Towards a spender ‘only’ system

How are you doing, Dragon Hunters?

Happy New Year!

Now that 2026 is on its way, we’re back in the studio to share more about Dragonkin: The Banished. Hope you managed to get a good rest, because the Dragonkin train ain’t stopping any time soon!

It’s been a little while since our last update, and we’re excited to finally talk about some important changes coming to the Generator-Spender system, or as we now call it...

Answering player’s feedback

Let’s be honest, one of the biggest concerns regarding Dragonkin is the Generator/Spender mechanic. In fact, even in positive reviews some of you said that they were apprehensive about getting the game at first because of that system.

Since the very beginning of Early Access, the Generator/Spender has sparked a lot of discussion, and we’ve heard you loud and clear. Many players told us that the system can feel outdated or even frustrating at times, which sometimes makes it less fun to engage with.

We took our time to think about it and made iterations until we reached a point where we can finally show you what we've been working on.

How the Current system works

Before we dive into the actual change, let’s take a bit of time to explain what the current system is and how it works.

Each class currently has two basic skills that act as generators, along with a set of skills that require Energy to cast. This is the classic generator/spender setup most of you are familiar with.

Over time, players can unlock mods like cost reductions to better manage energy and reduce reliance on generator skills.

Towards a spender ‘only’ system

Moving forward, our goal is to lean more into a “spender-only” system.

⚠️ Players will now only play with spender skills without needing generators.

That said, we’re not removing generators entirely, so if you enjoy using them, they’ll remain optional. How exactly this will work is something we’ll explain later in our DevBlog.

Energy Regen Adjustements

Some of you are already familiar with Energy Regen.

Pretty self explanatory, It slowly restores energy over time. But we're making several changes for our next update.

What to expect?

• Base value has been increased (×3)

• Several Wyrmling skills now grant flat regeneration instead of increasing base regeneration by a percent, therefore making it more impactful

• Energy Regen will now be available on equipment pieces

This change is meant to replace Generator skills and reduce reliance on Energy gain modifiers.

On a side note, we’re also reducing the energy pool of all classes for balance purposes in early levels, but the energy pool will expand as your level increases. Of course, there are more ways to enhance it with mods and gear.

This is especially important for channeled skills, which would be far too strong with the current energy pool unless their cost is significantly increased.

Wyrmling skills now consume energy in certain cases, giving you new options for theorycrating.

This change should create a more natural power progression and make increasing the energy pool or regeneration through affixes in the early and mid game more meaningful.

Ranks up your skills

Character skills now have ranks from 1 to 4.

At lower ranks, a skill deals less damage but cost very little energy, which makes it spammable. As you rank up your skills, they become stronger but consume more energy.

With this, there is still a need for theorycrafting and resource management.

Steam post image What’s power and how do I get more?

Power is represented by the gem icon in the skill tooltip.

You increase a skill’s Power by adding modifiers to a skill, and accumulating enough compatible modifiers hit thresholds that grant additional Power. In other words, the more modifiers or higher rarity modifiers you attach to a skill, the more “effective” Power it gets.

Basic skills adjustments

We’re removing the Energy Generator and adding ranks to all basic skills.

Unless you invest heavily in them, they will always stay weaker than core skills (those with an energy cost), but they now feature an additional bonus effect or were buffed in the process, so they can still be interesting in many builds.

Like before, basic skills will not cost any energy to be used.

Symbiosis requirements updated

We’re changing the way a skill enters Symbiosis to make it simpler to understand.

Now a skill simply enters in Symbiosis whenever it reaches rank 4.

• Which means you need a minium of 15 effective Power to enter in Symbiosis.

As a reminder, a skill in Symbiosis:

• Changes visually adopting the element of your Wyrmling

• The skill can now deal damage with the element of your Wyrmling (see below)

How are Damage Calculated? Short answer: it's adaptive

First of all, there are no dual elements.

This means that if your base skill deals Toxic Damage, like Dance of Daggers, and you enter Symbiosis with Fire, the skill will not deal both Toxic and Fire damage, it will deal damage from only one element.

How does it work? Which element is taken into account?

The game checks which of your elemental damage bonuses is the highest and uses that for the skill. You can also check your Battle Log to see the color indicator, which instantly shows the element each skill is dealing damage with.

For example: Dance of Daggers deals Toxic damage by default Once Symbiosis is active, if you have a Fire Wyrmling equipped and your Fire Damage stat is higher than any other element, then Dance of Daggers will deal Fire Damage instead of Toxic If your stats are tied (e.g., Fire Damage = 100% and Toxic Damage = 100%), then the skill defaults to its base element, in this case, Toxic Even though you deal Toxic damage, the visual effect will still show Fire Symbiosis.

The true indicator of damage type is shown in the battle log.

Note: effective power refers to the total active power from each modifier tier achieved in the skill

New modifiers

At the very beginning of this DevBlog, we mentioned that we’re not removing Generators entirely, but instead making them optional, so…

… what does that mean?

We’re introducing a new modifier: Energy Generator.

This modifier can be attached to skills with the “basic” tag, allowing them to become an energy generator skill and no longer costs any energy.

We’re also adding Ultimate Enhancement 2

A word on balancing

Consider these changes a first iteration, so expect further adjustments and balancing over time!

Our goal is to give players more freedom at the beginning of the game, allowing them to use any skills with minimal cost in the early stages. As players get more tools and can invest more power into their skills, we want to encourage them to theorycraft in order to balance the higher costs that come with ranking up skills with the power you can gain.

Alright, that’s it for today! As we’re creeping closer to the release of the multiplayer, we’re back to a steadier rhythm, so expect more from us very soon.

Oh! And if you have any questions, feel free to ask! We’ll keep an eye on the comments below!

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