Neverwinter Templars

jse

Neverwinter Templars,

Cryptic is coming out with some major changes, below is just a small part to whet your appetite. Click the READ MORE AT ARC link at the end to see the whole article. There are some really cool, nice changes, and some that will cause distress (see bonding stones). Enjoy!

Why the change?

Refinement is a core part of Neverwinter gameplay, but a lot of the time it could feel like it was weighing down on you as a player. The pure number of items that needed to be held on to, the matching bonuses, the different reagents for different artifact types, and yes the hoarding of items until the 2x Refinement Points weekends to maximize the gains. In the end it felt more like a chore that had to be done than a fun part of the game where the player kept making progress.

For new players, the system is overwhelmingly complicated. They don't know what enchantments to use as food, what to hold, what to look for, and we wanted to make that experience far easier for players to figure out. On top of all of that, there hasn't been any major additions to the system in a long time. We took a hard look at all of this and came up with a plan to improve it in multiple ways.

Refinement Points

Having to match enchantments, stones, and types of items created a massive amount of inventory to maintain and organize. In the end, this doesn't add to the experience as much as it takes away from it all. So we did just that, took it all away. Now players will use Refinement Points (thought you might like to keep your acronym) which will be a currency. Gemstones, Enchantments, Runestones, Artifacts, Artifact Equipment, Uncommon (Green) Equipment (must be identified), will all break down into Refinement Points which will be a currency on the inventory sheet. All of the refining will use Refinement Points for upgrades, along with reagents of course. This means you no longer have to manage all of those different item types and dread looking at your inventory or bank. You can just break it all down into a simple currency that all items share.

To go along with this we have a new conversion window that has some easy options to input all of the different convertible items that you want to break down into Refinement Points in one simple click. In addition, any item which can be converted, can be by using the drop down menu for that item. The refinement upgrade window will now have a nice clean interface where the player can slide a bar to determine how many Refinement Points they wish to add to the item. This bar will default at either the amount needed for the next level, or the maximum a player can deposit if less than a full level as we felt that is the most common action players would do. On top of that, you can now put in the full amount of RP needed to level up and upgrade all in a single button press. Nice and quick and easy!

And you may have noticed how I mentioned Identified Uncommon Equipment can be turned into RP and thought "Man, identifying all of my green drops will be such a pain!", well we are also adding an Identify All button which will take your ID scrolls and identify all the unidentified items in your inventory with one click.

Now because we switched to a currency and want to try for manageable amounts of currency. We reduced both the value of RP points of the items and the cost to upgrade items by a factor of 10. Example a black opal now awards 1,000 RP, but costs are lowered by the same factor as well. To be very clear, this does not change the cost of refinement at all! This simply reduces the values all around so we can keep the currency lower and have room for players to hold plenty of currency and grow the system in the future. We will give the exact progression charts in the technical details post as well so that you can all see for yourselves how it will be functioning.

Seminar on Stronghold Development II

Figure 1: Millabout Market on Neverembers Lackey's

Welcome,

The second Seminar on Stronghold Development is focused on strategies for dealing with the most common resource bottlenecks you will encounter during your stronghold progression. Those resources are Influence, Shards of Power, Surplus Equipment, Gems and Campaign Currencies.

All of these resources can be acquired by playing the avialable content of Neverwinter. But since there is a significant diffrence in playstyle for PvE (Player versus Environment) and PvP (Player versus Player) Content in this Game alot of Player will hesitate to experience the full scale of Neverwinter and therefore cut them self off of options to earn the afore mentioned resources.

Stronghold Chests

Cryptic is of course offering Items in the Zen Store to speed up the Stronghold Development process with real money or with exchanged Astral Diamonds. Those Items are the Stronghold Starter Pack for 3500 Zen and the Stronghold Chest of Power for 300 Zen. The Starter Pack also includes the Stronghold Chest of Campaigns..

Both, the Chest of Power and the Chest of Campaigns can be purchased from the Auction House as well.

A good price for the Chest of Power is x < 150.000 AD and for the Chest of Campaigns it is x < 50.000 AD.

The Stronghold Chest of Power will give you 100 of each Shards of Power (Heroic-, Adventurer-, Dungeoneer-, Conqueror-) for a total of 400 Shards. That amount is doubled during a 2x Shard of Power Event.

The Stronghold Chest of Campaigns will give you your choice of 5 Major Vouchers for one of the campaign currencies or 5 Major Influence Voucher.

With the Guild Marks you'll receive from donating the Items from the Chest to your Coffer and a clever Guild Mark Management you can also make more Astral Diamonds back than you initialy spend on the Stronghold Chests.

Influence

... is probably the most important resource overall since it is required in every Guild Hall and Boon Structure upgrade. Influence is exclusivly earned from PvE content.

Find a List of Influence sources below.

Companion Stronghold's Cleric => +10% Influence gain (To be confirmed!)
400 Influence per Character per day from Heroic Encounter on the Stronghold Map
600 Influence per Character per week from the Stronghold Marauders Event
20-100 Influence from the daily Boon Structure Quests, depends on the Rank of the Structure
2000 Influence from the Strongbox of Influence, is a rare reward from Dragonflights. ALWAYS open them with a Strongbox Key (6-10k AD on the Auction House)
18.000 Influence per week from The Recruiter (temporary Structure)

Shards of Power

There are 4 different types of those Shards and they can be earned by completing the Stronghold Quests and some Campaign Tasks. Find a List below (values are for Level 70 Character).

Heroic Shards of Power

10 Shards from The Builder daily Quest
10 Shards for the first Tier 3 Heroic Encounter on the Stronghold Map every day

Adventurer's Shards of Power

10 Shards form The Master of Coin daily Quest
10 Shards from The Ranger daily Quest

Dungeoneer Shards of Power

20 Shards form The Cleric Skirmish and Dungeon Dailies
2 Shards from the Elemental Evil Campaign for completing 3 Heroic Encounter daily in each of the 4 Zones. Choice between Dungeoneer and Conqueror Shards.You spend to much time on that for to little Rewards.
10 Shards from the Maze Engine Campaign for completing five times the Daily Quest. Choice between Dungeoneer and Conqueror Shards

Conqueror's Shards of Power

10 Shards form The Master of Coin Quest "Fight to the Finish". This was a big problem for PvE focused Guilds since the quest goal is to win a PvP match which is not an easy task for alot of PvE Player. BUT with Mod 12 we received the option to form a Private PvP Que. Winning a private match will give no rewards but will complete the Quest "Fight to the Finish". So simply form a Private PvP Que (1vs.1, up to 5vs.5). In the first round Team one wins and in the rematch Team 2. If people want to fight they can do it off the Nodes. The fun will take a total of roughly 10 minutes and everyone will receive their daily 10 Conqueror's Shards.

A Big Thanks goes out to Tim, Guild Master from Critical Attack for shaing this Method with the Alliance.

2 Shards from the Elemental Evil Campaign for completing 3 Heroic Encounter daily in each of the 4 Zones. Choice between Dungeoneer and Conqueror Shards.You spend to much time on that for to little Rewards.
10 Shards from the Maze Engine Campaign for completing five times the Daily Quest. Choice between Dungeoneer and Conqueror Shards

Surplus Equipment

...is also a valuable resource and is required for the majority of Stronghold Structures. Donating Surplus Equipment can in your personal Astral Diamond gains since Epic salvageable Items are a good source for Surplus Equipment. Find a List of alternatives below.

Epic Salvageable Items will give 810 Surplus Equip, but you lose the RAD by donating it
Rare Salvageable Items will give 20 Surplus Equip, not worth donating get the AD instead
Green level 70 Items will give 5 Surplus Equip, if you have enough Bag space go for it.
Drops from Quartermaster enchantments, Spoils of War will Give 350 Surplus Equip, Abandoned Gear will give 150 Surplus Equip
4850 Surplus Equip from the Strongbox of Surplus Equipment, is a rare reward from Dragonflights. ALWAYS open them with a Strongbox Key (6-10k AD on the Auction House)
various Professions can craft Crates of Surplus Equipment

Gems and Jewelcrafting

To increase your Gemstorage for Stronghold Structures you can feed enchantments, runestones and insignias to your Coffer. But the Gemvalue for these is compared to their AD value and their Refinement points very low. For Example a rank 7 Enchant/Runestone is only worth 100 Gems and we need hundreds of thousands of Gems. Therefore donating Enchants, Runestones and Insignias to the Coffer is not a very efficient way to a mass Gems for your Stronghold Projects. Find a List of Options below.

Enchants/Runstones Rank 5 = 50 Gems, Rank 7 = 100 Gems, Rank 12 = 45.000 Gems, that is worth alot of Astral Diamonds
Insignias Blue = 50 Gems, donate the Character Bound Insignias you get from running Dungeons and don't fit your needs
1800 Gems from the Strongbox of Gems, is a rare reward from Dragonflights. ALWAYS open them with a Strongbox Key (6-10k AD on the Auction House)
24.000 Gems per week from The Gemcutter (temporary Structure)

As you can see the Gemcutter is your best Bet for Gems, but there is another option which can generate theoratically 47.000 Gems per week per Character.

Jewelcrafting

Is a Profession which can be leveled up fairly quickly. It can be used to make AD but more importantly you can craft Crates of Gems with it.

Overview:

Jewelcrafting Task	Rank unlocked	Gems	Leather Strips	Duration	Coffer Value
Crates of Uncut Gems	4	20 Raw Gems	-	6 hours	80-160 Gems
Crates of Valuable Gems	10	20 Semi-Precious gems	-	6 hours	120-240 Gems
Crates of Simple Jewelry	17	20 Precious Gems	10 Exotic Leather Strips	6 Hours	160-320 Gems
Crates of Precious Jewelry	23	20 Perfect Gems	10 Aberrant Leather Strips	6 Hours	200-400 Gems

As you can see we can generate up to 1120 Gems every 6 hours, with a Epic Asset it is done in just 4 hours. The listed resources can be bought for Guild Marks from The Atelier and The Tannery. A detailed Guide will be published seperatly.

Neverwinter Templars

Click on picture to see larger format. From Neverwinter Unblogged.

Fennik

Seminar on Stronghold Development I

Figure 1: The Steward from Nevembers Lackey's on the Preview Shard

Welcome,

This Seminar is meant for everyone who is interested in Managing and Planning a Stronghold in Neverwinter.

Stronghold management includes planning the order of structures you want to build on your stronghold map as well as monitoring and directing the resources required for those Buildings.

In Figure 1 you can see The Steward, he is an important NPC for your Stronghold Development.

By talking to him you can access the Stronghold Overview.

Figure 2: Stronghold Overview , Summary Tab

In Figure 2 you can see the Summary Tab of the Stronghold Overview. Here you‘ll find your current Target and what resources are still needed for its completion. Important to note is that all shown values for the strucures in the Overview already take your Stronghold Alliance Discount into account. Very convenient.

You also see the amount of resources currently stored in your production structures (Farm, Lumberyard, Mine, Quarry).

Figure 3: Stronghold Overview, Construction Tab

Figure 3 is showing the Construction Tab which includes a List of all structures already built on your stronghold map and available Plots for future projects.

By hovering your cursor over a Structure a smaller window will pop up showing you the required resources for the next rank of that building. Again Stronghold Alliance Discount included!

Once you have decided on the next Structure you want to build you can set it as Contribution Target with a click on the button to the bottom of that window. This way your Guildies see what resources are required for their Coffer Donations. You can change the Target as many times as you like.

You can also access this list via your Guild Management Window, but CAUTION the values which are showing here do not include the Stronghold Alliance Discount.

Tending

As mentioned before we have 4 production structures on the stronghold map namely the Farm (Food), Lumberyard (Wood), Mine (Metal) and the Quarry (Stone). Those resources are important for your main buildings but even more so for the Temporary Structures.

All of them have a internal storage capacity which will fill up every 8 hours. Depending on the rank of the Structure and on an exiting support structure that capacity can be increased.

Once they reach capacity they will stop producing resources. So go tend them regularly.

John from Ghost Templars made a video on tending which is linked below.

http://neverwintertemplars.blogspot.de/2017/06/tending-stronghold.html#links

Resources

There are a lot of diffrent resources required for building structures on the stronghold map. Some of them are prouduced over time (Farm,…) and some can be farmed like the campaign resources, but there are resources which tend to always create a bottleneck for your stronghold progression.

Influence, Shards of Power, Gems and Surplus Equipment will be the most difficult to get resources. Influence and Shards of Power have a daily cap for earning them. Gems are used for refinement and Surplus Equipment helps in earning Astral Diamonds.

Strategies to gather those resources efficiently without cutting into personal gains will be presented and discussed in a later post.

Temporary Structures

With Mod 11.5 we received the option to build temporary structures on stronghold map. If you leave the stronghold through the northwestern tunnel you will arrive at the Millabout Market which presents 4 Plots for the temporary structures. Any temp. Structure will last for 7 days and you can only have one of a kind active at the same time.

We ignore structures which help with Mastercrafting for now and pay closer attention to structures which produce valuable resources for your stronghold coffer, namely the Recruiter and the Gemcutter.

Table 1: Costs for Recruiter and Gemcutter per week without Stronghold Alliance Discount

Structure	Labor	Food	Metal	Stone	Wood	Production/Week
Recruiter	12.000	38.000	27.000	24.000	32.000	16.800 Influence
Gemcutter	23.000		31.000	34.000	40.000	24.000 Gems
Total/Week	35.000	38.000	58.000	58.000	72.000

As you can see in Table 1 temporary structure are basicly exchange buildings were you trade lower valued resources for higher valued ones like Influence and Gems.

The Goal for every Guild still in development should be a constant Uptime of the Recruiter and the Gemcutter to speedup your Stronghold Progression.

With the afore mentioned Goal in mind I suggest the following Roadmap for Stronghold Development. The chosen Boon Structures have a focus on PvE content, but are in my opinion also viable in PvP.

Roadmap

Guild Hall Rank 5

- Stable rank 1-2

- Milling Yard rank 1(if you can effort it)

- Recruiter every week

Guild Hall Rank 6

- Stable to rank 3

- Market Place to rank 3

- Farm, Lumberyard, Mine, Quarry to rank 3

- Recruiter every week

Guild Hall Rank 7

- Warehouse rank 1-3

- Smelter Yard or Masonry Guild rank 1 (if you can effort it)

- Recruiter or Gemcutter every week

Guild Hall Rank 8

- Stable to rank 4

- Farm, Lumberyard, Mine , Quarry to rank 4

- Warehouse to rank 4

- Market Place to rank 4

- Recruiter or Gemcutter every week

Guild hall to rank 9

- Wizards Workshop rank 1-4 (depending on your Conquerer‘s Shard Situation you can also build the Barracks at this point, but the Power Boon will only unlock at rank 3+)

- Recruiter or Gemcutter every week

Guild Hall Rank 10

- Stable to rank 5

- Wizards Workshop to rank 5

- Warehouse to rank 5

- Market Place to rank 5

- Farm, Lumberyard, Mine , Quarry to rank 5

- Recruiter or Gemcutter every week

Guild Hall Rank 11

- Masonry Guild or Smelters Yard rank 1 the one you didn‘t chose earlier (if you can effort it)

- Recruiter or Gemcutter every week

Guild Hall Rank 12

- Stable to rank 6

- Wizards Workshop to rank 6

- Warehouse to rank 6

- Market Place to rank 6

- Farm, Lumberyard, Mine , Quarry to rank 6

- Milling Yard rank 2, now you can build the Recruiter and Gemcutter at the same time

- Recruiter and Gemcutter every week

Guild Hall Rank 13

- Barracks 1-6, if you have enough Conquerer‘s Shards of Power. The upgrade can be postponed until the Guild Hall upgrade to rank 15.

- Recruiter and Gemcutter every week

Guild Hall Rank 14

- Stable to rank 7

- Wizards Workshop to rank 7

- Barracks to rank 7

- Warehouse to rank 7

- Market Place to rank 7

- Farm, Lumberyard, Mine , Quarry to rank 7

- Recruiter and Gemcutter every week

Guild Hall Rank 15

- Animal Pen rank 1

- Recruiter and Gemcutter every week

Guild Hall Rank 16

- Stable to rank 8

- Wizards Workshop to rank 8

- Barracks to rank 8

- Warehouse to rank 8

- Market Place to rank 8

- Farm, Lumberyard, Mine , Quarry to rank 8

- one of your Support Structures (Milling Yard, Masonry Guild, Smelters Yard, Animal Pen) to rank 8 Animal Pen would be the cheapest in terms of Shards of power

- Recruiter and Gemcutter every week

Guild Hall Rank 17

- Last Boon Plot unlocked: Temple for PvE or Explorer‘s Guild for PvP

With your last Boon Structuer built there is only one big goal left Guild Hall Rank 20 and that road is pretty straight foward.

Thoughts on Boons

Will be added after an open discussion during the Seminar.

Seminar on Stronghold Development II

Since there will be alot of things left unanwsered in 45min of the first Seminar we will give a second one (maybe even a third).

Topics for the 2nd Seminar

- Strategies to overcome the Resource Bottlenecks

- How to make Astral Diamonds with Temporary Structures

- …

Please suggest additional topics either during the first Seminar or via ingame mail to Fennik@rothgarbaerig.

Neverwinter Templars

TEMPLAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES
AUGUST 4, 2017

Xerxes began the meeting at 3:05 PM on Teamspeak noting that Haelirin will be late, Perseus is on vacation, and Dusk had to sleep. Thyra has resigned from the Council for personal reasons. The guild is greatly indebted to her for her long service as Guild Crafter and Marshall since the Guild's Founding.

John gave a report on recruitment efforts indicating that we are at max capacity when one considers the number of current GT and ST recruits. Xerxes noted that 72 members of Spirit Templars are level 70; however, many of these toons are alts of GT members.

Mrs Toons was not able to attend the meeting so Fennik reported on the bank as he has been very involved in raising funds for the Stronghold development by selling off Craft Store, GTBank and Bank holdings. Fennik stated that we have 1,000 Zen and 200K AD in the bank. There is a very large amount of shards and explorer scrolls in the bank as Fennik used the guild AD to purchase Stronghold strongboxes during the Double Shard event. The shards will be used for future Stronghold upgrades and the scrolls will be used to gather resources for the guild crafter.

Concerning Stronghold development, Fennik indicated that we are ahead of schedule as we continue raising resources to upgrade the guildhall to rank 15. Our major bottlenecks are gems and influence.

Xerxes noted that Fennik will be giving a seminar on Stronghold Development on Sunday, August 6, at 3PM ET before the 4PM ET Regular Alliance Meeting. He reported that the Alliance is at capacity with 13 member guilds. He noted that the Alliance is very active as indicated by the number of Dragonflight and Marauder events; the well-attended monthly meetings; and the on-going monthly educational seminars.

Fennik, who is the guild Battlemaster, reported that the daily Dragonflight is being conducted at 1:30PM ET with the help of our dedicated battlemasters: Dusk, Perseus, Fennik, Raz, and Haelirin. Haelirin volunteered to conduct a weekly Marauder's event so members can get weekly 600 influence alottment.

Haelirin reported that the GTST channel is functional. This past week he sent a guild mail to ST members inviting them to the channel and will do so with GT members asap. Members will receive a rank 7 enchantment on becoming a channel member.

Xerxes reported that the blog and teamspeak are both very active at various time periods in response to specific happenings, i.e., a new article or seminar. He was glad to report that every Marshall uses Teamspeak.

Xerxes reported that Dr. Death graciously volunteered to become the new Guild Crafter. He will work closely with Thyra in gathering the guild's crafting resources. Xerxes will produce a new Crafting Program page for the blog with input from Dr. Death and John.

The Council conducted Elections. Besides Thyra's resignation, Xerxes noted that the term of office of Ebb and Flow and Brandis has expired and that they will be returned to normal guild rank. The guild is grateful for their service. Haelirin and Dr. Death were unanimously elected Marshalls.

As the Council had no additional business, the meeting was adjourned at approximately 4:15PM ET.

The next meeting of the Council of Templars is on Friday, September 1 at 2PM ET (after T3's).

Respectfully submitted,
Xerxes

Neverwinter Templars

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Upcoming Neverwinter Changes