costumes for your characters, as well as dye packs and a few minor items that may help players of lower levels. Secondly, the servers have been running a lot more smoothly than before the update and loading regions don’t seem to take as long.
And finally, the broken things….Guild Quests have become glitched on step 3, which prevents anyone from finishing them until a hotfix is uploaded to the server. Along with this broken feature that was working before, we have other new glitching such as dismounting and being thrown a very far distance to your death. You also can no longer send Imperial Coins in the mail, and other items are no longer able to be sold because they have become bound by a glitch.
Needless to say, the update seems to have rolled out in a mostly finished state and the servers are running pretty well for the amount of content that was added (even though 2 weekly events don’t seem like much. They do have very large regions inside those events that add a lot of exploration and gameplay to the game).
What is Starshatter Island?
Starshatter Island is a guild vs. guild event much like Deathly Atoll. In this event, the guilds will clash and try to capture and hold any of 4 control points. They can also go around and gather special minerals that spawn in various locations, all while fighting against the other guilds that are trying to do the same thing. This event is an important one for guilds owning castles and forts by capturing them in Clan Wars, because it will give them absurd amounts of resources that will help in upgrading their guild as well as large amounts of funds that can then be distributed to their members.
There are two versions of this event. The first, Starshatter Island, is a free version, where anyone can enter as long as they’re in a guild. This version is essentially the version where most guilds will be in if they choose to compete for the great rewards. This version’s rewards are also not as good as the other.
The second version, called Starshatter Rumble, is the version only for the elite guilds. I say this because it is only available to the guilds owning castles and forts. These guilds get 60 tickets that are used to enter this more tuned version. Entry costs 1 ticket per person, and each guild can only take 60 players into the event. What this means is that if you’re alliance of 3 guilds all own a castle or fort, you can essentially have 180 players in the event that are on your side.
While this can easily lead to a huge advantage over any other guilds, this means that those involved in it have a huge reward. My personal experience was on the lower end, where my guild was in it alone against the colossal Chinese guild on our server. They also had their two allied guilds in the event as well, which made it extremely difficult for us to capture and hold any of the four points.
How to enter the event?
In order to enter the event, the server’s time must be 8pm Pacific time and the event will start. Upon clicking to join the event, you’re prompted with the option to enter either of the versions mentioned above. Choose whichever is fitting to you and select path 1 to begin your PVP adventure with your guild (or go it alone if you’re really brave).
Once inside, you’ll have an NPC behind you that you can take a quest from. This quest will require you to get 10 points inside the event. While it may seem difficult to get 10 points, it’s actually not. You can get points by killing other players, capturing one of the four control points, fighting the boss in the center, or by farming the special minerals that are all over the region. This quest usually finishes within the first 5 minutes of the event.
After the quest is finished, you can choose to stay and fight it out for server dominance and get the rewards that come with or leave with the quests’ reward and wait for the event to finish for any other rewards you may have earned while inside. So, one might ask….
What are the rewards for winning and participation?
For the guilds that rank in the top 5, there are very large amounts of resources that the guild will need to upgrade their structures and skills. Along with this, these guilds get a large amount of funds they can distribute among their members. Second place received roughly 8 million in guild stipends that could be sent to those who participated. The resources were rewarded to everyone who participated in the form of 4 siderite ore, 2 guild commerce notes, and 2 mitrite ore. This doesn’t seem like much for one person, but with 60 that’s easily a few thousand of each once donated to the guild. For ranking in the top 5 in your raid group, you also receive an additional 2 siderite and 10,000 Imperial Coins (I was 5th so I can’t say if you get more for being ranked 1-4 or not).
Participation rewards are quite low but can still help struggling guilds as well as players who need that extra little boost in experience. For everyone who participates in Starshatter Island, you get 5 green orbs that can be used to gain experience in rather large amounts. For a level 66 player, each orb gave 480k experience, which adds up nicely to a couple million. That’s roughly 5% of my level from just participating (this also goes for anyone in there only for the quest which gives 3 of the same orbs).
Is the event Balanced for Free Players Vs. Cash Shop Players?
And this is where that kink in the chain comes into play. Yes, and no. If you consider the damage being upscaled to match the base attack of opposing players a good balance feature, then yes, that part is in there and it works decently. However, a cash shop player will usually have 4-6 gems in their gear, full refine levels, refinement perfection, and overall way better gear. What this does, is also scale up their damage to match the top level in the event (69), which causes them to easily one shot any free player who comes close.
In my opinion, there is no real balance in this event, and being in the Rumble mode is insane for a free player like me to even try in. I spent most of my time gathering minerals because I couldn’t compete with the opposing guild and their alliance, as did most of my guild. Even we, as the 2nd top guild on our server, had problems surviving against players who had such an outrageous gear advantage over us. We did manage to capture the points several times, but holding them was impossible as the other guilds easily sent 5 players after all 60 of ours and cleared us away from the control points.
As far as the free for all version goes, we had a smaller raid group that was forced to go into that one. This group did quite well and managed to place 4th in their version of the event. Since only 60 can enter Rumble mode, it was difficult facing such unbalanced odds.
Is it worth participating in?
Absolutely! If you enjoy PvP and like to gain easy experience, then it’s definitely an event you’ll want to take part in. It’s much better as a guild, but so long as you’re a member of a guild, you’ll be able to enter one of the versions. It was an entertaining event to say the least. Even with the odds against us, my guild did pretty well overall and placed second, so it’s not impossible by any means, to do good in the event as the “Under Dog”. The rewards are good, and you can easily get an idea of what large scale GvG looks like. And a good thing to note, is that the server held up quite well with over 500 players in the area at once. Last week with only 200 in the area, the game would enter what I call “Matrix mode” where it would slow down to an absurd framerate making PvP difficult unless on a really high end PC. Overall it’s worth doing, and I highly recommend giving it a go on Thursdays!
