Happy Birthday, Nora! "*sniffs* Nora... Do you plan on eating this with your eyes?" "What nonsense are you trying to say! Of course this is the make-a-wish ritual before I actually eat my birthday cake!" "Ritual? What? Are you summoning new spirits for me to command?" "...how could I forget, Cernon is an idiot who doesn't even know what birthdays are. Also, when did I ever say that these spirits were automatically going to be yours to command?" "Are they not?"

(CN) Calabiyau has published another developer interview regarding some questions players have. View it here: Translation of interview: Q: How will Calabiyau deal with the rampant cheating problem? A: Currently, we are using ACE to detect whether or not someone is cheating; if they are detected to be cheating then we will ban the player in question, if they aren't then we won't ban them, pretty simple logic. However, with the influx of feedback regarding the increase in cheaters that we've received, we've done a couple internal discussions, and moving forward we will adjust the cheater detection system a bit. Firstly, we will increase the crackdown on cheating, like properly defining what cheating is. Next, we will also implement 'cooldowns' for players who have abnormal stats or got reported, which means that they will be restricted from certain actions until they are determined to be cheating or not cheating via an AI system. We will also improve the report feedback system since most players aren't satisfied with its current lack of feedback and will thus eventually lose faith in it. We plan to do this by informing the reporter whether or not the reported player was determined to be cheating or not, and if they were cheating, what sort of punishment they received. Lastly, in the future, we will also add a compensation system; no matter which team you're on, if you have a cheater in your game, you will get compensation, be it in Strinovium Points, in-game items or in-game currency. Q: Quite a lot of players have given the recent Flavia legendary some pushback, what are your thoughts on the matter? A: We have definitely received a lot of negative feedback regarding Flavia's second legendary. On behalf of Calabiyau, we will never allow any plotholes in our designs, as we have tried our best to stick to the storyline as well as standardised everything, so nothing conflicts with one another. Initially, her design was going to be themed around traditional Chinese culture, eventually landing on Miao design elements; adding lots of stuff like spirits and bodies of energy. I admit that we definitely messed up on colour selection, leading everyone to believe that it would be fire-themed, and creating misunderstandings and discourse amongst the players. We will try to avoid this happening to future outfit designs, and we will try to stick to something more lore-appropriate. Q: What about the crossbow being balanced terribly? A: That was on us for releasing such a broken weapon, and on behalf of Calabiyau I would like to apologise. In the beginning, we wanted the crossbow to be able to improve players' experiences using main weapons, and also allow for modes outside of ones where each character has to be bound to a single weapon only. We also wanted to reduce the skill floor for certain characters which have high skill floor weapons, because I've received a lot of feedback from players where they say stuff like 'I like Kanami/Kokona, but her gun is simply too difficult to use, so I never end up playing them, could you design a weapon which is easier to use for me?', and thus the idea of universal main weapons was born. However, on release, there was a bug with the crossbow which resulted in abnormal stats and basically broke the balance within Calabiyau, especially in Ranked Demolition. This is something we are currently reflecting on internally, as well as with the Nora situation, with her being so overpowered on release to the point that her pickrate was insanely high, and thus having a negative effect on Ranked Demolition. To combat these things from happening again, we've decided to introduce multiple rounds of testing for things like maps, characters and gamemodes, to ensure that their performance is more in line with our expectations. We will also listen to immediate feedback upon their release and push out more bugfixes and adjustments sooner, decreasing their potential negative impact on the game's experience. Besides, we will also be more conservative towards balance adjustments and agent stats to avoid things like release Nora from happening. Q: How will the story in Extraction go? A: Extraction is set in a place called Vilian, whereby a small PUS research team slipping up whilst doing some experiments causes a local emergency, resulting in spacetime errors occuring around the area. Due to this, the local environment and lifeforms have mutated, and some evil lifeforms have taken over the area. So, The Scissors and PUS put aside their differences and worked together with Urbino to combat this emergency; as Navigators, of course you will be included in the mission to save the area. Q: What are some of the specialties of Extraction? A: There are 4 things worth mentioning. Firstly, about the use of stringification, we've used it to the fullest, designing a lot of vents/thin gaps/doors only to be activated by stringification in order to allow for it to be utilised to the max. Secondly, in the map, we've put a lot of easter eggs and puzzles for you to explore and play around with. Thirdly, regarding the extraction of items, we've designed a lot of Calabiyau-esque items for players to extract and use in dorms or keep as souvenirs, and some even have hidden usecases. Lastly, we've included a lot of PvE elements, like killing groups of mutants in order to get lots of loot. There will also be boss fights in certain areas of the map, which you can either take on yourself or with other teams. Q: How complete is the Extraction gamemode? A: I can confidently say that Extraction is in its final touch-up stage. Currently we are doing 2 things, those being changing temporary assets for official assets, which was noticed by a lot of you Navigators who playtested extraction during the anniversary event, and working to fix things brought up in feedback, like getting lost in the indoors part of the map, clipping issues with outdoor terrain, some stringified areas not being made obvious, or interaction bugs, so hopefully Extraction will be releasing soon.