Gear reform
At the end of January, we gave you our plans for the changes in legendary gear. They were met with mostly positive comments. We also received a lot of feedback, for which we are very grateful. Now you must be very curious how the work is going and, most of all, when you can expect the changes to be implemented.
Due to the amount of work, we decided to divide the reform into several steps as we want you to be able to slowly adjust to the new system. The first update will take place in the first half of April. It will include the biggest and most important changes. After that, we’ll be gradually adding the other features, allowing you for more gear customization.
What will be implemented first? Of course, the system of inserting modifiers into rares together with the ability to remove, change, and merge them. We will also add the new system of gaining psychoexperience: from now on, you’ll be leveling up modifiers, not gear. This will be possible, because we are turning the modifiers into separate items called drifs. Legendary gear will have special slots for inserting drifs - you will be able to choose what drifs to put into which piece of gear.
The legendary items you currently have will be modified so that they work using the new system. Their attribute bonuses will also be altered if needed. We’ll also be adding requirements to synergetics.
One novelty is a limitation when accumulating effects. Drifs will function normally up to a certain threshold. Once you pass it, you will see diminishing returns for every subsequent instance of the modifier that you insert into your gear. In addition to that, it won’t be possible to insert two drifs of the same type into one piece of gear. Each piece of gear will have a certain capacity, so it’ll be impossible to accumulate all the strongest drifs in a single item. You’ll have to make sure not to exceed the capacity when choosing the modifiers.
This is a response to your and our doubts about developing characters solely with certain effects in mind. This solution should prevent people from creating overpowered characters - accumulating a single effect will not be as effective. However, you’ll still have the possibility to customize your characters with various modifiers. We hope that this change will help with edge cases while encouraging you to experiment with diverse gear choices.
At the moment, we are actively testing the aforementioned mechanics (with our external testers) and adjusting the final values. Of course, at the same time we are working on the other solutions that will be implemented in future updates.
After that, we plan to implement an alternative to the classic upgrading system (items akin to drifs to be placed in additional slots that provide attribute bonuses instead of psychomodifiers), together with starred gear and various features related to it. In the meantime, you’ll also see the announcenced changeable difficulty level of instances where you’ll be able to acquire higher quality gear. Last but not least, we’ll add epics 2.0 and the way to acquire them. As we implement the aforementioned changes, we’ll continue working on things like additional, unique rare properties, mechanics of sets, and high level shop gear.
New instance
The strongest players are probably curious what’s going on with the new, endgame instance. Actually, there’s a lot going on, but… we can’t tell you much, because we don't want to spoil the fun. ;) As we mentioned in January, we took a page from our old idea notebook. We found an area that was just asking to be implemented. Of course, it’ll be improved and modified to meet the needs of the instance, but the initial concept proved to be very inspiring.
As it’s been a long time since we did something completely new, it was a pleasure to participate in a true brainstorm where everyone was throwing ideas about the instance and the boss left and right. Where should it be and how to enter it? What is hidden there and where did it come from? How should it work? We know the answers to all of these questions, but we’d gladly read your theories about them. Perhaps one of you will guess correctly. ;)
Here’s one of the mini-bosses, Hellar:
The instance, of course, will be adjusted for the true endgame. Don’t be deceived by its relatively small size - the boss will not just welcome you with open arms. Before you face it, you’ll have to rack your brains, solve some puzzles, and defeat various opponents. Once you succeed… well, keep your defenses up, the boss won’t go down easily. ;)