But what's hiding behind these two words that you may encounter in the changelog? Find out more in this article!
The "Astrub Model" is a collection of changes being gradually implemented across several game areas in the aim of making all types of in-game activities more attractive.
- Through Environmental Quests (EQ) you can get a new resource which is indispensable for all professions' recipes.
- Mercenary Quests, Hunter Quests, achievements and dungeon bosses can win you tokens to spend in the dungeon machines.
- Monsters, machines, dungeons and recipes give you items, that can either be destroyed to create powders or improved through the use of these powders.
Below, you will find all the details about what these changes will entail, as and when they are added to the game in the updates.
Where Can I Get Items With a Specific Rarity?
Common (white)
- Quite common drop from monster families.
Rare (green)
- Quite rare drop from monster families.
- Quite common drop from boss.
- From the machine, inexpensive.
- A Simple Recipe.
- A simple "improvement" recipe for a "common" item.
Mythical (orange)
- Quite rare drop from Boss.
- Quite common drop from Ultimate Boss.
- Quite rare drop from a monster at the head of a monster family.
- Quite rare drop from an Archmonster.
- From the machine, but expensive.
- An Average Recipe.
- An average "improvement" recipe for a "rare" item.
Legendary (yellow)
- Pretty rare drop from an Ultimate Boss (at the moment, they're virtually non-existent).
- An ultimate "improvement" recipe for a "mythical" item.
Recipes, Improvements and Machines in More Detail
Recipes
All recipes (classic and improvement) contain several ingredients that are essential to craft an item:
- A resource that you get from recycling items, which is none other than powder. You have to break items of the same level to obtain it. Remember that powder can also be used to create runes to optimize your items.
- A resource from environmental quests which is used to stick all the other items together, known as Souper-Glou.
- Components and other refinements related to the type of item you want to craft. Each harvesting profession and crafting profession has a component and a refinement, and they can be crafted using two different resources of the same harvesting profession.
Next, the classic and improvement recipes contain several ingredients, including the following:
- Common resource from the monster family
- Rare resource from the monster family
- Boss resource
- Component or refinement or harvest resource.
Improvements
First of all, what is an improvement? It's the act of improving your rare item (green) into an item of superior rarity: a mythical (orange) item with the same characteristics, but with better values! At high levels, this mythical item can also be improved into a legendary (yellow) item, which is even stronger again.
Improvements are carried out by the usual professions depending on the type of item. Recipes will follow the same model, but will be slightly simplified since getting the basic item already takes additional effort.
Machine and Tokens
You can also obtain items from machines, but how do they work compared to drops (getting items from monsters) or crafting (creating items)?
The aims of the machine are as follows:
- Allow casual players to get items on a regular basis.
- Attenuate the luck factor, which is part and parcel of drops. Remember that crafting items shares this same objective because it also lessens the luck factor.
- Encourage a player to alternate their in-game activities. This now also applies to item crafting.
To buy items from the machine, you have to spend tokens. Let's take a look at how you get them.
- As with everything else, tokens are specific to a level bracket, which means the tokens you get can be used in any machine of that level.
- Each time you defeat a dungeon boss, you'll get tokens. It is the most recurrent reward (you can repeat the dungeon as many times as you like), but also the weakest.
- You can get daily and weekly quests from the hunters, which is a good way of earning a lot of tokens. The weekly quest will ask you to defeat several bosses of a given level bracket, whereas daily quests will ask you to defeat a boss of your choice within this level bracket, to bring back monster seeds and common resources from the monsters.
- You can also get tokens from mercenary quests, but these aren't repeatable. They're an easy way to get your first few tokens when you've just moved up to a new level bracket. Likewise, we also plan on adding a few to the main quests.
- You can also get tokens for achievements. While more simple achievements are better suited to the previous objective, which is to get a few tokens easily at the beginning, more complicated achievements reward the players who complete them more generously.
- Lastly, don't forget that you can win Modulox Tokens using the modulable level feature, which can be exchanged for any type of tokens.
Environmental Quests
Environmental Quests (EQ) are divided into four main categories:
Solo
You have a simple objective and a score to achieve. Once you’ve attained the objective, you receive your reward.
Solo EQ generally involve interacting with monsters or resources, or defeating monsters. A large number of monsters or resources appear and everyone should be able to take part without any problems.
Solo EQs can be recognized by their blue color.
Dash
Dashes reward those who manage to complete the objective set in the fastest time. Once you’ve attained the objective, you receive your reward.
Dash EQs generally involve interacting with one of 3 monsters or resources that have appeared, or defeating one of 3 monsters that have appeared.
Dash EQs can be recognized by their purple color.
Competitive
Competitive EQs reward the players with the best score. Unlike dashes, the objective is not pre-determined. The aim is to do better than the other players. This is why you only get the rewards at the end of the EQ. It can end after a certain amount of time or when there are no more actions left to complete.
Competitive EQs generally involve interacting with as many monsters or resources as possible, or defeating as many monsters as possible.
Normally, a lot of monsters appear. The winner gets the best reward and the person who comes second gets a less valuable reward. The others have lost.
Competitive EQs can be recognized by their red color.
Collaborative
Collaborative EQs are the most innovative type of quests compared to what you already know, and are also some of our favorite out of all the EQs. They are also the ones that give the best rewards, possibly tied with competitive EQs.
Collaborative EQs reward all players who contributed sufficiently, when the collaborative objective has been reached.
Collaborative EQs generally involve interacting with all of the monsters or resources that have appeared, or defeating all of the monsters that have appeared. Normally, around fifty groups of monsters will appear for you to defeat, or around a hundred resources or monsters with which you'll have to interact.
And for that, you'll need to get yourselves organized! There is a minimum level of participation required to get the reward, and this will only happen if the collaborative objective has been achieved.
Collaborative EQs can be recognized by their green color.
Amongst the collaborative quests, you will also find hordes and invasions.
Hordes
Hordes can only appear when all the wishes of the zone’s clan master (CM) have been respected.
Around ten groups of 8 monsters appear, each with a dominant monster.
Dominants are an even stronger version of the strongest monster in the family. They have one or two specific objectives to be attained. They also give tons of experience.
Be careful, though, hordes only appear for a short time and they must all be defeated to get the even greater rewards. You’ll need to be organized!
You have to take part in at least one fight to get collaborative rewards.
Invasions
There is a very slight chance of invasions appearing.
When an invasion is occurring in a zone, all players in this zone will be notified so you can join in and fight off the invasion.
Once again, a minimum participation is required to win rewards and you will be generously rewarded if you manage to chase off all the monsters.
Archmonsters
In each zone, an archmonster may appear at rare intervals, and only once every few hours.
Archmonsters have one or two specific objectives to be attained. Normally, these monsters are as strong as the boss of their family of monsters.
But that's not all...
We've also made big improvements to the way EQ objectives are displayed. At any time, you can see how many monsters and resources have appeared, how many actions you have to complete in total, how many you have already completed, and how many are left in the whole zone.
The environmental quest monsters you’ll be meeting will no longer be “weak” versions of other monsters. They will be as strong as the monsters that you normally come across in the zone you’re playing in. What’s more, they will only give you a normal amount of XP.
All EQs have an internal cooldown that will only let them appear in the same zone after a certain amount of time has passed, even if all the conditions have been met.
Environmental Quest Rewards
We're also reviewing the rewards you can win from these!
Now you can get Souper-Glou from each environmental quest. This special resource is used in all equipment recipes. Nothing less!
In addition to the XP you get from environmental quest monsters, they also give you XP bonuses, making them even more profitable!
More Dynamic Dungeons
A Varied Experience
The overall dungeon strategy might be fun, but doing the same thing over and over again isn't. Not to mention it rewards players who stick to the exact same strategy every time, rather than developing their fighting skills through good adaptability. This is why we wanted to shake up the game experience as must as possible when you're inside a dungeon:
- The level of monsters varies, which changes some of their characteristics, as well as their initiatives, slightly randomizing the order in which they play.
- Starting positions for the monsters are gone, which means they won't always start in the same place.
- Monster may be victims of a Stasis Affix, which will give them additional effects.
- Mimics may appear during fights, which you will have to defeat to get rewards! We're planning to add similar random events in the future.
Automatic Dash in the Dungeon
To make life easier for everyone, the characters will run to the next dungeon room themselves once they've finished the room in question!
You can interrupt this movement at any time by clicking to move your character manually.
At the moment, these changes have been implemented in Astrub and Mount Zinit and will soon be active on Moon Island and in the Xelorium with the next update. They will be applied across the whole game over the course of the coming updates! Don't be surprised if we talk to you about the "Astrub Model" again in the future!
