If you promise not to keep a deadline in my face, I am willing to share what Id like to change to hero weapons and setup.
(and making this feature useless in the process).
Problem: Ranker-heroes are dominating duels/tournaments because they bulk from exp from training.
Therefor there are always higher level than their opponents. And the main problem with that is access to better gear/weapons.
So instead of making items level-based, I plan on making them skill based.
Which means:
Banner doesnt unlock at herolevel 11, but it unlocks at leadership on 20.
Scale armor doesnt unlock at level 10(?), but it unlocks at resilience on 15.
Herbs dont unlock at level 15, but it unlocks at healing on 30.
etc. etc.
The effect of this, is that players have to choose what their heroes are designed for.
If you want to pvp, you really want to put points into those duelist-stats to unlock better weapons/gear.
If you want to rank, you might wanna put all your points in healing, but then conceding that it has lesser weapons.
That way we hope to balance the hero minigame a lot better.
This is a work in progress, or more of a thought in progress.
This is not finalized but a sketch to a change which I plan in Q2 of 2020