Dave searched for half an hour without finding any monsters to grind EXP on. He was about to give up and hit the recall when he came to an area with a group of newly spawned monsters.

The sky flashed and the entire area Dave was in brightened. Looking up, he saw a message written across the sky in fiery words.

Conquest Server Announcement!

Congratulations to "THE DEVASTATORS" guild for the Accomplishment 'First to Clear' in the Pits of Despair dungeon.

Participants: Warlord, Mr. Valentine. Jericho- Satan Slayer

-TSN ELECTRONICS-OCS BUILDING-DDI- USAT

"Hmm, they finally did it. "

The congratulatory message remained hanging in the sky for all to see. Dave went back to hunting the new spawns.

Sometime later Dave looked up at a change in the level of brightness. A new message replaced the one congratulating the guild.

Conquest Server Announcement!

In 30 minutes the Conquest game servers will be going down for the installation of a Service Pack.

Please find a stopping point or finish what you are doing. Players already inside dungeons will get a free 'save' to resume play wherever they log-out in the dungeon.

Patch duration 72 hours (Real Time).

Please check the forums for information about the new additions and mechanics.

"Huh. That's unexpected. I don't remember ever hearing about the game being shut down for a patch."

Dave disconnected and made something to eat. It was late at night and there wasn't much else to do.

He sat at the computer with his cup of noodles and looked through the patch notes.

Conquest 2.0 patch notes

The First Completion of the Pits Of Despair dungeon was the final milestone needed to initiate sweeping radical changes in Conquest.

The changes will affect the mechanics of gameplay and the internal storylines.

PATCH CHANGES

Combat Mechanics

Until now fight mechanics in Conquest have been limited to exchanges using four categories of direct action, attacks, counterattacks, and blocks.

The effects of those actions can also be indirectly negated by consuming items such as potions, or by using Skills to 'buff/debuff,' 'heal' or 'control.'

The 2.0 patch adds new variables to the combat mechanics that will significantly change the gameplay.

Evasion

Players and mobs will have the option to evade attacks in Conquest 2.0. Successful Evasions will depend on several factors including level, innate ability, Skills and attributes.

The addition of Evasion will significantly affect the game balance, reducing the number of successful attacks within a given period. All other things equal Evasion will reduce the amount of damage in a given period.

There will be a 30% reduction in the effectiveness of healing abilities to compensate for the effects of Evasion. The amount of HP replaced by Heal Skills will be reduced by 30%, and increases to HP and Mana Regen rates from Skills will be reduced by 30% also.

Stamina will play a major role in player's arsenal as of now. Character Stamina levels will be increased by 10%.

The cooldown for [Block] will change from 5 sec to 10 sec.

Dexterity

Dexterity will affect character reaction time and character movement.

Dexterity focused classes will benefit more from Evasion than other classes.

Damage outputs of hunter based classes will be lowered to compensate for Evasion.

Use of the target lock-on mechanism will be optional. Hunter based classes will be able to manually aim ranged attacks.

Damage Value Variances

Successful Attacks to the head or torso will cause more damage than attacks to the arms or legs. There will be exceptions to the rule, for example mobs with nonstandard anatomy and weak points, and some attacks that cause status effects, such as Bleed, and Crippled.

Defense Penetration

All weapons above level 100 will have an enhanced defense penetration attribute.

The Penetration attribute ignores a calculated amount of relevant Attributes in Defense-oriented mobs and players.

To balance Defense Penetration, tank classes will receive a critical change to their character Attribute distribution.

The Health Points of tank class characters will be calculated using 20 HP (instead of 10 HP) for every Attribute point in VIT.

Stagger/Critical Hit

When an attack Staggers an enemy, the next attack (Basic or Skilled) will have a 50% stackable damage bonus. This is only applicable one time for each instance of Stagger and only while the status is in effect.

The Critical hit ratio is no longer fixed at 1% for every skill/attack.

New Crit generating items have been implemented in the game.

Runes

Runes will be a new category of power-up items in the game. Runes can be dropped by monsters or given as quest rewards.

Runes can add or otherwise modify Attributes, modifiers, and effects.

Runes are not stackable and players will be able to equip up to six runes.

There will be an undisclosed number of Rune tiers, levels of power and effects. More information about Runes can be learned by speaking to any NPC magus in the game.

Level Differences

Players will no longer receive any EXP for killing regular mobs 20 or more levels below their own, or for killing boss mobs 40 or more levels below.

The mechanic applies to groups of players with mixed levels. The group member with the highest level determines the cutoff levels for the entire group.

New Game Features

Pain sensors and SFX/smells/ environmental effects.

A Pain setting is now available. It is freely adjustable by the player, with an artificial 'maximum' setting imposed by the system.

The SFX/Natural, sounds, smells, and psychic effects, have been reworked to make them more true to 'real' life.

For example, instead of only visual imagery, Fear effects will induce a physiological simulation of fear responses in players.

Scaling Items

Rare and legendary weapons with scaling properties are now available.

Before upgrades or increases all Scaling items will start with lower Attributes than non-scaling items of the same category and Quality.

Each scaling item can be upgraded in different ways, the holder of the scaling item must discover and decide how to upgrade it.

Many skills have been modified to adjust to the changes in this patch. All players will receive a notification with more personalized information regarding the changes.

For more information about the general game changes please proceed to the detailed explanation part of the patch notes here.

Dave sat, absorbing and integrating the information, his noodles long since gone cold and gelatinous.

It wasn't just a service pack, it was a whole new game!

He was pulled out of his reverie by the sound of his phone ringing.

Dave didn't recognize the number.

Normally he would let an unknown caller go to message. But for some reason he took this particular call.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Skeletal? It's me! Lone Arrow!" a female voice, "Did you see those patch notes? That stuff is lit man!"

Idiot! He'd given her his number. Why did he do that?!

"Uhm," Dave coughed, "I guess it is. The whole game experience is going to be different." He said

"Yeah, tell me about it, at least now I won't have to use the stupid lock-on system," she said

Dave didn't use ranged weapons but guessed shooting would be more difficult without the lock-on system... It was optional but still.

"You sound confident in your archery skills."

"Yeah, I am. Actually, I'm better with a gun." she giggled, "But it's almost the same."

His hands went cold when she said the word 'gun,' his mind flashing back to a hospital room not so long ago.

"Hey, you okay over there, you went quiet? The gun thing was just a joke! Really.

"Anyway, the dagger sold and I want to send you your share."