UPCOMING ITEMIZATION CHANGES

"SOMETIME IN FEBRUARY" EDITION
It's that time again as we've just about wrapped up the implementation for the next beta patch. We have some really big changes that will hopefully have a very positive impact on your itemization experience, particularly from level 1 to level 30. These changes will go live with our next major patch, around mid-February.

Challenges:
     * Fixed a bug with Challenge rewards that was awarding 2 loot bags at the Bronze Tier. Sorry guys, you should only get one of those bags in the future.

Random Weapons:
     * We made three major changes to how randomization works for weapons. The first is that AP/SP are now determined by the stats that are rolled on the item. This will affect your existing items. So if a random weapon rolls Deflect, Grit, and Tech, for example (and it's not a Resonator) it will have more Support Power than Assault Power. If it rolls Strikethrough and Brutality, it will have more Assault Power than Support Power. Previously, almost all random weapons had either 50/50 split or favored AP. This should add significantly more SP weapons to the game at all levels.
     * Secondly, I've improved the randomization of stats on weapons so that you will only gets stats relevant to your class (no more Recovery on Greatswords or Deflect Critical on Resonators). Additionally, you are much more likely to get "better" stats. Your classes primary stats (both DPS and Support) now have higher weights will stats less valuable to your class now have lower weights. Overall this should improve the quality of random weapons throughout the game. This will not affect your existing random weapons, only new drops/purchases.
     * And finally, I've also adjusted the AP/SP split percentages on all weapons. This will affect your existing items. In almost every case, this will result in your weapon gaining more power in whatever role it is stated for. There should be no more 50/50 split AP/SP weapons in the game. The minimum split is now 60/40 so every weapon will favor one role or another. Higher quality weapons will continue to have larger splits, making them even better at their specific role.

Armor and Weapon Visual Displays:
     * I have finally had time to update these! All Armor and Weapon visuals from level 1 to level 29 have been updated. This will affect your existing items! There should be significantly more variation in visual displays available (particularly for Engineer Heavy Guns).
     * I know a lot of you have probably found some visual displays that you liked and already have them on your character. Unfortunately, due to the vastness of the redistribution of visuals, these will very likely change in appearance.
     * However, I made every effort to rollout entire sets in sequence to make it easier to acquire a full visual set during your leveling experience. What this means is that if you complete all item reward quests from, for example, level 12-14, you will get an entire visual set of gear, including your weapon. And then a new visual set during the next quest bracket and so on. Hopefully this reduces the typical early game hobo-clown effect of getting constant random gear visuals.
     * Level 30+ visuals will be updated in a later patch.