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. Here’s a brief overview of what awaits you in this test:

Thousands of fixes for quest issues across the entire game.

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 Bal’s newest threat – Dark Fissures, smaller version of Dark Anchors.

Player to NPC collision.

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.

TEST GOALS

For this test, we have a few goals we’d like you to try and reach while playing the game.

Start a new character, and provide feedback on 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, we’ve 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 Khenarthi’s Roost. Razum-dar will be waiting for you in Eagle’s Strand when you take the quest Storm on the Horizon from Captain Tremouille. There is now a ship that will ferry you to Khenarthi’s Roost from Vulkhel Guard.

Daggerfall Covenant

New characters leaving Coldharbor now arrive in Daggerfall instead of Stros M’Kai. 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 M’Kai from Daggerfall.

Ebonheart Pact

New characters leaving Coldharbor now arrive in Davon’s 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 Davon’s 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. We’d appreciate everyone’s 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.

Known Issues

Some ship hatch doors may be difficult to target, or could potentially teleport you to locations that are slightly off where you should have ended up.

Your cursor may become active during lockpicking, and can hinder interaction with the tumblers. 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.

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.

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.

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).

Combat & Gameplay

General

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 monsters in Veteran Rank 9 zones would appear as a level 50 monster. They should now be the appropriate level.

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.

Adjusted the speed of cost reduction enchants through Veteran ranks.

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).

Updated the Vampirism stage tooltips to better reflect their effects.

Fixed an issue where the Call of the Pack passive would cause UI error sounds to play.

Fixed an issue where the Devour icon would not show up on your screen.

Logging out with a disguise equipped should no longer break the disguise.

Balance changes

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

These guys are working hard. Keep up the good work and you will have an awesome game!