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Brighter Shores Announces Combat Professions Merge

Episode-based combat system makes way for unified progression with new endgame obelisk mechanics

Emilien Lecoffre Posted:
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The developers of Brighter Shores have announced a major revamp of the combat progression system. The update will collate the several episodic combat professions into a single, more cohesive, one in order to ease newer players into the MMORPG and offer a more stable sense of growth between episodes.

The new system will introduce sequential steps of progression, where each episode corresponds to specific level ranges. These go from 0-30 in episode 1 and increase by increments of 30-40 levels per episode. To maintain the balance and prevent the content from becoming obsolete, the maximum level that a player can reach will be capped at the maximum level of his latest discovered episode.

One addition to Brighter Shores will be a new "end game" system of episode-specific obelisks: After a player reaches the level cap of an episode, further experience earned in the zone starts feeding into the local obelisk's level to unlock certain combat bonuses, like higher-level monsters. Each obelisk has a potential gain of 460 to 470 levels, allowing for extra progression at level cap.

It also adds a layer of strategy with the combat upgrade trees, enabling players to choose their own way of improving in specific areas, such as “particular color of damage, or on building a tank or a glass cannon”. Of course, players are always allowed to re-spec these choices for a small fee in silver coins, thus being able to experiment with different combat builds.

Weapons and armor are being adjusted to the new progression system too. Equipment will still have a base level requirement, but weapons will feature a new “tuning level” you can improve by progressing on the obelisk. The crafting will be rebalanced to stay relevant for progression across episodes. Crafted weapons always come untuned (even if they have a tuning level). You'll be able to use untuned weapons, they just won't get a buff from any obelisk until they're tuned.

To address potential balance issues with high-level players returning to earlier content, the developers will be implementing monster level scaling. The monsters will never be more than 10 levels below a player's level, while quest bosses scale to match player levels to ensure consistent challenge across all content.

The update will bring along a conversion system for current combat levels, equipment, and achievements, so the existing players need not worry about losing their advances. Combat capes will be replaced with obelisk capes, leaderboards will be adapted to accommodate the new system wile preserving the relative ranking of the players.

The devs say that these changes are the foundation for future combat improvements, including special attacks, more varied enemies, group combat, and raid content. However, no date has yet been set.


Nephistos

Emilien Lecoffre

Emilien 'Nephistos' has been immersed in MMOs since his early teens on Dofus. Over the past years, he also has been sharing his insights on JeuxOnline, a major French-language MMO sites. While he keeps a keen eye on all market offerings, his true passion lies in RvR and mass PvP.