Crafting Follower Information

Official News
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Hey everyone,

We wanted to create a small thread just to share what information I have about the upcoming further gear rework and follower updates.

We will be making changes specifically to the crafting followers Toragon, Gemka and Soulchaser in 3.1.5 as these are currently the highest priority given that their abilities and UI were designed with the old Gear System in mind.

These changes will allow players to have more control over the things they can currently do, such as crafting, rerolling attributes and changing elements.

Until we’re ready to release the full details of the changes and flows to you, there’s a limit to how much we can share, but to give you an idea for now, our aims are:

  • To update and expand the Follower Gear Crafting so that it makes sense within, and responds to, the changes made in the Gear Rework
    • Things such as being able to move Gear from one Rarity to another is an obvious agenda item here and can fit neatly into this system
  • In addition to the above, make sure that everything the Gear Crafting Followers currently do can still be done, or that those things are done better/more sensibly
  • To update the Crafting UI as it is quite clunky at the moment and would only get more clunky if it needed to handle everything it will need to

We will be writing a deep dive blog post about these new Crafting Follower features, and include more or less everything we can about how it works, resource costs, etc., Our target for sharing this with you all is the 2nd week in May (around the 14th-ish AEST), if not sooner.

Please hold off on any questions or feedback on these changes until we can share that blog, as this is everything I can share at the moment.

As always, we appreciate your patience as we read through your deeply passionate and constructive feedback since the Gear Rework was first released.

There wouldn’t be an Etheria, if there weren’t its wonderful Adventurers. :sparkles:

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Wait is that going to be in the next season or undetermined?

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This is in 3.1.5, so shortly after 3.1 releases

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Lol @kenpo straight to the questions :rofl:, well this gives some of us who quit the game some hope i guess, i will be keen to reinstall the game to see how these work out. The whole being unable to upgrade rarity was not a good idea imo and took a lot of fun out of the game for me.

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Is this an alternative way of saying “being able to upgrade Gear again” ?

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Thanks for keeping us up to date @Jeto; we appreciate it!

Hopefully “agenda item” isn’t a euphemism but means “we’ll actually do it”, and hopefully the capability is restored in a viable and meaningful way.

A lot of customers will be looking to see which directions are chosen!

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And, everyone, she did say “hold off on any questions” since she can’t say anything else … Let’s not pester her for more.

Looks like this is all we’re going to hear on the issue for the next month.

Those of us in a “holding pattern” (either still playing low-key or now watching from ‘outside’) – and I know there are a fair number – will just have to wait to see what gets announced in May: whether it restores the gear-improving-to-mythic mechanism robustly enough (if at all) to win us back.

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That’s how I read it. Maybe it will be a follower ability, which would mean even more crystals to find.

Personally I think the relevant shards would make more sense as they’re worthless if your scrolls are L50.

Or aether.

Or both.

Or glyphs?

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My guess is follower crystals or aether or both.

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Let’s hope not follower crystals. That would be a big mistake.

The loss of the ability to improve gear quality especially affects “mid” gamers; those who have figured out their way around the game, decided they like it, and are trying to advance.

Putting it back in makes financial sense because you want to encourage as many players as possible to find they enjoy the game mechanics and stick around, to be come longer-term, paying customers.

If you make gear upgrades require follower crystals, however, then you’ve isolated the gear-updating mechanic for end gamers.

E.g., I started playing not quite a year ago, and only this week did I get a crafting follower (Toragon) up to level 50. All my other crafters can’t yet advance even to level 45 (where the real costs of crystals begins.)

Charging post-50 follower crystals to upgrade will put any “gear improvement” out of reach for any but end-game players, which rather defeats the purpose of enticing customers.

E.g., if I’d only been able to upgrade items towards mythic through level 50 followers, I’d never have bothered sticking with the game for more than a month or two (i.e. once the novelty wore off and I realized how distant such a goal was.)

Granted, a few new players might, under that putative system, be inspired to work towards the goal. But better psychology is to give customers a “taste” of what’s available and then have flash offers or whatnot give the possibility of paying money to do so quicker.

Thus, it makes much more sense to charge only aether for the progression of common → mythic and then, e.g., have flash or store sales where $ or crowns will get you more aether.

Better yet - from the company’s financial perspective at least - allow stepwise upgrading of gear for just aether (e.g. through an expanded honing mechanism) and then allow a quicker route involving followers (e.g. a level 50 toragon can craft a mythic piece for a specific slot and set by paying 1 toragon crystal and X aether) that’s available to “higher level” (and especially paying) customers.

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