Gift of Hedone: Playtest 008A Dates and Summary

Hello you gorgeous deviants,

Playtest 008A will be available from November 3rd 2026 to December 2nd 2026

It will be centered around leveling up your gear and repairing it with Monster Essence

So first you will want to head into a combat zone, closest one being to your left and defeat some enemies. As you defeat enemies your gear will gain EXP and your player level is tied to the average of you gear level

You can read about how leveling up will work HERE for more details

You can find your overall level in the top right of your inventory screen:

How do you track your gear progress?

There is now a dedicated Gear EXP Tracker which you can swap to.

Extra Note - I haven't quite decided on what controls I want this to be to swap the screens - but will provide that information in the Playtest post on November 3rd

Understanding the Gear EXP Tracker:
Each bar correlates to an equipment slot. It will display the current gears name, that bit of gears Level and ALSO that particular equipment slots "Highest Level" with "H.Lv"

Highest Level is the the highest level bit of gear that equipment slot has recorded for that character. As your level is based off of the average gear level. That is the level that is used to calculate your player level.

So you may end up equipping a new bit of gear because of the stats that is level 3, but your highest level for that equipment is level 6.

So with this example I have some gear that is level 6, some that is level 2 - but my overall average level is 4. That will be important for crafting, as the gear you craft will be at your player level and you wont be able to equip gear that is higher than your player level. But equipping gear will be based on the associated slots highest level. So although you may be level 4, because the weapon slot is level 6, you will be able to equip a level 6 weapon.

I have also added some gear in your inventory that starts at level 4, 8, 12, and 16 intentionally to test that you in fact cannot equip or can equip that gear when ready.

If you cannot equip it, the heading text and level text will be Red

Once you start leveling up your gear - you should also notice the "Decay" appearing next to the stats. A quick summary of decay is that as your gear levels up, the stats will increase, but not as much due to its use. So the gear will get stronger, but you will need to restore/repair them to get the full stat increase.

You can read more about Decay HERE

How to Repair your gear:

As you fight enemies, you will also gain Monster Essence - the game's currency. This will be required to repair the gear, and you will need the region's associated essence to repair your gear. For this playtest the associated region is "Ashenwood" You can find the Monster Essence by swapping the screen in your Inventory screen the same way as the Gear EXP screen

You then want to head over to the Blacksmith in the middle of town and repair your gear. You can read more about how Repair works HERE

Once repaired, your gear will no longer have the red decay penalty, and you will see your stats are at their full amount.

Also regarding EXP and Monster Essence Earnt - these are somewhat arbitrary numbers - I will likely do a more in depth test or post about how EXP and Monster Essence should be distributed and earnt.

I hope this explains what this playtest is all about, but if you have any questions please let me know :)