ear Tibians,

over the years many new areas have been added to the game, providing you with a variety of locations to hunt in. Some of these have proven to be more attractive than others and have become the top destination for certain level ranges, teams and vocations. To address this apparent inequality, through thorough analysis we have identified the top 20 hunting grounds, factoring in XP gain and profit, to come up with a plan to rebalance them. This research was highly data-driven and took a lot of play sessions into account.

In order to balance the areas, we decreased the XP as well as the item drop chance of certain monsters. This means that these monsters will still drop the same items, but at a lesser rate. Since this might increase the rarity of some items, they may have to be unlocked again in the bestiary. For instance, if you looted a rare item off a monster already which has now become a very rare item, the unlocked rare entry will be removed and a very rare locked entry will be added.

These changes to the creatures have been made due to their occurrence in the top 20 hunting grounds, but naturally this has effects on hunting grounds outside the top 20 where these creatures occur. We are going to keep an eye on any subsequent developments.

A list of the changed hunting grounds can be found here. Each of them now has a focus either on XP or loot. Please note that the changes are always relative to each hunting ground. For example, a hunting ground with a moderate or significant decrease in XP can still give more XP than one with only slighly decreased XP or no change at all.

In addition to these changes, we have reworked some of the hunting grounds of the 2019 summer and winter update. Here we not only changed the loot chance and XP of monsters, but also the monster density in some areas. The Central Steppe, Southern Steppe and Green Belt in Kilmaresh are now more populated. Equally, more creatures now roam the Netherworld, Zarganash and Barren Drift, so be careful! Barren Drift is a special case as previously players had to trigger a raid, whereas now the raid triggers every 30 minutes automatically if player involvement does not meet the requirements. Parts of Central Steppe have also been made more accessible in order to make hunting easier.

The burning gladiator, priestess of the wild sun and black sphinx acolyte now give slightly to moderately less XP with an unchanged item drop chance, whereas the flimsy lost soul, mean lost soul and freakish lost soul gained a moderate increase in item drop chance at slightly decreased XP. The cursed prospector has an unchanged item drop chance while giving moderately more XP.

We are going to monitor the developments in-game and will adjust values when necessary. Future adjustments to hunting grounds may arrive in smaller increments and will be mentioned in a ticker or news.

Happy hunting,
Your Community Managers