The Veil of Alaris Beta Non-Disclosure Agreement was lifted today and Piestro has given us a look at how progression will work in the upcoming expansion:

We wanted to take a moment and give you all a quick overview of the progression path for Veil of Alaris. If you were in beta, you saw the process change a few times, and this may have caused some confusion. In order to reduce the potential confusion, here's an overview.

Before we get into the details, let us give you a brief summary:

• Zones in Veil of Alaris have very little restriction. Players can basically go wherever they choose in the expansion. 
• Some content (some tasks and missions, higher rank spells, and class AA) requires a minimum of progression in order to obtain. 
• This progression is based off content completion, with an additional requirement of knowledge of the Alaran language, earned through completing tasks and missions. 
• There are essentially three types of advancement that we want to talk about: Content, Spells and AAs.

Content

Task and Mission content progression will be very similar to past expansions. Missions are part of a series of tasks which will have to be done in order to request the tasks and missions. However, we will also be requiring some level of understanding of the Alaran language to get some of the content. You gain skill with that language by doing the content anyway, so in practice there isn't much of a change here.

Our first two zones (Argath and Arelis, Valley of War) have almost no language requirements. Only the missions in Arelis require a language skill, and they only require a skill of 10. This which can easily be obtained doing the content that leads up to those missions. Later tiers have greater language requirements, which I'll show below.

Tasks will drop books, and clicking those books will update your language skill based on the content you have completed. Oh, and if you have completed the task Baga's Stand, you will get a 5 point head start on your language skill (though you will have to complete one task to get a language book first).

I have some lists and charts, but we'll save those for last. The main thing to understand here is that as you do the quests you will learn the language that you need to access the next tier of content.

 

We are also adding a simple requirement for accessing AAs for this expansion.

The VoA General and Archetype AAs can be purchased without restriction. In order to purchase the Class AAs available in Veil of Alaris, a character will have to obtain the AAs called Knowledge of Alaran Culture and Knowledge of Alaran Culture - Advanced.

The basic Knowledge of Alaran Culture will simply be given to any character entering any of the expansion basic zones. The Advanced AA will be given to any character that has earned an Alaran Language skill of 71 or better when they click one of the language books.

 

Spells

Rank I spells are available on the merchants in Argath.

• The basic level 91-93 rank I spells have no requirements to purchase.
• The rest of the level 91-93 rank I spells and the basic level 94-95 rank I spells require an Alaran language skill of 25.
• The rest of the level 94-95 spells require an Alaran language skill of 50.

Rank II and III spells are available via quests from The Sklyg in Beastdomain. He will offer quests with spells as their reward based on your language skill.

• Rank II, Level 91 spells are available with no prerequisite language skills.
• Rank II, Level 92-93 and Rank III, Level 91 are available with a language skill of 25 or greater.
• Rank II, Level 94-95 and Rank III, Level 92-93 are available with a language skill of 50 or greater.
• Rank III, Level 94-95 are available with a language skill of 75 or greater.

Rewards for spells that you already have scribed should be hidden from you. This does not check for scrolls you have in your inventory!

Each quest should always offer you a return of your item (in case you don't have a viable option).

 

How to Learn the Language

In Argath and Arelis, each task gives a different book, each with its own bit of story. Each zone after that will give the same book for every task. Clicking any of these books will set your language skill to the proper value based on the tasks you have completed. Here are the language skill calculations.

Having completed the prelaunch mission (Baga's Stand) will add 5 points to the language value beyond the numbers below.

The tasks in Argath or Arelis will get your Alaran to 70 (75 if you have completed the prelaunch task). You can get the full value from those two zones by doing just about half of the content, or if you focus on either zone you can get the full 70 points by completing that one zone. Missions give more points than tasks, and more complex tasks give more points than the simple "kill" tasks.

Note: You get points for completing a task once. Repeating those tasks will not improve your language skill.

The tiers after that will grant 5, 10 and 15 language points respectively, giving a total of 100 (105 if you have done the Baga's Stand task).

Tier 2

• Doing all of Sarith = 5 points
• Doing half of them = 3 points
• Doing 1 of them = 1 point

Tier 3

• Doing all of Rubak = 3
• Doing half of them = 2 points
• Doing 1 of them = 1 point
• Doing all of Beast Domain = 3
• Doing half of them = 2 points
• Doing 1 of them = 1 point
• Doing all of Resplendent Temple = 4
• Doing half of them = 2 points
• Doing 1 of them = 1 point

Tier 4

• Doing all of City of Bronze = 3
• Doing half of them = 2 points
• Doing 1 of them = 1 point
• Doing all of Pillars of Alra = 4
• Doing half of them = 2 points
• Doing 1 of them = 1 point
• Doing all of Windsong = 4
• Doing half of them = 2 points
• Doing 1 of them = 1 point
• Doing all of Sepulcher = 4
• Doing half of them = 2 points
• Doing 1 of them = 1 point

 

Conclusion

Essentially, the progression for Veil of Alaris is the same as it has been for expansions in the past. We've added a layer of language requirements to most of it, however we've left the zones unlocked. The language will come to you as you do the content and should have little impact beyond, we hope, adding a bit of flavor to the experience.