Thank you for your continued support of Dragon Ball Legends. Dragon Ball Legends will be celebrating its 7th anniversary this year in May. To make this special year as exciting as possible, as well as to ensure Legends can be played and enjoyed for many more years to come, we are currently hard at work on a massive version update. Here, we will explain some of the challenges that Legends is facing with regard to character abilities and the effects those abilities have on the battle experience. To make character abilities easier to understand and to return to battles where a variety of Elements and distinct character abilities are viable. Since release, we have introduced many different characters in order to deliver unique gameplay experiences. However, a large number of characters have abilities that are too broad, and this has damaged the original appeal of Legends' battle experience. In this notice, we will explain the three major issues we have identified and the ways in which we plan to address them. A lot of information will be covered, but we hope you'll read through it when you have the time.

Homogenization of Abilities

In past PvP metas, "Arts Card Draw Speed UP (Draw Speed UP)" was a distinctive ability usually given to characters who demonstrated strong combo abilities in the original series. On the other hand, "Tag: Regeneration" characters would have abundant ways to restore their health. In other words, each character had distinct characteristics. As more and more characters have been added, the number of characters with any given ability has increased. As a result, characters have become more and more homogeneous, making their individual characteristics harder to grasp. Another example of this is "Element Disadvantage Nullification (for Damage Sustained)" effects, which were only given to a select few units at first. Over time, many characters have started getting these effects, making it harder to enjoy Element-based strategies.

Increase in Characters with High Combo Power

The same issue has occurred with "Special Cover Change Nullification" and "Draw Speed UP" effects. With combo capabilities continuously on the rise, matches often devolve into one-sided affairs where one player is on the receiving end of a lengthy combo. Some of you can probably recall times when you could only watch helplessly after a single mistake lead to a long combo that eventually destroyed your entire party. Currently, there are few opportunities to switch from defense to offense, and vice versa, and this has damaged the play experience in battles.

Increase in Complexity (and Length) of Character Abilities

Another result of single characters having such a wide variety of abilities is that the text of abilities has gotten quite long and difficult to understand. The conditions for activating abilities, as well, have only been getting more complex. They are difficult to parse for players who just started, but we expect they are also difficult for veteran players too. We consider the cause of both this issue and the aforementioned "homogenization" to be individual characters having too many abilities. The following sequence has contributed to this: 1. Combo capabilities increase due to Special Cover Change Nullification, Draw Speed UP, etc. 2. Hand Destruction, Ki Reduction, and other disruption effects increase to combat those combo capabilities 3. Hand Destruction Nullification, Ki Reduction Nullification, Attribute Downgrade Nullification, and similar effects increase to combat those disruption effects Another factor contributing to this is that, internally, we had set a limit of 70% for "Sustained Damage CUT" effects when deciding character abilities. This was done to avoid possible confusion about all damage being reduce to 0 if damage cut effects were to exceed 100%. To prevent confusion, we intended to stay under the limit by maintaining defensive abilities with Hand Destruction and recovery effects, instead of more damage cut effects. We plan to gradually implement the following improvements to these issues.

Adjustments to Combos Incorporating Steps, etc. (Step Combos)

Card draw and Ki Recovery are reduced during step combos, but in order to prevent excessive comboing, increasing that reduction amount is being considered.

Adjustments to Activation Timing and Length of Special Cover Change Nullification

Recent characters have already been released with these balance changes in mind. We plan to avoid giving future characters excessive amounts of Special Cover Change Nullification. The Special Cover Change Nullification effect will not be discarded. We will continue making adjustments in order to create metas where Special Cover Changes can be used more effectively.

Adjustments to Length and Activation Opportunities for Element Disadvantage Nullification

We consider a variety of factors when deciding the Element of a new character, but one of the most important is whether specific parties need a given Element. However, Element Disadvantage Nullification has increasingly been used as a way to ensure characters have competitive abilities if the meta when they are released features characters they have an Element disadvantage against. Examples of characters released into unfavorable metas would be LL "Super Saiyan God Goku" or LL "Omega Shenron". In order to emphasize the fun of building teams around Elements, we intend to reduce the length and opportunities to activate Element Disadvantage Nullification. Instead, we will adjust more fundamental abilities, like inflicted damage increases or sustained damage reduction, to balance characters.

Adjustments to Disruption and Recovery Abilities

The limit on "Sustained Damage CUT" effects was one of the causes for the increase in disruption and recovery abilities, and so it has been removed. Damage cut effects will now be called "Damage Guard" (no changes will be made to how they function). We plan to gradually reduce excessive disruption and recovery abilities in future characters, making up for the difference with more fundamental abilities. Starting in April, characters will have greatly increased values for effects like Inflicted Damage UP and Damage Guard (previously "Sustained Damage CUT"), but their overall power will not be drastically stronger compared to existing characters.

Revisions to Ability Text

Ability text has become so lengthy that it becomes hard to understand, so we will be addressing that issue. With the goal of making the abilities of future characters easier to read and understand, we are revising the "rules" for ability text. We will also be moving excessive explanatory text to the in-game Help. Ability effects that activate at the start of battle are being moved into a new "Starter Ability" section. We plan to consider other solutions, such as turning specific effects into icons. The new ability text is still a work in progress, but here is a sample. Those are all of the adjustments currently planned. We will begin to apply them to characters being released in April 2025, and the number and complexity of abilities will be reduced gradually over an extended period of time. We are doing this gradually to prevent newer characters from being unable to compete against those released before April 2025. In the current meta, if you were to build a party around a character who was given 200% Damage Guard in exchange for having little to no combo stopping capability, it is possible you would never be able to stop your opponent's combo. We expect you would simply lose after spending 180 timer counts being comboed by your opponent. We are making adjustments with the overall meta in mind to ensure characters are not weaker because the number of abilities has been reduced. Ultimately, our goal is to make character abilities easier to understand and to return to battles where a variety of Elements and distinct character abilities are viable. We do not intend to make a game where characters compete using only their base stats. With each new character release, abilities have gotten longer and more complex. As Legends celebrates its 7th anniversary, we're working hard to address this issue and make Legends battles more exciting than ever. Our goal is to make character abilities easier to understand and to return to battles where a variety of Elements and distinct character abilities are viable. We fully understand that this will put a lot of pressure on you, our players, as you adjust to these new changes, but we hope we can make up for it by delivering new and better battle experiences. We humbly ask for your patience and understanding. Our team is hard at work making Legends even more fun so that it can be played and enjoyed for many more years to come. As always, we hope you continue to enjoy Dragon Ball Legends. TOSHI & TANI Dragon Ball Legends Management Team