Character Friendship Content

Character Friendship Content is a major content, introduced to Vindictus in June 24th, 2020. The content aims for interacting with the mercenary comrades, that are represented as hero characters roster that you initially choose from at the beginning of the game.

= What is the Friendship Content =

As the name implies, the Friendship Content is a content that allows you to meet your respective comrades-in-arms of the Crimson Blade mercenaries and build up your friendship with them. As you progress through the content, you will:
 * Build up friendship with the target mercenary;
 * Open conversation topics;
 * Gather Seals of Friendship, required to purchase Voice Emotes;
 * Proceed through the character's short stories and learn more about your comrade;
 * Learn Friendship Skills and new Emotes.

The Crimson Blade's Mercenary Outpost has the 2nd floor leading to the Mercenary Lounge, where you will find your allies in the Mercenary Unit resting. The lounge is usually occupied by 5-6 mercenaries and the roster changes every day at 7 AM (UTC). Additionally, the lounge possesses the mission board and the NPC Captain Crimson that acts as the manager of the lounge.

In the Mercenary Lounge, the player can perform the following actions:
 * Engage in conversations with the comrade mercenaries;
 * Buy and send Gifts to the comrade mercenaries;
 * Summon the comrade mercenary, if a specific comrade is currently absent from the lounge;
 * Depart on missions with a specific comrade mercenary.

=Friendship Content Mechanics=

Building Friendship
Each comrade character possesses their own Closeness meter (represented by an emoji and the gauge) and Bond Level that indicate your current relationship status with the target comrade, and the Daily Closeness meter (represented by the pale-blue heart) that measures how many actions you can perform regarding the target comrade mercenary to contribute to the Closeness meter before those actions stop making any contribution until the next day. There exist items that can raise Closeness while ignoring the Daily Closeness meter.

Closeness Meter Breakdown
Each comrade character possesses their own Closeness meter which is represented by an emoji, signifying the friendship level, and the progress gauge. The Closeness meter fills up to a certain percentage as you perform certain actions with the allied mercenaries. The daily limit for filling up the Closeness meter is 7% per day.

[*]The Suspicious Potion raises the Closeness meter regardless of the daily limit.

For almost every character, reaching 20%, 40%, 60% and 80% of the meter unlocks a short story for the target characters, which comprises of an event involving you and the target character. Upon progressing through the story, you will learn a new conversation topic, which then can be used when talking to mercenaries.

Once the Closeness meter fills up to 100%, you can talk to the comrade mercenary you've built your friendship with to raise up the Bond Level with that comrade. As the Bond Level increases, the comrade's behavior in battles, chit-chat dialogues and statuses change.

Gifts
As mentioned before, apart from chatting with the allied mercenaries in the lounge, you can send them gifts. Every allied mercenary has 2 of their own favorite items that they'd really want to be gifted with. Sending a gift that the mercenary likes will provides twice the Closeness rate as if you were sending a normal gift. Below is the list of the gifts that every character tends to like:

Lounge Mission Board
The mission board allows you to go on a mission with your allied mercenaries. Said mercenary will become your companion and will assist you in completing the mission.

The missions are split into 4 categories, each of them presenting different tasks to handle. Completing the missions increases your Closeness meter and gives you Seals of Friendship. Additionally, there's a chance that the player may receive a gift from his comrade mercenary (it's usually signified by sentences like "I feel lusky today").

Border Patrol
The Border Patrol mission revolves around defending the Colhen from the invasion of Fomors. The enemies will spawn at the beginning of the map and will start breaking through barricades, set on the area. The player and his comrade must defeat a number of enemies on the map and not let them break the final barricade by the entrance to the village of Colhen. The area is equipped with a catapult, that the player (or his comrade, if he gives out an order) can use for stopping the enemies in their tracks, but the amount of projectiles is limited. After a few dozens of defeated enemies, the BOSS monster (Gnoll Chieftain) will appear. Defeating the BOSS monster completes the battle.

Win conditions:


 * Defeat enemies and the BOSS;

Failure conditions:


 * The player character is incapacitated.
 * The enemies have broken through the final barricade.

Recon Run
The Recon Run mission is a mission which requires you and your comrade to gather intel. In this mission one of the following tasks will be chosen at random:


 * Obtain secret intel from the coffers in the Fobellow Prairie. The player (or his comrade) must open the chest while the comrade (or player) fights off the repeatedly spawning enemies. The enemies stop spawning once the coffer is opened. To complete this mission, the party must open 2 chests.
 * Defeat the BOSS enemy in the Fobellow Prairie.

Win conditions:


 * Obtained the contents of the 2 coffers. / Defeated the BOSS enemy.

Failure conditions:


 * The player character is incapacitated.

Supply Circuit
The Supply Circuit mission requires you to obtain supplies for your Mercenary Unit. As wil Recon Run, one of the following tasks will be chosen at random:


 * Defeat the BOSS enemy in the Perilous Ruins;.
 * Score more Enhancement Points than your comrade.

In case of the latter task, the player and the comrade are transported to the Forge, where they attempt to enhance 5 pieces of equipment. Together, they must compete for who enhances the most equipment and who enhances them better. The player must press the [Enhance] button at the right time in order to successfully enhance equipment. If the enhancement is successful, the equipment part gains an enhancement level. When enhancement fails, the equipment part is considered broken and the player must move to the next part to continue the enhancement process until there's nothing more left to enhance. The player doesn't have to go all the way to the maximum enhancement level and can move onto the next equipment part by pressing the [Next] button.

The outcome of the mission is decided by the amount of equipment successfully enhanced and their enhancement levels. The result is calculated based on the sum of enhancement level points as follows:

Win conditions:


 * Defeated the BOSS enemy. / Scored more Enhancement Points than your comrade.

Failure conditions:


 * The player character is incapacitated. / Your comrade scored more Enhancement Points than you.

This is the only mission, where the player's comrade mercenary is presented as a rival.

Support Mission
The Support Mission is a special kind of mission that revolves around helping the townspeople in Colhen: collecting sheeps. The player and his comrade must cooperate to take the sheep prowling in the field to the designated area while fending off Fomors at the same time. The mission counts as completed when 5 sheep (or the remaining sheep) are sent to the designated area.

Win conditions:


 * Taken all 5 sheep (or the remaining sheep) to the designated area;

Failure conditions:


 * The player character is incapacitated.
 * The enemies have captured every sheep.

Achievements
The Friendship Content has an achievement system, that will reward you with titles, Seals of Friendship, Emotes and Destined Skills.