Announcing Unlocked and Loaded - Update (September 26, 2024)

[Badwin]

@dragomusic

However what I’m hoping is that this system is in addition to and not a replacement. So you can still roll up however many new weapons you want and get high level blessings on them, but to start customizing them you have to play with them more.

This is exactly the case, and this bit from the Q&A about that is actually (I’m pretty sure) in response to CommanderJ’s question/concern:

@FatsharkStrawHat

Question

This system is the anti-choice system, it’s the system that forces you to grind every single weapon family before you can try a build.

Answer
The Mastery system is an addition to the existing crafting system that allows players to steadily unlock every Blessing for a weapon family, instead of relying exclusively on RNG to obtain them.

True, there will be some grind to fully unlock all the blessings at their most powerful tier for a weapon family. The system however lets you have full freedom in which blessings you unlock, and in what order, so being able to unlock a specific blessing for a build should be a manageable time investment. We are still experimenting with the exact time investment needed to fully unlock all blessings for a certain weapons family. We are also adding more tiers to most blessings, making previously higher tier blessings available at lower tiers.

Also, loot is still part of the system. The fact that we are still keeping the RNG loot system in place (Emperor’s Gift, Sire Melk’s Requisitorium, The Armoury Exchange, and the ability to Consecrate weapons at Hadron’s Shrine with random upgrades, etc) will allow players to get to weapon builds that they have not unlocked in their Mastery before they actually get there. The loot system will be able to shortcut you to things that you have not yet unlocked.