[Dev Notes][Dev Notes] Mini Dev Notes - September 18

Greetings, Captains.
This is StarSavior Director Lee Sungwon.

Before we begin, I would first like to thank everyone who joined us in person at Seoul Comic World on September 12 and 13, as well as all Captains who supported the event from afar.

Thanks to your interest and support, we were able to bring the event to a successful close. Meeting and speaking with Captains in person was especially meaningful for the development team and gave us renewed motivation for what comes next.

We are continuing to prepare for more opportunities to meet Captains offline, not only in Korea but across other service regions as well. We hope you will look forward to them.

Yesterday also marked the launch of the major [A Study in Gray] update introduced in our recent broadcast. We had been preparing this update for quite some time, but there were areas where we fell short of providing a smooth experience during the update process. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

[A Study in Gray] is an update the team put a great deal of thought into. We hope you enjoy the event over the next three weeks and everything we have prepared for it.

Today, I would like to follow up in more detail on several survey topics we only touched on briefly during the broadcast and then share some of the development items currently in preparation.

Let us begin.

Survey Feedback
1. Operation / Hunt Quest Difficulty

We received a great deal of feedback from Captains in the early stages of progression that the difficulty of Operations and Hunt Quests made it difficult to progress smoothly.

We reviewed gameplay data across early Operation and Hunt Quest stages and are preparing adjustments focused on sections where clear rates drop sharply.

We are currently targeting October for these changes, with a focus on early progression stages in Operations and Hunt Quests. Our goal is to avoid requiring overly complex mechanics or an unusually high level of encounter knowledge during this stage of the game.

We will work to apply these adjustments as quickly as possible so that individual difficulty spikes do not create an unnecessarily frustrating break in progression.


2. Reliance on Limited Saviors
Another common concern in the survey was the high reliance on limited Saviors in certain battles, particularly when those Saviors can only be obtained during a given period.

[Eternal Promise: Carmen], our first limited Savior, currently fills an important Supporter role in many team compositions. However, outside of [Waltz of Starlight: Asherah], many Supporter options are difficult to use effectively, and there are not enough alternatives that can perform a role similar to [Eternal Promise: Carmen].

As a result, owning Carmen can have too large an impact on the range of viable choices available in battle. This was my mistake in not fully considering the current live environment and the available team-building options, and I sincerely apologize for the disappointment this has caused.

Because limited Saviors are only available during certain periods, we believe it is important that their core role can still be covered, at least to some degree, by other Saviors. Limited Saviors should have their own strengths and identity, but we want to avoid situations where an entire role becomes difficult to fill simply because one specific Savior is unavailable.

As a first step, the Savior balance update planned for next week will strengthen Frey and Serpang to expand the current Supporter pool.

We also plan to continue adding new Supporter Saviors so that too much responsibility does not fall on a single character. When planning future limited Featured Observation Saviors, we will take the live environment, class composition, and available alternatives into account when defining their roles.

Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.


3. Overload Cube
We also received a great deal of feedback that the first version of Overload Cube, introduced during the summer event, did not fully meet expectations. We are sorry that the debut of this new content fell short.

The version of Overload Cube introduced with [A Study in Gray] includes several changes based on what we learned from the previous version, and we hope it provides a more enjoyable experience.

That does not mean development on Overload Cube is finished. Even while developing and testing the current version, we identified additional areas that need improvement, and work on those changes is already underway for the next version.

As mentioned during the broadcast, the current Overload Cube will run for seven weeks. New missions, Replica Codes, rewards, and other elements will be added in Weeks 3, 5, and 7 so that new goals and gameplay options continue to open over time rather than appearing all at once.

We also plan to conduct another survey on Overload Cube after this update. If there are parts of the mode that feel lacking or areas you believe should be improved, please share your thoughts with us. We will review your feedback carefully as we continue refining the content.

That covers the main topics raised through the survey. We plan to continue running surveys alongside major updates, and the development team reviews the responses from each one closely. Your feedback is an important reference for understanding where the game feels frustrating and where further improvement is needed.

If you have thoughts to share while playing StarSavior, we hope you will continue sending them through future surveys.

Upcoming Development
1. Savior Balance Update
A Savior balance update is planned for the September 23 update next week. A total of 10 Saviors will be included:
• Voyager Savior Party: Asherah
• Voyager Savior Party: Luna
• Monastir Knights: Charlotte
• Monastir Knights: Frey
• Wind Moon Sect: Serpang
• Canopus Rangers: Dana
• Orbital Search Team: Lugh
• Western Liberators: Lydia
• Wanderer: Lacy
• Lampadis: Lily

The update focuses primarily on Supporter Saviors that are currently difficult to use effectively, along with Saviors that have not yet received a Boost effect.

The goal is to give each Savior a clearer role and more defined use cases. Saviors that do not yet have a Boost effect will also receive new effects through this update.

After the balance update, every Savior in StarSavior will have a gameplay mechanic built around their own Boost effect. Full details for each Savior will be provided in next week’s patch notes.


2. Journey: Trail of Starlight Potential Improvements
The September 23 update will also add new choices to the [Direction of Training] event in Pathfinder of Starlight Journey. These new choices will allow Captains to guarantee specific Journey: Trail of Starlight XX Potentials.

With the Exhibit acquisition improvements introduced in yesterday’s update and the new options being added to [Direction of Training], you will effectively be able to reliably obtain the Trail of Starlight Potential you want.

Our goal is to reduce the need to repeat Journeys simply to obtain one specific Potential and make it easier to build toward the progression path you want.

We are also considering longer-term improvements to Journeys. Ultimately, we want both manual play and Auto Journey to provide results that are consistently useful.

The improvements currently underway are focused first on making a single manually played Journey feel sufficiently rewarding. Beyond that, we want to strengthen Auto Journey so that Captains can still expect a meaningful baseline result without having to play each Journey directly.

For that to work, Trail of Starlight Potentials will also need to become reliably obtainable through Auto Journey. In the long term, our goal is to include them among the rewards Captains can target directly through that system.

This is still a direction we are exploring rather than a feature in active development. We will share more once the scope and schedule are concrete enough to discuss.


3. Operation / Corridor Expansion
Next week’s update will expand both Operations and Corridors.

Hard Operations will gain five new sectors, while Infinite Corridor will gain 100 floors and each Attribute Corridor will gain 50 floors.

We are also preparing a limited Battle Skip feature for early-progression Operation stages so Captains can move through that part of the game more quickly. We are currently targeting the October 22 update for this feature.

We will continue expanding Operations and Corridors to provide new goals as Captains grow, while also making sure the early progression experience does not become unnecessarily obstructive.


4. Cosmo Gate Improvements
Starting with next week’s Cosmo Gate, [Challenge of the Stars EX] conditions will be customized for each boss.

Until now, several bosses shared the same challenge conditions, which could make certain conditions feel disproportionately punishing depending on the boss. With this change, each boss will receive its own set of conditions to reduce those mismatches while bringing the boss’s intended mechanics and strategy into clearer focus.

We hope you will try the updated [Challenge of the Stars EX] and share your feedback.

We are also planning changes to how Cosmo Gate scores are calculated. At present, it can be difficult to tell whether a lower stage that you can fully clear or a higher stage where the boss survives will ultimately produce a better score.

To make that decision more intuitive, we plan to adjust the scoring weights so that defeating the boss has a clearer impact on the final score. The goal is to help Captains judge more easily which stage best matches their current strength.

We are currently targeting the October 22 update for these scoring changes.


5. Other Features and Improvements
Several additional features and QoL improvements are also in development.

First, Gear Enhancement will allow you to select the enhancement level you want to reach directly. You will be able to choose +3, +6, +9, +12, or +15, and the system will automatically apply the Enhancement EXP required to reach that level.

After enhancement, new controls will let you lock or unlock the resulting Gear immediately. Gear you do not need will also be sellable directly from the enhancement results screen.

Lobby customization is also expanding. We are developing a feature that will allow Saviors in their Toughness Break state to be placed in the Lobby. We plan to keep adding customization options so Captains can use and decorate the Lobby more freely.

All of the features in this section are currently planned for the October 22 update.


6. Skill Text Localization Improvements
We will also begin a broader review of skill text localization for the global service with next week’s update.

Some skill-related terms and expressions have been translated inconsistently, which has made certain skill effects and combat mechanics harder to understand than they should be. We should have addressed these issues more carefully, and we apologize for the inconvenience.

As part of this review, we will examine skill terminology across the game, with particular focus on cases where the same concept has been translated differently in different contexts.

In skill descriptions, even small differences in wording can affect how an effect or mechanic is understood. We will therefore strengthen our review process to ensure these distinctions receive closer attention throughout localization.

This will not be a one-time cleanup. We will continue monitoring localization quality after the update and address additional issues as they are identified. We apologize again that these improvements did not come sooner.


7. Server Merge
The server merge is planned for the October 22 update. We sincerely apologize that it will arrive later than originally announced.

As shared in a previous Dev Notes, the Korea, Japan, and Asia servers will be merged.

With more Captains participating together in ranked content after the merge, we also plan to adjust the reward brackets for certain ranking-based content accordingly.

Please note that some content may be temporarily unavailable around the time of the server merge to ensure a stable transition. We will announce the affected content and detailed schedule in advance.

More details about the server merge will be provided in a separate notice.


That covers the main survey topics, and the development plans we currently have in preparation.

Up to this point, the development team has placed a relatively strong focus on improving existing content and QoL. Those improvements will continue where needed but going forward we also want to gradually increase our focus on developing and introducing new content and systems.

Several new features and content updates are already in preparation beyond what we shared today. Many are not yet ready to discuss in detail, but we will introduce them through future Dev Notes and broadcasts as each one takes shape.

We hope you will look forward to the next chapter of StarSavior.

We are also preparing another offline event in Korea this October. We will share more details about the event in a follow-up notice once they are ready.

As a small token of our appreciation, we have also prepared a gift for all Captains. Please log in and make sure to claim it from your in-game Mailbox.

- Thank-you Gift: 1,000 Stellagems
- Claim Period: Claim Period: Sept. 18, 08:00 - Sept. 22, 2026, 14:59 UTC
- Mail Storage Period: 14 days

Thank you for your continued support and for being part of StarSavior. We look forward to sharing more updates and new developments with you soon.

StarSavior Director
Lee Sungwon