ASTA OBT Preview - Upcoming Changes

Greetings, Astanians!
Today, we want to give you a short preview on some of the changes that will be heading your way with the Open Beta of ASTA – The War of Tears and Winds.

While reading, please keep in mind that everything that is being outlined here should be treated as “to be confirmed” until the actual Open Beta rolls out. A lot (if not all) of the issues and changes mentioned here are still under discussion and therefore subject to change. Please be aware that not all the things mentioned here are necessarily intended to be released with the Open Beta launch, but might instead be added later on.

With the disclaimers out of the way, let’s dive right in!
Tai Token overhaul

The issues of Tai tokens being too easy to farm was raised in our own forums by some of the players who were active in other game versions. Looking at the effectiveness of the tokens providing a cheap and quick source for gold & item enhancement materials, this situation could almost be considered an exploit.

When we contacted Polygon Games in regards to this matter, it turned out that it was indeed an unintended consequence of an error that had crept into the dungeon / public quest reward systems. Therefore, some changes will be applied to the global version of ASTA to counter this effect. These were introduced during the Korean service as well, but mistakenly made their way back during the creation of the initial global version.

• The overall availability of Tai Tokens will be reduced, instead the exchange rewards will be buffed
• Dungeons only reward Tai Tokens on first play-through
• Public Quests will still reward multiple Tai Tokens for repeat completions, but only for players within the level range of the quest (meaning high-level players cannot “farm” low-level public quests)
Improving summoning / enhancement points

As most of you will know, the Divine Spirit & Stats Enhancement systems can be used with gold that is earned in-game, but also with so-called summoning and enhancement points, of which you also get one free use per day.

In our discussions with Polygon Games, we expressed our belief that the systems were focusing too heavily on the use of gold, while there were relatively few opportunities to use summoning / enhancement points. This could lead players to refocus their activities in-game to maximize their gold income, making for an overall shallower and less interesting gameplay experience.

Of course, we want to give players the option to use gold for creating divine spirits & enhancing their attributes, so that part will definitely stay. Nonetheless, we feel that an increased variety in the options that players have to use the game’s features can only be a good thing.

The final details are still being worked on, but we are currently looking at:
• Increasing the chance to get good rolls when enhancing attributes using enhancement points (meaning you are more likely to see green numbers pop up!)
• Increasing the amount of divine spirit fragments players receive when the creation of divine spirits fails when using summoning points
• Providing additional ways of receiving summoning / enhancement points, e.g. through drops, daily events, fame rewards, etc.
Berserker Class

Finally, a quick mention on a topic that has been brought up by some of you: The Open Beta of the global version of ASTA will not include the Berserker class.

While we of course understand that these are disappointing news for some of you, rest assured that the little axe-wielding summoners will make their appearance sooner or later. For now, we felt it more important to concentrate on the core contents of the game, rather than rushing out content that had been scheduled for a later release and potentially reducing the appeal and general awesomeness of future expansions.
We hope that you found this preview interesting and that we could provide you with some insights into the changes that are under discussion for the Open Beta and beyond!
Stay tuned for more!