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Christmas 2024 Event

Christmas has arrived in Brighter Shores! Christmas themed hats in a variety of styles and colors will be given to you randomly as you play the game and earn XP. There are 20 different hats to collect.

To make it a easier to find the hat you want, or complete your collection, you can swap Christmas hats with other players. Click on a player in 'Nearby Players' to offer to swap the hat you are wearing with the hat they are wearing.

This event will end in early January, after which it will never be possible to collect these hats again, so you can use them to prove you were there for the first ever Brighter Shores Christmas.

Per episode combat professions

Introduction

One aspect of Brighter Shores' design which has resulted in a lot of discussion has been our decision to have a separate combat profession per episode, so I thought I should explain our reasoning for this, and our planned changes in response to player feedback.

First, I would just like to reassure you that your hard work levelling up your professions is definitely NOT wiped, reset or made irrelevant when you go to a new episode!

When you reach episode 2, Hopeforest, four new professions are introduced: Scout, Woodcutter, Gatherer, and Carpenter.

Your existing episode 1 professions remain untouched and are still useful anytime you are in Hopeport. You will find that you still regularly go back to Hopeport and use and further progress those professions. However, whilst you are in Hopeforest you will predominantly be relying on your Hopeforest professions, which can feel a bit strange to start with.

The reason for this design

We have designed Brighter Shores to be enjoyable both for players who want to play the game many hours a day AND for people who might only be able to a play a few minutes a day. This means that, in the future, some players will be a much higher level than others!

However, when we introduce new episodes we want them to be fun for everyone. But if there was a single combat profession across the whole game, and the monsters in episode 5 started at level 100 for example, then all the players who play a lot would already be a way higher level than that. They would find it way too easy, skipping past a huge chunk of the start of the episode, and then find that they don't have much to do. Conversely, all of the players who only play a little would find it way too hard and wouldn't be able to take part in episode 5 at all!

Some games try to solve this problem by having a level cap to stop people being too high. This cap is increased each update, and they then 'accelerate' all characters up to the level of the latest content to stop people being too low. But this means every update results in a huge amount of 'dead content', and accelerating new players undermines the achievements of existing players. It also means people spend a long time stuck at a level cap with no further levelling possible.

Other games try to solve this problem by making the content in the game 'autoscale' based on a player's level rather than having a fixed level. But we don't like this as it means levelling up doesn't actually achieve anything or unlock any new content.

Therefore, we have designed Brighter Shores in a different way. We have gone with what we call the 'breadth and depth' system. It is NOT intended that you first 'finish' episode 1, then go on to episode 2 and never go back to episode 1 ever again.

Instead, it is relatively easy to progress to each new episode (breadth), but even when you have reached the latest episode you are nowhere near finished. Instead, you can at any time choose any of the episodes you have unlocked and continue to level up further in that episode (depth). Each episode also has harder 'side quests' for this purpose. These side quests are intended for the players who want to put in more hours, and give a further reason to keep levelling up your professions in earlier episodes. Over time, we plan to add even higher level side quests, so that your Hopeport guard level will keep being useful for a long time! The difficulty of a side quest is indicated by its number of stars.

The episodes are also heavily interlinked, so you will regularly find yourself going back and forth between them. For example: You might use your episode 3 combat to kill some monsters for potion reagents. You might then take these reagents back to episode 1 to make some potions, which you then use in episode 4. Once you reach episode 3, you can also start making your own weapons which you can 'tune' for use in ANY of episodes 1 to 4, further interlinking the back and forth between the episodes, and allowing you to rapidly gear up in episode 4.

Please give it a chance

I should also mention that all of our testing has shown that, once you get used to it, unlocking a fresh combat profession once in a while actually becomes quite fun. The earliest levels of the professions are generally the most fun as you level up much more quickly, and it's all new and fresh. We want people to be able to get that 'new and fresh' feeling each time we launch a new episode, rather than only getting it when they first start playing the game and never ever again! The first time you enter each episode you will probably start by 'gearing up' and getting a full set of armor and weapons, which is more rapidly rewarding than the incremental improvements once you have a full set of rare/epic gear.

If you still don't like the idea of multiple combat professions, you can of course always pick an episode you like and predominantly stick to doing combat in that one episode. When we add leaderboards, we expect that choosing a profession or episode to focus on to get to the top of that profession/episode's leaderboard will be a common strategy.

What are we going to change?

Based on the feedback of those who find the reduced prominence of their Hopeport professions whilst in Hopeforest disconcerting, we are proposing to make a few changes:

1) We have already made the first change! We have now changed the level shown next to your character name to be your TOTAL level across all professions in all episodes. This means that it doesn't disconcertingly jump back to a 0 whilst you are in Hopeforest, and better emphasizes that nothing has been reset and that all of your earlier progress is still relevant.

2) We saw a player suggestion that we could add some special content that relies on MULTIPLE combat levels to complete. For example, a boss monster that you need to be both a high level guard AND a high level scout to defeat. We think that this is a great idea, and we will definitely be looking to add content of this nature in the future.

3) We obviously need to better communicate our 'breadth and depth' system. Not only are people left thinking that once they move on to episode 2 their guard skill will be forever useless (it really won't!), but some people are also trying to complete ALL of the episode 1 side quests before even starting episode 2 and then finding it too grindy! This post is a first step towards solving this, but we also need to find a way to better communicate this in game! We are open to suggestions on this one!

  • One thing I plan on doing is showing the 'difficulty' rating on the main quest as well as the side quests, so you can see that carrying on with the main quest first is easier than doing the side quests.
  • Perhaps 'episode' isn't the clearest word to describe the different sections of the game? I could change it to 'area' or 'zone'?, but I'm not sure, as I liked emphasizing the episodic nature of the plot.

Conclusion

Hopefully this makes this things a lot clearer. Being able to add new episodes to the game that everyone can enjoy and without resulting in loads of 'dead content' is very important! We think our 'breadth and depth' design achieves this, but perhaps we didn't explain it very well!

Plan to merge the combat professions

Background

We are planning on making some changes to how combat progression works in Brighter Shores.

We know that changing a core system can be controversial, but having per episode combat professions is putting off new players.

It has been very challenging to design a new system which allows for a single combat profession, but still allows us to release the game in an episodic form which doesn't result in out-of-reach content, or dead content.

After spending many days considering a huge number of different ideas, we have decided on a small number of changes to combat progression.

This isn't set in stone, as it may change if we find problems whilst implementing it, but this is the plan currently:

1) There will be single combat profession shared across all episodes

The monsters in the early episodes will be low level, and as you progress through the episodes the level of the monsters will slowly increase.

We clearly can't make the monster levels increase by 500 each episode, that would make the game way too difficult! The base monsters in episode 1 will be level 0-30 The base monsters in episode 2 will be level 30-60 The base monsters in episode 3 will be level 60-100 The base monsters in episode 4 will be level 100-140 Each episode beyond 4 will add another 40 levels of combat.

Don't worry if your total combat level is already greater than 140, we aren't going to wipe out or devalue your hard work. Read this entire document before panicing :P

An advantage of making the combat run sequentially across the episodes as described above, is that it means if you progress without using the 'end game' mechanic (described below), you will only fight the first skin of each monster.

To ensure that players who play a lot aren't massively overpowered by the time they reach a later episode, your maximum combat level will be capped at the top level of the latest episode you have discovered. This way when we launch episode 5 a reasonable number of people will have reached the level 140 maximum that episode 5 will be designed to start at, and there also won't be loads of overpowered players.

Each time we release a new episode the maximum combat level will increase by another 40, so eventually the combat level cap will be very high.

'End game' mechanic

However in the meantime we don't want players to 'run out' of combat, so once you have reached the combat level cap of the current episode, we will have an 'end game' mechanic, where excess combat levels will instead be used to increase the level of that episode's obelisk.

Levelling up an obelisk causes the obelisk to further boost your combat whilst you are in the same episode as the obelisk.

Furthermore, as you level up the obelisk, a small number of the available upgrades will still apply whilst you are in the NEXT episode. This allows you to do some preparation for the next episode ahead of time.

The episode 1 obelisk will be able to gain up to 470 levels, the episode 2 obelisk can also gain 470 levels, and each subsequent obelisk can gain up to 460 levels. This way the total levels per episode remains the same.

Levelling up the obelisk will also allow you to optionally advance the monsters in the matching episode to their next (higher level) skin. i.e you will be able to advance the monsters in episode 1 to be higher than their base 0-30 level to unlock higher XP rates.

Weapons and armor

Weapons and armor will work in a similar way. Each weapon/armor will have a base level. Your player's combat level must be at least as high as the weapon's level to wield it. The monsters in episode 1 will drop level 0-30 weapons, the monsters in episode 2 will drop level 30-60 weapons, etc...

Furthermore if you have advanced the monsters to a higher level skin, using the 'end game' mechanic, those monsters will start dropping weapons with an additional 'tuning' level. Weapons with a tuning level are boosted by the obelisk they are tuned to. If a weapon has a tuning level then you will ALSO need to have upgraded the 'weapon/armor proficiency' (see 'upgrade tree' section below) of the applicable obelisk to wield it.

Weapon crafting

When crafting weapons in the Mine of Mantuban. The maximum level of weapon you can craft = crafting level + 60. So to craft a level 100 Cryoknight weapon suitable for use in Crenopolis you will need to be a level 40 blacksmith. If you level up your crafting profession further, then you will be able to craft weapons which ALSO have a higher 'tuning level' (see description above).

Note: compared to currently:

  • It will be easier to craft weapons which are relevant for episode 1 & 2 (because you can craft level 60 weapons straight away).
  • It will be about the same to craft weapons which are relevant for episode 3 (the weapons you initially craft, are just good enough for use in the mine).
  • It will be harder to craft weapons which are relevant for episode 4 & 5 (to craft weapons good enough for use in these episodes you will need to level up your crafting a bit first).

Crafted weapons are always untuned initially (even if they have a tuning level) and so can still be tuned to an obelisk of your choice, and can still be infused to make epics.

You WILL be able to wield untuned weapons, they just won't gain a boost from any obelisk until tuned.

Because this will allow you to craft weapons with a higher level than your crafting level, the price of crafted weapons will need to be balanced accordingly, so the wealth gain at each level of crafting remains the same as currently. However we also want the wealth gain from killing monsters at each combat level to remain the same! To fix this, untuned weapons (i.e which you craft) will have a lower cash value than tuned weapons (i.e which monsters drop), and you will have to pay the cash difference to tune them.

Level scaling

As we launch later episodes, with their higher level caps and higher level weapons, players will be able to bring those higher levels and weapons back to the earlier episodes. If we aren't careful they will be able to complete the end game content and side quests of those earlier episodes far too easily, which would result in 'dead' content and dilutes the achievements of players who did it the hard way. (before the later episode was launched).

To stop this from happening, we plan to add some limited monster level scaling. If you are more than 10 levels stronger than a monster, the monster will increase its level (without changing its skin), so it is never less than 10 levels below you. It will still be an easy kill, but won't be so fast as to unbalance the game.

For quest boss monsters we will cap them to never be weaker than you. This way they always represent something of a challenge, even if you come back and do the side quests after doing lots of later episodes.

This also means we will no longer need the 'easy combat' penalty when fighting low level monsters.

2) We are going to introduce combat 'upgrade trees'

Unlike every other profession in the game, leveling up combat already does more than just unlock new activities, it actually gives many different upgrades:

  • It increases the level of weapon you can wield (weapon proficiency).
  • It increases the level of armor you can wield (armor proficiency).
  • It increases your base maxhit (in all 6 colors).
  • It increases your base damage deflection (in all 6 colors).
  • It increases your maximum hitpoints.
  • It unlocks higher level monster skins (new activities).

Rather than giving you a little bit of each upgrade when you level up, we are going to introduce 'upgrade trees' which allows you to CHOOSE which upgrade you want each time you level up. So if you want to focus on a particular color of damage, or on building a tank or a glass cannon you can. Because each upgrade will only upgrade a single stat, the upgrade will be able to grant a much greater increase in that single stat, so will make more of a noticeable difference.

There will be a 'character' upgrade tree, which unlocks upgrades as you increase your combat level.

In addition each obelisk will also have an upgrade tree, which unlocks as you level up that obelisk.

This is just a mockup with randomly placed upgrades. The arrangement of the upgrades will differ in the final version.

In addition to the existing upgrades listed above, there are all sorts of other upgrades we can put on the upgrade trees to make them more interesting, ideas we are considering include:

  • Increasing your hitpoint regeneration speed.
  • Increasing your off-faction weapon/armor proficiency (at a lower rate) so you can wield off-faction items.
  • Increasing how fast you can move during combat.
  • Increasing maximum ammo.
  • Increasing immunity cast speed.
  • Unlocking/improving special attacks.

etc...

There will also be a few 'bonus' upgrades in the upgrade tree which are better, and so you are incentivized to build a path towards, including:

  • Upgrades which gives double the boost in the relevant stat.
  • Obelisk upgrades which boost the stat in both the obelisk episode, AND the next episode.

You will be able to 'respec' your character upgrade tree and obelisk upgrade trees at any time (for some silver coins), but you will not be able to transfer levels between upgrade trees.

3) Existing save games conversion

When updating existing save games made prior to this update:

For each 'per episode' combat level you have: Levels up to the level cap for that episode will be assigned to your combat level, and any excess levels will automatically be assigned to the corresponding obelisk level.

Existing weapons will be converted in a similar way. Each weapon will be given a level + tuning level which together sum to the same level that the weapon had prior to the update. Levels up to the level cap for the weapon's episode will go into the weapon level, and the remaining levels will go into the tuning level.

The combat capes will be replaced with 'obelisk' capes. The total level requirement will be equivalent to before. For example: The first episode 1 obelisk cape will unlock when the episode 1 obelisk reaches level 20 (because 30 combat levels + 20 obelisk levels is equivalent to it's current level 50 requirement).

So you don't have to choose a huge number of upgrades at once when you first login after the update, we will automatically choose upgrades which upgrade your stats as evenly as possible, such that your overall power remains the same as before the update. However we will allow free respecs for the first few weeks, so you can experiment with different builds.

The existing 'per episode' combat level leaderboards will be replaced with per obelisk level leaderboards. This means that players at the top of those leaderboards will retain their top ranking.

We will introduce a new 'combat level' leaderboard which is ranked based on the new combined combat level.

Obelisk levels WILL count towards your total level, so your total level, and your position on the total level leaderboard, will not change.

4) The future

Beyond this first batch of improvements, we also want to make lots of other improvements to combat to make it more varied and interesting.

Including special attacks, more varied opponents, group combat, raids, etc...

But we want to tackle the 'multiple combat professions' complaint first.

Plan to merge the combat professions - progress update

Background

We have been working hard on implementing our plan to merge the combat professions, but we couldn't overcome the feeling that it was rather over-complicated compared to the live game.

Other problems with the original plan included:

  • Having 2 different levels (combat + obelisk), meant you regularly had to add the two numbers together to work out your strength relative to a particular foe. We tried various solutions to this, but they all resulted in either important information being hidden, or a confusing quantity of numbers being displayed at once.
  • Passive combat foes had to be split between foes which were used to level combat, and foes which were used to level each obelisk. This felt very artificial.
  • It didn't 100% solve the feeling of having to 'restart' combat when you enter a new episode, as you only got to carry across your combat level, not your obelisk level.


We just weren't happy with it, so we decided to take a fresh look at the problem. We finally came up with the crucial component we were previously missing (personalized striping!). This was the key to unlocking the straightforward single combat profession which lots of players (including us!) wanted all along. But without running into problems when we add new episodes.

We have already made significant progress in implementing this new plan, and we are hoping to launch it very soon.

For further information on the new plan, read on.

1) There will be single combat profession shared across all episodes

There will be a single global combat profession. There will be no episodical combat professions and no obelisk levels.

The combat profession will initially go up to level 2000, reflecting 500 levels for each of the 4 launched episodes.

  • Maxing out your combat will require the same amount of effort as before. I.e. reaching the new combat level 2000 takes the same time as reaching episodical combat 500 in all 4 episodes.
  • The combat profession level cap will increase by 500 each time we launch a new episode.

The leveling up is 'striped' across all the launched episodes. You will fight all the skin 1 foes in all episodes, then you will go back to episode 1 to fight the skin 2 foes, etc... This means as you level up your combat profession and complete the main story quest, you will fight foes in each episode in turn.

When we launch a new episode, that episode's combat foes will be inserted into the striping. Inserting the foes like this (rather than just adding them all to the end), ensures new players can experience combat in the new episode without having to reach combat level 2000 first.

To help explain this, here is an example of how the striping would work. If only episodes 1 and 2 were launched, the striping would look like this:

If we then launched episode 3, the striping would be updated to look like this. As you can see the episode 3 foes have been inserted into the striping, which will mean the level of all skin 2+ foes in episodes 1 and 2 will increase.

Personalized striping

This insertion of foes when we launch a new episode, would cause two undesired effects:

  • There may be some foes in the new episode which you have surpassed in combat level already, meaning you would never get to fight them.
  • There may be some foes in existing episodes that you previously surpassed in combat level, that you would now have to fight again (due to their level increasing).

To resolve this, we will personalize the striping based on your combat level at the time the episode is launched, as follows:

  • No new foes will be inserted at a level the player has already surpassed. They will instead be inserted such that their combat level is just ahead of the player's combat level.
  • No foe you have already surpassed will change in level, so you do not need to fight it again.

This plan ensures that every player, whatever their combat level, gets to experience all the foes in the new episode, and does not have to revisit foes they have previously surpassed.

Using the same scenario as above, where only episodes 1 and 2 are launched, and you have surpassed all the skin 1 and skin 2 foes of episodes 1 and 2 (as indicated by the dashed line). Here is what the striping looks like BEFORE episode 3 is launched:

AFTER episode 3 is launched, the striping would be updated to look like this. As you can see the skin 1 and skin 2 foes (those before the dashed line) remain unchanged. The skin 1 foes from episode 3 have instead been inserted immediately after the dashed line.

Quest boss foes

The level of a boss foe will always be a fixed number of levels above the weakest foe in the same episode. The exact number of levels will depend on the difficulty of the boss. Because the level of the weakest foe in the episode is personalized, this means the boss foe levels are also personalized. This ensures that when a new episode is launched, the level of all new boss foes in that episode will always be an appropriate amount ahead of your level.

Free players

We will also personalize the striping based on if you have an active premium pass or not.

If you do not have a premium pass, the striping will only include episode 1 and 2, meaning it will look exactly like the first example above.

When you first purchase a premium pass, we will insert all the premium pass episodes, using the same mechanism as when we launch new episodes. The same personalized striping will be used to ensure no premium foes are missed and no free foes are revisited.

When your premium pass expires, we revert to the free player stripping described above, but we will also remember your premium pass striping. If you renew your premium pass, we will revert to that stored premium pass striping.

The combat level cap if you do not have an active premium pass will be 1000, as you only have access to 2 episodes. If you are over level 1000 when your premium pass expires, you will be unable to level up combat further until you purchase a new premium pass.

The combat level cap if you have not chosen a faction will remain at 50.

Weapons and armor

Weapons and armor can now be used across all episodes. They no longer need to be tuned to an episode. Rare weapons and armor can still be infused together to create epics.

Foes will drop weapons and armor up to their level (as they do now).

Weapon crafting

When crafting weapons in the Mine of Mantuban, the maximum level of weapon you can craft is 'crafting level x5'. This means the maximum theoretical weapon you can craft is level 2500. You will therefore be able to craft weapons suitable for all of episodes 1 to 5 using the weapon crafting professions in the Mine of Mantuban. We have a plan for how you will craft weapons suitable for episodes 6 and beyond, which will be revealed when we launch episode 6. This plan will NOT devalue your Mine of Mantuban crafting professions.

The price of crafted weapons will need to be rebalanced, so that despite the new x5 multiplier, the wealth gain at each level of crafting remains the same as currently. However, we also need to make sure the wealth gain at each level of combat remains the same as currently. To achieve this, crafted weapons will have a different cash value than combat dropped weapons of the same level. Crafted weapons will be indicated by a new icon so you can distinguish them when trading.

Obelisks

Obelisks will no longer be used for tuning, or for infusing. Instead obelisks will now be used to enchant profession equipment. You may take profession equipment to the obelisk in the matching episode to enchant it. The 'Obelisk' quest will be very slightly modified to introduce enchanting instead of tuning.

The Enchantress will relocate to the Mine of Manutuban and become the Infusionist. The 'Lost and Found' quest will be very slightly modified, so you have to help the Infusionist (instead of Dabble) to unlock infusing.

Crime den raids

The foes in crime den raids can no longer just match the detective level of the crime den itself, as they would be very under-leveled compared to your combat level by the time you reach episode 4.

To solve this: The level of a foe in a crime den will be set to the level of the crime den, plus the level of the weakest foe in episode 4.

Because the level of the weakest foe in episode 4 is personalized, the crime den foes will also be personalized.

Potion reagents

Currently, most foes in the Mine of Mantuban drop potion reagents, with higher level foes dropping higher level reagents. This is the only way of obtaining those reagents (outside of purchasing them). However, with the foes being striped across episodes, the skin 2+ foes become much higher level than currently, and become even higher each time we launch a new episode. This would in turn make it much harder to obtain the higher level reagents than it is currently.

To avoid this we will:

  • Make it so all combat dropped potion reagents can be gained from skin 1+ foes. (i.e. none of them are exclusive to skin 2+ foes.)
  • This means for some of the reagents, we will need to change which foe drops the reagent. Those reagents will be re-themed to match the new foe which drops them.

Leather offcuts

Some foes in episode 4 drop leather offcuts, which has the same problem as potion reagents.

To solve this, we will:

  • Change brown leather offcuts to be dropped by skin 1+ foes (i.e. none of them are exclusive to skin 2+ foes.) This means they will need to be dropped by 4 different foes.
  • Change black leather offcuts to be obtained from merchanting, like many of the existing leather offcuts. This will involve some slight adjustments to the level of some of the passive merchanting activities.

Capes

The graphics drawn for the episodical combat capes will be reused for new 'episode capes'. An episode cape can be unlocked by reaching a certain level in EVERY profession in that episode. For example, to obtain the level 50 Hopeport cape you will need to reach level 50 in every profession in Hopeport.

We will create new combat capes. Each combat cape will be unlocked by reaching a certain combat level. There will initially be combat capes at combat levels: 50, 100, 200, 500, 625, 750, 875, 1000, 1125, 1250, 1375, 1500, 1625, 1750, 1875 and 2000.

2. Save game conversion

Combat level

Your new global combat level will be calculated by taking into account how much time it takes (on average) to reach the level you have achieved in each of the episodical combat professions. We cannot make it just the total of all your episodical combat professions, as that would not be fair to all players, because some levels take longer to get than others.

This means your total level will change when we launch the update, but we think this is fairer than ignoring the difficulty of the levels.

Your combat level will not contribute to any episode level (as it does not belong to any specific episode). Your episode levels will therefore go down accordingly.

Leaderboards

Once combat is combined, there will only be a single combat leaderboard.

We will preserve the existing episodical combat leaderboards as 'legacy leaderboards', which never change going forward. These will become a little bit of Brighter Shores history.

The episode level leaderboards will be updated using your new updated episode levels. Rest assured that if you had previously reached the maximum episode level, you will still be at the new maximum episode level, and you will still retain your top ranking.

Old episodical combat capes

Old episodical combat capes will be refunded at the original purchase price, so you can choose to use the money to either buy an episode cape, or a new combat cape.

Weapons and armor

Existing weapon/armor levels will be scaled up to match the new combat level scale using the following equation: new_weapon_level = old_weapon_level + (new_combined_combat_level - the_highest_of_your_previous_episodical_combat_levels) This means your 'best' equipment which is at or near your combat level, will remain at or near your new combined combat level.

Weapons and armor which were previously tuned will become 'combat dropped' items. Weapon and armor which were previously untuned will become 'crafted' items.

3. Combat Rework Phase 2 - Upgrade trees

The 'upgrade tree' phase of the combat rework, is largely unchanged from our previous blog post, and is still planned. We will launch the 1st phase of the combat rework (a single combined combat profession) first, before starting work on the 2nd phase (upgrade trees).