Hello, Admirals.

This is Chul-Woo Park, Director of Uncharted Waters Origin.

In last August's letter,

I shared the direction of our upcoming improvements and a few promises we made to you.

Since then, many of you have sent us a wide range of opinions,

and our development team has been shaping those improvements based on what you told us.

Some of them now have a fixed direction and will reach you soon,

while others still call for closer review and preparation.

We will improve what we can, one item at a time, and keep you updated on our progress.

In this letter, I would like to talk about the Investment Deed balance,

the improvements to how Season Powerful Opponents work, and the updates we are preparing.

*The following is currently in development, and details may change by the time of the actual update.

Once an update is confirmed, we will guide you through the details in a separate update notice.

📜 Investment Deed Balance

1. Repeated Manual Combat

In the May update, we reorganized the mission rewards for Normal Combat alongside the Combat Season

and adjusted how many Investment Deeds could be earned.

Since then, many of you have taken an active part in combat content,

and combat play has become an important way to earn the Investment Deeds needed for Season investment.

However, in Normal Combat today, Consecutive Combat consumes Energy,

while Manual Combat can be repeated without consuming any Energy.

As a result, the same combat content could yield very different amounts of Investment Deeds depending on how you played.

We judged that, left in place over a long period, this gap could affect the value of the time and effort you invest.

We told you in August's letter that we would look into this.

Having completed that review, we will change how Normal Combat works starting with the October update.

The changes and how they will be applied are explained below.

1. The free combat count for Normal Fleet Combat will apply to both Consecutive Combat and Manual Combat.

Manual Combat will therefore also draw down the free combat count.

The free combat count applies only to Normal Fleet Combat,

and not to enemy fleets outside the scope of Consecutive Combat, such as Powerful Opponents and PvP.

1. Once the free combat count is used up, Energy will be consumed.

If you continue with Manual Combat after using up the free combat count, Energy will be consumed.

This narrows the gap in what different play styles can earn,

and we will keep an eye on it so that ordinary combat play does not become more of a burden.

1. We are also reviewing an increase to the free combat count.

Since the 100 free combats currently provided will now also cover Manual Combat,

we are reviewing an increase to the free combat count itself, so that combat play does not weigh more heavily on you.

As we said in August's letter,

we will keep improving so that your honest effort and the value of what you build in the game are not undermined.

We will keep the inconvenience to ordinary play to a minimum while making sure that play style does not create an excessive gap,

and we will keep watching this over the long term.

2. Adventure and Combat Investment Deed Balance

Investment Deeds, introduced together with the Investment Season,

were designed to be earned through a variety of content such as combat, adventure, and trade,

so that more of you could take part in investment content.

As each season added a new highest-tier region,

we gradually raised the amount of Investment Deeds available there to make those regions more rewarding.

But while new regions were being added, the amounts in existing regions stayed as they were.

The result is a structure where you can keep earning a certain level of Investment Deeds in older regions as well as in the newest seasonal one.

We judged that this called for another look at the difference in rewards between regions we originally intended,

and at the balance of the total Investment Deed supply.

We would therefore like to rebalance how Investment Deeds are earned overall.

The amount of Investment Deeds earned in the Southeast Asia region newly added this season

will stay at its current level.

For earlier regions,

we will adjust the amounts with both each region's reward level and the total Investment Deed supply in mind.

Because those amounts are being adjusted, we will also strengthen the material rewards that help you grow,

so that progressing toward higher-tier regions remains at least as smooth as before.

When a new season begins in future,

rather than simply adding rewards for the new region,

we will look at the Investment Deed amounts in earlier regions and the total supply together,

and adjust them so the newest seasonal region carries enough appeal.

We are reviewing the detailed adjustments now and will prepare to apply them as soon as we can.

3. Trade Investment Deed Balance

Alongside adventure and combat, we are also looking at how Investment Deeds are earned through trade.

Because trade earns Investment Deeds differently from other content,

rather than simply adjusting the amounts,

we are reviewing a full overhaul of how trade earns Investment Deeds and how those amounts grow.

Trade Investment Deeds require changes to the related systems and structures as well,

so we expect this to take somewhat longer to apply than adventure and combat.

We will aim to have the new structure in place when Season 8 begins.

Until the overhaul arrives,

and to ease a little of the disappointment you may feel while waiting,

we will supplement trade content in the October update.

1. New permanent Barter trade goods will be added.
2. The selling price of the Box of Nutmeg will be raised.
3. New event Barter options and trade goods will be added through the October event.

We will keep improving this with a long-term view,

so that it becomes content you can enjoy continuously.

⚔️ Improvements to Season Powerful Opponents

As the seasons have gone by,

Season Powerful Opponents have become a major piece of combat content that many of you take part in regularly.

And you have sent us a wide range of opinions about when they appear and how often you can engage them.

From this season, Powerful Opponents no longer disappear the moment they are attacked,

which eased the way participation was limited by how often they appeared.

Even so, many of you told us that the current approach,

where Powerful Opponents appear at set times,

can still make it hard to take part depending on when you play.

With that in mind, and aiming for the next season,

we are preparing to move away from Powerful Opponents appearing at specific times,

toward a ticket-based approach that lets you engage them a set number of times whenever you like.

Rather than applying the new approach to the current season right away,

we will trial it first through the October event.

We will look at the opinions and play data of those who try the new approach in the event itself,

and take a careful look at what needs refining.

We will then decide the final rules and format for Season Powerful Opponents in the next season

based on what we learn.

🎉The War of Genesis Collaboration Event

The War of Genesis collaboration we previewed in August's letter

will run from October through November.

The Admirals and Mates you met in the previous War of Genesis collaboration will return,

and new Admirals and Mates will join them.

For the Admiral added in November in particular,

we are also preparing a Chronicle where you can follow that character's story.

We will make good use of the time remaining

so that both those who have long waited for the rerun

and those meeting The War of Genesis collaboration for the first time can enjoy it.

We will introduce the characters and event details in a separate notice

as the update draws closer.

1. Unifying the Research Point Grant Criteria for Collaboration Admirals

The Research Points provided when purchasing Admirals during the previous The War of Genesis and

Doom Breaker collaborations were granted differently on the Korean and Global servers.

Taking this collaboration as our opportunity,

we would like to unify the Research Point grant criteria for collaboration Admirals,

so that the same standard applies no matter which server you play on.

We will therefore check whether you own the existing collaboration Admirals, Dark Prince and Zephyr,

along with your Research Point grant history, and additionally grant the Research Points

you did not previously receive because of the difference between servers.

We will guide you through the specific criteria, eligibility, and method of the grant

in the collaboration update notice.

🚢Inscription Effects for Durability and Crew Size

Many of you have written to us about Ship Inscription effects that increase Durability and Max Crew

not being reflected in the Combat Power figure.

After we covered this in the Known Issues notice on August 13,

we carried out a further review of how the effects actually apply

and how they should be corrected.

Following that review,

we have decided to keep Durability and Max Crew increase effects applying during combat,

as they do now.

That said, the existing tooltips alone made it hard to tell clearly

that these effects apply during combat,

so we will revise the relevant tooltips to make the actual behavior easier to confirm.

We will also correct the Known Issues post we published earlier

to match the final direction.

We apologize for the confusion caused by changing direction after our earlier notice,

and we will check more carefully going forward

so that our guidance matches how the game actually works.

Some of what I have covered in this letter

brings considerable change to how you have been playing.

We are well aware that where something directly affects effort and competition built up over a long time,

as Investment Deeds do, even a single small change can feel like a large one.

That is why, rather than merely changing numbers,

we treat both of these as important: explaining fully why a change is needed,

and making sure no unnecessary inconvenience arises in actual play.

For what we have covered here as well,

we will keep reviewing play metrics and the opinions you send us after the update,

and we will keep refining whatever needs it.

The season when cool breezes begin to blow is upon us.

We hope the new season brings even more enjoyable moments to your voyages,

and we will see you in better shape in the October update as well.

Thank you.

Chul-Woo Park

Director