Hey y’all, Frog here.

The Infinity Nest team has been working on a major update that will reshape equipment progression and address some deep-rooted issues with the way our content was structured.

While this revamp represents a significant step forward, we understand that it may come with mixed feelings for those who may not enjoy change.

I’d like to emphasize that this overhaul took a lot of collaborative work between the staff.

We’ve done our best to check each other’s work and spot any potential oversights or mistakes, but some things are bound to slip through the cracks.

We will require feedback from the community, as well as your patience as we try our best to readjust things as needed.

New Year, No Maze

First, we’re saying farewell to Fission Maze. It was one of the first things we discussed, and we’ve decided to remove this PvE content entirely. Personally I was a Fission Maze Enjoyer™ but I understand that a good chunk of players do not share the same sentiment.

By disabling Fission Maze we are now free to use the Nests that were once locked behind it, without fear of any balance issues. Of course, this means that we’ve been working to overhaul the early-to-mid-game PvE content.

A Hero’s Path to Becoming a Saviour

We’ve made some major changes to equipment progression. Newbie Booster 2.0 and the 3 types of role-locked archetype FDN gear have been replaced by four new sets of gear. To keep it simple, I’ll be referring to them as The Hero’s Journey sets, but they are named as follows:

Magic Grade:
Infinity Adventurer’s set

Rare Grade:
Infinity Hero’s set

Epic Grade:
Infinity Champion’s set

Unique Grade:
Infinity Saviour’s set

The Infinity Adventurer’s set will be given to you after completing (or skipping) the tutorial, and each subsequent set of equipment will be earned by farming its own specific nest (e.g., the Infinity Hero’s set is earned by defeating BotE).

There’s an important detail to note, The Hero’s Journey sets will not have any role-locked archetype variants. Yup! Mhm! Yay! As shown with the release of RuDN Stage 1, we are moving away from having Tank, Healer, and DPS variants entirely.

What About My Current Gear?!?!

We’ve done our best to maintain the same power level in fully upgraded Infinity Savior’s equipment as +15 FDN equipment, but things won’t be exactly the same as we are condensing three sets of role-locked archetype gear into one.

When the overhaul is complete and released— players will be able to convert any existing role-locked archetype gear into the corresponding Infinity Savior's counterpart via conversion hammers.

For example, if you have a +7 Relentless Aggressor's Helmet, you can use a conversion hammer to transform it into a +7 Infinity Savior's Helmet.

Unfortunately, we will not be able to allow for existing role-locked archetype Legendary Dragon Jades to convert into Unique Infinity Savior's Dragon Jades.
Infinity Savior's Conversion Hammers will only work on the following sets of equipment:

Forest Dragon Armour Selection Box (+7 to +15):
Relentless Aggressor's Set
Sage's Sacrifice Set
Knight's Vow Set

Legendary Accessory Selection Box (+4 to +15):
Aggression L-Frost Accessories
Mending L-Frost Accessories
Tenacity L-Frost Accessories

Permanent Origin Selection Box (+3 to +8):
Wellspring Origin of the Violent
Wellspring Origin of the Compassionate
Wellspring Origin of the Stalwart

Cursed End of Dream Weapons (+0 to +15):
Includes primary and secondary for any class.

Dungeons? In my Dragon Nest?

I mentioned the removal of Fission Maze, but that doesn’t mean we’re only using Nests. We’ll be reintroducing dungeon farming as a main activity and a major part of gear progression. We’ve decided to utilize a system called Lucky Zones. If you’re not familiar with it, Lucky Zones is a rotating schedule that selects a few dungeons that give an extra reward upon completion. Farming dungeons will be the primary method to obtain upgrade materials for The Hero’s Journey sets. This part of the project is still mostly under development so I don’t want to go into too much detail.

What I can say is if you are sick doing the same five Diana Daily dungeons, you might be happy to hear that Lucky Zones will select Dungeons from every available dungeon in the game! Sadly, this meant that we had to disable access to the Main Story Quests, as it would interfere with our efforts to make sure dungeon content is properly balanced.

Why the Overhaul?

We’ve noticed that our current set of content seems to be getting really stale for most players. Activity surged around the release of RuDN Stage 1 during the holidays, but the broader experience needs fresh energy.

Additionally, I've been personally frustrated with the state of gear progression for quite some time. When I worked with the crew on Patch 6.51 to rebalance the early game progression trying to make the transition from Newbie Booster gear to FDN gear smoother, we had to make some unfavorable decisions. Equipment obtained from Fission Maze stores had to open at specific enchant levels in order to be statistically better to wear over Newbie Booster Gear. Equipment like Unique Dragon Jades barely provided a boost in stats because they were from a different era of our private server where stats on equipment were much lower.

Admittedly, I think there were a lot of shortcuts taken and it made the whole experience feel lackluster. With this overhaul of PvE content and rebalanced equipment, I hope that players will find early-to-mid-to-late game progression to have a much more satisfying sense of growth as your stats gradually increase with each upgrade.

Unfortunately, you may have noticed that this project has led to delays in the release of Stages 2-4 of Rune Dragon. For that, I apologize. When I pitched this idea to the crew it was decided that we would have to do it before releasing anymore RuDN Stages. It would be unfair to Serene to force him to make the finishing touches on Stage 2-4, then have him rebalance it all over again once we finished the overhaul.

“Just make a suggestion post.” —Frog

Revamping and rebalancing all this content is no small task. We’re going to need feedback from players to see what works and what doesn’t. There’s likely going to be multiple follow-up patches as we address any issues that need to be readjusted.

Thank you for your patience and support as we work through these changes. Stay tuned for more updates, and let us know your thoughts—we’re always listening.

Happy adventuring,
Infinity Nest Team