Physical damage formulas, criticals, skill scaling, targeting, movement response and skill chaining are revised together while preserving Interlude timing and combat identity.
Normal hits, criticals, physical skill power and weapon scaling are tuned together so upgrading gear still matters without creating absurd skill spikes or making active skills irrelevant. Physical skills that already support critical hits also gain a small capped bonus from Critical Rate: roughly +1% skill critical chance per 100 Critical Rate, up to +5%, without affecting skill hit chance.
Skills chain with less friction: a well-timed press near the end of the current action is remembered and executed naturally next. This makes combat feel more immediate and controlled, rewards timing and clean inputs, and removes the advantage of repeatedly hammering the same key.
Target changes, movement response and action transitions are cleaned up to reduce old L2J friction without bypassing normal server validation.
Skill chaining, target changes and movement response connect more naturally while keeping Interlude timing and animation identity.
For now, the ELO / Skill Rating system is limited to Olympiad. It is designed to reward meaningful wins instead of repeated farming, with anti-feed checks that reduce or nullify rating value from suspicious repeated opponents or abuse patterns. Exact thresholds remain adjustable during testing.
For now, this applies only to Olympiad: before the match, players choose from a controlled buff set instead of receiving every possible buff automatically. The preparation is intentionally brief and adds matchup decisions without turning Olympiad into a full-buff environment.
