Brighter Shores devs asks players to ‘Please give it a chance’

It’s only been a few days since Brighter Shores launched in Early Access, and Andrew Gower already has a huge community update to share regarding his vision behind the game’s progression system. Although there has been some fear and confusion surrounding its episodic nature and how skills carry over, Gower has laid out a complete explanation for everything.

In a recent update post from the Brighter Shores team, Gower almost immediately clarifies that any profession levels you gain during episode one in Hopeport will remain even after you venture into the game’s second area, Hopeforest. Although you won’t directly use these professions in the forest, they’ll remain on your character as a Hopeport-specific skillset.

In short, if you decide to teleport or run back to Hopeport during your playthrough — which you will do very often, even after entering episode two and beyond — you’ll have your five starting skills at the same level you left them. Those 25 fishing levels you spent hours grinding for Lost Shipment won’t go away anytime soon. You just won’t need to fish while you’re running around in Hopeforest.

Gower also explains why, exactly, he implemented this system. He details that his goal was to create an enjoyable experience for both players that grind for hours a day and those who only spend a few minutes. As he explains further in the post,

However, when we introduce new episodes we want them to be fun for everyone. 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!

Gower continues to highlight alternative solutions to this issue, explaining that features like autoscaling and level caps have their own cons that can outweigh their benefits. By splitting each region into various professions and keeping past ones intact in previous zones, you can freely swap back and forth without losing progress.

I’ll admit that when I first discovered Brighter Shores’ variation of skill progression, I was also a little skeptical of whether I’d enjoy it. Although woodcutting and carpentry sounded fun, I wasn’t looking forward to having to swap back and forth between Hopeport and Hopeforest if I wanted to make a few potions or catch a fish. Around eight hours later, and it’s starting to grow on me.

Alongside these concerns, Gower mentons some changes Brighter Shores’ team has planned, including some additions they’ve already implemented. Their November 8 update for the game introduced minimap routing, keybind customization, and improved quest difficulty indicators, showing they’re very aware of recent community feedback. He also mentions that adding content combining multiple combat levels across various areas is still on the table, so we may see some late-game bosses with some interesting new mechanics by the time the game fully releases.