MONGIL: STAR DIVE PD Lee Dongjo has published Dev Note #8, detailing the Monsterling and equipment changes arriving in Version 1.2 on July 8. The note covers all Monsterling progression improvements, equipment changes, and several quality-of-life additions.
Monsterling Improvements
Version 1.2 introduces a major overhaul to Monsterling progression to cut grind time and reduce RNG frustration:
- Trait Upgrade — a new feature to increase a Trait’s grade (e.g. Grade 1 → Grade 2, up to Grade 5 maximum).
- Trait Change — a new feature to replace an existing Monsterling Trait with a different one.
- Combine now considers material grade — the resulting Monsterling grade takes the highest-grade material into account.
- Mutation Combine success rate increased — the team is targeting over 50%.
- Higher-grade Trait appearance rate increased — affects both natural drops and Trait Change.
- Resistance Traits restricted by element — only Fire-element Monsterlings can roll Fire Resistance Traits, making the Trait pool more focused and predictable.
- Dispatch System added — replaces manual field runs; send a character to a field episode area to automatically farm Monsterlings, materials, and resources. Limited dispatches per day; each area can only be dispatched once per day.
Trait Upgrade and Trait Change use a new dedicated resource separate from existing Premium Salmon Puree. This resource can be obtained from the Dispatch System, Requests, and other content.
Request Monsterling Fix
Multiple Requests for the same monster can now be accepted up to three times, making it significantly easier to obtain specific Monsterlings used as Mutation Combine materials (such as Borborg and Phantom Snow Tiger).
Equipment and Conquest Changes
Footwear Role Specialization:
- The four role options on Footwear (Brawl / Destroyer / Assassin / Support) are consolidated into a single Role Specialization stat.
- When equipped to a character, the stat automatically applies that character’s role.
- All existing Footwear will be updated automatically when the patch goes live — pieces with good stats but the wrong role will become immediately usable. Save any Footwear with strong stats before the patch.
Conquest expansion:
- Higher Conquest difficulty levels added with increased crafting material drop rates.
- Higher difficulty bosses gain elemental resistances, encouraging building parties for each element.
- Clearing a higher difficulty automatically clears all lower difficulties — no need to run each stage separately.
- Entry tickets are no longer consumed just for attempting a stage; you can challenge each difficulty without a ticket to claim the first-clear reward.
- Some Legendary Monsterling enhancement materials will become available through Conquest.
Quality-of-Life Changes
- Food can be consumed directly from the Team Formation screen.
- Boss captures during Requests are now a single action — no more separate Nyanners Capture and Burst Mode QTE.
- New Warps added near bosses during Requests; character automatically faces the tracked target after warping.
- Dimensional Rift maze and platform puzzles removed; Episode boss time limit removed to reduce progression impact.
- Red Shadow Conquest difficulty adjusted to be on par with Hahnul; mechanics that interrupt damage output now trigger less frequently.
What Players Should Know
The team recommends holding onto resources rather than spending them before July 8. Equipment, materials, and Monsterlings will all benefit from the incoming improvements. The full Version 1.2 update is also planned to include MONGIL’s first summer festival.
A Developer Lounge Talk livestream is scheduled for July 1 (Wed) at 10:00 UTC on the MONGIL: STAR DIVE YouTube Sub Channel, covering the changes in detail. A Global stream follows on July 8 (Wed) at 01:00 UTC on the official YouTube channel.
Redeem codes revealed during the official broadcast can be used in all countries and regions.
