Hey Everyone!

We’ve said it before, but we really mean it - we’re in the last stretch for the release of our biggest update yet. This week, we want to give you a look at everything coming in this update, along with a preview of the one skill we haven’t touched on yet - Agility. Let’s dive right in 👀

 🏃‍♂️Agility Preview

Agility has gone through a complete rework for Melvor Idle 2 by fundamentally changing its purpose in the game.

We've removed the confusing and frustrating obstacle building mechanic in favour of a more streamlined reason for the Skill to exist.

Agility has undergone a huge amount of work as part of the development of this update. It’s easily been the skill that’s had the most revision, which is why we haven’t covered it yet. Thankfully, we now think it’s in a really good place.

Agility's PurposeAgility's primary purpose in Melvor Idle 2 is to gate efficient or high level Content & Mechanics behind training it.

Thematically, Agility grants you access to locations in Melvor you otherwise could not reach without the Agility training to do so. You will need to traverse dangerous locations to reach this content, which is how we're theming the Skill.

Agility TechniquesAgility has a sub-levelling system called Techniques, where you will complete specialised obstacle courses to level Agility as well as the Techniques assigned to that course.

There will be 5 techniques on release, unlocked at various Agility levels:

Climbing - Unlocks Level 1

Jumping - Unlocks Level 1

Evading - Unlocks Level 25

Balancing - Unlocks Level 55

Rappelling - Unlocks Level 80

Techniques also provide bonuses to Agility based on its level, which can assist the Skill in many ways.

Technique Levels are also used around the game to gate content, such as accessing new Combat Areas or gaining bonuses in Thieving Heists.

Training Agility & Taking DamageAgility will task you to complete obstacle courses to train the Skill. Each obstacle has as Technique assigned to it, as well as a difficulty. This difficulty determines your success chance of completing the obstacle.

If your Technique level is higher than the difficulty of the obstacle, you won't be able to fail it.

When you fail an obstacle, you need to restart the whole course. Agility & Technique XP is granted upon completing the whole course.

Failing an obstacle will deal damage to you, so be sure to bring food to survive!

Streamlined Technique TrainingTo streamline Technique training, we've designed and categorised obstacle courses to target specific Techniques. This will allow you to easily determine what obstacle courses to train.

Simple & Advanced Obstacle Course PathsMany of the courses allow you to select either the Simple Path or Advanced Path to take.

The Simple Path only contains obstacles of a single Technique, and provide lower rewards.

The Advanced Path contain obstacles that use other Techniques. This Path provides the most XP and rewards per hour.

Agility Marks & RewardsWhile training on obstacle courses, you may be able to collect an item called an Agility Mark. These Marks can be taken to the Shop (Mark's Marks) to be spent on Skilling gear and other nice Agility-boosting items.

Agility Arenas & RewardsAnother category of Agility Courses are Arenas. These are high level courses that use all available Techniques at its respective level.

There is a cost to access these Arenas, and completing them will reward you with Arena Tokens that can be spent in the Shop. Similar to Marks, but these rewards are better.

Unique Trails (This is where you get your new Coal)Unique Trails are where the theme of Agility shines. These are special "courses" that you complete to unlock new content around the game.

To access a Trail, you first need to locate a Map to the trail. These Maps are hidden around the game, waiting to be found. Once you locate the Map, you can go to Agility and complete the Trail to unlock its content.

On release, there are 3 Trails:

Ashen Lands Trail - Unlocks the Ashen Tree in Woodcutting

Dense Cave Trail - Unlocks Dense Coal in Mining

Torag Grounds Trail - Unlocks Torag Grounds location in Hunting

 ⚔️Full Update Details

Firstly, here’s a high level tl;dr summary of everything that’s coming in the next Major Update. We'll go into further detail below for many of the listed items.

Combat Skills

Attack

Strength

Defence

Hitpoints

Ranged

Magic

Prayer

Slayer

Non-Combat Skills

Herblore

Agility

Thieving

Beastcrafting

Alongside these skills, we have a mountain of new content and systems coming to the game, including:

650+ new Items

130+ Monsters

7 Combat Areas

13 Slayer Areas

4 Dark Combat Areas

11 Dungeons

12 new Pets

32 Standard Magic Spells

8 Advanced Magic Spells

16 Magic Imbuements

34 Standard Prayers

10 Slayer Masters

Equipment & Toolbelt System for Combat & Non-Combat

Improved equipment feature, allowing you to equip items directly from the Equipment panel

Custom Names for Loadouts

Dedicated Toolbelt slot for Potions

Loot History feature in Combat showing last 15 Monsters and all loot obtained from them.

Pause/Resume Combat feature via a popup.

Bank Search feature.

Improved Offline Progress summary screen.

Modifiers for Intermediate and Advanced food.

New Hunting Area, with new type of animal and new Traps in Crafting to create.

New Ranching Animals

Enclosure Add-on feature for Enclosures

New Mining nodes, including a new Coal node

Geodes can now be opened, with some nice possible rewards.

Rune Packs in Runecrafting

New special Woodcutting Tree.

New Firemaking items to create/burn such as Lanterns and Blessed Logs for prayer points.

Hunting improvements based on Survey feedback

Balancing to some Mastery Guilds.

Improved Cloud back-end adding proper error handling and much needed stability.

New Combat music tracks

This is an absolute mountain of new content, so we won’t have artwork for everything just yet. Tapi and Ash have been absolutely killing it with the artwork they have created so far, so we’ll continue to let them do their thing and fill in the gaps over the following updates.

Let's get into some of the finer details on what to expect.

Combat

The largest addition this update is bar far Combat, coming equipped with new features and curve balls you'll need to manage and solve based on your equipment.

It's important to note that this is only our initial release of Combat. There's still plenty more content to come, including the Main Storyline bosses which are the toughest fights in the game.

Let's dive into some important details and new/updated mechanics.

Adjusted Damage Reduction SystemMelvor Idle 2 uses a new Damage Reduction system to calculate the final %DR you will have.

We have implemented two new flat value stats on Gear & Enemies - Power & Protection Ratings.

Your Protection Rating will be compared against the Enemy's Power Rating to determine your Damage Reduction %.

The Enemy's Protection Rating will be compared against your Power Rating to determine their Damage Reduction %.

Power & Protection Ratings are compared against Damage Types. Upon release, we only have Normal Damage so you don't need to do too much thinking yet.

This style of system allows us to continuously scale Combat far into the future without running in to limitations from using a flat DR system like MI1.

Combat Stances

Only certain Combat Skills can be trained using certain Stances.

Your choice of weapon will determine what Combat Stances you can use.

Monsters use Stances, too.

Stances have Accuracy and Evasion stats against them.

Magic Elements System

Elements will be important in Combat, utilising Air/Water/Earth/Fire in many scenarios.

Elements buff/debuff your Maximum Hit based on Element vs Element.

This is a Player only buff/debuff, and does not change the Enemy stats.

All Magic Spells have an Element applied to them, and requires a respective Magic Weapon with the same Element to use.

All Magic Monsters have an Element, and some Melee/Ranged ones.

Anything without an Element is Neutral.

Magic Imbuements

Activate passive Magic bonuses themed after the Elements, costing Runes to use during battle.

New Monster Mechanics

Armour

Reduces all sources of your damage by a flat amount equal to the Armour Value.

This is the final calculation in the damage stat (Minimum 1 damage).

Armour cannot be reduced.

Ward (This has been changed since we first spoke about it)

Reduces your damage by an amount equal to (CurrentWard / MaximumWard).

Example: If the enemy has 6 / 10 Ward , your damage is reduced by 40%.

Ward is reduced by 1 per hit until depleted. It does not regenerate.

Damage over Time and Combat Effects cannot be applied while Ward is active.

Lifesteal

Grants the Monster global Lifesteal, healing the Monster for a percent of damage dealt on all sources of their damage.

Dark Combat Areas (Light/Dark)

Special Combat Areas have a Darkness value. You must equip enough Light to combat this value, otherwise you will suffer an Accuracy/Evasion debuff.

Your Accuracy & Evasion Rating is reduced by 5% per Light Value below the Darkness Value.

Improved Slayer & Slayer Masters

Tasks are now assigned by Slayer Masters who look after specific Combat Areas.

You can have 1 task active on each Slayer Master, and swap between them as you please.

Implemented Task Blocking allowing you to Block up to 2 Tasks, which removes them from the Task Pool.

Combat Toolbelt

New set of equipment slots dedicated to special types of Items, including Potions.

You get 1 Potion Slot and 2 unlockable Utility Slots per Loadout.

Only certain items can be equipped to the Utility Slot.

Auto Eat & Max Hit Health Bar Indicators

Your HP bar will now display an indicator for where your AE triggers, and what the Enemy's Max Hit is.

The Enemy HP bar will show your Maximum Hit as an indicator.

Updated Auto Eat (Sort of)

Auto Eat is unlocked from the start, granting Auto-Healing at or below 25% of your Max HP

This can be further upgraded in the Shop.

Auto Eat Efficiency now starts at 100%, and can be improved with AE upgrades.

Loot History

Added a Loot History feature to display the Loot summary of the last 15 Monsters you fought.

Custom Loadout Names

You can now name your loadouts, making it easy to determine what they are designed for.

Beastcrafting

Beastcrafting is a specialised Artisan Skill that uses materials from Hunting and Combat to create specialized Combat gear, as well as items that can be used across non-Combat Skills.

Some of the special Combat gear that can be created include Armour pieces that directly benefit Slayer, and special weaponry that provide further bonuses in Combat.

It is designed to be a relatively high-level Artisan skill, so getting into it can take some time as the rewards are relatively strong for where they unlock.

There's currently 128 Items that can be created in Beastcrafting.

Thieving

Take a look at the Thieving Preview here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/dev-update-30-155834573

Herblore

Take a look at the Herblore Preview here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/dev-update-28-152908250

Ranching

We've got some new content for Ranching!

New Animals:

Wolves

Unlocked at Level 70, and requires you to complete 1 Wolf Slayer Task in Combat.

Provides Wolf Fangs and Wolf Fur (Will be used in future Skills)

Eats Raw Meat

Treats: Rabbit Meat and Bones

Dragons (Green, Blue, Red, Black)

Starting at Level 75, and requires you to complete 1 Slayer Task for the respective Dragon in Combat.

Provides Dragonhide and Dragonscales.

Eats Raw Meat

Treat: Griffin Steak

Gem Golems (Topaz, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, Jadestone)

Starting at Level 92, and requires Level 99 Mining

Provides Uncut Gems and Gemstone Fragments

Eats Geode Dust

Treats: Metal Bars

Enclosure Addon MechanicEnclosures have a new menu option where you can purchase Add-ons for them which provide extra bonuses.

These Add-ons are removed if you swap the Enclosure, but they will be relatively cheap.

There is only 1 add-on available for Enclosures on release, which uses the new Log obtained from the special Woodcutting Tree unlocked via Agility.

Woodcutting

Ashen Tree has been added, locked behind Agility, which grants Ashen Logs that are used around the game for various upgrades.

Firemaking

You can now light Lanterns in Firemaking to use in Dark Combat Areas.

You can now burn a new type of item called Blessed Logs, obtained via Combat, which grant Prayer Points when burnt.

Cooking & Food

Intermediate and Advanced Food created in Cooking now have bonuses that are active while equipped.

The bonuses are somewhat categorised:

Sandwiches - +% Max Hit

Pancakes - Reduced damage taken in Combat

Cake - Increased Max HP (Combat Only)

Pies - Increased Evasion

Soup - Agility only Bonuses

Sushi - Thieving only Bonuses

Advanced Recipes - These are not categorised, and have bonuses set on a case-by-case basis.

Mining & Geodes

Mining has some new Nodes to... mine:

Attuned Essence, core ingredient used for Herblore

Dense Coal - New Coal vein locked via Agility that is 3x more plentiful than the regular node.

On top of that, Geodes can be opened! They contain standard items from Mining, as well as 3 unique "Damaged" Tools that can be equipped in Mining. These Tools can be taken to Smithing to be repaired, doubling their bonus.

Rune Packs in Runecrafting

We have removed Combination Runes from the game in favour of Rune Packs to streamline Rune usage and decision making in Combat.

Rune Packs are simple - You can create a combination of Elemental runes in a single recipe.

Rune Packs that allow you to create 2 Elemental Runes are locked behind Skilled Runecrafter guild rank, while the Rune Pack that allows you to create all 4 at the same time is locked behind Veteran Runecrafter.

Farming Mastery Guild Balance

We've heavily rebalanced the Farming Mastery Guild, slashing the task quantities by a substantial amount that will make the Guild roughly 50% faster to complete.

Farming was one of the last Skills on our radar to balance, and we followed the same balance methodology as Ranching with how we design it.

This change should make Farming Guild a lot less frustrating to rank up.

Hunting Adjustments

We've implemented some changes to Hunting based on the Survey we released shortly after its release. Here's the rundown:

Implemented bad luck mitigation bonuses for traps. Fortified and Reinforced Traps now grant increased chance to Trap the animal on each failure.

Increased Hunting Animal Level cap from 20 to 25 (Mastery Guild remains unchanged)

Each additional Animal Level above 20 will increase the chance of locating a Rare Species.

When a Rare Species is caught, you are now granted 2x item rewards (stacks with doubling chance)

Implemented Trapless Hunting mechanic

Some Animals can now be caught without a Trap. This requires either Strength or Agility levels to do so.

Collectibles in the Hunting journal now always show their name to help you determine which Animal it may come from.

Implemented new visuals for Hunting timers that now display the min/max interval area for RNG intervals.

Implemented Selected Trap auto switching for when you run out of traps during training. This will auto switch to the next available trap when you reach 0 remaining.

Conclusion & Release Timeframe

I may have missed some new content or changes, but that's the main stuff I think.

This update is incredibly large, hence why it has taken so long to finalise. But we are so close to release!

I'm hoping to release this update either Wednesday or Thursday next week. There's still a lot of stuff to finalise, but I'm confident we can get the update in your hands nex week.

🏋️ What the team have been working on 

Here’s what the team has been working on since our last post! 

Development

Malcs:

All time has been spent finalising the Major Update.

Coolrox:

Finished work on the Save and Cloud systems. These are complex systems that underpin the whole gameplay experience, so it’s worth taking the time to make sure it’s set up right.

Worked on the Bank Configuration feature, fixing many issues and making it more stable.

Game Design

Prat:

Continuing to test all of the upcoming features, identifying and fixing any issues with balance, and reporting bugs for Malcs and Coolrox to fix.

Began finalising Astrology ready for development.

Artwork

Tapi:

Working on NPC portraits & Stalls for Thieving! Check out these portraits 👀

Ash:

Continuing to work on item illustrations! As always, here are some of this week’s highlights…

Conclusion

Thanks for sticking with us this far. This update has been a monumental undertaking, and we really appreciate the support you’ve all given us to get it done right. As always, we’ll be hanging around on Discord if you want to hop in and discuss the game!

See you around!

Malcs & Althalus