Fringes, Loot, and Gear!

Hi folks!

With much of the elemental calamity stabilised (for now… the story is not over), the Fringes are now fully unleashed upon the world!

Much like the Lupine Hunting Grounds, the Fringes are designed to provide additional high-end PvE content in an area without Open PK. Most of the creatures here boast new tactics and unique behaviours that interact and synergise with one another. You’ll want to remain on your toes and alert to succeed in these Elemental borderlands. Some content still remains to be revealed as the soldiers of the Prime work to fully stabilise these locations, including new group-oriented bosses with a total of 10[0;1;37m*[0;37m new honours lines to be discovered and earned.

* Seven entirely new, and three returning from recent events.

Alongside these new areas comes the much-anticipated first system release of the new administration: [0;1;37mThe Gear System[0;37m!

For those who have not seen my previews on Discord: Gear is specialist equipment obtained from and designed for hunting and use in PvE. The items are in many ways similar to artefacts, with each piece conveying a distinct effect when equipped and some combining into full sets that have their own powerful bonuses.

As of the current first-phase release, we have about four hundred unique items and thirteen unique sets, with more planned! You can expect to find a number of interesting effects available as well as damage buffs, resistance buffs, resistance debuffs on enemies, and defensive effects, to name just a few. You may also find gear that is tailored to be stronger against certain mob types, only take effect in certain environments or areas, battlerage-impacting effects, powers that only activate based on your stored battlerage, and more.

Gear is acquired primarily through hunting. Virtually every area in the game has a chance to drop gear when the denizens are slain, with themed set gear being obtainable only from the plane, region, or area(s) associated with the sets, and more broad (and consequently less powerful) adventurer and explorer equipment available almost everywhere you can think of.

We will be monitoring drop rates closely over the coming days and weeks and making adjustments where appropriate, but our aim with this system is for it to be something everyone with even a passing interest in bashing can take advantage of.

Some high end quests will now also offer gear as an additional reward, as will taking on Achaea’s most fearsome challenges. We also plan to feature this system in future events and storylines, as circumstances allow.

[0;1;37mHELP GEAR[0;37m and [0;1;37mHELP GEAR TRADING[0;37m contain a more detailed overview of the system, but there are some things I want to highlight in particular:

– These are not “real” items, which means they won’t bloat your inventory or cause nightmares of item management. They are their own fully independent system.
– Gear pieces are assigned to certain slots, and you can only equip one piece per slot. The current slots are: head, chest, hands, feet, and trinket.
– Newbie areas do not drop gear pieces by design to prevent overwhelming new players with even more systems. Areas beyond the designated newbie zones, however, do.
– Forays (including their bosses) also do not drop gear, for now.
– All gear decays over time, with the lifespan of any given piece semi-random (within a range) and increased by its rarity (see the HELP for specifics here).
– Gear can be traded, using a brand new interface and method outlined in HELP GEAR TRADING.
– This decay time cannot be averted entirely, but can be restored provided you have some arcane ephemera (see below).
– Ephemera is obtained from scrapping pieces of gear (the amount depends on the life left on the piece) and can be used by Armoursmithing or Augmentation to restore or transform a gear piece.
– You can only have up to 999 ephemera at any given time.
– Gear can also be transformed to reroll the effect into another from those available within its set and slot. In cases where the same affix is rolled as the original, the magnitude will still be generated fresh.
– Restoration and Transformation share charges, and a piece can be adjusted up to three times.
– Restoration and Transformation can both be done as part of a trade negotiation, allowing someone to adjust your gear for you at a cost of ephemera (and whatever other price they may impose).
– Gear will not be enabled for XPEVENT participants in the next Championship Games, but we will review this after those games (they are still quite a bit off yet, but creeping up…).

Naturally, this is a brand new system with a lot of moving parts. We’ve created [0;1;37mGEARBUG[0;37m to directly report gear-related issues, so please bug anything that looks odd or unintentional ASAP. I’ve also created a dedicated gear thread on the Achaea Discord for discussion and feedback.

Enjoy!

Penned by My hand on the 20th of Sarapin, in the year 982 AF.