Jade Dynasty (video game)

Gameplay

Jade Dynasty is set in a world based on ancient China, where the secrets of immortality and martial-arts perfection were fought over by six human factions: Jadeon, Skysong, Vim, Lupin, Modo and Incense. Their pursuit of forbidden knowledge brought them into conflict with the demigod tribes of the Athan: Balo, Arden, Rayan, Celan, Forta and Voida.

Each faction in Jade Dynasty has different skills, strengths, weaknesses and styles of play. Players can become more powerful through 150 levels, high ascended levels and several endgame skill systems (such as the "Chroma" system).

Esper

One of the game’s most unusual features is its Espers. This item allows the player to use a function called "invigorating" to automatically attack enemies, which works similarly to "bot" programs in many MMORPG's. This feature allows Jade Dynasty players to grind for items and experience while away from their computers. Espers can also be set up to automatically use HP and SP remedies as well as powers (called "skills" in Jade Dynasty).

Espers are also powerful items in their own right, providing bonus skills and extra attributes to the owner. These attributes and skills can be increased both with special items or leveling up the Esper through constant use. The Esper’s appearance changes as its level increases. If you ascend your esper the skill appearance will change as well as the esper itself.

Pets

Players are able to obtain pets and train them, improving their quality and evolving their appearance. Pets are very useful in-game as they attack enemies and possess skills of their own. Pets have levels just like players, but their power is more affected by the pet's Grade stat. A pet will level up either by fighting alongside its master or through items like Kylin or Miradrake Orbs, and its grade can be improved through pet jades. These can be obtained through quests or by trading in Celebean items, available through the Marketplace.

All pets have a star sign stat, which determines the attacks they have access to. A pet workshop function exists to craft training materials or gear for pets.

The pet's appearance can radically change at grades 12 and 18 using special mushroom items. The appearance change is purely aesthetic - it does not affect the pet's skills or attributes. Pets also chat with the player, with the mood of the pet determining what it says.

Fast Travel

Jade Dynasty features several methods for traveling quickly, including Skylords, Skyblades, charms and mounts.

Skylords allow players to teleport between towns for a small fee, but players can only teleport to areas when their level is high enough.

Skyblades allow players to fly through the air, though they require energy items to use. Permanent skyblades can be obtained from the Marketplace and from the Wind Fairy NPC in the Sunstream map. A temporary Skyblade can be obtained by completing a weekly quest from the Wind Fairy. Skyblades also have levels and grades which will increase with use, increasing their speed. You cannot fight on Skyblades.

Mounts allow a player to travel on the ground faster than they could run, though characters in the Arden faction can outrun most mounts in their fox transformation, which increases resistances and speed. Permanent mounts can be bought from the market place and temporary mounts can be won in the Kunlun Wonderland Fair zone.

Portal charms and portal scrolls respectively teleport the player to a wanted location and to the actual map's Town (for example if you're in Sunstream and use a portal scroll you will be teleported to Sunstream City). However, portal charms can be purchased from the marketplace or from other players with Jade Dynasty's trading system, while portal scrolls are free and are given to the player each time he uses a Treasure Chest.

Classes

As in most fantasy MMORPGs, the games' different classes, called factions, follow some common archetypes. Their names are, however, very original, as they are based on the Chinese novel Zhu Xian's story. There are three races in Jade Dynasty: the Humans, the Athans, and the Etherkins. The Humans and the Athans races each have six classes in total, with the individual class locked onto that race. The Etherkins currently has two classes. These classes are as follows.

Jadeon

The Jadeon are one of the three Good-aligned human factions and are the spell-sword mage of the game. They are a class that values honor.

They are ranged, possessing very powerful ranged and Area of Effect (AoE) attacks that damages many enemies around a specific point, but have low health and defense stats (this can be compensated with their wide range of protective spells however). They use ice/lightning style spells mixed with martial arts as their combat skills. They use robes, along with a sword as their equipment.

Skysong

The Skysong are the primary supports in Jade Dynasty. They are a class that values peace.

The Skysong are very valuable in group combat due to their ability to cast skills that empower their allies and inflict sleeping effects on their enemies. They have low defense and attack power, but their healing abilities make them very resilient. With themes based around being monk arcanes, they have an array of skills that would bless their allies, with some they may use from afar that would heal them and deal considerable damage to the enemy. Skysongs also have area-of-effect spells but not many particularly strong ones. They use robes as their armor, staffs as their weapons.

Lupin

The Lupin are human assassins/rogues, with a similar role as the Rayan faction of the Athan. They are a class that values love and despair.

They focus almost exclusively only on single-target skills, silence curses and "buffs" that increase their damage or empower their critical hits. Without buffs (and even with buffs), the class is generally weaker on the defensive side compared to the other classes. Their skills involve mainly assassination via dance-themed martial arts and "mana burn" which would work as a silencer (stopping enemies from resenting too much) in their attacks.

The Lupin uses light armor as their means of defensive clothing. Their weapon are the glaive, a round throwing weapon with edges connecting or floating around the main circle. When shown in combat, the glaive floats and spins at a very high speed around the hand of the Lupin individual and will be thrown at the opponent at close range.

Vim

The Vim are the human anti-paladins. They are a class that values willpower.

The Vim faction fights enemies from melee range while having strong defensive capabilities that would make them a worthy adversary to take down. In the story, they were originally a Good-aligned faction, but their disregard for life and careless fighting style has isolated them from the Jadeon and Skysong factions. They use somewhat dark, brutal martial arts, as well as warrior-based skills. They wear heavy armor and their weapon is the duoblade, a double-ended sword.

Modo

The Modo are the human necromancer. Incredibly versatile, they are generally unpredictable in the three ways that they can strike. As a human, they can transform into two forms: Demonic, and Modon. They are a class that values dark enlightenment.

The Demonic Posture shifts them into a melee form that focuses on improving their health, attack, and defense, but lowers their resistances to enemy status effects. Their Modon form improves their resistances, increases their spirit (used in casting skills and maintaining their defensive shield), and use long-ranged skills, a variety of curses and damage-over-time attacks. Their normal form is the Human form, which can cast powerful area-of-effect attacks, dealing high amount of damage at medium range, but sacrifice defensive capabilities for the power. Their style of skill is dark-necromancy themed, where in many aspects of their spells they will use demonic glyphs as well as summon skulls, bones and parasites to torment their enemy. Their armor are rather strange robes, usually decorated with skeletal linings. They use the fangclaw, a clawed glove or gauntlet that they wear on one hand.

Incense Mage

The human mages of Incense Valley combine a party-support role with a heavy mage-like damage. They are the guardians of Incense Valley, and are one of the three Good-aligned factions. They were introduced in the "Legacy" expansion along with the Forta. They are a class that values justice.

Incense Mages are able to deal a lot of damage over time with the "Burn" effect many of their attacks inflict. Incense Mages can also focus on party support with area control spells or aura buffs, which grow more powerful with more party members. Their usual style of fighting involves summoning fire, using their weapons as fire conductors to inflict burning marks onto their enemies. They use robes as armor, and their weapons are kristocs, several rapier-like swords that hover in the air behind them.

Balo

The Balo tribe of Athan are the barbaric class of the game. Along with the Arden, they were one of two classes introduced in the "Ascension" expansion.

They wield axes and focus on health and defense, even more so than the Vim, which focuses mainly on defensive shields. They do not, however, deal much damage, though they have considerable suppression effects and stacking bleed-puncture skills that would help them slay their opponents. Like the Vim, they wear durable, heavy armor.

Arden

The archer tribe of the Athan, the Arden are descendants of fox spirits. They have the ability to shape-shift into a fox, raising their speed and resistances exponentially but making them unable to attack. In their normal form they have ears and a tail, whose colors can be customized.

The Arden summon plants to inflict status effects on nearby enemies, and wild beasts to attack enemies. Each tier has one plant and one beast summon. Their attacks have the longest range of any faction. They lack much health and defensive capabilities, but makes it up for high damage and high range. Their use light armor as their defensive equipment as well as bow & arrows as their weapon.

Rayan

The assassin of the Athan. Along with the Celan, they were one of two classes added in the "Vengeance" expansion.

The Rayan lacks defense, and attacks from melee range. They can however go invisible as well as summon shadow clones of themselves, which can attack, cast skills, and be used in devastating combinations with the caster. They can also transfer damage and debuffs to the shadow as well as teleport to the shadow. They can also curse their enemies and blink to their target, making them deadly in terms of single-target damage. The Rayan can deal large amounts of melee damage in combination with enhancing buffs and their shadow. Their styles of skill primarily focus on pure assassination techniques, mostly focused on taking down their targets quickly with dark slashes and traceless strikes. The Rayan uses light armor, with twin scythes being their weapons.

Celan

The Celan tribe of Athan are musicians; the "bard" class of Jade Dynasty. They are the noblest tribe of the Athan, floating slightly off the ground in a graceful glide. They were one of two classes added in the "Vengeance" expansion.

Many of their skills can chain player-chosen notes together for different effects. Like the Skysong, they can heal/bless themselves and other allies. Although lacking health, they can provide themselves and allies a "Reflect" status, which prevents incoming damage and redirects skills back against the attacker. Their skill style focuses on playing soothing to devastating melodies that can either bless or curse a large area, heal allies or deal moderate damage to enemies in a large distance. They use robes as armor. Celans uses the Zither as a weapon, an instrument that is usually played sitting down; however as they glide the Zither they use floats in front of them, ready to cast spells from the strings while in combat.

Forta

The Forta are swift martial arts melee fighters, aesthetically similar to Balo but focusing on damage. Along with the Incense Mage, the Forta were introduced in the "Legacy" expansion.

The Forta have several skills to keep their enemies in melee range; either pulling or teleporting enemies to the Forta. They are also masters of skill combinations: When they cast some skills, there’s a chance that they’ll unlock powerful Chain Skills that they can use for a short time. The Forta uses heavy armor, though they do not have as much health/defensive capabilities compared to the other wearers. The Forta fight using cestuses, spiked gauntlets that they wear on each hand.

Voida

The Voida of the Athan race floats in mid-air like the Celan, however being valiant rather than graceful. They are the light and dark mages of the game, using a combination of divine and unsacred spells. They were the only class that was introduced in the "Judgement" expansion.

The Voida have mastered the power of the light and dark elements, and casting certain skills will move them closer to one of the two extremes. During combat, the class may accumulate 100 points in either by continuously casting light or dark spells. Through this, they may enter either a Dawn or Dusk state, where their main offensive skills will have their cooldowns decreased and their effects enhanced in a way; with the forms being interchangeable by casting light to dark/dark to light spells. Using these two parallels, they may summon dark beasts, curse hexes & holy glyphs as well as charge massively powerful Area-of-Effect attacks through their channeling of darkness and light.

The Voida use ethereal-like robes as armor. Their weapons are the mysterious "stardial" that appears to be a medium-sized mechanism floating behind their backs. The stardial seems to be the source of their light and dark powers.

Psychea

The Psychea are the summoners of the Etherkin. Small & childlike in appearance, they were introduced alongside the Kytos in the "Regenesis" expansion.

The Psychea are able to effectively control and maneuver zones of the battlefield as they are able to lay various magical/technological traps as well as summon giant celestial & mechanical beasts into battle. The beasts, called "Psyteks" are usually giant mechanical beasts that are able to be ridden on by the Psychea, letting the class use the beast as a form of debuffing enemies and a gateway to access their powerful skill forms. They are able to also protect the Psychea from killing blows and costs spirit constantly to maintain. Aside from this, the Psychea is also able to render themselves invisible as well as having medium-ranged spells that deal powerful single-target damage; as well as several Area-of-Effect damaging spells that they may use alongside their Psyteks in battle.

The Psychea uses a giant calligraphy brush to conjure such beasts and spells, waving it around to create Chinese symbols that allows them to cast spells in the heat of battle. They use robes as their armor.

Kytos

The Kytos are the Etherkin crusaders. They are four-legged with blue skin, resembling something similar to the centaur/mythical kirin in terms of physique. They are gender-locked to be male only, and were introduced alongside the Psychea in the "Regenesis" expansion.

The Kytos are mobile as well as durable, allowing them to charge straight into the hearts of combat and the vulnerable back lines. They are able to force the assault of enemies onto them, as well as reflect damage and cast defensive buffs onto themselves, rendering the assaults of the offenders useless. They are also able to transform themselves into mounts that their allies can ride on to the fight. Also, they have a human form that allows them to use fashion and ride mounts like other classes and factions, though they are unable to use their skills in human form and thus only in their true form are they suitable for combat. Instead of using "spirit" (mana in Jade Dynasty) to cast skills, the Kytos instead uses their own health to cast their powerful multi-target skills as well as suppressive effects. They build up "Fury" in replacement of spending spirit via dealing or taking damage, which, depending on skill choices, allows them to become more powerful in terms of either damage, accuracy of skills, and so on. With these traits combined, the Kytos makes a very powerful warrior as they hastily rush into the front lines of the battlefield.

The Kytos uses the spear as their weapon. They use various parts of heavy armor (shoulder pads, etc.) as defensive clothing. In some areas (such as their chests) they are not covered in armor however, which allows them to be incredibly mobile in battle.

Tiers

Each faction has 5 Tiers of skills, each unlocked by completing a quest chain at certain milestone levels. Humans begin as non-class Initiates, so Tier 1 begins for them at Level 15, while the Athan start Tier 1 at Level 1.

Each faction has its own faction-specific Tier 1 and 2 quests chains, but Tier 3, 4 and 5 quests are the same for all classes.

Each Tier contains a standardized amount of skills: nine skills for Tiers 1 – 4, and four skills for the Human Initiate tier and Tier 5. To level up skills in higher tiers, lower-level tiers need a certain amount of skill points invested in them. There are not enough skill points to attain all skills at maximum levels, so players choose a specific build to use.

This system makes possible several different builds in the same faction, such as Skysongs being able to focus on either healing or fighting. Some players attempt to do both, but this usually results in a character that is a "jack of all trades, but master of none", so the usual builds focus on one particular strength.

Refinery

Refinery improves the quality of a weapon or a piece of defensive gear, increasing the stat bonuses they grant, and is an important process of the game. Players can use talismans and, sometimes, an auxiliary item to improve, or guarantee, the success of a refinery.

Refinery improves the quality of the item, adding attributes to it and giving it a glow of different colors depending on the level of the refinery; e.g., a +9 armor grants a high bonus to Defense and glows green. Refined items are invaluable in the endgame, both for PvP and PvE. Refining has a chance to succeed and increase the refinery level, but if it fails, the gear will be destroyed. This may be avoided by using items that either enhance the chances of success, prevent items from breaking or even guarantee success. The following items directly affect the refinery process:

1. The Star Charm: Increases the chance of success by 15%. Whether this is multiplicative or additive remains to be confirmed.

2. The Serenity Jade: Prevents the item from breaking. Instead, should the refinery process fail, the refine level will be reduced by 1. If your item was +5 and the refinery process fails serenity jade, your item will be returned to you at +4, and both the serenity jade and refinery talisman are consumed.

3. Sigils: Guarantees success of refining your item up to a certain value. There are tiers of Sigils that can increase the maximum refinery value, with Dragon Sigils the highest obtainable by exchanging lower-level sigils, and Kirin Sigils the highest-level sigils overall.

Star Charms, Serenity Jades and Bronze Sigils can be purchased in the marketplace.

The Marketplace

The Marketplace is a cash shop where Jaden can be exchanged for some items. Jaden can currently be purchased for 1 USD per 1 Jaden. Jaden can also be purchased from other players for in-game gold via a banker function. The in-game gold to Jaden ratio is steadily rising. Unlike some games, you can play Jade Dynasty without using the Marketplace, but you will be at a disadvantage relative to cash shop players.

Treasure Chest / Brocade Box

The Treasure Chest is an item received by every new character containing a basic set of items. It can be opened every 5 levels, and some of the items are exclusive or usually only available in the Marketplace.

The Brocade Box is a box received by Inductees, similarly to a referral program. Characters on a new account can enter a level 60+ player's induction code when they first create a character. The Inductor receives Bonus Jaden each time his/her inductee reaches a certain level, and the Inductee can open the Brocade Box for items. The Inductee's Brocade Box is similar to the Treasure Chest in the respect that it can be opened every 5 levels up to level 90, after which it opens at levels 120, 135, and 150.

Ascension

Ascension works similarly to the New Game+ option in many RPGs, allowing high-level players to reset down to being Level 15. As players level back up, they’ll have higher stats than before they Ascended; stat bonuses will be higher the higher the character’s level was before Ascending. To make this distinction, players will say that someone is "Ascended Level 75" versus just "Level 75."

Ascending is a quest available only to Tier 5 characters, level 150. Players can either go through a series of trials, or the trials can be skipped by having a large enough amount of honour, piety, charity, culture or renown.

Ascending allows players to choose to switch to a different faction: Human characters can become any of six human factions, and Athan characters can become any of the six Athan tribes. Characters will have special Ascension skills depending on their factions pre- and post-Ascension.

Ascended characters will have access to a new mandatory quest chain, and as well as to many new areas, new gear, new skills, and the Affinity and Chroma systems.

Ascended characters can further level up higher to 160.

Affinity

Upon reaching Ascended Level 90, characters will receive a new Mandatory quest called "The Divination." Completing this quest will let character choose between the three Affinities: the crusading Dagos, the dark Felkin, or the meditative Fuwa.

Each affinity grants a set of skills that players can learn and level up, five of which are faction-specific. Characters may only be part of one affinity at a time, but some items in the Marketplace switch affinities. The affinity skills from the previous affinity will not be usable, but if a character ever reverts to the original affinity, that affinity’s skills will be at the same level as before the affinity change.

Choosing an affinity allows the player access to a whole new map dependent on their faction. This map is where most high-level players grind for items and experience.

Chroma

Once a character reaches Ascended Level 120 and has chosen an Affinity, they are able to unlock the Chroma system. Players can gain Chroma experience points from Chroma Bead items, which can be spent on increasing their Chroma level or on learning Chroma skills. Higher Chroma levels provide stat bonuses and make many Chroma skills more powerful.

Each faction and Affinity combination has access to 20 Chroma skills, which can be leveled up with Chroma experience. These endgame skills are often upgraded versions of earlier skills: three improved Affinity skills and four improved faction skills.