Swords of Chult Preview and Guide: The Patronage System
Swords of Chult introduces a significant enhancement for alt play in terms of campaigns. Players that have already progressed within campaigns up to a certain point are able to craft so-called “Patronage Signets” for campaign currency. These signets are bound to the account and when consumed by a character cut most tasks of the campaign in half. So what players are essentially able to do is use their mains to craft signets and pass them to their alts to make progression easier for them. In this article we are going over the costs and debate which campaigns profit from the system the most.
The Patronage System Basics and Costs
As said, mains have to progress up to a certain point to be able to craft the signets. They do not have to actually complete the campaigns. The best example for this is the Cloaked Ascendancy, where you can get access to its Cloaked Ascendancy Signet of Patronage without completing most of the store and boon quests. All threshold tasks can be seen in the picture below. Going forwards signets will be available for all campaigns but the two most recent. At the start of the system that would technically rule out the Cloaked Ascendancy, but the devs included it anyway (yay!).
The basic idea of the costs is that you’ll gain roughly five times as much campaign currency from the signet as what it costs. It’s really not that hard to amass the necessary currency, it should take you about five days. Each signet however does also require 50,000 Astral Diamonds. On alts that consume a signet a warning is displayed in case the character has already significantly progressed through a campaign. It’s a nice additional safeguard so you don’t accidentally use the signet on a toon that might not need it.
Which Tasks are Discounted?
Not all costs in the campaigns are cut in half when the signet is consumed by the target character. On the left you see an example of which tasks in Sharandar are discounted. All progression and boon tasks are included, but no store items and also no repeatable tasks that create goods. The devs wanted to avoid situations in which players feel they have to buy the signets to stay competitive. Dragon's Hoard Enchantment, Rank 8s from the Tyranny of Dragons campaign still cost as much as before, same with all the campaign keys. If some currencies need to be rounded, they are always rounded up by the way. Overall it’s a pretty fair deal since the system is all about progressing faster. With the relevant tasks halved, you should normally be able to get over with campaigns twice as fast.
Calculation: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uFCITD0qmCn5EAIunvoJbt5M5IdId61A7KPJwmFgSgc/edit#gid=0