Most of the gear you get inHyper Light Breakercomes from Hub vendors, but you may make the items they sell far cheaper. By giving these NPC vendors gifts, you can unlock more features in their shops and reduce the prices of their wares. By making different gear cheaper, you can easily craft a stronger build before you go back into the Overgrowth.
Some vendors appear in the Overgrowth itself as you explore. While these characters tend to sell strong items in exchange forBright Blood inHyper Light Breaker, youcan never predict where vendors in the Overgrowth will show up. Much like the world itself, the placement of vendors will change between runs, making it impossible for you to increase affinity with them.
What Is Vendor Affinity in Hyper Light Breaker?
Check In With Different People At The Hub
Vendor Affinity is the rate of friendship between you and a vendorinHyper Light Breaker. These vendor characters are unlocked over time as you get the right resources to open their shops in the Hub world preceding the Overgrowth. Thankfully, both of the shops that aren’t available at the beginning of the game only cost 12 Material to open, which can easily be obtained on your first few runs.
Material is a type ofcurrency inHyper Light Breakerthat you’re able to get to improve your character’s stats and unlock new abilities as well. You can find this material in Stashes or by collecting four Core Shards, which automatically turn into a full Core when gathered.
When you interact with a vendor, you can check their wares, their prices, and their affinity.The vendor affinity starts at 0 and resets between Cycles, also known as the times when the Overgrowth resets after you lose all your Rezes. Since you only get four Rezes, or"lives,“your affinity with a particular vendor could be reset much faster than you think.
Hyper Light Breaker: 10 Tips & Tricks For Beginners
After many delays during its early development, Hyper Light Breaker is finally here; here are a few ways to ensure your survival in the Overgrowth.
Having 0 Vendor Affinity with an NPC means that their prices will be highfor any item they sell. To get some gear, weapons, or upgrades, it will cost you a lot of Bright Blood and Material during your first few runs. However, as time goes on, you’ll unlock more ways to improve a vendor’s shop, giving them new services and reducing how expensive some items cost.
How To Increase Vendor Affinity (Make Items Cheaper)
Spend Certain Resources As Gifts
Anyone can increase the affinity of their vendors bygiving Gold Rations to any NPC that owns a shop. While this doesn’t apply to vendors you find in the Overgrowth, any Hub vendor will welcome aGold Ration inHyper Light Breakerwith open arms. These gift items act as a way to not only make a vendor’s item prices cheaper but also expand the services of their store.
Gold Rations are typically used for permanent Pherus Bit upgrades for your character that carry over between runs. These items are received by ranking up after a completed Cycle and by exploring dangerous Labs in the Overgrowth. When you have some extra Rations, try togive them to a vendor whose shop sells items you desperately need for your upcoming run.
The vendors you increase affinity with should be the ones you go to the most for a current character build. For example, anyone trying to make a melee focused build should improve their affinity with the Blades vendor in the Hub before anyone else.
Here are some examples of upgrades to a vendor’s store you may see when you increase their affinity:
Thebenefits from increased vendor affinity only get greateras your relationship with certain NPCs develops. Those playing inco-op multiplayer inHyper Light Breakerwill be able to see these high-tier affinity bonuses more often, as it will be easier to farm Gold Rations in a group.
How Progression & Upgrades Work In Hyper Light Breaker
Hyper Light Breaker has four main methods of progression to make characters stronger within and between runs. Here’s how each of them works.
The ability to upgrade your gear can only be unlocked when you improve affinity with a vendor. This locks some of the strongest builds in the game behind the affinity system, making it much more important than just making items cheaper. Although the rogue-like structure ofHyper Light Breakerwill make some gear obsolete over time, it’seasier to find reliable equipmentwhen you can enhance it with vendors.
Once you have cheaper items, you’re able to spend currency you farm from a run on different expenses. You can invest more into improving your gear or character stats, allowing you to have much stronger builds inHyper Light Breakeronce items are cheaper to get from vendors.
