Highlights

New Level Cap

The Undermountain expansion brings with it a new level cap of 80. Adventuring will begin in zones above level 70 and take players through the additional 10 new levels.

Developer Blog: Level Cap Increase

  

Class Changes

At the core of Neverwinter’s gameplay are our classes. With this update Classes will now be known by their core names that are very familiar to anyone who has played D&D. The Feat Trees have been removed and paragon paths will have pairs of feats where you get to choose one feat in each pair. Power Points have also been removed and significant changes were made to tanking and healing.

Developer Blog: Classes Intro

Developer Blog: Cleric Changes

Developer Blog: Paladin Changes

Developer Blog: Fighter Changes

Developer Blog: Warlock Changes

Developer Blog: Barbarian Changes

Developer Blog: Rogue Changes

Developer Blog: Wizard Changes

Developer Blog: Ranger Changes

 

New Zones

Team up with Durnan, the proprietor of the famed Yawning Portal–a new player hub–to seek the truth behind the mysterious visions and forces beckoning Faerûnians to the halls of Undermountain. Players will also adventure through 5 new zones in their journey to level 80.

Announcing Neverwinter: Undermountain

Developer Blog: Vanrakdoom & Twisted Caverns

Neverwinter Developer Vlog: Undermountain

Developer Blog: Creatures of Undermountain

 

New Dungeon

The Lair of the Mad Mage is the epilogue to the Undermountain campaign and will see you venturing into Halaster’s domain. Halaster’s lair is much like his mind: jumbled, insane, and full of wonder and grandeur!

Developer Blog: Lair of the Mad Mage

Dev Blog: Undermountain – Rewards That Will Drive You Mad!

Developer Blog: Trobrianr and Arcturia

Companion System Overhaul

Active Companion Bonuses have been made into a separate piece similar to mount powers, referred to as a player bonus. An additional piece of companions are slottable powers known as pet enhancements - buffs or debuffs that are triggered when the player uses a power. The equipment that companions wear are now universal; companion equipment slots allow the player to equip any piece of companion equipment in them. Upgrading and levelling up multiple companions in storage benefits any summoned companion in the form of a bolster bonus.

Developer Blog: Companion System

 

Legacy Campaigns

Campaigns that are older (and not leveling zones) are being moved into a grouping called Legacy Campaigns. There will now be three weekly quests, available from Protector’s Enclave, which will direct you to these campaigns and give bonus rewards.

Developer Blog: Challenge Campaigns

 

New Expeditions Feature

Expeditions are a variable, scaling, repeatable romp through the depths of Undermountain that offer some of the most challenging and rewarding content in the Neverwinter: Undermountain expansion. They’re intended to feel expansive and wondrous while also being fun and exciting, and you’re likely to encounter something different around every turn.

Developer Blog: Undermountain Expeditions

Developer Blog: Expeditions Environment

 

Updates to Item Level and Scaling

Undermountain was our chance to make item level far more consistent and therefore make it a more accurate gauge of player potential. Along with our fixes to item level, we added in item level scaling which should provide a better version of scaling going forward. Now we will scale a player down to a target item level in certain queues and content.

Developer Blog: Item Level & Scaling

 

Updates to Boons & UI

Boons have been unified under one page. Along with this UI unification, we also unified boon points. Now you can engage in campaigns broadly without feeling like the time you spent on one staggered your progress towards another. This change gives you more freedom in how you go about collecting all of these boon points.

Developer Blog: Updates to Boons

 

Updates to Refinement Experience

The refinement system has seen some quality-of-life improvements!

A new option, "Require Ward to Upgrade," now prevents players from accidentally spending materials on a low-chance upgrade. This option defaults to "On," and can be found in the gameplay options.

Once you've started the upgrade process, you can choose to go until the refinement succeeds, or you run out of wards or materials. This should vastly reduce the number of actions you have to spend on lower-chance upgrade attempts.

And lastly, after a certain amount of upgrade attempts on an individual item, you'll get a guaranteed upgrade! This should help smooth out the experience if you're on a bad luck streak.

 

Stats and Mechanics

With the changes to classes, powers, and balance in Undermountain, we also wanted to step back and look at the way stats work. Now, players and enemies have opposing rolls: stats that lower their opponent's chance to deal a critical strike, lower their combat advantage damage, and more. Certain stats have been removed and converted to one of these new stats.

Developer Blog: Stats & Mechanics

 

  

Release Notes

Content and Environment

General

• Acquisitions Incorporated flyers should no longer be floating in mid-air in Protector's Enclave.
• Blacklake District: Fleabottom now summons fewer adds, and the same instance has lighter encounters.
• Blacklake District: In the Wererat Sewers, there's now a treasure chest that gives injury kits after the first trap room.
• Nobleman Extraction: Leaving River District after talking to the Harper Envoy no longer prevents players from returning.
• River District: Gyrion's Tower: Players no longer take falling damage when jumping between platforms.
• Stronghold: Players are no longer level-scaled upward on the Stronghold map. This map is now level 80, up from 70.

Future Events

• Most events that scaled players to level 60 now scale players to level 40 instead.
• Winter Festival: The improved fishing rods now properly increase the fishing reel-in speed.

Masterwork Professions

• The first Masterwork Mailsmithing quest is now buried behind dialog options, so players are less likely to accidentally accept both it and the Masterwork Platesmithing quest at the same time. This is so that players can still accept it in case they want to, but don't spend more resources than necessary to unlock Armorsmithing recipes.

Queues

• Leveling dungeons once again support 5 players, increased from 3, and will match together 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 damage-dealers (DPS).
• Leveling dungeons are a little more challenging.
• Tomb of the Nine Gods: The mimics who volunteered for the mimic puzzle have gotten too energetic, and wandered off elsewhere. Withers has replaced them with a repeat of an existing puzzle.

 

 

Combat and Powers

Classes and Balance

• All classes have been overhauled. See the Classes Intro developer blog, as well as the blogs for the individual classes, for more details.
• Class descriptions now more accurately express their role and abilities in character creation.
• Class powers now express their effectiveness with Magnitude, rather than direct damage values, in order to provide better at-a-glance comparisons of various powers' relative strength. These should be relatively consistent; for example, an un-buffed power with 200 Magnitude will generally deal twice the damage of a power with 100 Magnitude when cast by the same character, under the same circumstances.
• Class roles (Tank, Healer, and Damage or "DPS") now have consistent icons, displayed in various parts of the interface.
• During character creation, ability scores are now set per class, though are still alterable through racial trait choices. Ability score increases can still be chosen at multiples of 10 levels.
• Paragon Path selection now describes the roll that the paragon path performs.

Everfrost Damage

• Everfrost damage has been removed from the game.
• Everfrost Resistance will be removed from items at a later date, in the meantime it has no effect.
• The Everfrost Resistance requirement for Fangbreaker Island, Assault on Svardborg, and Assault on Svardborg (Master) has been removed.

Death and Resurrection

• Player characters can now be brought to Near Death up to five times in an encounter, increased from one.
• Whenever a player is brought to 0 HP and recovers, whether it's from another player helping them up, a Scroll of Life, or a Soulforged Enchantment, they will receive a stack of Revive Sickness. Each stack will lower most stats until it fades or is removed at a campfire.
• The Guild Stronghold boon, Revive Sickness, now reduces the effect of each stack of Revive Sickness, and no longer affects the duration of the debuff.
  • At maximum rank, the boon now causes players to deal 10/15/20/25/30% less damage based on Revive Sickness stacks, instead of 10/20/30/40/50% less damage.
  • At maximum rank, the boon now causes players to lose 10/17.5/25/32.5/40% Maximum HP, instead of 10/20/30/40/50% Maximum HP.

Weapon and Armor Enhancements

• The maximum rank of weapon and armor enhancements is now 14, up from 13.
• All weapon enhancements now deal the same amount of bonus damage as others, equivalent per rank. This should make them more consistent in effectiveness, and focus player choice on their secondary effects.
• Most armor enhancements have been updated to better fit the stats and buff style in Undermountain. Elven Battle, Loamweave, Shadowclad, and Soulforged enchantments are mostly unchanged.

General

• Certain class mechanic meters are now restored when leaving situations that change the player's power tray, such as when dismounting a khyek or leaving a sahha match.
• The Arcana skill no longer suggests that it influences combat at all.
• The negative condition "Paralyze" may now be removed by spells which cleanse negative effects.
• The initial application of Paralyze can now be nullified by being immune to control, such as blocking. Once it's applied, though, blocking can no longer prevent those individual stuns.

 

 

Enemies and Encounters

General

• All enemies have been rebalanced against the updated classes' capabilities. Note that some familiar enemies may have new and unexpected abilities!
• Enemies can now aggro on players up to 20 levels above them, increased from 7.
• Illusionist's Gambit: When going for Silver rank, fewer enemies should spawn per wave.
• Spellplague Caverns (Master): Players can now generate threat against Kabal while he is shielded from damage.
• Temple of Tiamat: Enemy nameplates should now be over their heads instead of across their bodies.
• The tank buster effect used by Skeletal Frost Giants as well as the Stronghold Blue and Black Dragons now lowers damage resistance by 5% per stack (max 10 stacks), decreased from 30% per stack.
• Throne of the Dwarven Gods: Thoon Hulks in this encounter are now much more durable.

 

 

Items and Economy

General

• Due to all the balance changes, for a limited time all enchantments and runestones can be traded for other enchantments of the same rank. This can be done at the Antiquities Scholar in Protector's Enclave.
  • Trade-ins for obsolete enchantments (such as Tranquil Enchantment) will be available for the foreseeable future.
  • Please note that refinement points already applied to an item will be removed when the item is traded in.
• Legendary Insignias are now in the game. They can be gained by upgrading Epic Insignias.
• Most gear now has a Combined Rating stat, which should give a base amount of all ratings for its item level in addition to the bonus values unique to the gear itself.
• Portable Altars can now be purchased in bulk from the consumables store.
• The maximum rank of Offense, Defense, and Utility enchantments is now 15, up from 14.

Artifact Gear

• Seasonal artifact gear from Call to Arms and Tales of Old events now scales up to the equivalent of Item Level 980.
• To reduce confusion between unlockable bonuses on artifact weapons, and abilities / procs on those weapons, the unlockable bonuses are now named Modifications.

Companion Gear

• Companions can no longer equip regular gear, and instead can only equip companion-specific gear. Items equipped to companions have been moved back to the player's inventory.

Professions

• Iron Nails can now properly be produced as a level 16 Blacksmithing or Armorsmithing recipe.
• Levels 71-80 are not yet available.
• Shimmerweave Thread +1 now properly shows +1 in its name.
• The items "Bibliothol," "Mana Plaster," "Reliquary Wax," and "Enchanted Loam" are once again able to be crafted. They can be found as level 65 recipes in the Artificing and Blacksmithing professions. This allows players to restore relic weapons from Module 10: Sea of Moving Ice.
• Weathered Mithral Crucible now exchanges for similar credit to other similar tools.
• When viewing artisan applications, their level no longer has a chance to vary without dismissing or accepting the application.

Zen Market

• Knox's Veteran Recruitment Bundle can now be purchased even if the player has no level 70 characters on the account.
• Ravenloft Campaign Completion can now be purchased on the Zen Market.

 

 

User Interface

General

• A typo has been fixed in the "bow" emote text.
• "Gather Your Party" circles now disappear when players are added to or removed from the party.
• Loading screen tips have been updated.
• Various minor UI issues have been addressed.

Character Sheet

• When a character's powers are in the wrong state, the auto-retrain prompt can no longer be dismissed without retraining.

Home Page

• The Home Page has been updated to welcome players to the new Undermountain module, and includes a one-time return to Protector's Enclave. To return it to the normal Home Page, a player can review the various tutorials on the Powers page, Boons page, and Companions page on the Character Sheet.

HUD

• Buffs and debuffs should now be more readable at a glance. Long-term buffs or ones that shouldn't change over the course of combat are now compacted into a specific menu.
• Player context menu: When reporting players via this method, the form is now auto-populated with the selected player's handle.
• The power tray is now capable of showing proc indicators; certain powers light up when they're enhanced by certain other power-specific buffs.
• The targeted contact name no longer shows up in interaction prompts.
• The tooltip that displays when highlighting the character pane now shows your Item Level.
• Threat is now displayed in the party interface. If the indicator is full and red, the enemy you currently have or most recently had highlighted is targeting that person.

Inventory

• Item comparisons now only display in the Inspect view of an item.
• Items no longer drop as "unidentified," and identification scrolls no longer drop. All unidentified items should be automatically identified when players log in.
  • VIP Rank 2 rewards now include 5 healing potions per day, based on the character's level.
• Stacks of high-quality Profession Resources can now be converted to normal-quality resources of the same type, so that they can be used for Masterwork Profession quests.
  • To do so, split the stack first, then select the appropriate stack in the inventory, bring up the context menu, and select Convert to Normal Material. The entire stack will be converted.
• When slotting an enchantment into an item, if that enchantment would change the item's bind status, there is now a warning prompt.

Mail

• Interacting with mailboxes no longer dismounts the player.

Queues

• Queue descriptions no longer incorrectly refer to Epic Dungeon Chest Keys.
• When in a public queue, it is no longer possible to enter the queued instance as a role other than the one you queued with. If the role doesn't match, it'll swap back to the loadout you had when you queued.

Sword Coast Chronicle

• Deeds have been removed.
• Most campaigns can now be begun through the campaign UI, rather than finding the questgiver in the world.

 

 

Art, Animation, and Effects

Animation

• Pseudodragons no longer clip through their own wings as often.

Character Art

• Hexbane's Hood now properly has visuals when equipped by a female character.
• Various clipping issues have been addressed.
• Various issues in textures and gaps in certain gear have been addressed.

Visual Effects

• A variety of visual effects have been tweaked and updated for visual clarity or performance.
• Valindra no longer has a purple shadow-light column effect in cutscenes.

 

 

Performance and Stability

General

• As with many module releases, various changes have been made to the graphics system. Few of these should have player-facing effects.
• Various crashes and client hangs have been addressed.
• Various minor fixes have been made to voice chat behavior.