Neverwinter’s latest update comes with a round of balance changes that reflect some goals shared with the community earlier this month after some feedback.
In the update, the changes that they laid out in their feedback post earlier this month, which include using a “Rewards Council” in order to make fewer mistakes and to have some oversight from item designers, the lead systems designer, executive producer, and some they call “expert character builders” to review these changes before they’re live.
The issues that sparked this response in the first place had to do with changes to the Vault of Stars ring Band of Air and the Bone Devil’s Ribcage item that resulted in a need to lower their power. After laying out their goals and the new council process, there were still needs to change these items. Band of Air had two main issues. One, that it was just that powerful that it separated players into haves and have nots, and it also made it harder for the dev team to make new items to compete with it. The answer to the first problem isn't just to make a lot more items of equal power, because you're still destabilizing things.
Here's the full list of changes to the items in the patch notes, but Band of Air gets some damage reductions, and a lower base damage overall. It also only now procs on attack, not simply on other procs or under any other circumstances.
In addition to changes to those items, today’s patch repairs a few issues. One issue was letting players who used a Free Retrain and wind up having both Paragon Paths open to them. Affected players will get another retrain. They’ve also fixed some crash issues and some bugs blocking a player’s way to complete the Scrying Rothé Valley achievement.
Read the full patch notes over at Neverwinter.
