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How to Open Dungeon Chests Twice?

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You might already have stumbled upon this in today’s Community Watch, but we wanted to highlight a certain video in a single post nonetheless. It shows a player that is able to open the “campaign chest” in the Tomb of the Nine Gods dungeon twice, which shouldn’t be possible. Players obviously are only supposed to be able to interact with chests once in case they own a matching key.

The video doesn’t provide any additional information, but from the visual evidence we can break down what happens. After the boss fight, the campaign chest is unlocked because the player owns a Legendary Dragon Key. They do not open the chest however, but start the campaign task for the Chultan Key. After the task has finished, they are able to interact with the chest twice, consuming the Chultan Key first and then the Legendary Dragon Key.

Why Does This Happen?

It’s not clear why this happens, but let’s theorize a bit. First of all, while hovering over the chest, the game prompts the players to use the “Chultan or Legendary” key. The video however shows that no Chultan key is in the inventory. So this could be a TONG-specific bug in which the game wrongly assumes that they player has the campaign key. That doesn’t really explain why you are able to interact with the chest twice though, much less since the Chultan Key is consumed first.

Another aspect is that completing the tasks triggers a process that enables a “player can open the chest” flag. You’ve probably run into a situation where you’ve completed a dungeon and then realized that you don’t own a key. In that case you can for example buy a dungeon key from the Bazaar or craft a campaign key. The corresponding chest will still unlock. So the game definitely checks whether chest eligibility has changed after vendor activity. If that “player can open chest” count stacks, the observed behavior would make sense. After the boss fight, the game checks eligibility and since the player owns a Legendary Dragon Key, adds +1. Then the completion of the campaign tasks triggers the same check and increments the counter. This is pure speculation, but fun to theorize about.

Might Not Be a New Bug

It might by the way not even be a new bug per se, but just a result of the changed functionality of key tasks. Until Module 13, you couldn’t just craft keys on the fly, because the task took 20 hours. Now, the task itself completes instantly and then goes on a 20-hour cooldown. So this change might simply have messed with how the game determines whether or not players are allowed to open chests.

Anyway, we don’t believe this is major. We haven’t verified if this is possible outside TONG, but most chests are not good enough to spend a Legendary Dragon Key on anyway. So the only real reason to exploit this is probably during Double Enchants, if at all.


Did you already know about his double open chest exploit? Is it possible in all dungeons, or only in some? Share your experience and thoughts on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit the corresponding thread on our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 40,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

The post How to Open Dungeon Chests Twice? appeared first on Neverwinter:Unblogged.


Console PSA: Envenomed Cache Might Get Bound With M13 Update

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Ahead of the console launch of Neverwinter’s Lost City of Omu next Tuesday, there’s an interesting situation involving the “Envenomed Cache” that drops from the Ras Nsi end boss in the Tomb of the Nine Gods dungeon. The cache was introduced to fix a bug that caused loot from the boss to not appear sometimes. Obviously Ras Nsi can’t just drop loot directly, because he gets pushed off the platform. Trying to place the items on the platform instead proofed faulty, so the devs simple introduced a third chest, the “Envenomed Cache”, that hands out Ras Nsi’s goods.

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It’s Unbound on Consoles

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Now this is a pretty lame piece of news so far, but it gets interesting considering that the cache is bound on PC, but unbound on consoles. Among other things the cache drops Seal of the Brave, which means you can basically buy the current best-in-slot armor on the Auction House. More than that, as already mentioned, it creates an interesting situation ahead of the M13 launch. Seals of the Brave are required to buy one of the new weapon sets. You can not only pre-farm Seals, but also buy and/or stockpile Envenomed Caches. Main and Off-Hand are 1,500 Seals, so one character cap (1,200) is not enough to buy the weapons on launch day.

Even if you won’t be using the Envenomed Cache for yourself, their prices might skyrocket after launch. Since they are probably unintentionally unbound, chances are that the devs will correct this bug with the update. People in need of Seals of the Brave will look up the caches, the supply will quickly dry out, and prices rise.

Please note that all of this is just an educated guess, because it makes sense that the caches are not supposed to be unbound. Right now though it can’t hurt to farm TONG a little more than usually and buy the caches on the Auction House.


What are your plans? Have you already saved or even bought caches in anticipation of Module 13? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or the corresponding thread on our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 40,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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Chultan Tiger and Loadouts Top Console Omu Launch Issues List

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No launch ever goes smooth, much less if you jinx it. So the Lost City of Omu console launch had its own share of minor issues and in case you run into any kind of trouble, the best way of reporting them is to post them into the corresponding “Launch Week Bug” threads for the PS4 and Xbox.

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Chultan Tiger and Companion Gear

One thing that has consistently popped up in said threads is an issue with the companion gear. It’s often referred to as bug with the Chultan Tiger, but that’s only because most players want to switch to the pet and run into the bug this way. Apparently you are sometimes unable to equip any gear on companions. A workaround that usually works is to made the pet idle with no gear equipped, and then put it back in an active slot. This is reported to be a solution in most cases, but not all.

Loadouts Cant Be Changed

Another issue that actually made it from PC to consoles is related to loadouts. In some cases players are unable to switch to certain loadouts, or even swap loadouts at all. The reason for that is not known and there’s no real workaround. It definitely has something to do with swapping out gear pieces that are used in other loadouts, though. So what you can try is rolling back any changes you made recently and see whether you can at least figure out the item that is causing the issue. Of course, if you’ve tweaked your build for M13 and changed a whole lot it’s not so easy to just go back to your M12 state.

What definitely helps is overwriting the broken loadout with your current one. This will let you switch to other loadouts again, but obviously you have to re-do the whole setup. This is definitely annoying and something we hope will get fixed soon (also on PC!).

Roster Sort Sort by Last Login Didn’t Make the Build

Last but not least the devs forgot to include a new roster sort option for guilds, as confirmed by miasmat in this post. The update was supposed to allow sorting guild rosters by last login date, but the option does not show in the UI. This will probably simply be delivered with the next patch.


Did you run into issues so far in Omu or is everything working just fine? Share your experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or the corresponding thread on our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 40,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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Devs Acknowledge Bile Drenched Scale Drop Bug, But Compensation Uncertain

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One of the more annoying things in Neverwinter’s Mod 13 is to get the Chain of Scales upgraded to its legendary version. Until the Chain of 5 Scales the upgrade process and getting the corresponding scales is relatively easy, but most players hit a concrete wall when trying for the Bile Drenched Scale. It’s supposed to drop from the Tyrant Hunt, except it doesn’t, at least not for everyone. This got increasingly frustrating as some folks apparently tried as much as 30 times without a single success. Now after numerous complaints over the weeks, developer noworries finally acknowledged that there is actually a bug involved.

Looking into this there does seem to be an issue with the treasure table. The intention was to stop players from receiving the item if they had no use for it (had upgraded past that point already), but the table was checking against the wrong level of ring (level 4 or above) which is what is causing the problem.

Until the fix goes live, you should get a Bile Drenched Scale before upgrading your ring past 3.

So yeah, somebody either mistyped the condition that checks for the chain’s level or there was some internal miscommunication about what the correct level value should be. Either way, it’s completely puzzling how something so simple could be overlooked during testing and then ignored for weeks while players farmed the not-too-goddamn-easy-to-get-to Tyrant Hunt for nothing.

It certainly is frustrating. And although bugs will happen due to the nature of this type of business, we dropped the ball by letting this thread go under our radar for as long as it did. Other posters are right that it is even more frustrating when put in the context of a couple of other recent bugs.

There’s always a lot going on which makes it possible for issues to go unnoticed sometimes, but when a thread has additional information added to it multiple times (including players figuring out the cause), we really need to be better at grabbing that and following up on it sooner.

Although noworries made clear that they messed this one up badly, it’s uncertain whether there will be any compensations. Player brought up the idea to at least check who already has completed a Tyrant Hunt and hand out the scale to them. That isn’t really helping the folks that did extra run they normally wouldn’t have done, but it’s at least something. We wouldn’t hold our breath though. Past has shown that the devs have a hard time finding resources for such a research and that the scales might even have to be delivered manually.

So yeah, in a perfect world, this shouldn’t have happened. But since we’re talking about Neverwinter players will probably have to run the Tyrant Hunt at least once more to get their scale once the issue gets patched.


Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 40,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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White Owlbear, a 100$ Charge Reward, Got Its Bind Status Stealth Changed

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Well, here we go again. It seems like Neverwinter adds to its history of promotional hiccups. Already back in February players reported that a certain promotional item, the White Owlbear, suddenly changed its bind status. The Owlbear was handed out in a charge reward promo back in November 2016 and the blog article still states that “The White Owlbear is Bind on Equip!”. The more surprising it was for players to realize that the mount suddenly changed to bind in pickup.

While this is not really an issue to all those that already used the item on one of their characters, it can be majorly annoying in other cases. Let’s say you stored the once BoE item on a storage alt for future use, which is a common practice. Now the mount is stuck on a character that most likely won’t have any use for it. Or maybe you’ve bought up Owlbears as investment back then? Too bad you won’t be able to sell them now, right? In any case the promotion listed the item as bind on equip, and shouldn’t be changed afterwards, much less silently.

Players that inquired support about the issue got confirmation that it was an intentional change by the way. It also unfortunately doesn’t look like they are willing to help in this matter.

White Owlbear Only Latest of Many Promotional Hiccups

It’s needless to say that something like this shouldn’t happen. If you promote an item as bind on equip, and people pay 100$ for it, then the status shouldn’t change. What makes matters worse is that it happened completely unannounced, leaving players without any chance to sell mounts or move them away from alts.

The mods in the thread suggested that it might have been a stealth change to counter a possible exploit. Apparently the promo was reclaimable, which allowed players to obtain the item more often than intended. That would indeed explain the change, but now players that legitimately took part in the promo might still have no reward to show for it. That’s not acceptable!

It’s not the first time PWE messed up one of their promotions by the way. In 2015 a Bonus Companion Reward Promotion promised account-unlocked rewards, but the delivered ones were only one-time claimable versions. A year later, internal miscommunication lead to a misleading blog article about the Black Friday Charge Bonus and in 2017 claiming the Holiday Charge Rewards initially didn’t work at all. It sure feels like they can’t get through a full year without on of these, right?

Make Your Voice Heard!

In case you’re affected by this mess-up, you should make your voice heard. Contact support and let them know that you want the Owlbear’s bind status to be changed back to BoE. Simultaneously we’d strongly recommend messaging Community Manager nitocris83 on the official message board, on Discord, or through the official community mail community@crypticstudios.com. She won’t be able to resolve the issue, but letting her know about your displeasure is still important.

You could also try to reach out to other devs or members of the community team. The more people are bugged with this, the more likely it gets that they will actually do something about it or at least act differently in the future. We certainly hope that the devs will reconsider the change, but wouldn’t bet on it. At least those players that are now stuck with the Owlbear on characters that can’t really utilize the mount should get help.


Are you affected by the bind change to the White Owlbear? What’s your take on the whole issue? Share your thoughts on our social channels, in the comments below, or the corresponding thread on our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 40,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

The post White Owlbear, a 100$ Charge Reward, Got Its Bind Status Stealth Changed appeared first on Neverwinter:Unblogged.

Devs Announce Solutions for Owlbear and Bile Drenched Scale Issues

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In the last couple days we’ve reported two annoying issues in the White Owlbear stealth bind change and the Bile Drenched Scale drop bug. Now both got dev responses that look quite promising. In regards of the stealth White Owlbear bind status changes, miasmat hinted at a “good solution” first that was further detailed by the Community Manager in another post.

We’re coming up with a good solution to this. A couple key people have been sick the few days, so our response has been more delayed than we like. Please be patient for another day or so while we get all the details worked out.

Is it only us or does the whole studio seems to be sick every other month? Anyway, we wish all affected a speedy recovery and the comments themselves are certainly encouraging. Looks like players will be able to at least move their Owlbears from the characters they’re currently stuck on. Miasmat also shared specifics on the Bile Drenched Scale drop bugs:

After looking into it further, we are planning on giving a Bile Drenched Scale to anyone who: killed the Tyrant, doesn’t already have a Bile Drenched Scale, and doesn’t have the chain of scales at rank 6 or 7. This should just show up in the character’s inventory after they log in when the fix to the bug goes live.
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This is a more than fair solution in our opinion and certainly what players have been asking for. In our poll regarding the issue the vast majority was in favor of a compensation. Now you might even be able to bypass RNG by the way. Killing the Tyrant now should guarantee you a scale once the fix goes live.

It might have taken the devs a while to acknowledge and deal with the issues, but at least it seems they will eventually resolve them to everyone’s satisfaction.


Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 40,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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Exploit History Vol. 20: Foundry Refinement Botting

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Exploit History Banner

In today’s episode of our Exploit History, we talk about one of the more severe issues in the early stages of the game. It’s actually not too fair to only include the Foundry in the headline of this article because as much of the problem was how Utility Enchantments worked back in the day. The combination of both led to bots and players swarming certain custom maps and getting filthy rich in the process.

But what was Foundry botting all about? As mentioned, it was as much an issue with Utility Enchantments. Initially they were designed to drop unbound refining points. Obviously farming Utility Enchantments meant simply killing as many mobs as possible. The Foundry and its custom maps were ideal for that. Players created so-called “farm” levels that only consisted of easily killable mobs. Some were even designed in a way that mobs were trapped and could safely be taken down by ranged characters from distance.

Of course not only players liked the idea of farming and selling RPs that way. The botting scene soon caught on and created Foundry maps that were not only easily farmable, but also easily bottable. Bots would just repeat certain Foundries over and over again and pile up stacks and stacks of gems. The whole process led to the market for refining points absolutely crashing and the devs searching for answers.

First they tried a whole bunch of internal cooldowns for Utility Enchantments, but that did bother humans more than bots. So eventually all drops from Utility Enchantments would bind to account in Module 5 and later the Foundry didn’t even proc certain enchantments at all. That however led to another major AD-making opportunity. Because it was evident that the market for RPs would skyrocket in the wake of the change, rich players bought up stacks and stacks of RP from the Auction House and could sell them with an absurd profit margin a couple weeks later.


Exploit History: Locking Auctions – Caturday – Masterwork Nodes – Permadodge – Arcane Reservoir – Full GF Runs – Attribute Enhancement – Using the old Refining System – Killing Fulminorax and Valindra From Below – Skipping Shadowfell – Resonator Exploit – Safely Killing Traven Blackdagger – Foundry Power Leveling – Castle Never Picture Frame Shortcut – Infinite Buff Stacks and One-Shotting CWs – Max Level In About One Hour – No Ward Consumpion – Gateway Scripting – Temple of the Spider Exploits

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What the Heck Is Going on with Loadouts and Companions?

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Ok fellas, here’s a report out of the weird department. Something is going on with companions and loadouts. On consoles there are more and more reports since a few weeks that you can somehow get the Chultan Tiger to equip three rings instead of the intended two and a neck piece. It seems to be caused by a specific sequence of training the tiger and swapping companions and loadouts.

This isn’t just an issue of the Chultan Tiger though as a bug report by player “demonmonger” shows. He managed to get Insignias into slots for Runestones and Companion Gear into Companion slots. Community Manager Julia confirmed they are looking into this, because being able to rank up gear because it’s classified as Companions obviously isn’t intended.

A safe bet is that it’s probably caused by the Mod 13 update that included all Companion and Mount gear in the loadout feature. It was a great quality-of-life addition, but apparently also prone to issues. We certainly hope the devs will get a handle on this!


Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 40,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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Neverwinter Celebrates Smooth Ravenloft Launch and Crowded Servers

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Neverwinter Ravenloft successfully launched on Tuesday and based on our first impression, the mod is doing quite well. SteamCharts’ peak players are up to 5,000 which are the most since May 2015. As regular visitor you know that these numbers are not too accurate because most players use the game’s own launcher, but it nonetheless suggests a nice influx of players. Another indication might be the crowded instances in the new Barovia zone. At some point there were over 200, which sure feels like more than usual. Ravenloft is a very popular D&D module and it seems like Neverwinter was able to pick up some hype!

Launch Issues

No launch comes without issues however and we’d like to quickly go over the known stuff and possible workarounds. First and foremost: Bonding Runestones and other companion equipment is broken and doesn’t grant the correct amount of stats. So if you feel a little powerless in Ravenloft, it might be because you are. It’s apparently an unintended side effect of the new scaling system that “scales down” some elements of the character even in level 70 content. The devs are aware and actively working on a fix.

We hope to get a fix out this week for the bonding runestone issue. This issue was escalated when it was originally reported on preview but due to its complexity we were not able to get a fix out prior to the final build that made it live. This is our current main priority but we are following up on other issues reported. nitocris83

The other annoyance is a bug to the instance system. Sometimes it breaks and players can no longer manually switch. If that’s the case, the UI will only show 2-3 instances when there should be more. You can still move to other instances in case you’re in a party however. Just leave the zone, come back, and you should be placed in the instance of your teammates. Please note that the game picks one of the instances of your party members. So make sure only the players in the desired instance stay in the zone and all others leave.

We have listed other known minor issues below. You can also monitor the official launch issues thread, where the devs post their updates.

Other Minor Issues

  • The weekly quest “Company of Wolves” in Barovia can be completed more often than intended
  • The introductory hunt “Direwolf” can be completed more often than intended if you use VIP and not the portal to zone out
  • Game keeps trying to patch ingame even with on-demand option disabled
  • DC dodge length is broken
  • The chat UI randomly activates outside the “alt”/spectator mode
  • Some dailies in Omu can no longer be completed because mobs are missing or stuck in terrain

What’s your impression of the Ravenloft launch? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit the corresponding thread on our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 50,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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Are Guild Banks Still Not Safe?

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Neverwinter’s guild bank system in theory is a nice way of managing and distributing items in a guild. Guild leaders can set different permissions and options for each repository to make sure not all ranks have unlimited access to them. It still frequently happens that guilds get robbed. Players simply empty repositories and then leave the guild. It’s mostly an issue of missing security options or guild leaders trusting new members too early. There however also have been numerous cases in which players claim that members that theoretically should have no access to the guild bank somehow managed to steal from it.

Depending on what guilds store in their banks, this can get expensive. The official stance of Perfect World’s support has been that there is no bug and that all incidents are caused by human error. But a recent report that was mailed to us indicates that guild banks might still not be as safe as the devs want us to believe. On PlayStation 4 one player apparently gained access to three different guild banks. In all cases the second repository was renamed to its standard name “repository 2” and the thief was able to extract items from it. This distinct pattern would indicate that there is indeed a glitch involved, which makes it that much more annoying that PWE’s support doesn’t even seem to be willing to look into it.

Until this is resolved, we would highly recommend not storing any high value items in guild banks or at least the second repository, because there might be a way to get access to it. This to be honest is a bit speculative and we have no actual proof that an exploit is indeed involved. But it can’t hurt to be a little wary. In case you get robbed, also check which repository was affected and whether or not any names got changed in the process. The information might help support to finally figure out the issue.


Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 50,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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Shadow of Demise Is Crazy Good on Bosses in Module 14

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As outlined in our preview post about class balance, not a lot has changed in terms of balancing in Neverwinter’s Ravenloft. One particular change however deserves to get highlighted, because we might even have underestimated its impact initially. We’re talking about Trickster Rogue’s Shadow of Demise, which seems to be crazy good right now.

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You can simply go back and re-read out preview article, but I’ll also quickly recap the change to SoD here. What the power does is that it accumulates a percentage of all damage done by the TR over six seconds and dishes it out as a gigantic proc. In Module 13 the damage was calculated before any debuffs or mitigation were applied, leading to it being overpowered in PVP. The dev’s counter was to let the damage calculate after all buffs and mitigation, which indeed should help in PVP. For PVE however, this means that SoD once again “double dips” and one-rotates bosses with ease.

Shadow of Demise “Double Dips”

Here’s what happens: Once a TR activates SoD, the buffed damage is added towards the SoD proc amount. Then the very same buffs are again added to the proc itself, meaning that the power profits from multipliers twice. A basic example: Let’s say a the TR does 1,000 damage with a debuff/buff value of 175%. That’s 1,000 * 1,75 * 0,75 = 1,312.50 added to SoD. After the accumulation period, the proc fires for 2,296.875 damage (1,312.5 * 1,75 debuffs). So your 1,000 damage gets boosted by ~230% although the overall buff value is only 175%.

Players see such insane amounts of damage on bosses from Trickster Rogues in PVE that some have even reported SoD as bugged. Don’t forget that not only the proc itself was buffed, but that the power’s new additional damage over time effect also adds to the proc value. That’s where all those big yellow numbers are coming from.

Intended or Not?

Players were speculating whether this might be intended or not. It certainly feels overpowered, but on the other hand the devs made the change deliberately. Yesterday dev noworries however confirmed they’re indeed looking into it.

The intention is that Shadow of Demise does 75% of the actual damage dealt during the 6 second window, not that it is multiplied to do more damage than was done in the previous 6 seconds. It is something we are looking into.

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It’s a fairly surprising development, because the devs certainly can’t claim they didn’t know what they were getting into. First of all, SoD used to work this way before Mod 12 (with the same issues). Additionally players reported the massive damage numbers on preview, stated the cause, even listed suggestions how to rework the power, but never got any feedback. So this is either ignoring a well-known and researched issue because of their lack of resources, or they have been looking into it for some time know without finding a good solution.

Profit as Long as You Can

Anyway, this is enough to move the Trickster Rogue up the DPS chain. It’s one of the best classes to bring to single target boss fights (one SoD activation and it’s usually *boom*). It won’t last for too long, but currently it’s good times for PVE Rogues on PC!


What’s your take on the reworked SoD? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit the corresponding thread on our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 50,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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The Tarokka Deck Artifact Could Briefly One-Shot Bosses

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Did you know that Uncensored runs the biggest Discord of Neverwinter? Come join our team, streamers and hundreds of players to talk the site and all facets of the game!

Today we’d like to report one of those weird bugs that make you ask yourself how they even made it to a live build? Because somebody during QA should have noticed it, right? What we’re talking about is a bug that allowed the Tarokka Deck to one-shot bosses. The Artifact has the unique functionality that it let’s you pick between three different random powers it draws from your deck. We’re not going over the full specifics because that was nicely done by Viral in this document, but one particular card and its effect was causing the issue.

Marionette Causing Issues

The Marionette‘s tooltip states that it kills all minions near you. It indeed did, including bosses! While you couldn’t target bosses directly, they would still die from the proc. So all you needed were some adds that you could target, and bang! This means it worked on bosses like Orcus in Tomb of the Nine Gods for example, but not the Atropal (apparently it did work on the Atropal when targeting a hand… see video below).

The bug has been fixed in a recent patch, and the card’s effect now properly affects only minion-rank enemies, but it’s still one of the more funny bugs in terms of ‘how did it even make it to live?’. It kind of reminds you of the initial bug with the Orcus set that could one-shot anything as well.

Let’s Maybe Test This Stuff on Preview?

It also adds another reason to make new items more obtainable on preview. Nobody could effectively test the Tarokka Deck Artifact unless they were willing to go through the full card grind. It was highly inconvenient to say the least and there’s not really a reason to not make the item available to everyone through a preview store or whatever. The Wondrous Bazaar has special tabs on the PTS where you can claim some stuff for testing purposes and it’s annoying that the devs don’t always add all relevant items there.

Because if players were able to properly test, then this could have been prevented? Anyway, the bug is gone now. So Orcus and the other bosses are safe… for now!


Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 50,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

The post The Tarokka Deck Artifact Could Briefly One-Shot Bosses appeared first on Neverwinter:Unblogged.

So Now That the Set Is Fixed, How Can We Reclaim the Apocalypse Dagger?

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I think we can agree that the “Day of the Dungeon Master” is tons of fun! It’s cute, one of the rare really unique events in the game, and Module 15 will bring even more Acquisitions Incorporate to the Protector’s Enclave! We could all enjoy our life, but there’s always a catch, isn’t it? This time it’s the Apocalypse Dagger!

Do You Still Own Your Dagger?

I’m pretty sure it was mentioned either in an article or the comments already that there is a pretty significant logical flaw in the new Ravenloft Apocalypse Artifact set. To unlock the set bonus you need the Dagger from the event campaign, which you can claim only once. This is no issue for new players or characters today, but veterans might no longer actually own the item. The Dagger was pretty much insignificant until it got included in the Ravenloft Artifact sets. So players used it as so-called “feeder” in the old refining system. Refining Artifacts into other Artifacts was a highly popular, because most efficient, way of leveling them. That’s why many spend the useless item and now have no way of getting it back.

It’s pretty interesting anyway because a lot of other Artifacts that are bound can be reclaimed, but are not usable in the refining process (so that players cannot generate RPs out of thin air). This is obviously also what needs to be done with the Dagger. Otherwise players might have no shot at completing the set on specific characters. That can be annoying because the Apocalypse set is fairly strong. So far it didn’t matter because the set was bugged and the Day of the Dungeon Master not around. But now that both is no longer the case Cryptic should have tackled the Dagger issue as well.

A Logical Flaw That Should Be Addressed

I have to check, but one of my toons definitely can no longer complete Apocalypse. Luckily that one also doesn’t need it, but I definitely would be annoyed if that was the case. We’ll see how many other players are affected judged by the amount of angry posts on the Arcgames forum in the coming weeks. It is however a logical flaw that should be addressed rather sooner than later anyway. Plus Omin Dran might be angry if players show up for Module 15 without the Apocalypse Dagger, right?


Do you have toons that can no longer complete the set? Do you think it’s a flaw or that players should be punished for throwing away unique items? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit the corresponding thread on our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 75,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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Here’s What That Hunt Exploit in Module 14 Was All About

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In Neverwinter it’s really rare that true exploits are mentioned in the patch notes. Devs usually like to pretty much keep them under the radar, fix them, and move on. But the latest PC patch notes indeed mentioned a fix for an unspecified “hunt bug”. Unspecified however is not a term we like around here. So we hopefully got all the information on what exactly was the case and why this was an issue.

I like how they downplay the exploit in those notes. The exploit has existed since the initial Ravenloft launch and it has been abused by several specific guilds nonstop, it was used to produce over 100k rough astral diamonds every 30 minutes and to dupe 10s of 1000s of stacks of emeralds and flawless sapphires. Clearly there will be no punishment handed out and as always cheaters do prosper. The exploit allowed users to use any combo of cards without them being consumed and froze the hunt boss in 1 spot unable to move or attack and it recieved none of the buffs from the corresponding cards.nitocris83 (CM)

Here’s How It Worked

User “avenfell” already hinted in the patch notes thread on Arcgames that this was not your usual everyday bug. Players could indeed re-run Hunts infinitely without their Tarokka Cards being consumed. The exploit worked like this:

  1. Enter the Hunt with a team of two or more players
  2. One player (A) initiates the Hunt
  3. The other(s) kill themselves, get placed outside Madame Eva’s tent, and go to the first location of the target
  4. Player A adds cards, but does not leave the tent
  5. The other(s) kill the hunt, which is now bugged and stays in one place
  6. Everyone gets loot, and the party leader their cards back
  7. Repeat

We’re currently not sure whether the Wanted Poster was consumed by the way. But even if it did, the profit you make with a full set of the right cards is more than the cheapest ones sell for on the Auction House. So either way you’re looking at a nice gain here. We obviously can only speculate how many players or teams actually exploited the bug to obtain tons of salvage and RPs. But in case our information is correct, it definitely has some potential to generate a decent amount of wealth in a totally unintended way.


Have you witnessed or performed the bug yourself? What are your thoughts on the severity? Share them on our social channels, in the comments below, or the corresponding thread on our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 75,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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Devs Acknowledge Hunt Exploit, Say There Will Be Bans

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It’s safe to say that it’s been turbulent times in the Tarokka printing industry. Strahd Limited, the leading producer of Tarokka cards north of Waterdeep, suddenly saw orders decline sharply only weeks after an insanely successful market launch. Heads at Castle Ravenloft HQ quickly gathered and tried to identify their apparent competitor, but were unable to find anyone! They still had the monopoly on the cards, but customers simply didn’t seem to need them any longer.

Struggling for answers, some workers were put on short-time work. Others never showed up again after a meeting with Strahd himself. He later said they quit voluntarily, but we spoke to at least one family member that claims nobody ever saw their relatives again! Sources inside the company said that the tension continued to rise in recent weeks. Some executives completely lost their head (quite literally!) and restructuring into a garlic bread facility failed due to the boss’ inability to test the product.

When all seemed lost, the government stepped in and released a statement yesterday that could save the company:

We are aware of an exploit being used in the Barovia Hunts that bypasses the intended gameplay and are working on getting a patch out for this as quickly as possible. We will be reviewing playlogs and any character found using the exploit will be subject to possible actions taken against player accounts as per our Terms of Service.nitocris83 (CM)

RIP Hunt Exploit

Ok folks, enough of the nonsense! The Hunt Exploit on consoles is no longer. Cryptic additionally wants to let you know that they plan to punish offenders. Here’s a quick recap of what happened: The exploit allowed to run Hunts without losing any Tarokka Cards and bugging the target in one location. It had been active on PC since the Ravenloft launch and not fixed until recently. Unfortunately the fix also led to leaking details to the console crowd. And as it turned out, the bug was still very much active there. So exploiting Hunts on Xbox and PS4 quickly became the norm.

Exploit Handling Still Hilarious

Cryptic now seems to be have fixed the loophole. While that’s generally a good thing, leading into this article with some humor actually wasn’t by accident. Because the way the devs handle these exploits still remains a hilarious mystery. It was pretty much known and used on PC for months. Yet they were unable to include the fix on consoles initially. And now, more than two weeks after the Xbox/PS4 launch, after everyone and their mother already has exploited Hunts, they finally get an announcement out and threaten with bans.

You’re very much talking about worsening the situation. Because if an exploit is live for that long, it turns into a feature and it gets increasingly more difficult for legit players to withstand. If everyone is doing it anyway, why bother? Of course Cryptic can always pitch their “Terms of Service” (as they did yesterday) and refer to the fact that exploiting is not allowed. But what’s an exploit fully depends on what Cryptic classifies as such. So you pretty much never know. Some players think that if you’re unsure, you simply shouldn’t do it and wait for a clarification. That’s a flawed approach of course, because if it’s an exploit nobody will tell you anyway. And in case it’s not, you might still wait weeks for an answer, not being able to participate in whatever activity.

Low Priority Until Leaked to the Public

That said, the Hunt thing was described as “exploit” by us, so it’s not like you can talk yourself out of it (sorry!). However, had Cryptic dealt with the issue more transparently, it wouldn’t be such a mess. Why didn’t they? Well, because public exploits almost certainly come with a bunch of extra work. You have to fix the bug asap, review logs, and hand out bans. If only a few players know and do the exploit, you only have to silently patch it at some point and move on.

Of course that never works. Over time word spreads and so you’ll have to put in the work anyway. So it would have been much better to inform players at launch that there is a known Hunt exploit that they better not use. What would be fair now is to only sanction players that did the exploit after their announcement. And that doesn’t even consider the fact that only very few players read the forum. If folks tell you they genuinely didn’t know, what reasoning other than “we can ban as we please” do you even have?

Unfortunate Circumstances?

Of course all of that could very well be unfortunate circumstances. Let’s say they knew about the exploit early, but had trouble fixing it on PC earlier. When they did, it was already too late to push the fix on the final console launch, but they still wanted to get it out on PC as soon as possible. Then everything leaked and bang. Sure, shit happens. But it’s not the first time Cryptic wasn’t able to react in a timely fashion, which always raises suspicions that the problem is more deeply rooted with how they generally deal with such incidents.

Anyway, you folks will have to find legit ways to do get your Hunt rewards now! We’ll also keep you posted in case we hear anything about bans or suspensions.


What’s your take on the exploit? How did Cryptic handle the situation? Should players get punished? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 75,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

The post Devs Acknowledge Hunt Exploit, Say There Will Be Bans appeared first on Neverwinter:Unblogged.


Cryptic Bans Streamers Over Hunt Exploit; Reddit Implodes

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The Hunt exploit continued to be the number one topic within the community over the weekend (to no one’s surprise). While players controversially discussed the impact and who should get punished, Cryptic had already started the process of banning selected accounts.

As usual the sanctions range from 3-day suspensions to perma-bans. The devs really seem to focus those that not only participated in the exploit, but did actively help spreading it on social media. We know of at least one bigger content creator that got locked permanently.

What’s certainly interesting is that the exploited rough Astral Diamond were hardly worth a ban. A million is ten days of work. At best you’re talking about a suspension. So the ban shows how serious the devs punished spreading the exploit.

Exploiting & Monetization

Did you know that Uncensored runs the biggest Discord of Neverwinter? Come join our team, streamers and hundreds of players to talk the site and all facets of the game!

The monetization aspect is kinda weird though. I guess that streamer could give them the $5 they made? Plus, the account would still be banned if the video hadn’t been monetized, right? So why even bother? Definitely feels silly, because it’s not like anyone literally stole from the company. Following that path of logic would also eventually mean that all content creators would have to pay games, which is obviously hilarious. Influencers are assets, even if stuff like this occasionally happens. That being said though, maybe they refer to some section in their terms of service here that we’re unaware of.

The Hunt exploit also led to the usual Reddit implosion. People naturally wanted to talk about it while moderation naturally suppressed even mentioning the incident. You know, just a normal day over there. Now that the whole thing has been fully patched, we think it can’t hurt to allow the community to discuss the implications. But instead Reddit chose to have ugly two days of deleting topics, banning users and subtracting from its already abysmal reputation.

Sub Is Not Official, but All but Official

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A hilarious side note from the incident by the way: The Subreddit has added a note on the sidebar that they’re not official, because people apparently got confused. You really wonder why that might be the case… It’s not like the sub acts like an extension of Cryptic, right? Anyway the sub is not official, but all but official. It hosts official events, fully obeys the official ToS, and is listed in the ARC launcher. Again: Not sure why people get confused when they’re so “independant”.

In the wake of the drama some players opened another, unmoderated sub for the game by the way. This has been tried before, to no avail however. But in case you want a different environment to discuss the game, you should contribute there and help them grow the audience. The owner by the way contacted us whether we are ok with using our brand name for the sub, which we don’t mind. But we obviously don’t admin it and can’t help with any issues over there.


Phew, that Hunt Exploit fellas… Still dominating the news! What do you think about the bans, the state of the Subreddit, and the focus of hunting down those that helped spread the exploit? Share your thoughts on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 75,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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Cryptic Carries out Announced Ban Wave; Major Accounts Hit Across All Platforms

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Well, we hoped we could talk about the preview release of Module 15 today, but apparently Cryptic had other plans and carried out the ban wave they announced a week ago for exploiting the Ravenloft Hunt bug. This also means that the few bans on streamers we reported was only the tip of the iceberg. The majority of the accounts were banned yesterday. We’re being told that sanctions range from 1-day suspensions to permanent bans while also a bunch of minor offender were stripped of their (rough) Astral Diamonds. Judged by the information we have, this might actually be the biggest ban wave on player accounts the game has seen so far.

Did you know that Uncensored runs the biggest Discord of Neverwinter? Come join our team, streamers and hundreds of players to talk the site and all facets of the game!

You have to be careful because of the general hyperbole involved in things like this, but it certainly looks like many major endgame players were hit. Of course there’s also always rumors that innocent people have been hit as well. Cryptic is notoriously known for not always getting stuff right, but covering the game for so long (and talking to guys that got banned) we think that the sanctions indeed mostly hit accounts that actually exploited the Hunt bug to some extent. Since most haven’t gone public we are hesitant to call out specific guys, but one person who’s very openly communicating his ban is popular streamer and YouTuber Nova. He’ll probably make a video about the incident soon enough, but being banned on the same day you get the chance to interview Lead Designer Thomas Foss is certainly one of the more bizarre Neverwinter stories this year. As mentioned quite a lot of hardcore endgame players received at least suspensions. So we’ll probably hear about more bans in the coming days.

How to Deal with Bans?

The extent of the ban wave is surprising to us, because the exploit, historically and economically, didn’t do a whole lot of damage. So the assumption is that Cryptic felt like they had to take a stance here. We’re even hearing perma-bans for 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 exploited currency. That’s a lot, especially if you’re a new player, but in the grand scheme of things hardly matters. People back in the day got suspensions for ten times the amounts. Also people that have spend ZEN in the past weren’t sanctioned as harshly, which is always a point of contention.

Now, if you got banned and are sure you didn’t do anything wrong, please follow what we’ve written in this article to contact support and make them look into your case again. Be polite but persistent until you get what you want. If you’ve been exploiting it doesn’t have to be the end of the line as well. We would just sit out suspensions unless they are unjustified, but you can also try to appeal a ban. We would advise you to offer them an apology, and that they are free to strip Astral Diamonds and maybe even Enchantments from your account. It’s something that has worked in the past and worth a shot if you absolutely can’t live without Neverwinter.

Always on Fridays

We’ve talked about how Cryptic handled the bug in depth around here. So we won’t get into it again. In case you’re interested, many YouTuber have released opinions that can be listened to right now. However, one thing that’s always annoying is how Cryptic purposely carries out these waves on Fridays. Unless something changed, official support doesn’t work over the weekend, which means players have to wait three days until they even get a chance to talk to someone. It also feels we’re moving backwards in terms of communication. We praised the studio of being more open with ban-waves, but this one was neither acknowledged yesterday, nor did they allow any discussion about it. This statement about account inquiries is all we got before the devs fled into their weekend and was a reaction to players swarming the forum to either rant or asking for help.

In case you do want to talk the implications, don’t try your luck on the official Subreddit or Arcgames. Mods on both platforms as always are deleting posts left and right. On the sub you at least have the opportunity to post in this thread, but it’s tightly moderated as well. You can however freely jump into the discussion on our Discord or message board. There’s also a new, and already quite active, alternative Neverwinter sub that allows open talk on the game. If you want to track the mods’ actions and see what users have posted, you can use one of the Reddit undelete services and our ARC Undelete tracker.

Hope Everyone Made It out Alive!

Phew. That was a lot to digest for the community today. We hope you guys made it out alive and don’t miss too many friends ingame!


What’s your take on the ban wave? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 75,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

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Who Is to Blame the Most for the Huntgate Mess? (RE: Reasons)

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So “Huntgate” anyone? Yeah, it’s been some really bizarre and tumultuous days. I guess we’ve seen everything. Hyperbole from all sides, players blaming Cryptic, Cryptic blaming players. Those that feel cheaters deserved what they got, others that felt the game did itself a disservice. I thought long about writing this article, because I’m not a huge fan of taking part in the “he said, she said” drama. Bit since Uncensored undoubtedly played a role in spreading the exploit, and got dragged into the spotlight to some extent, I guess it’s one of those situations where you can’t dodge posting something.

Hyperbole Galore

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In case you’re wondering about the title. It’s related to what was written in this Reddit thread, more specifically this time line. It describes what happened fairly well, but assigns all blame to everyone but the company. And assigning blame is exactly what I’d like to go over today. To a lesser extent we also have to talk the state of the community (again), because it’s closely tied to that. Because one thing the exploit has shown is how deeply divided the player base is. It’s gotten so far that people are willing to purposely spin a story to make the other party look bad. Or at least omit or present “facts” in a dubious way to help create a certain narrative. I by the way do not think anyone does this out of pure malice. It’s just that people feel they are right and gradually use more extreme ways to make them heard.

Our site by the way does fall victim to this as well. We often to present the player and “company critical” side of things because official platforms usually moderate those opinions. That definitely leads to biased coverage as well at times. We still feel like players get more accurate information here, because in contrast to other platforms, everyone can post (and disagree on) whatever they want.

What Role Did Uncensored Play?

In this particular instance Reddit also dragged us into the spotlight as those that allegedly made everything worse than it should have by posting details on September, 2nd. It’s one of those situations which I referred to above where the narrative doesn’t match what actually happened. I don’t fully blame the sub though. We did share some details behind the scenes, but maybe not enough to not come to the posted conclusion. Truth is, several PC players approached us and wanted us to post the details because they were fed up with some players exploiting like crazy. I personally knew about a YouTube video that was set to private, ready to get published and flooded all over Protector’s Enclave, Reddit, and Arcgames. What we did was convince them to wait until a fix. One week before the patch, a second team members got contacted from another source and wanted to write about it as well.

So here’s your tl;dr: Shit would have blown up anyway. If you feel otherwise, that’s your opinion, but it’s most certainly wrong. The smart way would have been to wait for others to post their YouTube vid or whatever and then simply pick that up in a story. I didn’t however anticipate that the whole thing might still be live on consoles anyway. That’s on me, shit happens. But since I also had to honor an agreement with my source to publish as soon as the exploit was fixed on PC, and a second team member wanted to post about it as well, it would have gone up anyway.

What Role Did Cryptic Play?

The other question is what did or didn’t Cryptic do to prevent this mess? In the Reddit timeline there are some interesting aspects I’d like to go over. First of all, the devs knew about the exploit since the preview days of Module 14. Rumor has it that dev Noworries even received exploit details in a PM. That’s unconfirmed, but it’s pretty common knowledge that the info was out there. It still took them more than three months to get a fix out on all platforms. Plus they didn’t try to push the patch through certification for the consoles ASAP and kicking investigation into high gear until we leaked the exploit. Why couldn’t this have been done earlier? There’s other stuff I won’t even go over here. Like banning on Fridays, pairing the bans with the Mod 15 release, etc.

Another crucial span is the time between the exploit leak and the acknowledgment. So let’s say some evil website posted exploit details. Well, crap. And now you need ten days to get a post up although you know that at that point everyone and their mother is using the bug ingame? I agree that being silent about it up to that point was probably for the better, but after September 2nd you’re just worsening the situation. Also, if Cryptic had fixed the exploit in a reasonable time, nothing would have happened. If there’s anything to learn from this: You better deal with this kind of crap asap. Otherwise you just risk stuff to blow up eventually.

This perceived “laziness” by the way was one of the reasons why we decided to post exploits. It was to apply some sort of pressure and create a necessity to fix them. In the history of the game, it almost became a meme how stuff only got fixed after it leaked. There are several examples, and Huntgate adds to those (although as mentioned, this time it wasn’t even intended…).

Officials and the Community

The incident also shows how divided the community is. There are so few people willing to build bridges in positions with power. It just leads to more separation and this whole “us vs them” mentality quite frankly is why players largely blame Cryptic for the mess. The same applies to the content creator scene. It’s no coincidence that pretty much all major YouTubers went out and posted vids bashing the devs to some extent. This might not be completely justified, but is a direct result of the game not working with their influencers appropriately. What irritates me the most is seeing people openly celebrate bans of others because they don’t like them or their opinion/content. Losing players first and foremost is bad. Reasons matter, but it’s a clear second.

What Role Did the Players Play?

Which brings us to us players. If you exploited and got caught, tough luck. Of course the initial reaction is to blame Cryptic for leaving the exploit in the game for so long. That’s not wrong, but I guess in the vast majority of cases players knew exactly what they were doing. Nobody has to exploit, people voluntarily choose to do so. The ones I talked to by the way were very reasonable. Most said they deserve a punishment, and only lamented on the severity for the most part.

There is one caveat though, which brings us back to the time span between the exploit leak and the acknowledgment. At that point, everyone was doing it on consoles and even for “legit” players it got increasingly harder to avoid getting sucked into exploiting themselves. Even if players still did something wrong, I think it’s fair to point that out. It almost feels like PWE purposely let that linger to set a trap for the players. I mean they absolutely didn’t, but it’s just so hilarious.

So in the end, it’s as always. It takes a good amount of bad circumstances and coincidence for stuff to culminate into something like Huntgate. Everyone made mistakes, and rigorously pointing fingers doesn’t help. Not the game, not the community. Maybe it’s fair to put it like this: The only ones that have all the power to prevent this in the future are the devs, Cryptic and PWE, themselves. If they are able to pull the right strings, react more promptly and more transparently, we won’t ever witness another Huntgate again.


What’s your take on this topic? Who’s to blame the most? The players, Uncensored, the devs? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 75,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

The post Who Is to Blame the Most for the Huntgate Mess? (RE: Reasons) appeared first on Neverwinter:Unblogged.

Did Huntgate Set a New Tone in How Cryptic/PWE Will Handle Exploits in the Future?

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In the whole mess that is Huntgate it nearly went unnoticed that a user named “Blister” called out the upcoming changes to Salvage in Module 15 before the official feedback thread went up. They obviously weren’t willing go into any specifics about the “source”, but given that they were right, we think it’s fair to hand out some credibility here. That assumption is important, because the user later followed up by making additional statements about the handling of Huntgate:

According to my source, the blow back on this has generated some heat from higher-ups and from partners. The concern is that it looks too sloppy to hammer on this specific exploit. Rather than admit any wrongdoing however, the emphasis instead will be on being more consistent with bans for various ToS violations. This includes power leveling, selling AD or items for real world currency (apparently, Facebook groups will be targeted), glitching bosses/traps/other mechanics in dungeons, and having multiple accounts (or GT/PSN ID). Those will not happen all at once, but they’re going to check regularly and have cycles of suspensions and bans in the near future. I don’t understand the reasoning here – exactly how many players do they have that have never done ANY of this? Not good.Edited for clarity / readability

Here’s a Little Historic Context

This is certainly an interesting quote, because it actually fits history fairly well. The devs for the longest time did not care too much about banning players. At least that was the overall perception. Back in the day, the “Legit Community” was build around the fact that you could literally not run dungeons without using some sort of tricks. Exploiting was the norm, and specifically dungeon exploits were hardly sanctioned at all. The devs always banned for stuff that directly impacted the economy or their own wallet, but the list of boss glitches that went unpunished is long. Over the years major dungeon exploits became less common, but the impression that support doesn’t properly deal with cheaters remained.

That’s also one of the reason why we around here have decided to post exploits. It was to apply some pressure to fix stuff, to hold the devs accountable. Not properly dealing with exploits in the past also is key to understand why the punishments in some cases this time around were labeled draconic, and the shitstorm, although the devs just got rid of a bunch of cheaters, was insane. Comparing the Huntgate infractions, AD generated mostly, with earlier stuff almost makes them look negligible. What might be the case however is that we witness a shift in how the devs deal with exploits altogether.

Some Concerns Remain

If the post above is indeed true, it means some higher-ups want to fight the environment the game itself created, that they change their approach from reactive to proactive. That’s certainly a good thing, but as “Blister” in the last paragraph correctly points out, comes with concerns nonetheless. Banning for something that was “accepted behavior” for the longest time at least feels weird, even if it is technically covered by the ToS. Now we’re of course back at the ongoing controversy of who’s to blame, the players for exploiting or the devs for letting them?

We do however assume that they’re not banning for exploiting Valindra in Module 2, but for more recent, and more obvious, stuff. If there’s indeed a change of approach however it definitely can’t hurt to also become a little more transparent about what is considered an exploit and who has been punished. Then this could really be a major gain for both the game and its community.


What’s your take on this topic ? Will the devs now ban more frequently, and for a wider range of violations? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 75,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

The post Did Huntgate Set a New Tone in How Cryptic/PWE Will Handle Exploits in the Future? appeared first on Neverwinter:Unblogged.

Bag of Tricks Vol. 101: Rainer’s Masterwork Sheet

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Bog of Tricks Logo Welcome to the latest installment of our Bag of Tricks! On some days you will find useful tricks, gimmicks and ideas here that can make life in Neverwinter Online easier. Some of the stuff should be well known, but since even veterans learn something new every now and then, chance is you can, too.

Do you guys know Neverwinter YouTuber Rainer? No? First of all: Why?! Second, this might be a good time to get to know him, or at least one of the resources he recently created. Rainer usually does tons of regular content for the game and also runs RNG tests on different (lock)boxes. This time he tackled Mastercraft and certainly did aim for a comprehensive solution for all your Masterwork needs! His “Mastercrafting Sheet v2.0” pretty much covers everything. From recipes and required resources over task comparisons to profit margins. There’s not a lot of stuff (maybe nothing) you can’t do with this excellent piece of theorycrafting. Rainer even hinted at some improvements that he’ll be working on in his latest video about the sheet. So this is an actively maintained resource.

Talking about videos: We could tell you how to utilize the sheet, but why not take it from Rainer himself? He has done two videos introducing and explaining the sheet and all of its features! We’ve attached them below, so all you need to do is download the sheet from here, click on the videos, and get going! There is one minor drawback though: Since the sheet uses VBA, it currently only works in Microsoft Excel. In case you know other (free) software that can run the thing, let us know!


Browse through more posts of this column!

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What’s your take on this topic? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 75,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

The post Bag of Tricks Vol. 101: Rainer’s Masterwork Sheet appeared first on Neverwinter:Unblogged.

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