🧪 The Beta Beat (v23) [NOW RELEASED] – Sharing the Big Picture on What's Going on in Beta: Stronghold 22/23 & Alchemy Lab, New Challenge Event Heroes, New Knights of Avalon & Pirates of Corellia Challenge Events, Costumes, November/December HOTM

[zephyr1]

NOTE: Please do not, under any circumstances, share IMAGES OR VIDEOS from Beta in this or any public Forum thread. Violations can cause players to lose their Beta accounts, or threads to be closed down.

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UPDATE: Version 23 Has Been Released (Release Notes)

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@zephyr1

Beta Update

Version 22.1 has now entered Beta, and is intended for release before Version 23 that is covered in this thread.

For the Beta Beat on Version 22.1, please see: The Beta Beat (v22.1) – August, September & October HOTM, Bug Fixes

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What’s this all about?

Click Here for Details About This Thread's Intention & Format

Often players on the Forum wonder about what’s going on in Beta.

If you’re a regular reader of the Forum, then you’ll find that there’s actually abundant conversation about what’s going on in Beta at any given time.

And that’s actually allowed!

What’s restricted is images and videos — but discussion is ok:

@Petri

Discussion is fine, it’s the screenshots and videos that we don’t allow to be shared without our permission as the beta is still very much work in progress and features are subject to change based on our findings and testers feedback.

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The challenge is that information is often scattered around the Forum. I’m aiming to help centralize it for those who are interested.

I’m not sure yet how this thread (or probably series of threads, eventually) will work yet — but I’d like to start by giving some high-level guidance of what’s going on in current testing, so players outside of Beta can be better informed.

Like Beta itself, this thread is experimental and will evolve based on your feedback.

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Information from Beta is frankly often mostly useless, so don’t get too attached.

Details from Beta, especially brand-new Beta content, don’t tend to be very reliable for actual release.

It’s incredibly common that heroes and features are changed during Beta testing, or sometimes even after testing but before release.

That is, after all, the purpose of Beta testing.

So I wouldn’t get too attached to any information from Beta — it’s not unheard of for entire portions of hero skills to be removed or reworked, or for radical changes to hero stats to be made, or for large chunks of new functionality to be completely changed.

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Often Incomplete Information Circulates

Many of us have seen screenshots and other information shared on LINE, Discord, Facebook, and other groups — often without context or explanation.

These can lead to confusion and misunderstanding.

Often, early Beta information — the least reliable or useful — is circulated…and then updated information is missed.

I’m hoping centralizing some high-level information on the Forum may help to reduce this as well.

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What’s Going on in Beta Right Now

IMPORTANT: I wouldn’t get too attached to any information from Beta — it’s not unheard of for entire portions of heroes or functionality to be removed, reworked, or radically changed beyond recognition.

For actionable recommendations based on current Beta, please see the “Important Recommendations Based on Current Beta” section below.

REFERENCE: Advanced Iron Storage Upgrade Costs (as seen in Beta)

Level	Iron	Food	Time	Capacity	Capacity Increase
1	1502k	-	10s	484k	+27000
2	1598k	-	2d 6h	497k	+13000
3	1700k	-	2d 21h	510k	+13000
4	1812k	-	3d 12h	523k	+13000
5	1920k	-	4d 5h	537k	+14000
6	2013k	-	4d 23h	550k	+13000
7	2135k	-	5d 22h	565k	+15000
8	2275k	-	6d 21h	579k	+14000
9	2325k	-	7d 20h	594k	+15000
10	2407k	-	8d 19h	609k	+15000

REFERENCE: Advanced Food Storage Upgrade Costs (as seen in Beta)

Level	Iron	Food	Time	Capacity	Capacity Increase
1	1501k	-	10s	708k	+10000
2	1598k	-	2d 6h	725k	+17000
3	1700k	-	2d 21h	742k	+17000
4	1811k	-	3d 12h	759k	+17000
5	1959k	-	4d 5h	777k	+18000
6	2085k	-	4d 23h	795k	+18000
7	2229k	-	5d 22h	814k	+19000
8	2334k	-	6d 21h	833k	+19000
9	2426k	-	7d 20h	853k	+20000
10	2437k	-	8d 19h	873k	+20000

Stronghold Levels 22 & 23

Discussion thread: premature; please discuss here for now

Stronghold Level 22 currently requires 4 Iron Storage to be Level 20, and 1 Advanced Iron Storage to be Level 5 for upgrading.

Stronghold Level 23 currently requires 4 Iron Storage to be Level 20, and 1 Advanced Iron Storage to be Level 10 for upgrading.

Stronghold Upgrade Costs

Level	Iron	Food	Time
22	2367k	-	9d 4h
23	2439k	-	10d 9h

Stronghold 22 and 23 unlock additional buildings:

NOTE: Originally all additional Advanced Buildings unlocked at Stronghold 23, but:

@zephyr1

Good news! This has been changed.

Hat tip to @Gryphonknight for pointing it out.

Stronghold	Advanced Building
22	Mine, Farm, Iron Storage, Food Storage
23	Alchemy Lab
24	Farm, Iron Storage, Food Storage
25	Hero Academy

It appears that at Stronghold 25, additional buildings will unlock:

• Third Advanced Farm
• Third Advanced Iron Storage
• Third Advanced Food Storage
• NO additional Advanced Mine (appears capped at 2)
• NO additional Advanced House (currently appears capped at 1)
• Hero Academy (this isn’t in Beta yet, though)

There is currently no indication that additional Hunter’s Lodges or Advanced Houses are a possibility, but it’s hard to say if that will remain unchanged.

Alchemy Lab

Discussion Thread: premature; please discuss here for now

BETA (May Change) Alchemy Lab Upgrade Costs

NOTE: Research for the Alchemy Lab will also require upgrades to Advanced Food Storage, and upgrades to the Alchemy Lab require upgrades to Advanced Iron Storage.

Level	Iron	Food	Time	Advanced Iron Storage Required	Advanced Food Storage Required
1	2367k	-	10s	1x Level 10	1x Level 6, 1x Level 5
2	2479k	-	1d 8h	1x Level 10, 1x Level 2	2x Level 6
3	2495k	-	2d 0h	1x Level 10, 1x Level 3	2x Level 7
4	2502k	-	2d 22h	1x Level 10, 1x Level 4	2x Level 7
5	2521k	-	4d 2h	1x Level 10, 1x Level 5	1x Level 8, 1x Level 7
6	2531k	-	5d 13h	1x Level 10, 1x Level 6	2x Level 8
7	2551k	-	7d 9h	1x Level 10, 1x Level 7	1x Level 9, 1x Level 8
8	2562k	-	9d 6h	1x Level 10, 1x Level 8	2x Level 9
9	2573k	-	11d 0h	1x Level 10, 1x Level 9	1x Level 10, 1x Level 9
10	2594k	-	12d 13h	2x Level 10	2x Level 10

Alchemy Lab Abilities

The first version of Alchemy Lab works by taking a number of ingredients of a particular rarity, and giving you a random item of a specified rarity, depending on the level used in the Alchemy Lab.

It’s a bit akin to a Training Camp for items, where you put in resources, and a while later one of several possible items for that level pops out.

It can transmute Crafting Ingredients, Battle Items, and Ascension Materials.

And to answer the obvious question: yes, there are Alchemy Lab levels that make it possible to produce 3* and 4* Unfarmable Ascension Materials — but which item you receive is random.

In the first version of Beta, all of the recipes required a mix of Gems, Food, and items of the same type, which you can pick from any of the items of that type/rarity, e.g. you can transmute 3* Farmable Battle Manuals to try for Unfarmable 3* and 4* Ascension Materials.

In the second version of Beta, gem costs were reduced or removed.

@zephyr1

An Initial Overview of the New Version of Alchemy Lab

Alchemy Lab Levels and Costs

I held off on sharing the Alchemy Lab level costs during the initial release because they seemed very likely to change — and have, significantly.

Based on initial review, of the update I think there are still adjustments needed, but I feel it’s worth sharing them at this point, and will do so in the next day or two, when I’ve had time to update my notes from last time, and type everything up in detail.

In the meantime, I’ll provide an overview, and kick off discussion of the updates.

Overall Design Changes

The second version of the Alchemy Lab is largely similar to the first, with costs adjusted, and the introduction of Alkashards (more on that below).

I would say my initial impression is that this is a very significant update, but I wouldn’t describe it as a complete overhaul of the initial Alchemy Lab design.

General Changes to Transmutation Costs

In advance of providing full details, I’ll answer the main questions most people will have:

• Gems have been removed from the costs for Levels 1 through 5, which cover Transmutations of Uncommon items from Common items, and Rare Crafting Ingredients and Battle Items from Uncommon ones
• Gems are still required for all Transmutations that produce Rare Ascension Materials, Epic Crafting Ingredients, and Epic Battle Items — but the Gem costs have been reduced
• Staff have indicated that the Transmutation times in Beta continue to be just for testing, and will be longer in the live game

Removal of Bonus Items

The first version of Alchemy Lab had a low percentage chance of producing a “Bonus Item” for some Transmutations, sort of akin to drawing the HOTM from a Summons.

This functionality caused some confusion in initial testing, and has been removed.

Introduction of Alkashards

A new Item has been added to Beta as part of the Alchemy Lab, called Alkashards.

I would compare Alkashards to two things many people will have encountered in their lives:

1. Customer Loyalty Programs or Credit Card Reward Points, where you earn points that can later be redeemed for an item selected from a catalog
2. Arcade Tickets, where you can trade in a large pile of tickets for an item of your choice…and everyone wants the item that costs more tickets than anyone is ever going to get without spending a very large amount of time and money at the arcade

The Alchemy Lab produces Alkashards whenever any Transmutation is completed. The number of Alkashards produced varies with each level of the Alchemy Lab and the items being Transmuted.

In this initial version of Beta (remember this is highly likely to change), once you have 10,000 Alkashards, you can Combine the 10,000 Alkashards into an item of your choice, selected from 6 random options.

I’ll include full details on the number of Alkashards produced by each Transmutation when I document all of the Alchemy Lab Levels, but suffice it to say, in this first version, it requires a LOT of items and/or Gems to get to 10,000 Alkashards.

In my opinion, the cost/conversion ratios are in need of significant adjustment to make them worthwhile — but the premise of how it works is excellent.

The options that you can select one of currently appear to include:

• Your choice of 1 of 2 random 4* Ascension Material selections (e.g. Poison Darts OR Mystic Rings)
• Your choice of 1x 4* or 3x 3* Ascension Material selections (e.g. 1x Farsight Telescope OR 3x Warm Cape OR 3x Battle Manual — farmable 3* Ascension Materials can currently be included as an item choice)
• Your choice of 1 of 2 random 50x30x Titan Battle Item selections (e.g. 50x30x Hurricane OR 50x30x Time Freeze)
• You choice of 1 of 2 random 200x50x Emblem selections (e.g. 200x50x Fighter Emblems OR 200x50x Rogue Emblems)

You can choose 1 and only 1 of those items, e.g. 200x50x Fighter Emblems. You don’t get both of the items from that category, just one.

To say this again to prevent confusion:

While there are two options of each type, you only get 1 of those — so you’d pick 1x Poison Darts OR Mystic Rings3x Warm Cape, for example, not both.

Once you select that 1 item from the choices and Combine the Alkashards to produce it, all 6 of the item selections are changed randomly again.

Please remember that this is Beta, and everything is extremely likely to change. It’s a near certainty that the released version of Alchemy Lab will NOT be precisely the same as this current Beta version.

UPDATED Beta Alchemy Lab Levels

NOTE: Transmutation times in Beta are now set to the real times, so I’m publishing them.

A reminder that this is highly likely to change.

I’ve included the Food costs from the previous Beta, with removals/changes and updates.

Alchemy Lab upgrade costs and durations appear unchanged from the first Beta, and are still posted in the top post of this thread from then.

Level	Research Cost	Research Time	Advanced Food Storage Required	Transmutation	Transmutation Cost	# Transmutation Ingredients (how many items must be put in)	Alkashards Produced	Transmutation Time
1	2952k Food	1d 0h	1x Level 6, 1x Level 5	Transmute UNCOMMON Crafting Materials from COMMON Crafting Materials	121k 31000 Food	30 Ing.	2 Alkashards	1h 0m
2	2975k Food	1d 0h	2x Level 6	Transmute UNCOMMON Battle Items from COMMON Battle Items	135k 42000 Food	15 Ing.	4 Alkashards	2h 0m
3	2999k Food	1d 0h	2x Level 7	Transmute UNCOMMON Ascension Materials from COMMON Ascension Materials	167k 57000 Food	24 Ing.	6 Alkashards	3h 0m
4	3009k Food	3d 0h	2x Level 7	Transmute RARE Crafting Materials from UNCOMMON Crafting Materials	142k 63000 Food	20 ing.	12 Alkashards	6h 0m
5	3025k Food	3d 0h	1x Level 8, 1x Level 7	Transmute RARE Battle Items from UNCOMMON Battle Items	159k 73000 Food	10 ing.	18 Alkashards	9h 0m
6	3051k Food	3d 0h	2x Level 8	Transmute RARE Ascension Materials from UNCOMMON Ascension Materials NOTE: This can only produce Battle Manual, Chainmail Shirt, Scabbard, and Tall Boots	1 Gem, 194k 86000 Food	18 ing.	30 25 Alkashards	12h 0m
7	3069k Food	7d 0h	1x Level 9, 1x Level 8	Transmute EPIC Crafting Materials from RARE Crafting Materials	25 Gems, 168k 94000 Food	10 ing.	7055 Alkashards	1d 0h
8	3088k Food	7d 0h	2x Level 9	Transmute EPIC Battle Items from RARE Battle Items	50 Gems, 181k 103k Food	5 ing.	100125 Alkashards	2d 0h
9	3105k Food	7d 0h	1x Level 10, 1x Level 9	Transmute EPIC and RARE Ascension Materials from RARE Ascension Materials NOTE: This transmutation has a 5% chance of producing an EPIC Ascension Material, and a 95% chance of producing a unfarmable RARE Ascension Material.	150 Gems, 207k 168k Food	12 ing.	700 Alkashards450	7d 0h
10	3127k Food	14d 0h	2x Level 10	Transmute an EPIC Ascension Material into a different EPIC Ascension MaterialNOTE: This transmutation will never result in the same item that was used as the ingredient.	250 Gems, 256k Food	1 ing.	1200600 Alkashards	7d 0h

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If you see anything that doesn’t make sense, please ask! It’s entirely possible that I have typos, so don’t leap to conclusions about the game design if something looks odd.

[/details]

New Knights of Avalon Event

Discussion Thread: Early Information on New Knights of Avalon Challenge Event [Part of The Beta Beat V23]

please see above thread for all info

New Pirates of Corellia Event

Discussion Thread: Early Information on New Pirates of Corellia Challenge Event [Part of The Beta Beat V23]

please see above thread for all info

New Challenge Event Heroes

Discussion Thread: Early Information on the new Challenge Event Heroes (Pirates of Corellia, Fables of Grimforest, Guardians of Teltoc, Knights of Avalon, and Wonderland)

please see above thread for all stats and info

Costumes

Discussion Thread: Early Information on Costumes (Formerly Skins) [Part of The Beta Beat v23]

please see above thread for all info

New HOTM

Discussion Threads:

• Early Information on the November 2019 HOTM (Neith)

• Early Information on the December 2019 HOTM (Grimble)

please see above threads for all info

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Important Recommendations Based on Current Beta

You’ll Need to Upgrade Your Advanced Iron Storage & Advanced Food Storage to Access Alchemy Lab

In the first version of Beta, a Level 10 Advanced Iron Storage and 4x Level 20 Iron Storage are required to upgrade to Stronghold 23. (Full list of upgrade times for Advanced Iron Storage is above.)

Additionally, the Research costs for Alchemy Lab will require Advanced Food Storage upgrades. (Full list of upgrade times for Advanced Food Storage is above as well.) Details on the current requirements in Beta are in the Alchemy Lab section above. To give you some sense of the number of upgrades required before the Alchemy Lab can be used, the first Research currently requires one Level 6 Advanced Food Storage, and one Level 5 Advanced Food Storage.

REMEMBER: ALL OF THIS MAY CHANGE.

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Feedback?

I’d love to hear thoughts on whether this information and format is useful, and how you’d like to see information presented in the future. Any thoughts or ideas?

Thanks!

[GrootBeard]

I seriously doubt I’ll be using gems + anything to produce random stuff that is unlikely to be what I need. The amount of gems earnable in-game is negligible.

[zephyr1]

It’s very possible that will change.

Initial feedback in Beta certainly contains a lot of concerns/criticism of gems being required, particularly when the items received aren’t guaranteed to be the ones you want.

[SirGorash]

If there’s a 100% chance of transmutate ascension items I’d probably consider spending gems. But, if the alchemy lab becomes a random lottery where people end up losing their gems and their ascension items… well… I hope it doesn’t go in that direction tbh.

I like the info about iron and food requirements for buildings and research. Even if it gets changed it will help people plan ahead of time

[Kerridoc]

In beta you’re guaranteed to get an item—you just don’t know what.

In the final (10th) level, you take a 4* item and 300 gems and get a 4* item, for sure. There’s even a bonus roll that can let you get two 4* items.

There is no way, however, to say “here’s 300 gems and a dart, give me a Damascus blade.”

[SirGorash]

But that’s exactly what (I assume) most people wanted from the Alchemy Lab. ‘Here’s a tome of tactics and gems, gimme a damascus blade’

[General_Confusion]

They don’t get people spending a ton of gems chasing the one missing mat to ascend their only 5 star that way. So of course they will set it up to be random to get maximum gems.

[Padd]

Wow 300 gems is crazy!! I absolutely dislike this… It’s basically a epic hero summon with almost the same randomness… It this will become final it’s probably better to just keep buying the special offers where you get gems and ascension Mats…
@Kerridoc, one quick question, do you need to use a 4* ascension mat or a 4* item in general?

[zephyr1]

The guaranteed 4* Ascension Mat level requires using a 4* Ascension Mat as the ingredient in the recipe.

So you’d put in, for example, a Mysterious Tonic, and get out a random 4* AM.

[Cooper83]

typical gambling mechanism.
very sad

[SirGorash]

Sad but true.

20 random 4* mats…

[Peterenp]

A similar gem bar was removed from the tournament though so this will probably change too

[BarryWuzHere]

Sure you were HOPING but did you really think the game was going to offer you a guaranteed non-farmable ascension item of your choice?

Scarcity of ascension items is a fundamental part of the game, and will never go away. Swapping a surplus 4* mat for a guaranteed 4* mat (random; will be the one you wanted to be rid of 1/7 of the time presumably!) is the best that would fit the game.

Yes, I wanted it too … but I wasn’t silly enough to think that the I was going to get it at the expense of thrashing game balance.

[BarryWuzHere]

Looks like if we want to have the interesting advanced buildings (high level hunter’s lodge and alchemy lab), and research the things they can do, we’re pretty much gonna be maxing our advanced food storage and advanced iron storage as much as we can with the stronghold level we’ve got.

It slows down the build process / increases the resource cost for getting there … but the path to stronghold 20, TC20, and Forge20 was similar but not quite as tight when it came to forcing you to upgrade iron.

I’m guessing that that is due to the changes from VIP / 2nd builder. From talking to free players without the second builder, the smart way to build your stronghold was with iron storage nearly maxed so you wouldn’t overflow iron badly during long stronghold upgrades and waste it…but with VIP and two builders, that changed, and the smart way was to upgrade iron storage the minimum needed to make the upgrades, since two builders could use it fast enough to avoid this problem at least most of the time.

While the game clearly still supports and allows free players, the lost opportunities by not having VIP are increasing quite a bit, and the general expectation is that most players will spring for that now.

[StephenNap89]

Didn’t they say in the AMA that the alchemy lab would be F2P friendly? With how stingy they are on free gems, I’d say this is definitely not F2P friendly granted, I’m not F2P, but I am disappointed by this. I hope it changes.

[General_Confusion]

@BarryWuzHere

Sure you were HOPING but did you really think the game was going to offer you a guaranteed non-farmable ascension item of your choice?

IMO its rather useless as it is now. Remember, this is their “work around” for not implementing a trading system that people really want. With a trade I know exactly what I’m getting.

Also - why not allow trading in of multiple items for one you want. How many times do we hear things like “I have 18 telescopes but only 4 darts and I really want to ascend …” So let them trade in two or three telescopes for one dart. You know they will want those telescopes later, so scarcity isn’t a good answer.

[J1mau]

@Kerridoc

In the final (10th) level, you take a 4* item and 300 gems and get a 4* item, for sure. There’s even a bonus roll that can let you get two 4* items.

That sure is costly as hell for a chance at getting what you need.
I don’t see it being of any uses if the numbers stay the same… Thought it would be a combination of 3 and 4*, but 300 gems, ouch.

[zephyr1]

@StephenNap89

I hope it changes.

Me too.

I don’t like much of anything about the current implementation, other than the visual design.

[Hillbilly1]

So is there a chance that you trade 1 4*AM for another and get the same one you traded