Introducing Amber - A New Soft Currency

Greetings Champions!

Today’s blog post is all about our upcoming new soft currency, Amber!

This highly anticipated new addition comes off the back of months of internal testing, community feedback, and our never ending passion to make Predecessor the best it can be.

So with that in mind, let’s jump right into it!

Why introduce a new currency?

This new currency, called Amber, is being introduced primarily as a means to purchase new Heroes as soon as they come out.

Under the previous system, player choices were limited due to the inefficiencies suffered when trying to unlock a Hero.

What do we mean by this? Well imagine you’re close to unlocking a Hero and all of a sudden we introduce a shiny new Hero that catches your eye instead. Switching who you’re unlocking sets you back, forcing you to either abandon your current progress to start working from scratch on a new character, or stick with the decision you made and delay unlocking the new Hero, essentially forcing your hand. All this is to say that it forced players to make tricky decisions.

There’s more reasons besides this, such as overflow XP being lost instead of being banked for your next unlock, and perhaps most importantly the pressure the system placed on new players who had to make important game decisions with very limited information and no way to delay the decision. Should a new player be prioritising Hero X as their first unlock? By the time they had enough XP to unlock that Hero their perspective of the game and their priorities as a player may very well have shifted.

How does this affect Hero Acquisition?

Under the previous system, each Hero had a number of stages that needed to be unlocked using experience before they were fully unlocked and available to use. Newer Heroes tended to have more locks and therefore required more XP to unlock, whereas older Heroes had less and could be unlocked quicker. Alternatively you could always bypass this process by using our main currency, Platinum, to purchase a Hero outright.

With the introduction of Amber, we will be removing this system of unlock stages. Instead, every Hero will have a predetermined cost that you can pay using either Amber or Platinum, a price that’ll vary based on that Hero’s newness or difficulty.

Let’s take Argus for example who is arriving in the upcoming V0.15 game update. You’ll be able to unlock him using either 8,600 Amber or 1,000 Platinum - whichever is your preference!

Without the need to grind out Heroes we’ll also be removing the functionality to see a Hero in game a week before their release.

How expensive will new Heroes be?

As discussed, Heroes will have varying Amber costs based on a variety of factors, though you can assume that the newest Hero added to the game will generally start at a higher price point than older characters who’ve been in for some time.

To answer the specific question about what these costs will look like however, we’ve created a handy chart for you to reference below.

In addition to the above, the following will be true for brand new Heroes during their launch week.

After a week a new Hero will drop down to a lower cost.

*Argus is the exception to the rule! With no way to earn Amber ahead of his release it felt only right that he starts out with a slight discount, meaning he’ll only cost 8,600 Amber on launch. Future Heroes will start at the higher cost shown above.

Please note that these costs are subject to change!

What if I’m already part-way through unlocking a new Hero when this change is made?

If you’re already working on unlocking Heroes using the old system of XP and unlock stages, have no fear! We’ll be converting earned unlock XP into Amber which you can then put towards purchasing any Heroes going forwards.

Once V0.15 hits, we’ll count up how much Unlock XP you have towards Heroes you haven’t unlocked and convert it into Amber.

For every 50,000 XP you have towards unlocking Heroes you’ll get 8,600 Amber. Nice!

How do you acquire Amber?

There are two main ways you can earn Amber.

Player Account Level Up

By increasing your player account level, you’ll also be increasing your stash of Amber!

Every time you level up you’ll receive a small amount of Amber as a reward. The amount you get will vary slightly based on what level you are.

Playing PVP Matches

By playing Predecessor you’ll passively earn yourself some Amber.

Every time you complete a match you’ll get a small amount of Amber based on how well it went for you. Everyone gets Amber for finishing a match of course, but to the victors go the spoils, so you can expect a smidge more if your team came out on top.

Other sources

In the future we’ll be adding more ways to get Amber that reward you for interacting with everything Predecessor has to offer.

Will we be rewarded Amber based on our player level at the end of Season 3?

Yep!

As an extra bonus for your support during Early Access Season 3 we’re pleased to confirm that you will have additional Amber credited to your account based on your final Player Level at the end of Season 3.

Will it be different for Argus?

Argus is a bit of an edge case as he’ll appear in game as per our current system but will be caught up in the transition to the new system once V0.15 rolls out on March 5th, 2024.

As such you will still be able to unlock Argus by earning XP towards him a week before the update as you would have done under the old system.

If you succeed in fully unlocking him, he’ll be available to play on day one of his release as per the old system.

If you don’t quite net all of the XP needed for that day one Argus unlock, you’ll be able to buy him for 8,600 Amber on March 5th, with any XP you had put towards him being converting into Amber as previously covered.

That just about covers things for now, but please reach out to us on Discord or Reddit if you have any further questions!

We hope you enjoy these changes. As with all things we’re constantly monitoring your feedback and suggestions, so there may be further changes and iterations in the future.

Thank you for your support!

- Kari, Lead Community Manager