Given recent news about the MMO industry, it’s completely understandable that some of you may be wondering what the future holds for Pax Dei. We’ve seen your questions and concerns, and we feel it’s important to address them as directly and transparently as possible, while also sharing where we’re headed.

“Are you going to shut down as other studios have recently?”

No. We still have a small, but very passionate, hard-working team working on Pax Dei, and we intend to continue delivering updates regularly.

Let’s be transparent: yes, we’ve had rough moments. Being an independent studio means we rely on a mix of external investment and, increasingly, revenue from the game itself to pay for the ongoing development of Pax Dei. We’ve had to adjust our team size and limit our scope accordingly. 

Since we left Early Access, we’ve been balancing our long-term vision for the game alongside player feedback, and tackling some genuinely tough problems to make sure the game has a stable foundation, technically, operationally, and in terms of the content we’re able to offer.

We understand that progress can sometimes feel slow from the outside. But as long as we have our players' support, our intention is to keep building Pax Dei and delivering on the features we’ve showcased in the past, even if it sometimes takes longer than we, or many players, would like.

Support comes in many forms, and not all of them involve paying money. You can support by:

Sharing feedback and testing new content on the Public Test Shard

Engaging with our posts and updates on Discord and social media

And ultimately, of course, the most direct way to support us, for those who want and are able to, is by purchasing Memberships (plots, Premium, etc.)

All of these matter, especially for a small studio like ours.

“Well, I like the game, but I’m not ready to pay.”

You don’t need a subscription to enjoy Pax Dei. You can join a Clan, contribute to the community, and enjoy the game without your own plot. If you want your own home and play regularly, you can maintain one plot with Grace, which allows you to enjoy the full experience by purchasing the base game alone. Simply being part of the world and its community already helps more than you might think.

“What about the features we’ve been asking for?”

We know this is a sensitive topic, so let’s address some of these features.

: these features were mentioned before Early Access in interviews and Q&As. Their absence from the game so far is due to two main reasons:

First, both farming and fishing primarily add new content loops to the cooking system, and the current state of cooking is not where we want it to be yet. Introducing new resource loops now would only amplify existing balance issues, which doesn’t make sense at this stage.

Second, both systems require significant development, and we haven’t yet been able to allocate the necessary time to them.

That said, the crafting skills related to cooking and potions are next in line for rebalancing. This means we’re very close to removing the main balancing blocker for these features.

: we shared an early concept for mounts last year, but the feature is still a long way from being ready. While the overall design is now complete and some technical challenges have already been addressed, there is still significant work ahead.

We need to implement the gameplay systems themselves, improve animations, particularly those related to the rider, and ensure mounts persist correctly across zones. As we’ve mentioned before, we want horses to be more than a simple movement-speed bonus. This means dedicating time from several team members to build meaningful content and systems around them, even for the initial version you’ll see in-game.

: last summer, recycling was a high priority. Since then, priorities have shifted to address more urgent needs. We know how important recycling is to many of you, and we agree. However, at the moment, we simply don’t have the bandwidth to actively work on it. 

That said, we are continuing to refine the design and hope to have something ready to ship later in the year. In the meantime, the upcoming crafting balance changes in the next update aims to significantly reduce crafting waste. You’ll no longer need to grind a small, specific set of items to maximize XP gains, which we believe will greatly reduce the need for recycling in the short term. Our next step on that front will be to look into failed crafts and reduce material costs.

With the game and the team we have right now, our priority is clear: it makes far more sense to improve, fix, and strengthen what already exists than to keep expanding outward with new zones, biomes, or professions.

For most of this year, our focus will be on making Pax Dei more meaningful rather than simply making it bigger. That means going deeper into existing systems, addressing long-standing friction points, and delivering quality-of-life improvements that make the game more coherent and enjoyable day-to-day. You can already see this direction with XP rebalancing on the PTS, as well as the work we’ve started on Cooking, Jewelcrafting, and Alchemy (with plans to review Fletching as well).

Rather than spreading the team too thin, we want to strengthen the game's foundations so that future additions are built on solid ground.

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: a major pillar of this effort is building. Player feedback has been very clear: the building system is amazing, but its impact is currently mostly aesthetic. We want construction to matter more, not just as decoration, but as a meaningful part of gameplay and social life in Pax Dei.

Building isn’t only about placing structures. It’s about creating places where communities gather, trade, roleplay, and leave a lasting mark on the world. Our goal is to reinforce the building system as the backbone of villages and cities, so future features feel richer and more connected.

: to support this vision, we’re working on several interconnected systems. Alongside ongoing crafting professions rebalancing, we’re introducing mechanics that tie gameplay benefits directly to well-designed structures: systems like Comfort and Rest with crafting bonuses influenced by roofs and layouts. Together, these changes aim to make where and how you build just as important as what you build.

: at the same time, we’ve been spending a lot of time designing Alliances. Our goal is to make Alliances meaningful for all types of players, not just PvP-focused groups, but also Clans who want to build villages and cities together. To achieve that, Alliances need purpose beyond PvP flagging alone, which means introducing supporting mechanics before Alliances themselves go live.

A key part of making this work is giving players better control over access and trust. That’s why we’re finally revamping the permission system. Clans will support customizable membership tiers, each tied to specific roles and permissions. Plot and item access will be more granular, including the ability to define Trusted Friends with elevated rights. The new system is also designed to be safer and more forgiving, with clearer presets and stricter deletion rules, making it easier to welcome new members without fear of losing property or progress. We’ll go into more detail once this reaches the Public Test Shard.

the image hereunder is a UI mockup and is subject to change. We will talk more about it once it is functional, but we wanted to show you how granular we want it to be. Here you can see the Plot Permissions section with its two tabs: one for the Plot itself (building, destroying), and one for the items on the Plot (crafters, storages, decorations, etc.).

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These are long-term goals, and they are only possible if the underlying systems are strong.

This is the direction we’re committed to: stronger foundations, deeper systems, and a world that becomes more meaningful the more you invest in it.

“This all sounds great. What’s the timeline then?”

As we speak, Verse 5 is growing with new content, including Master Crafting, new emotes, UI updates, and more. This update also includes significant rebalancing of crafting XP across most professions, aimed at making crafting progression much more pleasant overall. This content is currently being tested on the Public Test Shard (Arcadia) and should reach live shards in the coming weeks.

After Verse 5, we’ll be moving to Verse 6 (surprising, right?). Verse 6 will focus on building, the comfort system, and permissions. As part of this planning, we made the difficult decision to move Alliances to later in the year, in Verse 7. This allows us to properly lay the foundations first, rather than introducing Alliances before the supporting systems are ready.

Alongside these major features, we also plan to roll out smaller, nice-to-have features and systems throughout the year. Here’s what’s simmering in our magical cauldron: the much-anticipated duelling system, additional building sets, a cooking and food glow-up, and more improvements for Jewelcrafting and Alchemy, combat improvements and PvE content fixes. We’ll also be adding birds, not just ambient “chirp-chirp” ones, but wildlife that can be hunted and that will be tied directly to fletching. And, of course, a few surprises we’re not ready to reveal just yet.

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We remain fully committed to Pax Dei. We’re proud of what we’ve built so far, aware of what still needs work, and grateful for a community that continues to challenge, support, and believe in the project.

Thank you for reading and for sticking with us.
Pax vobiscum,
The Mainframe Team

Future of Pax Dei - A Letter From the Team

 Hello Paxians, Given recent news about the MMO industry, it’s completely understandable that some of you may be wondering what the future holds for P...

As mentioned in the Master Crafting post, we’re now sharing the answers regarding crafting XP changes that will go live with Verse 5.1.2, and that will affect: Blacksmithing, Armorsmithing, Leatherworking, Tailoring, and Weapon Smithing.

Will crafting XP be directly proportional to the total material cost of a recipe (including sub-components like charcoal, oil, padding, etc.)?

Yes. At a high level, crafting XP now closely tracks the true cost of a recipe, including sub-components and intermediary materials. If a recipe is expensive to make, whether because it requires rare materials, multiple steps, or significant preparation, it should feel meaningfully rewarding in XP. The goal here is simple: if you invest more resources, you should get more progress in return.
One important consequence of this approach is that many sub-component crafts now grant less XP than before, while the final recipe that consumes those components grants significantly more XP. In practice, this means that when you craft all the required sub-components and complete the final combine, the total XP earned across the entire crafting chain is, in almost all cases, higher than it was previously. 

Blacksmithing is the main exception to this rule. A large portion of Blacksmithing progression is built around intermediary and sub-component crafting rather than final combines, and those steps are intentionally meant to be meaningful progression points on their own. As a result, expensive Blacksmithing sub-components still provide strong XP returns, ensuring that the profession retains its established leveling flow and remains rewarding even when focused heavily on component production.

This shift overall helps reduce situations where optimal leveling involves endlessly crafting intermediaries in most professions, while still fully rewarding players who engage with deeper, multi-step recipes.

Are you using a formula-based XP system where each ingredient has an XP value that adds up for each recipe?

Yes, with an important nuance.
XP is calculated using a formula in which materials contribute value, but those values are weighted differently by profession. For example, tailoring components translate very efficiently into XP for Tailoring, but contribute proportionally less XP when used in professions like Armorsmithing.

This approach lets us better balance progression across professions without completely redesigning every recipe’s ingredient list. It gives us consistency and flexibility, while still respecting the identity and economy of each craft.

Is there a target “XP per resource” consistency across professions, or are some intended to be slower/more resource-intensive?

We’ve worked to bring professions closer together in terms of the overall effort required to level, especially where there were large outliers before. That said, not every profession is meant to feel identical.
Some crafts are intentionally more demanding to progress. The goal isn’t perfect uniformity, but fairness, predictability, and clearer tradeoffs.

Will XP changes be retroactive for existing crafters, or will there be a one-time adjustment/bump?

This is a very fair question, but unfortunately, no. There’s no reliable way to retroactively calculate XP under the new system without making assumptions that would be inaccurate or unfair

Will simpler/low-cost recipes keep their current XP, or will they be reduced to discourage mass-crafting trivial items?

In almost all cases, they will keep their current XP.
Our approach wasn’t to broadly nerf cheap recipes, but instead to anchor XP expectations around leveling recipes that players are already familiar with and comfortable using. From there, more expensive recipes scale upward much more aggressively.

It’s also worth noting that some of those anchor recipes, especially at higher tiers, actually received XP increases. In a few professions, the late-stage leveling grind had simply become too punishing relative to the materials invested, and we felt that bringing those anchors up was necessary to keep progression reasonable and motivating.

The result is that high-cost and rare-material recipes now grant significantly more XP than before, while familiar leveling paths largely remain intact. There are a few outliers in each profession where low-cost recipes grant less XP than before, but these are the exception, not the rule.

Will the XP penalty on failed crafts be reduced or removed?

Great question. Yes, we do intend to reduce this penalty. However, this change won’t be part of the initial Public Test Server release. We want to first validate the new XP balance as a whole before adjusting failure penalties on top of it, but this is very much on our radar.

Will crafting recipes clearly display expected XP rewards in advance?

This is something we’ve actively discussed. For now, we’re going to closely watch player feedback before committing to displaying this information on the recipes. Our hope is that the new balance builds enough trust and intuition that players feel confident making crafting decisions without needing to see exact numbers.

The underlying rule should become easy to internalize: Expensive recipes give a lot more XP, and recipes using rare ingredients give even more on top of that.
If that expectation isn’t landing clearly in practice, we’re open to revisiting how XP information is surfaced.

Mass crafting & leveling efficiency issues

Will the rebalance remove the current incentive to mass-craft gloves/shoes/shoulder pads as the fastest leveling method?

Largely, yes. Because XP now scales much more directly with total material cost, the advantage of repeatedly crafting the cheapest viable item in a tier has been significantly reduced. Those recipes are still perfectly valid for progression, but they’re no longer disproportionately efficient compared to more complex crafts.
The intent is that players can choose what to craft based on usefulness or preference, rather than feeling forced into a narrow set of “XP-optimal” items.

Will complex items (e.g. chest pieces, breastplates) now grant meaningfully more XP than simple ones?

Yes.  Items that require more materials, more steps, or rarer inputs now grant substantially more XP. In many cases, complex items grant dramatically more XP than before, reflecting both their cost and their place in the crafting ecosystem.
If a recipe feels like a serious investment, it should also feel like a serious step forward in progression.

Will all recipes within a level range provide viable XP, instead of having clear “fast tracks”?

That’s the goal. While there will always be some variance, the rebalance is designed so that most recipes within a given level range provide reasonable and competitive XP. Players shouldn’t feel like there’s only one correct recipe per tier to avoid wasting time or materials.

Will green and blue items grant significantly more XP than grey items?

Yes. Recipes that produce higher-quality items naturally involve greater cost and risk, and the XP now reflects that. Green and blue crafts grant noticeably more XP than grey equivalents, reinforcing the idea that taking on more demanding recipes should be rewarded accordingly.
For example, Herald’s Plates of the Ironroot II now grants dramatically more XP across all quality tiers. The common version yields roughly 670% more XP than before, while crafting the uncommon (green) version grants about 150% more XP than the common, and the rare (blue) version grants roughly 350% more XP than the common. All of these XP increases derive from the value of the rare ingredients used in the higher-quality recipes.

Will there be profession XP for repairing items?

No. Repairs are a maintenance activity, not a progression path.

Will there be a system to recycle/salvage crafted items?

Yes, we’re planning this, but it’s not ready to share yet. Systems like recycling, partial material returns, or Grace-related interactions have wide-reaching implications, so we want to introduce them with clear goals and proper context. We’ll share more details when it’s ready, and at that point, we’ll be looking for player feedback.

Will there be: Quantity selectors at crafting benches? Bulk crafting for mastered recipes/components? 
Will crafting stations get: “Take All” buttons? “Craft All” options? Cancel buttons? Default recipe selections per station?

These features are not part of the upcoming update, but we hear the request loud and clear.

Bulk crafting and core crafting QoL improvements like quantity selectors, “take all” / “craft all” buttons and cancel options are things we very much want to add. We’ll share more when these are ready to be discussed in concrete terms.

Are recipes themselves changing, or only XP values?

Primarily XP values. The focus of this update is on rebalancing crafting XP rather than a broad redesign of recipes. That said, there are a small number of targeted recipe adjustments where they were clearly necessary to support the new balance.

Will recipe levels shift (e.g. gloves lower, chest higher)?

Yes, in a targeted and intentional way. We adjusted recipe levels in Armorsmithing, Tailoring, and Leatherworking so that at most points in progression, you have access to a wider variety of equipment slots, not just gloves or boots, but also chest pieces, helmets, pants, and more.
We also reduced the level gap between common, uncommon, and rare versions of the same recipe, especially at higher tiers. In Tier 1, this works largely the same as before, but by Tier 4, the uncommon and rare variants sit much closer in level to the common version, making higher-quality crafts accessible earlier and more consistently.

This isn’t a full re-tiering of all recipes, but a focused pass to improve progression flow and reduce dead zones where only a narrow set of crafts felt viable.

Will any recipes move to higher levels, causing players to lose access temporarily?

Yes, in some cases. Many recipes have moved to slightly higher or lower levels as part of the broader effort to improve progression flow and slot variety across professions. We know this can be frustrating, and we didn’t make these changes lightly, but they were necessary to achieve the goals outlined above.

We hope that the overall XP rebalance, improved rewards for expensive and complex crafts, and a smoother leveling experience more than make up for these adjustments, and that crafting as a whole feels better and more enjoyable than before. We’re asking for a bit of forgiveness on this one, and we’ll be watching feedback closely.

Will trivial/unused recipes be removed or reworked?

Not as part of this update. The professions targeted in this first XP balance pass don’t have many truly trivial or unused recipes, so removing or reworking them wasn’t a priority here. Even niche recipes often serve a purpose in the broader system, and we didn’t want to remove content as part of an XP-focused rebalance.

This kind of cleanup is more relevant for some of the other professions coming later, where those issues are more pronounced. There was one exception: the steel anvil recipe, which was available due to a bug and has been removed.

Will recipes better match material acquisition difficulty and biome danger?

Yes, indirectly. Because XP now scales with material cost and rarity, recipes that require materials from more dangerous biomes or harder-to-access sources naturally grant more XP. This creates a stronger link between risk, effort, and reward without requiring large-scale recipe restructuring.

Will inconsistencies like low-level recipes requiring high-level materials be fixed?

Yes. We addressed these inconsistencies as part of this pass for the professions in question. The other professions will follow.

Why are so many parts centralized in Blacksmithing, causing progression imbalance?
Will Armor/Weapon Smithing get missing components to progress properly?

Blacksmithing is intentionally a foundational profession that produces many shared components. 
The XP rebalance directly addresses the resulting progression dynamics by ensuring Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing recipes now grant strong, competitive XP that reflects their true material cost.

How will XP rebalance affect: Jewelcrafting? Professions that share materials (silver, gold, iron)?

It won’t be part of this first pass. 
Jewelcrafting is not included in the initial crafting XP rebalance, but it is planned for a future update. We wanted to focus this pass on a smaller set of professions and do the work thoroughly rather than spreading changes too thin.
We’ll share more details once Jewelcrafting is up next.

Will there be adjustments to prevent power creep from enchanted + mastercrafted gear?

The current PvE balance already accounts for the headroom created by Mastercrafted Item Power bonuses. We’ll continue to reevaluate this as systems evolve, especially as we move toward finalizing the consumables revamp.

Our goal is to ensure that exceptional gear feels rewarding without becoming mandatory.

How do you envision crafting professions remaining economically viable when everyone can craft everything early/mid game?
Will recipes be reworked to ensure sellable items at all levels?

Crafting professions aren’t intended to be economically equal at every stage of progression. Early and mid-game access is meant to support self-sufficiency and experimentation, not to fully define long-term market value.
Lower-tier items are intended to have economic relevance, but we agree that the current sinks for them aren’t strong enough. We have plans to address this and give those items clearer purpose and demand, but those changes aren’t ready to be shared in detail.
Over time, economic viability is expected to emerge from specialization, time investment, mastery, access to higher-tier recipes and materials, and exceptional outcomes like Master Crafting. As progression deepens, the gap between “can craft” and “can craft well and consistently” becomes increasingly important.

In short, early accessibility supports gameplay flow, while sustained economic value comes from expertise, scarcity, and reliability—not just recipe unlocks.

Are there plans for: Specializations? Higher profession caps?

Yes. We’re planning to have specializations within each profession, allowing crafters to focus on specific areas and differentiate themselves meaningfully. Alongside that, we’re working on ways for specialized crafters to push their capabilities beyond the base profession cap.
We’re not adding additional tiers just yet. The priority is making the existing progression, recipes, and systems feel great first before expanding outward.

Will consumables (oils, kits, buffs) be added to create ongoing demand?

Yes, that’s the plan. Expanding and improving consumables is a key part of creating sustained demand, and this work primarily affects the next set of professions we’ll be focusing on. We’ll share more once those changes are ready to be discussed in detail.

Can you clearly explain the crafting changes with concrete examples?

Crafting XP now scales with the true material cost of a recipe, including sub-components. Expensive and complex crafts grant substantially more XP than cheap ones.
Sub-components generally grant less XP on their own, while the final item that consumes them grants much more (with Blacksmithing as a deliberate exception). In almost all cases, crafting the full chain yields more total XP than before.
At any given level in Armorsmithing, Tailoring, and Leatherworking, you now have access to a wider range of equipment slots that all provide competitive XP.

Helm — Pilgrim's Helmet II — lvl 16 → 198% XP compared to before
Chest — Pilgrim's Breastplate II — lvl 11 → 668% XP compared to before
Arms — Pilgrim's Vambraces II — lvl 18 → 92% XP compared to before
Gloves — Pilgrim's Gauntlets II — lvl 20 → 187% XP compared to before
Pants — Pilgrim's Legguards II — lvl 12 → 645% XP compared to before
Boots — Pilgrim's Sabatons II — lvl 15 → 194% XP compared to before

Larger items like chest pieces are now clearly worth crafting, and higher-quality versions grant significantly more XP.

:
Ironside's Sabatons of Quiet Guard II
Common → 198% XP compared to before
Uncommon (Green) → 52% more XP than the Common version
Rare (Blue) → 355% more XP than the Common version

A small number of recipes moved to slightly higher levels to better reflect their material and risk requirements, but the overall XP rebalance is designed to offset that.
The end result is fewer “fast-track” recipes, more viable choices per tier, and progression that rewards crafting useful items instead of repeating the cheapest option.

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Thanks for reading, if you missed the part about Master Crafting, you can find it 

. Please note that things may change based on feedback received during testing of the feature on Arcadia.

Stay tuned as we’ll soon share the deployment schedule for Verse 5.1.2 content update!

Upcoming Crafting XP changes - AMA

 Hello Paxians, As mentioned in the Master Crafting post, we’re now sharing the answers regarding crafting XP changes that will go live with Verse 5.1...

Thank you for your participation in the AMA thread on our Discord server. We received quite a lot of questions, and have decided to split the answers into two parts so as not overwhelm you with information.
The first part will focus on Master Crafting, and the second part, which will be published early next week, will be about Crafting XP changes.
Let’s dive in!

What exactly qualifies as a Master Crafted item? Required skill level? Must the recipe be trivial/mastered?

To answer all of that, an item will become Master Crafted if you roll a 95% success or higher when making the item. This means you have a chance to make an item Master Crafted regardless of your skill level. Still, the probability of Master Crafting an item is heavily dependent on the difference between your skill level and the recipe difficulty level. For a recipe that’s considered Mastered, you have about 45% chance of making a Master Crafted item based on the craft RNG roll. For more difficult items, the chance gets slimmer and slimmer, but there’s always the sliver of chance to get this even for the very hard crafts.

Is Mastercrafting a fixed bonus or variable?

Currently, the Master Crafting only affects items with Item Power. For these items, you get a fixed +50 bonus to the Item Power of the item. We have ideas for expanding the effect of Master Crafting in future releases.

Is Mastercrafting a one-off system or something that will expand over time?

We have plans to expand this later. As noted, this update only affects items with Item Power. We have ideas for how to integrate this into crafting the products into stackable items and make the buffs more interesting.

Does Mastercrafting increase: Durability? Lifetime? Tool effectiveness?

Tool effectiveness is based on the Item Power, so yes. Durability and lifetime are not affected, but we might change this in a future release.

Will higher-level master crafters produce stronger mastercrafted items?

No, but a higher skill level will expand the range of items you can Master Craft.

Will Mastercrafted items ever have additional effects beyond item power (e.g. fire, speed, specialization perks)?

Will Mastercrafted jewelry receive benefits as well?

Jewelcrafting is a very underserved crafting skill right now, and we really want to integrate Master Crafting to that profession as well, but this will happen in a future update.

Will Mastercrafted items have a distinct visual appearance?

Currently, the in-world item is not affected by Master Crafting.

Will the crafter’s name: Be visible on the item? Be visible on the market listing? Be optional for anonymity?

The Master Crafted items will feature a new design element in their item icons. The item stats panel will show the Master Crafting Item Power bonus in the Item Power calculation and the name of the crafter under it. The crafter's name is not optional.

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Thanks for reading. Please note that things may change based on feedback received during testing of the feature on Arcadia. 

Upcoming Master Crafting - AMA from Discord

 Hello Paxians, Thank you for your participation in the AMA thread on our Discord server. We received quite a lot of questions, and have decided to sp...

We’re hard at work on the next content update, which we already teased in our retrospective. We plan to deploy it on our 

Public Test Shard, Arcadia, in the next couple of weeks

. Rather than introducing entirely new systems, this update refines how existing features feel, look, and connect, to make everyday play smoother, more readable, and more expressive. Let’s dive into the details.

Two of the most requested features from our latest poll relate to crafting, and we’ve already made good progress on both. Work is still ongoing, however, and these changes may not be included in the first round of testing on the PTS.

Crafting is being refined to feel more rewarding and better balanced. 

, exceptionally successful crafts on items with Item Power can 

permanently boost that item’s power and record your name as its master crafter,

 giving standout creations a lasting sense of identity. The Item Power boost is additive with any Enchantment applied to the item, meaning that with Master Crafting, the best possible gear will be rare variants that have been both Master Crafted and Enchanted.

We’re aware that this mechanic does not apply to items with no Item Power, such as foods and potions, and we’ll be exploring ways to add meaningful “exceptional success” mechanics for those professions in a later update.

a major rebalancing pass is being applied to crafting XP for five main professions

: Leatherworking, Weapon Smithing, Tailoring, Blacksmithing, and Armor Smithing. This update adjusts how much experience each item grants to make progression smoother, more consistent, and more rewarding overall.

Importantly, this change is not a nerf to crafting XP. Instead, XP is being rebalanced so that

 recipes that are more expensive to craft grant more experience

, better reflecting the effort and resource investment involved. Cheaper recipes will continue to provide viable progression, while more complex, resource-intensive crafts will now feel appropriately rewarding.

final items will grant more XP than intermediary components

, encouraging players to complete full crafting chains. 

: because the profession relies heavily on crafting intermediary components as a core part of its gameplay loop, these intermediary items will continue to provide strong XP rewards to ensure Blacksmithing progression remains smooth and satisfying.

 the recipe level distribution is being reworked

, so players gain access to useful, viable items more consistently as they level, rather than being constrained by rigid progression gates. This should significantly reduce the number of crafts that feel wasted or inefficient.

we are not changing the leveling curve itself

—only how much XP individual crafts grant.

Finally, while this pass focuses on these five professions, 

other professions will be added when they’re ready. They are currently undergoing a deeper rework

, which requires additional time to get right.

Talking, coordinating, and expressing yourself are becoming more intuitive. 

 for party management, chat, clans, and emotes make it easier to interact quickly, especially when timing matters.

Characters are also gaining more personality. 

 like Insult, Show Respect, Let’s Go!, and Call Out expand non-verbal communication, while a new Moods tab allows you to select a persistent facial expression. Your chosen mood stays active until changed, and 

emotes now include basic facial animation 

that can be subtly altered by combining them with different moods. Note that this is still WIP and might not make it to the next round of testing right away. 

Character Menu: Cleaner, Clearer, more Useful

to better support moment-to-moment play. It now lives in a right-hand side panel, aligning with broader UX plans and improving consistency across menus. Detailed information appears in floating tooltips when hovering over or selecting elements, keeping the interface readable without overwhelming the screen.

The Equipment tab no longer takes control of the camera and instead displays your character directly in the menu

, along with your name and average Item Power. Selecting an equipment slot now shows only the items that fit it, reducing unnecessary friction. The Stats UI has been expanded into a full tab with additional stats and unique icons, and the Skills tab has been moved from the Journal into the Character Menu to keep all character-related information in one place.

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A Small Update with a Big Impact

 Hello Paxians, We’re hard at work on the next content update, which we already teased in our retrospective. We plan to deploy it on our  Public Test ...

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