Greetings, friends! Project Director Luke here. Today, we’re going to get into detail about the new Armory, including how weapons and weapon loadouts work in the next big update to MythForce. Last time we talked about how a character’s power level increases during play, but that’s only one part of the equation. The next step is getting the right gear.

As usual, before we talk about how we’re changing gear, let’s talk about why.

This change is perhaps one of the most contentious we’re making. A number of players are big fans of the “looter shooter” style weapon-scavenging that was a part of MythForce. Enemies dropped their weapons when defeated, and players could also find weapons scattered around the world. After each battle, players would scour the battlefield looking to “trade up” to a superior weapon.

Even if objectively more powerful, however, many of the weapons found in the dungeon would be perceived as a side-grade at best. Entire runs through the dungeon could see players coming up against Beastor with a Level 4 uncommon weapon because they never found another with the Enchantment they wanted.

What’s more, as mentioned in Devblog 3: Metagaming, even if players found a weapon that had both a higher level and the desired Enchantment, if it wasn’t the type of weapon they wanted, they weren’t changing weapon types. Instead, players kept using the same weapons they started the adventure with or found early enough to support creating a build around it.

The “scavenging phase” of gameplay also introduced a lot of unnecessary friction to the adventure, since the game ground to a halt while each player inspected each piece of fallen loot to see whether it was something they wanted. In worst-case scenarios, players could end up spending as much time scavenging as they did fighting.

We wanted to reduce that friction while giving players a more fun experience powering-up weapons throughout the mission. We found that it’s more fun to customize a weapon’s power progression than to get that rare spike of adrenaline when finding a piece of gear that looks useful.

So, how do we reduce time-wasting scavenging and improve the experience of getting better gear throughout the adventure?

That’s where Sir Lucien steps in. Coming out of retirement after Victoria surrendered her position to form MythForce, Lucien serves as both the acting Captain of the Royal Guard of Solaire and the Master of Arms. From the Armory, he provides MythForce with weapons and upgrades to take into battle.

Before embarking on any journey into the Cursed lands, players can select which weapons to take into battle from their available loadouts. Each hero has a choice of weapon sets and may take any two sets into battle. Players can swap sets at any time during combat, but they can change their weapon set loadout only between missions.

A weapon set can be one two-handed item—like a spellbook, greatsword, or bow—or paired equipment—like a mace & shield or a sword & dagger.

At the beginning of the game, players have only two sets automatically equipped to their loadout, but they can unlock more weapon sets by upgrading the Armory. Beyond unlocking new types of weapons, upgrading the Armory also grants the ability to increase the rarity of weapon sets. Each set has four tiers of rarity corresponding to the total potential power of that weapon set during your delve into the dungeon.

As a reward for completing a dungeon room with a combat encounter, players may encounter a Mystic Forge. Using the Forge increases the level of your equipped weapon sets and provides an opportunity to select from a set of Enchantments to apply—just like choosing a Perk, but for your equipment. Every Enchantment is permanently applied to that weapon until the end of the run, with the exception of some mutually exclusive Enchantments.

Each weapon Enchantment also has rarity tiers. The higher the rarity of your weapon, the higher the rarity of Enchantment that can be applied to your weapon, leading to more and more powerful Enchantments.

This new approach to gear ends the slowdown caused by scouring the battlefield for weapons and puts the focus on fighting the hordes of the Cursed Lands. With Sir Lucien’s help at the Armory, and through using Mystic Forges in the dungeon, players can improve both the selection of gear and the way weapons grow in power over time to help you in your fight to defeat Deadalus.

Next time, we’ll talk about the Conclave, where Sylvia the Weaver helps expand your pool of Perks, and how Perks will change during your adventures.