Currency Clutter
Rams, platinum, merits, marks, and more — Dauntless is replete with unique currencies you can earn, accumulate, or purchase to elevate your gameplay and unlock cool rewards.
We have been hearing consistent feedback that there are too many different types of currencies in Dauntless. With so many bits and bobs to keep track of, we saw veteran Slayers getting frustrated and new Slayers getting slightly overwhelmed.
Some concerns we noted involved clarity around …
- where and when it was best to spend currencies.
- which currencies were the most valuable.
- where each currency came from.
We get that when you’re a new player (or even if you’ve been playing Dauntless for a while now), it can be challenging to learn about all of the different gameplay systems and how different currencies can unlock access to different pieces of content.
As a persistent online game, we want to ensure that all of your activities meaningfully reward you for your time. The changes in this currency merge and purge will help us balance rewards more effectively across different activities.
Our goal is to reduce the number of in-game currencies so that learning and understanding the game becomes an easier and more enjoyable experience for everyone.
The Merge
Combat Merits
What’s changing?
Combat merits and exploration merits will be merged into a single currency type, simply named “combat merits”.
How will I be affected?
All of your existing exploration merits will automatically be converted to combat merits in a 1:1 ratio.
All Slayer Path nodes that previously required exploration merits will now only require combat merits, not both. The total number of merits required will remain the same as before.
Any activity that previously rewarded you with exploration merits will now reward you with combat merits. The number of merits awarded for each of those activities will also remain the same as before.
Why the change?
In our initial design, we thought it would be interesting and fun to incentivize chasing different bounties. We came up with two different types of merits (combat merits and exploration merits) you could earn from bounties because we wanted to encourage diversity when you were drafting bounties.
Having these two different types of merits wound up adding unnecessary complexity. Many of you were short on one type of merit and had too many of the other. We recognized that this made interacting with the bounty system less fun because you had to make suboptimal decisions when hunting — just so you could get one type of merit instead of the other. We hope that this change will simplify the process of earning combat merits and make the overall gameplay experience surrounding combat merits more favourable and enjoyable for you.
The Purge
Ace Chips
What’s changing?
In 1.8.3, you will see a complete removal of ace chips from the game. Ace chips will be converted to aetherdust.
How will I be affected?
Ace chips were removed from the store and the Middleman in 1.8.0. If you still happen to have any remaining ace chips, they will automatically be converted to aetherdust in a 1:12 ratio (1 ace chip will convert to 12 aetherdust). This is higher than the equivalent amount to speed up cell fusion, but we wanted to be more generous as some of you may have spent platinum to purchase your ace chips.
At the Middleman, you will continue to use aetherdust to speed up cell fusion. Since 1.8.1, the cost for every hour of acceleration has been 6 aetherdust. This will remain the same after ace chips have been completely removed from the game in 1.8.3.
Any activity that previously rewarded you with ace chips will now reward you with aetherdust or something else instead.
Why the change?
When we looked at the cell fusion system, we saw an opportunity to simplify the design and improve the overall experience. Ace chips were a relic of the old Dauntless game, introduced before the Slayer’s Path or Reforge systems even existed. In the current state of the game, we felt that making cell progression a closed loop — with cells breaking down into aetherdust, and aetherdust being used to speed up cell fusion — made more sense and was simpler to understand.
Currency Curtail
We plan to revisit some of our other in-game currencies in future patches, to see how we can further optimize the in-game economy and overall gameplay experience for you. As always, let us know what you think about these changes by visiting our social channels on Reddit and Twitter.
Clear skies, Slayer!
