Your guide to the gameplay changes in 26.4
Obligatory Legal Notice: As part of the Kabam Creator Program I was given access to a preview build of the update before it went live which is where the below images were taken.
Rei Note: Values shown in this post may be changed before live and they may change how the surcharge bonus milestone works. As always these update guides are based on a preview build, not the live release.
Introduction
Welcome to 26.4 – home of starforged blueprints, the next community event and another content pass. Let’s get started.
Starforged Blueprints
The headline feature for 26.4 is the introduction of Starforged blueprints. Every blueprint in the game has a starforged version, giving it various buffs compared to its normal version.
To unlock starforged blueprints you first need to collect all the exclusive rewards from any of the chests in the game, after which starforged prints for the tier that chest is for (for example, T15 starforged prints are found in the Prehistoric Chest) will be added to the reward pool, as you can see here:
They can also be given out as rewards from events like the current community event or upcoming content pass so worry not, you’ll still be able to obtain some if opening chests is not really on the table for you.
Rei Note: you can only get starforged versions for blueprints you already own. You cannot for example get a starforged blueprint for the Rex (T15 familiar) if you don’t own Yolanda and have its normal variant unlocked.
Once you acquire the starforged version of a blueprint you can craft it to start working on unlocking its milestones – these milestones work the same way as with mastery so you just basically get to master an item a second time. Let’s look at these now on the BIT.Runner Visor:
These are what we can call the standard starforged milestones – most blueprints have identical copies of this, with some exceptions for enchants, stones, and low tier items.
The surcharge value modifier works (on the preview beta at least, I did ask if this was intended and the assumption was yes but never hard confirmed) like Better Deals in that it takes place after your ascension multipliers, so surcharge value would be (2 * ascension multipliers) * 1.2:
The value increase milestone does affect the market value as well, you can sell/request for a higher amount than the normal version.
Starforged items can be sold on the market but they’re only starforged for the other player if they own the print in starforged variant as well. For example if you have Wyrmbane Cannon starforged and sell to someone who doesn’t, the item will be its normal variant for them not the starforged one. Vice versa, you can buy a normal item off the market and it’ll convert to starforged if you own the print.
Thoughts (click to expand or skip if you’re just here for patch info only)
Starforged prints are something I’m rather looking forward to, speaking as someone who has always wanted more uniqueness in accounts instead of the end game being the same “wear X, sell Y, craft Z”.The most exciting part to me is the increase in base stats at the end – this milestone means best-in-slot gear is now going to depend on what you personally have starforged.
For example, as of this post the best heavy armour for tanking is the BIT.Runner Armor but if you happen to only have its normal variant but you have the Teddy Bear Body starforged then teddy is the better armour for you.
These stat increases also affect the airship value of the item as well as it recalculates upon obtaining that milestone so your best Dragon Invasion items could be very different to another player’s.
Whilst yes there will still be a theoretical best-in-slot/best Dragon Invasion items if you had access to certain things starforged, unless you happen to get super lucky (or spend all the gems.exe) you should probably be tailoring around your personal unlocks.
That isn’t to say it’s all sunshine and rainbows as we should not ignore the power creep edge this gives to paying players who have the latest shiny meta print, and, with the new tower on the horizon, the potential of turning that into a very much pay-to-win event is a risk but we won’t know how this affects that until it releases.
As it stands at the moment today however I feel this is a feature that is great for both paying and F2P members:
- It should be cheaper to gear heroes in better gear now as your starforged prints will be outperforming the meta ones (obviously if you have the meta starforged then RIP on the cost saving front.) Using the teddy bear/bit runner example, right now you can get epic teddy for gold and legendary teddy for less than half the price of legendary bit runner (this applies to lower qualities too, just throwing out an example.)
- Having fewer prints has a potential advantage in that it’s easier to starforge the ones you want as there’s a narrower pool for it to hit, compared to someone who owns all the prints.
- Things like spears/maces can finally have a place, however brief, if you manage to starforge one before better weapons.
Vuaux (the owner/manager of the STC discord) on the other hand is not a fan of the starforged system. Whilst he is excited about the changes in hero gearing options and it provides us with stuff to do it also feels lazy just slapping an extra 5 milestones on to every blueprint.
There is also a meta progression track for starforged blueprints – each blueprint you have starforged (just need to own it, doesn’t matter if you have mastered it or not) will advance your progress, let’s take a look at what awaits us:
As we can see we’ve got some pretty cool stuff including value increases, quality chance buffs, and an increase in event value for King’s Caprice and Dragon Invasion.
Rei Note: Going to be fun for event competitive guilds recruiting. “Must have A/B/C starforged and X amount of starforged prints in total.”
Starward Creations Content Pass
Running from the 28th April to the 13th May it’s yet another content pass 🥳Though understandable this time given it ties into the new starforged feature. No new blueprints this time but it does have some starforged prints as rewards – some pre-determined and a few that are random from the tier displayed (if you already own the starforged prints the alt rewards is shards I believe according to Kabam Richard):
And that about covers it. By the time you’re reading this the notes covering the other stuff have been out for quite a while and we didn’t get a preview of the login calendar so that’s all there is to see. Go forth and starforge!
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6 replies on “Update 26.4 Overview”
Thanks Reiga!
Was merchant xp increased on the new bp?
No, you’re wrong, free players will not have a easier time to gear up heroes. BiS items are great because of one reason and one reason alone, secondary HP stat, which baseline blueprints will never have.
So, no. Free player’s starforged baseline gears will never be better than regular BiS gears.
Stop trying to defend Kabam’s pay-to-win approach. You aren’t payed by them, right? You should stand on player’s side, not the company.
F2P players have access to the antique store, which contains dual stat prints. Using the example I provided in the post the teddy bear armour is in there as we speak. They’re only constrained to single-stat items if they happen to not do King’s Caprice at which point I don’t think there’s anything that would help them.
With a much smaller pool of starforged print targets they have decent odds of starforging their caprice purchases as well.
I did mention I have my concerns with p2w aspects when it comes to the new tower releasing in June but to say f2p didn’t gain anything from this I disagree with. I am playing to the assumption the main quests (so whatever the T16 dungeon is) will be balanced as they usually are which my conversations with Kabam imply to be true so this is a way to get a bit of an extra kick of your heroes without having to buy new gear for them.
Quick question—I feel like 2.4% is really low considering the amount of blueprints and how few keys we get. Do you think that percentage could be increased?
So the 2.4% is already an increase from its original odds (originally it was 1%.) I don’t think we’ll see it raised any time soon, if nothing else to avoid backlash from players who used up hundreds of keys with the current odds.