Busy month is busy. I've got 2 days back at work then I'm off again until after the week end. Wedding preparations and a stag party in Europe if you're curious, which I'm sure you're not.

Will further delay updates as I'm barely getting enough time in work to keep up with my tickets and general maintenance. Last warfare round scores are below, again sorry for delays. I'm still alive, roadmap is still en route.

Warfare: January - March 2014
1: Blade of Dawn - 1,721,270 points
2: Outcasts - 1,191,800 points
3: Dark Flame - 993,470 points
4: Chapter - 561,800 points

Congratulations to all involved, keep collecting crystals they'll be useful soon!

Still working on some things, I'll be away quite a bit this week and next so things may get pushed back. I've been playing about with the combat simulator and reading the thread in the main forums. Right now I'm leaning towards diminishing return percentage crystals.

The problem with flat stat crystals diminishing or not, there will end up being a certain set of crystals that is good regardless of your build. Players will likely decide damage, armor, dodge and accuracy are what they care about and put the same 4 crystals on each item. With no thought given to the items they're going on.

The percentage based system doesn't have this problem. You would be a fool to put damage crystals in to a Rift Gun or accuracy crystals in to a Void Sword. You wouldn't want to use crystals to bolster the items weaker stats, for the greatest return you would want to boost their best stats.

My other concerns about percentages are then addressed by diminishing returns. Putting 4 damage crystals on a Void Sword wouldn't be insane because of the diminished return of each crystal of the same type.

In my opinion such a system would keep crystals varied, you also wouldn't be able to do broken things like put damage on your armor, or armor on your weapons, etc. Let me know what you think below.

I've been giving some thought to what stats the crystals should give. There are a few decisions that need to be made. Firstly should crystals give flat stats or should they give percentage increases to the items in to which they socket.

If we go with percentages I imagine we would never see a Void Sword with anything but Fire Crystals (damage) in them and we would rarely see a Rift Gun with anything but Air Crystals in it (accuracy) as increasing the largest stat by a percentage would be the biggest advantage. So right now I'm thinking more along the lines of flat stat increases as they are also easier to balance.

If we go with percentages (or even if we don't for fire crystals) what happens when you put a crystal in an item that doesn't have that stat to increase. A damage crystal can't increase damage done when it is in armor, etc. I guess they just wouldn't be socketable in items that did not have their respective stat to increase.

Given the potential for this update to go badly, I'm not going to proceed with it until I'm happy with the plan in full. Please comment and discuss on the forums. Also congratulations to hincha for getting the first Misc item to level 5, the other item types are still open to be won.

Sometimes I wish people who get very loud when they disagree with a change would be equally as loud when they agree with something. If all I hear is the vocal minority who disagree obviously get a distorted impression of what players want.

When players disagree with future changes, you better be equally as vocal if you want them to stay.

Void Sword: + 10 Minimum Damage, +18 Maximum Damage, +5 Melee Skill
Rift Gun: +25 Accuracy, +5 Gun Skill
Prime Amulet: +1 Accuracy, +1 Dodge, +10 All Skills

This makes Ventrix's drops clear upgrades over old Avatar equipment but equal to each other. Apart from the 2nd Amulet which is a clear upgrade over the Prime Amulet.

Crystal Fusion is delayed until next week as I have no idea what percentages to give each crystal yet to keep them in balance with each other. Feel free to play with the simulator and make suggestions.