The next IdleMMO update is coming later this month, and we’ve crammed quite a lot into this one. It contains a little bit of everything, from smaller quality-of-life improvements and changes to existing systems, to a brand-new tutorial and plenty more.
The update was originally supposed to release today (October 5th), but we’ve run into some time constraints and we’re not quite 100% happy with where it is yet. Rather than rush it out, we’d prefer to leave it in the oven for a little longer and give it the extra polish it needs.
This is one of our larger updates, and it’s also likely to be one of the updates you’ll actually feel the most while playing. A big part of that comes from changes we’re making to the game itself, with the aim of making IdleMMO feel more like an actual game and a little less like a menu simulator.
So, let’s get into it.
Forge
Forge has been a sore spot for a long time, and we know it. It’s also been a recently debated topic in the community, so this section is a little longer than the rest. We want to properly explain what we’ve changed, why we’ve changed it, and where forge services fit into all of this.
It’s coming up on three years since the game was released, and only a handful of players have taken the skill all the way. Most players either stop early or avoid it entirely. That isn’t a sign of a difficult or prestigious skill. For most players who do level it, Forge effectively ends at level 90, where the recipes stop, and everything beyond that becomes a grind with very little reason to continue.
Everyone sees Forge differently
Forge has generated a lot of community discussion recently, and there are good points on every side. The tricky part is that everyone seems to want something different from it:
- Some players want progression to be easier.
- Some have already done the grind and don't want it made easier for everyone else.
- Some enjoy being their guild's forger and want to keep that cooperative role.
- Some think it's fine as it is.
- Some think it only needs a few number adjustments.
None of these views are wrong. They come from different ideas about what a skill should be. Another game might be perfectly happy with a skill only a small part of the playerbase seriously engages with. That just isn't our vision for IdleMMO. We'd rather have a primary skill that's accessible and actually used than one that's difficult and gatekept.
There's no real consensus, and whatever direction we take, someone won't be happy. So rather than trying to please every vision at once, we're tackling Forge in steps.
Scaling, accessibility and utility
As we see it, Forge has three problems:
- Scaling - The overall scaling of the skill is poor. It's a grind. It's not idle friendly. Mythics don't give much experience.
- Accessibility - It takes too much effort, gold and planning for what's meant to be a primary skill in an idle game.
- Utility - Once you've levelled it, there isn't always much reason to keep going.
This update focuses on the first two. We're not ignoring utility. We just think it can't be judged fairly yet.
Forge's most obvious use is crafting your own gear. That may well be enough to make the skill worthwhile for a lot of players. But that has never had a fair chance, because most players can't realistically get Forge high enough to find out. A skill that's too hard to reach makes the utility problem look bigger than it actually is.
We've also learned from Alchemy. We made changes there and saw an uptick, but it barely moved the needle, partly because we never properly tackled accessibility first. We'd rather not repeat that with Forge.
So, what's changed?
Smithing Lessons
Currently Training
Smithing Lesson
Forge now has a Lessons tab. Pick some materials, start a lesson, and your character spends that time practising. You don't get gear out of it. You get Forge EXP, plus some Strength EXP.
- Lessons accept ores, metal bars, logs and crafting materials.
- Materials close to your Forge level teach best. Materials you've outgrown are marked as "too basic", and ones well beyond your level are marked "too advanced". Both teach more slowly, which stops lessons being used to power level with top-tier materials.
- Rare battle drops teach faster, but are used up faster too.
- You can cancel at any time. You keep the EXP you've earned so far, and any materials you didn't use go back to your inventory.
Lessons are not a faster way to level than crafting. That's deliberate. Crafting is still the way to train if you want the best rates. Lessons are for players who don't want to juggle recipes, quantities and market prices just to make progress. You put materials in and get EXP out.
That simplicity matters more than you might expect. Meditation is little more than a single button, and more players have pushed it to the top than Alchemy. Ease of access is often the biggest barrier of all.
Lessons also do a few other jobs:
- They're an actual item sink. Removing items from the game matters just as much as removing gold.
- They give materials more value. Logs, ores, bars and battle drops that would usually go straight to a vendor now have a use. Prices may rise a little, which makes gathering more worthwhile. Lessons accept a wide range of materials, so demand should spread out rather than piling onto one item.
- They make Forge more accessible. Lessons don't make Forge easy. It's still a long climb, and anyone who already made it hasn't lost anything. But the barrier to getting started is far lower.
Temper
Some of the early feedback on lessons was that they felt a bit off. Almost every other action gives you something, and lessons only gave EXP. We agreed, so lessons now fill your Temper bar.
As the bar fills, it stores up shards, which you can claim whenever you like. The fuller the bar, the better the payout, so it pays to let it build. Once it's full, it stops filling, and you'll need to claim it before it resets. You'll get a notification when it's full and again shortly before it resets.
Recipe Changes
Higher-level recipes now take much longer to forge, but each craft gives far more EXP.
Forging a mythic item used to take about as long as making a cup of tea. Because of that, the EXP had to stay relatively small. That's why forging a mythic never felt like an achievement.
Longer crafts fix that. We can now give a single craft a much bigger reward without blowing up EXP per second. A high-end craft is now a real commitment that pays off properly when it finishes. It's also far more idle-friendly, since you can set it going and come back later.
Fish are gone from forge recipes. We know this one has been a long time coming. Recipes that used fish now use the metal bar of the same tier instead. If you had one of these recipes crafting when the update landed, it was cancelled. Any items you'd already crafted were kept, the materials for the rest were refunded, and you didn't lose any recipe uses.
The Forge recipe list also has a type filter and loads in pages, so it's much easier to find what you're after.
On top of that, we’ll also be adjusting the level requirements for mythic recipes. We don’t feel that being able to craft mythics at level 90, when that isn’t even halfway through the skill, really fits with the progression we’re aiming for.
Forge Services
We know a lot of you are waiting to hear about forge services, so here's where things stand.
How we got here
Because Forge has been so hard to level, most players never touched it. Instead, a small group of high-level forgers stepped in. You send them a recipe and materials, they craft it, and they send the item back. For a lot of players, that's the only way they've ever used Forge.
Then the recent trading changes made that much harder. Sending recipes, materials and finished gear back and forth now comes with costs and restrictions it didn't have before. Overnight, plenty of players were left holding mythic recipes with no easy way to use them, and no Forge level to craft them themselves.
That's where a lot of the current frustration comes from. Most of the complaints we're seeing aren't really about Forge itself. They're about losing an easy way to have someone else do it for you.
Why services made things worse
Services aren't bad. Having dedicated forgers who help the community is a genuinely nice part of an MMO, and we get why people value it.
The problem is scale. Right now, one player can handle forging for a huge share of the server. When a handful of people can do an entire skill on everyone else's behalf, the skill stops mattering for everyone else. Almost nobody has a reason to level it, because someone else already has. That's a big part of why Forge has stayed so empty for so long. Services were filling a gap that Forge itself should have filled.
In hindsight, this is something we should have addressed from day one. If IdleMMO launched today, forge services would either not exist or be properly regulated. But they've existed for years, players have built their habits around them, and changing something people are used to is much harder than getting it right at the start. Market tax works the same way. Raise it from a lower starting rate and there'd be uproar. Launch with it, as we did, and its just simply a part of the status quo.
Why services aren't in this update
Right now we're stuck between two bad options:
- Release a restricted service system now. People would see red straight away, even with the improvements to Forge itself. It would feel like the old way had been taken away and replaced with something worse.
- Release an unrestricted service system, much like trading used to be. Most players would use that and never touch the new Forge. We'd be right back where we started, with a handful of forgers doing the work for everyone.
Neither of those is good for the game, so we're doing things in order:
- Make Forge more accessible, so more people can level it.
- Let players forge for themselves and give the new system a proper chance.
- Review where things stand, using real data.
- Then build a proper service system on top, regulated enough that Forge stays worth levelling.
We fully expect services to keep a place in the game. Being able to have something crafted by another player makes IdleMMO feel more like an MMO, and that's worth keeping. But they work best when they're limited in some way, so they help the skill rather than replace it.
The longer craft times already help here. Forging for someone else is no longer a quick favour. It's hours of your own idle time. That naturally limits how much one player can do for everyone else, and makes the work worth paying for.
We know waiting isn't what everyone wants to hear, especially if you're sitting on a recipe right now. But adding services before Forge is in a good place would undo the point of all of this. Once more players have given the new Forge a fair shot, a more regulated service will be a much easier change to make.
What's next for forging?
We'll watch how these changes play out. Once things settle, we'll look at:
- whether Forge needs more utility
- how forge services should work
- things like dismantling gear for upgrade stones
We also plan to move the item upgrade system into forging. However, we can’t say yet whether this will happen as part of this update or in a later one.
None of this fixes Forge in one go, and we're not pretending it does. Think of it like a tower. If you fix the bottom, the problems above it get easier to solve. This update tackles scaling and accessibility, gives Forge a real chance to prove itself, and sets things up for services to come back in a way that works for everyone.
If forge still ends up being underused and in a miserable state, then at the very least we can say we tried, learn from what went wrong, and carry those lessons into future changes.
Living, breathing skills
For a long time, IdleMMO has felt a lot like a spreadsheet. You pick an action, a timer counts down and numbers go up. That works, but it doesn't always feel like a game, and it rarely feels like an MMO. You're sharing the world with thousands of other players, and you'd hardly know it.
This update starts changing that.
Skill scenes
Currently Fishing
All primary skills now each have their own animated scene at the top of the page. While you're skilling, your character is right there doing the work. They swing an axe at a tree, chip away at a rock, cast a line and wait for a bite, or hammer away at the anvil. Tap the scene and your character takes a swing.
You're not alone out there
Other players nearby now appear in your scene. If someone else is chopping wood in the same area as you, you'll see them floating in their own bubble in the background. Your own characters show first, then your party, then your guild, so the people you know are easy to spot.
Tap someone's bubble to see what they're up to. You can watch their scene play out, see what they're gathering, how far along they are, how much EXP each item gives and when the next one lands. You can jump to their profile from there too.
It's a small thing, but it makes a big difference. Areas feel busy. You can see where people are training, check what a friend is working on, or just notice that you're not the only one grinding Yew Logs at 2am.
Combat too
12
20
15
The Combat page got the same treatment. The underlying battle itself remains exactly the same, but the action now plays out as a live scene, with damage, crits, misses, heals and EXP popping up as the fight happens. Players hunting or battling near you show up in bubbles around the scene too, and you can tap one to watch their fight.
Privacy
If you'd rather keep to yourself, you still can:
- Display Active Action off: other players can still see you nearby, but can't see what you're doing or how far along you are.
- Display Active Action off: other players can still see you nearby, but can't see what you're doing or how far along you are.
Why this matters
This game doesn't need to be static. We want IdleMMO to feel like a world you're part of, not just a set of timers. Seeing your character actually doing the thing, and seeing other people doing it alongside you, goes a long way. This is the first step, and we'd like to bring the same life to more of the game over time.
Item Loaning
You can now lend your equipment to other players.
Until now, lending gear meant trading it away and hoping you'd get it back. Item loaning removes that risk. Choose an item, a player and how long they can borrow it for. When the time is up, it comes straight back to you.
How it works
Open Loans from your profile, or use the new Loan action in the friend hub. Pick the player, the item and the loan length, then send the offer. Once they accept, the item moves over. When the loan ends, it returns to you automatically.
Each loan has a fee based on the item's value and how long the loan lasts. You choose who pays it. It can be you, the borrower, or a split between you. The fee doesn't go to either player, so it also works as a gold sink. Members get a discount on their share.
Borrowed Items
A borrowed item is yours to use, not yours to keep. You can equip it and move it between your inventory and bank, but you can't sell, trade, upgrade or lend it on. Borrowed items show a Loaned badge so they're easy to tell apart.
The lender can't take an item back early. The borrower can return it early once the loan has been running for a little while.
Why loan?
Loans make it easy to help a friend or guildmate try out gear before they commit to it, or to put your spare equipment to use. All without having to trust anyone to give it back.
Quality of life and UI
Alongside the bigger features, a lot of this update went into the small things you use every day. We've also spent time making the UI more consistent, so pages look and behave the same way wherever you are in the game.
Inventory and bank
Managing items has been overdue some love.
- Arrange items your way. Drag items in your inventory or bank to put them in whatever order you like. Your layout is saved, and your inventory and bank are kept separate. On mobile, press and hold an item to start dragging.
- Sorting. Sort by date, quality, quantity, type, value or name, and reverse the order if you like. The default sort uses your own layout.
- Search. Find items by name instead of scrolling.
- Grid or table view. Pick whichever suits you.
- Multi-select. Select a batch of items and deposit, withdraw, sell or lock them all at once.
Item locking
Selling the wrong item is never fun, especially when it's your best piece of gear. You can now lock items to stop that happening.
Locked items can't be sold, traded, used, upgraded or loaned until you unlock them. You can still equip them and move them between your inventory and bank as normal. Lock and unlock items one at a time, or in bulk with multi-select.
A more consistent UI
Many pages have been redesigned so they share the same look and layout:
- Profile. Metrics, Museum and Effects are now tabs on your profile instead of separate pages and pop-ups. You can equip skins and backgrounds straight from the museum.
- Effects. Filter your active effects, and cancel ones you no longer want.
- Redesigns. Guilds, leaderboards, the daily reward panel and the token shop all got a fresh look.
- Housing. House upgrades can now be filtered and sorted.
- Consistent details. Badges, empty states and warnings now look the same across the game.
Mobile
- Menu sheet. A new Menu button in the bottom navigation opens a sheet you can swipe away.
- Character switching. Tap your avatar to switch characters without leaving the page you're on.
- Loading bar. A loading bar now shows when a page is on its way, so you know your tap registered.
Everything else
- Search. Search remembers your recent results.
- Trades between alts. These can be accepted and completed in one step, and starting a new trade suggests the players you trade with most.
- Battle food. You can save your food choice for the next battle.
An Improved Tutorial
The old tutorial did the job, but only just. It was mostly walls of text, it only covered a handful of areas, and once you got past it, a lot of the game was left for you to work out yourself. For a game with this many systems, that's a lot to ask of new players.
So we've rebuilt it from scratch.
Each tutorial is now a short slideshow of a few steps, with its own animated illustrations showing how things work. You'll see logs being chopped, potions being brewed and battles playing out. Each step sticks to one idea, so you can take it in at a glance and get back to playing. You can move back and forth between steps at your own pace.
If you skipped through a tutorial or want to see them again, you can reset the tutorial from Settings > Account. Each one will show up again as you visit each area.
This isn't just for new players. If there's a part of the game you've never quite got your head around, it's worth a look.
New Classes
Four new skilling classes have joined the roster:
- Alchemist for Alchemy
- Blacksmith for Forge
- Builder for Construction
- Monk for Meditation
Each one makes its skill faster and gives more EXP, the same as the existing skilling classes like Lumberjack, Miner and Angler.
Until now, these skills were left out. Every gathering skill and a couple of crafting skills had a class of their own, while Alchemy, Forge, Construction and Meditation didn't. Now every main skill has a class built around it.
The Blacksmith fits nicely alongside this update's Forge changes. If you've been waiting for a reason to give Forge a proper go, this is another nudge in that direction.
Alpha Testing
As explained in the patch notes, we’ll be running a number of alpha tests ahead of the update. With the release date now pushed back, this also gives us more time to run additional testing.
We want to keep the testing process fair, so we’re being careful about how much information on new features is shared with alpha testers ahead of time.
While the alpha is running, we’ll also keep the wiki roughly in line with what alpha players currently have access to. We’re generally more cautious with systems that could affect the market or the competitive side of the game.
We’ve been gradually opening the alpha up to more testers over time. However, we’re quite limited by the capacity of the alpha server, as it was only ever built to handle a few dozen players at most. Because of that, we can’t guarantee eligibility or a place if more spots become available.
That said, alpha testers are free to discuss everything they see and experience. If you have any questions about what’s currently being tested, feel free to hop into the community Discord and ask them.
Characters Playing
We’ve seen some comments about the recent drop in the number of players shown as online, so we wanted to give a bit more context around what’s actually happening. The biggest factor is that, since the end of August, we’ve temporarily paused a lot of our marketing and advertising while we deal with some standard business administration. That has significantly reduced the number of new players coming into the game, which naturally has a sizeable knock-on effect on the number of characters playing.
This is just a temporary measure. We fully expect marketing to resume once that work is out of the way.
There’s also a separate issue with what the “Playing” number actually represents. It counts active characters rather than unique people, and historically some players have operated several accounts at once. In more extreme cases, we’ve found individual people controlling dozens of accounts. As we’ve also recently become more aggressive with bot detection, verification, prevention, and tackling players with multiple accounts, a lot of those characters have disappeared from the counter. One sufficiently large bot farm can account for dozens of “players” on its own, despite ultimately being controlled by a single person. One single ban wave can easily reduce the count by hundreds.
This creates a bit of a weird problem for us. The better we get at removing bots and stopping people from running huge numbers of accounts, the more the public player counter can drop.
A single ban wave can wipe hundreds off that number overnight, even if those accounts only belonged to a handful of actual people. From the outside, though, it can look like hundreds of players have suddenly stopped playing.
That’s why the counter has become a really poor way of judging how healthy the game actually is. We see people use it that way quite a lot, even though it was never really meant for that.
Originally, it was just there to make the game feel a bit more alive, especially back when there were far fewer social and cooperative parts of the game. It was never intended to be some kind of official measurement of the player base.
Activity within the game itself has remained relatively steady, but we’re looking at ways to make the public counter better reflect the number of people actually playing.
The obvious solution would be to switch the counter over to unique users. Ironically, doing that overnight would create the exact problem we’re trying to talk about here. The number would suddenly drop, and without any context, it could look like the player base had fallen significantly.
Someone returning to the game after a while could suddenly see a much lower number with no context for why it changed, and understandably assume the player base had fallen off a cliff.
If we can’t make it reflect what people reasonably assume it represents, we may eventually make it less prominent, or move it elsewhere, because, as it stands, it causes more harm than good.
What else?
There’s still a bunch more in this update that we haven’t covered, otherwise we’d be here forever. We’re going all out with this one.
If we threw Farming into the mix, we could probably even call this the final version before reaching the v1.0 milestone. In reality, we’d want v1.0 itself to contain very few major changes, as reaching that point should represent the game entering a much more stable state. We still have a few things we want to get done before we can comfortably call it the full release and start looking further down the road such as a potential Steam release.
Since we’ve also pushed the release date back a little, there’s a good chance we’ll be able to squeeze in a few more changes, features, and adjustments before the update goes live.
When is this out?
Of course, this all begs the question: when will the update actually be available?
You’ll be able to get your hands on it on Monday, 19th October. This is the same week as the upcoming Eve of Shadows campaign, which will start on Friday, 23rd October.
There may be a short period of downtime while we deploy the update, as there’s a lot happening behind the scenes with this one. An update of this size requires quite a bit of preparation, so we want to make sure everything is ready before we flick the switch.
Footnotes
This blog post has been written in a patch-note style, so some changes are described as though they are already available. However, the changes listed below will not go live until Monday, 19 October.
Everything in this post is also subject to change before release. Nothing described in this blog post is final.