The Elder Scrolls Online v0.16 introduces fixes and improvements to existing content based on tester feedback—particularly regarding combat ability balance and crafting. New zones can be explored, the Alliance War is available, Dark Anchors have been reintroduced, and many new features have been added.
Here’s a brief overview of what awaits you in this test:
Play through level 1-17 content for all three alliances. Please note that characters have been wiped and there are no character templates for this test.
Dark Anchors have completely new art and gameplay.
Re-designed the map system with new art, pan/zoom options, and more areas to explore.
Combat polish and tweaks.
Fight for your alliance by participating in the Alliance War in Cyrodiil.
The fully-redesigned crafting system is ready for you to test.
Improvements and fixes to skill lines have been implemented.
Many improvements and fixes to the UI have been made.
During this test, you will have access to the following areas:
Khenarthi’s Roost
Auridon
Stros M’Kai
Betnikh
Glenumbra
Bleakrock Isle
Bal Foyen
Stonefalls
Cyrodiil
TEST GOALS
For this test, we have a couple goals we’d like you to try to reach while playing the game.
Find and complete at least one group dungeon.
Travel to Cyrodiil and participate in the Alliance War.
Reach Rank 5 in all crafting skills.
Try out the new Dark Anchors and let us know what you think!
BIG CHANGES / UPDATES / NEW FEATURES
Dark Anchors
Dark Anchors have been re-enabled with completely new art and gameplay. They can be found in areas of approximately level seven and up.
Dark Anchors offer special achievements and reputation for the Fighters Guild. A character must be within five levels of the Dark Anchor to earn reputation.
Dark Anchors are now larger and more epic.
The ritual that summons Dark Anchors is more spectacular.
Dark Anchors have new mechanics that progress the event after the Daedra spawn.
Maps
The new map system has been implemented, featuring new map art, zoom/pan support, and lots of new icons to call out areas of interest. Also vendor, crafting station, and Fighters/Mages Guild locations are shown on city maps.
New map markers indicating interesting locations and group bosses have been added.
Maps of cities now display the locations of vendors and crafting stations.
Map tooltips and their placements have been updated.
Personal waypoints can now be set on the map using the “F” key. They persist for one hour.
Filters, zoom, and quest list panels have been added.
Map window art has been updated.
Waypoints can be removed from the map by mousing over them and using the “F” key.
Exploration & Itemization
Traits
Traits now appear on weapons, armor, and jewelry. These are inherent properties items may have that modify their behavior in interesting new ways. They are not the same as enhancements. The traits are:
Armor
Divines, Exploration, Impenetrable, Infused, Intricate, Ornate, Reinforced, Sturdy, Training, and Well-Fitted
Jewelry
Arcane, Healthy, Ornate, and Robust
Weapons
Charged, Defending, Infused, Intricate, Ornate, Powered, Precise, Sharpened, Training, and Weighted
Skill Books[/i}
Bookshelves throughout Tamriel now contain books that slightly increase a particular skill when read. There are five skill books for each class, weapon, and armor type. There are also skill books that will increase each of the crafting professions.
Crafting & Economy
The newly-redesigned crafting system is now live. There are now six crafting professions. They are:
Alchemist: Collects plants and mushrooms to create potions which can be used in combat. Alchemists have to match ingredients with desirable properties to brew the best potions.
Enchanter: Gathers runestones inscribed with words in a mysterious language from obelisks throughout the world. Runestones can be combined to create glyphs, which add enchantments to weapons, armor, and jewelry.
Provisioner: Collects grains, broth, meat, and other ingredients to create food and drink that provide long-lasting beneficial effects. Provisioners need to find high-quality ingredients to make the best food and drink.
Smiths:
There are three types of smiths:
Woodworker: Uses wood to make shields, staves, and bows.
Blacksmith: Forges heavy armor and metal weapons from various ores.
Clothier: Harvests fibrous plants and uses animal hides to make light and medium armor.
All smiths make use of the following resources:
Raw materials – The ores, plants, hides, or wood that define the item’s level range (amount determines exact level)
Style components – A special item that defines the product’s racial style (Redguard, Bosmer, etc.)
Trait components (optional) – Add traits to the item
Smiths must research traits for specific types of gear to be able to add them to the gear they create.
Smiths can create booster items called tannins, tempers, or resins (depending on the crafting skill). These allow players to improve the quality of an item and they are tradable, so no one can run off with your awesome, upgraded bow!
Using a booster does not guarantee that the target item will be improved. Using multiple boosters increases the chance of a successful upgrade. If the attempt fails, the item and boosters are destroyed. However, 100% success can be ensured by using enough boosters.
All smiths can deconstruct raw materials and items to recover style components, trait components, and tempers, tannins, or resins.
Special crafting stations can be discovered throughout the world. When a smith uses one of these stations, he or she can create items that are part that station’s set. Items in sets confer bonuses that increase based on how many items in that set a character is wearing. Set gear cannot be enchanted, but it can be imbued with traits.
Resource nodes for gathering materials are now active in the world.
FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS
Alliance War
Alliance War & Cyrodiil Adjustments
The Bloodthorn and Scourge campaigns have a higher population cap.
Guards at all keeps and resources now gain increased ability effectiveness with upgrade levels.
Art & Animations
Characters now perform an animation when looting items in the world.
Fixed an issue that caused some glow effects to appear black.
Hit reaction animations for larger monsters have been improved.
Target reaction animations now move the target in a direction that corresponds to the attack.
Fixed an issue that caused NPCs to move with unnatural speed immediately after a load screen faded.
Some issues that caused NPC animations to “pop” have been resolved.
Corrected an issue that prevented looting animations from playing in first-person mode.
An issue that caused characters to pop forward when interacting with objects has been fixed.
Fixed an issue that caused NPCs to occasionally spawn underneath the terrain or in other objects.
A few issues that could cause NPCs to disappear unexpectedly while interacting with another NPC have been fixed.
Audio/VO
General
Performance-related audio stuttering occurs less.
Combat music more accurately reflects the current gameplay circumstances.
The audio transition when moving in and out of enclosed areas is more natural.
Sounds for many monsters, dungeon bosses, abilities, and weapons have been improved as part of an ongoing process.
Ambient environmental sounds have been improved.
Audio for the main quest has been improved.
Fixed an issue that prevented some fixture sounds from playing (e.g. some in the tutorial).
Many UI elements have new or improved sounds as part of an ongoing process.
Music now plays when you are killed.
Corrected an issue that caused NPCs and followers to greet you at inappropriate times.
Known Issues
Some NPC voices are not yet recorded and still have “robo” voice-over. We are in the process of replacing these temporary voice-over lines.
NPCs are sometimes completely silent and have no voice-over at all.
Sound for the final chapter of the main quest is not complete.
Classes & Skill Lines
General
Fixed several issues where regeneration was not being correctly calculated.
All charges now immobilize the target for .5 seconds. This change is not yet reflected by tooltips.
Group buffs (e.g. Molten Weapons) now prioritize members of the caster’s own group before other allies.
Damage shields (e.g. Obsidian Shield) are now more powerful.
An issue that caused characters to fall beneath the terrain when using certain abilities has been corrected.
Argonian
Amphibious: This ability now also increases maximum health.
Argonian Resistance: This ability no longer increases regeneration. It now increases the effectiveness of potions.
Bow
Snipe: The potency of the Lethal Arrow morph’s healing reduction effect has been reduced at rank four.
Dark Elf
Resist Flame: This ability now additionally increases maximum magicka.
Destruction Staff
Force Shock: This ability no longer interrupts casting. It now applies all three elemental status effects. The Crushing Shock morph now stuns and puts casting targets off balance, and the Force Pulse morph deals damage to nearby enemies that are chilled, burning, or concussed.
Penetrating Magic: This ability now reduces the target’s spell resistance.
Tri Focus (Fire): This ability now increases critical strike chance with destruction abilities against the target.
Dragonknight
Burning Breath: The ability now reduces the target’s armor.
Dragon Blood: This ability’s resource cost has been slightly reduced.
Dragon Leap: The minimum range for this ability has been reduced.
Inferno: The resource cost for this ability has been significantly reduced.
Inhale: The amount of damage and healing associated with this ability’s initial cast has been reduced.
Molten Weapons: This ability now gives increased power and scales in the same way other power bonuses in the game do.
Petrify: An issue that caused this ability to cost more than intended has been corrected. Its damage shield value has been increased, and the target’s health regeneration bonus has been removed.
Warmth: This ability’s snare reduction has been decreased.
Dual Wield
Hidden Blade: The interrupt effect has been removed from this ability. The Flying Blade morph no longer provides increased damage.
Ruffian: This ability now applies only to dual wield attacks instead of all attacks.
Slaughter: This ability now applies only to dual wield attacks instead of all attacks.
Khajiit
Stealthy: This ability now also increases damage dealt from stealth.
Heavy Armor
Resolve: This passive now scales off the character’s current armor value.
Mages Guild
Equilibrium: The health cost of this ability has been increased. The Balance morph of this ability has had its health regeneration percentage increased and its duration slightly increased.
Mage Adept: This ability no longer reduces the cost of ultimate abilities. It now properly reduces the health cost of Equilibrium.
Meteor: Damage from this ability has been slightly reduced.
Nightblade
Agony: This ability’s Malefic Wreath morph now causes area of effect damage when a crowd control ability on the Nightblade breaks, dealing more damage for each second the crowd control was active.
Consuming Darkness: This ability now reduces damage taken by the caster and nearby allies.
Death Stroke: This ability’s healing reduction effect has been decreased, and it no longer deals excessive damage on critical strikes.
Mark Target: This ability now ignores more of the target’s resistance.
Siphoning Strikes: This ability’s Siphoning Attacks morph no longer restores resources for all ability uses.
Soul Shred: The resource cost of this ability’s Soul Siphon morph has been reduced, and the health cost has been removed. Its damage has been decreased, the duration of its healing effect has been shortened, and it heals more frequently while active.
Strife: This ability’s Funnel Health morph now targets the two most injured allies and prefers targets that are not already affected by Funnel Health.
Teleport Strike: This ability now stuns PvE targets and immobilizes PvP targets.
Veiled Strike: The resource cost for this ability has been increased. The caster is no longer required to be in stealth to use it, but it will only stun and knock its target off balance if it is used from stealth.
Nord
Resist Frost: This ability now additionally increases maximum health.
One-Handed and Shield
Fortress: This passive now reduces the resource costs of One-Handed and Shield abilities in addition to reducing the stamina cost of blocking.
Orc
Swift: This ability now includes increased sprint speed.
Restoration Staff
Force Siphon: This ability’s self-healing percentage has been increased.
Blessing of Protection: The bonus armor and spell resistance provided by this ability have been reduced.
Regeneration: This ability now affects two targets, preferring targets not already affected by Regeneration. Its cost has been increased. Its morph, Rapid Regeneration, no longer adds an initial heal, but increases the frequency of healing over time.
Steadfast Ward: The duration of this ability has been reduced, and its base shield value has been increased.
Sorcerer
Boundless Storm: The movement speed bonus granted by this ability has been reduced.
Conjured Ward: The strength and resource cost of this ability have been increased. The pet damage bonus granted by the Empowered Ward morph has been increased, and the Healing Ward morph now heals the target for an additional amount beyond the remaining shield value.
Crystal Shards: Progression and morphs (Crystal Blast and Crystal Fragments) for this ability are now available.
Dark Exchange: Armor and spell resistance bonuses provided by this ability’s Dark Deal morph have been increased.
Negate Magic: This ability now silences targets in the area and stuns monsters. It no longer deals damage.
Rune Prison: Health regeneration bonuses have been removed from this ability. The Rune Cage morph now stuns the enemy for three seconds when the effect ends instead of reducing magicka cost. Its magicka cost has been reduced.
Support
Barrier: The cost of this ability has been reduced.
Templar
Cleansing Ritual: This ability’s tooltip now notes that its synergy heals the target. Its healing has been increased.
Eclipse: This ability’s recast cost bonus has been removed, and its resource cost has been increased.
Restoring Aura: This ability’s regeneration rate has been increased. It now chooses a target based on the target’s distance from the Templar, favoring closer allies.
Rune Focus: The resource cost of this ability has been reduced, and it provides more bonus armor and resistance.
Sun Shield: This ability now properly increases shield strength by a percentage instead of a flat value. Its shield value has been reduced. The strength of the Blazing Shield morph is increased based on the number of nearby enemies.
Two-Handed
Reverse Slash: This ability’s base damage has been increased, and its damage scaling relative to the target’s health deficit has been decreased. Damage now starts scaling when the target is at half health instead of immediately.
Undaunted
Bone Shield: This ability’s duration has been decreased. It now grants you bonus armor instead of increasing the target’s damage taken. Its armor rating has been increased.
Wood Elf
Stealthy: This ability now also increases damage dealt from stealth.
Resist Affliction: This ability now also increases maximum stamina.
Combat & Gameplay
Character Changes
Using a synergy ability no longer costs magicka. Synergy abilities cannot be used as frequently.
The stamina cost for dodging has been increased. Dodging now removes immobilization effects.
Increasing maximum stamina (permanently and temporarily) now increases light and heavy weapon attack damage.
Stats and attributes are now affected by diminishing returns when pushed to extreme values.
The cost to break free from crowd control effects has been increased.
Events that grant experience, such as completing quests, killing enemies, and discovering points of interest now grant more experience.
Armor decay and death penalties now happen faster.
Fighters Guild
Reputation gain rates for this guild have been decreased.
NPCs
Fixed an issue that caused dead enemies to appear as though they were engaged in combat with the player’s character.
Corrected an issue that gave monsters more armor than intended. Combat with low-level enemies should be slightly easier for characters that rely on physical attacks.
Summoner-type enemies now attack less frequently, but their pets deal increased damage.
Enemy evade behavior has been improved. Enemies no longer evade for no apparent reason.
PvP
Successfully interrupting a target in PvP by bashing it now also stuns the target for three seconds.
The appropriate amount of experience is now rewarded for killing other player characters.
Mounts
When horses (mounts) run through water, foot splashes now play.
Mount sprint has been adjusted. Pressing the sprint key rapidly now results in large speed boosts, but the horse’s stamina will deplete quickly. Holding the key grants a smaller speed boost that can be maintained even when stamina is fully depleted.
Initial horse speeds have been reduced.
Issues with mount behavior around walls and other objects have been fixed.
Miscellaneous
The maximum camera zoom distance has been reduced.
Crafting and Economy
General
The amount of gold on many enemies has been changed.
Some enemies now drop “vendor only” loot instead of nothing at all.
Prices for goods and services have been adjusted across the board.
Exploration & Itemization
General
The locations of some Skyshards and their associated hints have been updated.
Loot tables for enemies, chests, barrels, crates, furniture, and more have been adjusted.
Vendors have been updated to sell new goods, and they now have titles that correspond with crafting skills.
Crafting materials and quest items are now rewarded even if a character has out-leveled the zone.
Quests
Auridon
We have fixed many issues related to the Torinaan & Shattered Grove objectives.
Glenumbra
We have made many updates to this zone based on feedback and suggestions.
Ash and Reprieve: It is now possible to rescue Luzmash after freeing Mura from the flaming house.
Crocodile Bounty: Fixed issues relating to the distance and location of the note in this quest.
Crosswych Quests: These quests have been reworked based on feedback. Completion of the quest “Crosswych Reclaimed” is no longer required to begin them.
Cursed Treasure: The map pins for this quest have been updated to better indicate objectives.
Disorganized Crime: This quest has been reworked and improved.
Farlivere’s Gambit: This quest has been reworked and improved.
Mists of Corruption: The skeleton attackers associated with this quest have been rebalanced.
The Lion Guard’s Stand: This quest has been reworked so that it is available if Blithe is missed or ignored.
Wicked Trade: This quest will update for all members of a group when one group member interacts with the crystal in the ruins. Using the crystal no longer prevents others from activating it.
Wyrd and Coven: The hag bodies associated with this quest can no longer be used repeatedly by more than one group member.
User Interface
Auto-loot
Temporarily removed the "auto-loot" option to address a client crash that would occur when looting for the first time after logging in while the auto-loot option was enabled.
Achievements
The look of the achievements window has been updated. Work to update this window continues, and there are more improvements to come.
Achievement lines now display all achievements in that line, even if they are not yet available.
You can now filter achievements by “all,” “earned,” and “unearned.”
Add-Ons
Add-on versioning works properly.
An option to load out-of-date add-ons has been added.
The add-ons window art and layout have been improved.
Character Creation and Selection
An intro movie now plays when logging into an account with no existing characters.
The “Create” button is now disabled if a player has created the maximum number of characters.
Character Stats
The character stats window now provides more detailed information and tooltips.
The process for spending attribute points has been improved and is more visible.
Tooltips have been added to health, magicka, and stamina bars.
The +/- buttons are now hidden when you have no attribute points to spend.
Chat
The chat window art and layout have been updated.
Many new options for the chat window are available.
A social options window, which includes chat channel color and font size options, has been added.
Crafting
The UI for the new crafting system is ready for use, but it still contains some placeholder art. The smithing UI, especially, is still using placeholder art.
Login
The look of the login screen has been updated.
Server status messages now indicate when a server is undergoing maintenance or is otherwise unavailable.
Dialog prompts for a One-Time-Password have been added. When logging in from a new device or untrusted machine, you’ll be prompted to enter a code. This code will be sent to the email address associated with your account. If you fail to enter the code correctly too many times, you will be prevented from logging in and will need to contact customer support.
A pre-game slideshow has been added to the login screen.
The game menu has been offset to account for varied resolutions and will always appear close to the left side of the login controls.
You can now set a computer as a “trusted device.” You can allow a trusted device to remember your account name.
Pressing the Enter key after entering a password now attempts login.
Fixed issues that prevented the "Cancel" option from working as intended while connecting to a server.
The credits screen has been added, but the credits are not yet available. Hit any key to exit the credits screen.
Mail
Fixed an issue that resulted in mail with gold attached not being returnable.
Options
The gamma adjustment screen now includes three images to aid with personalizing the setting. You can set the middle image so that it’s barely visible—when you do so, the left image should be completely invisible. The image on the right should always be visible, but will never become completely white.
Graphics settings that can be applied immediately are now applied immediately. Some settings require you to accept the change and require a loading screen for application.
Character helms can now be hidden. This is a per-character appearance setting; it also applies to the character’s appearance on the character select screen. This setting is located in the options window (In-World).
Having both the area-of-effect and auto-loot options enabled no longer prevents auto-loot from working.
Reticle
Player requests to trade, group, and share quests can now be accepted or declined by pressing “F” or “X” immediately instead of needing to bring up the dialogue window first.
Friend and guild invites are now displayed in the HUD.
Social
When dragging an item from the inventory to a trade window or mousing over a row while it updates, the highlight animation and tooltip now appear and vanish accordingly.
Players in your character’s alliance can now be reported by hitting “F” while the reticle is over their character.
The offline icon for guild members and friends now displays how long they’ve been offline on mouseover. Offline friends and guild members are sorted by how long they’ve been offline.
Targeting HUD
We have updated the targeting HUD elements to display information more appropriately when it comes to levels, alliances, and enemy difficulty.
The location of the targeting HUD has been adjusted so that it appears closer to the compass.
Titles now display under a target's name.
Framing that indicates difficulty of the target has been added to the targeting HUD.
Regular frame – ‘Easy’ creature
Frame with 1 pip on the sides – ‘Normal’ creature
Frame with 2 pips on sides – ‘Hard’ creature
Frame with 3 pips on sides – ‘Deadly’ creature
Tooltips
Item and ability tooltips have been updated with new layouts and data.
Miscellaneous
Several bug fixes have been made for treasure maps.
A logout timer has been implemented for logging out in unsafe locations. It prevents logging out during combat and some other situations.
We have removed the exhaustion bar. Instead, if you swim too far away from land, you will be devoured by hungry, vicious slaughterfish. Don’t feed the fish!
A number of issues that caused players to receive “message rate limit” errors and get kicked from the game have been fixed.
I understand it's a ST and it might be unplayable but first time I've actually begged for a beta key.
