The launch reception for Brighter Shores, the new free-to-play MMO from original RuneScape creator Andrew Gower, has been mixed but slightly positive, with 3,288 Steam reviews sitting at 67% positive at the time of writing.
One sticking point has been the game's class or profession system, which basically gives you a fresh profession each time you start a new episode of content. This runs counter to the account progression in most MMOs, including the cumulative levels of RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, so Gower himself wrote up a massive Steam blog post explaining the ins, outs, and benefits of this system, as well as how early access player feedback has inspired changes. The headliner, I think, is this subhead: "Please give it a chance."
"First, I would just like to reassure you that your hard work leveling up your professions is definitely NOT wiped, reset or made irrelevant when you go to a new episode!" Gower begins. "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."
It's less of a reset, then, and more of a new beginning, with each episode letting you choose new professions to focus on. Gower says there are a few reasons for this, starting with keeping Brighter Shores fun "for players who want to play the game many hours a day AND for people who might only be able to play a few minutes a day."
"When we introduce new episodes we want them to be fun for everyone," he continues. "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!"
Starting each episode fresh gives everyone a level playing field, prevents the "dead content" caused by a normal rising MMO level cap, and avoids the mundanity of having content scale to your level, Gower reckons. "We have gone with what we call the 'breadth and depth' system," he says. "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."
The breadth comes from how quickly you can access new episodes, and the depth is provided by mastering the professions within those episodes. That includes rotating between the episodes you've unlocked. Gower says "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."
"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 designer continues, asking players to give the system more time to show its strengths. "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!"
Gower isn't insisting that everything is perfect and nothing needs to change, however. Based on the feedback that necessitated a post like this, the folks at developer Fen Research are working on ways to make professions clearer and, seemingly to mesh with the average MMO player's brain, more rewarding.
One change has already been made: your total profession level is now displayed next to your character, reducing the feeling that you've been hit with a soft reset. Gower reckons that the popular suggestion to add content that "relies on multiple combat levels" is "a great idea, and we will definitely be looking to add content of this nature in the future." As it happens, the responses to this Steam post are filled with players pushing for global benefits from professions, with levels in specific Episodes also providing benefits to your entire account.
"We obviously need to better communicate our 'breadth and depth' system," Gower adds. "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!"
