Preferred Free-to-play Artifact Authorization gear bug

Hey everyone,

We saw reports of players seeing issues with their gear no longer being functional. This is due to a bug with the changes we made to Artifact Authorization. I’m going to lay out what our intention was with the Artifact Authorization change, what the bug actually is, and when a fix will be coming.

It was intended that Preferred status players would be able to continue wearing gear that had Artifact Authorization added in 7.7.1, similar to the existing way that players can continue to wear gear that requires Artifact Authorization when moving from Subscriber to Preferred.

The bug affected players are seeing is that their currently equipped gear is no longer functional. That is not intended. We are targeting a fix to go out this week. In the meantime, we recommend that you DO NOT unequip any of your gear. Keep your gear on and when the fix goes out this week, it will be functional again.

Reminder, if at any point you are a Preferred player and take off gear that requires Artifact Authorization, you will need to either purchase Artifact Authorization (for character or account) or renew your subscription in order to re-equip that gear.

I will keep you all updated on the exact timing of the fix once I get that info.