Greetings from the Development Team!

The first season of World Arena is about to end, soon!

Today, we'll inform you about the details of the World Arena schedule for season 1 and 2, and also about the rift dungeon balancing modification.

Before we go into the details, we'd like to thank all of you for your participation and support for the first season of the World Arena.

During the development, we were nervous to introduce the World Arena where all users from all servers battle together since it was our first time to develop such content. Fortunately, a lot of users seem to enjoy the World Arena which made the entire development team feel very proud of the work.

At the same time, we are constantly thinking about how we could improve the content and introduce a better gaming environment for you guys. We'll continue to keep our ears open for your opinions and try to reflect them to the gameplay.

Now, let's take a look at the details of the future plans for the World Arena.

▶ Future Plans for World Arena

- World Arena Season 1 will end on Jun. 28th. (v3.4.8 update)

- World Arena Season 2 will start on mid-July. (v3.4.9 update)

- Please note that the above schedule may change since the World Arena starts and ends with an update.

- We'll put up another notice if there's any change to the schedule and we're currently preparing to put up the season end/starting date on the main page of the World Arena. Please refer to the image below.

- After tallying, which will take a day, the reward for the World Arena Season 1 will be given to all servers starting Jun. 30th 12am PDT.

- You won't be able to enter the Ranking Battle during the Season 1 end - Season 2 opening, but you'll still be able to enter the Goodwill Battle.

- Moreover, the World Arena Victory Points will also reset after the tally. The process will be similar to that of the Arena and please refer to the chart below for details.

Next, we'd like to talk about the modifications on the rule of the next World Arena Season and new rewards that will be added.

▶ World Arena Season 2 Modifications

- Acquiring additional turns with Violent Runes will now be limited to only 1 turn.

: We got tons of opinions regarding the Violent Rune during the first season and decided to put a limit on it. We still believe that activating 1 additional turn can be a powerful variable in the gameplay.

- If you have consumed all of your turn time without any action, the time given in the following turn will be reduced by half. 

For instance, if you don't make a decision within 15 sec during your first turn, the time that you get in your following turn will be reduced to 7 sec. For this 7 sec, if you don't make any action, your turn will be reduced by half once again, and you'll get 3 sec in the following turn. If you make an action within 3 sec and use your turn properly, the duration of your turn will be recovered back to 15 sec.

We've made such modification to prevent users from being stressed by the opponent who intentionally making delayed decisions, and the same rule applies to the pick and ban system. The total amount of time given in the first turn during the pick and ban is 30 sec, and the duration will be shortened as follows: 30 sec -> 15 sec -> 7 sec -> 3 sec.

- The base turn for additional effect activation will be changed as follows.

(Previously) 30 turns at first, increases the Attack Power by 10% and decreases the HP by 10% for every 15 turns afterwards.

(Changed to) 20 turns at first, increases the Attack Power by 10% and decreases the HP by 10% for every 15 turns afterwards.

In order for users to be able to enjoy more thrilling battles in the World Arena, we decided to reduce the number of turns that activate additional effects.

- Victory Point Balancing will be modified.

There were lots of opinions about the change of the victory point, and there were cases where users getting too stressed about that their gameplays are getting interfered. To relieve such stress, we decided to modify the calculation of the victory point based on the data we collected from season 1 so that it can be more balanced. So far we've discussed about the rules that will change in Season 2 of the World Arena. We hope that the new rules will make the content more complete!

In addition, we'll continue to listen to the opinions that you guys provide us and try to improve the gameplay. Along with the changes in the rules, exciting rewards will be added to Season 2! 

Let's see what rewards are added!

▶ New World Arena Season 2 Rewards

First of all, Legend grade users will be given a special reward as noticed before.

- A new Hall of Fame Menu will be added in the World Arena.

: Some of you may have already noticed, but a new menu will be added to congratulate the users who reached the Legend Grade in each season. Who would be the honorable player to be registered to the Hall of Fame?

- A unique statue will be rewarded to the World Arena Legend.

: In addition to the Hall of Fame mentioned above, the Legend grade user will receive an additional reward, which is the below.

This statue can be installed on the island and a special effect (World Arena Season 1 Legend) will be displayed when you tap the statue along with your name.

- New World Arena Season 2 Rewards

: As a [season reward], Homunculus Transmogrification and new Transmogrification Effect, Ellia's Ride will be available.

Though we don't have the images yet, we can tell you that these will be great rewards for sure!

Along with the above rewards, Ellia's House and a building where Ellia's rides can be kept will also be added, so please stay tuned!

Next, let's talk about the modifications to be made to the Rift Dungeon.

▶ Rift Dungeon Reward/Balancing Modification

After opening this dungeon, we've had so many internal discussions on how to make improvement and we finally decided to make the following modifications.

- The rewards that are dropped in the Rift Dungeon will be adjusted.

: A new [Reward Box] will be added as a reward for the Rift Dungeon gameplay. From this box, Gems/Grindstones that are related to Fight/Determination/Enhance/Accuracy/Tolerance Runes as well as other items will be dropped with a fixed chance.

: No more Gems/Grindstones related to Fight/Determination/Enhance/Accuracy/Tolerance Runes will be dropped in the Rift Raid due to the modification.

(The drop rate in the Raid remains the same, so we believe that it'll be easier to farm Gems and Grindstones.)

: Condensed Magic Crystal will now be dropped for users who reach Grade B- and up. With this modification, the amount of Condensed Magic Crystals dropped each time has been slightly reduced. (The drop rate has increased, so you'll be able to acquire more Condensed Magic Crystals in the end.)Please refer to the chart below.

- The effects of Fight/Determination/Enhance Runes will be increased.

[Fight] Ally's Attack Power +7% -> +8%

[Determination] Ally's Defense +7% -> +8%

[Enhance] Ally's HP +7% -> +8%

- The price of Fight/Determination/Enhance/Accuracy/Tolerance Runes will be adjusted.

: The price will be increased from 161 up to 300% according to the grade of the Rune.

: The price of the Runes acquired before the patch won't be increased.

: Mana Stones will no longer drop as a Rift Dungeon reward. However, Runes/Grind Stones/Gems have been added enabling users to acquire Mana Stones by selling such items. Additionally, the price of the Rune has also increased, so we expect users to be able to acquire more Mana Stones than before.

- The amount of inflicted damage will be increased by 50% when using Monsters that have attribute advantages in the Rift Dungeon. However, Monsters with attribute disadvantage will receive 50% increased damage from the Rift Beasts. The defense of the Rift Beast will also slightly increase.

: It seems that only certain Monsters are being used in the Rift Dungeon, especially those of the attack type regardless of the attribute, and we thought that this should be changed since Summoners War expects users to enjoy strategic gameplay. By enhancing the attribute concept in the Rift Dungeon, we expect users to utilize as many Monsters as possible according to the attribute relations.

Many of you may like or dislike some of the modifications made to the Rift Dungeon, but please keep in mind that we've thought it through carefully before making such modifications and decided to do so in order to provide everyone with better gaming environment and to improve Summoners War even further.

Additionally, there's one last thing we've prepared for you!

As mentioned briefly at the 3rd Anniversary Invitational, a support-type Homunculus will be added with the next update!

- We're currently balancing the stats and skills so we can't give you many details, but it'll be a great Monster that possesses various beneficial and harmful effects.

- Homunculus crafting cost and evolution cost will also be greatly decreased with the update. 

(Please keep in mind that the above content is still under development and may be different from the actual update.)

That's all we got for you today! We thank you for your patience and support and please stay tuned for the future update!