Brighter Shores will go back to square one with big combat level merge plan

Brighter Shores devs are backing down from their big bid on Episode-specific combat professions. Instead, they're returning to what the RPG leveling gods intended: a cohesive combat level that increases with each Episode. After what is a full 180 from Andrew Gower's insistence on per-episode combat score being intentional, this news may come as a shock to some players, but the developers have plans to address both sides of the fence.

The short version is that combat level ranges and enemy levels will go up with each Episode, but there's more to chew on. A new over-leveling functionality will be used to keep the leaderboards unhampered.

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What is changing with combat professions and levels in Brighter Shores?

Obelisks will now more than tune your stuff (Image via Fen Research)

Simply put, your combat score won't soft-reset every Episode after the proposed update in Brighter Shores. Currently, each of the four existing Episodes has dedicated combat professions: Guard in Hopeport, Scout in Hopeforest, Minefighter in Mines of Mantuban, and so on.

With the proposed changes, you will only have one unified Combat profession, and monsters will also level up sequentially with each new Episode:

• The base monsters in Episode 1 will be level 0-30
• The base monsters in Episode 2 will be level 30-60
• The base monsters in Episode 3 will be level 60-100
• The base monsters in Episode 4 will be level 100-140
• Each Episode beyond 4 will add another 40 levels of combat

Accordingly, your combat score will also cap out at the maximum monster level of an Episode. In other words, you cannot walk out of Hopeport with a higher combat level than 30; you can only get to 31 and beyond by fighting new monsters in Hopeforest.

Gear drops and gear level progression will also be adjusted accordingly, meaning the per-episode gear exclusivity will likely no longer be a thing.

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You can now "overlevel" combat with Obelisk levels

But if you're already level 100 with Guard, what will happen to your excess levels? To ensure that your grind doesn't turn to dust, Brighter Shores will introduce a brand-new system called Obelisk leveling. Any level overflow beyond the level cap of an Episode will level that Episode's Obelisk, which will raise the base monster level of the Episode in turn.

This way, you can technically keep leveling combat in Episode 1 and continue to get good gear from higher-level enemy variants. However, once you get to Episode 2, each Obelisk must be "overleveled" independently.

This system lets Brighter Shores transition into a traditional combat level progression across Episodes without sacrificing the soft-level grinding in each Episode. This way, the leaderboard progression gained from combat professions will remain the same after the update.

Additionally, this is the occasion for Brighter Shores to introduce the next stage for combat specialization: combat upgrade trees. This tree system will let you choose what stat each combat level increases, be it HP, maximum hit damage, armor proficiency to don higher-level equipment or unlock higher-level monster varieties.

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This proposed update's release date hasn't been announced yet, and not all of this is set in stone, so we may see further changes to the plan laid out on the dev blog.