Patch Notes: NW.5.20130714b.3

terramak · July 2013

Hey there folks! NeverwinterPreview's gonna be down overnight tonight; this patch is a big one and we want to make sure the Preview shard is stable before opening it up.

There are a ton o' patch notes to read in the meantime. Just be warned that a couple slipped through the cracks; you can assume that any new patch notes you see on the live Neverwinter shard in the next couple weeks are also on the NeverwinterPreview shard (but of course, not the other way around). I'll try to get this updated.

Enjoy!

----

Release Notes: NW.5.20130714b.3

Known Issues

The questing hub in the Blighted Grove has geometry that doesn't quite match the collision. This will sometimes result in players unexpectedly falling down and out of the tree. There's a respawn point just nearby, however.
For the time being, only the Blighted Grove is available for playing. More quest hubs will be opening up as time goes on!
The Foundry will be disabled for the first segment of testing.

Highlights

New Zone: Sharandar!

Envoys of the Iliyanbruen fey have come to Neverwinter seeking help from powerful adventurers.
Level 60 adventurers may speak to Sergeant Knox to investigate the plight of these envoys, starting with the quest, "The Mystery of Sharandar."
Once players complete the opening quest line, they will have permanent access to the newest Adventure Zone, Sharandar.
Players can come back daily for more ways to help the Iliyanbruen, and in return, they'll have access to new gear, new enchantments, and even permanent passive buffs!

New Feature: Companion Rank-Up!

Companions who have maxed out on ranks can now be upgraded for Astral Diamonds!
- The companion must be the max rank for their quality, e.g. Rank 15 for common, 20 for uncommon, and 25 for Rare.
- Once the companion is trained up to that rank, a button now appears to Upgrade Quality.
- When the button is pressed, a confirmation dialog will pop up, allowing the player to upgrade the Quality for Astral Diamonds.
- The Quality upgrade is instant once the Diamonds are paid; the max rank goes up by 5 and the rarity of the companion increases one level (e.g. from Uncommon with a green border to Rare with a blue border).

Release Notes

Quests and Environments
General

Daily Quests now reset at 3AM Pacific, instead of 20 hours after they were last completed.
The end chests in each dungeon now sparkle red if they are locked. When targeting them, they now have a tooltip that properly explains that they require the Dungeon Delves event to be active at the start of the run.
Several skill nodes that were buried behind invisible walls are now free.

Tutorial

Minor palette improvements have been made to the environment.
The Campfire tutorial tip now states that Injuries can be healed by spending 3 minutes at a campfire, down from 5.

Protector's Enclave

Minor improvements have been made to the marketplace's environment art.
Wizard's Folly: The Quest Path now properly leads to quest objectives instead of the exit door.

Tower District

The Sewer Crawl entrance gate now properly has collision.
Cloak Tower: Throg the Ravenous and Makred the Foul now properly show a boss health bar.

Blackdagger Ruins

The campfire in the Broken Crown Inn now properly removes injuries after 3 minutes.

Neverdeath Graveyard

The respawn location in Craftsman's Rest now has a proper campfire.
Correcting History: Addressed a typo in the quest text.
Doomguide's Duty: There is now a proper waypoint at the exit of this quest.
The Emissary: The reward chest now plays the proper visual effect when it unlocks.

Helm's Hold

The campfire in the Old Dirty Dwarf tavern now properly removes injuries after 3 minutes.
Devil's Council: Councilman Graves is no longer called Civilian.

Ebon Downs

Drowned King's Barrow: The ambient audio is now more consistent across the map.

Vellosk

The campfires in Vellosk now properly remove injuries after 3 minutes.
Gray Wolf Den: Players can no longer climb and fall out of the gameplay space.
Gray Wolf Den: The Quest Path no longer cuts out in certain locations.
Pit Fight: The boss intro cutscenes now use the proper title text.

Icespire Peak

Icespire's Frozen Heart: Players can no longer get out of the map through holes in the ceiling.

The Chasm

The campfires in the Chasm now properly remove injuries after 3 minutes.
The quests in the Chasm now grant rewards appropriate to the levels of the enemies.
Cathedral of Madness: There is now properly a Quest Path.
Plaguefire Ruins: The campfires now properly remove injuries after 3 minutes.

Rothe Valley

Clearing the Nest: The reward chest must now be looted before leaving through the quick-exit.

Mount Hotenow

Fireguard Fortress: The lava below the optional jumping platforms now actually burns.

Whispering Caverns

The quests in Whispering Caverns now grant rewards appropriate to the levels of the enemies.
Aberrant Assault: The final room is now visible on the minimap.
Illithid Enclave: The campfires now properly remove injuries after 3 minutes.

Gauntlgrym

The Duergar Blasphemer is no longer quite as twitchy when struck.
The Luskan Liaison has had a voice update.

Combat
General

Powers that temporarily summon objects or characters, such as Shard of the Endless Avalanche, now properly benefit from attributes, stats, buffs, and debuffs.
Slow effects on powers now have a greater effect on most NPCs. The run speed reduction is now comparable to player speed.

PvP

Rejuvenation Potions may no longer be used in PvP.
Health runes activated in PvP now expire when the player takes damage.

Control Wizard

Arcane Singularity now properly takes the caster's Intelligence attribute into account.
Chilling Cloud: The primary target of this power is now properly considered as hit by an AoE for power and proc calculations.
Chilling Cloud: The secondary targets of this power are now properly considered as hit by an At-Will instead of an Encounter for power and proc calculations.
Chilling Cloud: The visual effect on the third hit of this power now more properly represents its area of effect.
Ice Storm: This power can no longer affect targets through walls or doors.
Maelstrom of Chaos: This power can no longer affect targets through walls or doors.
Masterful Arcane Theft: The tooltip of this power has been updated with a more accurate description.
Repel: The Spell Mastery version of this power now properly counts as an AoE for interaction with other powers.
Feat: Alacrity: This feat no longer sometimes appears as though it's applied even when the player does not have the feat.
Feat: Focused Wizardry: This feat now properly applies to all relevant powers.
Feat: Lightning Teleport: This effect is no longer rarely able to trigger multiple times off the same action.
Feat: Malevolent Surge: This feat no longer grants multiple stacks for killing a single target.
Feat: Nightmare Wizardry: The wording of this tooltip has been updated to be clearer.
Feat: Severe Reaction: This effect is no longer rarely able to trigger multiple times off the same action.
Feat: Wizard's Wrath: This feat now properly affects AoE powers.

Devoted Cleric

Forgemaster's Flame: Ranking up this power now properly improves the Snare effect as much as stated on the tooltip. This improves the effect.

Great Weapon Fighter

Crescendo: This power can no longer sometimes be cast while in the process of casting another Daily power.

Guardian Fighter

Ferocious Action: This passive power no longer incorrectly activates at 20% health at Rank 1.
Ferocious Action: The Rank Up info of this power now correctly lists the percentage of health at which it activates.
Feat: Iron Guard: A typo in the tooltip has been addressed.

Trickster Rogue

Cloud of Steel: This power now has 8 maximum charges, down from 12.
Duelist's Flurry: When the bleed portion of this power is at 10 stacks, further applications now recalculate damage in addition to refreshing the duration.
Feat: Speed Swindle: This feat is now properly considered a Control effect for calculations and procs.
Lurker's Assault: This power now grants 5 / 10 / 15% bonus Crit Severity, instead of 20 / 40 / 60% bonus damage.
Stealth: At-will powers used from stealth will now partially deplete the Stealth Meter.

Enemies

Many more enemies now call out war cries when they enter battle.
Dragons are now more talkative in battle.
Fire Archons: Flameshields now wait a random amount of time from the start of combat before teleporting.
General Ignazar in Fireguard Fortress now prefers to be a bit closer to players.
Mind Flayers' "Enslave Thrall" buff has been reduced in efficacy.
Trolls now regenerate three times as quickly, but can no longer regenerate if they have been damaged within the past 4 seconds.

Companions

All companions now have a passive power that unlocks at Rank 30.
Cantankerous Mage: Unbridled Force now properly shows a damage estimate.
Cave Bear: This companion now has a passive 150 Life Steal at level 30.
Cleric Disciple: The range of Sacred Flame's heal has been increased to 25 feet, up from 10.
Dancing Blade: The damage of Stab has been increased by 33%.
Dancing Blade: Stab now gives Combat Advantage for 4 seconds.
Dancing Shield: Shield Bash now has a 25% chance to daze the enemy for up to 2 seconds.
Dog: The Crippling Bite tooltip now properly shows the efficacy of its slow effect.
Dog: This companion's basic attacks now slow the enemy.
Dog: This companion now knocks down enemies when it has Combat Advantage.
Fire Archon: Flame Fist has had a tooltip clarity update.
Skeletal Dog: This companion now has the same passive powers as the Dog.

Economy, Items, and Rewards

New items have been added to the Trade Bar Merchant in Protector's Enclave!
- Mounts: Small Forest Stag
- Companion: Phase Spider
- Fashion Set: Sun Elf Noble
- Gear: Sinister Weapons
Bounty items now belong in currency bags.
Gemmed Elegant Pants now actually display as pants (instead of a second shirt).
If a player has an item equipped and an identical item in the inventory, the items now properly switch when double-clicking on the one in the inventory.
If a player has no lower-tier Scrolls of Identification and tries to identify a lower-tier item, any other valid ID scroll in the inventory will now be used.
Items purchased via Seals and Glory are now bound to the character when purchased.
Resources and Assets may no longer be put into banks.
The Astral Diamond refinement limit now resets daily at 3AM Pacific time, regardless of when the player refined over the past day.

terramak · July 2013

Foundry
NOTE: The Foundry will be disabled on Playtest for the first round of Fury of the Feywild testing. We'll be sure to let folks know when we open it up!

With the release of Fury of the Feywild comes a new suite of assets for use in the Foundry! Among these are…
- Costumes: Moon and Sun Elves, seen in the Sharandar zone itself.
- Custom Interior Kit: Elven City
- Encounters (New): Redcaps, Trolls, Fomorians, Cyclopses.
- Encounters (Special): Adventurers.
  - The NPCs in these encounters use modified versions of player powers. They come in Friendly and Enemy varieties.
  - Classes: Cleric, Wizard, and two types of Guardian Fighters are currently represented.
- Maps: Sharandar and its instanced areas.
- Objects: All new Feywild assets - Props, FX, and Skies.
- The Search feature has had a significant upgrade!
There is now a "Show Advanced" button allowing players to do a quick or powerful search at their leisure.
Players may now click an "Exact" checkbox when specifying Author or Short Code.
Players may now add searchable tags to their quests, such as, "Story Rich," "Combat Heavy," or "Exploration."
Actors are now always visible in an Encounter even when fully zoomed out.
Drowcave buildings now have doors.
Fantasy Forest trees have an updated texture that tiles more gracefully.
Fantasy Forest trees have had a major optimization pass.
Keybinds have been updated to support the current suite of commands.
The Delete Characters button is now clearer in its purpose.
The Preview Editor now supports editing the positions of Teleporters, Traps, Reward Chests, Combat Jobs, Sounds, and Respawn Points.
The Quest Path has been repaired in several prefab maps, including Stormcaller Caves, Sanatorium, and Shadowfire Caverns.
There is now a Free-Camera mode in the Preview Editor.
When changing an Encounter, Actor properties are now reset. There is a confirmation dialog to help prevent wiping Actor properties by accidentally changing an Encounter.

Gateway

When automatically logged out after being inactive, then refreshing, text no longer tends to overlap other text.

Graphics and Stability

Video Options: An option has been added to enable Nvidia Temporal Anti-aliasing (TXAA) on supported graphics hardware.
Another wave of known client crashes has been addressed.
Further improvements have been made to performance when deciding whether to draw objects behind certain large buildings.

Localization

Many enemy war cries have been localized into all supported territories.

Professions

Two new Professions have been added!
- Weaponsmithing: This profession is a new source for Guardian Fighter, Great Weapon Fighter, and Trickster Rogue weapons. Skilled smiths will have the chance to create high-quality weapons with a new look and style, such as Greataxes for Great Weapon Fighters.
- Artificing: This profession is a new source for Control Wizard and Devoted Cleric weapons. Practiced artisans will have the chance to create high-quality focuses with a new look and style, such as Scepters for Devoted Clerics.
The Profession UI will now always properly show all available tasks that match filters, instead of sometimes only showing Rare tasks.

User Interface

Character Sheet: The Character, Powers, and Feats tabs now glow if players have unspent Ability, Power, or Feat points, respectively.
Companion tooltips no longer say "Right-click to bind" when viewing them from the Vendor UI or chat.
Game Menu: The "ESC" menu no longer allows players to click multiple buttons at once when a confirmation dialog is popped up.
HUD: Power Tray: When dragging a power, it is now significantly clearer in which slots the power can and can't be placed.
HUD: The Character Sheet button in the top bar now glows if the player has unspent Ability, Power, or Feat points.
Journal: In-progress Achievements are now more visually distinct from completed ones.
Journal: The scroll bar no longer vibrates in certain situations.
Journal: There have been several minor layout fixes to the Journal UI.
Powers: The General Powers section may now be collapsed.
Professions: The Professions UI may now be resized vertically.
PvP: Capture Point icons now show up on the minimap.
Queue Status now properly updates the "Accepted / Declined" circles when a queue has popped.
Queue titles no longer have prefixes such as "Dungeon" or "Skirmish," as there are now icons that display that information.
Several windows have been updated with minor cosmetic updates, such as slight gradients in backgrounds, contrast improvements, smoother formatting, and more.
The checkerboard background texture in the Foundry has been adjusted to be easier on the eyes.
Tooltips: Certain items no longer display [Used in Quest ""] on their tooltip.
Web link buttons in the Foundry now have an icon indicating that they will open a browser.
Zen Market preview images have been updated to address blurring.

hoodster7 · July 2013

Whoo Hooooo!!! New content!!! I will be on with my lvl 60 to test as soon as the server is up:))

maxillion2 · July 2013

yay a TR nerf good that class needs to burn

cyris21 · July 2013

maxillion2 wrote: »

yay a TR nerf good that class needs to burn

In before people start crying because dungeon bosses take 4 hours to beat due to the lurkers nerf

therealgravecard · July 2013

At least some CW bugs are being fixed

The rest i will have to test on the Preview Shard, but all seems interesting.

snwo1 · July 2013

What does this mean for the "perma stealth rogue's"?

ambisinisterr · July 2013

I love everything! Thanks so much for these fixes guys.

I can't wait til they go live!

One question though, with the Seal and Glory items being made BoP can we expect the Salvager to make another appearance in the game to give value to the seal and glory items after players have Tier 2 Gear?
Please, please, please?

twerkulatorr · July 2013

That Lurker's assault nerf (and at will stealth-depletion) is far too significant and I hope after thorough testing/feedback that it doesn't make it to live. Our class is already hurting as is from the fix to Duelist's.

blahblahsean · July 2013

twerkulatorr wrote: »

That Lurker's assault nerf is far too significant and I hope after thorough testing/feedback that it doesn't make it to live. Our class is already hurting as is from the fix to Duelist's.

I'd rather they nerf Lurker's Assault (mainly for PvP balance; killing 4 people in 4-8 seconds with lurkers up is beyond broken) and rebuff DF to compensate TRs in PvE.

I'm pretty disappointed that DC/CWs didn't receive any small buffs (mainly for PvP) and that there were no nerfs to GWF survivability (again, mainly for PvP balance).

I also wouldn't mind seeing the tenebrous proc damage being turned into a 3/6/9 second dot (based on rank) to help balance their absurd burst potential in PvP without changing their sustained damage.

lichlament · July 2013

snwo1 wrote: »

What does this mean for the "perma stealth rogue's"?

Death of the Stealth build.

rebur · July 2013

So went from going to cost gold to level your companion to costing astral diamonds. Can't say I didn't expect it.

dardove · July 2013

rebur wrote: »

So went from going to cost gold to level your companion to costing astral diamonds. Can't say I didn't expect it.

I don't ever recall them saying the training tomes would cost gold. I expected it to cost AD since the mount tomes cost AD.

abombination247 · July 2013

cyris21 wrote: »

In before people start crying because dungeon bosses take 4 hours to beat due to the lurkers nerf

My Dps GF will dps the boss don't need OP rogue dmg its a party maybe just maybe. A rogue wont be tanking the boss now and the GF can do it. All good news more then good fantastic.

llclickll · July 2013

Proves yet again that Cryptic listens to whiners and bad players with bad gear instead of actually playtesting their own game and doing analysis on their data. Cements my opinion that they have no f'n idea what they're doing with this game.

Nerf Rogues to hell (again) while Sent. GWFs and GFs with Regen gear are tanking entire teams while 3-shotting everyone and CC locking them. 7 Greater Tenebrous stacking is still broken and will continued to be abused because Cryptic has no clue how to properly nerf that stupid Enchant... not that they want to nerf it properly because then people won't buy Zen/keys.

Make my decision to quit all that much easier now. Thanks Cryptic!

nemesao · July 2013

DAT TR nerf zomg

llclickll · July 2013

Cryptic's last huge nerf bat swing to Rogues reduced our damage output by roughly 20-25% overall in PvE because they nerfed Duelist's Flurry and Deadly Momentum by a ridiculous amount. They also nerfed a Daily (Shocking Execution) to the ground. We took that huge hit to the face and kept on trucking.

Now, they're completely destroying Rogues again by ruining Rogues' primary class feature: Stealth and being able to attack while in stealth. They're also destroying another Daily (Lurker's Assault), which affects both PvE and PvP. Instead of nerfing the damage output of that Daily by let's say, 20%, they completely got rid of the original damage increase and instead, added a worthless 15% Crit Severity to a DAILY. Again, 0 playtesting, 0 thought was put into these gigantic and dramatic nerfs that completely cripples the entire class both in PvE and PvP.

If they wanted to shut the PvP whiners up and nerf permastealth (which should be nerfed), they could have easily changed Bait and Switch's ability to refill the stealth meter while in stealth. But no, Cryptic decides to ruin the entire class by making At-Wills deplete the stealth meter instead. Shows once again how incompetent these guys are at balancing this game.

Meanwhile, they leave the ridiculously overpowered Sentinel GWFs and GFs in tact simply because all the PvP crybabies ignore those broken classes/builds and focus on Rogue QQ instead. Greater Tenebrous stacking is still taking 1/3 to 1/2 of people's health bars with just 1 proc every 20 seconds. CWs are still able to stunlock everyone and spam Ice Knife for 40k+ at a ridiculous range. But no, let's nerf Rogues to the ground again because the forums say we should.

l0kus · July 2013

instead of these ridiculous nerfs, just remake the game without rogue class lol /facepalm

kelleton · July 2013

Why are they nerfing rogues so badly? rebalancing a class in pve because of pvp is ridiculous. pvp in this game in a joke any way. Why completely obliterate the need for a rogue in pve because people don't know how to dodge abilities in pvp and easily kite a rogue.

Roles currently in pve

GWF: Aoe damage
GF - control adds - kite adds
CW - pushing, controlling adds
Cleric - healing, kiting adds
TR - single target dps

With this nerf to damage especially lurkers its just prolonging already tedious boss fights. You are nerfing overall rogue damage while making them more bursty.

either separate abilities into pve effect and pvp effect or just toss the pvp out of this game cause it is crappy anyway and balance strictly for pve.

cybliss · July 2013

So the actual most broken class gets left alone. Here's to hoping that this doesn't get patched onto the live server as is. And to anyone that's going to tell me to stop crying because I'm a rogue and I got nerfed: Have you ever tried to kill a properly geared GWF?

Also, I'm fine with these nerfs, but not nerfing GWFs is the worst thing that could have possibly happened to pug pvp.

thalesamr · July 2013

Well...

Aoe damage is useless in most of dgs since CW can insta kill the mobs...

TR has lots of utility (way more than GWF), that smoke, the invisibility, dodge, the reduction dmg ability, etc...

now with the TR nerfs maybe now GWFs will be desirables for dungeons...

velsparw · July 2013

*Items purchased via Seals and Glory are now bound to the character when purchased.

WHY.

flamexsoldier · July 2013

The rogues being nerfed is all because of PVP, which is really unfair for people who play PVE. Strikers are supposed to do a lot of damage, so it's not surprising that they should be able to damage you in pvp.

Making it 5/10/15 crit severity is just so stupid. What happens if you're unlucky and don't happen to land a crit in the time you activate it? If they wanted to nerf it, why not just make it 20/30/40 more damage instead, or 10/20/30?

kelleton · July 2013

thalesamr wrote: »

Well...

Aoe damage is useless in most of dgs since CW can insta kill the mobs...

TR has lots of utility (way more than GWF), that smoke, the invisibility, dodge, the reduction dmg ability, etc...

now with the TR nerfs maybe now GWFs will be desirables for dungeons...

maybe more of an issue with CW than Rogues...

ajsme · July 2013

terramak wrote: »

Release Notes: NW.5.20130714b.3

...

[*]Items purchased via Seals and Glory are now bound to the character when purchased.
...

[/LIST]

If you are going to remove the ability to sell seals and glory - at least give us something else to spend these respective currencies on. I rather not have 80 seals or 3000ish glory just equal a pittance of gold for selling the junk items back to the vendors. Add something like coffers of enchants/runestones, profession resource items or anything to make these useless currencies more then wasted inventory space.

dardove · July 2013

ajsme wrote: »

If you are going to remove the ability to sell seals and glory - at least give us something else to spend these respective currencies on. I rather not have 80 seals or 3000ish glory just equal a pittance of gold for selling the junk items back to the vendors. Add something like coffers of enchants/runestones, profession resource items or anything to make these useless currencies more then wasted inventory space.

That is a great idea.

creolegamer · July 2013

thalesamr wrote: »

Well...

Aoe damage is useless in most of dgs since CW can insta kill the mobs...

TR has lots of utility (way more than GWF), that smoke, the invisibility, dodge, the reduction dmg ability, etc...

now with the TR nerfs maybe now GWFs will be desirables for dungeons...

i dont believe we are playing the same game here.....GWFs can clear a room of adds easily while tanking them all and controlling them with slam. The damage reduction and increased dps from unstoppable beats stealth and Impossible to Catch any day. You are right about one thing though....GWFs are more useful in dungeons now. Prolly best to run an extra CW, GF or GWF as compared to another TR in some dungeons now....good luck on spider last boss trs w/o lurkers and one good DF bleed.

kelleton · July 2013

velsparw wrote: »

*Items purchased via Seals and Glory are now bound to the character when purchased.

WHY.

to make no reason to do pvp

but then they balance classes around pvp- all u will need in dungeons is 1 cleric and 4 CW

creolegamer · July 2013

kelleton wrote: »

to make no reason to do pvp

but then they balance classes around pvp- all u will need in dungeons is 1 cleric and 4 CW

arent they running those for CN now?

lichlament · July 2013

I have to say if this Nerf goes live, That has to be the final straw for me.

No long winded thread, no whining.

I'll see myself to the door...

thalesamr · July 2013

Spellplague... (the no GWF land)

No parties will invite a GWF for that dungeon, because (1) CW Singularity, shield, repel and entangle is all that you need in that dungeon for the mobs (2) TR do much more dmg in ST than GWF.

Since they dont put a cap in the number of targets singularity and shield can affect, the only other way to make GWF viable there is having almost the same amount of single target dmg than TR, because the boss itself is easy.

there are bosses that it is really hard to 1v1 with a GWF, but it is way easier with TR with his abilities to avoid dmg, so there is no need for GWF less single target dmg than a TR.

TR can go through places in dungeon ignoring mobs so you can reach to the boss room way faster... TR has too much utility for it to have that amount of dmg

there is also no reason to bring a GWF to CN

Patch Notes: NW.5.20130714b.3

Comments