Lead Designer Scott Shicoff Talks Elemental Evil Changes

Neverwinter Lead Designer Scott Shicoff has penned a forward look at changes coming to the Elemental Evil module that caused an uproar with the community when it was released. Not long after, Shicoff apologized to the player base and promised that the game would be fixed.

Making good on that promise, Shicoff wrote:

It's been a few weeks since the last time I wrote to you all, and I wanted to provide an update. As I mentioned in Neverwinter: Looking into Elemental Evil, one of my first tasks on the project would be to evaluate the state of the game, and help the team figure out areas and aspects of Neverwinter that need attention. We've been listening to the community, and I'm happy to say we've started making positive changes. As I mentioned in the previous post, some elements will be addressed before others; some tasks will require additional time to get right.

This week, players will see big alterations in the way that several classes play including the Oathbound Paladin, Scourge Warlock, Devoted Cleric, Control Wizard and Hunter Ranger. Several skill changes are most notably affected for each.

In addition, performance and stability will be addressed that were causing skills to become persistent and the team will finally be taking on the performance issues that have plagued players for quite some time (i.e. combat lag and rubber-banding).

In the future, players can expect to see the Tiamat fight nerfed by scaling down its difficulty and requiring players to be level 70 with iLevel of 1800+ to even try.

Campaign rewards will be improved that also includes new gear, additional refining items on daily quests, and rare equipment for completing the Tyranny of Dragons Adventuring Gear quest. Armor and weapon enhancement slots will be added to the level 60+ zones and crafting tasks have been added to the Rank 21 tier.

Lastly, and with specific regard to Elemental Evil, heroic encounters will be "cleaned up" in order to eleminate frustration resulting by players not receiving credit for completion as expected. Experience gained for the new zones will be rebalanced.

Icewind Dale's heroic encounters will also be under the scope for improvements.

Read the full post on the Neverwinter site.