Swords of Chult Preview Patch Notes: NW.90.20170926a.3

terramak · October 2017

Known Issues

Chult Repeatables: The quest, Out-Pirate the Pirates, cannot be completed and may cause player characters to become stuck.

Highlights

Inventory Update
General

Players may now select a specific stack of Identification Scrolls to use on Identify All.

Patronage System
General

Prevent Tiamat's Return is now properly discounted after a Patronage Token is applied.
Unlock Epic Demogorgon is now properly discounted after a Patronage Token is applied.

Random Queues
General

Certain specific dungeons no longer incorrectly give Astral Diamonds as a reward regardless of whether the player used Random Queue.
In accordance with the addition of random queues, the weekly quest "Hero's Challenge" is no longer available from Kavatos.
Master of the Hunt once again properly requires level 64, rather than 70.
Random Queue rewards are now properly granted to all players who qualify; there had been a case where, if several groups were running the same instance at the same time, some would not receive the Random Queue rewards.

Account-wide Unlocks

Account-wide unlocks should now be awarded immediately, rather than after a map change or re-log.
In order to accomodate for account wide unlocks of queue content, it is no longer necessary to complete Fangbreaker Island in order to queue for Assault on Svardborg.
Players may now properly access the Cloaked Ascendancy and Chult campaigns after receiving an account-wide unlock.
Stronghold Daily Adjustments
In accordance with the addition of random queues, the stronghold daily quests have been adjusted to require completion of random queues instead of a specific dungeon or skirmish.
- Players below level 70 will be tasked with completing a random dungeon and a random skirmish.
- Players at level 70 will be tasked with completing a random epic dungeon and a random skirmish.
- Any currently accepted daily dungeon quests for a specific dungeon will remain on your character and may still be completed but cannot be picked up again.

Refinement Update
General

An audio update has been made to various parts of the updated Refinement interface.
Artifacts may now be upgraded multiple ranks at a time! A slider is now on the Rank bar, and that slider can go as high as the highest full rank that the player can afford.
Convert in Bulk: Certain high-value items will no longer be automatically placed into this window when filling by category. (Example: High-rank enchantments, and anything that requires a special typed-in confirmation when discarding)
Item to Refine: The "Clear Slot" button has been removed.
Refinement Point counts have been removed from certain tooltip text, as Refinement Points are now shown in relevant item tooltips directly.
Sea of Moving Ice items are once again properly restorable to Tier 2.
The Item Progression window width can no longer change during use.
The Celestial Store has been updated to remove one of the artifact boxes (as, with these changes, two boxes became identical).
Tooltips for various items and packs have been adjusted to reflect updated contents.

Bonus RP Event

Drop rates for this event have been increased.
The wording in this event's description has been updated to be more direct and clear.

Release Notes

Content and Environment
Merchant Prince's Folly

After fixing sabotaged weapons, the quest path now properly leads to the guards' doors.
Enemies now less frequently become hung up on the barricades.
Guards in this skirmish no longer use Knight's Challenge.
Players can no longer become stuck in barricades.
Players can no longer become stuck in the portcullis.
Players can no longer skip some enemies inside the courtyard.
The camera path in the intro cutscene no longer travels through players' armor and weapon visual effects.
The engineer can no longer be targeted by enemies.
The engineer no longer stares at the wall at the end of the skirmish.
The engineer now has a new icon, rather than the profession vendor icon.
The exit portal at one of the exits is no longer half-sunken into the ground.
The mini-contact notification no longer plays for the entire party when someone needs to be guided to another area.

General

River District: A warning now appears if the player attempts to leave the instance early.

Combat and Powers
Classes and Balance

Resolved an issue wherein the use of the Paladin tactical power "Sanctuary" would only play the raised shield animation for a short time before reverting to the standard combat idle.
- As a result, Sanctuary should now feel more responsive and it should be easier to tell when you are blocking.

Artifacts

Skull Lord Staff: The epic version of this artifact now deals damage at the correct location.
Skull Lord Staff: The tooltip for this artifact now more accurately states the damage it deals.
Soul Sight: Appropriate audio now plays on activation of this artifact.

Companions

Alpha Compy: Call of Vengeance now properly increases damage as stated.
Alpha Compy: Multiple instances of Call of Vengeance no longer stack.
Batiri: This companion's Poisoned Bolt power now has unique visual FX on hit.
Batiri: This companion's Poisoned Bolt power's damage is now lower to be more in line with other companions.

Enchantments and Enhancements

Barkshield Rank 13: The first stack of Bolstered Bark now properly absorbs up to 28,000 damage, rather than 20,000.
Bloodtheft: The damage and healing from this enhancement has been increased, and its tooltip has been updated to more accurately scale to its values.
Feytouched
- This enhancement's buff now properly affects the correct types of damage.
- The cooldown is no longer incorrectly procced multiple times from certain powers.
- The extra damage hit now fires when daily powers are used.
- EDIT: The AoE tiers (Ranks 11, 12, and 13) are confirmed not to function on this build. Thanks for the report!
Plague Fire Rank 13: This rank's effect can no longer incorrectly stack with a previous rank's effect.
Soulforged: The tooltip now correctly describes the amount of damage dealt.
Thunderhead: This enchantment now properly procs as frequently as stated on the tooltip.

PvP

The functionality of CC Reduction has been made more consistent with its stack count.

Items and Economy
General

Deinonychus Mount: A typo in the tooltip has been fixed.
Deinonychus Mount: The rider now sits a little higher on the saddle to mitigate clipping issues.
Players may no longer purchase Masterwork vol. III books if they already have a copy.

User Interface
Sword Coast Chronicle / Campaign

Icewind Dale: The Kessell's Retreat clickable area no longer overlaps Frozen Treasures.

Collections

The Soul Sight artifact no longer appears twice in its Collection.

Vote Kick / Abandon

Players may now properly press Alt to return to standard controls while this interface is active.

Character Art, Audio, Animation, and Visual Effects
General

Shirt of the Chultan Merchant: This shirt no longer displays skin, rather than scales, when worn on a dragonborn character.
Strategist gear: Guardian's boots now have the correct visual geometry.

Localization
General

The first pass of Italian and Russian localization has been made.

Edit: Added known issue to Feytouched fixes above.

almondum · October 2017

In accordance with the addition of random queues, the weekly quest "Hero's Challenge" is no longer available from Kavatos.

What is the new source of the weekly Blood Ruby?
I believe I missed a line in previous patch notes.

Thank you.

bitt3rnightmar3 · October 2017

terramak said:

In accordance with the addition of random queues, the weekly quest "Hero's Challenge" is no longer available from Kavatos.

But why? That was the last motivation we had to do MSVA/EDEMO at all.

Now we have zero other than Astral Diamonds.

There is now no point to having my alts able to do FBI/MSVA/MSP~ even though they have unlocked them. is there a new quest to replace it.

asterdahl · October 2017

almondum said:
In accordance with the addition of random queues, the weekly quest "Hero's Challenge" is no longer available from Kavatos.

What is the new source of the weekly Blood Ruby?
I believe I missed a line in previous patch notes.

Thank you.

Thanks for the question. Basically, Hero's Challenge was added to the game after we already knew we were planning to add random queues, in order to give out a bonus reward for doing some of the hardest content available at the time.

We knew we wanted to do something that was daily when random queues came out, but at the time that we released Hero's Challenge, we didn't want to set up a convoluted rotating event. Random: Hero's Accord is essentially the replacement, which will grant a jadeite which is half the value of a blood ruby. However, you get it for running a single queue and you can get 7 per week. So even if you run only 4 queues, you'll get twice the value you got from the Hero's Challenge quest.

The Random: Hero's Accord queue will always feature the hardest content, for instance, it will have a second queue in it with Module 13, and in the future when a queue with a higher item level is introduced, that will replace what's currently there.

Originally we had hoped to introduce random queues alongside Module 12; however, they weren't ready in time. At time we had to debate whether or not to roll the easiest queue out of Hero's Challenge and add Tomb of the Nine Gods. Because we were fairly certain we would have random queues ready for Module 12B, we decided not, in order to avoid confusion.

mamalion1234 · October 2017

smoke bomb debuff enemies with feytouched but the player dont get the buff .( but instead smoke bomb get the buffs since prevent you to get again the buff for 20 seconds?)
icy terrain had this issue but i see it fixed on preview.

bitt3rnightmar3 · October 2017

Thanks for the quick reply Terramak

It's nice to know you guys will be keeping up with incentive. Will these Jadite be Unbound like the rubies were?

rayrdan · October 2017

i was looking forward to see smoke bomb and path of the blade fixed to proc weapon enchantments but they are not.
is the fix on preview already?

fogcrow · October 2017

kind of sad to see our weekly opportunity to get a blood ruby gone, although I didn´t claim it often, because, even with a ruby attatched, the Assault on Svardborg is not desireable to run to someone not interested in upgrading a set of relic weapons, and edemo not desireable for someone not interested in underdark rings.

pitshade · October 2017

> @rayrdan said:
> i was looking forward to see smoke bomb and path of the blade fixed to proc weapon enchantments but they are not.
> is the fix on preview already?

Unfortunately, most of the October Bug Fixes won't go live until after 12b.

<blockquote class="Quote" rel="nitocris83">Hi everyone! Just hopping in here for a reminder that these fixes will *not* be live with 12b but we are aiming to have them in place a few months from now. The Devs are hitting the bugs hard but they still need to be baked into builds, etc. which is why you won't see live fixes right away.</blockquote>

bitt3rnightmar3 · October 2017

fogcrow said:
kind of sad to see our weekly opportunity to get a blood ruby gone, although I didn´t claim it often, because, even with a ruby attatched, the Assault on Svardborg is not desireable to run to someone not interested in upgrading a set of relic weapons, and edemo not desireable for someone not interested in underdark rings.

Finding a group to do edemo was kind of difficult sometimes. No one wants that anymore since there is no reason other than outdated weapons to run edemo vs ndemo

arcanjo86 · October 2017

"The Celestial Store has been updated to remove one of the artifact boxes (as, with these changes, two boxes became identical).", Please make sure you dont remove the box that gives us a chance for preservation wards and a chance for coalescent ward, you guys already are pissing off lots of your playerbase, BTW some better mmo game is coming to compete with you guys

tilrod2 · October 2017

terramak said:

In accordance with the addition of random queues, the stronghold daily quests have been adjusted to require completion of random queues instead of a specific dungeon or skirmish.
Players below level 70 will be tasked with completing a random dungeon and a random skirmish.
Players at level 70 will be tasked with completing a random epic dungeon and a random skirmish.
Any currently accepted daily dungeon quests for a specific dungeon will remain on your character and may still be completed but cannot be picked up again.

So, fresh lvl 70 chars and twinks with low ilvl have an even smaller contribution to guild progression then an char under lvl 70, because they have no access to there named random queues.

kiraskytower · October 2017

tilrod2 said:

terramak said:

In accordance with the addition of random queues, the stronghold daily quests have been adjusted to require completion of random queues instead of a specific dungeon or skirmish.
Players below level 70 will be tasked with completing a random dungeon and a random skirmish.
Players at level 70 will be tasked with completing a random epic dungeon and a random skirmish.
Any currently accepted daily dungeon quests for a specific dungeon will remain on your character and may still be completed but cannot be picked up again.
So, fresh lvl 70 chars and twinks with low ilvl have an even smaller contribution to guild progression then an char under lvl 70, because they have no access to there named random queues.

Assuming the rewards are like they are now, characters below level 70 only got a few shards for the dungeon quests, where as level 70s got a full 10 for it. So the new level 70 may still get more.

frozenfirevr · October 2017

terramak said:

Unlock Epic Demogorgon is now properly discounted after a Patronage Token is applied.

I thought it was supposed to be account-wide unlock @terramak? No?

aerthyn · October 2017

The change to the stronghold dailies is going to make it much harder for guilds to get Dungeoneering Shards. Not every level 70 character will be able to queue for a random Epic dungeon so they will no longer be able to gain the shards.

This is a massive loss of currency for every guild still trying to gain levels - a lot of my guild will no longer be able to donate these. This needs an urgent rethink or another way to get these shards!!!

@terramak comments on this?

rabbit · October 2017

aerthyn said:

This is a massive loss of currency for every guild still trying to gain levels - a lot of my guild will no longer be able to donate these. This needs an urgent rethink or another way to get these shards!!!

@terramak comments on this?

Very true, also would be nice if small guilds can progress faster. Atm its just huge grind wall. And if u want this boons, u need to join guild 20 lvl and for that u need pay big price. If new players see this, they mostly leave game.

aerthyn71 · October 2017

The Dungeoneering shard of powers definitely needs to be addressed as a priority - gating Stronghold progression behind end game content that still a large number of your player base cannot complete is wrong. Existing Pre-20/new guilds will not grow and the game will become stagnant.

As a side point you are probably looking at increasing the GH cap to possibly 25 in the future (mentioned previously alongside the Bonding nerf). Wouldn't it be more prudent to have all shards freely tradeable (unbound) to allow guilds to grow and share resources when not in the same alliance. It would soften the blow of your above proposal and allow level 20 guilds who are at capacity to have an outlet for these resources as building and destroying structures to allow your guild to donate is wasteful to say the least. Alliances help with this but many of the larger guilds have banded together so the whole alliance is really wasting these resources..... Or potentially allowing a trader to convert shards into something else for those currently at maximum - there are so many options that can be great. But back to main point please rethink.

beckylunatic · October 2017

arcanjo86 said:
"The Celestial Store has been updated to remove one of the artifact boxes (as, with these changes, two boxes became identical).", Please make sure you dont remove the box that gives us a chance for preservation wards and a chance for coalescent ward, you guys already are pissing off lots of your playerbase, BTW some better mmo game is coming to compete with you guys

The artifact and artifact equipment boxes become the same item when the stones types are revised. Apparently they're going to leave in the box that drops enchants as well (other items converted to new system).

ALL OF THEM HAVE THE SAME CHANCE AT WARDS. Jesus.

beckylunatic · October 2017

tilrod2 said:

terramak said:

In accordance with the addition of random queues, the stronghold daily quests have been adjusted to require completion of random queues instead of a specific dungeon or skirmish.
Players below level 70 will be tasked with completing a random dungeon and a random skirmish.
Players at level 70 will be tasked with completing a random epic dungeon and a random skirmish.
Any currently accepted daily dungeon quests for a specific dungeon will remain on your character and may still be completed but cannot be picked up again.
So, fresh lvl 70 chars and twinks with low ilvl have an even smaller contribution to guild progression then an char under lvl 70, because they have no access to there named random queues.

Yes they do. You can RQ at level 12, even though the only dungeon in your RQ is Cloak Tower.

pitshade · October 2017

.> @frozenfirevr said:
> * Unlock Epic Demogorgon is now properly discounted after a Patronage Token is applied.
>
>
>
> I thought it was supposed to be account-wide unlock @terramak? No?

It is already account wide on Live but the campaign task is still required before Greater Demonic Keys can be made. The task itself also gives a key upim completion.

asterdahl · October 2017

In regards to the Stronghold dailies—since we've added skirmish as a category, leveling players will be able to complete 2 dailies per day. In addition, fresh level 70 players who would have only been strong enough to tackle the easiest 3 epic dungeons will still be able to tackle 1 daily in the form of the skirmish (which is still available at 70.)

There is a period between when you may have been able to tackle the harder dailies showing up and when you can tackle Fangbreaker and Spellplague where you may have been able to get more in the old system. Unfortunately there is no way of actually determining when you are "ready" for Fangbreaker and Spellplague. If we base the availability on your item level which can change at will, that obviously wouldn't work very well.

Originally we had been planning to add harder dungeons to the Stronghold quest rotation as they were added, but held off on this ahead of random queues. As I've mentioned in previous threads, raising your character's strength has gotten much easier so tackling Fangbreaker and Spellplague should not be nearly as difficult.

We're going to move forward with the current setup for now, but please give feedback once everything goes live. We'll definitely consider making adjustments based on feedback as well as data on how many players are completing various categories.

bitt3rnightmar3 said:
Thanks for the quick reply Terramak It's nice to know you guys will be keeping up with incentive. Will these Jadite be Unbound like the rubies were?

Absolutely, the jadeite will be unbound.

Unknown · October 2017

This content has been removed.

icyclass · October 2017

asterdahl said:
We knew we wanted to do something that was daily when random queues came out, but at the time that we released Hero's Challenge, we didn't want to set up a convoluted rotating event. Random: Hero's Accord is essentially the replacement

But Hero's Accord does not cover the same dungeons/trials that the Hero's Challenge did.
More to the point, it is already completely infeasible to get relic weapons maxed out right now because very few people want to run MSVA and even if you can get a group the odds of getting an orange mark from the chest are terrible and you have to spend an hour fishing to be able to try again. Without needing MSVA for Hero's Challenge there will be absolutely no motivation for anyone who already has relic weapons (or maybe Marsterwork) to run MSVA, reducing the player pool even further.
Please think about how this can be addressed.

asterotg · October 2017

fatrabbitfart said:

aerthyn said:

This is a massive loss of currency for every guild still trying to gain levels - a lot of my guild will no longer be able to donate these. This needs an urgent rethink or another way to get these shards!!!

@terramak comments on this?
Very true, also would be nice if small guilds can progress faster. Atm its just huge grind wall. And if u want this boons, u need to join guild 20 lvl and for that u need pay big price. If new players see this, they mostly leave game.

There may be guilds with AD requirements. Most just have an min IL.

danpio1217 · October 2017

icyclass said:

asterdahl said:
We knew we wanted to do something that was daily when random queues came out, but at the time that we released Hero's Challenge, we didn't want to set up a convoluted rotating event. Random: Hero's Accord is essentially the replacement
But Hero's Accord does not cover the same dungeons/trials that the Hero's Challenge did.
More to the point, it is already completely infeasible to get relic weapons maxed out right now because very few people want to run MSVA and even if you can get a group the odds of getting an orange mark from the chest are terrible and you have to spend an hour fishing to be able to try again. Without needing MSVA for Hero's Challenge there will be absolutely no motivation for anyone who already has relic weapons (or maybe Marsterwork) to run MSVA, reducing the player pool even further.
Please think about how this can be addressed.

It was, with chultan weapons. Relic aren't worth restoring and refining any more.

lowjohn · October 2017

tntslayer1 said:

this is just stupid, what is point of a guild, to run with your guild mates. you guys even made a map for us. and alliance . we have 3.5k members in our alliance, I help noobs all the time. and 1 way I help them is in dd , sh map.

So form a group of /all peeps and queue for a random dungeon or random skirmish to get your daily dungeon shards.

Feedback on the random queue shard change: I have much more time to play on weekends than weekdays. In the current system, I can store up dungeon shard quests all week and do 4, 5, 10, however many dungeon/skirmish stronghold quests on any number of characters on Saturday when I have some spare hours. This change means that a missed day is missed shards, which is an unfortunate step back from the Chult-style "all weeklies, can be done whenever" model.

I have no idea what a good fix for that would be, and I suspect the answer will be "yeah, that's a thing, too bad." Which is fair, but it's still a loss. EDIT: Chult Patrol missions are 6xWeek. Could Random Dungeon/Skirmish Shard missions be done the same way? Collect one, take another, do it again, 6xWeek or 7xWeek limit?

Any chance of making the shards account-bound instead? At least that way I could get shards on multiple toons and move them to the one who needs all the guild marks for Masterworking.

beckylunatic · October 2017

lowjohn said:
I have no idea what a good fix for that would be, and I suspect the answer will be "yeah, that's a thing, too bad." Which is fair, but it's still a loss. EDIT: Chult Patrol missions are 6xWeek. Could Random Dungeon/Skirmish Shard missions be done the same way? Collect one, take another, do it again, 6xWeek or 7xWeek limit?

This seems like a hecking good idea.

niadan · October 2017

> @beckylunatic said:
> I have no idea what a good fix for that would be, and I suspect the answer will be "yeah, that's a thing, too bad." Which is fair, but it's still a loss. EDIT: Chult Patrol missions are 6xWeek. Could Random Dungeon/Skirmish Shard missions be done the same way? Collect one, take another, do it again, 6xWeek or 7xWeek limit?
>
> This seems like a hecking good idea.

That would make a lot of sense and a lot of peeps happy.

majorcharvenak · October 2017

@terramak. Thanks for the fix to sanctuary. This is most welcome news!

niadan · October 2017

Delete this...double post.

kiraskytower · October 2017

asterdahl said:
In regards to the Stronghold dailies—since we've added skirmish as a category, leveling players will be able to complete 2 dailies per day. In addition, fresh level 70 players who would have only been strong enough to tackle the easiest 3 epic dungeons will still be able to tackle 1 daily in the form of the skirmish (which is still available at 70.)

There is a period between when you may have been able to tackle the harder dailies showing up and when you can tackle Fangbreaker and Spellplague where you may have been able to get more in the old system. Unfortunately there is no way of actually determining when you are "ready" for Fangbreaker and Spellplague. If we base the availability on your item level which can change at will, that obviously wouldn't work very well.

So does this mean that new 70s who have less than a 10K item level will be able to access the old leveling skirmish random queue? The Random queue that shows for my characters on preview says "Level 64+" and "Item level 10,000" as requirements for it. So just what will be available for a fresh 70 with an item level of say, 8K?

Swords of Chult Preview Patch Notes: NW.90.20170926a.3

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