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Preview Build Patch Notes: NW.123.20201203e.1
nitocris83
Member, Cryptic Developer, Administrator Posts: 4,498Cryptic Developer › Cryptic Developer
Greetings all,
Thank you very much for your efforts in checking out our preview build for the upcoming Combat Rework!
Please note that this is not, by any means, the final build as forum feedback began Friday, and the first iteration stream was on Monday. This build includes some changes in response to community feedback, but other adjustments are in progress. Please refer to the following thread for discussions from players, as well as get latest developer responses:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/categories/neverwinterpreview-announcements-release-notes
Known Issues
General Updates
Character
Companions
Content
Items
Powers
UI
System
Things to Come
Thank you very much for your efforts in checking out our preview build for the upcoming Combat Rework!
Please note that this is not, by any means, the final build as forum feedback began Friday, and the first iteration stream was on Monday. This build includes some changes in response to community feedback, but other adjustments are in progress. Please refer to the following thread for discussions from players, as well as get latest developer responses:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/categories/neverwinterpreview-announcements-release-notes
Known Issues
- Master Svardborg and Master Demogorgon are available in the queue list. This is not intended and will be removed in a future patch.
- A few older rings have incorrect Ratings.
- Armor Penetration references persist in the game.
- Brada’s Sage shop sells a bonding runestone for 80 copper.
- Bel’s Relics have not yet been updated to the new system.
- Boulders in Lair of the Mad Mage may be difficult for characters around 25k in Item Level.
- Certain Gems, Runestones, Insignias cannot be donated to stronghold coffer.
- Characters do not get automatically respec when loading in.
- If you ever deal 0 damage, or notice that your damage is 0, a respec will fix your character
- Companion Bonuses (item level, combined rating, etc…) apply on PvP modes.
- Companions like the Hell Hound, Stronghold Cleric, and others only have Combined Rating.
- Dragonborn Passive does not add to the character sheet.
- Divine Protection Power contains a typo and does not modify Critical Avoidance total.
- Empowered Storyteller’s Journal now grants too little in Rating.
- Foehammer’s Favor Elixir’s tooltip is missing a word, but now correctly grants its effect.
- Inner Balance power mentions Armor Penetration to function.
- Miscellaneous text errors (formatting issues like “Chance on hit to increase your deflect by up to 3”)
- Race Appearance presets appear as white boxes.
- Several Companion bonuses are not applying properly.
- Several Dungeons/Epic Dungeons are much more difficult than intended.
- Several Enchantment items may display with tooltip irregularities.
- This includes weapon/armor enchantments, which may have outdated references to weapon damage.
- Several Potions have mentions of Armor Penetration/incorrect rating in Long Buffs.
- Several zones may still be difficult for players to complete.
- Vorpal/Holy Vorpal Enchantment’s Critical Strike increase does not display on the character sheet.
- Glorious Founder’s Enchantment grants incorrect number of Stats.
General Updates
- VIP is now enabled on Preview.
- Companions now have a single category for Bolster.
- As a result, the Bolster bonus has been halved, per rank.
- Companion damage has been boosted.
- Please note that this area is heavily Work-In-Progress.
- We will be taking player feedback regarding these companions, so please feel free to leave your feedback in the following thread.
- https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1258798/official-combat-adjustments-companions
- Please note that this area is heavily Work-In-Progress.
- General critter damage adjustments from player feedback.
- UI Changes in the companion tab and companion roster to reflect the system changes.
Character
- Character appearance items are now in the proper slots.
- Characters should no longer have a decimal affixed to their Attributes.
Companions
- Acolyte of Kelemvor Companion adjustments
- Acolyte of Kelemvor should now grant a reasonable amount of Critical Avoidance.
- Acolyte of Kelemvor should no longer grant the character erroneous bonuses.
- Acolyte of Kelemvor should now grant a reasonable amount of Critical Avoidance.
- Augment companions should now have the proper Ratings contribution. (please report if you spot errors with any particular companion)
- Active Companion Bonuses now have a “max possible value” displayed and should display increases as a full number.
- Baby Deepcrow’s Prescence’s tooltip now states that it grants +3% Power, and not Total Damage.
- Slime Player Bonus tooltip correctly now states that it grants a bonus to Defense, and not Total Damage.
- Pet Power: Vulnerability Enhancement no longer increases the target’s Critical Avoidance.
Content
- Zariel and Halaster have been updated to account for the new changes (3x damage modifier).
- Zombie Rotters in Dread Ring have been reduced in power to better match player characters.
Items
- Armor Penetration Armor Kits are now named Critical Severity Armor Kits.
- Assassin’s Enchantment, Rank 15 now grants the correct Combined Ratings in the Defense Slot.
- Bonding Runestones are no longer available from the Tradebar store.
- Chain of Scales have been updated to the new Ratings system.
- Enchantment tooltips have been updated to no longer mention weapon damage.
- Gigantic Enchantment, Rank 15 now grants the correct Combined Ratings in the Offense Slot.
- Forte has been added to some artifacts that used to give companion influence.
- Holy Avenger enchantments now grant towards the Other Contribution for Defense.
- Indomitable Runestones Offense Slot description has been updated to show the direct increase to base damage that character gains, and values were adjusted.
- Insignia bonuses no longer mention Armor Penetration.
- Radiant Enchantment, Rank 15 no longer grants erroneous amounts of HP in the Defense Slot.
Powers
- Barbarian: Crescendo Daily Power has been increased to 2000 Magnitude, up from 1200.
- Barbarian: Raging Bladeturn now grants up to 10% Deflect towards Other Contributions when Rage is gained.
- Fighter: Crushing Blows now states it requires the Rating for comparison.
UI
- References to Companion Ranks and Levels have been removed.
System
- Maximum HP description text has been updated.
- Players can join a Party when their character reaches Level 5.
- Sources of Deflect Severity on items should now display as Deflect Severity and reflect on the character sheet.
- When manually raised from the dead state, companions can regenerate HP.
Things to Come
- Adjustments to Forte (see Forte feedback thread for more details)
- Adjustments to Gear Bonuses.
- Bosses will have Combat Advantage on their attacks, and their damage will be adjusted to compensate.
- Background adjustments for Character Sheet display.
- Miscellaneous Text fixes.
- Radiant/Empowered Runestones Exchange.
- UI adjustments the character sheet, which should enable better display of certain Ratings.
Post edited by nitocris83 on
3
Comments
So: my Polar bear cub still gives much less stats than any other non augment. Both mythic and with 100% bolster.
- Damage of summoned companion is miniscule. 300 damage per hit of swarm with 6x indomitable rank 15.
- Damage of zariel should be a little higher. Can survive whitenoise with no damage reduction at 750k hp. EDIT: seems i was lucky with deflects.
- Damage of halaster is way too high. With 650k hp and 60% defense as dps, halaster will oneshot you with his at will if he critical strikes. Not sure if this is intended, and that dps would need to "cap" their critical avoidance too.
Awesome!
Now @nitocris83 you only need to convince @noworries#8859 to change perma CA on bosses with something more creative and give us a flexible forte. And people will be happy with the change even if we have to work hard.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
As far as trading in Radiants and Empowered Runestones I have a request that I think almost all players would agree is needed:
Please allow us to change them to anything. Mod 16 had us only able to do 1 stat for 1 stat, 2 stat for 2 and 3 stat for 3 etc... Please allow us to exchange Radiants and Empowered to anything since this is going to be a major adjustment for many out there. I know the exchange put up is usually temporary but a good month would be nice if that's possible. I think we had about that in Mod 16 to help us out.
I really appreciate this has been mentioned and hope my request for everyone will be granted.
Will there be an exchange also for Insignia's? Many of us out there are using power insigs as well.
Thanks
I went in with 54% defense to both Zariel and ToMM just to test how much they'll do with Weight of Virtue and Annihilate.
Zariel did 1.3 million, no deflect. Halaster did the same.
Both of their at-wills hit like trucks, Halaster's almost killed me in one shot with 630k damage, same with Zariel's at-wills.
In comparison, on Live I am able to take 2 hits from at-will if needed and survive WoV with just Courage Breaker at 520k HP - right now with Courage Breaker alone the damage was brought down to 1 million HP. With another 15% from Paladin Sigil, Courage Breaker (15% less damage output on target), Resiliency of the Depths (5% more DR) and Griffon (15% less damage output on target again) - 670k + 30k reduced by Barkshield. Still not enough to survive where this is very close to the current meta.
I understand that tanks should not be immortal but DPS should not be dying like flies either. We have much less sources to up our damage and in my opinion 54% defense with 630k HP should be more than enough, considering that I am using a slime in defensive slot, taking away precious % points.
With 10 mythic companions I'd rather feel like I progressed and became more powerful, at the moment it just doesn't feel like it.
My proposition in this instance is that Zariel should only do 2x more damage and only her at-will attacks plus tankbuster would benefit from Combat Advantage.
Quick edit: I had 58% defense and 620k HP, just checked the numbers again. Take note that I am topped out on preview with almost 48k item level where not everyone might be able to reach those numbers.
And that is why Defense (and Deflect Severity) should probably be changed. 90% is too much to make things balanced, and also makes mitigation powers basically useless, as they apparently don't go beyond the 90% mitigation limit.
- Feated Bladed Rampart
- Dig In
This change would give an even bigger advantage to GF tanks.
Seriously.
Halaster and Zariel are veritable dieties in this realm; you are a mortal rogue. Quit trying to stand toe to toe with them. (Or maybe, just perhaps, Impossible to Catch may become a requirement for these trials?)
Choices. That is what the new combat system is all about. You can choose to completely maximize your damage at the risk of being a glass cannon, or you can choose to do a lot of damage and maybe still have enough mitigation so that you aren't being wiped off the floor constantly. Either strategy is viable--it is your *choice*.
As for ITC, that's always been my "American Express Card" -- I never leave home without it.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
I have put in excess of 30 hours work thus far in looking at these changes to try and find and what I feel is required to make my character comparable to my current level of completeness on the Live Servers.
To make this possible, I have had to build multiple times to look at varying scenarios as a Healer and also as a DPS.
I am in the fortunate category that all my Offense and Defense Enchantments are Radiant. Most of my Enchants are Empowered. This is not the case for many people who use split enchantments eg Wicked, Gigantic etc.
To balance and optimize their characters to a comparable level on live (varying according to class and paragon) will make for some potentially tough choices. If they aren't able to exchange their enchants it will be significantly disadvantageous for choices they made before these changes.
One of the goals highlighted in Monday's Community Stream was to try and alleviate "Buyer's Remorse"; a failure to offer players who fall into this category will have significant Buyer's Remorse with no avenue to remedy the situation.
My recommendation is that there is a 1:1 ratio exchange for all Runestones and Enchantments and I would go further to say this system needs to include a Insignia Exchange.
With the opportunities this combat rework represents to building your character in more flexible system we need a chance to come at it with a clean slate. Leveraging your insignis to meet your rating requirements are a very important part of that process
Not being able to exchange Insignias leaves us with the only option to make rating changes that are Very Necessary, leaving us with the only avenue of making the change is to sell them on the Auction House (Provided they aren't bound, which the paid rewards from the Blessing Bundle and many other insignias are). This is going to drastically change the market and drive the price of more favorable insignias to potentially unreasonable/unobtainable levels. This only benefits those with the AD to spend and driving a further divide in the community.
Up until now, all Enchantments of equivalent rank have been valued equally, regardless of how many stats they effected, as seen through their obtainment cost (either from purchasing/Enchantment choice pack or from trade bars or the upgrade process). Were that to be altered now, it would be a drastic deviation from the status quo, and beg questions as to whether the break downs in stat balance (seemingly balanced when hovering over the stat breakdown inside of a 3 stat vs a 2 stat enchantment enchantment) was somehow not as balanced as it would seem, and also as to why up until now these same enchantments had been the same cost in price/upgrade, when it seemed they were indeed well balanced.
Making these Account Bound has has been the suspected and reasonable path and what has occurred in the past means that offering a 1:1 exchange to all Enchants and Insignia's will reduce the impact of people price gouging profiting from players who made purchases (Many Spending Actual Money and also their time and efforts) based on decisions that no longer apply in the new combat Paradigm.
I see the combat changes as an exciting chance to improve our game. However, not being able to access all options with these highly valued items has the potential to provoke a very negative response from those players who will be unfairly disadvantaged by a narrow view of what can and cannot be able to be exchanged.
> In the Master Trial thread, the tanks there are asking for more damage from the bosses after this update. IMO Tanks really do need to have 90% defense. Oh wait you are not a tank, why are you worried about at-will damage from bosses?
But the thing is, the devs increased the damage of most of the "dps" attacks too, like sword fall and stuff. Tanks should really need to have 90% defense, but dps don't. They needed to just increase the damage of her at wills and judgements and other "tank" attacks, not her overall damage
You are enabling VIP on preview, would you also enable Dragonborn as a selectable race - was going to race re-roll but not without testing how it feels first. And no, not going to re-roll then copy the character to test!
Many thanks
Magi
On live it's enough that I swap one item or boon to have my defenses in the right spot, for Tower I don't even need to do that. The new system may be about choices but again - even if I have 57% defense and almost get one shot by Swordfall which on live sometimes may take maybe half of my HP...
Someone needs to rethink their post.
Changes around bolster categories, radiant/empowered exchange and gear bonuses all sound very positive. I have two questions relating to things not explicitly mentioned:
1.) Dominance/Brutality insignias - is there consideration of a similar exchange for those insignias, given the power they give?
2.) Running alts without bondings - whilst a bit of a pain to transfer, switching bounding runestones between characters allowed for alts to be relatively competitive without having to spend huge amounts of AD / Zen on each one. With the removal of bondings, I'm wondering what consideration can be given to how to enable people to play multiple characters competitively?
Shorter-term: A move towards all mounts / companions being account-wide by default so that we can use them across all characters, ideally including already-bound mounts / companions.
Longer-term: Easier access to account-wide items across characters. Get rid of the need to claim account-wide items, and make account-wide items immediately accessible to all characters on the account (E.g. I can slot an enchantment in all the characters, without needing a cumbersome transfer process).
The one potentially contentious point is around what happens when you upgrade a companion or mount. Does it just get upgraded for that character, or across all? But either way, I think the rest of the changes would benefit everyone involved, since people will engage more with the game if they can easily build and switch between multiple characters through account-wide items.
not sure if it is already mentioned, but the amount of places for other contributions is just too low to be able to cap everything you will need... Now I know it is not intended to be able to cap everything anymore, however seeing the amount some of the stats have dropped, especially defense and critical strike is worrying. For healers and dps in order to get more than 50% you need to sacrifice an ACB, which can be an issue. Healers have their outgoing healing slotted there, it is not something to easily let go of, especially since the last changes we had in healing which nerfed outgoing healing to the ground...
Since the rework was main to make companions use similar system as the mounts, why not add the passive mounts powers to other contributions as well, instead of giving them base flat stats and combined rating, which in most cases is totally wasted right now? That was there are at least 2 sources from which we can play with the other contributions percentages and giving a little bit more flexibility in adjusting to all those new changes.....
I've been away from the game since summer time, with the exception of a few days for the new halloween event. There are a few reasons for my declining lack of interest in the game, but most of it boils down to changes that occurred with the release of m16. I think those changes resulted in long lasting negative effects on game play in general, I'll try to summarize at a high level.
The biggest change that resulted from the changes in m16 was a severe reduction in the "engagement" level of combat, it became much less engaging, which was caused by the removal of recovery. While one can argue for or against recovery and the mechanics around it as much as one would like, it's removal resulted in a much more boring combat experience and some work should be done on recovering that loss of dynamism (no pun intended). Exactly how to go about doing that, I don't know, but I might suggest adding 2-3 more encounter powers, something like a ranger has, or maybe some small at-will combos, (idk, just throwing that out there).
Another major change that resulted in the game become much less interesting on a intellectual level was the reduction in choices available in the character build system. Playing mostly as a Wizard and in PvP I think I probably felt that loss more than the average player would have, were the term "illusion of choice" is frequently used. I think the way this "illusion of choice" was handled was wrong, instead of fixing the problem, it was just accepted as the default. Overnight, the build system went from being like chess, to checkers. Nothing really changed for the better, most classes still only have 1 or 2 choices in viable builds, and the potential for increased diversity was squashed altogether.
Most of the changes I've seen in the upcoming combat system rework are mostly mechanical, affecting the underlying maths of combat. Potentially, one positive side effect of theses changes however, might be an increase in the number of viable gear/companion choices a player can use when building a character. The new system seems to cater better towards a more "horizontal progression" of gear than the previous maths would. In other words, I think a piece of gear's/companion's bonus, becomes more meaningful than the amount of power/hp it has. I think that's a good thing in general, however this only works if gear actually has interesting bonuses, and I still wish that class feats & abilities were more diverse and engaging, for example, Entangling Force on Wizard, I wish it still pulled mobs together when empowered (on tab), that little thing contributed to a more lively combat experience.
At a surface level, I think I like the change in the maths, but I would like to see some enhancements to the "liveliness" of combat itself, as well as a more mentally challenging build system, I would like to see builds be at least somewhat customizable with a strong sense of personality arising from the customization points. When customizing a character, the look, feel, and personality resulting from each customization point is extremely important, even if the number of customization points is limited. So in a nutshell, I would like to see more liveliness and personality in combat, some work on combat ability animations should also be done, some attacks feel incredibly jerky and janky, and we need at least a few more meaningful customization points at the class & paragon level.
[The Legendary Outlaws] (Guildhall 20)
Imagine if a set gives a 20% bonus to speed, or a bonus every time one of your attacks is deflected, or a big control bonus, or damage vs dragons or who knows. It could allow players to play in different ways and not being obligated to get the latest set or be subpar.
Also this sets should be BoE and everyone could farm them even if is a mod1 weapon.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
[The Legendary Outlaws] (Guildhall 20)
[The Legendary Outlaws] (Guildhall 20)