Hello, this is DEV Allanon.
They say cooler days are on the way, but the late-summer heat hasn't quite let go yet. I hope you're all staying healthy.
In today's Developer's Note, I'd like to give you an early look at the major improvements coming with the October update.
This update brings a wide range of quality-of-life improvements, including an Inventory Overhaul, an AP Transfer feature, Cairde Friends, Appearance Extraction items, and Character Utility Improvements.
Let me walk you through them one by one.
Inventory Overhaul
■ Background
Many of you have likely felt the inconvenience of having multiple features tangled together inside the Inventory.
With this update, we're separating the Inventory into two independent features, [Inventory] and [Equipment], and modernizing overall usability, including search, sorting, and filters.
In truth, we've long suspected the Inventory's aging, neglected code as one of the main causes of lag. This overhaul was undertaken to clean up that legacy code and improve usability along the way. We cleared out a great deal of legacy code in the process, but we'll keep monitoring how noticeable the difference feels in actual play.
■ Key Changes
- The features for equipping and viewing your gear are being separated into a new [Equipment] screen (dedicated hotkey B, plus a new HUD icon).
- Outfit and appearance items are moving to a separate [Outfit & Appearance] tab, and the new "Outfit Collection" feature lets you browse your Outfits by set (box) and equip them all at once.
- Search is now available instantly without opening a separate window; auto-sort prioritizes equipped items, and stackable items are merged automatically.
- Filters are subdivided along two axes: category (Equipment, Consumables, Materials, etc.) and trade attribute (Tradable, Account Shared, Character Bound).
- The item lock feature no longer consumes Item Locks, making it a pure convenience feature.
- The page structure of the Inventory and Shared Storage is being simplified.
- The Inventory goes from a maximum of 9 pages to 5, and Shared Storage from a maximum of 6 pages to 3.
- Each Inventory page holds more slots (6×8 → 12×8), so even with fewer pages, the total number of items you can store actually increases.
- Any expansions you already own will be preserved and consolidated in the most favorable way possible, and existing timed Storage Chest Expansion Tickets will be converted to Storage Chest Expansion Tickets (Unlimited).
- However, Shared Storage remains timed, with the durations of multiple slots added together.
- The maximum stack size for most item slots is being expanded to 9,999.
- For details on items currently sold in the Supply Depot and changes to items you already own, please refer to the separate notice.
(The images above are from a development build and may differ in the actual Official Server release.)
AP Transfer
■ Background
Some of you may remember the comment from our summer livestream: "The longer you play, the more AP piles up, into the millions, with no meaningful way to spend it."
AP is a highly polarized resource: newer and returning players never have enough, while long-time players only watch it accumulate. That makes us cautious about hastily adding new AP sinks.
However, as we promised on that livestream, we're first improving convenience so that you can use your AP freely, at least within the same account. This update delivers on that promise.
■ How It Works
- Use an "Empty AP Capsule" item to create a capsule containing the amount of AP you want to share.
- Another character on the same account can then use the capsule to receive the AP instantly.
- Capsules can also be purchased from Brynn at the Magic Laboratory.
- We'll share the detailed usage conditions, conversion rates, and other specifics in the KR Test Server patch notes.
Cairde Friends
■ Background
Until now, the friend system only supported registration per character, which meant re-adding the same friends every time you created a new character.
To resolve this inconvenience, this update introduces Cairde (account) friends.
■ How It Works
- Send and accept Cairde friend requests to form friendships at the account level.
- Once you're Cairde friends, you can see at a glance which character the other person is currently playing, right in the Friends List.
- A favorites feature is also being added, letting you pin frequently checked friends to the top of the list.
- Various other conveniences are planned as well, including friend memos and Cairde info shown in friend search results.
- The block feature remains unchanged in this update. How blocked players surface during play (Quick Battle creation alerts and listings, information sharing scope, etc.) still needs further definition, so this update ships the friend/Cairde registration features first; a broader overhaul of blocking will follow when we revisit the friend system as a whole.
Appearance Extraction Items
■ Background
During our summer livestream, we received a question along these lines:
"When I advance a piece of equipment, the appearance I fused onto it disappears, and if it came from a discontinued item, there's no way to replace it, so I hesitate to advance at all."
This was a problem we had been wrestling with for a long time as well. After weighing several directions, such as appearance inheritance and preserving appearances through advancement, we decided on Appearance Extraction so that extracted appearances could carry trade value and settle in as content in their own right.
We originally promised this before December, and with this update it's arriving ahead of schedule.
■ How It Works
- Use an "Appearance Extraction Rune" or "Premium Appearance Extraction Rune" to extract the appearance from fused equipment (Head/Chest/Legs/Hands/Feet) into a separate scroll item.
- Weapons already let you freely apply your preferred look through the Brandish system, so Appearance Extraction was developed for equipment other than weapons.
- Extraction removes only the appearance information; the equipment's stats, Enchants, Power Infusion, and so on remain intact.
- The extracted appearance scroll can then be used in the "appearance equipment" slot when performing Fusion, in the slot where you previously had to place an actual piece of gear. With a combination of performance gear, an appearance scroll, and a Fusion Rune, you can apply the look you want without consuming equipment.
- Scrolls extracted with the Premium Appearance Extraction Rune can also be traded on the Marketplace, opening up a direct way to obtain the appearance you want.
- The existing appearance fusion/removal UI is being revamped alongside this feature to make the whole flow more convenient.
(Please note that the English names of new items are not finalized and may change in the actual update.)
Character Utility Improvements
Based on the results of our second-half survey on which characters most needed utility improvements, this update addresses pain points for the characters below.
■ Arisha – Spellwhip
Repeated Stringendo Strikes are the core of her damage cycle, but she lacked reliable ways to recover the Stamina needed to sustain them, leaving her constantly starved for Stamina.
- The transition frames of Stringendo Strike are unified between holding left-click and tapping repeatedly, fixing the visually slower attack speed when holding the button down.
- The Stamina cost of her dodge skills (Crescendo/Prestissimo) is reduced, and the Stamina cost of repeated Stringendo Strikes is eased as well.
- At Breathless Rush stage 20, striking an enemy with the powerful Accentato now restores Stamina, so the stacks you build over a long fight pay off.
■ Lann – Twin Spears
To keep so-called "face-tanking" from running rampant, we previously applied a penalty status effect called Vulnerable whenever Lann was hit.
However, we judged that this penalty was suppressing healthy play along with face-tanking. So instead of penalizing hits taken, we're switching to a model that grants bonuses (status effects) for dodging and responding to monster patterns.
The damage cycle is being reworked so that attacking without getting hit is what pays off.
- Attacking with Moon Splitter grants a "Lightning Fury Damage Up" status effect (stacking up to 5), and following up with Lightning Fury grants a "Moon Splitter Enhancement" status effect.
- "Moon Splitter Enhancement" persists while you keep using Moon Splitter, and disappears if you're hit or the flow is broken by another skill. This structure encourages you to weave Moon Splitter into your play as aggressively as possible.
- When a Moon Splitter attack lands a Critical hit, Swift Fury's cooldown is reduced by a large amount.
- The Vulnerable status effect on getting hit is removed, and we're fixing an issue where the loop animation would break when chaining Moon Splitter, along with an issue where Belclaire's duration would fail to refresh.
■ Latiya
Her only real Stamina recovery options were Rhino Pierce (which was rarely used due to its low damage) and Active: Snake Coil with its 45-second cooldown. In practice, she had almost no way to recover Stamina.
- Landing a thrown Kuja now recovers Stamina instead of consuming it, and Rhino Pierce's Stamina cost is removed as well.
- Rhino Pierce's forward travel distance is reduced and she now turns toward the enemy more quickly, reducing cases where the skill slides past the boss.
- The SP cost of Active: Lion's Rage's first attack is lowered, and a successful guard with Crocodile Scales now reduces its cooldown, making Warrior's Claw generation much smoother.
- After a successful guard and a Rhino Rush counterattack, you can now chain directly into the 2nd normal attack instead of the sluggish-feeling Rhino Pierce.
■ Hurk – Greatsword
Active: Blood Rampage carried a hefty penalty: a 50% reduction of current Health. Yet in party play, if the boss's aggro was elsewhere, the intended parry often simply wouldn't trigger, which felt frustrating. There were also cases where cinematics or gimmicks drained his Health with nothing to show for it, making the skill far more burdensome than similar skills on other characters.
We suspect this is one reason for his low damage rankings in raids, where sustained damage matters.
- The 50% current-Health reduction on Active: Blood Rampage is removed; instead, Hurk takes increased damage for the duration.
- Casting Execution now lowers the Awakening status effect by only one stage instead of removing it entirely, and attacking enemies with Blockade (the stationary dodge) now counts toward the hits needed to raise Awakening stages.
- We're also fixing a bug where charging or dodging after Ultimatum could launch in unintended directions.
■ Karok – Battle Pillar
Up through Rank B, Barrage grows in damage as you rank it up. At Rank A, however, ranking up also added the condition enabling the "Barrage Blitz" follow-up attack. Because this follow-up dealt less damage than other chained skills and had a long motion delay, most players simply stopped at Rank B rather than taking Rank A.
- The Barrage Blitz follow-up condition at Rank A is removed.
- Players who already learned Rank A will be adjusted to Rank B and refunded the AP difference via account mail. Please note that the AP item attached to account mail is bound to the character that claims it.
- We're fixing an issue where Pillar Counter didn't apply to Dropkick's first hit, and a bug where using Pillar Toss during Active: Earthquake caused damage to apply twice.
- For both Cestus and Battle Pillar Karok, we're adjusting the brief gaps where the shock absorption judgment dropped between chained skills, so transitions flow more smoothly.
■ Dan-Ah
We're improving the usability of Curse Breaker and enabling play that makes better use of Soul Strike, along with some relief for her chronically tight MP resources.
- A short-range version of Curse Breaker is being added. Pressing Tab alone uses the short-range version, while Direction Key + Tab uses the existing long-range version.
- Hitting an enemy with Curse Breaker now reduces Soul Strike's cooldown, making it easier to weave in a skill that was previously limited by its 10-second cooldown.
- Instead of a damage increase, Active: Purify Evil's MP recovery is being raised substantially (total 81 → 140), letting you choose situationally: Penitent Slash when you need damage, Purify Evil when you need Stamina and MP.
- The "Final Gate: Sheathed" skill, which saw little use and often triggered unintended buffered inputs, is being removed.
- Players who already learned the skill will receive compensation for its removal via account mail. Please note that the items attached to account mail are bound to the character that claims them.
Everything covered in today's note has finished development and is now being checked through internal testing. Please understand that some details may be adjusted during the testing process. We'll keep working to make the game more convenient and more enjoyable for all of you.
Thank you for your continued interest and support, and please take good care of your health.
Thank you.
