OVERVIEW
The Elder Scrolls Online v0.18 presents new features in addition to tons of fixes and improvements to existing content based on tester feedback, and focuses on stability at high peak user load as we prep for launch day. Heres a brief overview of what awaits you in this test:
Streamlined and made modifications to the tutorial. It should now be faster to complete and have more interesting encounters.
Now after the tutorial completion, new characters will go directly to first alliance city where you will then have the choice to go to the starting islands.
Starting leveling is slightly quicker, while higher-level is a bit slower.
Implementation of Molag Bals newest threat Dark Fissures, smaller version of Dark Anchors.
Player to NPC collision.
Improved server performance in Cyrodiil.
Thousands of fixes for quest issues across the entire game.
More orchestral music across all zones.
Many gameplay improvements, including balancing and polish to class and weapon abilities.
Many updates and improvements to the UI.
During this test, you will have access to the following areas:
Khenarthis Roost
Auridon
Grahtwood
Stros MKai
Betnikh
Glenumbra
Stormhaven
Bleakrock Isle
Bal Foyen
Stonefalls
Deshaan
Cyrodiil
TEST GOALS
For this test, we have a few goals wed like you to try and reach while playing the game.
Start a new character, and provide feedback on the tutorial and the new starting location experience.
Find and defeat a Dark Fissure and let us know what you think!
Travel to Cyrodiil and participate in the Alliance War.
BIG CHANGES / UPDATES / NEW FEATURES
New Post-Tutorial Experience
In order to give new characters more freedom of choice, weve made a change to the way that characters move between the early zones. With this change, after you complete the tutorial and escape from Coldharbour, you will now arrive in the starting city for your alliance. You will have the option to visit the original starting areas, or just go forth and start adventuring immediately. Content in and around each of these cities has been adjusted to be more easily performed by characters of levels 3-6.
Aldmeri Dominion
New characters leaving Coldharbour will now arrive in Vulkhel Guard instead of Khenarthis Roost. Razum-dar will be waiting for you in Eagles Strand when you take the quest Storm on the Horizon from Captain Tremouille.
There is now a ship that will ferry you to Khenarthis Roost from Vulkhel Guard.
Daggerfall Covenant
New characters leaving Coldharbor now arrive in Daggerfall instead of Stros MKai. Kaleen will be waiting for you in Port Hunding when you take The Broken Spearhead from Mihayya.
There is now a ship that will ferry you to Stros MKai from Daggerfall.
Ebonheart Pact
New characters leaving Coldharbor now arrive in Davons Watch instead of Bleakrock. Rana will be waiting for you in Bleakrock when you take A Beginning at Bleakrock from Riurik.
There is now a ship that will ferry you to Bleakrock from Davons Watch.
Dark Fissures
Molag Bal has stepped up his attacks, and Dark Fissures are opening throughout Tamriel! These are smaller events than the larger Dark Anchors. To close a Dark Fissure, several Daedra will emerge from a fissure and must be slain. They are designed for solo or a small group.
NPC Collision
In order to make the world feel more substantial, you will now collide with NPCs, including collision with NPCs in combat. Wed appreciate everyones feedback about how this changes the way the world - and especially combat - feel, and of course any bugs you find with this new feature. Please note that this will not affect PvP combat with other players; collision is only on NPCs.
Additional Digital Content
This weekend, you will have access to the items contained in the Imperial Edition and the Explorers Pack, plus youll be joined by a pet monkey while on your journey!
Known Issues
NPC VO will be missing or off in the starting experience.
For some people, the game will freeze for 4-6 (actually 4-11 or so) seconds at irregular intervals. During this time nothing updates - the screen locks until it comes back from this issue. If you have your task manager open you will see the CPU go to 100%. We are aware of this issue. We don't have a fix yet, but we're working on getting a fix out for it as soon as possible.
If you are in any player guilds, you will see them in your guild list the first time you launch the client. If you log out to character select and back in with any character, your guild list will appear empty, but your guilds are not gone. Closing and restarting the client will populate the list again.
FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS
Alliance War
General
Experience awarded for player-character kills has been increased.
Battle bolstering now properly sets Spell Skill and Attack Skill values.
In Cyrodiil, red circles will now appear around enemy damage spells, and green circles will now appear around ally heal spells.
One Mystic apiece has been added to the Daggerfall Covenant and Aldmeri Dominion entry gates in Cyrodiil (Northern High Rock Gate and Western Elsweyr Gate, respectively). Ebonheart Pact already had one at their entry gate (Southern Morrowind Gate).
Capturing/influencing a flag now has sound associated with the visible effects.
Alliance War NPC Guards now properly reflect their difficulty on their unit frames.
Elder Scrolls will now properly snap back to a keep after 60 minutes if they were last held in a stasis platform within a keep and not captured in a Scroll Temple or other keep. Before this change, this was properly working for Elder Scrolls removed from Scroll Temples, but not for those removed from keeps.
Achievements have been added for killing any Emperor, and for killing an Emperor in your home Campaign.
Keep bonuses no longer display in your Character panel. They are still visible in the Alliance War Bonuses panel.
The inspect keep UI has been updated. When you click on a keep or resource on the map, it will now show its upgrade and level status on the left side of the map.
Mender and Honor Guards at keeps and resources now cast Negate Magic as part of their abilities.
Quests
Experience granted for completing quests that originated in Bruma, Cheydinhal, Chorrol, Cropsford, and Vlastarus has been increased.
Quests that originate in Bruma, Cheydinhal, Chorrol, Cropsford, and Vlastarus can now be completed once per 24 hour cycle (resetting at 6:00 AM EST).
The amount of Alliance Points awarded for completing Scout and Capture quests has been increased.
Siege Weapons
Siege weapons will no longer disappear when mailing them to other players.
Siege weapons can now only be used by characters that are of the same alliance as the weapon. For example, you can no longer put an Aldmeri Dominion siege weapon in your bank, and use it with an Ebonheart Pact or Daggerfall Covenant character.
Art & Animations
General
Fixed a number of issues with NPC appearances.
Fixed issues with the red missing boxes and NPCs with red faces.
Fixed issues with some monster and quest-specific animations.
Updated and improved several character animations for the start of the game.
Fixed an issue where the animation would stutter while riding your horse.
Fixed an issue where the animation would stutter while in stealth.
Fixed a rare issue where art would be missing in some areas.
Fixed an issue that was resulting in some quest scenes having incorrect or missing effects.
Audio
General
More NPC dialog has appropriate voiceover (this is an ongoing effort).
More zones and areas have their orchestral music (this is an ongoing effort).
Audio and sounds have been improved across many aspects of the game.
Some overall mix and balancing sound work has been done (this is an ongoing effort).
Fixed a number of issues with audio from UI and monsters.
Combat & Gameplay
General
You can now skip the tutorial with new characters if any of your characters have completed it already. When you click Create on the character creation screen, you will be presented with a pop-up which will ask you if you wish to skip the tutorial or not.
NOTE: Pre-existing characters before this patch do not qualify; you must complete the tutorial one more time before you are able to skip.
We are aware of the issues brought up by some of you regarding magicka and stamina regeneration. We are continuing to look into this issue, and a number of fixes included in this patch may address this problem. Please keep us posted on whether this patch fixes, improves, or does not change anything for those of you experiencing it.
Fixed an issue that was causing some players to become permanently invisible. This may still occur in very rare cases, so be sure to keep an eye out and /bug anything you come across.
Health enchants are now 50% more effective than before.
Health picks grant less health than before.
Marginally reduced base magicka and stamina regeneration at higher levels. The change of base regeneration is exponentially less with lower level players.
Reworked the re-spec cost to 100 gold per skill point. This results in a very similar cost as the old formula for the first 60 skill points, and a significant reduction in the cost beyond that.
Fixed an issue that was preventing battle leveled characters from getting critical strikes.
Made some modifications to the XP sharing system to fix an issue with power leveling.
Fixed an issue when the reticle would flash red, confirming a hit, even though the target dodged the attack.
You will now accelerate when approaching max speed, and decelerate when stopping.
When changing direction of movement, the acceleration is instantaneous.
Effects from enchantments on bows now trigger properly when a heavy attack is used.
Slightly increased the difficulty of monsters beginning at level 5.
Updated camera shakes for all light and heavy attack impacts or projectile launches. They should generally be slightly larger than before.
Light and heavy melee attack animations and impacts have been improved.
Adjusted the difficulty of several bosses in the Main Quest and Mages Guild quest lines.
Fixed an issue where you would deal damage with charge abilities without actually moving to your target.
Fixed an issue where many abilities were not properly obeying line of sight rules.
Fixed an issue where the Restoration Staff heavy attack beam could get stuck on a monster after the attack was complete.
Fixed an issue where you could appear to be permanently invisible after being killed by the ability Disintegration, and later reviving.
Monsters will now properly work together to use synergies against you.
Increased the damage caused by humanoid monster special attacks (attacks that can be blocked or dodged).
Logging out with a disguise equipped should no longer break the disguise.
Dragonknight
Reduced the cost of Petrify.
Slightly reduced the cost of Take Flight.
Slightly increased the damage return on Spiked Armor.
Slightly increased Dragon Blood healing.
Increased regeneration of Green Dragon Blood.
Reduced the crit bonus for Molten Armaments.
Made improvements to Deep Breath, including increasing the final explode damage, and causing enemies you interrupt to go off-balance.
Increased the cost of Magma Armor.
Increased the damage from Shackle.
Increased the bonus damage from Liquid Lightning.
Significantly reduced the resource restore for Battle Roar.
Fixed an issue where the molten weapons FX could get stuck on your weapon permanently.
Fixed several visual issues with the dragon leap ability.
Nightblade
Fixed an issue with Path of Darkness that could sometimes cause the damage to end earlier than intended.
Increased the morph damage of Twisting Path.
Updated the attack animation for Shadow Image. He is now immobile and shoots a bow.
Increased the cost of Rank 1 Malefic Wreath.
Sap Essence should now correctly heal you if there are no allies nearby.
Reduce the damage of Strife Healing.
Reduced the base snare of Cripple.
Increased the movement speed bonus on a concealed weapon.
Increased the healing from Hidden Refresh.
Reduced the spell damage and weapon damage of Siphoning Strikes, and increased the amount of resources restored.
Significantly increased the stamina regeneration from Focused Attacks.
Weapon Damage now properly updates in your UI when using it on multiple targets.
Sorcerer
Fixed several issues with Charged Lighting
Slightly increased the damage-per-second of Twilight attacks.
Increased the pet damage bonus for Empowered Ward.
Increase the strength of Conjured Ward.
Reduced the armor bonuses and damage from Lightning Form.
The summoned Storm Atronach now has a different appearance, including glowing Daedric runes on him.
Fixed an issue where Lightning Flood III was doing several million more damage than intended (whoops!)
Fixed an issue where Ball of Lightning was not absorbing projectile attacks from some monsters.
Bolt Escape now decreases out-of-combat magicka recovery for 4 seconds.
Templar
Increased the radius of Spear Shards.
Updated Ritual of Rebirth so it now casts faster.
Slightly reduced the heal of Lingering Ritual.
Edited the tooltip text for Restoring Aura.
Slightly increased value of Remembrance, and the bonus damage taken now applies while channeling.
Added a 50% health requirement tooltip to Honor The Dead.
Slightly increased the cost for Focused Charge.
Adjusted Aurora Javelin and Binding Javelin so they have the same damage values.
Redesigned the Restoring Spirit passive ability. This now reduces all magicka, stamina, and ultimate costs.
Slightly increased the Aura Javelin damage bonus.
Increased the shield value per enemy hit for Radiant Ward.
Increased the angle distance for Puncturing Strikes.
Reduced the cost of Healing Ritual for Light Weaver.
Weapon Abilities
Sparks now only applies to melee attacks.
Significantly decreased the chance to apply a status effect against vulnerable monsters when using Force Shock and Impulse.
Fixed an issue with Force Shock, which has resulted in a slight increase to damage.
The maximum health reduction in Pulsar no longer applies to bosses.
Increased the bleed chance from axes from Heavy Weapons.
Increased the bleed chance from axes from Twin Blade and Blunt.
Removed the cast time for Power Bash, and added a feature where you can stun your target for 2 seconds before it disorientates them.
Increased the damage done with Snipe.
Elemental Susceptibility now has a flat value instead of a percentage, which will allow destruction staffs to trigger elemental effects.
Increased the cost of Force Shock.
Decreased the cost of Force Siphon.
Significantly increased the initial damage from Cleave.
Increased the cost of Cleave.
Significantly increased the heal from Rally.
Increased the cost of Hidden Blade.
Reduced the global cooldown of Flurry.
Increased the healing from Blood Craze.
Increased the damage of the Unstable Wall of Elements explosion.
Increased the cost of Reverse Slash.
We decreased the light attack speed for all staves, and increased the damage to compensate. The damage-per-second should be the same, but individual attacks will hit for more damage.
Fixed an issue with Fire Touch occasionally not knocking back your target.
Properly removed the cast time from the Power Bash ability.
Fixed an issue with Wall of Elements that could sometimes cause the damage to end earlier than intended.
Decreased the cost of Wall of Elements.
Increased the range of Destructive Reach.
Increased the duration of the Twin Slashes damage-over-time, resulting in an increase of damage per cast.
Increased the overall damage from Flurry, though the final hit damage remains unchanged.
Guilds
Increase the cost of Meteor.
Burning damage should no longer have a chance to cause additional burning damage.
Reduced the damage for Dawnbreaker.
Slightly increased the cost of Silver Bolts.
Fixed an issue where you could use Caltrops to generate too much Ultimate.
Fixed an issue where you could stack multiple ranks of Rapid Maneuver to gain a huge speed bonus.
The Soul Shatter passive now requires you to have a Soul Magic ability slotted for the explosion on death to occur.
XP
The amount of XP needed to attain the next level has been adjusted across the board. Many skill lines and ability progression lines have had their XP values adjusted as well.
Increased XP for player kills.
Crafting & Economy
General
Edited the names for crafting resources and the resulting items for smithing, tailoring, and woodworking.
Fixed an issue where some smithing stations were not interactable.
Fixed additional issues with crafting nodes that would instantly respawn.
You will now occasionally see the next tier of harvesting material in each zone.
Hirelings now send you more appropriate items in their mails.
Clannfear and Netch monsters now drop leather.
Edited names for some crafting materials.
Fixed an issue where monsters would drop leather inappropriate for their level.
Crafted set items now have their visual tints scaling correctly.
New in-game training manuals have been placed near starter area crafting stations.
Fixed an issue that was causing some jewelry enchantments to temporarily stop functioning after you were killed.
Fixed an issue with the Bash Damage enchant that was causing it to have half the intended effect.
Dungeons/Group Content
General
Dungeon bosses and mini bosses now properly reflect their difficulty on their unit frames.
Fixed several instances of missing icons for enemy abilities used in dungeons.
Iterated on Dark Fissures to make them soloable.
Dark Anchors
More monsters will now spawn at the beginning of the Daedra wave, and they will spawn faster during the event.
Overall difficulty has increased with monsters spawned in during the final boss portion.
Fixed an issue where a Dark Anchor could get stuck in a state where it is incomplete, but has no Daedra present.
Fixed an issue where the effects around Dark Anchors would only appear for players who were nearby when the anchors were triggered. You should now be able to see them from a greater distance.
Exploration & Itemization
General
More areas have lootable barrels, chests, and crates to pillage!
Fixed an issue where clickable fixtures would not spawn correctly in the tutorial.
The Guar vanity pet now has the correct item icon.
Fixed an issue where you could not loot an item in the tutorial if you already had it in your bank.
Updated the location for the Elden Root Shrine of Mara; it is now just east of the Elden Root Wayshrine.
Decreased the sell values of raw and refined materials.
Updated the sell values of potions and trash items so they sell for at least 1 gold at low levels.
Increased and standardized the sell value of weapons and armor. The old values were a bit inconsistent, so the amount of increase varies depending on the item.
Decreased the cost to buy items from vendors. The old values were a bit inconsistent, so the amount of decrease varies depending on the item.
Inventory & Bank
General
Increased the starting bank size by 30. We removed 3 potential bank upgrades, and increased the cost of the later bank upgrades to account for this.
Increased the starting inventory size by 10. We removed 1 potential inventory upgrade, and increased the cost of the later inventory upgrades to account for this.
Loot
Enemy loot drops now take your level into account, providing loot that is more level-appropriate. If your level is higher than the enemys level, loot received will be of that enemys level.
Items obtained by interactable objects, such as barrels and crates, now have a sell value of 0 to prevent looting exploits.
Known Issue: As a side effect, some low level items now incorrectly have a sell value of 0.
Items obtained from monsters in Cyrodiil are now capped at level 50.
Kargans Helmet can no longer be double enchanted.
Vendors should now be showing the correct stores.
Empty interactable objects should appear empty.
Multiple quest rewards in Coldharbour now have enchantments.
Fixed a number of items which could be double enchanted.
Equipping bind-on-equip items will give you a tutorial describing the behavior.
Reduced the quality of the items dropped in the tutorial area.
Mac Client
General
Fixed an issue where copying one character out of a block of text would instead copy the entire block of text.
Fixed an issue where copy/paste keyboard commands were causing the game to occasionally freeze.
Fixed an issue where players with Iris Pro GPUs were seeing many copies of every NPC on-screen.
Fixed an issue where only the first letter of a copied text block would paste when attempting to paste text into the chat window in-game.
Miscellaneous
General
One Time Password functionality is now live. Untrusted devices will be prompted to enter a one time password - provided via email - in the same way that the Account website challenges untrusted devices.
Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash when using a crystal shard, jumping into water, using social jumps, or traveling via wayshrines.
Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash when a quest portal teleported you to a location below the world.
Fixed an issue where the game could crash if you had an effect on you while you had a food buff or held item.
Quests
General
We have fixed thousands of issues with quests and content in the game.
Fixed issues with disguises disappearing or preventing quest progression.
Fixed several quests that could not be completed once you finished the area they were intended to introduce.
Many followers should be better at following you.
Visuals for interacting with and destroying various gems across the game have been improved.
Fixed an issue where ship doors caused you to go to an incorrect location.
Many voice-over mismatches and typos have been fixed.
Known Issue: If you have not completed the quest Soul Shiven in Coldharbour, you will be moved back to the beginning of the quest.
Guilds
Fixed an issue that was preventing Mages Guild achievements from properly granting upon completion.
Gutsripper is no longer quite as fearsome as his name, and his difficulty has been adjusted.
Fixed an issue with the quest Glade of the Divine.
Main Quest
Adjusted the difficulty for a skeleton in the tutorial so he can now be killed.
Segments of the tutorial have been removed to improve pacing.
Weapon racks were removed from the tutorial and replaced with a table full of swords.
Fixed an issue in the tutorial where Cadwells song was no longer being played when you approached him.
Fixed several issues with skeleton animations in the tutorial to stop pops and stutters.
Interactable objects were added to iron maidens, wheelbarrows, buckets, and skull piles in the tutorial.
Lyris Titanborn now respawns reliably when you log out on any step of the tutorial.
The Harvester at the end of the tutorial was replaced with multiple skeletons, followed by a Bone Colossus.
Molag Bals appearance at the end of the tutorial was re-worked with new effects and VO.
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