Following the release of the new craftable economy in patch v0.28, the Big Time team has released an economy update to introduce various changes in these early stages in an effort to create a better action RPG experience with the community’s feedback at heart.
This economy update brings with it changes to Prestige Portals, Hourglass crafting and Hourglass recharging.
Some adjustments have been made for the entry restrictions of Prestige Portal in order to improve the goal of their core design, and that is to reward holders of Cosmetic Collectibles, while bringing “a more consistent user experience in terms of cost and tag restrictions.” As such, the changes introduced are focused on doing “several key objectives” which include increasing the chances of using general cosmetic tags, increasing “the probability of setting rarity requirements for cosmetics, always keeping the upper limit open-ended” while reducing the potential of getting miscellaneous cosmetic tags and unifying the entry costs “in terms of Time Crystals and $BIGTIME.” This means that when cosmetic restrictions increase, the cost is lowered, and the other way around can also happen.
“Hourglasses serve as the conduit for $BIGTIME. Ensuring a balanced supply is paramount for our game economy, and these changes are aimed at preserving that equilibrium by making the decision to craft Hourglasses have more weight.”
The developers have noticed that most Time Wardens are busy spending time crafting Hourglasses and few on recharging them because of the speed-up feature. As a result, the team has decided to introduce measures to “control the surge in Hourglass production from crafting actions.” The following changes have been implemented: one extends the crafting duration for Hourglasses, while the other increases the crafting costs for them, and the last measure ups the number of Hourglasses you need for creating early rarity Hourglasses.
Next to these changes, the base cost of recharging Hourglasses has now been increased. This decision has been made as, according to the update cost, the team has noticed that most players are using the speed-up feature, which has led to a sharp increase in the total cost of using Time Crystals for recharging. By increasing the base cost, the studio is looking to “further distribute time” spent between crafting, recharging, and dismantling.