This update introduces a large increase to idle times, various new guild mechanics, a new skill, quality-of-life adjustments, and much more.

This is the biggest update we’ve ever released across all our games. Because of that, the next few days might be a little bumpy as things settle down and we work through any bugs that appear. We’ve done our best to make the roll-out as smooth as possible, but sometimes unexpected issues still slip through. Thanks in advance for your patience - we really appreciate it!

Idle Times

• Increased main character time from 60 minutes to 300 minutes for members.
• Increased base idle time for all characters from 120 minutes to 180 minutes for members.
• Increased main character time from 40 minutes to 240 minutes for free players.
• Increased base idle time for all characters from 80 minutes to 120 minutes for free players.

Overview

This change means the following idle limits:

• Main Character (Membership): 8 hours
• Alt Character (Membership): 3 hours
• Main Character (Free): 6 Hours
• Alt Character (Free): 2 Hours

You can read more about this change here: https://blog.galahadcreative.com/lets-talk-about-idle-times/

Meditation Skill

• Meditation is a unique skill in idleMMO that is entirely based on the concept of selflessness and the helping of others, rather than yourself.
• Meditation is incredibly straight forward. Just press "Start" on the meditation page to get started.
• Meditation gains a base rate of 0.8 EXP per second.
• At level 35, you unlock the ability to create Guidance Scrolls - powerful items designed to boost other players.
• You’ll earn 0.1 EXP/s while writing guidance scrolls.
• To write a Guidance Scroll, you'll need a Blank Scroll, which can be purchased from the vendor. Since the Guidance skill is meant to be selfless, the cost is intentionally high to discourage players from selling or trading the boosts for personal gain. If we find that the current price is too low, we’ll raise it in the future. Likewise, if it's too high, we'll lower it.
• You can’t use a guidance scroll on yourself or your alts - this skill is all about helping others.
• The higher your Meditation level, the stronger the boost in the scroll.
• Once given, the scroll’s effect is applied instantly and lasts for 2 hours.
• Writing a single scroll takes 60 minutes.
• You can’t write more scrolls than your maximum idle time allows.
• If you cancel a scroll mid-way, any unused blank scrolls are refunded and any scrolls already in progress will not be refunded.
• Trade-locked classes such as Banished and Cursed cannot write scrolls.
• Users that are trade-locked can write scrolls, but cannot send them.
• Reaching level 100 in Meditation gives you Enlightenment status.
• Your character will float slightly on its profile page giving it an ethereal aura when enlightened.
• Your character will also have a unique "Enlightened" badge on its profile.
• Progression is intentionally slow - not only does it take months of dedication, but it also means you're sacrificing time that could’ve been spent on other skills.
• The Meditation skill is purely focused on helping others - it’s not designed to benefit your own character directly - hence the low EXP/s, and high cost it takes to buy a blank scroll.

Guild Hall

• Guild Halls serve as a central hub for guilds, providing access to key features – including Assaults, and the Energizing Pool.
• A guild needs to be at least level 10 to construct a Guild Hall.

Guild Hall Components

• Guild components are optional upgrades that can be added to a Guild Hall.
• These components currently utilise Logs as part of the construction process. This will change to Planks when the Carpentry skill is released.
• Guild components decay over time, meaning they’ll require upkeep. If a component’s condition reaches 0, it will become unavailable until it is repaired.
• Repairs can be done at any time, and the amount of resources required depends on the component’s current condition. However, keep in mind that while a component is being repaired, it won’t be accessible, and any benefits it provides will be temporarily disabled.

Teleportation Beacon

• The Teleportation Beacon is a component that allows guild members to teleport to the Guild Hall’s location at a significantly reduced cost.
• The exact reduction depends on their Guild Mastery level – and if they’ve reached level 100, teleportation is completely free.

Mission Table

• Mission table is a component that will automatically generate guild challenges.

Raid Planner

• The Raid Planner allows guilds to schedule up to 10 raids in advance, removing the need to wait for an ongoing raid to finish before setting up the next one.

Unity Seal

• The Unity Seal component allows you to set a guild tag that will be applied to all guild members.
• Guild members can hide the guild tag in their settings page.
• The tag must be unique.

Energizing Pool

• The Energizing Pool is a guild component that provides a temporary, time-limited boost to all guild members
• The energizing pool lasts for 3 hours.
• During this time, any guild member can enter the Energizing Pool and receive free boosts at no personal cost
• The strength of the boosts is directly tied to the Guild Mastery level – lower mastery levels will result in weaker boosts compared to higher guild mastery levels.
• The boosts range from 1% to 15%.

Banished Guilds

• Guild leaders can choose to "banish" their guild. When a guild is banished, only trade-locked (banished/cursed) characters can join. This gives those isolated classes access to guild features they normally wouldn’t be able to use.
• Banished guilds can only contain trade-locked classes.

Stockpile

• The guild stockpile is a dedicated pool of resources that can only be used for the guild hall and its components.
• Unlike a bank, once resources are contributed, they cannot be withdrawn.
• Trade-locked characters cannot contribute to the stockpile unless the guild is banished.

Conquest Banner

• Allows the guild to participate in conquests (see below).

Conquests

• Guilds can launch assaults on various locations within the game.
• During an assault, any defeated enemy within the targeted location contributes experience points (EXP) to the guild and its conquest progress.
• A Conquest Banner component is needed to perform conquests.
• Members participating in an assault will also earn Guild Mastery EXP.
• Guild experience is calculated as a percentage of the total EXP a player earns from defeating enemies. The stronger the enemy, the more experience the guild receives.
• Guild assaults are not just about experience – they also determine territory control. The guild with the most EXP in a location by the end of the season becomes its ruler for the following season.
• In a future update, the ruler of the location will be given exclusive boosts for the entire period of the following season. This is not yet implemented due to technical reworks required. We're hoping this feature will be available before the current season ends.
• Guilds can assault multiple locations but can only launch one assault at a time.
• Each assault costs 10 marks to initiate.
• A guild can select their own custom colour on the conquest map when they are dominating a region.
• Right now, enemies hunted before the assault begins will be counted towards the assault after defeating them. However, this may change in the future if we observe that it causes too many issues.

More Guild Changes

• Raids can now be scheduled up to a month in advance.
• Improved the date/time picker when scheduling a raid.
• The idea behind trade-locked characters is that they are supposed to be isolated away from the games economy and market. Because of this, trade-locked characters can no longer contribute to the guilds challenge list unless the guild is banished (see above).
• A characters raid contribution is now tracked in the guilds activity without them needing to log in before its tracked.
• Added quick assignment button for guild raids (like a "in 5 minutes" button which will quickly set the date to 5 minutes away)

## Wiki

• General improvements to the wiki. This includes more detailed information on various categories, as well as an improved layout.
• Updated Equipment page with correct upgrade limits and improved notes. (Contribution by @Erol314).
• Added "Credits" page.

Exhaustion

• Exhaustion has been removed from the game.

## Essence Crystal Changes Due to the significant increase in idle time, Essence Crystals have received an unintended boost, allowing them effectively last five hours longer than before the update.

To compensate for this, we’ve made major adjustments to Essence Crystals:

• All experience gained reduced by 40%
• All efficiency gained is reduced by 60%

PLEASE NOTE: We are intentionally reducing the essence crystals by a significant amount so that we can effectively "reset the playing field" and re-adjust after we have monitored how things play out. Our approach to balancing is all about playing it safe at first - starting with cautious changes and gradually buffing if necessary as we gather more data.

We fully acknowledge that this is a significant nerf, possibly more than necessary. However, this change helps prevents Essence Crystals from becoming overpowered due to the increased idle time. It also gives us the flexibility to fine-tune their balance moving forward without causing major disruptions to the market.

You can read more about our balancing approach here: https://blog.galahadcreative.com/our-balancing-approach/

Potion Changes

For the same reason as the essence crystal changes, we are making the following changes to potions:

• Reduced Battle EXP obtained with potions by 30%.
• Reduced Hunting Efficiency obtained with potions by 60%.

Again, we are aware that these changes may be more than necessary. Please see the Essence Crystal change for more information on our approach.

Bartering Changes

Bartering is one of the most powerful skills in the game for two main reasons: it's easy to level up, and it significantly boosts the gold you earn when selling items to vendors.

But there are some issues. Since the bonus is percentage-based, it creates big gaps in value when selling high-priced items. This makes balancing a nightmare and limits our ability to introduce more valuable items in the future - because with the percentage boost, their sell price could end up way too high.

To tackle the issues mentioned above, we're dialing back the impact of the Bartering skill. Here's what's changing:

• The vendor value-to-EXP conversion has been reduced from 50% to 20%.
• The maximum gold bonus from Bartering at level 100 is being lowered from 30% to 20%.

Vendors are the main source of gold generation in the game. Aside from Raids and World Bosses, it's the only way characters can create gold - so any change here has a ripple effect on everything, including the market.

We expect the market to shift as a result, and we’ll keep a close eye on things. If the change turns out to be too drastic - or not enough - we’ll make further adjustments once things stabilize.

Pet Improvements

• Added a "Quick Feed" pet that lets you feed all pets on the page with one click. It does its best to use food efficiently and avoid waste, but it's not 100% perfect.
• If you're aiming for maximum efficiency, we still recommend feeding your pets manually. This feature is mainly a quality-of-life upgrade to save you from the repetitive task of feeding multiple pets one by one.
• Added a "Battle Max" button that automatically sends your strongest pets to battle.
• "Pet Mastery" has been added to the teleportation costs due to its influence on the games economy.

Hunting Changes

• Reduced decay rate to 10% every 3 hours instead of 20% every 3 hours at minimum hunting level. This means enemies are slower to decay.
• Reduced decay rate to 2.5% every 3 hours instead of 5% every 3 hours at maximum hunting level. This means enemies are slower to decay.
• Reduced the minimum hunting time to 60 minutes (from 20 minutes) when at Hunting Mastery level 1. This means you can hunt for longer.
• Due to the huge increase in idle times, we've slightly decreased the base spawn rate of enemies from 0.04 per second to 0.03 per second. This means it is slightly slower to find enemies.
• Increased the EXP modifier from 2.65 to 3.31 to make up for decrease in enemy spawn rate. This means your EXP/s will remain roughly the same (give or take a few).
• Increased Power Hunting EXP range from to 1 to 18 (from 1 to 14). This means, at level 100 hunting mastery, you will get 18 EXP per enemy.

Shrine Changes

Because shrine boosts apply for your entire idle session, the recent update has ended up giving them a pretty big buff - mainly thanks to longer idle times. Before, shrine boosts could last up to 3 hours (not counting refreshes), but now they can stick around for up to 8 (or even longer if you refresh before the shrine effects expire).

To keep things balanced, we're slightly dialing back the skill bonuses you get from the shrine. We’re also trimming the base duration of the boosts from 3 hours to 2 hours, since their overall potential has effectively jumped from 3 hours to 8 hours.

On top of that, we've noticed the shrine is hitting tier 3 (T3) more often than it used to. It’s not an everyday thing, but T3 was specifically designed to be a target that is only hit once every so often. It's supposed to be a special milestone. To help manage this, we’re introducing a dynamic gold requirement for each shrine tier based on trends over the past 30 days.

In simple terms: the cost to reach each tier will automatically adjust depending on how often the shrine is being activated. If T3 suddenly becomes too rare, the cost will go down. If it’s happening too frequently, the cost will gradually go up. This system applies to all tiers - not just Tier 3 - and helps keep things balanced as the game evolves over time. You will likely not see any chances to the shrine cost immediately.

More Changes

• Improved the leaderboards UI.
• Completing a skill gives an overview in the notifications.
• Campaign points are hidden after the campaign is complete.
• Added little banner to the bottom of the skill page notifying new players that access to more resources can be obtained by traveling to a new location. This also includes a guide on how to find the map.
• Trade locked classes can no longer purchase the "Metamorphite" item in the vendor.
• Improved the profile page - particularly on mobile.
• Added "Unique" rarity that applies to items in the game that are extremely unique and are not obtainable through normal gameplay. These items are typically given out as rewards for special events or achievements.
• Pet names can now contain spaces.
• Updated "Nearby characters" UI.
• Fixed some skills displaying "EXP/sEXP/s"
• Added skill ascension levels to the profile page.
• Profile bio section has had a small make-over. Namely the text is now left aligned.
• Softened a lot of the restrictions on the profile bio section. You can now enter a bio with special characters and emojis.
• Changed the look of "secondary stats" to be much more intuitive.
• Added "Total Level" leaderboard.

Closing Thoughts

This update brings a lot of changes (especially with how idle times work) which is why we’re being very careful at first. Our usual approach is to start safe, then slowly adjust things over time. It’s better to go slowly than to make big changes we can’t undo.

Because this update is so large, we know everything won’t be perfect right away. Some parts might feel too strong. Others might feel too weak. If you think, “This is too much,” or “This has been nerfed too heavily,” please don’t worry. We know. That’s expected. It's by design. We’re being cautious on purpose to protect the balance of the game.

This update is huge and complex, which makes it even more important for us to move carefully and cautiously - despite knowing that some things might be slightly overtuned.

As always, we’ll keep an eye on everything and make improvements over time.

• Added Echoes of the Ascended campaign. There is no time limit to this campaign. Complete at your own leisure or switch back to an older campaign.
• Added new skins to the vendor store.

• Fixed push notifications for all platforms.

Ascension Levels

Ascension levels allow you to push your skills beyond the maximum level cap of 100, offering an opportunity to gain minor boosts for each specific skill.

• For every **1,000,000 **experience points earned beyond level 100, the character gains one Ascension Level. The maximum Ascension Level is 500.
• Characters can activate temporary passive perks that can increase skill efficiency, experience, and magic find for the related skill.
• More perks are unlocked as you increase your ascension level.
• To activate a perk, you'll need Ascension Points.
• Each character can hold a maximum of 8 or 10 Ascension Points at a time depending on the characters membership status. This limit is fixed and cannot be increased.
• Only a maximum of 5 perks can be activated at a time. This limit is also fixed and cannot be increased.
• Ascension points replenish over time. An Ascension Point is given every 8 hours for characters with membership, and 12 hours without.
• Ascension Points are shared across all skills. For example, using a point on Woodcutting reduces the total points available for other skills like Fishing or Mining.
• You can activate multiple perks simultaneously for a significant, short-lived boost. While this strategy can offer a lot of power, it comes with a cost - waiting for the regeneration of ascension points before activating perks again.

Ascension levels are only applicable to the following skills: Woodcutting, Mining, Fishing, Alchemy, Smelting, Cooking, Forge, Hunting Mastery, and Combat. We are open to adding ascension levels to more skills in the future.

Mythic Pet Egg Rate Increases

We’ve increased the mythic egg drop rates by 300%. We know the original rates were too low, especially considering how rare these drops have been since their release. On top of that, obtaining mythic items already comes with a steep challenge, as it requires a high combat level.

We’re taking a thoughtful approach to these changes, particularly because, as the game progresses, more players will reach the combat levels needed to take on the world bosses that hold mythic eggs. This wasn’t the case during the earlier stages of the game, so we want to ensure the system scales appropriately.

With this increase, along with the magic find bonuses now available throughout the game, we’re hoping to see more mythic eggs entering circulation at a healthy rate. It's entirely possible that this change will make little difference, but rest assured we’ll continue to tweak the rates until they feel just right. We will continue to monitor the situation over the coming months.

Other

• Added "EXP/s" to primary skills.
• Removed "Throw snowball" button on players profiles
• Wiki - Leaderboard Improvements (GitHub contribution by @Erol314)
• Wiki - Pet Mastery typo fix (GitHub contribution by @Erol314)
• Wiki - Improved ordering of classes (GitHub contribution by @MikeVerhees)
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to enter a quantity of "0" when adding an item to a trade.

Please note

This update includes changes tied to our overall approach to balancing the game. If you'd like the full details, you can check them out here. In short, when we introduce new features, we tend to start cautiously. This means we might keep things on the conservative side at first, but it allows us to gather data and make more informed adjustments over time. While it might not be the most exciting approach, it helps us ensure the game stays balanced and enjoyable in the long-run.

We recognize that the current mark reward system for top guilds at the end of a season is not ideal, as it creates an unbalanced start to a new season. Guilds at the top of the leaderboards are more likely to stay on top due to the mark rewards, making it unfair for newer or rising guilds to compete.

To address this, we are making an adjustment.

Starting from season 2, all top 25 guilds will receive a fixed reward of 20 marks for their participation. Rewards in season 1 will be unaffected.

We are also exploring alternative ways to reward top guilds without creating the imbalance caused by distributing marks as described above.

We’ve fixed an issue with Wyrmshadow that popped up in Version 0.34.0-PB. The drop rate for the Wyrmshadow egg was reset to the fallback value we used during closed testing (before the game was released). Those rates are set as a backup in case something goes wrong during a data migration - which is exactly what happened here. Thankfully, this bug only affected the Wyrmshadow egg, and no other items were impacted.

On that note, we recognize that the drop rates for both mythic pets have been unusually low, as shown by how rare they’ve been over the past year. We’re planning to increase these drop rates soon.

We’ve been reflecting on our vendor store and realized we’re not huge fans of the fear-of-missing-out vibe it creates with its temporary skins. While it kind of makes sense for seasonal content (like a Santa skin), we felt it was too punishing for those who don't play during the time it's available. It's also us a little sad knowing some players might miss out on some of the amazing art our talented artist has worked so hard to create.

With that in mind, we’re moving to a new approach. From now on, all vendor skins will be available. Instead of rotating skins in and out over time, we’ll transition to a system where skins are featured in sales.

This way, every vendor skin will always be obtainable if you want it, but you can also hold out for a sale if you’re looking for a better deal. We also understand the importance of ultra-exclusive skins and are open to introducing special gameplay-acquired skins in the future.

We'll be working on the vendor UI in the future to make it easier to navigate as we slowly introduce more skins to the vendor over time.

(To clarify, this update only applies to vendor skins, not skins acquired from campaigns.)

Also just a heads-up: these sales are separate from the occasional price adjustments we make to vendor items based on the market. Any skins on sale will be clearly marked with a "sale" tag, so they’ll be easy to spot.

• Fixed an issue where “skills” EXP effects were incorrectly applied to raids, causing twice as much EXP to be granted when both skill and combat effects were active.