Hi, I’m Alex Kende, a designer working on gear and resources, including their upcoming reworks on November 30. I’d like to take this moment to explain in detail what changes we will be implementing.

Perks Rework

There are several changes to gear we will be introducing in patch 2.2 on November 30.

Several improvements to Hero gear have been made to make those rewards a bit more appealing when compared to normal gear. Whether this is fixing bugs with Perks, or rearranging Perks, we wanted to offer more options to players looking for more variety in builds.

Due to community feedback, we have also added Status effects to gear for Heroes who are currently missing them. All of them. Every single one.

That means Hulk will have Cryo Perks, Ms. Marvel will have Plasma Perks, and Iron Man will have Shock Perks for his weapons. These Perks will be added to either Specialty gear from Vendors, Omega gear (for Hulk), or Hivemind gear.

We have also updated the rewards for Omega Level Threat: Family Reunion. We’ve heard the feedback that you want less variance in stat rolls for Omega gear and want more opportunities to get them. Rather than remove Perks to address one of these issues, we have made the mission drop Omega gear for every completion. This gear will not improve a Hero’s Power Level, but it will provide more chances to get a roll players want. We have removed the Minor Artifact awarded and replaced it with Fragments as a part for the Resource rework we’ll talk about below.

There’s also a chance for an additional JARVIS or other set gear to drop in case you wanted another source of that.

Furthermore, due to feedback and internal testing, several Perks have been updated where the specific trigger plays a bigger factor on the percent chance of a Perk activating.

For example, the trigger of “being damaged” which is a passive, very easy event, has a lower base chance to activate the buff or perk it’s on. Perks focused on defeating an enemy under a certain Status effect have been increased to be the second highest based percentage right behind teammate revival due to these triggers being more difficult to achieve.

This is of course all affected by Proficiency and older gear that rolled with a higher percent chance will retain its value until it is upgraded. Once upgraded, it will have the newer value.

Resources Rework

Since the launch of the game, we have had various resources that are gathered and used to upgrade items. In the 2.2 update, we are streamlining that system to be more user friendly.

From a high level, we are removing the need for Catalysts, Nanotubes, Nanites, Plasma, and Uru. We will grant a number of Fragments, Upgrade Modules, and Polychoron to players for these resources and remove them from the UI.

When players log in, they will be notified of the resources being retired, and what resources they will get in exchange. We may bring some of the retired resources back in the future if there is a clear need for a new resource to support any new or updated systems we release.

In patch 2.2, the only resources needed to upgrade gear and Minor Artifacts will be Fragments and Upgrade Modules. Major Artifacts will now require a mix of Fragments and Polychoron.

This also means we need to rework areas that currently grant resources as rewards. The following list shows what the changes will be.

• Dismantling Gear – Dismantling gear will now reward the player with Fragments, Upgrade Modules, and rarely Polychoron, based on the rarity of the gear.
• Enemies – Defeating enemies will now only drop Fragments in quantity and frequency based on the size and difficulty of the enemy. Some smaller enemies will not drop any Fragments at all, while normal Adaptoids drop Fragments most of the time, and enemies such as Blitz Dreadbots and Elite Exos drop more Fragments more often.
• Mission Rewards – All missions that had a non-standard resource as a reward will have it replaced with fragments in larger amounts. All missions and mission chains have some Fragments or Upgrade Modules as a part of their reward with the amount increasing based on type of mission.
• Strongboxes – Only a few strongboxes will continue to give out Fragments as the others will focus on higher-quality gear. Large strongboxes and Stockpile strongboxes will focus on giving out resources with Stockpile strongboxes also awarding Upgrade Modules. Silver, Gold, SHIELD Cache, and DNA Strongboxes will not award Fragments or Upgrade Modules.
• Gear and Faction Vendors – With no need for the retired resources, we have removed all the resource conversion options from all vendors and replaced them with specialty gear offerings similar to the Wakandan Gear Vendor. Each Vendor has different offerings that can improve as your hero increases their Power Level. Most of these specialty offers will have a higher Fragment cost when compared to the normal gear. The prices for all gear have also been adjusted to account for the focus on Fragments.
• Challenge Card Rewards – Some rewards on Challenge Cards gave resource packs, so these have all been replaced or adjusted. The Rare Resource bundles have been removed and, in its place, will be a bundle of Fragments or Upgrade Modules. The Exotic resource bundle no longer gives Uru and grants more Polychoron than before.

Gear Upgrade Rework

Gear should be important. We want players to hold onto gear they find is cool or helps them achieve a desired playstyle without the need to re-play activities when the reach the power level limit to get another version of that gear.

So we have introduced the new upgrading system allowing players to infuse their gear and increase its Power Level along with the players progression.

The gear you like can now be carried along your journey to max Power Level, with a few rules.

Updated Requirements

Only gear that meets the following requirements can now be upgraded:

• Quality – Only Epic or higher quality gear can be upgraded or used to upgrade gear.
• Slot – Gear can only be upgraded with gear in the same slot – ranged gear can only be upgraded using ranged gear. Minor Artifacts share the pool of gear they have access to.
• Power Level – The upgrade system only uses gear above PL 100. So even if your Hero is above PL 100, the gear itself must be at least PL 100.

Upgrade Costs

Players will now be able to improve the Power Level of an item by consuming a higher Power Level item and paying the upgrade cost. The cost is Fragments and Upgrade Modules and will be modified based on a few factors.

• The upgrade cost will be increased if the rarity of the gear piece is less than the gear piece being upgraded. For example, if players use an Epic gear piece to upgrade a Legendary, the upgrade cost will be higher. Conversely, players will get a discount consuming a higher-quality item to upgrade something else.
• The upgrade cost is also based on the Power Level difference. If an Epic gear piece is being used to upgrade another Epic gear piece from Power Level 100 to 101, then the cost will be 100 Fragments and 10 Upgrade Modules. That cost increases per Power Level upgraded.
• The same gear being upgraded from Power Level 100 to PL 102 will cost 200 Fragments and 20 Upgrade Modules.

These costs start increasing beyond Power Level 140 and do not include the rarity modifications.

Process

When you view gear above PL 100, you will see a new prompt at the bottom for upgrading.

This will bring a new menu of gear that is applicable to be used for upgrading. You can then view the costs to upgrade and preview what the final result will be after upgrading.

Below is an example of the cost difference in consuming a higher-quality item. Note that the resulting attributes are the same regardless of the quality of item consumed.

Older Gear

So, what is happening to the gear you already have, upgraded, saved, etc?

First, all gear dropping in this update will now have all perks unlocked by default, doing away with the upgrade requirement. Second, all gear will be the Power Level it is before the patch. An upgraded item at PL 140 will be 140 after the change and a PL 130 un-upgraded item will be PL 130 but all the perks will be unlocked.

Power Cap

After the update, all existing Epic or higher gear pieces can be upgraded to Power level 140.

You can upgrade gear to Power Level 150 with items obtained by completing both the Omega Level Threat: Family Reunion and the Discordant Sound Raid mission chains.

You can obtain gear up to Power Level 165 by completing the Elite version of the Discordant Sound Raid and either equipping the rewards from the mission chain or using them to upgrade existing gear.

More details about the Raid rewards to come in a future blog!