Future Silver Adjustments
By STAFF_Ines
Apr 1st, 2018
Greetings, Saviors.
It’s your dev team, here to talk about some changes that are being planned regarding the use of Silver in Tree of Savior.
After the last Rank update, our game was affected by a Silver inflation that has been growing more and more severe as time goes by. For an economy-based MMORPG, inflation is one of the most telling signs of danger, which is why we need to look for ways to adjust the routes of Silver supply and consumption in TOS.
Our plan to prevent this inflation from growing is to introduce new Silver-consuming content and revise current Silver systems.
As far as the consumption of Silver is concerned, we want to steer away from adding Silver fees to features catered to the general player base. Instead, we’re looking to increase Silver consumption mostly through new higher-end content or growth/EXP-related functions.
To put it in perspective, the measures we want to implement are less akin to increasing the price of public transportation, and more like raising taxes on luxury sports cars, for example. Our goal is to expand Silver consumption not on essential functions, but on optional ones. Some examples of game features through which you can expect increased Silver requirements would be the previously introduced Velcoffer Legend gear system, Lv 100 enhancement attribute bonuses, and future PvP content (which, by the way, is already being tested).
So that’s our plan for adjusting Silver consumption. But what about the supply? Well, the supply of Silver as a whole is not a problem, but there is an issue with instanced dungeons.
Up until Character Rank 8 (Lv 330), Castle Dungeon had a relatively higher degree of difficulty, and the Silver it generated wasn’t yet enough to escalate the supply up to alarming levels. In regular, level-adequate play environments, the Silver supply from instanced dungeons wasn’t excessive. With the arrival of Character Rank 9 (Lv 360), however, it became feasible for stronger characters to earn large amounts of Silver from Castle Dungeon a lot more easily.
As many of you may have experienced, it is now possible for a party of one or two maximum level characters equipping decent gear to clear Castle Dungeon in only 3-4 minutes. This means that, not only are stronger characters making easy Silver, average characters can benefit from it as well by accompanying them in parties. Even a player with no significant combat investments can round up 220,000 Silver every 5 minutes for as many characters as they possess.
That said, the fact that we didn’t add a new instanced dungeon adapted to Character Rank 9 was intentional. We wanted to scale down the role of instanced dungeons as the be-all, end-all of PvE gameplay, and lead players into regular fields and Hunting Grounds. That’s why we introduced the Challenge Mode, the Unique Raid Dungeon and better Hunting Grounds rewards.
Being mostly disconnected from TOS’ storylines and scenarios, instanced dungeons were created to act not as staples of everyday gameplay, but as bonus content that helps you catch up to the latest Rank more conveniently (especially for new and returning players). Convenience was, after all, the reason why we moved all instanced dungeon entries to Klaipeda.
What’s causing the problem we’re seeing now is that, while EXP gains vary according to your level, Silver is supplied in fixed amounts. That is why we came to apply Silver restrictions in instanced dungeons, similarly to what already happened with EXP.
In the future, instanced dungeons will continue to serve as EXP/Silver boosts until the next highest Rank. As such, a Lv 330 dungeon will be added only when the maximum character level increases beyond the current Lv 360 (with the addition of Character Rank 10).
That way, characters can quickly get to Rank 10 while earning a prescribed amount of Silver, but after reaching that maximum Rank, they’ll be encouraged to pursue EXP and currency gains through regular fields, quests, Hunting Grounds, and various challenges and raids. This means that, overall, the supply of Silver in instanced dungeons is expected to slow down.
Besides these measures, we also have plans to increase the supply of Silver and goods in gameplay content that doesn’t contribute to inflation. We’re currently working towards reintroducing the old advancement quests as Class Master quests with Attribute Point rewards, and we want to expand the rewards of other existing quests with not only Silver but also Attribute Points and other useful assets.
Finally, we realize the importance of protecting the value of Silver as the de facto in-game currency, while keeping in mind the balance between its production and consumption. Any new content or system changes that come out of this endeavor will be duly announced through our dev blog and the patch notes, so keep checking in for more updates.
Thank you.