Version 1.56.5 Released

Version 1.56.5 is one of the most important balance updates in the recent development cycle.

Instead of adding another new feature layer, this update performs a full game-wide balance and progression auditacross campaign missions, combat, enemies, bosses, procedural modes, equipment, rarity scaling, rewards, progression curves and save-state authority.

The goal was simple:

make sure the game is actually balanced as one connected system — not just a collection of individually working features.

Full Campaign Balance Audit

The complete handcrafted campaign was checked:

• 16 Chapters
• 144 Regions
• 1,133 combat objectives
• campaign level range from 1 to 488
• Stamina costs
• Gold rewards
• XP rewards
• enemy strength
• boss strength
• adjacent difficulty jumps
• progression pacing

This audit exposed several problems that had accumulated as the game grew across many content generations.

Some older missions were still selecting enemies directly from the global monster catalog.

That catalog now contains enemies created under very different balance assumptions, meaning two adjacent campaign battles could occasionally have dramatically different raw power.

In extreme cases, one mission could become several times stronger than the next — or collapse in difficulty almost completely.

That is now fixed.

Legacy fallback encounters use a controlled campaign reference curve while preserving the identity of the selected monster.

Hand-authored encounters, modern boss pools and special fights remain intentionally more varied.

Normal Enemies Were Accidentally Becoming Bosses

This was one of the biggest issues discovered during the audit.

The combat system still contained an old fallback rule that effectively treated a monster as a boss if its base HP exceeded a certain historical threshold.

That rule made sense when the game had a much smaller monster catalog.

It no longer makes sense today.

More than one hundred modern normal monster definitions now exceed that old HP threshold.

As a result, some ordinary enemies could silently receive:

• boss HP multipliers
• boss Attack multipliers
• boss Defense multipliers
• boss skills
• boss Block
• boss Damage Reduction

even though the encounter was not supposed to be a boss fight.

Fixed in 1.56.5

Boss status is now determined by the actual encounter authority.

A monster is a boss because the encounter says it is a boss — not because its base HP happens to be high.

High-HP normal monsters now remain normal enemies unless the content explicitly promotes them to boss status.

Procedural Combat Rebalanced

Several procedural modes also used enemies from the global monster catalog.

That includes content such as:

• Tower
• Labyrinth
• Crystal Rifts
• Dynamic Contracts
• standard Hunts
• Nexus encounters
• procedural Chapters

The problem was similar to the campaign issue:

monster identity was random, but raw monster stats could come from completely different development eras.

This meant two enemies at the same intended difficulty level could have wildly different actual power.

New Procedural Normalization

Procedurally selected enemies are now normalized toward a controlled reference curve for the encounter's intended level.

The monster still keeps its identity and mechanics, but its raw base power no longer causes extreme RNG difficulty swings.

A dedicated test sampled 954 monster/level combinations across multiple progression points.

The corrected procedural power range now sits at approximately:

0.824× to 1.214× reference power

with a total spread of roughly 1.47×.

Previously, some raw combinations could differ by well over an order of magnitude.

Authored Encounters Remain Authored

The normalization system is deliberately selective.

It does not flatten content that was specifically designed to be unique.

The following remain individually authored:

• major campaign encounters
• signature bosses
• Raids
• Grand Raids
• Secret Map bosses
• Legendary Hunt bosses
• intentionally unusual encounters

The goal is not to make every enemy equally strong.

The goal is to remove accidental difficulty caused by random data inheritance.

High-Level Gear Requirement Fix

Another major progression issue affected late-game equipment.

The campaign and endgame can generate items far above Item Level 100.

However, Account Level itself caps at 100.

The old default requirement logic could effectively require:

Account Level = Item Level

That meant an Item Level 300, 488 or even higher drop could become permanently impossible to equip.

New Rule

Normal equipment now uses:

required Account Level = minimum of Item Level and Account Level 100

unless the item has an explicit authored requirement.

This keeps late-game item levels meaningful without creating impossible equipment.

Examples:

• Item Level 101 → Account Level 100 requirement
• Item Level 270 → Account Level 100 requirement
• Item Level 488 → Account Level 100 requirement
• Item Level 999 → Account Level 100 requirement

Explicit special requirements still remain authoritative.

Actual Loot Chance Now Matches the UI

A subtle but important discrepancy existed between the displayed rarity chances and the actual loot roll.

The UI correctly capped its progression contribution at Account Level 100.

The real item-generation roll did not.

This meant extremely high Item Level drops could receive more rarity progression than the interface showed.

In other words:

the player-facing numbers and the real loot system were not using the same formula.

Fixed

Both systems now use the same authoritative progression cap.

What the UI shows is now what the loot system actually rolls.

Unique Special Effects No Longer Over-Scale

High-level Unique generation also revealed another problem.

The old scaling path treated almost every numeric Unique field like a normal stat.

That is dangerous because not every number on a Unique is supposed to scale.

Some values represent things like:

• proc chances
• special mechanic magnitudes
• trigger percentages
• fixed authored effects

Those could unintentionally grow alongside normal combat stats at extreme item levels.

New Unique Scaling Rules

Only explicitly approved scalable Unique stats receive normal item-level scaling.

Special authored mechanics remain at their intended template values.

This preserves the identity of Uniques without allowing high item levels to turn fixed mechanics into unintended extreme versions.

Fortune Blessing Rebalanced

The Casino's Fortune Blessing system could also create long-term stat inflation.

Successful Blessings were effectively able to add absolute points to numeric item values.

That is relatively harmless for some flat stats, but potentially dangerous for percentages and special values.

Repeated Blessings could therefore push certain stats far beyond their intended range.

Fixed

Fortune Blessing now uses bounded multiplicative growth rather than uncontrolled absolute increases.

It also respects:

• item quality limits
• Blessing caps
• protected Unique mechanics
• established item-stat boundaries

The system still improves items, but no longer acts as an infinite percentage-stat escalator.

Save Games Now Use Current Mission Balance

A less visible but important issue existed in save normalization.

Some saves could preserve complete historical quest definitions.

That meant after a balance update, an old save could potentially continue using outdated:

• enemy definitions
• reward values
• Stamina costs
• target data

even though the current game files had already been updated.

New Authority Rule

The current game definition is now authoritative.

The save restores legitimate player state such as:

• progress
• completion
• current advancement

but does not overwrite the modern quest definition with stale balance data.

This means balance patches actually affect existing saves instead of only new games.

Job Balance Review

All 152 Jobs were included in the current balance audit.

The maximum normalized Job power ratio is:

1.2169

The established release ceiling is:

1.22

Jobs above the ceiling:

0

The rarity progression also remains ordered correctly from:

Normal → Uncommon → Rare → Epic → Legendary → Ultimate

This does not mean every Job is identical.

Different Jobs are intentionally better at different roles and content.

The important result is that no class currently breaks the established global power envelope.

Item Integrity Review

The current runtime catalog remains:

• 152 Jobs
• 83 Sets
• 208 Uniques
• 90 Bosses

The item audit found:

• duplicate Unique IDs: 0
• duplicate Set IDs: 0
• invalid equipment slots: 0
• non-finite audited numeric stats: 0
• invalid Set thresholds: 0

Boss-exclusive 1.55 signature loot also retains its existing boss/source authority.

Progression Curves

Several long-term progression systems were checked again after the combat changes.

Account XP

The XP curve remains monotonic across the audited progression points.

Higher levels continue to require more progression without unexpected drops.

Merge Scaling

Merge progression remains monotonic and bounded across long-run tests.

Even extremely high Merge counts do not create an uncontrolled exponential power explosion.

Endless Scaling

High-depth Endless pressure remains capped at the established limits.

The mode continues becoming harder, but its scaling does not grow without bound.

Campaign Economy

The full campaign was also checked for reward efficiency.

Audited values include:

• Gold per Stamina
• XP per Stamina
• reward progression across neighboring regions
• abrupt economy drops

The current campaign does not contain any audited adjacent reward collapse large enough to violate the new progression thresholds.

The intention is that later content generally becomes more rewarding without every individual mission needing to increase perfectly linearly.