The Masquerade of Liars Returns!

strumslinger

Our favorite spooky event returns this year with new treats! http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/9618633

gankdalf

Already did this even 2 or 3 times, I dont see anything new except for an artifact that I would never want to use.
Nice try tho (or not?). I wonder how many times the same old events with the same old stuff is going to be reused because cryptic dont want to invest in the game.

kolatmaster

ejziponken said:

Already did this even 2 or 3 times, I dont see anything new except for an artifact that I would never want to use.
Nice try tho (or not?). I wonder how many times the same old events with the same old stuff is going to be reused because cryptic dont want to invest in the game.

Seeing as how it's once a year, and in my Guild there are people playing now who didn't play last year and/or missed it the previous years for XYZ reasons, I think it's a fine event to participate in if you want to.

Aside from that, in light of your outstanding post, all I can say is...

two30

Protector's Enclave is beautiful during the Masquerade, and I'm honestly looking forward to the decor more than the activities or rewards.

zebular

Samhain is my favorite holiday, so looking forward to this event just on that premise alone. I'm looking forward to getting some more Masks of Sharess for certain characters and the artifact looks decent for a paladin or guardian, might pick that up too! Maybe even spotting Mask himself for the elusive "Mask Witness" achievement? >:)

urabask

kolatmaster said:

ejziponken said:

Already did this even 2 or 3 times, I dont see anything new except for an artifact that I would never want to use.
Nice try tho (or not?). I wonder how many times the same old events with the same old stuff is going to be reused because cryptic dont want to invest in the game.

Seeing as how it's once a year, and in my Guild there are people playing now who didn't play last year and/or missed it the previous years for XYZ reasons, I think it's a fine event to participate in if you want to.

Aside from that, in light of your outstanding post, all I can say is...

Eh.

I still don't see why they couldn't let the artifact get to mythic. Capping it at 60 seems pointless.

rozynfirethorn

Is the outfit on the left available in game anywhere?

ghoulz66

Seriously, just copy/paste stats from a previous artifact? Recovery/Deflect/Stamina is about a terrible combo. Why not something what would be nice for EVERYONE? Think the entire server is just GFs or something?

obsiddia

zebular said:

Samhain is my favorite holiday, so looking forward to this event just on that premise alone. I'm looking forward to getting some more Masks of Sharess for certain characters and the artifact looks decent for a paladin or guardian, might pick that up too! Maybe even spotting Mask himself for the elusive "Mask Witness" achievement? >:)

I think you've mentioned him appearing at some point in the past...
Is that real or just rumor? Someone needs to get a screencap!

zebular

obsiddia said:

zebular said:

Samhain is my favorite holiday, so looking forward to this event just on that premise alone. I'm looking forward to getting some more Masks of Sharess for certain characters and the artifact looks decent for a paladin or guardian, might pick that up too! Maybe even spotting Mask himself for the elusive "Mask Witness" achievement? >:)

I think you've mentioned him appearing at some point in the past...
Is that real or just rumor? Someone needs to get a screencap!

Definitely real. When following Illusionists down, they will "randomly" transform into various bosses from delves and other content. Very, very, very rarely (so rare that only one of my characters has the achievement) one of these transformations will be in the form of an Avatar of Mask himself, the god of Thieves.

When he "appears" in game and you're nearby the illusionist that transforms into him, an achievement completes for you. I don't think I have the screenshot of Mask still on file, but here's one of the achievement in game (which you can verify yourself by checking to show available achievements under Seasonal).



Whether or not this is supposed to represent an actual manifestation of Mask himself or not, remains up for debate. However, when the first Masquerade came to be, it was at the same time when he came back to life and reappeared in novels in actual Forgotten Realms lore. This as well as the wording of the achievement suggest, to me anyway, that it is actually Mask himself. At least in Avatar form.

darkstarcrash

Listen to his dialogue closely when he appears, definitely seems to be Mask himself. Very cool.

And for the people complaining about the artifact, this is for those people who don't have a lot of AD or access to a bunch of class sigils -- a free level 60 artifact to fill one of the four slots will be appreciated, I'm sure.

urabask

darkstarcrash said:

Listen to his dialogue closely when he appears, definitely seems to be Mask himself. Very cool.

And for the people complaining about the artifact, this is for those people who don't have a lot of AD or access to a bunch of class sigils -- a free level 60 artifact to fill one of the four slots will be appreciated, I'm sure.

And they'd probably appreciate a free Mythic even more : |

Not to mention it's pretty garbage for most classes.

Only thing worse is that ALL of the drops from this event are BtC.

zebular

Yeah, I found him and was able to screen shot him this time. His dialog definitely makes it seem as though it is him for sure too. Just wish I had turned my graphics back to max before running around. When I do my next character later tonight, I will.

Mask said:

[NPC] Masquerade Illusionist: Normally I don't like to leave witnesses, but today is an exception.
[NPC] Masquerade Illusionist: So many people have forgotten what the Masquerade of Liars is truly about.

urabask

zebular said:

Yeah, I found him and was able to screen shot him this time. His dialog definitely makes it seem as though it is him for sure too. Just wish I had turned my graphics back to max before running around. When I do my next character later tonight, I will.

Mask said:

[NPC] Masquerade Illusionist: Normally I don't like to leave witnesses, but today is an exception.
[NPC] Masquerade Illusionist: So many people have forgotten what the Masquerade of Liars is truly about.

Just saw it, got the bag from it and didn't get the achievement : |

two30

urabask said:

Just saw it, got the bag from it and didn't get the achievement : |

Just ride around until you find him, then stand near him and wait. The achievement triggers on a delay.

zebular

two30 said:

urabask said:

Just saw it, got the bag from it and didn't get the achievement : |

Just ride around until you find him, then stand near him and wait. The achievement triggers on a delay.

I can confirm the delay. I whitnessed one transform on another toon just a bit ago and didn't get the achievement for about 30 seconds (not really sure how long) afterwards.

peterbilodeau

I, for one, am really happy about the dye and the artifact. I won't have time to collect enough of the tokens for anything else, but this is the coolest event I've seen so far (been here less than a year) and I wish I could spend the weekend grinding it out and collecting everything. It seems like some people just aren't going to be happy - even when you literally give them an artifact (or massive RP for their Power artifacts - during a 2x RP weekend), but some of us appreciate it. Along with this week's patch changes, the update to this event, and the Hide & Seek community event, you guys really are putting the fun and satisfying rewards back into the game. Thank you!

urabask

peterbilodeau said:

I, for one, am really happy about the dye and the artifact. I won't have time to collect enough of the tokens for anything else, but this is the coolest event I've seen so far (been here less than a year) and I wish I could spend the weekend grinding it out and collecting everything. It seems like some people just aren't going to be happy - even when you literally give them an artifact (or massive RP for their Power artifacts - during a 2x RP weekend), but some of us appreciate it. Along with this week's patch changes, the update to this event, and the Hide & Seek community event, you guys really are putting the fun and satisfying rewards back into the game. Thank you!

You can't refine the artifact into anything.

obsiddia

I think this year is much improved over previous years. Pinatas make picking up
each pumpkin unnecessary. Far easier to get a Scarecrow or Skeleton.
The Artifact (despite complaints) is a great gift for players who don't have 4 artifacts yet...
which I'd say are quite a few!

Small bug in that I got a 2nd Illusionist's Mask after completing the 1st.

Please go back to Lliira and make it more like this!

obsiddia

zebular said:

Yeah, I found him and was able to screen shot him this time. His dialog definitely makes it seem as though it is him for sure too. Just wish I had turned my graphics back to max before running around. When I do my next character later tonight, I will.

Mask said:

[NPC] Masquerade Illusionist: Normally I don't like to leave witnesses, but today is an exception.
[NPC] Masquerade Illusionist: So many people have forgotten what the Masquerade of Liars is truly about.

Thank you. Found him. There's another quote about being a god. I was going to find it to use as my signature here...

zebular

obsiddia said:

zebular said:

Yeah, I found him and was able to screen shot him this time. His dialog definitely makes it seem as though it is him for sure too. Just wish I had turned my graphics back to max before running around. When I do my next character later tonight, I will.

Mask said:

[NPC] Masquerade Illusionist: Normally I don't like to leave witnesses, but today is an exception.
[NPC] Masquerade Illusionist: So many people have forgotten what the Masquerade of Liars is truly about.

Thank you. Found him. There's another quote about being a god. I was going to find it to use as my signature here...

Awesome!

Just to update, it can be any illusionist. I found two different ones that walk a set path also transform into him tonight.

obsiddia

Yay. Found him before the transformation and got the quotes:

Masquerade Illusionist (turns into Mask): Let my next illusion show us the truth behind the Masquerade...
- So many people have forgotten what the Masquerade of Liars is truly about.
- My greatest trick was convincing everyone of my own death.
- So many people have forgotten what the Masquerade of Liars is truly about.
- Did you really think anyone could steal the power of the god of thieves?
- Normally I don't like to leave witnesses, but today is an exception.

zebular

In addition, I caught one of his transformations saying:
"What a wonderful city has been built here. Full of so many valuable things..."

As well, twice now his transformation was preceded with:
"Let my next illusion show us the truth behind the Masquerade..."

His appearances does seem to be more often this year.

regenerde

Since yesterday, i'm not getting all three daily quests from the mask npc...
And i could really use the resources from those quests, since updates from green to blue failed on several characters.
And sometimes i'm not getting bags from the illusionists, allthough i have more then enough charms in my inventory.
Might be too late for a fix for this round, but would be great if they could fix it for next year.

zebular

regenerde said:

Since yesterday, i'm not getting all three daily quests from the mask npc...
And i could really use the resources from those quests, since updates from green to blue failed on several characters.
And sometimes i'm not getting bags from the illusionists, allthough i have more then enough charms in my inventory.
Might be too late for a fix for this round, but would be great if they could fix it for next year.

Once a character does the "Lore" quest 5 times, that character cannot get it anymore as each time it unlocks one of the 5 lore entries associated with it. Once you have all 5 lore entries, you only get the two quests involving charms.

However, once you get your Illusionits Mask to Rare (blue) quality, you unlock the ability to purchase Momentos for Veils in the Masquerade Vendor. So, when you get to Rare, you can essentially get it to Epic within an hour (or less). All you have to do is farm Charms either by pumpkin looting or taking your pinata's to solo location and grabbing the charms from them. Then run amok turning in the Charms for Bags, open the bags for RP items and Veils. Buying missing Momentos with your Veils and then upgrading your artifact.

Once I had one character fail on upgrading green to blue. After that, I used my account-bound preservation wards from Coffers as a saftey catch whenever I upgraded my artifacts. I was able to get 18 characters their epic masks and I didn't play much more than doing their event dailies until they got their artifacts to Rare. Once rare, I did what I said above to get it Epic right away.

Turning in charms to illusionists works on a multi-cooldown where you can only turn in charms to the same illusionists once for an undetermined set period of time. However, if you run in a large enough pattern, you will never see them stop accepting tokens. My route is to start at the base of the stairs by the dias, down that small road, come out on the side of the Seven Suns Coster Market, then around to the back of the Market, then completely around it to the front and then go behind the tree and finally back at the guy at the bottom of the dais.

Here's a map of the route I took, showing the Stationary and Wandering Illusionists that I'd stop at. If the wandering Illusionist that crosses my path wasn't in immediate range, I'd just continue to the next Stationary Illusionist on my path. There's more Illusionists up not pictured above as well, and in Moonstone Mask. These here are just the ones that I specifically went to on my own personal route.

regenerde

Well, that thing with the lore is good to know, thank you.
But there's still the problem with a few characters that only got to the green mask, 90% chance and it failed several times...
Guess i have to wait for the next event then.

Edit: Only one Preservation Ward left from my coffers, keeping that one for a more important upgrade.