Armor and weapon Tiers in Albion Online

Recently, it seems that it has simply become accepted by the majority of the, now mostly veteran, population of Albion. However, I would like to draw the attention of all these Albion Experts, back to when you all first began in Albion. How you felt in that first venture into understanding the different power levels between .1, .2, and .3 is a direct comparison to how every member of the large influx of new players will feel when they pick up this game on release. Now, I'm sure some of you are self-proclaimed geniuses who barely noticed this hurdle. If this is your case, then you should also be able to easily identify that this entire system is simply unnecessary.

This game has a very simple and intuitive tier system in place. I do not know the official name the Albion Development team has adopted for it, but I will identify it as the 8 Tier system. We, as Beta and Alpha players, have come to learn the 8 Tier system in depth; though there is not truly much depth to it. We see it everywhere in the game: from crafting, to gathering, to farming, to npcs, to dungeons, to equipment. It has become synonymous with progression in Albion Online.

Now, here is the problem as I see it:

This system works great. Its strength is not in its depth, but rather its versatility. In all of these aforementioned fields, from crafting, to equipment, it provides a clear distinction of power and progression. So then why do we have a secondary system, that which seems to be well known as the "Power Level" system, for equipment alone? Why have this secondary tier system, in one part of the game, that is in direct conflict with the primary system, in every part of the game?

The kicker is that there is a reason, albeit a very poor one. The reason is that, in regards to equipment, there is also a third system, that I will deem the Equipment Line system (again, I have no clue if there is a proper name for it). You are all familiar with this setup; ie. the Quarterstaff weapon line contains the Quarterstaff, the Iron-Clad Staff, and the Double Bladed Staff. The Power Level system was born to try to make sense of the fact that an Adept(T4) Quarterstaff is not equivalent to an Adept Iron-Clad Staff; the Adept Iron Clad Staff is actually closer in "power level" to the Expert(T5) Quarterstaff.

All of this to say that there is one simple fix to all of this: change the name from "Adept Iron-Clad Staff" to "Expert Iron Clad Staff", and start its line from there.

To elaborate:

Quick disclaimer: I love Quarterstaves, and so they will play the major role in the following example.

Currently, the first specialized set of equipment a newbie can create in this game is a Journeyman (T3) set. It is a limited version of the category of equipment in which the player is attempting to tier into. Let us suppose the goal of the player is to use a Double Bladed Staff. This player would first begin using a Novice(T2) Bow to unlock the limited Journeyman Hunter set. Following this, the player would progress with either a Bow, a Spear, or a Nature Staff, to unlock the Adept Quarterstaff. Perfect, the player has been continuously progressing from Novice, to Journeyman, to Adept since finding himself/herself in loincloth, on a dock, in Albion. This kind of progression has simultaneously eased the new player into the 8 Tier system, and into the idea that they must unlock new weapons to use them.

The player continues. With the Adept Quarterstaff the player unlocks an Adept Iron-Clad Staff. With this Adept Iron-Clad Staff, the player then tiers up again and finally unlocks the Double Bladed Staff, which is again Adept. The player has just unlocked two new weapons that, according to everything the player had so far been taught should be equivalent in power because they are all of the same tier. This player should not be required to head to the forums because the game blatantly contradicted the golden rule that it had so far held fast to in every aspect of the game. Let us review:

T2 Bow

|

T3 Bow - T3 Spear - T3 Nature Staff

|-------------|---------------|

T4 Bow - T4 Spear - T4 Nature Staff - T4 Dagger - T4 Quarterstaff

Doesn't that progression look great? So then why does it then keep going like this:

T4 Bow --------------------- T4 Spear --------------- T4 Nature Staff ---------------------------------- T4 Dagger -------------------------- T4 Quarterstaff

|-------------\-------------------|--------------\--------------|-----------------------\---------------------------------|---------------\--------------------------|----------------------\

T5 Bow - T4 WarBow - T5 Spear - T4 Pike - T5 Nature Staff - T4 Great Nature Staff - T5 Dagger - T4 Dagger Pair - T5 Quarterstaff - T4 Iron-Clad Staff

I think you get the point, so I will not bother throwing in the next, quite convoluted, Power Level, consisting of T5, T6, and T7 weapons.

There is a very simple fix to this:

T4 Bow --------------------- T4 Spear --------------- T4 Nature Staff ---------------------------------- T4 Dagger -------------------------- T4 Quarterstaff

|-------------\-------------------|--------------\--------------|-----------------------\---------------------------------|---------------\--------------------------|----------------------\

T5 Bow - T5 WarBow - T5 Spear - T5 Pike - T5 Nature Staff - T5 Great Nature Staff - T5 Dagger - T5 Dagger Pair - T5 Quarterstaff - T5 Iron-Clad Staff

However, this fix comes with one discrepancy in the highest tiers of equipment (one that I would consider to be more of a solution than a problem, but a discrepancy nonetheless). Let us first look at the highest Tier in the current setup (I will only show the Quarterstaff tree for the sake of simplicity):

T8 Quarterstaff - T7 Iron-Clad Staff - T6 Double Bladed Staff

------------------------|---------------------------|

------------------------T8 iron-Clad Staff - T7 Double Bladed Staff

----------------------------------------------------|

----------------------------------------------------T8 Double Bladed Staff

My proposition would change such a tree to:

T7 Quarterstaff - T7 Iron-Clad Staff - T7 Double Bladed Staff

------------------------|---------------------------|

T8 Quarterstaff - T8 Iron-Clad Staff - T8 Double Bladed Staff

Therefore, this would not only eliminate the need for the Power Level system to explain equipment progression, it would also eliminate any endgame equipment power variance in raw stat values. I would also like to reiterate, that though I have been speaking mostly in terms of weapons, this change can easily be adapted to armour as well.

I am glad you, Albion Veteran, have managed to stick with me through this long post. Much of what I have said has already been stated many times, by many people. However, every player in the game will get involved in equipment progression at some point in their Albion Online career, and because it holds such mass importance, I believe it is something that bears repeating.

And to you, any developers that may have glanced at this post, I hope you have found in this wall of text that there is importance in consistency, especially in a system as structured as the 8 Tier system. A lack of consistency, as shown, will breed sub-systems like the "Power Level" system that truly have no place in Albion Online, except in your config files.