Patch NW.60.20160307a.4

Patch Notes: NW.60.20160307a.4

Patch Notes for The Maze Engine

Welcome to Neverwinter's new expansion, The Maze Engine!

Check out the Maze Engine Developer Hub for a list of dev blogs and feature previews surrounding the new expansion, or just read below!

=Highlights=

Campaign: The Maze Engine

 * The Maze Engine campaign is now available!
 * Start by talking to Sergeant Knox or the Neverwinter Guard messenger in Protector's Enclave, or Bruenor Battlehammer in Mantol-Derith.
 * All level 60 characters now have access to ]]Mantol-Derith]].
 * Catch up on the story so far with Developer Blog: Previously on Neverwinter, get a sneak peek of the cast with Developer Blog: Famous Faces, and check out the flow of the upcoming campaign with Developer Blog: The Maze Engine Campaign.
 * See some of the upcoming loot at Developer Blog: Treasures of the Maze Engine!
 * If you want to take a look at the process of making art for the campaign, check out Art Developer Blog: Deeper in the Underdark, Art Developer Blog: Warping Reality, and Art Developer Blog: Creating Baphomet!

Updated Queue System

 * Our queue system has been updated!
 * The UI and flow has been updated, and we've introduced the following features:
 * Players can now set up premade groups for queues that require more than 5 players (e.g. Tiamat, Demogorgon, Stronghold Siege).
 * Players can now set up queue groups separately from the party they're in.
 * Players can now enter a private queue, allowing them to bypass composition requirements and opt out of auto-refilling.
 * For more info, see the Developer Blog: The New Queues!

Revived Dungeons

 * Four dungeons from the past have been revived as 3-player dungeons: Cloak Tower, Pirate King's Retreat (formerly Lair of the Pirate King), Frozen Heart, and Caverns of Karrundax!
 * Like Cragmire Crypts, Gray Wolf Den, and Temple of the Spider, once players reach the minimum level for the dungeon, they'll be able to go back and play regardless of level.
 * For more info, see the Developer Blog: Dungeons to Delve!

Epic Dungeon: Castle Never

 * Players can now return to Castle Never and combat a threat more menacing than ever before!
 * Though players have driven Valindra's minions away, the reclamation process has been interrupted.
 * The undead are back in full force, aided by hordes of demons, and adventurers will have the opportunity to drive them back once again.
 * Read more in the Developer Blog: Return to Castle Never, get a sneak peek at the art with the Art Developer Blog: Castle Never Returns!, and prepare yourself for the trials within by reading the Developer Blog: Battle with Orcus and Art Developer Blog: Bringing Orcus to Life!

Stronghold Economy Changes

 * We've made some changes to Stronghold progression and economy, mainly with the goal of reducing costs to improve the Stronghold, as well as making it easier to gain certain difficult-to-gather resources.
 * Check out our Developer Blog: Stronghold Cost Reductions for more info, but here are some highlights!
 * Astral Diamond costs have been reduced substantially (~50-90% in many cases).
 * Tyranny and Fey campaign currency costs have been reduced significantly (~20-40% in many cases).
 * Guild Mark gains from AD and Glory contributions have been doubled.
 * Profession tasks have been added that allow players to make crates of certain supplies, to then contribute to the Stronghold.

Campaign Updates

 * A large number of updates have been made to campaigns in The Maze Engine.
 * The goal of these updates is to make it more rewarding and less costly to engage in campaign content even after completing these campaigns.
 * More information can be found in the Developer Blog: Endgame Improvements, and the detailed list of changes is below in the Patch Notes, just after Items and Economy.

New Mount System

 * Mounts no longer have to sit in your inventory when you don't have them selected.
 * Now, your character will have a stable for all mounts they've bound to themselves - And not only that, but once that character has access to a movement speed, they'll be able to apply that movement speed to any mount they own!
 * In this update, players can now ride the mounts they want to ride without worrying that their favorite is too slow, or doesn't have a passive bonus they want.
 * More details can be found in the Developer Blog: The New Mount System, Developer Blog: Mounts Retrained, and Developer Blog: A Stable of Insignias!

Mount Price Changes

 * To go with the new Mount System, all mounts in the Zen Market have been updated to have a consistent price based on their quality.
 * This can either increase or decrease the price of existing mounts (Or leave it the same as before).
 * Here are the new price points:
 * mounts (Green border): 500
 * mounts (Blue border): 2,000
 * mounts (Purple border): 3,500

The Shaundakul Lockbox arrives!

 * The has retired, but while the s and s, go to Companion Kindergarten, the  has kindly offered to take their place!
 * Check out the new mounts and rewards in Developer Blog: The Shaundakul Lockbox Rides In!

=Release Notes=

Events

 * 2x Professions: This event now rewards double Profession XP for completing tasks in all professions except Alchemy and Black Ice Shaping.
 * During this event, Alchemy now rewards 2x on successful Experimentation tasks.
 * During this event, Black Ice Shaping now requires half the usual resources for "Upgrading the Black Ice Forge" tasks.

Strongholds

 * Castle Never is now in the dungeon daily quest pool.
 * The new Leveling Dungeons are now in the daily quest pool.
 * Stronghold Siege: The gold pile interaction now properly calls itself a gold pile, rather than the Ranger.
 * Stronghold Siege: The depot names in the PvP map now match the depot names in the Tutorial.
 * Stronghold Siege Tutorial: Players may no longer destroy the enemy depot before the objective to do so, and become stuck as a result.

General

 * Bandit Slayer achievements now explicitly include pirates as well.
 * Black Ice nodes no longer look interactive when the player has no pick.
 * Chapter 4 of the Dwarven King Quest Arc no longer has skill nodes.
 * Demogorgon: Multiple players can now properly interact with the end chest simultaneously.
 * Drowned Shore: The Heroic Encounter, Merchants in Distress, now consistently gives rewards.
 * Fiery Pit: Players no longer occasionally spawn inside terrain when exiting the Cistern.
 * Hard to Reach Places: Minsc now respawns within 60 seconds if he ever despawns, e.g. due to a client disconnect.
 * Intro quests for Cloak Tower, Frozen Heart, Pirate King's Retreat, and Caverns of Karrundax have returned.
 * Prophecy of Madness: The skirmish phase timer now properly moves at the speed of real time.
 * Protector's Enclave: The Neverwinter Guards have finally sealed off aerial access to Lord Neverember.
 * Reclamation Rock: The quests "Holding the Line" and "Besieging the Rock" no longer give a player credit for tasks that party members have turned in.
 * Skirmish and Call to Arms contacts no longer have a dialog option to join a queue.
 * Temple of Tiamat is now joined via a queue, rather than having to go to the door.
 * The unachievable achievement, "Polices Drunk Orcs," is now fully removed from the game.
 * The Mount tutorial has been updated.
 * The associated with the new tutorial now gives a permanent mount instead of a temporary one.
 * Throne of the Dwarven Gods: This skirmish now more consistently gives credit for prisoners rescued.
 * It should be easier to achieve Gold rank in the first phase of this skirmish when rescuing prisoners.
 * Tyranny of Dragons: Campaign contacts in Protector's Enclave now correctly indicate when quests are available for Level 70 characters.

Cragmire Crypts

 * The 3-player version of this dungeon now has a different Adventuring Party with rewards more in line with other 3-player miniboss encounters.

General

 * Life Steal Severity has been added to the game as a Rating stat.
 * Currently, it can only be found in a handful of places.
 * Life Steal now properly displays as "Life Steal" in the combat log, rather than "Health Steal."
 * Powers that allow players to teleport to enemies now respect the size of the enemy.
 * This reduces the likelihood that Trickster Rogues, for example, will teleport directly into a dragon.

Buffs, Debuffs, and Effects

 * The following effects now cannot be dispelled:
 * Certain reinforcement timers
 * Empower (Greed of the Dragonflight)
 * Madness (Demogorgon)
 * Soul Sparks
 * Thunder Spike (Greed of the Dragonflight)
 * VIP Health Bonus
 * The Temporary Hit Points provided by the Hunter Ranger power,, now properly fall off when combat ends.
 * The Temporary Hit Points provided by the following powers now properly respect the Temporary Hit Point rules - They no longer stack with other Temp. HP sources, and fade when combat ends.
 * Artifact: (Earth effect)
 * Companion: : Nature's Wind
 * Great Weapon Fighter:
 * Hunter Ranger:
 * Item:
 * Item:
 * Item:
 * Item:
 * Item:
 * Item:
 * The following powers now provide a 'Shield' instead of Temporary Hit Points.
 * Artifact:
 * Companion:

Class Powers

 * Devoted Cleric: : The Repel effect caused by this power is now properly affected by Control Bonus, Control Resistance, and Control Immunity.
 * Devoted Cleric: : The Repel effect caused by this power is now properly affected by Control Bonus, Control Resistance, and Control Immunity.
 * Control Wizard: : The Repel effect caused by this power is now properly affected by Control Bonus, Control Resistance, and Control Immunity.
 * Great Weapon Fighter: : The Temp HP granted by damage bonuses now caps at 200%.
 * This means that if a player has a lot of damage bonuses and is at maximum Determination, they can receive up to 32% of their Max HP as Temp HP.
 * Hunter Ranger: : The inverse Repel / Pull caused by this power is now properly affected by Control Bonus, Control Resistance, and Control Immunity.
 * Scourge Warlock: : The Repel effect caused by this power is now properly affected by Control Bonus, Control Resistance, and Control Immunity.

Companions

 * Dazing Fist : The Repel effect caused by this power is now properly affected by Control Bonus, Control Resistance, and Control Immunity.
 * The Active Companion Bonus of this companion (still unavailable as of The Maze Engine release) now has Power and Defense stats that fall in line with other similar companions, rather than significantly higher values of both.
 * The version of this spider in the Trade Bar Store now properly shows an Active Companion Bonus of a 5% reduction to Combat Advantage damage received.

Item Powers

 * Ring of Cowardice: The Repel effect caused by this item's effect is now properly affected by Control Bonus, Control Resistance, and Control Immunity.

Mount Powers

 * Mount: : Flail Snail Charge: The Repel effect caused by this power is now properly affected by Control Bonus, Control Resistance, and Control Immunity.

NPCs

 * Enemies in 3-player dungeons now have slightly lower health.
 * Enemies in 3-player dungeons now have longer cooldowns on their signature / charged powers.

Artifacts
===Mounts
 * This power no longer requires the player to stop moving before activating, and is no longer interrupted on movement.
 * Elemental Artifact weapons and their Collection pages are now more consistent.
 * (Oathbound Paladin): This weapon now requires level 60 to equip, down from 70.
 * At quality, now properly blocks 90% of incoming damage, as stated in the tooltip, instead of only 80%.
 * The DoT component of this artifact's active power now properly applies at quality.
 * The buff granted by the Stronghold Weapon set is now called Stronghold Unity, and its tooltip now properly states that it grants 2% per stack, rather than 1%.
 * The Lostmauth Artifact Set name now properly displays as "Lostmauth's Hoard," rather than "Valindra's Set."
 * The combat power, Spinning Axe Strike, is now properly identified as AoE damage.
 * This allows it to be affected by AoE Resistance and various other AoE affecting abilities.
 * This power now also has slight damage variance, and is properly affected by damage resistance.
 * The combat power, Strider Fire, now has slight damage variance.
 * A typo has been addressed in this mount's description.
 * Several typos have been addressed in this mount's description.
 * This mount is now (Blue) quality.
 * This mount is now (Purple) quality.
 * The flavor text has been updated to state that it is heavily armored, rather than lightly armored.
 * Mounts purchased from the Zen Market can no longer be discarded.
 * This mount is now (Blue) quality.
 * The (Purple) quality version, which was previously available for a limited time, has been renamed to.
 * The level required to use this mount is now 4, down from 60.
 * This mount's description no longer claims it wears armor.
 * The Bulette mount acquired from Dougan Hammerfist's NCL store has been renamed to Challenger's Bulette.
 * This mount is now (Blue) quality.
 * Its speed bonus is now 80%, increased from 50%.

Wondrous Bazaar

 * now costs 750,000, down from 1,000,000.
 * Level 60 gear has been replaced with cheaper, transmute-only versions of these items.
 * now costs 500,000, down from 700,000.
 * has been moved to the Trade Bar Store.

General

 * 3-player dungeons now grant Seals of the Adventurer, rather than various other types of Seals.
 * Older Seals can no longer be purchased for Ardent Coins in the Invocation store or from bounty vendors.
 * Seals of the Lion, Manticore, Pegasus, and Drake can now be traded for Seals of the Adventurer at the Adventurer Seal Trader.
 * The trader dealing in these Seals can be found at the Seven Suns Coster Market in Protector's Enclave.
 * These Seals can be used to purchase gear of a wide variety of levels.
 * They can also be used to purchase bags of 500 s, as well as basic enchantments.
 * 3-player dungeons now give a significant amount of experience when completed.
 * This item can now properly be sold for 8.
 * Bonding Runestones now show the correct bonuses at ranks and.
 * Masterwork Professions: All equipment produced by Masterwork Profession tasks are now Item Level 145, up from 140.
 * This affects existing equipment as well, but does not affect Stronghold Artifact Weapons.
 * Mount Training Manuals now grant the equivalent Mount Movement Power, rather than trying to upgrade a mount.
 * Normal Skirmishes now give a significant amount of experience (roughly half that of 3-player dungeons) when completed.
 * Salvageable / Transmutable versions of the gear from Castle Never's previous incarnation has returned in the newly-updated version.
 * Dread Ring: s now properly give a chance to receive from Astral Coffers.
 * Dread Ring: s now properly give a chance to receive and  from Astral Coffers.
 * This item's stats at Legendary quality are now properly in line with other equivalent off-hand Artifact equipment.
 * Strongholds: s no longer contribute as much to the Labor coffer as of any other profession.
 * Strongholds: can now be donated to the Treasures of Tyranny coffer for 1,000 points.
 * The unreleased Ring of Natural Order no longer appears on the Collections pages, as there are no longer plans to release the item in the near future.
 * This item can now properly be sold for 8.

Sharandar

 * Arcane Reservoir: Completing this weekly quest now grants 100, increased from 50.
 * Assist Artisans: This campaign task now awards a Stronghold voucher worth 1,000 Fey Trinkets, rather than Iliyanbruen gear.
 * Assist War Effort: This campaign task now requires 3 each of, , and , down from 9 each.
 * Astral Diamond costs have been removed from all Sharandar Boon campaign tasks.
 * Astral Diamond costs have been removed from the "Assist Artisans" campaign task.
 * Astral Diamond costs for the "Assist Ritual Magic" campaign task have been significantly reduced.
 * Astral Diamond costs have been removed from Dark Fey Keys.
 * Battle for Sharandar: Completing this daily quest now grants 10 and 15, increased from 7 and 10 respectively.
 * Iliyanbruen Armor, Fey Weapons, and Redcap Weapons now scale to the player's level.
 * Item Level and stats at Level 70 are unaffected.
 * The level required to equip these is now 61, decreased from 70.
 * These items are now.
 * This only affects newly-purchased items.
 * The tooltip on these Seals has been updated for accuracy.
 * Thradisar Starwise's store has been reorganized for ease of use.
 * Players may now purchase armor for classes other than their own.
 * Iliyanbruen Cloak and Iliyanbruen Ring may now be purchased directly from this store.
 * The cost of Iliyanbruen Armor has been significantly reduced.
 * The cost of Fey Weapons has been reduced.

Dread Ring

 * Astral Diamond costs have been removed from all Dread Ring Campaign tasks.
 * Astral Diamond costs have been removed from all s.
 * Dell McCourt's store has been reorganized for ease of use.
 * Players may now purchase armor for classes other than their own.
 * The Ring, Belt, and Cloak of the Dread Legion may now be purchased directly from this store.
 * The cost of Thayan Armor has been significantly reduced.
 * Recover Thayan Gear: This campaign task now awards a Stronghold voucher worth 1,000 Dark Gifts, rather than Dread Legion gear.
 * The tooltip on these Seals has been updated for accuracy.
 * Thayan Armor now scales to the player's level.
 * Item Level and stats at Level 70 are unaffected.
 * The level required to equip these is now 61, decreased from 70.
 * These items are now.
 * This only affects newly-purchased items.
 * The Ring, Belt, and Cloak of the Dread Legion are now.
 * This only affects newly-purchased items.
 * Vendors in the Dread Ring now properly appear on the map.
 * Wages of War: This quest no longer requires the player to view Dell McCourt's inventory.

Icewind Dale

 * Astral Diamond costs have been removed from all Icewind Dale Campaign tasks.
 * Black Ice Armor is now.
 * This only affects newly-purchased items.
 * and now cost 100,000  each, down from 250,000.
 * The Item Level of Elemental Purified and Elemental Corrupted Black Ice Armor has been increased to 130, up from 122.
 * The quality of these items is now, increased from.
 * The material requirements to craft these items via Black Ice Shaping have been significantly reduced.
 * Treasures of Xvim: This campaign task has been renamed to "Frozen Treasures," and now awards a Stronghold voucher worth 1,000 Frozen Treasures, rather than the.
 * Urgus Battlehammer's store has been reorganized for ease of use.
 * Black Ice Gauntlets may now be purchased directly from this store.
 * may now be purchased directly from this store.

Tyranny of Dragons

 * All items found in the remote Campaign store can now also be purchased from Feldon Strongbeard in Well of Dragons.
 * Astral Diamond costs have been removed from all Tyranny of Dragons Boon campaign tasks.
 * The Astral Diamond cost has been removed from the "Dragonforged Artifact" campaign task.
 * The Astral Diamond cost for the campaign task, "Dragon Hoard Enchantments," has been reduced to 5,000, down from 20,000.
 * The cost for the campaign task, "Adventuring Gear," is now 50 and 3 each of  and, down from 100 and 6 respectively.
 * no longer costs Astral Diamonds to purchase.
 * , s, and s may now be donated to the Stronghold coffer.
 * Eternal Armor is now.
 * This only affects newly-purchased items.
 * The tooltips of these items now clearly state that they scale to the player's level.
 * The cost of these items has been significantly reduced.
 * Feldon Strongbeard's store has been reorganized for ease of use.

Temple of Tiamat

 * Defeating Tiamat in the Temple of Tiamat now grants 20.
 * It is no longer possible to receive a when defeating Tiamat.
 * Once a week, players may now earn a by defeating Tiamat.
 * The cache contains one and one.
 * Eligibility for receiving a cache resets every Monday at 3 AM server time.
 * Opening the Dragon Queen's Chest in the Temple of Tiamat now grants 40.
 * The chance of receiving a, or  when defeating Tiamat has been increased.
 * The chance of receiving a piece of Elven armor from defeating Tiamat when Tiamat Hoard Reclamation has reached Tier 2 has been increased to 100%.

Stronghold Siege

 * Once a week, players may now earn a by winning a match of Stronghold Siege.
 * The cache contains one and one.
 * Eligibility for receiving a cache resets every Monday at 3 AM server time.
 * Strongboxes of Influence, Astral Diamonds, Surplus Equipment or Gems may now drop in place of standard vouchers.
 * These Strongboxes can be donated directly to a guild coffer.
 * When donated, they count as one Epic voucher of that type.
 * They can also be opened using a Strongbox Key for five Epic vouchers instead.

Bank

 * If the Account Shared Bank cannot be accessed, Gold and Trade Bar labels are now properly hidden and no longer overlap the error message.
 * In the Guild Bank, changing permissions no longer occasionally changes permissions for different ranks than the one selected.
 * When accessing the bank via the VIP Banking Portal, closing it no longer causes a chat message about an invalid command "DoneAction."

Campaigns

 * The Campaigns window now has a keybind ("]" by default).
 * The Tyranny of Dragons Campaign no longer shows a redundant "Speak to Elminster" unlock requirement.
 * When attempting to claim campaign reward items with a full inventory, an error message now properly appears.

Character Sheet

 * Enchantment / runestone context menus now show the name of the selected enchant / rune.

Chat

 * tags no longer tend to appear in NPC Chat logs.
 * Friend requests can now only be sent by accounts with at least one character level 15 or above, just like tells or zone chat.
 * While this won't necessarily stop spam, it removes the incentive to send unsolicited friend requests to bypass the restriction on /tell.

Collections

 * Opening the Collections screen while it is glowing now more reliably directs the player to one of the items they recently received.
 * When clicking Zone Rewards when talking to specific contacts, the Collections UI now shows up properly.

HUD

 * When interacting with a player in the world, the "Invite to Party" option now always displays, though it is grayed out if invalid.

Inventory

 * Items in the final bag slot can now properly be selected in certain item selection menus.
 * Tooltips on Companion stats no longer occasionally take several seconds to update.
 * Tooltips on Salvageable gear no longer display the "Salvageable" keyword in two separate places.

Journal

 * The achievement category "Seasonal" has been renamed to "Events."

Key Binds

 * A key can now be rebound to open the Companions UI ("=" by default).
 * A key can now be bound to open the Mounts UI ("[" by default).

Leaderboards

 * The Maze Engine expansion's leaderboard has begun.
 * (Leaderboard progress on NeverwinterPreview will not carry over to the live game.)

Mounts

 * Mounts can now be previewed just like gear.

Queues

 * Demogorgon, Demogorgon (Master), and Temple of Tiamat are now classified as Epic Trials.

Rewards

 * When opening items that show a reward window, the quality presented by that window now more consistently reflects the best-quality item in the pack.
 * When using a, a white square no longer appears in the upper left of the reward window.

Stores

 * Discount values now display in in-game stores, such as the Wondrous Bazaar for players at the proper VIP rank.

Gateway

 * Trade Bars and Guild Marks now properly show in the Inventory.

Stability and Performance

 * Certain passive powers now affect server performance much less.
 * Players may now use the -NoAutoRotateLogs command line option when launching the game.
 * This option allows the player to retain any log files the Neverwinter game client creates, instead of automatically overwriting old ones after a certain point.
 * WARNING: This will cause the log files to take up more and more disk space over time if they are not properly deleted.
 * Several issues that could cause instability, stalls, or crashes have been resolved.

Localization

 * Neverwinter: The Maze Engine is now fully localized in French, German, Italian, and Russian.

Known Issues

 * With World Detail Distance set to Medium or below and loading into Castle Never, the ground at the very beginning may start out invisible.
 * On lower settings, certain objects become unlit.
 * This occurs more frequently with objects in the distance.
 * The following lockboxes are currently unavailable on the Auction House:, , , , ,.
 * The achievement, "Dancing on the Ceiling," currently cannot be achieved.