Gyldenhunters' Council Phase 2 — Community AMA Responses

Hi Gyldhunters,

Thank you so much for the questions and suggestions you've shared with us recently across Discord and our other community channels. We've discussed and verified every single submission, and we're ready to share our conclusions and upcoming plans with you:

I. Season 2 Optimizations

The following updates will not all be available right at the launch of Season 2; some content will be rolled out gradually throughout the season. Please keep an eye on our upcoming Developer Updates and patch notes for specific schedules:

1. Loot drops feel underwhelming / Boss loot isn't good enough: Season 2 will increase overall drop rates across the board, allowing Gyldhunters to gear up faster and enjoy a more satisfying looting experience!
2. The Soul Harvest takes too much grinding: Season 2 will introduce a brand-new seasonal mode alongside a dedicated exchange shop. We'll be significantly reducing the overall grind for this exchange shop, making it much easier for everyone to earn their rewards.
3. Can't seem to find key camp upgrade materials: We'll be introducing a shard exchange system to boost the acquisition rates of key upgrade materials, making the progression curve much smoother.
4. Not enough Combat Bags / Stack limits are too low: We've already boosted the distribution of Combat Bags through various events, and we'll maintain this easier acquisition rate in Season 2. Additionally, we'll increase the stack limits for Combat Bags in a future update.
5. Forging and the Scavenger Squad aren't profitable: We'll be improving the overall cost-effectiveness of forging in upcoming updates. Furthermore, we'll adjust the affix configurations for equipment in Combat Bags to boost their practicality, thereby increasing the overall profitability of the Scavenger Squad.
6. Gems are taking up all the Warehouse space: We're adding a dedicated Gem Warehouse.
7. Unequipping gems is too tedious: We're adding an Unequip All feature within your inventory.
8. Soekja won't stop nagging me at camp: We're adding a toggle switch that allows you to mute Soekja's voice reminders regarding unclaimed mail.
9. Selling starter equipment is a hassle: We're adding a feature to automatically destroy starter equipment after using the Quick Equip option at the Loadout Station.
10. The drinking animation takes too long: We're adding a toggle switch that allows you to disable the drinking animation.

II. Future Season Optimizations and Backlog Items

1. Add Soul Thread Extraction to Brandrgarde: We completely agree with this suggestion; victorious PvP Gyldhunters definitely deserve their own exclusive extraction method. However, implementing an entirely new extraction mechanic is a highly complex task. Once we land on the right design approach, we plan to add this feature in a future season.
2. Add Skills, Talents, Supplies, Tactical Items, and Victory Wine to the Loadout screen: This feature is highly complex and involves a significant workload, but we'll do our best to implement it in an upcoming season.
3. List specific numerical values in both the game and patch notes: Our current approach of omitting exact numbers was intended to reduce visual clutter from an overload of stats. However, given the extensive feedback from Gyldhunters requesting transparency, we'll thoroughly review all in-game skills and talents in a future season to add detailed numerical breakdowns.
4. Solo Mode kills should refund Springhorn charges / Allow buying Springhorn charges with Soul Threads: We need to deliberate further on the exact mechanics for this rule change. We'll sync with everyone once the design and release schedule are finalized.
5. Don't bind consumables obtained from Combat Bags: Implementing this requires handling several edge-case scenarios. Since we're currently focusing our energy on higher-priority tasks, we've added this to our backlog.
6. Allow swapping Victory Wine at any time: Implementing this requires handling several edge-case scenarios. Since we're currently focusing our energy on higher-priority tasks, we've added this to our backlog.
7. Support more flexible controller remapping for classes like the Sorcerer: Providing fully unconstrained controller keybindings for complex operational kits is quite challenging to develop. We've added this to our backlog.
8. Melee classes are at a clear disadvantage against bosses compared to ranged classes: When designing new bosses and tuning class balance in the future, we'll pay much closer attention to balancing the challenge difficulty between melee and ranged roles.

III. No Current Plans for Optimization

1. Add US West / Middle East servers: Adding more regional servers would further split the player base, causing the overall matchmaking ecosystem to deteriorate. Therefore, we have no current plans to add new servers. We'll continue to evaluate this based on actual conditions, but our server performance optimization work will remain ongoing.
2. Add Duo Mode: Implementing a Duo Mode would introduce much greater challenges to class balancing. At the same time, it would split the player base and negatively impact the matchmaking ecosystem. We'll continue to monitor and evaluate the situation based on actual conditions.
3. Option to opt out of matchmaking with bots: Implementing this feature would require a major overhaul of our matchmaking system, so we have no plans for it at this time. Currently, bots only appear in a small number of matches; even when they do, they occupy only a tiny fraction of the total player lobby. The vast majority of players in your matches are real Gyldhunters—there are no purely bot-filled lobbies. We'll continue to evaluate this strategy based on community feedback.
4. Prohibit duplicate classes in Trio Mode: Enforcing a strict ban on duplicate classes in Trio Mode would restrict player freedom, increase the entry barrier for forming teams, and hurt queuing efficiency. Instead, for Season 2, we plan to directly address the issues caused by duplicate class comps—such as chain crowd control or excessive burst damage—through mechanics like damage falloff and CC diminishing returns. Please stay tuned for the next Developer Update for specific details.
5. Remove equipment binding: The current system binds equipment purchased from the Auction House to prevent players from hoarding items to flip them or manipulate market prices. Similarly, equipment in Combat Bags is bound to prevent a massive influx of gear into the Auction House over a short period, which protects the market from severe price volatility.
6. Remove durability and repairs: In previous updates, we already reduced the amount of Gyldenblod required to repair Legendary equipment and lowered the durability penalty incurred upon defeat. The current Gyldenblod cost for repairs is relatively low, but we'll continue to monitor community feedback closely.
7. Kills against bosses should refund Springhorn charges: Boss encounters currently feature a relatively generous protection window. We still intend for boss challenges to be high-risk, high-reward endeavors where consuming Springhorn charges serves as a deliberate strategic trade-off.

IV. World Chat Spam Issues

Due to certain regulatory compliance requirements, we're unable to enforce more restrictive automated moderation measures in the short term. Currently, we're primarily relying on manual account bans while actively pursuing more comprehensive and effective long-term solutions. In previous updates, we significantly increased the maximum capacity of the Blocklist; additionally, when your Blocklist is completely full, continuing to add a user will allow you to overwrite the oldest entry with a single click. Furthermore, in our upcoming update, we'll raise the character level requirement for typing in the World Chat channel to further drive up the operating costs for spam accounts.

V. Core Gameplay Experience Issues

In our 9th Developer Update, we addressed the core gameplay experience and client-server performance issues that you have raised most frequently lately in one consolidated post. Click through to check it out.