Over the past two weeks, feedback in the ROCs community has centered on several areas: Lost Realm's cross-server balance and reward issues, Eden S1's matchmaking and reward window, the Castle Level 35 milestone experience, and alliance collaboration and reward experience following the Dragon Exploration redesign.

These issues created a noticeable gap in the player experience: the power spread in Lost Realm leaves ordinary alliances with little room to participate; unstable matchmaking and reward windows in Eden S1 made seasonal investment feel uncertain; reaching Castle Level 35 without the expected milestone acknowledgement leaves a high-investment moment feeling incomplete; and after the Dragon Exploration redesign, weakened alliance coordination and a shifted reward feel have left players questioning whether the new flow is worth continuing to invest in.

#### Lost Realm: Reward Bug Fixed, Bracket System Still Being Refined

Two issues came together this period: rewards not arriving, and a power gap that left ordinary alliances with no space to compete after the merge.

On reward issues: we've confirmed that delayed reward delivery on some servers was caused by a timing conflict between reward triggers and bracket switching. The trigger logic has been fixed.

The bracket problem is more involved. Merging multiple servers into the same map was meant to give lower-population servers enough competition — but when the power spread is too wide, mid-tier alliances stop competing and start watching. That gap is real.

@Lambert is working on a bracket mechanism refinement. The current direction is tier-based server bracketing by active combat power, to keep servers too far apart from entering the same pool. Changing bracket logic requires re-validating pool composition and won't be fully in place for next cycle, but it's already in progress.

#### Eden S1: Matchmaking Direction Adjusted, S2 Bracket Plan Will Be Published in Advance

S1 feedback was clear: opponents that felt too far apart in strength, and a rewards window that wasn't communicated clearly enough for some players to catch it.

@Lambert made an adjustment during S1 — narrowing the cross-server matching pool from 6 brackets to 2. The goal is for servers closer in tier and power to actually end up together, rather than being diluted across too wide a range.

S1 data shows this direction is working, but the exact calibration still needs to be tuned. S2's matching pool plan will be published in the community before the season opens, explaining what changed, why, and what pool players will be in. No surprises at kickoff.

On the reward window: Eden's settlement mail opened later than the actual season end, and some players missed the window without a clear prompt. Next season, reward claim timing, deadlines, and expiry rules will be posted in the community before the season ends.

#### Castle Level 35: No Milestone Skin Currently, Expectation Gap Under Review

A consistent thread this period: players who upgraded to Castle Level 35 expecting a free castle skin — like the one at Level 30 — and found nothing waiting.

The current design: Castle Level 30 has a clearly marked milestone skin, with an in-game prompt. Castle Level 35 does not — that's an intentional design decision in the current version.

The reasoning: Level 30 is the primary growth milestone most active players reach. Level 35 sits in a deeper investment tier, and the milestone handling was designed differently.

That said, the expectation gap is real and consistent: Level 35 is a high-investment moment, and without a clear arrival signal, it doesn't feel like one. @David will continue gathering this feedback and aligning with the design team. If the Level 35 milestone experience changes in a future version, we'll say so here in advance. If the current design holds after review, we'll explain why.

#### Dragon Exploration Redesign: Alliance Feel and Reward Experience Still Under Evaluation

The volume of Dragon Exploration feedback wasn't the highest, but the signal was clear. Two themes came up consistently: the sense of exploring together as an alliance has weakened, and the reward feel is worse than before the redesign.

The new Dragon Exploration adjusted some of the interaction structure. Certain triggers that alliance members previously activated and progressed through together were redesigned. @Zephyrine's design intent was to rebalance the weight between solo and team behaviors in the exploration loop. But from actual feedback, when certain collaboration touchpoints were removed, what players felt wasn't "more flexible" — it was "this no longer feels like an alliance activity."

On rewards: total value internally is roughly the same, but the item mix changed — and what players are experiencing is that certain regularly useful resources feel harder to come by. "Total value is flat" doesn't resolve "the things I actually use feel scarcer." If a specific resource feels short in the new exploration, leave the resource type in the comments — @Zephyrine is collecting that data.

#### Other Updates

Secondary email binding is now live server-wide, tracked by @Vivienne* and @alone. If your account doesn't have one set up yet, you can do it in Settings. It's the most reliable way to recover your account — the more you've invested in the game, the more it's worth setting up early.

Comments are open for discussing gameplay, matchmaking, reward structure, and activity design. For anything involving account details, purchases, orders, missing rewards, or account recovery that requires backend review — please use the Support module, not a public post. Personal information in public posts can't be protected, and public posts can't serve as order review, reward redelivery, or account recovery channels.

These issues will continue to be tracked. Any updates on fixes, redelivery, rule changes, or confirmed decisions will be posted here as they happen.

#### ROCs Operations Team