Balance overhaul — full cave combat curve (5 Nov 2026)

[Vengeance]

BALANCE OVERHAUL — 5 NOVEMBER 2026
Every cave · Full combat stats · Drops · Public numbers

We spent the moring on why mid and late caves felt like free EXP for geared 45–52s — especially Tao + HolyDeva on Red Cavern (Knights Cave) and soft packs elsewhere. This is the full list of what changed. Nothing here is a character wipe. Your levels and gear stay. The monsters got honest. A short reboot bounce is required for combat / EXP / gold / MapLevel tags / archer skill numbers to load into memory.
Drop-file nerfs need that bounce
We will announce when it is live in-world. [
1. Why we did this From live kill logs (~7–14 days):

• About 97% of cave kills were by characters 20+ levels above the cave’s MapLevel — mid caves were too soft.
• Hell Cavern and Knights Cave (Red Cavern) manworms were the top EXP printers for the highest characters — not because the caves were “endgame hard”, but because packs were soft HP / soft MAC / fat EXP.
• Hell archer jewelry was dropping at absurd rates (1/45 on Arrowfall / GaleEye).
• SkythreadRing at 1/50 on maggots / spiders / ancient packs.
• HolyDeva hits magic armour (MAC). Red Cavern trash sat around MAC 30 with ~3k HP — Deva tanked, Tao soloed, full EXP (under-levelled players are not cut by ExpMobLevelDifference; that only taxes over-level farming).

Public tools (same numbers we use):

• Cave curve — every cave in play order, mob level + EXP + HP (Natural / Oma → Mines → WT → …)
• Cave balance — MapLevel fit, cave use, kill gaps, gold
• Monster balance · Drop balance

2. FULL combat curve — every MapLevel cave
Not “EXP only”. Every combat stat on the MapLevel ladder was rebuilt so caves get harder as you go:

• HP — time-to-kill
• AC — physical armour
• MAC — magic armour
• DC — how hard they hit you
• MC / SC — on caster mobs, retuned with the DC band
• Accuracy / Agility
• Attack speed (ms between swings — lower = faster in harder caves)
• Move speed
• MonsterLevel — so level-difference EXP rules can actually bite over-level farmers
• Experience — tied to HP (about ×12 for normals; bosses less EXP-per-HP)
• Gold — MapLevel band, 30% chance
• ResistMagicPercent — mild SC resist from MapLevel 12+

Anchor = Bug Cave (MapLevel 8) normal trash.
Growth per MapLevel from there: HP ×1.23, AC ×1.14, MAC ×1.145 (slightly ahead of AC on purpose), DC ×1.10. Attack delay ~1900ms → ~1200ms by MapLevel 25.

What you will feel: Seokcho cats, WhiteValley snow, Hell trash, and Red Cavern worms are no longer “soft body / huge EXP”. Mid caves push back. Late caves need real kit — especially MAC for Tao/Deva.

3. Boss / king-room floors (no more Tao solo fantasy) Generic boss math was not enough for setpieces. These are floored hard:

• Zuma Taurus — HP 36,000 · MAC 95–110 · DC 80–140 · Exp 324k
• Wooma Taurus — HP 9,000 · MAC 48–58
• Evil Snake (AST B7) — HP 12,000 · MAC 75–90
• Evil Centipede — HP 14,000 · MAC 85–100 (already the one that bit; kept scary)
• Evil Tongs — HP 9,000
• Dark / Dream Devourer (Red Cavern KR) — HP 45,000 · MAC 120–145
• Evil Snake20 / Evil Tongs20 (AST mid) — HP 4,500 · MAC 48–58 · MobLv 34 (not free food for 45s)

If you were soloing ZT or Red Cavern on a Tao with Deva out — that was the bug, not the fantasy.

4. Knights Cave / Red Cavern manworms (the big farm)

This was the #2 EXP cave on the shard (after Hell), almost entirely Tao (Healer / Halo / Teresa / …). After the full curve, Red Cavern *0025 trash sits on the MapLevel 25 band:

• Crazy / Mutated / Cyano / Ghastly — ~12k HP, MAC 100–120, DC 81–142, attack ~1220ms, Exp ~146k catalog
• Devourers — see boss floors above

Deva is a MAC attacker. Soft MAC was the hole. It is closed in SQL; bounce loads it.

5. MapLevel tags cleaned So “cave level” means what we say:

• HELL00 (WasteLands) — was MapLevel 7 → 22 (with HELL01–03)
• Hell04 (HellCavern_KR) — was 18 → 22
• Zuma lobby / connectors 0157, D511–D513 — were MapLevel 0 → 10

6. Drop rate nerfs Hell Cavern pack (HellCannibal / Pirate / Slasher / Bolt + suffixed):

• ArrowfallCuff / ArrowfallRing / GaleEyeRing — 1/45 → 1/500
• SkythreadRing — 1/50 → 1/500
• ArrowfallCollar / GaleEyeNecklace / FalconryNecklace / BowstringPendant / HorizonBead — roughly halved again (e.g. 1/250–1/350 → 1/700)

BlackMaggot (all common suffixes): SkythreadRing 1/50 → 1/500 Red Cavern manworm / leecher drops:

• AirborneBead — 1/160 → 1/800
• Bug bracelet / ring / necklace — roughly doubled rarity
• Windlace / WindlaceRing / SkythreadNecklace — rarer
• Legacy 1/15 Gold 4500 lines on unsuffixed manworms — removed (gold is on the monster row)

SkythreadRing leftovers swept to 1/500 across Root/Gang/Great/Lure/Venom spiders, Ancient Wooma / Bone packs, and other files that still had 1/50 (hundreds of lines). Same bounce / drop reload to activate.

7. Underused caves — more dens
Spawn Count +35% on underused groups (still in place from the morning pass), including Snow Cavern, Viper, Yimoogi Nest, Dead Forest, HellFire, Swamp, WhiteValley, Ancient Temple — so empty endgame caves have more things to fight once the curve makes mid caves less free.

8. Archer — summons + skill power (interim) Summons (live monster rows — need reboot):

• VampireSpider — Lv22 · HP 600 · DC 12–22
• SpittingToad — Lv26 · HP 900 · DC 16–28
• SnakeTotem — Lv30 · HP 1200 · DC 23–35 (HolyDeva band)

MagicDefinitions (SQL live; memory needs bounce) — DoubleShot stays the cheap opener; later shots get real MPowerBonus:

• StraightShot — MPowerBonus 8
• ElementalShot — MPowerBase 8 · MPowerBonus 16 (SoulFireBall band)
• PoisonShot / VampireShot — MPowerBonus 12
• CrippleShot — PowerBonus 4 · MPowerBonus 20
• NapalmShot — MPowerBonus 30

This is an interim pass so DoubleShot is not the only cast. Full archer rework still wants hit telemetry (below).

9. Telemetry for the next pass
So we stop guessing spell winrates:

• WasSummonKill on MonsterKills — was always false (bug: checked the wrong race on the player branch). Fixed; LastHitter tracks pet/summon bodies.
• KillerSpell on kill rows — last offensive spell when the kill credited.
• CombatHitSamples — ~5% of hits logged (class, level, spell, damage, map, summon flag).

Tables are already on the live database. Writers need the new Server build + bounce.

10. Earlier morning hot-patches (superseded / absorbed)
Before the full combat rebuild we also:

• Cut EXP/HP exploits on Seokcho cats, WhiteValley snow, Manworms (MonsterLevel forced into MapLevel bands so ExpMobLevelDifference could work).
• Normalised EXP ≈ HP×12 across the ladder.
• Retargeted a handful of leftover spawns onto balanced names.

The full combat curve above replaces those as the source of truth for stats. Drop nerfs and spawn +35% remain.

What does not change

• No character wipe. No gear wipe. No account wipe.
• We are not punishing anyone who levelled on the old soft packs — the design was wrong, not you.
• True “which spell won the fight” still needs the new hit samples after bounce.
• Sea (GM test) Lv1 Zuma rows — ignore; not a player exploit.

When it goes live in-game
SQL + drop files are ready. Combat / EXP / gold / MapLevels / archer skills / summons load on the next announced server bounce. We will post again when that bounce is done. Until then, treat this thread as the changelog of what is waiting. Questions / “this cave still feels wrong” → reply here or Discord with cave name + your class/level. We are watching Knights Cave, Hell Cavern, and Seokcho first after the bounce.