U57 Grip of the Hidden Hand - Preview 1 Overview

[Tolero]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Preview 1 of Update 57: Grip of the Hidden Hand will be open today as of 1pm EDT on Wednesday, October 12th! It is expected to remain open into the afternoon (EDT) of Friday, October 14th.

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Update 57 contains a quest pack for levels 16/33, along with balance changes and bugfixes.

To access new content during the preview, speak to Lord Poincelot in the Test Dojo to be granted preview server specific DDO points and then "purchase" the content pack in the "New to DDO" category of the DDO Preview Store. You can then speak to The Questgiver nearby to be teleported directly into the quests available in this preview.

To provide a little more detail on what you can expect to see in this preview, please review the items below:

New Quests & Treasure

The first three quests of the new Adventure Pack are available for preview 1! Try them out and let us know what you think in their respective feedback threads:
Order in the Court
Growing Pains
The Hand and the Eyes

NOTE: If The Questgiver offers you treasure when you talk to him instead of sending you into a quest, then just accept the treasure and talk to him again.

The Loot Guy in the Test Dojo has been updated with treasure that will appear in the U57 Adventure Pack. Visit the Loot thread for feedback by clicking here.

Hit-Point Pass

Changes have been made to hitpoints, read the details in Developer Torc's thread here

Imbue System

Changes have been made to damage dealing in DDO, read the details in Developer Lynnabel's thread here

Bug Fixes

• Several Stances such as Power Attack and Combat Expertise no longer put all spells on cooldown for no reason
• The Path of Light feat is now properly awarded to Bladeforged (although the Lord of Blades will be very sad if you choose to forsake him)
• Force in Tandem from Feydark Illusionist now correctly lasts through death
• Primal Avatar's Spells are now appropriately leveled and therefore some of them work vs liches
• Certain XP elixirs now function more reliably and no longer have a min level of 20 erroneously
• Razorclaw Shifters using Smite Evil will use better animations
• Players will no longer see "an invalid item has been removed from your inventory" when receiving an auto-consume item like Astral Shards.
• Items can now be organized within the tabs of the Reincarnation Bank.
• Items can now be moved from the Reincarnation Bank to the Personal and Shared bank. If a bound to character item is moved to the shared bank, the transfer will fail and the item will be placed at the top of the Main tab of the Reincarnation Bank.
• A variety of typos and text errors have been corrected.

Gameplay Changes

• Wading through shallow water is now a bit faster when moving forward (about the speed it would be if you jump skipped)
• The spell long strider now makes you ignore the effects of shallow water.
• Scorpions will no longer burrow unless they are bosses or mini bosses and will only due so to close the distance (not do it in melee generally)
• Phase spiders will no longer phase as much when going toe to toe in melee
• Monsters will now cast Tactical Detonation on a longer cooldown

UI Changes

• Feats with skill requirements now display those requirements better in their tooltips
• Players will no longer be given a confirm dialog when looting an item that is bind on acquire when in a party with only henchmen.
• The Bank system's tab rename button has been updated and is now a button labeled "Rename".
• When closing a Bank panel other than the Shared Bank, remaining panels will remain active. When the Shared Bank is closed all other bank windows are closed. If the player does not have the Shared Bank enabled, the shared bank can be closed, but any other bank panel being closed, will close the rest.