main index




Topical Tropes

Other Categories

TV Tropes Org
Video Game: Dynasty Warriors Online
Dynasty Warriors Online is an MMO in the Dynasty Warriors series, and once again tells the tale of the Three Kingdoms of Wu, Shu, and Wei, this time from the perspective of a player-created commander. It has the controls and movesets (with a few extras) of Dynasty Warriors 5 and a character customization system similar to that of the Empires games. Each battle works like the main games: you choose a battle and go into the field to fulfill the objective. It deviates in that you can be joined by up to 3 other friends and 4 other enemies, and that once you start, you need to upgrade your weapon in mid-battle through picking up flasks.

The English servers were closed on January 10th, 2014.

This game provides examples of:

  • A.I. Breaker: There are plenty of breaks in the A.I, but the most glaring one is their inability to air-recover. This is a common recovery method for getting out of combos for players, but it's lost on A.I, making them bad sparring partners.
  • Actually Four Mooks: Not a gameplay feature, but as a result of a glitch sometimes more than one group of mooks will spawn in the same place, making them stand in the almost exact same place.
  • All Swords Are the Same: Downplayed for one mechanic, but averted overall. All swords in game have different movesets. However, for a class of sword, no matter the level, the sword will have the same moves aside from the crests. A bit oddly, in a weapon where this would be noticeable, it will always make use of the highest level sword's style, rather than the lowest, meaning shorter swords will be, in some cases, move as if they were longer.
  • Artistic License - Economics: Rather neatly Averted for an MMO. You always receive money for a reason, such as payment for how many battles you've participated in by your general or completing a job for a merchant. The reward for random battles is always gear, items, or weapons but never random gold.
  • Ascended Fanboy: One user, normally called "Yuri Saki" or "Yuri", despite not being on the Areia staff is not only making update posts and hosting events, but also runs a better DWO Wiki herself than the community one. One advantage is the fact that she speaks and reads Japanese and English, meaning she knows the updated content of both games.
  • Anachronic Order: An unintentional version - it's possible to play Chronicle Quests, stories about what happened so far in the Three Kingdoms, before the actual event happens.
  • Anti-Grinding: Not inherent in the the game mechanics, but the Arena payout has been reduced. It used to be that Arena was used to farm items quickly, but item drops were reduced to one to prevent this.
    • This didn't stop people from grinding anyway, so it was removed entirely.
    • It should also be noted that items are not the only thing people use the arena to grind. During bonus Honor periods, arena farms will tend to spike, and people will use it to get uses on their weapons.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: While most armor you get is from battle, specific quests will also give you armor too.
  • Annoying Arrows: To a ridiculous extent. Even the arrows shot by Xiahou Yuan and Huang Zhong barely do anything.
    • It should be noted that arrows coming from an arbalest in supply bases do a lot more damage. However, these can't technically kill you...
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: The higher up they are in the army or government the stronger they are, where the highest ranked generals are the character example of this, as they are the strongest, but not smartest, enemies on the battlefield. Just be glad they don't appear too often when not arranged.
  • Area of Effect: the 5th charge combo of weapons, with varying results. For specific weapons, the Cymbals are the masters of this.
  • Armour Is Useless: In general, you get a small boost from it. It's not noticeable unless all your armor is made to increase a specific stat.
  • Artificial Stupidity: The A.I., and we use this term loosely, is very bad, as commanders (which would normally be the player character) wait around to be hit and only attack occasionally.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Certain weapons, due to the way the stats are distributed, are this. Some weapons may have useful combos, but the poor stats make inadvisable to use them unless you mod them. The tonfa are victims of this.
    • Some attacks may be this too. The unique C6 emblems are most prone. The war blade's "eclipse" emblem is one of the better examples. It's a multi-hit AoE attack with elemental use. The charge up takes so long you are likely to be interrupted.
    • The weapons who's ability gives you "Attack X3", three times your current attack stat, in PVP in any event short of team coordination, See Bash Brothers below. The axe is powerful, but it's slow as all hell and despite good combos, it's easy to bolt away from, making the bonus useless if you can't get to your target. The twin picks have wide range, good attack stat, and the Attack X3 only increases this further, but the combos are detrimentally slow and trying to take on a team with it, which players may be tempted to do, will get you offed very quickly.
  • Back Stab / Attack Its Weak Point: getting around guarding. Aside from a special weapon ability, guarding only works from the front, so attacking from the back will do normal damage but will not be guarded.
  • Bag of Sharing: A weapon ability for in combat. Getting a healing or buffing item will share the effects with all members of your team when the ability is active, at the cost of reducing the effectiveness. On buffs, it reduces how long you have it and not how effective it is.
  • Bag of Spilling: Downplayed. After each battle you will lose your in battle upgrades, but nothing else. Only arena and showdown averts this by starting you up at full.
  • Bash Brothers: Not a gameplay mechanic, but when playing with friends you might get this between players. Because combos aren't as complicated as normal fighting games, two players who are well coordinated can easily mop up 4 players who don't have as strong a coordination. Two players using coordinating weapons have an easier time with this, such as melee and ranged, but any will do.
  • Battle Amongst the Flames: It is possible to set entire areas on specific maps on fire. During showdowns, you can also set fire to the enemies supply base to reduce their score.
  • Bee Hive Barrier: When using the ability that gives 360 protection when blocking this appears around the character to indicate that it's activated.
  • Blatant Lies: Wang Tong, when he creates 3 copies of himself, all of which claim to be the real one, while he sheepishly says he isn't.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: Not as bad as most examples, but common spelling mistakes, things being said at the wrong time, and entire descriptions being incorrect are far too common.
  • Body-Count Competition: The point of Defeat (kill two or three thousand enemies as a team first). Also a common judgement on Capture when time runs out. Possible with your own teammates, since whoever does the best in the match gets a little more Honor.
  • Boring, but Practical: Certain stat spreads on certain weapons. The war blade, for example, is a good PVP weapon, giving the user durability and attack. They may not be flashy or one hit killers, but they can get the job done well.
  • Boss Battle: Musou generals are arguably this. Specific enemies in quests are straighter examples.
  • Boss Banter: Generals will often have a comment on what's happening on the battlefield. They have a set conditions to say these, and change comments weather it's their side or their enemies that the even happened on.
  • Bonus Boss: Some quests have bosses you don't have to fight, but give you a better ranking if you do. Special mention go to the Nanman tribe, who may send out generals in later scenarios if you fight them.
  • Booze-Based Buff: Drinking wine will give you character a full Musou bar. Also, the flasks you pick up in battle are filled with an unknown liquid, possibly also using this trope as well.
  • Cast From Hitpoints: The special ability that both heals and buffs your allies, Sacrifice, runs on your own HP as long as it's activated.
  • Chain Pain / Whip It Good: The "Chain Whip", an actual martial arts weapon, is both, as the name implies.
  • Critical Status Buff: Once you are in red your Limit Break is more powerful and includes fire.
  • Common Character Classes: Played with. Each weapon has it's own stats for upgrading automatically, meaning that unmodded they could be compared to classes, but by no means are they limited to it.
    • Warrior: Scimitar, Twin Rods, Hand Axe, Vision Staff.
    • Rogue (speed only): Flute, Claws, Twin Swords, Pirate Blade.
    • Ranger: Up for debate, as each weapon has its perks, but the Steel Fan is commonly used for ranged strikes, and War Blade has long-range attacks even if its stats (and the fact that it's a sword) would link it to the Warrior class.
    • Support: Cursed Deck and Trident, They have automatic abilities that heal and buff your teammates. Chakrams and Nunchucks also count, because they have the ability to heal teammates.
    • Nuker: Iron Rod is most commonly used as this, but Twin Pikes and Vision staff also count, because they are all used for the Limit Break Musou attack that is rather good at clearing crowds.
  • Competitive Balance: Due to the stat system, you never peg down a weapon to just one class, and the way you build your weapons can easily change it, but there are a few examples of unmodified weapons for each class.
    • Jack of All Stats: Iron sword. All stats, aside from Musou, have a chance to surpass each other, meaning you can use it for whatever you want.
    • Fragile Speedster: Twin Sabers. They are fast, but their focus is on aggressive fighting rather than defence.
    • Glass Cannon: Iron Rod. Its focus is in attack and Musou, meaning it can deal a lot of damage if used well, but its defensive stats aren't too good.
    • Lightning Bruiser: Twin Maces. They're fast, focus on HP and attack, and hit a lot. However, their range is pitiful so you generally have to close a small gap in melee to hit somebody.
    • Mighty Glacier: Hand Axe. This weapon has a strong natural attack even with low upgrades, but attack and move speed are slow.
    • Stone Wall: Buckler Blade. This has high defense and life, meaning that you can take quite a few hits, but don't expect to be dealing much damage with it.
    • Squishy Wizard: Cursed Deck. The highest stat boost, Attack, is lower than a medium boost for most, but despite that this weapon can use plenty of abilities in battle, from fire to range to healing allies at the cost of more of your own power, and is more of a utility rather than a weapon.
  • Continuing Is Painful: Flasks, the in-battle upgrade, can be made to be lost. This means that you have to work on grinding again, which usually takes up a good chunk of time...
    • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: ...but which can also be quick and painless depending on your setup. It's possible (and constantly made) during melees to lose nothing, or almost nothing, upon death in terms of flasks. This can randomly happen during campaigns as well, possibly altering any strategy you might have.
  • Continuity Nod / Call Forward: In game there are unique weapons that don't use DW 5's original styles, but are unique to the online game. 2 of them, the chain whip and bo-staff (called cudgel ingame) would be used in the next installment for Daio Chan and Zhou Yu respectively, and as of 7 are still their preferred weapons. On the other hand, one weapon was added more recently, the wolf fang club, that was used in 6, and given a moveset. Also, in Kunlun Mountian, you can face off with the guardians of the 4 directions, all of whom were a bossfights in Dynasty Warriors Strike Force.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: As expected of Dynasty Warriors. About the only accurate thing from the opening cutscene is that you fight people. And sometimes Lu Bu.
  • Counter Attack: The Musou block not only stops an attack, it can stun the attacker (or use one of your elements on him).
  • Damage-Sponge Boss: Generals have ungodly health that adds to their difficulty. It's difficult to find an unmodded weapon that can take them down quickly.
  • Decapitated Army: Averted. If you manage to defeat a commanding officer, your allied troops receive a boost in stats for the rest of the match.
  • Difficult but Awesome: The cursed deck. It's harder to use, and the stats are sub-par, but if you are willing to work on it you can get a very useful Glass Canon, with the ability to use multiple elements and a good range.
  • Do Well, But Not Perfect: On some quests, the reward for doing ok might outweigh the reward for doing perfectly, such as items that are arguably more useful for doing just below perfect. For most higher level quests it's averted, as they would have set rewards for perfection that are more rare than the lower ranks.
  • Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: Random troops and sometimes other players are simple enough. While players may simulate this, nothing quite prepares you for taking out a bunch of mooks and having an enemy that can take more than 3 hits and doesn't flinch like normal.
  • Elemental Powers: There are 5 differnt "elements" that can be in certain attacks or attached to a weapon.
    • Playing with Fire: One of the more damaging elements. Oppents will remain on fire as long as they are subjected to the attack or remain in the air. Kill It with Fire is averted, as fire can't be the cause of of a death, the final attack must be a hit.
    • Blow You Away: Wind has to be equipped to a weapon. Any attack that is enhanced by wind will have increased knockback and, if they hit a commander, will inflict a status debuff that makes running slower.
    • Shock and Awe: Another equip one. This will inflict stunned, not unique to the weapon, but it will also provide a damage bonus and make it impossible to recover for a set number of hits.
    • An Ice Person: Ice attacks have a chance on each hit to freeze the target solid. this prevents movement and knockback.
    • Casting a Shadow: a more YMMV but "Vorpal" seems to fit the bill for this trope. It's purple, looks distinctively darker in the attack visual than any other element, and is mostly effects. The most important effect is Mana Burn, which affects both the target of the attack and the one using the element, but it also has a chance to be a Fixed Damage Attack but with a fixed minimum amount of damage, and if you do more damage than that then nothing gets removed.
  • Elaborate Equals Effective: Not one single weapon goes from fancy to plain the stronger the version is. In addition, adding an element changes the color.
    • Averted in the lieutenants, whose clothes stay the same the whole time, even as they level up, and items will mostly receive either a change to the background or a minor change in look for higher level of items.
    • Inverted in that in order to dye armour, and thus make it appear elaborate, it has to be a lower level to improve the chances of doing that.
  • Enemy Mine: If two major factions have few players, they may be allied against another faction.
  • Experience Points: It's called Honor here, and it only increases your rank, not stats.
  • Field Power Effect: The current weather can affect elemental orbs. For example, when it's raining or snowing, Fire is next to useless, but Electricity and Wind (and Ice when it's snowing) is more powerful.
  • Final Battle: Every scenario ends with a final campaign against all of the other factions, which in itself is handled like a tournament. (For example, Sun Quan vs. Liu Bei, winner fighting Cao Cao). Whoever wins this ultimately unites all of China. Even if they only have one city at the time.
  • Flunky Boss: The generals have 4 guards with them, all of them are Boss In Mooks Clothing enemies because they look normal but also have flinch resistance and deal lethal damage, just not as much as the boss.
  • Foe-Tossing Charge: As said in the main article, the entire game is one big foe tossing charge, but there is a skill attached to the horn blade that gives you this. When active, any time the character is dashing (when the little lines normally appear and you can use the dash attack by pressing normal attack) then all nearby enemies will take a small amount of damage but go flying away.
  • Forced Tutorial: The first few quests you do are tutorials. It's not very well done, as it makes sure that you know how to attack with a basic attack. Then it makes sure you know how to use a charge attack. Then a 2nd charge. Then a 3rd charge. Then a 4th charge. The entire sequence takes two minutes, and if you do well enough, you skip the other tutorials, which teach controls and gameplay mechanics exclusive to the online version -including flasking, which is necessary to win any match against actual opponents.
  • Friendly Fireproof: Played straight aside from, well, a certain fire attack. Bombs, a charge attack that shows up on a few weapons, can hurt your allies if they are in the blast radius. They can't K.O. so the last hit has to be more direct, and there are no attacks other than bombs that do this making it impossible to finish off your own teammate.
  • Genre-Busting: while closer to another trope, if you think about it, it's MOBA meets hack and slash meets RPG, and while the core gameplay is undeniably hack and slash, the other two genera still make a pretty large difference in that aspect.
    • The MOBA aspects are not readily visible because it doesn't follow the exact formula. Rather than champions you have weapons, but each weapon is basically its own unique character with their own moveset and boosts. Armor also boosts specific stats, much like the skill and rune system in League of Legends. Finally flasks pull double duty as gold and experience, being the way you upgrade your character, and you obtain it by beating up creeps, in this case mooks.
    • The RPG element is that each weapon must be leveled up on its own, through battle as well as using items to improve it. Items are also found through battles, rather than in the middle of it like a MOBA, and they're used at the beginning and last the whole fight.
    • Hack and slash is the most obvious, being the main action of the game.
  • Guest Fighter: the Small sword and large sword, movesets of Nu Wa and Fu Xi (Fu Xis sword is currently unavailable on the english server). They are Physical Gods, and their weapons show it. Compared to what the commanders usually, the moves from the weapons are odd, ranging from summoning pillars of fire to spikes of ice, and the closest thing you can do to that with a "normal" weapon is to summon a shockwave.
    • Da Jis marbles are a weapon you can get in the game (currently available to the japanese server only).
  • Gradual Regeneration: Via items or abilities this can be activated. Two items will cause you to slowly recover health and musou gradually, it scales with your hp, and 2 different abilities give this to all of your teammates, and one that recovers your own musou slowly. If you go into red health then your musou will get a recovery too.
  • Genre Shift: Peach garden. It goes from an almost anarchistic power struggle over the rule of China to... Mythical area where people meet and work together. Kun Lun, see below, not only has people who might be enemies working together, but the actual challenges are different too. They range from simple objectives, "K.O. 500 soldiers in 3 minutes", to downright out of place, such as Nu Wa (A Physical God) asking you to complete tough objectives. Soon an update will add fighting a dragon to it.
  • Go Karting with Bowser: The peach garden can be accessed by anyone at any time. It's not only the only way to meet everyone in the game (without alliances or alt accounts), but it also has the Kun Lun mountains, where you can complete challenges with anyone.
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: Any attack that throws enemies will make them knock into other enemies. There isn't any damage in this but it does knock them down. This is the only way to knock down very powerful officers, such as Dian Wei, Huang Gai, Guan Yu, and LU BU!!!
  • Heel-Face Turn: Happens in certain quests. The opposite also happens from time to time.
  • Hitbox Dissonance: averted, but lightly. Each character, no matter what height is chosen for them, has the exact same reach as any other. To compensate some attacks are longer for shorter character. To counter this there is a a line effect on each attack that shows the actual range of the attack, as apposed to the weapon, and can be used to judge the range. This has been used to create attacks that would normally have major Dissonance but instead just have balanced length.
  • Hub Level: Your chosen kingdom acts as this. While the look and setup are different, the characters are always the same. From the town you will be able to join battles, go on missions, go shopping, and go to your own house. You can also to the Peach Garden, which is another hub for Kunlun Mountain.
  • Home Run Hitter: The G.Club's charge 4 has one of the furthest knockbacks in the game, launching any victims far. If you use wind on the club, increases your knockback, then this trope comes into full effect. The enemy gets launched far even for game standards, and you have to run to catch up.
  • Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: We have Novice, Veteran, Musou, and Elite, which correspond to Low, Medium, Free for all, and High ranks respectively.
  • Info Dump: Given that there isn't much story when you go in-fight, most narrative is delivered like this.
  • Instrument of Murder: The Flute and Cymbals are just as deadly as blade weapons, even if the flute is frilly.
  • Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Well, you can jump over them. The computer, on the other hand...
  • Irony: Ghosts of the battlefield has three bandits who rob people passing by under the guise of being ghosts (or demons if you go by their names). Guess what attacks them after you reform them?
  • Joke Character: No weapons are intentionally funny, but some of the stat spreads are... very unhelpful. One of the more notable ones is Tonfa. The stat spread is such that, without modding, the weapon is horrible for any mode, not even being that good of a tank. Other weapons, like the twin blades, have stats that, while they don't remove the usefulness like on the tonfa, still make the weapon situational.
    • Lethal Joke Character: Of course, this being Dynasty Warriors, any weapon can easily be overpowered in the right hands. For example, The stats on tonfas aren't too useful, but it's one of the few weapons that can set enemies on fire at will, making it VERY useful for taking out tank based builds. The fact that they're essentially joke weapons according to the community also work in their favor, as it makes them VERY easy to underestimate.
  • Lampshade Hanging: The flutes Flavor Text indulge in this, pointing out the fact that a flute is being used as a weapon.
    Flute: A flute designed for battle. Can also play music.
    Iron Flute: An iron flute with dazzling ornamentation. Also useful as an instrument.
  • Large Ham: Many shouts can come off as very hammy. The undubbed voices, which seem to be a lot longer than the translated text, only enhance the hamminess.
  • Level-Up at Intimacy 5: A non-romantic version, most of the time, anyway. The more you interact with your lieutenant, by bringing it to battle and feeding it, the more skills it builds up. These skills are released when it uses a Limit Break and can tactically affect both you and the enemy, ranging from useless skills that don't seem to do anything to something that is most useful when your lt is lined up to use the limit break.
  • Luck-Based Mission: There's almost a guarantee that you will avoid doing a specific mission or two because getting an S rank means not being screwed by the Random Number God. "Rescue the Apprentice" and "The Prisoner and The Goods" are large offenders.
  • Luck Stat: Some of the communal abilities work as this, but Distribution is the most notable, as it supposedly affects the chance to get quality items from the battles.
  • Man on Fire: The Fire orb lets you set things on fire. So does True Musou.
  • Mana Burn: Vorpal element damage. In addition to having a chance to be a Fixed Damage Attack, any vorpal type attacks also drain musou bar from the the victim. The cast is inflicting equivalent mana burn on the user, removing musou for each target hit by the vorpal attack.
  • Meta Game: It's there. On the English server it's more limited, see YMMV for the reasons why.
  • Multiple Endings: Along with the obvious "whatever faction wins in the end", there are also endings for every general in the game that you obtain by working for them when the scenario ends and having at least 5000 Honor.
  • Munchkin / Min-Maxing: This is the basis of Confront, PVP mode, and Weapon Making, where the end goal is to dish out as much damage as possible. See Complacent Gaming Syndrome for the effects of this.
  • Nerf: Compared to its original stats in Dynasty Warriors 5, the Cursed Deck gets one hell of a downgrade, to the point where it had to be rebuffed to get more people to use it.
    • Bombs, the Iron Rod's Jump Charge and Moon Emblem, used to have Musou armor-breaking properties, meaning that you could make generals fly, allowing for juggling. The game later patched this out, and they're now just a normal charge attack. One problem that remains is that they can still damage teammates.
    • Mounts also got nerfed to the point that they had to be buffed again to be useful.
  • Mirror Boss: Generals are the basis for the Weapon movesets and can use all the moves in a particular set, so they may potentially have the exact same attacks that the player does.
  • Moveset Clone: Subverted. The movesets of the kings/leaders seem to be this. Each leader's weapon appears to be pretty similar for the first 4 combos, but once you unlock their 5th and 6th combo the change really branches out. Not only that, but the charge 1 of each combo will almost always be different between leader's weapons.
  • New Game+: A variation. Each time a new scenario begins, you are back at Guard with everything from the old scenario, meaning you have to rank up to use any weapon above level 2. The bonus is that not only do all quests reset, aside from the intro, you can get that faction's capes as you complete promotion quests. You also receive the high quality rewards from the promotions.
  • Noob Quest: The first couple of quests when you first log into the game - no matter what, you have to do the first one, but the rest can easily be skipped by anyone who's played a Dynasty Warriors game before. Any quest with an E ranking in difficulty also qualifies.
  • No Arc in Archery: All arrows fired lack a definable arc. Also most arrows are fired from ground level.
  • Noob Bridge: Because of the unique level and stat system, some people can easily be overtaken in a real match because they don't know how to get better stats, which is particularly problematic for players familiar with Dynasty Warriors, MMORPGs, or both. What's the difference? All the power is in the weapon, not the character. You have to both upgrade the weapon with gems and then you have to use flasks in battle to activate the upgrades in battle. Anybody who can beat the opening mission can miss out on this fact easily if they don't talk to other players, and most likely will if they don't read the instructions in games because they expect to learn this in-game.
  • Not the Intended Use / Game-Breaking Bug: There used to be a bug, it has long since been patched out, that was this. In confront, you could negate a commander kill from adding to the score by spamming the vocal messages. This used to be spammed during a match, preventing an enemy from ever scoring a point no matter how skilled they were. Needless to say it was quickly removed when found.
  • Obviously Evil: Downplayed. Given that the three kingdoms were very much Grey and Grey Morality you can only call a few things "evil", but the moveset of the horned sword looks downright angry and violent. In terms of the weapon itself it doesn't look too evil.
    • That being said, the game makes no attempt to hide that if you join Dong Zhuo, you're one of the bad guys.
  • One Stat to Rule Them All: No matter what mode you're doing, you need Attack to speed it up. The difference between Attack and Damage (the stat) is that Attack determines your damage against living beings, while Damage is against structures.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: To the point where they could easily be called something else.
  • Palette Swap: Random mooks change depending on their faction, and there are different colors for armor and weapons.
  • Pimped Out Cape: You get capes as you get promoted, and they get more and more flashy as you get them.
  • Playboy Bunny: One of the armor sets for females. No, seriously.
  • Player Versus Environment / Player Versus Player: For a Dynasty Warriors game, it has plenty of both. It's almost an Enforced Trope for both. Almost. Aside from quests and Kunlun, there will be a commander type enemy somewhere. In order to upgrade your weapon you have to beat enough mooks senseless in order to get flasks (hollowed gourds)that allow upgrades, and then you can use those upgrades to beat the commanders (the player character type enemy but it may be computer controlled) senseless next. Commander don't have to be faced directly, but in challenges of skill, who can beat the most mooks fastest, as well.
  • Power Up Let Down: Sacrifice can be this. It is only useful when you are fighting along with other people. It slowly drains your health and debuffs you so your teammates get healed and buffed. This means that solo quests render this power only detrimental.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: Seemingly subverted, but pretty much played straight. Both genders can use any weapon, and the armor sets, while appearing different, generally have a counterpart for each gender.
  • Random Effect Spell: The Flute and War Spear have the Advanced skill, "Luck", that randomises all Advanced Skills on the field when used. It's random and you won't know the outcome until you use it. During a regular match it will swap all weapon skills based on the players in the match, but in solo missions, the user gets a random ability from the entire pool of advanced skills in the game.
  • Reason You Suck Speech: If you disconnect it will say "<your name> has shown cowardice by running away by disconnecting." Even if it's accidental.
  • Repeatable Quest: Almost all of them. Which isn't a bad thing, since it's otherwise impossible to max domestic stats.
  • Revenue Enhancing Devices: It uses this to skid over Allegedly Free Game. You can access most in-game content for free, but paying grants access to more inventory space, the ability to trade, furniture, and speeding up the process of tempering a weapon (allowing it to upgrade more in battle).
  • Rummage Sale Reject: There is some... interesting... armor in this game.
  • Set Bonus: Downplayed. There is no ACTUAL additive bonus for a full set, but a full set is pretty much the only way to get a noticeable bonus to your stats, otherwise see "Armor Is Useless" above.
  • Scarf of Asskicking: There are a couple of capes that do indeed look like scarves. These can generally only be gained at high ranks.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge: You will not see anybody doing this during an actual battle, but during mocks with friends they may use these because the competitive edge is cut off. A few include "No Musou", "No Items", a "Combo Match" where you can get all combos upgraded but you can't improve any of your stats during the battle, making the battles much longer and more challenging.
  • Skill Gate Character: Twin Picks. This was evident near the opening of the game on an English server. They have a long range, good attack, and the weapon skill increases the attack even further. Everybody used to be using one to win PVP. However, they are majorly crippling. They attack slowly, meaning that comboing leaves the user very open. They depend on their special in order to do the most damage, and that can be hard when somebody is putting pressure on you. 3rd is that they make the user a Glass Canon, so if you take advantage of the slow attack speed they can go down quickly. Veterans depend on that downtime to get an attack in, meaning that you naturally make yourself a target.
  • Spin Attack: There are plenty of examples, but one particular mention goes to the Battle Axe. The preferred combo finisher is a spin attack, but the jump charge has the holder imitating a helicopter by spinning with the axe held out.
  • Sheathe Your Sword / Skippable Boss: Just because a general appears doesn't mean you have to fight it. Unless that is your objective then you can still win just by turning and running, and given how powerful they are it's a very good idea to do just that. Given that you can simply evade them by running near another group of NPCs that are enemies to the general, it might be very easy to get away.
  • Schmuck Bait: Both part of the game and player bait.
    • Similar to the main games, the announcement of "Lu Bu has appeared," by the man himself might make some people just run over to where they saw he was to get a piece of the "legendary warrior". Sometimes lesser officers may appear like this even if Lu Bu had already given you a hard lesson. They are not much easier.
    • Players can sometimes do this as well, such as leading another player into an ambush by sending a weaker character to bait them, or if they have their own general there they might lead the enemy to them.
  • Stat Sticks: All of your stats, as well as your moveset, are tied to the weapon you use, barring the bonuses from armor and items which are much lower than an upgraded weapon can give. There are a few weapons which play this straight, being used only for their stats with their moveset being a second thought. On the other hand, other weapons are used for their moveset even if they have horrible stats.
  • Stop Helping Me!: Your lieutenant can become very, very annoying. Not only do they have a chance of knocking enemies about, meaning it's harder to combo, but sometimes their kills can ruin your game. (A lieutenant kill doesn't count for you, so if they end up killing a commander, you're deprived of a point). There are two saving graces that might make them considerably less annoying: One is that you can prevent them from attacking, either by calling them (causing them to charge) or making them get sidetracked and keeping them away, and the second is that there is a quest where their inability to add to your kill count is a great aid. They would be less annoying if PVP was not the predominant game mode, as any base captured goes to the other team's side, so they only help with bases.
  • Stylish Protection Gear: You can change the color of your gear to specific styles.
  • Suffers Newbies Poorly: It's hard to get a match in the game once you get out of the novice game modes due to pretty much everyone having this, but once you do, you're pretty much set for life.
  • Tactical Suicide Boss: While it wouldn't make them invincible, if the mages in "Troublesome Mages" weren't so happy to tell you their rank, their bosses wouldn't be able to resurrect them, making the player spend more time guessing and possibly outlasting the time limit.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: AI-controlled commanders have two automatic advantages: 1. They collect flasks from no source, just slowly gain them, but can still pick flasks on the ground. Even if they are in the middle of a base touching nothing they will gain flasks. 2. They automatically rack up K.O.s. If you keep killing an enemy at their spawn and keep them from doing anything, they will still get the 300 K.O. announcement. This is to compensate for the A.I.'s skewed priorities, as they will always try to take bases, even if it's not the intended game mode, meaning they won't grind any other way. Both collections are so slow that regular grinding by a human will leaving a blazing gap between them and the A.I.* The End: What makes this game interesting among MMORPGs is that it's divided into scenarios, each of which last for a limited amount of time (roughly 9 months in real time).
    • The AI also always has their attacks as if their combo was maxed. This is most noticeable when they're using a sixth attack with no flask upgrades whatsoever.
  • Too Awesome to Use: Some items come off as this, depending on who you ask. One of the most agreed on are level 2 elemental orbs, they do get use but not like normal items, because unlike the level 1 orbs these can be used to imbue a weapon with a passive element, rather than taking up an item slot to do so.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Captain Yuan of the Smuggling Ring. He's supposed to hide the fact that there's another group that's doing the smuggling, not him. No bonus points for guessing what he does.
  • The Undead: Present in some of the quests, which is very odd for a DW game.
  • Video Game Weapon Stats:
    • Attack: Determines how much damage you do against living units, such as troops, commanders and animals.
    • Damage: Determines how much damage you do against constructions and juggernauts.
    • Defense: Decreases damage received.
    • Life: Increases your life bar, and by extension your critical zone.
    • Musou: Recharge rate/Ammo Capacity. Gives you a longer Musou bar, allowing you to Limit Break for longer. The Musou bar recharges more quickly the bigger it is.
    • Speed: Affects running speed.
    • Jump Ability: Affects jump height.
  • Wake-Up Call Boss: Arguably, every Musou general. Eventually, any that have better Hyper Armor. Some specific quest bosses also apply.
  • Warrior Poet: The name for an in-game title. It has little to do with actual warriors who write poems.
  • We Buy Anything: Played strait, for a reason. Only one "shop" NPC will buy things off of you, all others don't. As a result, the merchant will buy anything off of you. That's not counting the player market.
  • Whoring: One of the worst reasons as to why Confront is the only mode played. The 5-6 weapons that are used by the majority of players are all capable of this in some respect. One example is in the use of Musou, the Limit Break that makes you invincible and is impossible to get out of once caught in a juggle by it. Some weapons are just devoted to getting this out fast and as much as possible, avoiding combat at all other times.
  • Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: The Arena. Check the page for details.
    • A bit of Irony because the Arena would seem to be perfect for PVP which is the most popular mode in the game.

alternative title(s): Dynasty Warriors Online
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from
Privacy Policy