Storm King's Thunder Preview Patch Notes: NW.65.20160906b.1

terramak

We're getting a build up and running on our test shards to soak over the weekend. Feel free to give it a look!


Special callouts for Preview
Interaction

• A minor backend change has been made to the interaction system.
  
• While this shouldn't affect anything noticeable, we're still testing to verify whether there are any subtle differences in behavior.
  
• We'd love to hear if players notice anything related to this change that negatively affects the gameplay experience.

Graphics Stability

• A change has been made to shader preloading in order to reduce the frequency of "Device Removed" graphics crashes.
  
• We'd love to hear feedback on perceived performance changes and crash frequency for various video cards in this update.

Known Issues

• Scourge Warlock: The fix to over-stacking Soul Sparks is not yet in this build.
  
• Localization is currently missing for various new and updated text.

Release Notes


Content and Environment
Storm King's Thunder

• All locations: Relic nodes may no longer be harvested while the character's trowel is in the bank.
  
• Lighting and shadows now properly display on the boat in the login screen.
  
• The campaign can no longer be advanced in such a way that items disappear from the store until they're unlocked.
  
• Bryn Shander
  • Character portraits now more consistently match the speaking character.
    
  • Frost Giant Excavators: Enemies no longer stack on each other at the start of this Heroic Encounter.
    
  • Frozen characters no longer wear surprisingly flexible frozen capes.
    
  • Guard Duty: Multiple players can now properly interact with one door at the same time.
• Cold Run
  • A skill node has been moved out from behind collision.
    
  • The intro cutscene has been tweaked so it more consistently loads the environment and characters ahead of time.
• Lonelywood
  • Crustacean Cuisine: The waypoint now properly has objective text.
    
  • Harbor Master: The objective text has been changed to "Cargo searched" in order to make the objective clearer.
    
  • The intro cutscene has been tweaked so it more consistently loads the environment and characters ahead of time.
• Instanced Content
  • Secrets of the Cocoon: The exit portal no longer incorrectly appears before the instance is complete.
• Fangbreaker Island
  • This map now properly has the updated blizzard visual effects.

Queues

• Lair of Lostmauth: Players may now properly use the exit portal after Lostmauth is defeated, regardless of whether they qualify to open the reward chest.
  
• Malabog's Castle: A tree root that was providing an unintended "safe" zone has been adjusted.

General

• Various lines of text have been updated for consistency with the voice-over.
  
• Various typos have been addressed.

Combat and Powers
Classes and Balance

• Great Weapon Fighter
  • Daring Shout: This power no longer incorrectly increases the character's threat, as well as threat generation against affected targets.
• Hunter Ranger
  • Blade Hurricane: This feat tooltip has been updated to read more clearly. No change has been made to power functionality.
• Scourge Warlock
  • Arms of Hadar is no longer able to knock enemies that are immune to control powers.
    
  • Hadar's Grasp no longer incorrectly removes Tyrannical Curse.
    
  • Tyrannical Curse no longer incorrectly removes Warlock's Curse.

Companions

• Owlbear Cub: Infantile Compensation no longer deals 0 damage with certain powers, such as the Devoted Cleric powers Blazing Light and Daunting Light.
  
• Various Companions now have proper "downed" animation and audio.

Enemies and Allies

• Fangbreaker Island: The Dragon Turtle no incorrectly animation cancels its own attacks.
  
• Fangbreaker Island: The Dragon Turtle no incorrectly uses "Wild Slam" regardless of whether the required conditions are met.
  
• Frost Giant Warriors now properly have initial combat taunts.
  
• Players no longer remain in combat from runes or rocks after defeating the giants who cast or threw them.

Mounts

• Manticore: The summon animation for this mount has been improved.
  
• Insignias
  • Combatant's Maneuver now properly activates.
    
  • Victim's Preservation now properly activates.

General

• Excavator's Potion of Everfrost Resist: The buff icon now better matches its functionality.

Items and Economy
Storm King's Thunder

• A portion of the Ten-Towns Supplies awarded by the meta-quest to complete a certain number of Daily Quests has been moved to those Daily Quests themselves.
  • Completing exactly enough Dailies to finish the meta-quest results in the character gaining the same number of supplies as before this update.
    
  • This allows players who want to engage in more dailies to gain a little bit of extra Ten-Towns Supplies.
• Headsman Raid Vambraces: The backs of characters' arms no longer often clip through this item.
  
• Relic gear now displays properly on Dragonborn players.
  
• Ten-Towns Supplies costs from Rare quality Shirt and Pants slot items, as well as the Armor Kit, have been reduced.
  
• Ten-Towns Supplies costs for potions and trowels have been removed.
  
• The Consumables store now has more items.
  
• The drop rate of the Manticore Talon artifact from Hati has been increased; it had previously been lower than intended.

Mounts

• Embellished Apparatus of Gond now has a place in Collections.
  
• Mounts acquired from the Jarl's Mount Pack in the Runic Lockbox now properly grant credit in Collections.

Professions

• The Alchemy profession now has a Rank 25 task to create Distilled Potions of Grand Healing. This recipe can be acquired through Rank 25 Experimentation.
  
• The Rank 7 Experimentation task in Alchemy no longer persists after the player has graduated to Rank 8 or beyond.

Zen Market

• Knox's Adventurer Recruitment Order: Oathbound Paladins created via this purchase no longer incorrectly start with a tiny Invocation-style Astral Diamond bonus.
  
• Knox's Adventurer Recruitment Order: Hunter Rangers created via this purchase no longer incorrectly start with their items in the second bag, rather than the first.
  
• Legendary Dragon Key: New dungeons have been added to the list in the item description. This is a tooltip change only.
  
• The Shared Bank Slot purchase now states the proper limit of 88 total slots.

General

• A certain event item no longer grants unexpected Attribute bonuses to certain classes.
  
• Demonic, Gigantic, Black Ice, and Draconic Enchantments now properly provide stats when equipped to Companion gear.
  
• Fey Blessing Enchantment ranks 11 and 12 now give the expected Item Level.
  
• Ring of Ambush: This item's effect now has a 30 second internal cooldown, starting when the stealth effect is cancelled.
  
• Ring of Ambush: The detection radius for this item's effect has been increased to 30 feet, up from 20.
  
• Ring of Ambush: NPC enemies now detect players from the correct distance when under the effect of this item's stealth ability.
  
• Unrestored Relic Armor can now be salvaged for a small reward.

User Interface
Campaigns

• Respen's Game: Completing all four tasks now properly grants 100% completion.
  
• That subtle line that sometimes connected an individual campaign task's currency to the upper-left corner of the screen has gone away.
  
• Storm King's Thunder: The tasks required to unlock the Trowel purchase now explicitly state which tasks must be completed.

Inventory

• Certain unusable items no longer incorrectly display in the Riches tab of the inventory.

Mounts

• Stable: If a player has several of the same Equip power, only one version now displays.

Performance and Stability
General

• A change has been made to shader preloading in order to reduce the frequency of "Device Removed" graphics crashes.
  
• Various crashes and other points of instability have been addressed.

torontodave

• 'Eligible' Foundry quests now give 200 Voninblod for the 'Foundry Weekend' event
  
• 
  

kreatyve

Great patch notes, @terramak. Loving all these bug fixes! Thank you so much, devs!

someonedies

> All locations: Relic nodes may no longer be harvested while the character's trowel is in the bank.
..

> Lair of Lostmauth: Players may now properly use the exit portal after Lostmauth is defeated, regardless of whether they qualify to open the reward chest.
> Owlbear Cub: Infantile Compensation no longer deals 0 damage with certain powers, such as the Devoted Cleric powers Blazing Light and Daunting Light.
Finally

> Players no longer remain in combat from runes or rocks after defeating the giants who cast or threw them.
> Manticore: The summon animation for this mount has been improved.
> Combatant's Maneuver now properly activates.
> Victim's Preservation now properly activates.
> The drop rate of the Manticore Talon artifact from Hati has been increased; it had previously been lower than intended.
> Demonic, Gigantic, Black Ice, and Draconic Enchantments now properly provide stats when equipped to Companion gear.
Thanks

> Ring of Ambush: This item's effect now has a 30 second internal cooldown, starting when the stealth effect is cancelled.
> Ring of Ambush: The detection radius for this item's effect has been increased to 30 feet, up from 20.
> Ring of Ambush: NPC enemies now detect players from the correct distance when under the effect of this item's stealth ability.
R.I.P.

> Scourge Warlock: The fix to over-stacking Soul Sparks is not yet in this build.
That's good to know

> Great Weapon Fighter
> Daring Shout: This power no longer incorrectly increases the character's threat, as well as threat generation against affected targets.
..

cromejohnsen

Thanks for this update Terramak.
<<Fangbreaker Island
This map now properly has the updated blizzard visual effects.>>
Can we expect a performance improvement from this or not at all?

rapo973

terramak said:

• Owlbear Cub: Infantile Compensation no longer deals 0 damage with certain powers, such as the Devoted Cleric powers Blazing Light and Daunting Light.
  

Very good. Thank you.

nisckis

terramak said:

[...]Content and Environment
Storm King's Thunder

• All locations: Relic nodes may no longer be harvested while the character's trowel is in the bank.
  [...]

Hi @terramak , will the relics be changed to BtA or will they stay as BtC?

Thanks in advance.

sorce

I'm literally copying and pasting half of these changes into guild chat with "YAAAAAASSSSSSSSSS" following them.

Good work!

artifleur

I see some very welcome fixes here. Thanx for them.

However,

Hunter Ranger
Blade Hurricane: This feat tooltip has been updated to read more clearly. No change has been made to power functionality.

The tooltip makes more sense now but why not fix its functionnality as well?

If you don't see what I mean, look here : forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/1221784/hunter-ranger-combat-capstone-blade-hurricane#latest

bonnine

Please take a look at sw immolation spirits bug, its not fun to die even if you dodge red areas

rinat114

Not sure how I feel about DS's threat being removed, I always thought it was intended and came with the risk. Good patchnotes nontheless though.

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two30

"A portion of the Ten-Towns Supplies awarded by the meta-quest to complete a certain number of Daily Quests has been moved to those Daily Quests themselves. Completing exactly enough Dailies to finish the meta-quest results in the character gaining the same number of supplies as before this update. This allows players who want to engage in more dailies to gain a little bit of extra Ten-Towns Supplies."

For the curious, Defending the Dale gives 10 supplies on live, 4 on preview. Each of the zone dailies now gives 2 supplies on preview. I didn't check to see if the drop quests give any supplies.

diogene0

Two important things you forgot: first, making relic armor much less expensive to maintain. Then, lowering the price of the runic keys, because 50 supplies is way too much and it makes the relic gear incredibly tedious to acquire.

two30

two30 said:

For the curious, Defending the Dale gives 10 supplies on live, 4 on preview. Each of the zone dailies now gives 2 supplies on preview. I didn't check to see if the drop quests give any supplies.

I just checked. The drop quests don't give any supplies. That's disappointing.

Also, the Champion's Banner artifact only has 1 stat (Defense), instead of 3 stats.

hustin1

Outstanding, @terramak. One thing to be on the lookout for: certain monsters, when aggroed, use the incorrect initial attack audio. Off the top of my head, one example is the yeti, who apparently have some troll in their ancestry

Distilled potions of Grand Healing: very nice!!! One question: are there any plans to revise the mythic-level Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue store item list? You can't buy any distilled healing potions beyond the level-60 ones.

jonkoca

Great fixes/changes, thanx.

razor4lpha

Third eye campaign still looks ugly with the less than 100% if completed, and it would be nice to have 100% cap for the campaign progress, my OCD would appreciate it very much (200% @ Sharandar due the shortening long ago).
The above are merely cosmetic ones, but Elemental Evil still not every time gives the proper amount of campaign currency for the last task, so the last boon is not unlocking.
What is the salvage amount of the non-restored Relic gears? You know no one really going to restore and salvage them.

feadan

terramak said:

Owlbear Cub: Infantile Compensation no longer deals 0 damage with certain powers, such as the Devoted Cleric powers Blazing Light and Daunting Light.

Any chance this change also fixes the partially broken behaviour of the Feytouched weapon enchantment with these two Cleric powers? Both Chains of Blazing Light and Daunting Light do not apply the "Feytouched Weapon" buff to the player (like other encounters do, e.g. Searing Light).

Either way, great news. I literally just came here as a last resort before deciding whether to sell my Owlbear Cub or not. Guess I'm hanging on to it.

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kvet

Ring of Ambush: This item's effect now has a 30 second internal cooldown, starting when the stealth effect is cancelled.
Ring of Ambush: The detection radius for this item's effect has been increased to 30 feet, up from 20.
Ring of Ambush: NPC enemies now detect players from the correct distance when under the effect of this item's stealth ability.

Should be traded with:

Ring of Ambush: Mystra has dispelled the stealth feature of this ring and Mask has stolen all the rings remaining in the Abyss. Current owners can salvage or donate the now inert rings to to their Stronghold, but they will no longer function.

kevros62

Myself I liked the threat from Ds. hit them with Ds and they would come running right into a hail of Hidden daggers the light mobs would just disappear. lol And it was fun to watch as they flew backwards. I'm going to miss that

terramak

Thanks for the feedback over the weekend, folks! It's been relayed to the team for review.

GWF Daring Shout: We'll keep an eye on the concerns here - right now it seems like most of the negative feedback for this change is because it takes the Great Weapon Fighter further away from from a potential future tank role, rather than removing a vital (if undocumented) tool that GWFs are currently using. Is my interpretation accurate?
@kevros62 : That should still work in solo gameplay, it just won't peel off the tank in party gameplay. I hope it still works for your play style!

Non-restored Relic gear is expected to salvage somewhere along the lines of 1,000 AD. Not enough to encourage going for the gear just for salvage, but it still allows someone to get a tiny bit of value out of this gear if they've got duplicates or decide they don't want it anymore.

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kevros62

Please don't get me wrong I'm not a big fan of pulling argo since I have no way to protect my self other than large amounts of dps but like defiantone99 said it was something we had to help make us worth having around in team play. we could pull some mobs off our mates. In fact if I remember right that was the job description when I first started this game take out mobs and adds then the boss. Not sure why but for some reason a part of the people have desided they want a tank with all the dps We both know that is not going to happen lol.

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beckylunatic

terramak said:

Non-restored Relic gear is expected to salvage somewhere along the lines of 1,000 AD. Not enough to encourage going for the gear just for salvage, but it still allows someone to get a tiny bit of value out of this gear if they've got duplicates or decide they don't want it anymore.

Basically the same as guild gear (which is appalling return on investment but one of the only things you can do with guild marks if you have no access to charts). Better than nothing, but not by much.