Zone Tiers

A tier is a power band, T1 through T8. In ED5 the tier of a mob, a resource node or a piece of loot is decided by the map it appears on — not by the thing itself. You set a tier on each map, and everything that enters the world there resolves against it.

That is what makes exploration pay: the only way to get higher-tier gear is to go somewhere higher-tier and take it.

Where to Author It

How To Set It Up

1. Open Combat → Itemization and set World Max Tier — the highest tier your world uses. The default is 8; set it lower for a shorter ladder, or higher for a longer one. Everything downstream follows it: zone tiers, item and mob bands, spawn tiers and drop rolls all reach the number you set here, and the per-tier stat scaling simply continues past 8. 2. Open Zones, open your starter map, and set Tier to 1 in its properties. 3. Set a higher Tier on each map further out — a second region at 3, an endgame region at 6, and so on. 4. Open an item and set its Tier band. Min is the lowest tier it can appear at, Max the highest. A starter sword might be 1–3; a legendary blade 7–8. 5. Do the same on your mobs. A wolf banded 1–5 is a T1 wolf in your starter map and a much tougher T5 wolf in a high-tier one — same mob, same art, no second definition. 6. Publish, then roll the game server so the new tiers take effect.

The Fields

How Drops Roll

Loot does not always drop at the map's tier. It rolls at or below it, so the top of the band stays worth hunting:

Both the spread (how far below) and the weights are tunable in Combat → Itemization. A map's tier is a hard ceiling — an item whose Min Tier is above the map's tier simply cannot drop there, so a shared loot table quietly stops offering high-end pieces in low-tier maps instead of handing them out.

Mobs and resource nodes are different: they are not rolled. They spawn at the map's tier exactly, clamped into their own band.

What Tier Changes

• Item stats — authored Base Stats are the stats at Min Tier, and each tier above scales them up
• Weapon damage — the tier damage multiplier in the combat formula
• Mob strength — a higher-tier mob has more HP and hits harder
• Price — an unpriced item's vendor value falls back to its tier
• Gathering — a tool is checked against a node's Min Tool Tier using the tier the tool itself was minted at, so a tool gathered in a low-tier map won't open high-tier nodes

Gotchas

• Items never change tier. Tier is stamped when the item is created and never moves. Carrying a T6 axe into a T1 map keeps it T6; picking up a T1 drop while standing in a T6 map keeps it T1.
• Base Stats mean the stats at Min Tier, not at tier 1. Widening a band downward makes an item weaker at the new floor, so re-check the numbers after you change Min.
• Widening a band changes your balance. Until you widen one, every item and mob stays pinned to the tier it already had, and nothing about your world changes.
• NPCs have no tier. They work like players — their strength comes from their stats and the gear they carry, and that gear is tiered by the map they live in.
• Vendors are not random. Shop stock is priced at the shop's map tier exactly, never rolled.
• Zone tiers need a publish and a server roll before players see them.
• The whole system is behind the zoneTierSystem engine flag. With it off, everything enters at its band's Min Tier.