Highlights

New Skirmish: The Merchant Prince's Folly

Merchant Prince Wakanga O'tamu has recently acquired a treasure that others will stop at nothing to take for themselves. Protect Port Nyanzaru, build barricades, and repel the attack long enough to rebuild the gates, with improved rewards based on the speed of completion.

Check out the dev blog: Developer Blog: The Merchant Prince's Folly

Inventory Quality of Life Update

The Inventory window's user experience has seen another pass. There is now an options button in the lower right of the menu, enabling access to certain features like collapsing all inventory slots into a single view, filtering the inventory to specific types of items, and sorting all bags together. There's also an "Identify All" option for quickly taking care of all that extra unidentified gear.

Check out the dev blog: Developer Blog: Updates to Inventory Management

Refinement Streamlining

We've worked on streamlining the Refinement experience to significantly reduce the amount of inventory space required to engage in the system, and to significantly reduce the need to hoard refinement items for 2x Refinement weekends. In addition, Enchantments will receive two new tiers, and Enhancements (the special Weapon, Armor slots) will receive one new tier.

Information can be found here: Refinement: Technical Details

And here: Official Feedback Thread: Refining Refinement

Bonding Runestones and Related Changes

Bonding Runestones have seen some changes. While they'll still be the most powerful runestone in the game, they will no longer be as severely above the rest. The percentage of stats they share has been reduced, while Eldritch Runestones now give their stat sharing effect to Offense slots in addition to the Defense slot bonus that already existed.

Information can be found here: Official Feedback Thread: Bonding Runestone Changes

Campaign Progression for Alts

Players who complete a campaign will now have access to an item they can give to an alternate character on the same account. This item should significantly speed up that character's progression through the campaign, often through discounted currency costs or increased reputation gains.

Check out the dev blog: Developer Blog: Campaign Progression for Alts

PvP Updates

Tenacity is no longer on items. Instead, all damage received in player-versus-player content (PvP) is reduced by a flat value of 40%, along with similar reductions to crit severity, healing received, and armor penetration. All Tenacity that was previously on items has since been replaced with other stats, and PvP-specific items now receive an Item Level boost and stat boost when joining PvP matches or in PvP areas.

In addition, crowd control (CC) powers now apply diminishing returns - for each CC attack, the target has the duration of future CC effects reduced by a stacking 25% for 15 seconds, and gains immunity at 4 stacks. These stacks are independent.

There are other changes to PvP, including the Solo PvP Queue being made a permanent fixture of the Queue list, a category update to buffs (this change is not restricted to PvP), and a new set of rewards sold by Kyrian Foss in the Trade of Blades.

Check out the dev blog: Developer Blog: PvP Updates

Random Queues

A new "Random Queue" category has been added to the Queues UI. In addition to allowing queues for less-popular dungeons and skirmishes to pop, Astral Diamond rewards and bonus Seals will be granted for the first random run in a day. Under-represented roles will also stand a chance to gain bonus Astral Diamonds on the completion of a queue.

Information can be found here: Official Feedback Thread: Random Queues

Release Notes

Content and Environment

Stronghold

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.



Events

Lillend in Profession Packs: This promotion no longer shows a blank box in its Home Page information.

The Seals discount event now properly affects Seals of the Brave.

Player versus Player

PvP Solo Queue is now permanently available.

Stronghold PvP no longer restricts players in the same guild from joining the opposite side of the match, though it will still prefer to keep them on the same side.

When queuing for PvP Solo Queue, ratings are now more likely to be taken into account.

General

A new PvP Leaderboard season has begun. Though we don't usually do this on "B" modules, PvP has changed dramatically enough that it makes sense to refresh the standings.

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

Merchant Prince Wakanga O'tamu has cracked down on rooftop runners, and the wards preventing traversal of Port Nyanzaru's pristine buildings have been strengthened to try to counter teleportation and leaping style powers.

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

Sea of Moving Ice: A treasure chest in an overturned ship can now properly be looted without being blocked by invisible collision.

Several minor fixes to contact dialog text have been made.

Theft of the Crown: Minor polish-y updates have been made to this quest.

Trade of Blades: Players can now swap loadouts here.

Two new PvP in-game achievements have been added: Capture Scout and Capture Vanguard.

Various minor text issues have been addressed.

Combat and Powers

Artifacts

Belial's Portal Stone now properly increases in damage (~16.5%) at Mythic quality.

Token of Chromatic Storm now drops one additional meteor at Mythic quality.

Boons

The Stronghold boon for Critical Severity Bonus now properly calculates its strength from the Mercenary Outpost rank, rather than the Barracks.

Buff Categories

All long-term buffs in the game have been grouped into one of seven categories: Potion Elixir (eg, Wild Storm Elixir) Invocation Stronghold Food Event Food Event Item (eg, the Scrolls of Fate from Winter Event) Trinket (eg, Tymora's Lucky Coin)

A player may now have at most one buff in each category active at one time. Developer Note: The reason for this change was that until now players could have over 25 long-term buffs active at once, which was too many to keep track of, and led to annoying gameplay as well as balance problems. There was also very little logic to the old system -- why could you only drink one potion, but you could read eight scrolls?

Various names, icons, and tooltips have been cleaned up to match the new functionality.

A small number of narrowly-focused buffs (eg, Potion of Dragon Slaying, Potion of Everfrost Resist) have been left outside the system since they are only used in special circumstances.

Classes and Balance

Control Wizard Shield now has a more accurate tooltip, including damage dealt and its category. Smolder and Rimefire Smolder can no longer appear on an enemy at the same time.

Devoted Cleric Astral Shield's Empowered bonus no longer reduces the damage taken from attacks by a fixed number. Astral Shield's Empowered bonus now increases incoming healing by 10% for each stack consumed. Developer Note: Even after nerfs, Astral Shield continues to be far and away one of the most game-changing powers in PvP. While we still want it to be effective, the flat damage reduction often results in 0-damage hits. This is an experimental attempt to make the power more reasonable in PvP, and prevent it from further trivializing PvE content, while still remaining useful. Divine Glow: The duration of this power is now accurately reflected in the tooltip. Fire of the Gods: This feat can no longer be activated by powers that are interrupted. Light of Divinity: This class feature should no longer cause the cleric to pop in and out of combat in certain situations.

Great Weapon Fighter Mighty Leap now has a target limit of 5 enemies. Tooltips referring to the "Marked" status have been updated to match current functionality. Gameplay functionality is not affected by this change. Weapon Master's Strike no longer incorrectly states that it deals reduced damage to additional enemies.

Hunter Ranger Aspect of the Pack, Rank 4 now properly benefits from its respective Artifact Off-hand bonus. Blade Hurricane: This feat's base damage has been reduced to 150% (down from 165%). This is in conjunction with a previous change to make the Flurry effect start at the end of a melee power's animation, rather than on activation. That change should allow a player to squeeze more powers into the time of its effect. Seeker's Vengeance now properly affects melee powers.

Oathbound Paladin Circle of Power now lasts its stated time, rather than one extra second. Resolved an issue where Sanctuary would only play the raised shield animation for a short time before reverting to the standard combat idle animation. As a result, Sanctuary should now feel more responsive and it should be easier to tell when you are blocking.

Scourge Warlock Dust to Dust: Action Points gained per Spark now correctly match the tooltip description. Per rank, the value is now properly (1/1.5/2/2.5%), changed from (1.2/1.6/2.0/2.4%).

Trickster Rogue Courage Breaker now applies a slow for 5 seconds, reduced from 10 seconds. Lurker's Assault should no longer potentially cause the character's stealth bar to become stuck until logout. Shadowy Disappearance now consistently triggers effects that look for Encounter powers.

The responsiveness of the Guardian Fighter Block and Oathbound Paladin Sanctuary powers has been improved.

Companions

Mage Slayer and Stronghold Cleric: These companions no longer have Pact Blades item slots. Mage Slayer now has a Grimoire slot, and the Stronghold Cleric has an Icon slot. Illusionist's Gambit: Pact Blades of the Companion have been converted to Grimoires of the Companion. Pact Blades that are currently equipped by companions will remain in that slot. There's a known issue where these blades cannot be manually removed, but they will auto-unequip if the player swaps the companion to an Idle Companion slot.

Mage Slayer: The Merciless End power no longer appears twice.

Owlbear Cub: Infantile Compensation now has an internal cooldown of 1 second.

Rimefire Golem: The Frost Fist power no longer appears twice.

The Legendary companion bonus should no longer occasionally fall off.

Deflection and Dodge Procs

We've made a significant change in the back-end to how dodges and deflections occur. Now, feats and other effects that proc on Dodge or Deflect now only do so when affecting incoming damage. This should result in fewer occasions where the player character is suddenly put into combat, and as a result should also result in fewer cases where a Companion runs off to attack an enemy the player has not yet engaged.



Enchantments and Enhancements

Two new ranks have been added to standard enchantments, and one new rank has been added to weapon and armor enhancements.

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 The cooldown is no longer incorrectly procced multiple times from certain powers. The extra damage hit now fires when daily powers are used. Various other issues with this enchantment have been addressed. It should now adhere more closely to the tooltip description.

Fireburst Enchantment (Armor enhancement) tooltips now read consistently throughout the ranks.

Plague Fire: The Poison damage component in ranks 11-13 is now accurately specified in the tooltip. A minor punctuation fix was also made.

Soulforged: The tooltip now correctly describes the amount of damage dealt.

Thunderhead: This enchantment now properly procs as frequently as stated on the tooltip.

Marks of Stamina Drain now have an internal cooldown of 0.5 seconds.

Marks of AP Drain now have an internal cooldown of 5 seconds.

Mounts

Arcane Whirlwind: This mount's combat power now properly respects control resistance and immunity.

Flail Snail: This mount's combat power now properly respects control resistance and immunity.

General

Certain situational feats and class features no longer contribute their buffs to damage estimates on power tooltips.

Charm of the Serpent: This artifact no longer sometimes casts twice on activation, and is no longer affected by Recovery or other cooldown reduction effects.

Helmite Dye pack now states its colors of gold, silver, and charcoal gray, rather than "muted blues and greys."

Powers with "lunge to target" components should now feel more consistent against large enemies.

Ras Nsi no longer occasionally strikes the player with an "UNTRANSLATED" combat damage popup.

Underdark Rings no longer show a debuff icon when their effect is on cooldown, in attempt to lower the buff / debuff clutter in the HUD.

Ring of Sieging +5 now properly activates after 1 second, rather than 2.

Tooltips for several artifacts at Mythic quality have been adjusted to match their effect.

Various minor text issues have been addressed.

Items and Economy

Artifacts and Artifact Weapons

Heart of the White Dragon: This artifact now gives Defense at all ranks, rather than switching to Deflection at Rare quality and above.

Lathander, Valindra, and Tiamat's artifact equipment sets no longer display buff icons, and no longer stack twice every 6 seconds.

Campaigns

Each campaign now allows players to create Patronage Tokens. When consumed by another character on the account, many campaign tasks are permanently discounted for that character.

When players unlock dungeons and trials via Campaigns, these unlocks are now applied to all characters on the account.

In order to accommodate for account wide unlocks of queue content, it is no longer necessary to complete Fangbreaker Island in order to queue for Assault on Svardborg.

Character Sheet

The PvP Stat category no longer exists, as the relevant values are now consistent in all PvP content.

Companions

Various companion audio has been updated.

Enchantments, Enhancements, and Runestones

Bradda the Sage in Protector's Enclave now sells Rank 1 enchantments in exchange for copper / silver / gold, and Rank 2-5 enchantments in exchange for Astral Diamonds.

Empowered Runestone: The hit points granted by this Runestone have been significantly increased.

Marks of Power, Union, and Stability have been automatically converted to Enchanting Stones. Note that these will remain in the same stacks they were in before.

Multi-stat enchantments now provide a more consistent percentage of single-stat enchantments.

Tenebrous Enchantment no longer multi-procs if the player has multiple slotted. However, equipping multiple Tenebrous Enchantments now increases the proc chance of the highest equipped rank.



Professions

Leatherworking: Deep Wilderness Gathering now gives 300 profession XP for completion, in line with similar tasks in other professions.

PvP

PvP gear no longer has Tenacity. Its value has been distributed to other stats.

PvP gear now has an increased item level in PvP content.

Queues

Daily Astral Diamond rewards are no longer granted from dungeons, and instead are granted by participating in Random Queues.

Seal rewards have been updated across Skirmishes and Trials to mesh better with the Random Queues system.

The daily bonus Cache of the Protector is no longer granted, as its bonus is provided by daily Random Queues.

The "Neverwinter Legendary Hero Pack" now grants seals directly, rather than granting a cache.

Spellplague Caverns (Master)

A piece of Elven equipment is now guaranteed from both reward chests.

Both chests in now have a chance of granting an Ostorian ring.

The final boss now drops a Wicked Enchantment, Rank 8; as opposed to a chance of either a Rank 5, 6 or 7. (The chance of dropping a wicked enchantment has not been reduced.)

General

A piece of Elven equipment is now guaranteed from both chests in Fangbreaker Island.

Dread Legion: Transmute weapons are now properly Bind to Account rather than Bind on Pickup.

Fixed-damage "Practice" weapons may now be purchased at the Trade of Blades for those who wish to experiment more accurately without damage variation.

Hero's Feast: This consumable item now gives stats scaling up to more reasonable values at level 70. The maximum Power granted by the feast is now 750, and the maximum Hit Points granted by the feast have been increased to 4500.

Players may no longer purchase Masterwork vol. III books if they already have a copy.

The amount of materials required to restore relic armor has been reduced. Restoration no longer requires voninblod to restore (this does not affect voninblod empowerment.) The amount of lanolin required by all items has been reduced to 5. All other materials have had their required amounts reduced to 1.

The Celestial Store has been updated to remove one of the artifact boxes (as, with these changes, two boxes became identical).

The cost of all testimonies used in restoring vivified relic armor sold by the historian in Bryn Shander has been reduced to 1 Ostorian tale carving per testimony.

Tooltips for various items and packs have been adjusted to reflect updated contents.

Various potion buff icons have been updated to match their related item icons.

Well of Dragons: The campaign store now properly offers Oathbound Paladins a shield they can equip.

User Interface

Boons

The "You have unspent points!" notification now properly appears for Cloaked Ascendancy and Jungles of Chult.

Campaigns

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

Character Select

When buttons are disabled, the font should now more clearly show that.

Character Sheet

Companions: Aranea's power icons are now consistently sepia toned.

Companions: When swapping an equipped item onto an item in the Inventory, a binding prompt now properly appears.

Chat

Social chat messages should no longer be pushed out of the buffer by combat log entries.

Collections

Cult of the Dragon weapons are no longer in Collections, since they are no longer available.

Eternal Armor now shows up in Location view.

HUD

Need or Greed loot results now show for 8 seconds if not dismissed, reduced from 12.

The Quest Path now takes better account of clickable transitions to different locations in the same zone.

Inventory

Identified items no longer show "Identify" as an option in their context menu.

It should now be a little more difficult to accidentally destroy Enchantments in the Manage Enchantments pane.

Item tooltips now show the base RP values of items that can be converted to Refinement Points.

Overload Enchantments no longer show the "+" icon in the lower-right, as they cannot be fed resources in order to recharge.

The "Buy a Bag" button has been moved to the first empty bag slot, in order to make way for the new inventory options.

When dragging and dropping an item from the Character Sheet onto an item of the same slot in the inventory, it will now warn the player if that item would bind, rather than binding without a warning.

While at a vendor, disabled actions (e.g. Discard) are now properly grayed out in the context menu.

Loadouts

Players are no longer incorrectly restricted from swapping Loadouts when they're swapping out unique items.

When replacing loadouts, the player must now type the word "loadout" in order to replace a loadout. This is intended to reduce cases of accidental replacements.

Mounts

The "Grid / List" selection now persists across gameplay sessions.

Queues

A "request reinforcements" option has been added to the Queue UI.

All queues are now subject to a Leaver Penalty. A Leaver Penalty occurs when leaving queued content early. Vote Abandon enables after a certain amount of time attempting queued content, and allows a party to decide to leave without incurring this penalty.

Players are now auto-removed from a Queue Group if they're disconnected for 5 minutes, rather than immediately upon disconnect.

There is now a "Match Management" button at the bottom of the Queue UI, which allows the queue group to request reinforcements or initiate a vote to abandon the instance.

Vote Kick now requires a selection between reasons rather than a player-input reason.

Vote Kick no longer prevents players from pressing Alt to return to standard controls.

Refinement

Item to Refine: The "Clear Slot" button has been removed.

The Item Progression window width can no longer change during use.

Scoreboards

In ranked content, the next rank's icon is now displayed on the right side of ranked scoreboard bars, to better illustrate that the bar shows progress to the next rank.

Zen Market

"Buy Wards" shortcuts from Refinement now properly show both Preservation Ward and Coalescent Ward purchases.

Art and Effects

Animation

Batiri Darter no longer clips through its mask when using its dart gun.

Certain Stronghold Hunter Ranger axes are no longer held backwards.

Firebreathing: This emote now properly shows up in the emote list if the character qualifies to use it.

Hunter Ranger: In character creation, the ranger no longer freezes once drawing her bow.

Juggle: This emote now properly shows up in the emote list if the character qualifies to use it.

Morlanth's Shroud now hides some of its cloth pieces while the player is on a mount.

River Snipper Crab: This enemy no longer shrinks while using its Flurry power.

Sun Bear's jaw no longer incorrectly stretches when using certain attacks.

Various cutscenes have seen minor improvements.

Various older companions now have appropriate animations for when they're affected by Crowd Control effects. Among these companions are the Hawk, Lillend, Gorgon, Bulette, and Rust Monster.

Yuan-ti no longer casually stab themselves in the face while moving in combat.

Character Art

Clipping issues on various items have been resolved.

Fashion: Courtly Garb no longer clips through the player's body when equipped on female characters.

The following mounts no longer scale with the size of the character who summons them: Strider, Armored Strider, Axe Beak, Armored Axe Beak, Deinonychus, Spiked Blue Deinonychus



Audio

General

Birds are no longer quite as jubilant around Camp Vengeance in Soshenstar River.

The Quasit companion should no longer play human male "jump" grunt sounds.

Witch's Fen: One of the gates should no longer have a chance of repeatedly looping until the player closes and reopens the game.

Graphics, Performance, and Stability

General