Dev Update #22 - Small Major Update Preview & 2025 Sign-off

Hey Everyone!

Last week we launched a series of balance changes for Ranching and other areas of the game based on feedback from our latest survey, and so far we’re very happy with the results. We also gave some insight into our methodology and approach when it comes to balance in the Alpha, and how that’s going to change going forwards based on our experience with the last few major updates. We’d recommend checking that out if you missed it - it wasn’t published as one of these Dev Updates, but it’s a worthwhile read: https://www.patreon.com/posts/145497373

We’re pretty close to the end of the year, and we will be closing up shop to get some rest over the next few weeks. That said, we’ve made a huge amount of progress on our next Major Update, so this week we want to give some small insight into what to expect! Let’s take a look.

Firstly - v0.7.6-alpha released

We have released a small Minor Update today. You can view the changes here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/146197357

🏹Major Update - Small Preview

We’ll go into more detail about each highlight below in a future Dev Update just before the Major Update is due to drop. For now, here’s the high-level overview.

New Skills - Hunting & Beastcrafting

The main focus of the next Major Update is Hunting & Beastcrafting, our next exclusive new skills for MI2. Hunting is the last of the “gathering” skills, and as such it’s a pretty big milestone for us.

In broad terms, Hunting is exactly what it says on the tin - you’ll survey, track and hunt various animals and beasts, gathering their valuable resources to use later. We’ve got an awesome variety of creatures ready to go, with artwork by the amazing Tapi - if you’ve been following these posts you’ve already seen some of them!

Hunting will feed directly into Beastcrafting, a new Artisan skill that will make use of the many resources you gather from. But that won’t be the only use for Hunting, as its also a natural source for a few important items such as:

• Herb Seeds.

• Active method to obtain some items found in Ranching.

• Non-Combat method to obtain Bones.

• Other miscellaneous goodies.

Beastcrafting’s main purpose is to provide Combat related gear and items, mostly targetting Slayer-specific equipment. It's a pretty simple Skill just like Smithing, but it fills a large content gap we had in Melvor Idle 1 which was a way to create specialised crafting-based gear that targets more high-level and unique content.

Bank Quality of Life

We will be releasing our first batch of much needed Bank Quality of Life, something many of you have been requesting and waiting patiently for.

Here’s a snippet of what to expect:

• Item sorting: Sort by item/stack GP value or quantity, plus other default & custom sorting methods.

• Option to sort items in tab only.

• Automated Bank Tags: Easily see which Skill an Item is obtained from, or used in.

• Bank Tab Affinities: Automatically place new items into specific tabs based on the Bank Tags you enabled for that Bank Tab.

• Customisable and sharable Bank configurations: Grants the ability to import/export a bank configuration string. Bank configuration will copy:

  • Bank Tabs, their order, their name, and their affinities

  • Order of items in the bank, and what tab they are in

  • Item placeholder/lock status

We’ll go into detail on how Bank Configurations work in a future dev update.

Big UI changes

We’re making some big changes to the UI in the next update, specifically around the Header and Sidebar setup.

Over the last 5 months, we have been working with a UI/UX Studio to rework the MI2 UI based on feedback. We will be updating the game to use the new layout in the next Major Update.

We also plan to update Woodcutting’s UI to a brand new, less cluttered layout.

Currently, we are only changing the layouts using existing colours/styling to ease the transition to the new UI for everyone. Over the next few months, we will begin to implement the new styling as well.

Miscellaneous additions

We’ll be sure to include other miscellaneous content additions for existing Skills as well!

⌛When we we expect the next Major Update?

Hopefully not long after we return from our break on Jan 5th!

🏋️ What the team have been working on 

Here’s what the team has been working on since our last post!

Development

Malcs:

• Continued working on Hunting UI and content balance/adjustments to finalise for release.

• Implemented new and adjusted Thieving content into development prototype.

• Continued work on the updated UI layout.

• Worked on bug fixes for minor updates released today.

Coolrox:

• Continuing to work on the systems for Combat, primarily focusing on combat effects. This includes:

  • Implementing the systems for processing various effects. There are lots of effects and modifiers planned for MI2 so it’s essential that we have this system working well from the start!

  • Implementing the various display systems needed for effects - tooltips, info displays, etc.

  • Combat attacks & effects system is close to completion.

• More work on streamlining the game’s build process.

Game Design

Prat:

• Lots of testing ongoing at the moment! Currently testing the initial playable builds for Hunting, Beastcrafting, and Thieving.

  • These builds are in various states of completion, so please don’t read too much into them in terms of what’s coming up soon 😉

• Began work on finalising Astrology and its content.

Artwork

Tapi:

• Finalised the art for Hunting! All of the expected creatures and items are now completed.

• Focus has now switched to artwork for pets 👀

Conclusion

We hope you’re excited about the next Major Update! That’s all for this week, and for 2025. Our team is taking some much-needed rest over the next two weeks, so you won’t see another one of these dev posts until the new year. 

Thank you all for your support with Melvor Idle 2 this year. We’ve made a huge amount of progress already, and it’s all thanks to the feedback and encouragement of our amazing community. We hope you all have a wonderful end to your year, and we look forward to continuing our journey with you in 2026!

- Malcs and Althalus