I wanted to take a moment and explain an important change we're making to items in the next update.

Items (weapons and gear) will now respond to the core in the same manner as monsters and other content within Cradle. What this means is that an item will increase in power the closer it gets to the core.

At shallower depths, even high star equipment will be less powerful. This allows for a moderate challenge even on shallow floors.

As mentioned in a previous thread, star values are useful within certain tiers:

0-1 star gear for Tier 1
2-3 star gear for Tier 2
4-5 star gear for Tier 3

With scaling power, a 1 star sword is useful up until tier 2, while a 5 star sword will be useful through all tiers.

"Does this mean a 0 star item is just as good as a 5 star item in tier 1?"

No, higher star items and items that have been leveled up are always a little better than lower star or level items of any given tier. On top of that you will still enjoy the benefits of many of the physical aspects of items: higher star bombs have bigger blast areas, higher star alchemers split more bullets, etc.

In short, your better gear is still your better gear, but it will no longer allow you to be an invincible killing machine, one-shotting everything outside of your tier. Having nicer gear gives you a boost and earns you the ability to survive in a new tier.

Please let us know what you think in the forums, thanks!