๐Progression, Runes & Essences
How it works
Progression is spread out across levels and tiers:
WorldShards is governed by tiers and levels of difficulty. Locations, enemies, loot and player equipment all comes with tiers and levels
Players make their way from tier 1 to tier 4 before advancing to the next level. There are 5 levels in total
Players will be able to select the tier and level of the wild island they wish to explore
The entry cost is a resource (runes) that players must collect in order to push their way into the higher tiers. Wild islands that are level 1 and tier 1 will have no entry cost
As the tiers get higher and higher, players will be expected to dress appropriately to match the intended difficulty. Tools and equipment should be the same level and tier as the wild island in order to experience the content at an intended difficulty. Therefore the spirit of the progression system - to dive into adventures and gather resources that are necessary to craft the next set of equipment that you need in order to complete the next difficulty
We want players to treat tier 1 like a comfortable place which they can enter consistently
We want players to treat tier 4 like a challenge that they have to work towards to enter
Within a level's progression โ players are expected to visit the same tiers multiple times to gather the necessary resources over a period of time
Once a player has conquered the 4th tier a few times - they can progress to the next level
Once at the next level, players will find themselves comfortably farming tier 1 again. At this point, players will take the next step on their journey and start progressing to the subsequent level
Key progression resources:
Runes are used for going to wild islands where players can find a key resource called Essences used for crafting better gear
Players will get runes from defeating enemies, with a general rule that the more difficult an enemy is, the more likely they are to drop more runes
Essences are used for crafting new equipment and upgrading workbenches
Players will get essences from: chests, resource nodes (ore & trees), gatherable items (branches & stones)
There are tier 2, 3 and 4 essences - but no tier 1
For any given difficulty of a wild island, there will be a certain amount of essences that can drop in total
Essences of the same tier and level as the current difficulty of the wild island will drop the most frequently. These essences will be used by players to maintain the equipment necessary for the current difficulty
Essences of a lower or higher tier as the current difficulty of the wild island have a chance to drop but they do so less frequently
The reason for lower tier essences dropping - to reduce the amount of times the player has to return to tier 1 in order to re-craft the previous difficultyโs equipment
The reason for higher tier essences dropping - to allow players to slowly build up the necessary essences for the next difficultyโs equipment
Equipment crafting:
Only the tier 1 level 1 equipment does not require essences to craft, they use only basic resources. Every other tier and level of non-collectible equipment requires their corresponding tier and level of essences to craft
This means that collecting and storing up essences is essential in progressing through the tiers to reach the next level
Collectible equipment works a little differently, they require the previous tierโs essences to craft and upgrade
The reason for this is simple - this makes it easier to farm up the essences required to craft collectible equipment
The crafting cost of collectible items is very high
If these items required their current tierโs essences to craft, crafting a tier 3 or 4 item would take an overwhelming amount of time to gather the necessary essences from the higher difficulty wild islands
Important to note, for level 1 collectible equipment, the tier 1 and tier 2 items cost no essences to craft and only require basic resources
Starting at level 2 and onwards, tier 1 and tier 2 items require the previous levelโs essences to craft
Here is the same information presented in different way
Basic equipment essence crafting table:
Collectible equipment essence crafting table:
We are still fine tuning the system
Rebalanced runes:
We have rebalanced the chance of runes dropping for all enemies
We have rebalanced the amount of runes potentially dropping
There is now a steady and stable minimum yield of runes per wild island
We are removing the chance of no runes dropping when on islands of their corresponding tier and level
Therefore this change means that players will more rarely have to drop down to the previous level
As well as sometimes get lucky and get a boost towards the next wild islandโs rune cost
We are trying to reduce the likelihood of dropping down a level due to bad luck, as long as you play carefully, you should be fine
Rebalanced essences:
The introduction of tier 1 essences will fix the problem with needing to return to the previous levelโs tier 4 difficulty in order to collect the necessary crafting reagents needed to craft tier 2 collectible items
Whereas before players often needed to return to level 1 tier 4 wild islands in order to farm the necessary essences to craft tier 2 collectible items
Now players can comfortably continue travelling to level 2 tier 1 wild islands and collect the tier 1 essences that drop there
Our advice
Venture to a wild island only with the matching equipment
Craft the right equipment in preparation for the next level and tier
This ensures that you will be at the intended difficulty
Dying means suffering a durability loss of 25% on all equipped items. Keep this fact in mind before starting an adventure
Fully clear each wild island
Skipping content like avoiding certain enemies or missing a few resource nodes will prevent you from extracting all the possible runes and essences
The cost in runes to enter a wild island is static, this means that you pay for what you get, failure to extract the full amount of runes or essences will reduce the efficiency of your current run
This is especially true for runes that drop from more difficult foes, as those tend to have better drop rates
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