Hidden Secrets from Vecna Unleashed [Completed] [Spoilers]

[Willsave20]

Don't miss this from twitter recently.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1695815927835570582

Not sure if anybody noticed but you can interact with the Codex at the end of Vecna Denied. Additionally, given the small amount of background in the screenshot from Cordo, it appears that it was taken outside of the fortress in Vecna Denied.

 

[Willsave20]

Anyone else have a single beam in the end of Vecna Unleashed be white?

 

[Arcanaverse]

Anyone else have a single beam in the end of Vecna Unleashed be white?

I've see that, 4 white, and all red beams. It feels manipulatable, but it also feels buggy. Uncertain of the truth

 

[Arcanaverse]

Update from the latest stream: I think we're onto something!

Taking a longer look at the image posted of the ???? item. I believe I know which quest and where in the quest the item is acquired.

Assuming that cordo didn't randomly spawn the item in the quest, the ground around where that screen shot is taken appears to be from Vecna Denied. Specifically from the Dragon Optional.

Additional evidence also stems from the twitter post with the rest shrines being something important in that quest. The optional being red to denote something special (though this may just be a difficulty thing). The small hint that it may be guarding something (which it certainly seems it is). Also, its mind controlled. Leaving it every open to a potential way to alternatively deal with the fight.

Some the questions we're left with...

1. How do we get the second chest to spawn? (expecting a non-player based action to do this. ie not spells or abilities or class options. Something like the altar and/or the beams at the end fight or another item, /say or some other command?)
2. What other optionals have a special color? (i remember seeing some, but had trouble remembering last night).
3. Is this the beginning or the middle? (cordo mentioned that while there are other hints, we may need to be psychic to actually figure it out. Cryptic hint at the mindflayers or basically saying its technically possible, but improbable without more hints coming from social media.)
4. What more can we do with the altar? What would be a reflection of ourselves gamewise?

Also... some additional things about the ???? item to clarify.
1. Its not Lich Dust. There were some claims about players figuring out the name by searching their inventory to find a bugged item called lich dust. Lich Dust is an old Mabar event item that no longer is obtainable. A number of players have it from back in the day and its stuck in their inventory.
2. Its appears to be used for crafting. Non gear based items and interactable have this border. Adding in the second crafting device indicated on the morgrave map... suggesting this leads to a special crafting device. This doesn't mean more crafting options necessarily, it could just be a way to upgrade the ???? item or have the ???? item upgrade something else to be used later to unlock something in the raid or elsewhere.

Testing:
- Tried taking the items from the altar room.
--- tried a bunch of stuff with the altar too, nothing special yet. Including lilac petals, spending the buffs and having debuff from the vol room.
- Tried different orders of visiting the dragon and completing the quest
- Looked all around the map. so know about the stuff behind the mindflayer room, above the castle and
- Tried (greater) dispel/break enchantment/disjunction
- Hoping its not kill at the things first cause a lot of stuff is inside walls.
- Cause of the weird spell targeting, you can kill the dragon without opening the door, didn't help.

 

[nenetteblackmoor]

Anyone else have a single beam in the end of Vecna Unleashed be white?

In the same situation, I was able to reproduce it.

The beams are all white in their initial state. They turn red by pulling the corresponding four levers.

The white beam and rune seen in the screenshot will light up by pulling the lever on the sacrificial altar.

At this moment, by not ascending to the second floor of the sacrificial altar and immediately offering one's own life, the beam turned white.

I conducted several experiments to gain confidence, but due to a bug, I had to abort the experiments.

To the development team, there is a critical bug in flag management on the sacrificial altar.

The sacrificial altar offers more choices upon obtaining the item on the second floor, but the flag raised by acquiring the item does not reset even if you recall and reset the instance.

Upon resetting the instance and creating a new one, the sacrificial altar in the new instance displays multiple choices without the need to go to the second floor.

I tried taking four items and then consuming one flag before initializing the instance. However, in the new instance, the sacrificial altar's initial choices displayed three flags other than the one I consumed.

The bug causing this flag to persist will continue until the quest is completed.

In the bugged state where the flag is malfunctioning, no matter how many times I tried, the beam never turned white. After clearing the quest once, a 100% white beam was emitted.

While the change in beam color may be a bug, it led me to discover another bug.

In the 'Skeleton in the Closet' quest, you also had to die, so I think it's worth trying to offer your own soul, don't you?

 

[axel15810]

I agree that whatever the secret is, odds are it has to do with Vecna Unleashed and those white lights at the end. There may be a way to get an extra fight and extra end chest there.

SSG releasing these hints and screenshots on social media before the raid has even been released makes me think it doesn't tie into the raid since it seems strange that they'd release hints pushing players to solve something in content that isn't even available yet.

 

[PurpleSerpent]

1. How do we get the second chest to spawn? (expecting a non-player based action to do this. ie not spells or abilities or class options. Something like the altar and/or the beams at the end fight or another item, /say or some other command?)
2. What other optionals have a special color? (i remember seeing some, but had trouble remembering last night).
3. Is this the beginning or the middle? (cordo mentioned that while there are other hints, we may need to be psychic to actually figure it out. Cryptic hint at the mindflayers or basically saying its technically possible, but improbable without more hints coming from social media.)
4. What more can we do with the altar? What would be a reflection of ourselves gamewise?

I can contribute something for 2 - the Warforged Recruits optional in The Bark and the Blade is orange. I wonder if there's a green optional somewhere we've missed, which we need to start with?

As for the item border, that might not necessarily be a crafting item - the Threnal Ceremonial Blade has a similar design, and that's used directly - but the missing crafting device in Morgrave does make me wonder. Maybe once you have the item, an NPC in the area will let you access it?

I had a look around for magical bowls, but didn't find anything that matched the pattern for the question marks in the item name.

 

[Arcanaverse]

I agree that whatever the secret is, odds are it has to do with Vecna Unleashed and those white lights at the end. There may be a way to get an extra fight and extra end chest there.

SSG releasing these hints and screenshots on social media before the raid has even been released makes me think it doesn't tie into the raid since it seems strange that they'd release hints pushing players to solve something in content that isn't even available yet.

My suspicion is that it doesn't 'end' with the raid, but the raid may add onto it. Though it seems the raid has its own secrets so could also tie together.

Most likely situation being the crafting at the moment based on what we can see. We'll know more later this week I guess.

 

[Kaladynn]

Has anybody tried using the bastard sword Thirteen to complete the colored text optionals? Maybe follow the order of the augment slots in the weapon. For example, start by killing the dragon in Vecna Denied, which is a red text optional. Then, do the optional in The Bark and the Blade, which is an orange text optional (Haven’t fact checked this, just going off what others have said.) and so on. I can’t think of any other colored text optionals but maybe there’s more?

 

[axel15810]

My suspicion is that it doesn't 'end' with the raid, but the raid may add onto it. Though it seems the raid has its own secrets so could also tie together.

Most likely situation being the crafting at the moment based on what we can see. We'll know more later this week I guess.

err I meant to say "Vecna Denied" not Vecna Unleashed but yeah the raid may add onto it. I have atleast 1 idea which I've been meaning to try.

 

[Willsave20]

In the same situation, I was able to reproduce it.

The beams are all white in their initial state. They turn red by pulling the corresponding four levers.

The white beam and rune seen in the screenshot will light up by pulling the lever on the sacrificial altar.

At this moment, by not ascending to the second floor of the sacrificial altar and immediately offering one's own life, the beam turned white.

I conducted several experiments to gain confidence, but due to a bug, I had to abort the experiments.

To the development team, there is a critical bug in flag management on the sacrificial altar.

The sacrificial altar offers more choices upon obtaining the item on the second floor, but the flag raised by acquiring the item does not reset even if you recall and reset the instance.

Upon resetting the instance and creating a new one, the sacrificial altar in the new instance displays multiple choices without the need to go to the second floor.

I tried taking four items and then consuming one flag before initializing the instance. However, in the new instance, the sacrificial altar's initial choices displayed three flags other than the one I consumed.

The bug causing this flag to persist will continue until the quest is completed.

In the bugged state where the flag is malfunctioning, no matter how many times I tried, the beam never turned white. After clearing the quest once, a 100% white beam was emitted.

While the change in beam color may be a bug, it led me to discover another bug.

In the 'Skeleton in the Closet' quest, you also had to die, so I think it's worth trying to offer your own soul, don't you?

Firstly, I can verify that this bug is easily replicable, but doesnt hinder gameplay with knowing the quest too much. Perhaps this is WAI and there are areas within other quests we can use these items? Seems a bit far fetched, but just something to consider.

Secondly, the thing that interests me most is that in my screenshot, there is 1 white beam, whereas in the official DDO screenshot, all of the beams are red.

In testing the theories regarding being dead in the quest, I was able to find that you can walk underneath the map in Vecna Denied whilst being dead, but my search of underneath the map was limited and failed to yield qualitative results due to continuously rubber-banding back to my soul stone. I had a hire carry it from place to place, but the 10 second timer could only let me reach so far.

Some things I tested today:

• Dying and walking about the map + underneath it:
  • Only found that you could.
  • There is an invisible wall above and below the dragon optional, making it inaccessible while dead or with the jump buff.
  • I couldnt jump above or behind the area with the illithids and the lever to open the dragon fight.
• Not killing the illithids before confronting the dragons:
  • I thought it'd be interesting if a sonic attack/mind altering ability from an illithid would have an effect on the dragon. I could not get the illithid to perform all attacks but the ones it did yielded no desired results.
• Sacrificing only all of the wrong items and then attacking dragon:
  • Yields nothing.
• Sacrificing self on altar:
  • Firstly, I did this way too much.
  • Running upstairs to the shrine while dead has no visual differences of additional items available.
  • Shrines functioned as normal.

Some things I am currently unsure of:

• Where does this egg hunt start?
  • The ????? item feels like an item with prerequisites to find, and then objectives to complete thereafter.
• Does pulling the trial levers in different orders yield different results?
  • Will a different beam be white, or is it always just that one?
  • Which levers control which set of beams?
• Can you use quest items found in Vecna Unleashed in different quests?
• Of what purpose, aside from a tidbit of lore, are the other quest items?
  • Why do they exist?
  • Do they have a purpose somewhere else in the quest?
• How do you interact with the Codex in Vecna Denied?
  • Is it bugged or do you need to have an item to get an interaction menu?
• I was able to kill Lady Vol upon my first run of Vecna Denied. Is this a bug or WAI?
  • Please replicate if possible.
• More to come.

 

[Yamani]

Firstly, I can verify that this bug is easily replicable, but doesnt hinder gameplay with knowing the quest too much. Perhaps this is WAI and there are areas within other quests we can use these items? Seems a bit far fetched, but just something to consider.

Secondly, the thing that interests me most is that in my screenshot, there is 1 white beam, whereas in the official DDO screenshot, all of the beams are red.

If you enter the boss room before doing the sacrifice altar. You can get the beam to flip to red by proceeding as normal.

 

[nenetteblackmoor]

• Does pulling the trial levers in different orders yield different results?
  
  • Which levers control which set of beams?

https://imgur.com/715e2ya

How to investigate:
1. Kill the horse before pulling four levers and enter the final room.

2. The barrier is actually a door. Target it with the backspace key and use it. There are two barriers, so please deactivate them one by one, starting with the one in the foreground.

3. Use ALT or ask a friend to pull the lever for you. You will be able to observe the beam of light animation.

 

[Contessor]

Has anyone noticed the item Cordo posted looks like an iteration of an 3 illustrations on the bulletin board?

I am pretty sure the item in question is none other than the eye of vecna. The eye of Vecna can Pierce illusions so likely it is the cipher.

I think the focus should be on obtaining the eye and the rest will likely make sense.

 

[Rhisen]

Of what purpose, aside from a tidbit of lore, are the other quest items?

• Why do they exist?
• Do they have a purpose somewhere else in the quest?

Has anyone tried using the 4 items from sacrificial altar when talking to the Codex?

Edit: Or to any iteration of the Traveler?

 

[Willsave20]

Update: I was able to get all red beams at the end of Vecna Denied.

Steps to Replicate:
For this run, I was wearing The Kept Descent artifact.
Note: I have found that this is unnecessary and yields the same results as follows. Additionally, it appears that the white beam displayed in my first post in this thread was a bug.

1. Kill trash outside and enter the fortress.
2. Defeat both lieutenants and enter ritual room
3. Get dialogue from ritual room, leave, and enter sacrifice room
4. Go upstairs, clear shadows and gather all flags (frog, kobold soul, both dream bags)
5. Leave sacrifice section and enter and complete Vol section, including optional. (I killed Lady Vol when she spawns). Do not shrine. Do not use fountain.
6. Exit Vol section and enter and complete Shavarath room
7. Leave Shavarath room and complete Dark 6 room (Obtain dark 6 buff, take path with combat).
8. Enter sacrifice section and sacrifice yourself on altar, then pull lever.
9. This should get you all beams to be red.
   
   

EDIT: Killing the dragon AFTER completing the steps above turns off 9 of the beams.

Edit: You can achieve 4 white beams early on by skipping all steps above and rushing straight to the ritual circle and opening both barriers. Ddoor or recall and re-enter the instance and you will have 4 white beams. Completing the quest and all 4 trials causes the missing 9 beams to appear in red. Dispel Magic and Greater Dispel magic do not have any effect on Vecna or the Codex.

 

[Skjoldofr]

So - running to the ritual at the beginning has all the beams as 'white'.
Killing the dragon at any point appears to turn off the front 9 beams leaving the 4 at the back still on.

I ran in (heroic - elite) to Vecna, confirmed the white beams, took a ddoor out, killed the dragon, returned (saw 4 white beams) then killed myself on the sacrifice altar. I did not pull the lever. When I returned to Vecna there were 5 white beams. 3 on the left, 2 on the right.

I then ran to the 'endure the battle' room. Where I killed all the enemies, but did not pull the lever. I returned to Vecna. There were 5 beams again HOWEVER now there were 2 on the left and 3 on the right.

I then ran to the path of struggle and snares. I did the snares path. I did not pull the lever. When returning to Vecna there were 3 beams on the right and 2 on the left.

I then did the 'use the power within you' path (4 levers - sacrifice HP). Did not pull final lever, beams were still in a 3 right, 2 left configuration.

Numbered left to right, pulling the 'use the power within you' lever caused the 2nd panel to light up.
Snares illuminated the 1st panel.

With both 1 and 2 illuminated with a 2 left and 3 right starting configuration, the number of beams changed to 4. 2 on the left were red and the 2 on the right were white.

Sacrifice lever is #4
Endure lever is #3.

Pulling all 4 levers turned on the 9 beams disabled when I killed the dragon. so I ended the quest with all 13 red.

I'm curious what would happen doing Endure then Sacrifice, pulling 3 and 4, then doing the other two.

EDIT: Interesting note... Dragon was not killed however the number of beams went down to 4 after entering the endure trial. No levers pulled yet.
Pulled lever in Endure - 4 beams lit, #3 was red.
Moved to Sacrifice, lever not yet pulled, 6 beams lit, #3 still red. Pulled Sacrifice lever, #3 and #4 red now. 6 still lit. Moved to #2
Going in to #2 swapped to a 3/2 config. 3 left, 2 right. #3 and #4 still red. Pulling #2 put #3, #4, and #2 to red beams. And added a beam to the right side. So moved to a 2/3 config.
Pulling #1 removed the extra white beams. went down to a 2/2 config. Went to see what happened when I killed the dragon with the 2/2.
With 2/2, killed Dragon and front 9 lit up.

Came back in, redid #3 then #4. 4 beams lit, 2 red. So I missed or did something slightly different in the first time back in.
One of the possibilities is I didn't stay and listen to the entirety of Vecna's monologue when coming back in. Screwed the pooch on this run so flipped around and did 3412 this time. Then killed dragon. Came back to Vecna, waypoint was 'blocked by the door' so could finish this one however there were 5 red beams lit. 3 left 2 right.

 

[FVSHasBeenEvenMoreGutted]

makes me wonder what happens if all are turned off...

 

[nenetteblackmoor]

So - running to the ritual at the beginning has all the beams as 'white'.
Killing the dragon at any point appears to turn off the front 9 beams leaving the 4 at the back still on.

I ran in (heroic - elite) to Vecna, confirmed the white beams, took a ddoor out, killed the dragon, returned (saw 4 white beams) then killed myself on the sacrifice altar. I did not pull the lever. When I returned to Vecna there were 5 white beams. 3 on the left, 2 on the right.

I then ran to the 'endure the battle' room. Where I killed all the enemies, but did not pull the lever. I returned to Vecna. There were 5 beams again HOWEVER now there were 2 on the left and 3 on the right.

I then ran to the path of struggle and snares. I did the snares path. I did not pull the lever. When returning to Vecna there were 3 beams on the right and 2 on the left.

I then did the 'use the power within you' path (4 levers - sacrifice HP). Did not pull final lever, beams were still in a 3 right, 2 left configuration.

Numbered left to right, pulling the 'use the power within you' lever caused the 2nd panel to light up.
Snares illuminated the 1st panel.

With both 1 and 2 illuminated with a 2 left and 3 right starting configuration, the number of beams changed to 4. 2 on the left were red and the 2 on the right were white.

Sacrifice lever is #4
Endure lever is #3.

Pulling all 4 levers turned on the 9 beams disabled when I killed the dragon. so I ended the quest with all 13 red.

I'm curious what would happen doing Endure then Sacrifice, pulling 3 and 4, then doing the other two.

EDIT: Interesting note... Dragon was not killed however the number of beams went down to 4 after entering the endure trial. No levers pulled yet.
Pulled lever in Endure - 4 beams lit, #3 was red.
Moved to Sacrifice, lever not yet pulled, 6 beams lit, #3 still red. Pulled Sacrifice lever, #3 and #4 red now. 6 still lit. Moved to #2
Going in to #2 swapped to a 3/2 config. 3 left, 2 right. #3 and #4 still red. Pulling #2 put #3, #4, and #2 to red beams. And added a beam to the right side. So moved to a 2/3 config.
Pulling #1 removed the extra white beams. went down to a 2/2 config. Went to see what happened when I killed the dragon with the 2/2.
With 2/2, killed Dragon and front 9 lit up.

Came back in, redid #3 then #4. 4 beams lit, 2 red. So I missed or did something slightly different in the first time back in.
One of the possibilities is I didn't stay and listen to the entirety of Vecna's monologue when coming back in. Screwed the pooch on this run so flipped around and did 3412 this time. Then killed dragon. Came back to Vecna, waypoint was 'blocked by the door' so could finish this one however there were 5 red beams lit. 3 left 2 right.

It's probably just a display bug, then.
When you first enter the room, all the white beams are illuminated and shining white.
When the GM's voice was playing, all the white beams were visible to the characters in the room.

When the character who was not in the room when the GM's voice played enters the final room late, they can only see four beams. This is because they did not encounter the activation event, so they did not receive the display instructions.

However, the character who could only see four beams stayed in the bedroom. When the other characters pulled the four levers, at the moment the last lever was pulled, all the beams turned red, and the scene became the same as the image posted by the developer, with red beams illuminating from all the altars.

When you pull all four levers, the GM message says, "Let's go see what the ritual has done." Then, when you go to the final room and trigger the event, you can see the beams turning red. The presence of someone in the room is the trigger for the final event, so if someone is in the room, the beams are fired immediately after the GM message. Characters who were not in the final room when this event occurred will only see four beams.

If anything, it's not easier to display five beams.

 

[PurpleSerpent]

• I was able to kill Lady Vol upon my first run of Vecna Denied. Is this a bug or WAI?
  • Please replicate if possible.

This one was a bug - they fixed it with Hotfix 1, so it can't happen any more.