Sol: Enchantment (hereinafter Sol) released an update on July 8 (Wed) focused on the first 'God' election and field balance. This patch introduces major changes to how 'Nine' is acquired and how 'Nine Cores' are crafted, alongside the inaugural 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, Nine dropped on the ground like an item 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, Nine is now automatically obtained upon monster elimination, just like EXP, and is added directly 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 Nine is distributed in proportion to the damage dealt, similar to EXP. While the developer notes stated that the total amount of Nine acquired remains the same, the shift to contribution-based distribution is expected to increase the importance of the 'Manner Mode' feature.

Significant changes have also been introduced regarding Nine Cores. The previous patch limited crafting to 10 times per week for characters under level 40 to curb playstyles that negatively impact the game economy, such as 'Workshops.' As this proved ineffective, the limit has now 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, particularly on the Lindel 1 server, 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: Gods elected per server, 'Main Gods' elected per world, and a single '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 regions 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 and opening special hunting grounds. The Absolute God can use Divine Power to affect the entire game, such as adding equipment to the shop and intervening in class balance.

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

Various patches related to hunting ground balance have also been 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 if there are enough people hunting in the area.

Additionally, patches were introduced to lower the difficulty and improve rewards in higher-level fields. In some areas of Kaltheon, the difficulty was eased by improving preemptive attacks and 'aggro' mechanics (where monsters of the same species immediately aggro when one is hit). Furthermore, 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.