Highlights

New Storyline: Shroud of Souls

The illusionist Lukan has stumbled upon something beneath Neverwinter and has broken a ward keeping it sealed away.  Join with unlikely allies and help keep the Sword Coast safe!  In order to start this storyline, players must have completed the Cloaked Ascendancy campaign story arc. 

Developer Blog: Shroud of Souls Featured Quest

 

Item Level Update

We've made an update to the Item Level system to make it a bit more accurate representation of player power, in terms of taking into account more varied sources and making the general rules more accurate.  Boons, companions, companion gear, mount powers, and insignias now contribute to total Item Level, and the values given by gear and artifacts have been significantly increased.  The Queue requirements have also been scaled in line with the item level increases.

We acknowledge that certain outliers, such as Bonding Runestones, will not be accurately represented in this system, but hope that the general improvements lead to a better experience for everyone.

The original feedback thread can be found here, and provides more detailed information on the intent and specifics of the changes.

 

Loadouts

The Loadouts feature is now available! Set up different sets of Feats, combinations of slotted powers, equipment, and more for a quick and easy swap to a variety of preferred play styles. Additional Loadouts beyond the default number can be purchased on the Zen Market for 500 Zen, and are available for free on NeverwinterPreview if you want to test out your changes beforehand.

Developer Blog: Loadouts

 

Stronghold Updates

Somebody finally cast a Grease spell on the doors of the keep. The Great Hall is now open! Enjoy a social space with functional seating and decor customizable by any guild rank with the appropriate permissions.

In addition, there's a new challenge available to the guild. Once the challenge has begun, guild members will be tasked to protect three supply cache drop-off points while waves of enemies assault them. Protect the supplies and get plenty of loot and vouchers, with a vote every five waves to risk continuing for greater rewards, or to call it a day and keep the rewards already earned.

On top of that, there are new Stronghold structures available to build. In the same vein as the ones that made an appearance in the last Protector's Jubilee, these structures will stick around for a set period of time, and provide a variety of services while available. 

Developer Blog: Great Hall

Developer Blog: Stronghold Marauders Guild Event

Developer Blog: Stronghold Structures

 

Sword Coast Chronicle Update

The Sword Coast Chronicle has been redesigned to make it easier and faster to navigate, and to allow players to filter it by certain criteria as well!  This interface is now a tab in the Quest Journal, but can still be reached via the previous methods as well.

 

Overflow Bag Changes

With the latest release, we have made some changes to the Overflow Bag. The overflow bag was intended to be a temporary storage location for essential items such as quest objectives or rewards. The excessive usage of overflow bags for consistent storage causes big performance problems for players when they change maps, login or join a party, as all that data has to get parsed by the receiving server then sent around to other players.

The changes should help alleviate some of the impact on the server and allow players to do their questing, gain items, and have fun while also providing a reminder to clean up inventory when reaching a pausing point (such as returning to Protectors Enclave). Our goal is for most players not to be affected by these changes other than experiencing reduced lag.

 

Queue Changes

When queuing using the Private Queue system, the Item Level requirement is now lower.  This should allow coordinated groups to do gear-light challenge runs of certain content, and allow for "carry groups" while still maintaining some progression.  Check out the details here: Official Feedback Thread: Queuing System Updates
 

 

Release Notes

Content and Environment

Spellplague Caverns

• When Nostura flickers away from the fight during Fey Gate summoning, damage over time effects are dispelled and damage floaters no longer appear unexpectedly in the arena.
• When Nostura shifts to another realm during Feywalk, damage over time effects are dispelled.

 

Stronghold

• The Artisan and the accompanying vendor now spawn at Rank 10, decreased from Rank 12, to match the lowered requirements to get into Masterwork Professions.
• The travel wagon has been replaced by a signpost.

 

General

• Brother, Can You Spare a Copper?: Players may now properly return to the River District when this quest is complete, but hasn't been turned in.
• Castle Never: The Illithilich's voice is now a little louder, in order to be more audible over combat.
• Fangbreaker Island: Hati can no longer be instakilled via certain unexpected methods.
• Nostura's demiplane: When logging out and back in at a certain location, players should stand much less of a chance of becoming trapped behind an invisible wall.
• Players who complete the quest, Secrets of the Cocoon, now receive a key item that gives 30% Everfrost Resist.  Players who already completed it will receive this item in in-game mail.
• Return to the Plague Tower: Enough enemies should now properly spawn to allow quest completion in all cases.  In addition, the required number of enemy kills to complete this quest has been reduced to 20, down from 25.

 

Combat and Powers

Artifacts        

• The Blade Storm class feature bonus granted by Artifact Weapons now properly increases Blade Storm's damage as described in the tooltip.

 

Classes and Balance

• Guardian Fighter: Iron Guard: This feat's effects now properly provide 5% reduced damage per stack, rather than 5% reduced damage regardless of stacks.
• Hunter Ranger: Split the Sky now consistently does both the described damage reflection and periodic damage strikes, rather than randomly choosing one of those.
• Oathbound Paladin: Aura of Courage and Aura of Vengeance no longer cause the Paladin to deal large amounts of damage to themselves when Marked by a Guardian Fighter or Great Weapon Fighter.
• Scourge Warlock: Warlock's Bargain no longer triggers weapon enhancement effects on damage redirected to the linked target.

 

Companions

• All companions that didn't have an Active Companion Bonus at Uncommon quality, such as the Winter Wolf companion, now properly do.
• Young Yeti: This companion's Active Bonus now properly increases damage as stated in the tooltip.  The tooltip has been updated with more details.

 

General        

• The Archer Tower debuff no longer has a placeholder icon.

 

Items and Economy

Artifacts and Artifact Weapons

• Certain off-hand slot Artifact Weapons now properly give the same-slot refinement bonus to other off-hand Artifact Weapons, rather than main-hand Artifact Weapons.
• Forgehammer of Gond: This artifact power's cooldown is no longer affected by cooldown reduction.
• Lantern of Revelation now provides the stated reduction to the target's damage resistance.
• The Mirage set bonus no longer sometimes turns the player's companion into a Paranoid Delusion.

 

Companions

• Ice Sprite: This companion once again properly uses its own summon audio, rather than the Fire Sprite's.
• Phoera: This companion's Active Bonus now properly works as described in the tooltip.

 

Enchantments, Enhancements, and Runestones

• Certain Enchantment powers that did not take Armor Penetration and Resistance into consideration now properly do so.

 

Mounts and Insignias

• Legacy mounts can now be claimed even if the player has a current version of the mount stabled, so that players with both can claim both versions of its Equip power.
• The Griffon mount no longer shows the Armored Griffon briefly when summoned.

 

Professions

• A new tier of Masterwork Professions has been added, with many new rewards.
• Masterwork Professions now require Guild Rank 10, down from 20, to unlock.
• The Profession resource, Vellum, now stacks.
• The Profession Resources section of the inventory can now hold up to 240 individual stacks, increased from 160.

 

Strongholds

• The following coffer value adjustments have been made:
  • Seals of Triumph can now be handed in for Conquerer's Shard credit (10 Seals per coffer point)
  • Guild Mark awards for Gold increased by 100%.
  • Guild Mark awards for Glory increased by 150%.
  • Guild Mark awards for Astral Diamonds increased by 150%.
• Frozen Treasures donations had incorrectly given fewer Guild Marks, despite Treasures of Tyranny items being much more numerous.
  • To address this, players now receive x3 Guild Marks when donating Frozen Treasures, and 1/3 as many Guild Marks when donating Treasures of Tyranny.
  • The end result should be that all four campaigns are now roughly equal as sources of Guild Marks.
  • Coffer points are not affected by this change.
• The maximum amount of Food, Metal, Stone, and Wood that Strongholds can hold at ranks 1-5 has been significantly increased.

 

General

• Certain items dropped by a hidden boss in Spellplague Caverns now properly have icons.
• Lifesilk Spinneret: The skirt on this armor piece has been restored, after having been removed in the Cloaked Ascendancy release.
  • Several other similar changes for Dungeon Chest rewards have been reverted to their previous appearance.
• Many items which previously could not be sold or discarded have been changed to use a new "safe discard" feature.  When discarding these types of items, the player will need to confirm the discard by entering the word "discard" into the confirmation box.
• Ostorian Relics can no longer be turned in if the player is at the Voninblod cap.  The tooltip for Voninblod now also displays that cap.
• Rewards in Illusionist's Gambit have been adjusted at Silver and Gold ranks to provide more Refinement Points on average.
• Various item and power tooltip typos have been addressed.

 

User Interface

Auction

• Searches that include gem slots now properly return items with the expected number of slots.

• The Auction House now has a Stronghold category.

 

Bank

• When attempting to deposit a Stone of Health or other item with charges into the bank, a stack count slider no longer appears.

 

Boons

• Applying or inspecting Cloaked Ascendancy campaign boons no longer causes problems in applying or inspecting other campaign boons.
• Stronghold boons now appear at the top of the Boons categories.

 

Campaigns

• Campaigns should no longer show completion values above 100%.
• The Ascendancy campaign's top panel is now a separate pane.  This should allow players to navigate to it with fewer button presses.
• The "Benign Order of the Third Eye" campaign is no longer stuck at 86% for those who completed it near the launch of the campaign.

 

Character Sheet

• Various characters that were incorrectly shown as from the Dalelands now have their proper character backgrounds restored.

 

Collections

• Players can now properly navigate to the artifact items in the Zone Reward collections.

 

Fishing

• Players can now properly switch to another type of bait after running out of one type.

 

General

• Various minor fixes have been made around the UI, such as text display improvements.

 

HUD

• The Invocation button is now properly grayed out after the final Invocation of the day has been made.

 

Inventory

• Companion equipment is now properly used as the comparison target when selecting gear to slot into a Companion equipment slot.
• Items in choice packs (packs that provide a choice when opened) can now be previewed.
• The Salvage and Restoration windows can no longer coexist; when opening one, the other closes if it was previously open.
• When attempting to equip or unequip gear while in combat, the context menu now grays out the relevant options.

 

Options

• A new option is available to increase the maximum framerate from its default of 30 frames per second.  Setting this is not a guarantee of improved framerate.
• The Quest Path is no longer bound to a key by default.  This should only affect new characters, and the toggle can still be found in the Key Binds options for those who wish to bind it.
• Various options no longer inexplicably revert to default after being changed and applied.

 

Queues

• Certain instanced maps no longer sometimes close themselves before a queue group can get in.
• Players who queue solo are no longer placed into existing parties after the queued instance ends.
• The "Accept Queue" pop-up is now clearer about the reason it disappeared if it disappeared early.
• The party leader now retains leadership when entering a queued instance when using a private queue.

 

Vendors

• The item count slider now properly closes when the vendor UI is closed through unexpected ways such as queue pops and map transfers.
• The "Sell" option is now properly disabled in the item context menu if the item cannot be sold.

 

Zen Market

• Profession Packs no longer sometimes open immediately upon purchasing if the player purchases them through the Zen Market.

 

Xbox Dashboard Integration

• When viewing the friends list on the Xbox Dashboard, the line about what a friend is doing should be more informative.
• When reconnecting a controller while the system is suspended, the controller's reconnected state is now properly recognized.

 

Art and Effects

Character Art

• Drowcraft shirts no longer appear to give Dragonborn characters mismatching torsos.

 

Visual Effects (VFX)

• The Heavy Howler mount once again spawns with a purple emblem on the ground.

 

Graphics, Performance, and Stability

General

• A crash in the physics system has been addressed.
• Objects now properly fade in instead of popping in when they are close enough to draw.
• The Quest Path now properly displays even with certain options settings combinations that unexpectedly prevented it from displaying before.
• Various backend adjustments and improvements have been made to the graphics system.
  • Graphical performance and framerate should be as good as, or better than, it was prior to this update.
• Various stability improvements and crash fixes have been made.