Festival of Darkness
The Seven Signs trial for parties of 5-9 players
The Festival of Darkness is part of the struggle for the Seven Signs: a party of players from one side must score as high as possible in 18 minutes against constantly spawning, ever-stronger monsters. Festival wins earn points for your side and a reward in ancient adena.
How to enter
Any player who has joined one of the sides can take part. Talk to your side's priest (Priest of Dusk/Dawn), choose "Participating in the Festival of Darkness", then "I wish to go to the Oracle of Dawn/Dusk" - you will be taken to your side's Oracle.
The Oracles are a peace zone: players cannot attack each other, and attacking PKs is not allowed either. You cannot set up shops in the Oracles, but you can trade items.
Festivals are held only during the Competition period, every 20 minutes, and are divided into 5 tiers by difficulty - like item grades.
Participant requirements
- Only a party of 5-9 people can take part, all from the same side.
- The level gap between party members must not exceed 2, and all members' levels must fall within the range of the chosen Festival tier.
- Characters who have skills of a higher tier than their level allows (de-leveled players) are not admitted.
- Each player must have no more than 14 active quests and at least 20% free inventory space.
Entry fee
To take part, the party pays a number of Seal Stones depending on the Festival tier. Only the party leader pays, so before the start the members pool their stones and give them to the leader. If the leader does not have enough stones, the party is not admitted. You can take part as many times as you like, as long as you have stones for the fee.
The fee is paid in stones of one color of your choice:
| Levels | Blue stones | Green stones | Red stones | Points for a win |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20-32 | 900 | 520 | 270 | 60 |
| 33-43 | 1500 | 900 | 450 | 70 |
| 44-54 | 3000 | 1800 | 900 | 100 |
| 55-65 | 4500 | 2700 | 1350 | 120 |
| 65-75 | 6000 | 3600 | 1800 | 150 |
The points for a win go to the side the winning party belongs to.
How the Festival runs
- 2 minutes before the start, when it is announced by shout (Shout Channel), every participant must go to the Guide of Festival and choose the Festival tier.
- When it starts, the party is moved into the arena. All buffs and debuffs are removed, and the party has 2 minutes to buff up before the monsters appear.
- At first the monsters spawn rarely and are weak, but over time they spawn faster and grow stronger - the so-called waves.
- Every killed monster drops Blood of Sacrificed. The more blood the party collects in 18 minutes, the better its chances of winning its tier.
- The remaining time is announced by shout: at 10, 5 and 2 minutes before the end.
Blood drops only to the party leader, but who lands the killing blow does not affect the drop chance. The stronger the monsters, the higher the chance of getting blood.
Rules of conduct
- Pets cannot be used at the Festival, but summons and cubics can.
- You cannot receive buffs from players who are not taking part in the Festival (such as an Overlord's buffs).
- Breaking either of these two rules halves the party's blood count.
Dying at the Festival
- Experience loss on death is reduced to 1/4 of normal.
- Dead players cannot be resurrected; instead, pressing Return makes them reappear in the center of the arena.
- Players in the arena drop no items at all (0% chance). The exception is PKs with a PK count above 5: they drop items at the normal rate.
- HP and MP regeneration is boosted in the center of the room.
The shaman in the center
- If the party is losing (players die too often), it can quit by talking to the shaman in the center of the arena. Those who leave are taken back to the Oracle.
- If the monsters seem too weak, you can ask the shaman to raise the difficulty. 4 Offering of Festival monsters then appear in the corners of the arena; once they are killed, the difficulty increases. You cannot lower the monsters' strength afterwards, but stronger monsters drop blood more often and in larger amounts.
Registering the score and prizes
When the Festival ends, players are taken back to the Oracle. The party leader must register the score with the Guide of Festival within 40 minutes, or it will not count. Until the leader registers the result, they cannot take part in later Festivals until those 40 minutes are up - you cannot hand in scores from several Festivals at once.
The winner in each Festival tier is the party that collected the most Blood of Sacrificed. When the Competition week ends, the points for winning a tier go to the winning party's side.
A party that won one of the tiers and belongs to the winning side can claim a reward from the Guide of Festival:
- the prize pool is made up of all the stones paid as entry fees (a sweepstake);
- the total is converted to ancient adena and shared among the parties of the winning side;
- a party that won the Festival but belongs to the losing side cannot claim a prize;
- if the winning party does not collect its prize before the next cycle begins, the prize is lost.