Brighter Shores studio urges players to be patient with its unusual progress system and promises that it is actually a lot fun "once you get used it".

The profession system is one of the most unusual features in Brighter Shores. This newly-launched MMO was created by RuneScape creator Andrew Gower, and his brother Paul. We explained in our recent dive that professions are specific to a region, so if you move from episode to episode, your combat skills and professions will be left behind. Fen Research, the developer of the game, asked everyone to "please give it another chance" in a Steam update today.

The "breadth and deep" system, or "depth and breadth", as the studio calls its system, aims to ensure that new content is open and fun for everyone, while avoiding the level-related pitfalls common in other MMOs and RPGs. The studio stated that some games have level caps in order to prevent players from getting too far ahead, while others automatically scale content based on the player's level. But neither system is perfect: Level caps can keep players at arbitrary limits for long periods of time while auto-scaling means that leveling up "doesn't actually accomplish anything."

Brighter Shores uses a different method by limiting player abilities while still ensuring that they are relevant and accessible. The developers wrote that it is relatively simple to progress from one episode to the next (breadth), yet even after you reach the latest episode, you are not finished. "Instead, at any time you can choose any of the unlocked episodes and continue to level-up further in that episode."

Each episode has harder "sidequests" for this purpose. These sidequests will be for players who are willing to put in extra hours and will give them a reason to continue leveling up their professions.

The developers said that the episodes in the game were "heavily linked," so players will have to move between them frequently. Brighter Shores is designed to feel "new and exciting" with each new episode. The developers claim that this works: "Once you get used it, unlocking a new combat profession every now and then becomes quite enjoyable."

"Once you're used to it" can be a big warning, but it applies to many things in life. The dev team still sticks to their guns, but a few tweaks are being made to assist players in this direction. The level displayed next to your character’s name now reflects your total level across all professions. This "better emphasizes the fact that nothing has reset and all of your previous progress is still applicable" when you change levels. The dev team is also looking at content that requires multiple combat levels in order to complete, and better ways to explain how the system works so players don't feel their episode one skills have been rendered useless.

The dev team wrote: "It is important to be able to add new content to the game without creating a lot of 'dead' content." "We think that our 'breadth-and-depth' design achieves this but perhaps we did not explain it very clearly!"

Brighter Shores may not be doing everything right, but it certainly looks like they are. It's too early to judge the game's long-term viability, but SteamDB reports that there are almost 16,000 players currently playing. This is not bad for a small indie MMO.

The response to the update is also largely positive: some players don't like the system, but many others are grateful for its clarity and willingness to give it an honest try. It remains to be seen how it will hold up in the long term, but for now there is a willingness to accept it.