[Korea] Director's Note: Summer Update and Future Directions

• NOTE: This article is a direct archive of Yong*'s translation. All credits go to him.

TL, DR (Summary)

• Sorry (yet again) for leakage of internal information regarding new class and future content. We will communicate better in the future.
• We are aware of how undesirable the current class balance is. One of the main problems is how each class is losing its identity because every class only focuses on damage output instead of unique characteristics. Regardless, we will continue to patch each class as soon as possible.
• New class “Blade” is Katana wielding, physical independent atk Pure-DPS class. Its main characteristic is her skill canceling passive that will transfer the skipped damage onto the following skill. (xlator note: I think it will play like Omniblade or even fstriker. I think she is chosen to be a refine class, because it allows more people to play her without concerns to make +12, while also encouraging whales to modify Primal Dream- PoW Weapon which is much steeper gold sink than reinforcement)
• Plz play Blade. We prepared a Blade-only event dungeon that will not consume any materials to enter nor does it have an entry limit (prob still consume FP). The dungeon is separated into 10 stages. 
• 1~8 stages will give growth equips (legendaries or below that helps you level) and must-have items such as Swap equips, Talisman, and Runes 
• 9~10 stages will drop GoW Epics at much higher rate than GoWs, and maps are distinguished based on the type of epics dropped, so players can choose which epic parts (probably Weapon / Armor / Acc / Specials) to farm.
• 10th stage will provide Sirocco mats and Black Purgatory mats to prepare players for the current end game content: Ozma raid.
• Every Blade will receive a mythic as an accumulative event reward, and will be given the option to reroll the mythic with bans on each reroll. (Theoretically, you can keep rerolling until you get Wargod or Darkverse.)
• Damage Compression Patch, a simple decrease in all damage numbers as well as monsters’ HP by 1/1000. Everything will scale linearly so individuals will feel relatively the same. This is just to shrink the numbers in the game so it doesn't go out of hand.
• New characters will automatically be advanced to the chosen class during character creation at lv. 1. Players will be given the option to change the class for free until lv 70. (u/Save4Less suggested that Neople is sick of dealing with players pre-leveling subclass characters and graduating a new-class upon release)

Full Note

• Greetings, This is Jeong Ho Kang, Lead Director of DnF
• Before introducing our plans for future contents, I want to clarify on recent internal information leakage.*
• (xlater note: there recently was yet another internal information leak, this time regarding the new Blade class and the event it will bring - which turned out to be accurate. The post also contained other information such as the next content Neople began to develop will be 105 cap - and will deal with internal separation of Lemidia Basilica cathedral. Judging from NP’s response, that part is probably accurate as well.)
• As mentioned in notice before, we have reported the data leakage to the investigators. We promised that we will take any future information leak seriously and notify the adventurers (aka players) as soon as possible. Currently the incident is under investigation, and we will keep the adventurers updated on this matter. We once again apologize for this incident.
• Additionally, we are fully aware how crucial and worrisome the leaked “next season” information is to the adventurers. In continuous efforts to make the current lv cap the best increase ever, we introduced the engrave/inheritance system as a response to each adventurer's worries. Although it is too early to give more detail on this matter, we will promise that the next level cap will not let adventurers’ time and effort spent on DnF go to waste. We apologize for the concerns regarding this matter, and we promise to announce future plans as soon as it is solidified.
• We will also improve our communication. We change our format of notices to share future contents, directions, and plans as much as possible. We will share our current thoughts and listen to each adventurer’s response. If our thoughts might include potential plans, we will walk through our thought process in attempts to be finalized with feedback from the players. We want DnF to be the game that grows with adventurers in mind. 
• We are also preparing “DnF-ON Season 2” (tentative name) [offline meeting where players are invited to have Q&A sessions with the developers including Director Kang]. We cannot confirm the date yet due to Covid-19, but we plan to host it before mid-August. Notice will be posted as soon as plans are decided.

Character and Direction of Future Content

• Characters that DnF is built upon have gone through a lot of change from 1st, 2nd, and Neo awakenings. Although each class has improved in power level and skill utilities, the unique characteristics of the classes had started to fade out. 
• We are concerned that if this trend continues, the “Action Excitement'' DnF boasts can weaken as each class starts to feel monotone. So we are more focused to emphasize the uniqueness of each class in an attempt to keep the game fun and fresh. This can only be achieved by executing a complete overhaul from the dungeon to the character style. We strongly believe that the dungeons must require complex elements other than simple high damage output, and our developers are focused to reflect it on future contents. It is too early to share any details on future content yet, but we promise to announce as soon as they are ready.
• Regardless, we will continue to keep a close eye to current meta, and balance the classes as necessary. We are fully aware how lacking the June Character balance patch was. (yeah, the overhyped balance patch that Neople supposedly prepared “since the first 3A -fslayers-” turned out to be simple number changes of 10 classes. LOL) For that, we apologize. We are currently preparing balance patches for other classes, and planning to roll them out as soon as possible.

Blade (New Class)

• As the name suggests, Blade is a Katana wielding, physical independent atk, Pure-DPS class. She uses short-tachi “White-night” (my best guess.), long-tachi “Dark-obsidian” (my best guess again.) and magical wires (like Vertical Maneuvering Equipment from AoT, highlighted on her 3A) and to dash and slash stylishly in dungeon. She has skill-canceling passive that will transfer the skipped damage onto the following skill. Please stay tuned for her debut on First-server on 6/24 (KST). (Kdnf Test server. Prepare for loads of videos from Kdnf Streamers on 6/23!)

(Exclusive) Areal Dungeon Event

• We had a lot of concerns regarding the leveling and gearing of the new character, because the required grind through the same repetitive end-game content as well as climbing the gearing stairs can be incredibly overwhelming. So we will be providing exclusive Areal Dungeon Events for Blade that can simultaneously achieve leveling and farming at a faster rate than the existing contents. 
• These so-called Areal Dungeons will be composed of 10 levels. Lv 1~8 will offer leveling gears inferior to current Epic gears (probably free event uniques and legendaries), that will aid new Blade players to level and provide a sense of achievement through incremental growth.
• Each of these Areas will have a recommended level to enter at, but does not have an actual entry limit, so players can enter freely based on their gears and skills. We also tried to introduce varieties of gimmicks besides Groggy & DPS patterns, such as puzzle gimmicks using dungeon objects themed around each iconic boss.
• Lv 9 and 10 will drop current GoW epics, so players can farm and level simultaneously. These dungeons have much higher epic drop rate than GoW, and each map is segregated by type of epics dropped. In other words, players will be able to achieve desired set-ups much faster by choosing which maps to farm (I am guessing there are Weapon / Armor / Acc / Special dungeons). These dungeons will also provide miscellaneous equipment such as Op: Hope (swap gears) and P. war Runes and Talismans.
• Lv. 10, the highest level offered, will provide previous endgame materials such as Sirocco Raid materials and Black Purgatory materials. We strongly believe that the new Blade characters will be able to enter current endgame content: Ozma raid within a short amount of time by completing exclusive events and playing existing contents at the same time.
• Finally, we prepared a solution to the excruciating Mythic problem. First, 1 mythic equipment will be provided as an accumulative Event dungeon reward (exclusive to Blade). There also will be a system that allows adventurers to convert unwanted mythic into a different one. This conversion will work similar to Ozma epic, where players will be able to additionally ban an unwanted mythic on each rerolls, so players will eventually achieve the desired mythic if played diligently. We want to clarify that these dungeons will also have a small chance to drop mythics by itself, so players do have a slight chance to get additional mythics.
• Please note that we are preparing different events to provide mythics to other characters as well.

Damage Compression

• Over many years and contents, adventures have grown stronger in rapid rate, and damage output has increased exponentially in dungeons. Although we are not opposed to players becoming stronger, the “damage numbers shown” have started to go out of hand. We are already observing units of ‘Trillion,’ and if left untouched, units will start to become surreal - obscured from common number units (guess we ain't seeing quintillions just yet). With other various considerations, such as providing “newbie friendly units,” we decided to decrease every damage and monster HPs by 1/1000. Everything will scale as normal, so each adventurer will not feel any difference in its relative power.
• We understand that even with the same relative power, seeing a lower number may be a letdown to many adventures. We will prepare a solution ahead of time to prevent the need to repeat the same change in the future. Please understand that this linear compression will break the early stage of the game, so we have adjusted the scale in that part.

Automatic Advancement upon Character Creation

• We found out that many new adventurers spend a long time observing illustrations and researching communities to finally decide what class to play, but end up being confused once the game starts because the character is not the chosen advancement at start. (He is referring to how advancement chosen at the character creation page doesn’t matter as every choice will yield to the common base character until advanced in lv 18. This also means, players can level base class to max level and start “farming” gears eons before actual character release. I agree that Neople might’ve finally got tired of “day 1 grad characters” upon every new class release)
• We have solved this confusion by automatically advancing the character to chosen subclass upon character selection, lv 1. Also, we will allow players to change their mind and change subclass until lv 70, in case they realize the chosen character does not match one's taste or playstyle.
• We are preparing other updates to further satisfy the adventures. As said before, we will better communicate our future contents in closer detail, especially in our thoughts, purpose and goals. 
• We will strive for the best Dungeon and Fighter yet.
• Thank you.

References

KDnF Director's Note

Yong*'s Translation