Sol: Enchantment (hereinafter 'Sol') released an update on July 8 (Wed) focused on the first 'God' election and field balance. This patch introduces significant changes to the Nine acquisition method and Nine Core crafting, alongside the first God election scheduled for July 11 (Sat) at 8:00 PM. Let's take a look at what you need to know before the election and the changes brought by this patch.

Previously, Nines dropped on the ground like items with a certain probability. This caused issues such as inconsistent acquisition rates per hunt and interrupted hunting flow as characters had to move to pick them up. With this update, Nines are now guaranteed upon monster elimination, similar to EXP, and are automatically added to the inventory.

Furthermore, the system has been changed from one where the user who dealt the most damage obtained the item to one where Nines are distributed in proportion to the damage dealt, just like EXP. While the developer notes stated that the total amount of Nines acquired remains the same, the shift to contribution-based distribution is expected to increase the importance of the 'Manner Mode' feature.

Significant changes were also introduced regarding Nine Cores. The previous patch limited crafting to 10 times per week for characters under level 40 to curb 'Workshops' and other playstyles that negatively impact the game economy. As this proved ineffective, the limit has been tightened to 5 crafts per account per week, regardless of character level.

As a result, the price of Nine Cores has been rising sharply, as seen on the Lindel 1 server immediately after the patch, and this trend is expected to accelerate with the God election scheduled for the weekend.

The first God will finally be elected in Sol. There are three types of Gods: a God elected per server, a Main God elected per world, and an Absolute God elected across all integrated servers. Gods are granted access to a dedicated channel to communicate with the operations team regarding inquiries and suggestions, and are provided with voting rights to influence the direction of updates.

Gods can also exercise 'Divine Power' to exert various influences, such as dropping meteors over a wide area, summoning monsters, banning specific characters from chatting, or changing specific areas into safe or war zones.

In addition, Main Gods can use Divine Power to exert greater influence on the server, such as increasing boss monster spawn rates or opening special hunting grounds. The Absolute God can use Divine Power to affect the entire game, such as adding equipment to the shop or adjusting class balance.

The election is based on the amount of Nine consumed during the period, with consumption tracked and displayed in 1-hour intervals. Since Nine consumption data will be hidden starting at 7:00 PM, one hour before the election, competition is expected to intensify.

Various patches related to hunting ground balance were also implemented. The first is the Tower of God, currently the most crowded hunting ground. The developer notes stated that the reason for the adjustment is that too many Inheritors are reaching the 2nd floor compared to the original design.

This patch increases the difficulty of regular monsters in the Tower of God and significantly boosts the item drop rates for 1st and 2nd-floor bosses. After hunting in the 1st floor of the Tower of God for an hour, I felt that while there was no major change in monster HP or defense compared to before the patch, the damage dealt by monsters increased significantly, making it difficult to survive with infinite potions when swarmed. The difficulty of solo hunting in less populated areas has increased significantly, though it seems there will be little difference from before if there are enough people hunting in the area.

Additionally, patches were introduced to lower the difficulty and improve the rewards of high-level fields. In some areas of Kaltheon, the difficulty was eased by improving preemptive attacks and 'kin recognition' (a system where monsters of the same species immediately aggro when one is hit). Furthermore, Rare Common Gear (Bound) now drops in some areas of Kaltheon, and Common grade Rune Chests have been added to the drop table in the Artaron Temple.