2025 Winter Live in Rocheste
- Livestream Schedule: December 13th, 09:00 UTC
- All update schedules from the Livestream reflect the KR server schedules. Detailed schedules for other regions will be announced at a later date.
Please Note.
All English terms are not final and are subject to possible changes upon official update.
Upcoming Contents
Notes on Character Balance
- Character Balancing and adjustments were one of the most desired comments the team received from all surveys done in 2025.
- In future updates, adjustments will go beyond simple numerical tweaks and prioritize utility improvements to resolve frustrating gameplay elements and enhance the overall "feel" of play.
- We promise to implement them in a more quick manner whenever issues that require improvements are identified, instead of stacking them up and updateding on a routine basis.
Notes on Previous & Future Key Revamps
- Adjusting ATT Cap, ATT Surplus, and Counterforce was to remove the unreasonable growth experience where players no longer get stronger even when characters' stats increase.
- With the stat system improved, we plan to fine-tune 'Supply and Consumption of materials' and 'Gold Earnings and Use' so that the new 'open' system to growth will not be held back due to material shortages.
- We are currently monitoring marketplace values thoroughly to provide a more fluent growth experience, and we promise to create a more stabilized marketplace for everyone to use.
Progress on client stabilization
Although there are limitations to perfect optimization due to the old engine, the following cause of issues have been identified and currently undergoing improvements.
- Sudden Freezing: Intermittent freezing has been identified to occur when there's a bottleneck between the game client and the security model. We are currently dispersing them to prevent this from happening.
- Frame Drops: During battle, unneccessary error logs were accumulating on the back side of the client. We're continuously erasing them for a more stable environment.
- Client Crashes: After the transfer to 64bit and DX11, a few codes are constantly causing crash issues. While they are too old to identify in a short period of time, we will continue to track down and replace them.
Update Cycle for 2026
- As announced before, starting in 2026 we will return to the '1 Year, 3 Raid, 1 New Content' cycle.
- We are aware of the many opinions regarding the general quality of recent Raids and the new Space Time Distortion. We will focus on improving them to fit their position as 'End-Game Content.'
New Growth Support Systems
1. Hero's Path
- Hero's Path is a new system designed to revamp the early game(Season 1-3) stages to reduce the burden of leveling for new/returning players and those raising alt characters.
- The entire process will work as a 'Tutorial,' providing a system guide in a more natural manner for better understanding of charcter controls and combat for newcoming players.
- Unnecessary travel and loading screens from the long and tedious Season 1-3 story arcs will be removed, and restructured into a streamlined, continuous boss battle relay excluding general monster sections.
- The process will take no more than 90 minutes, and after the process is complete each player will be able to reach Lv.115.
- Once reaching Lv.115, you will receive support equipment to enter actual combat.
- The key identity of the new system is to 'Enforce the fun in gameplay by merging fast growth and system tutorials'
2. Hero's Leap
- Players participating in the Hero's Leap event will be given 4 types of missions(Growth, Town, Battle, Challenge), optimized for each area related to growth.
- If you have questions on 'Foundations and quests for growth' - 'Growth' or 'Town' missions.
- If you have questions on 'Dungeons to depart to' - 'Battle' missions.
- If you have questions on 'What to do after the Hero's Leap event is over' - 'Challlenge' missions.
- If you are participating not with a new character, but a current one, the event missions will automatically detect your current growth status and remove any irrelevant/unneccessary missions. This will guarantee the missions each player sees will cover the exact areas of question.
- By clearing missions, your support Orna gear given at Lv.115 will be maxed out to +15 Enhancement and tuning. You will also be able to receive Lv.115 accessories and silver bracelets.
- This will not require any enhance/tuning costs, and probabilities will not take effect.
- Once clearing Hero's Leap, you will receive roughly 30% of materials required to advance your maxed Orna gear to Uaithne.
- The Hero's Leap is a 3-month seasonal event. After this period the event missions and rewards will be unavailable.
- You can designate one character per account. However, an additional slot will be added after the new character release, allowing you to receive the benefits a second time.
- Aside from the Hero's Leap event, 'Reforging' will be removed permenantly to relieve the burden of equipment enhancement.
QoL Improvements
1. HUD & UI Improvements
(The image is taken from a development build. All features and design may differ in the official update.)
- The key changes focuses on 'Information Visibility.'
- Unnecessary UI elements that obstruct the view will be removed.
- New features such as buff icon resizing to improve the visibility of key information like HP, Stamina, and Buffs will be implemented.
- Excessive '3D' effects from icons and UIs will be removed, and all lines/colors have been reworked to be distinct.
New Content Updates
1. New Competitive Content: Citadel of Shadows
- The Citadel of Shadows is a new competitive system where the goal is not to defeat the boss, but to deal the highest cumulative damage within a set time limit with party members.
- The main factor of competition is 'Character DPS.'
- 6 Players are automatically matched into a party, 3 times a week. Players will face 3 bosses consecutively for 45 seconds each. The boss HP will also be adjusted to be unkillable within this time period.
- For a fair competition, all battles will start with 100% SP and battle resources to remove any preparations required.
- To prevent certain Heroes taking lead due to character performance differences, a 'Weekly simulation' discluding all gearing differences will take place each week based on top players' playstyle, to determine the performance difference between each character.
- Characters with low performance will be given a damage buff to guarantee that character performance does not interfere in competition.
- Rewards will be given to all participantes, tiered based on ranking.
- Rewards include Uaithne/Eriu gear, as well as new Fortress of Shadows equipment(stats comparable to high-end Eriu gear; cannot be Tuned or Enchanted).
2. Tuning: Great Success
- The current growth system of 'Tuning' and 'Advancement' may have relieved stress from failures, but we have also received feedback that this made the game too 'routine' and 'boring.'
- To add more fun to this process, the 'Great Success' system will appear on a set probability where stats will increase by 2-3 times the normal amount.
New Hero Update
1. New Hero: Calia
- The 27th Hero of Vindictus, Calia, is designed as a cool and elegant character. Unlike her appearance, she is a character with a strong will.
- Calia wields a Half Calymore as her main weapon.
- She does not have a complex gauge mechanic, but instead specializes in an endless combat with unbreaking combos even after deflecting attacks.
- Unlike other Heroes, you do not dodge or gaurd against attacks, but deflect them.
- Deflecting an attack allows the attack combo before the deflection to chain. When chained, the following attack starts from the last attack motion, not the first attack.
- Linking battle skills in between attack combos will also enhance them and trigger stronger skills.
- To fully master Calia's combat, high proficiency in the enemy's attacks and your current combo status is required, as well as understanding of the general flow of each battle - Resulting in a relatively harder character overall.
- Calia will be updated to the KR Live server on Jaunuary 8th.
- Aside from the new Hero update, to support playing a new hero the cost of Eqiupment Transfer & Sharing will be permanently reduced.
- The cooldowns will not be changed.
QnA Session
Q. Can departure intros and victory screenshot cutscenes be removed?
A. Both were liked during our first years of service, but now they're more old fashioned. Both features will be revamped to match the current environment in a more speedy way while not losing its fun of 'showing off' your character. We also plan to remove the visual 'Erg' effects that blocks the victory screenshots upon boss death for a clearer view.
Q. Will the Equipment advancement system continue?
A. For now. The advancement system will remain for the current Lv.125 Eriu gear. However, we recognize that the longer this system lasts, the higher the barrier will be for newcoming players. We will consider a better alternative for future Lv.130 expansions for improvements in gameplay experience.
Q. Can you add extractions for Accessories?
A. Currently, Accessories are tradable, unlike armor and weapons. This is why we're cautious to Introduce extractions at this point due to the negative impact it may cause to the game's economy. However, this system has been stagnant and we will review other options when the Lv.130 expansion arrives.
Q. The same item takes multiple slots in storage due to their binding issues.
A. We fully understand how annoying this is, and plan to relax this rule incrementally. For instance, we aim to change items bought from the marketplace from 'Character Bound' to 'Account Sharable.' Although a specifc timeline is not set at the moment, we aim to push it during 2026.
Q. What exactly is Outfit Recycling?
A. It is not a P2W system. We're planning a system to allow you to trade in unused or old outfits for a special in game currency, that you can exchange for other useful items. We are currently calculating the item list and exchange rate to match for the value of each outfit.
Q. Any plans for Wardrobe Points over 10,000?
A. Yes, an expansion is planned for next year. It will include new emotes, emblems and titles. We will also ensure that the rewards will be distributed across various tiers, and not just for the top rankers.
Q. Any plans for Wardrobe Points over 10,000, or plans to update the Crystal Contents?
A. Yes, an expansion is planned for next year. It will include new emotes, emblems and titles. We will also ensure that the rewards will be distributed across various tiers, and not just for the top rankers. As for crystal contents, we agree that useless items have to be removed from the list. However, discussions are still ongoing regarding the impact it may have, regarding it is closely related to purchase with actual money. We will speed up the progress to make a decision, and we will share the results transparently.
Q. Does Vindictus have an 'Aggro' system? Will we get QoL changes to support this?
A. Yes, but its logic is different from the current MMORPG style. Distance, damage, actions all matter, and this is not fit for the current fast-paced battle of Vindictus. We plan to overhaul this structure in 2026. But we will not be adding any systems like a visible aggro meter, as it may harm the game's immersion.
Q. Will potion recovery amounts be increased?
A. No. We agree that increasing potion efficiency will be helpful, but on the other end we expect an increase in 'face tanking' in raids. This is against our action identity of Vindictus. Instead, we'll continue to focus on improving character utilities and survival skills to help players overcome patterns in a more stylish way.
Q. What's Vindictus have planned for 2026?
A. More details of the following year will be revealed in a Dev Talk video during February. We would like to only announce features that are confirmed, instead of making empty promises.
Q. Can the camera be adjusted to be further away than it is now?
A. We've received many opinions regarding this and have actually tested out various camera views and distances to simulate each gameplay experience. Putting the camera further away actually does help reduce the difficulty of combat, but at the same time makes it boring compared to the current view. We believe that the core identity of Vindictus is its action, and that keeping it is crucial. We will see if there are any other options possible.
Q. Can camera shake be disabled?
A. We are aware many have asked for a disable feature on camera shake. We are working on an option that enables/disables this but the baseline work for this is not yet done. All characters need to be fixed one by one and this is taking longer than expected, so we'll introduce them when they are ready.
Q. Why can't some characters do breakoffs?
A. In the past, some characters did not get breakoff features to fit their own characteristics and style. Regardless of how important setting each characteristic distinct from each other is, we are fully aware that this is not fair due to the fact that it affects rewards. We will review over this matter to come up with an improvement.
Q. Can you add timestamps to in-game chat?
A. We are actually reviewing whether a chat room revamp is possible, and if it is we will add that feature into the change. But for now, nothing is finalized.
Q. Why can't we open multiple boxes at once?
A. This is actually quite a complicated code. But we know this is a point of displeasure and we will try to make sure this gets fixed as soon as possible.
Q. Why can't we send clone outfits to ourselves?
A. This was initially banned so that people won't make mistakes. But if there's a need for this feature we'll review if there's an alternative method to prevent mistakes and still send it to yourself. But for now, I can't specify a detailed timeline for this yet.
Q. Can you add a 'screenshot mode' to Vindictus?
A. If you mean a method to screenshot characters that make them look more attractive, it seems like a major feature that is worth mentioning in our future roadmap. We will review this and see if it's possible to include in our plans.
Q. Are there any collabs scheduled?
A. We believe Vindictus is in need of a solid foundation, rather than outside collabs. We don't have plans for now, but if we do, we'll make sure to share them to you.
Q. Will artifact cooldowns be adjusted?
A. We're currently reviewing details on this matter. Compared to before, the value of 'artifacts' have changed due to enchantments. We'll review all possible outcomes to see if this can be managed.
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