Developer Blog: Masterwork Professions

strumslinger · November 2015

We've seen a lot of questions about this new feature in Underdark, so it's time we went into detail about Masterwork Professions: http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/9641673

rifter1969 · November 2015

OK.. I just read this and have been waiting for a details about masterwork professions.

Ummmm... can we get a clarification on something?

"In order to unlock masterwork recipes a player must be a member of a guild with a stronghold guildhall of at least rank 12. At that point players with at least one profession at rank 25 will receive a quest from The Master of Coin to speak with a new contact, “The Artisan.” In order to unlock new recipes for a given profession players will have to undertake a series of quests for that profession that puts their crafting abilities to the test."

So, does this mean that in order to do masterwork profession tasks... one MUST be in a guild that has a rank 12 guildhall?

The blog later on kind of skips over that.. by just going into how or why people who don't craft should be doing this.

"Now some of you might be thinking “I’m in a smaller guild with a low rank stronghold” or “I’m not really a crafter,” so, “this doesn’t really affect me.” In reality masterwork recipes affects more than just those who engage directly. For those crafters not in a high rank guild or not ready to make such an investment, those undertaking masterwork recipes will need a number of lower rank materials and rare items from professions they might not have even leveled."

So this is the paragraph that starts to say about those of us in smaller guilds... and ummm... well... what in the world does this mean?
Does this mean we have to rank up other professions to get certain materials that will allow us to open masterwork professions?

Or is it, if you are in a small guild with no chance of getting rank 12 in any holding ... you're basically out of luck?

Unknown · November 2015

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ironzerg79 · November 2015

rifter1969 said:
Or is it, if you are in a small guild with no chance of getting rank 12 in any holding ... you're basically out of luck?

As I read it. Yes. If you don't have access to the quests from a level 12+ Stronghold, you're unable to participate in the Masterwork Professions.

Apart from selling baubles on the AH other people might need who are getting to experience the content.

pricetagcloud · November 2015

I just noticed that the robes pictured are BoE... Hmmmmmmm.....

scathias · November 2015

I can't really comment on how well this is going to work until I can actually see some concrete details, like what all the gear is like and what this typically cryptic "Weapon crafting classes will learn to make required components for stronghold artifact weapons" means... so is this an alternative way to get the resources needed for a SH unity weapon? or are the unity weapons gated behind the masterwork professions...

All in all, from this look at the blog I'd say masterwork is a ton of work for no gain at all. The legendary rings that will be dropping from the new content look amazing (+1350 to a single stat and 2 offensive or defensive slots)

arabatur · November 2015

I would rather see the general professions revamped. Plus I'll never see a rank 12 guildhall in my lifetime, so not interested.

shurato2099 · November 2015

So, basically, unless you're in a large, rich guild that can get to the level 12 stronghold holdings quickly masterwork professions aren't for you. Don't delude yourself with the whole 'they'll need other materials' bit because large guilds have lots of people to provide those. If you're in a small guild, or not even in one, the Masterwork stuff will remain out of reach for a very, very long time which may even exceed the life of this game.

In the mean time the damage caused by the AD nerf continues apace and, hey look, the goldsellers are still there in force.

Unknown · November 2015

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urabask · November 2015

ironzerg79 said:

rifter1969 said:
Or is it, if you are in a small guild with no chance of getting rank 12 in any holding ... you're basically out of luck?
As I read it. Yes. If you don't have access to the quests from a level 12+ Stronghold, you're unable to participate in the Masterwork Professions.

Apart from selling baubles on the AH other people might need who are getting to experience the content.

Does this mean we don't need an explorer's guild anymore?

scathias · November 2015

no, you absolutely need the explorers guild, otherwise you can't get the explorers charts that make it so that you can go find the extra rare resources they created for masterworks

Unknown · November 2015

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rifter1969 · November 2015

ironzerg79 said:

As I read it. Yes. If you don't have access to the quests from a level 12+ Stronghold, you're unable to participate in the Masterwork Professions.

Apart from selling baubles on the AH other people might need who are getting to experience the content.

This is what I was affraid of. Well my guild will NEVER see rank 12 in any holding... so I guess this is just another piece of the game I won't get to participate in.

Sigh

two30 · November 2015

"In order to unlock masterwork recipes a player must be a member of a guild with a stronghold guildhall of at least rank 12."
Alas.

mightyeriksson · November 2015

Are there any numbers or guesstimates as to how many guilds have a rank 12 guild-hall?
This feels like it wasn't entirely thought through all the way...

mrvincent1959 · November 2015

Sounds interesting. The part about "You’ll need a high quality result to finish many new recipes. Failing a recipe will return some of the materials used.", is going to annoy me probably, but at least SOME of the materials are returned.

asterdahl · November 2015

rifter1969 said:
So, does this mean that in order to do masterwork profession tasks... one MUST be in a guild that has a rank 12 guildhall?

That's correct. Once Masterwork professions are in the wild we will continue to monitor how many players are engaging as well as the prices of items and the relative power of those items to comparable equipment obtained from other sources.

pricetagcloud said:
I just noticed that the robes pictured are BoE... Hmmmmmmm.....

Every item created by masterwork recipes is Bind on Equip, with the exception of certain items that are only used in the quests to obtain the tools.

defiantone99 said:
It is inconsistent. You need 16 to get Rank 8 structures, right?

Good catch, that was a mistake and is now fixed, apologies for any confusion. As I mentioned above we'll be monitoring players engagement with masterwork recipes, and making adjustments. Those sorts of adjustments happen continually from a feature's inception, and this is the case of one such adjustment happening while this blog was still in the editing process.

Originally masterwork professions were slated to be available at a higher guild hall rank, but we took a look at where everyone is with their strongholds and eased the requirements. Stronghold artifact weapons will also be eased to rank 12 guild hall with this update. You'll only need a rank 6 explorer's guild to obtain charts.

scathias said:
"Weapon crafting classes will learn to make required components for stronghold artifact weapons" means... so is this an alternative way to get the resources needed for a SH unity weapon? or are the unity weapons gated behind the masterwork professions...

You'll need a set of armaments corresponding to your class, created by either an artificer or a weaponsmith to purchase stronghold artifact weapons alongside either fangs of the dragonflight, fallen banners or a mixture of both. Weaponsmiths will be able to make armaments for both Fighters, Hunters and Rogues. Meanwhile, artificers will be able to make armaments for Clerics, Paladins, Warlocks and Wizards.

scathias · November 2015

well, according to the preview collections entries for the SH unity artifact weapons you will need to get the Stronghold armaments item from the masterwork crafting... so it is now gated behind even more stuff

On the other hand, the new elemental artifact weapon sets are available from a quest from the Archdruid, and then you collect 100 motes of (element) from the elemental zone (drowned, burning etc) and you are done... simple, straightforward and easy enough

alpehans · November 2015

"In order to unlock masterwork recipes a player must be a member of a guild with a stronghold guildhall of at least rank 12."
My clock must be broken, could have sworn it's not the 1. April

qexotic · November 2015

So in keeping with everything else I have read so far about Mod 8, there is absolutely nothing in the Masterworks Professions that will be accessible to level 70 solo players....who make up the bulk of your playerbase

obsiddia · November 2015

"Now some of you might be thinking “I’m in a smaller guild with a low rank stronghold”

I love crafting, but am now doomed.

shurato2099 · November 2015

qexotic said:
So in keeping with everything else I have read so far about Mod 8, there is absolutely nothing in the Masterworks Professions that will be accessible to level 70 solo players....who make up the bulk of your playerbase

We could always buy exorbitantly priced equipment from the increasingly empowered guilds?

rifter1969 · November 2015

asterdahl,

OK thank you for the clarification. This is a most unfortunate development, since my guild will never see rank 12.
I sure hope that it is looked at objectively and with compassion for those of us who are not in mega guilds.

scathias · November 2015

if you go check preview all the masterwork created gear is there. It is not any better then what is more easily available from dragonflight/legendary rings unless it has a special stat combo you want. on the whole, i don't think this is worth it at all

(masterwork pvp tenacity rings may be an exception to this rule for some classes/builds)

beckylunatic · November 2015

obsiddia said:
"Now some of you might be thinking “I’m in a smaller guild with a low rank stronghold”

I love crafting, but am now doomed.

Oddly enough, I think the players who have engaged with crafting the most, not for the sake of profiting from the few BiS crafted items, but because they actually really love the concept of crafting (f'n shocking) are also players who gravitate to solo play or small guilds.

I really think the masterwork concept has demographically missed the mark.

And as has also been said, masterwork professions are only available to players who already at least in theory have easy access to Dragonflight/Lion's Mane equipment, and while it is all BoE and sellable, the means of production have been placed in the hands of the most resource-rich, who control the availability to the resource-poor.

Capitalism, yay?

beckylunatic · November 2015

scathias said:
if you go check preview all the masterwork created gear is there. It is not any better then what is more easily available from dragonflight/legendary rings unless it has a special stat combo you want. on the whole, i don't think this is worth it at all

(masterwork pvp tenacity rings may be an exception to this rule for some classes/builds)

Has the equipment in the collections been updated? The accessories were previously single-slotted and therefore inferior to personalized. That was to be changed, and as outlined in today's blog, they'll be dual-slotted.

scathias · November 2015

yes, the rings on preview have 2 slots

beckylunatic · November 2015

I'll have to take a peek. I wish preview Gateway wasn't disabled. Pain in the HAMSTER when you just want to quickly view an item.

npstalon · November 2015

Totally worthless addition to the VAST majority of your ever dwindling player base. Continuing to ignore your solo/small guild players will be this games downfall.

scathias · November 2015

As I understand it, masterworks is supposed to provide a secondary source of good (close to BIS) gear. And in it's current implementation, it does do that. The problem with masterworks is that for your average player, they are going to be unable to meet the minimum requirements to make this gear (guild hall r12 / explorer's guild r6) since most of the guilds in the game are far too small to be even close to that level. As such they would have to buy from the "rich" people who do have those guilds and the price will be pretty high, and will remain so until the gear is outclassed in mod 10 (which will happen, your track record cryptic proves this) and then masterworks is unlikely to be updated to compensate.

so the average player is going to try and get legendary rings from drops in epic demongorgan/skirmishes and the dragonflight/lionsmane gear from the guild hall r8/marketplace r4 which is far easier to achieve... and even that many small guilds have had trouble achieving by this point. I can see many lower income/guild players skipping SH gear all together and getting the mod 8 drow gear because they can FARM it with no artificial barriers like a guild hall level

If the masterworks had no entry barrier then this whole thing would be perfect and work exactly as you devs want it to. as it is, it is not going to see wide use (as measured by a large number of lower geared people adopting the gear as their best option, and as measured by production since the market to sell isn't there either)

lwedar · November 2015

@asterdahl Only question, does this make the assets/resources that we have invested in useless to the masterwork profession item? IE all of our purple assets are now essentially useless other than to create items that are already obsolete. I am taking about weaponsmithing and artificiing mostly here.

Developer Blog: Masterwork Professions

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