Starter Guide

To help welcome you to the world of Aincrad and it's inhabitants, we - The Beta Testers, have created this starter guide with the intent of showing you the many things you'll find here, as well as a basic guide to combat, and terminology you'll commonly find in an MMO.

Even if you're a veteran to the MMO world, we still suggest that you take a moment to read this over, who knows, you may even learn a thing or two.

How Combat Works
Battle System 3.0:

Battles are now a more stable turn-to-turn based system.

Actions are now handled as AP (Action Points), which is the available actions given to a player and the amount of things they can do during their phase.

AP is detemined by the difference in agility. Default is 4, and is altered by the difference in agility as a percentile. As a soft rule, assume that if they have double your Agility, you will be looking at least 3 AP, and double and a half, they will have you locked at 2 AP. This applies in reverse as well.

Most skills by themselves will take up AP, they also have a cool down that is also measured by said AP. For instance, Arc slash takes up one action point, and has a two action point cooldown. Kinji, with 4 AP can us Arc slash, Move Twice, and be able to use Arc slash once again.

Note that there may be special cases, such as with Uniques or with skills that have special perequisites that need to be fulfilled before performing.

Without AP, A character cannot initiate a action other then the free dodge they get as defense. Advanced Defenses will cost AP.

AP regenerates one point per action that you don't take. This means that if some used all their AP to push an enemy back, leaving them at zero, and the enemy spent one action point for movement, that player would gain back one AP, and again one AP for every action they didn't take.

Another twist to add to this is AP Over Extension. By using a skill that puts you over your max AP (Player uses a 2AP skill with 1AP left), the player acquires the status 'Over extension', along putting them at -X AP (How much over they went). When Over Extended, players take an addition 10-20% Damage, but regenerate AP just the same. They must recover their Over Extension before they can act normally again.

Note that one can only generate AP up to their starting amount that was established at the beginning of the fight, barring circumstance and factors that may manipulate the amount.

Hit and Dodge rate is based off of agility for core dodges. When a Player and his enemy are at = Agility, the dodge-hit rate is 50/50. As the agility differs, these odds will appropriately change. It is possible for such a gross difference in agility to render a 0-100% Dodge-Hit chance. External factors may further manipulate the odds, or change them completely. Be aware of circumstances that will effect the outcome of battle.

Terminology and Other Sorts
For those newbies out there, who have no clue about half of the things being said, this section is for you. To start off, here's the reason why such confusing terms exist like: Aggro, and AOE. Simply put, people are lazy, really lazy, and they'd rather spend less time talking, and more time looting, leveling, and killing things.

Here's a list to get you started on the path of the lonely:

1337 - A numerical translation for “elite” pronounced “leet,” 1337 is a slang developed by hackers in the ’80s used over the internet. Many words from the slang have leaked to popular culture today (“kidz” is an example; using a z instead of an s is an element of 1337). It is mostly prevalent in the gaming world online where people can interact textually, and is often used to descibe people or things that are found to be "Cool" or otherwise amazing.

Aggro - As a verb, it refers to a hostile mob that has noticed a player and is actively trying to attack that player. As a noun, it refers to the amount of “hostility” the player has generated on the mob. In typical combat strategy, the fighter tries to take as much aggro as possible away from weaker players such as healers and mages.

AOE - Area of Effect, or otherwise known as a skill or attack that effects a wide-set area, rather than single target.

BRB - Be right back, this one is fairly obvious, it means they'll be right back dude.

AFK - Away from keyboard, also obvious, but it means that the person is not currently there to control his//her character

BTW - By the way, used usually in a harsh way, but can also be used to add something to a conversation. It's simple, and commonly used, although most people just resort to saying the whole thing, because it sounds less mean.

Buff - An abilility or skill that makes a character stronger through various means, whether that be a war-cry that increases strength, or a passive that helps you counter more easily.

Crit - Critical Hit, means that the player has dealt more than the expected damage, by means of pure luck. A critical hit deals massive damage, and has additional effects depending on the skill used.

Debuff - The reverse of Buff (See above for details)

DPS - Damage Per Second, a term used to state a weapons attack speed, in reference to it's damage.

Farming - Put simply, it's killing the same things over again, to gain a large amount of one thing, whether that be experience points, money, or items.

Guilds - Groups of people with a certain intent, or purpouse. They usually are formed by friends, but some do it for more business-like reasons.

IRL - In real life, usually used in a sentence descibing ones personal life outside of the game.

Kite - Lure, to lure an enemy around a set area, to help others attack is safely, usually performed by one player who's skills allow them to take multiple hits in a worst-case scenario.

Newbie - What you are, if you have to read this.