PTS Patch Notes v12.0.2

ZOS_Kevin

Welcome to The Elder Scrolls Online PTS v12.0.2! This week, we have our first pass incorporating your feedback into Werewolf changes. This includes skill tweaks and visual adjustments (looking at you, Berserker markings).

Additionally, we have end of Season Tamriel Tome experience available to test this week. This will be available starting April 30th. There is also a list of fixes to Base Game content, Player Experience Improvements, and Combat.

Lastly, EU Players, your character copies are now available on PTS. Thank you for providing feedback to improve U50 and Seasonal content for launch. This update is around 745MB in size. Thanks!

• Overview
• Tamriel Tomes
• Player Experience Improvements
• Template Information
• Known Issues
• Combat & Gameplay
• Base Game

ZOS_Kevin

Tamriel Tomes

• The end of Season experience has been added to the game. You will be able to test this on PTS after 10 AM ET on 4/30 following the end of Season U50 PTS. You can also read more about how this works and our thinking behind it here: Tamriel Tomes Season Zero Developer Update - Elder Scrolls Online. This includes the following:
  • The end of Season rewards auto-claimer.
  • The ability to roll over up to 2,000 Tome Points to a future Season’s Tamriel Tome.
  • Any excess Tome Points beyond the 2,000 Tome Point roll-over cap will be converted to Gold after the auto-claimer has finished. You will receive 10 Gold for every Tome Point converted.
• You can now obtain additional rerolls for Weekly Challenges by spending gold.
  • This is in addition to the five free Weekly Challenge rerolls every week.
  • The initial cost for additional rerolls is 500 gold, increasing up to a maximum of 10,000 gold with subsequent use. This cost resets back to 500 gold every Tuesday after the weekly reset.

Season U50 PTS Challenges

• Players should now be able to claim the Daily Login Seasonal Challenge even if they logged in prior to a Season's start.

User Experience

• The Tamriel Tomes Challenges Help Menu has been updated to explain how rerolling Weekly Challenges for Gold works.
• Fixed an issue that caused no audio to be played when claiming a Challenge using left-click.

Player Experience Improvements

• Path to Adventure
  • The Discover X wayshrines timed activity should no longer grant progress for visiting previously visited wayshrines.
  • Resolved an issue where the Golden Pursuit task "Visit Vulkhel Guard, Daggerfall, or Davon's Watch" would not complete when visiting the specified locations.
  • Resolved an issue where some bankers would not increment your Golden Pursuit progress for the task "Talk to a Banker.”

• Motif Sourcing Information Improvements
  • We fixed a number of typos and removed inconsistencies/improved clarity on multiple motif sourcings.
    • Sunspire Style
    • Silken Ring Style
    • Mazzatun Style
    • Grim Harlequin Style
    • Frostcaster Style
    • Tsaesci Style
    • Barbaric Style
    • Primal Style
    • Daedric Style
    • Thorn Legion Style
    • Hazardous Alchemy Style
    • Shield of Senchal Style
    • Stirk Fellowship Style
    • Icereach Coven Style
    • West Weald Legion Style
    • Y’ffre’s Will Style
    • Nighthollow Style
    • And more...

Dynamic Encounters

• Flowervine Farm (Auridon)
  • Each step of the encounter now displays the remaining time.
  • Fixed the final stage becoming stuck at 98% complete when there were 8 or more players participating.
  • Hirylane’s dialog now plays correctly if you fail to rescue her before time runs out.
  • Hirylane will be a little more patient and shout at players less often.
• Bilsa’s Delivery (Stonefalls)
  • Bilsa no longer interrupts herself and speaks less often.

ZOS_Kevin

• EU character copy is available on PTS this week.

ZOS_Kevin

General

• Damage Done to Monsters: Updated the values to the following effects after fixing their previous multiplicative effectiveness;
  • Tide-born Wildstalker: Increased to 15%, up from 12%.
  • Bahsei’s Mania: Increased to 15%, up from 12%.
  • Ansuul’s Torment: Increased to 7% and 21% after interrupting, up from 6% and 18%.
  • Empower: Increased to 100%, up from 70%. Empower no longer grants its bonus effects if Battle Spirit is active, to correct interactions with passives such as Forceful and Tri Focus in PvPvE situations.
  • Born From Shadow: Increased to 15%, up from 10%.

Abilities: Classes

• Nightblade
  • Assassination
    • Pressure Points: This passive now grants 1|2% Critical Chance per Nightblade ability slotted, rather than 1.25|2.5% Critical Chance per Assassination ability slotted.
      
      [Developer Comment]
      While we won’t be updating passives always ahead of a class’s refresh schedule, small targeted changes like this can help us correct some of the dominant behaviors ahead of time while opening more opportunities for other builds to have a chance to shine. This should help pure class Nightblade a smidge, while also toning down slightly how dense the power is here. We don’t expect this to drastically shake things up, but it fits our needs and is helping two birds with one stone.

• Warden
  • Green Balance
    • Nature’s Gift: This passive now activates on Overhealing done, rather than healing done, at the behest of you all.
• Dragonknight
  • Ardent Flame
    • Shifting Standard: This ultimate's visuals now correctly ends at the same time as the ability actually ends when using in tandem with the Elf Bane set.

World

• Werewolf
  • General note: From week 1, we’ve seen a lot of good feedback and fair criticisms on the combat side of things, so we’re making our first pass here. The big things we’re trying to improve are making sure the experience feels powerful in PvE, while being less oppressive in PvP. A lot of the adjustments you’ll see will gently nudge up damage in PvE, while toning back some of the most problematic stuff in PvP but utilizing differencing duration effects or values based on the context.
    • We’ve heard some of the feedback on cleave damage feeling low – which is largely intentional. It should be up considerably from previous updates, but the Werewolf is less about area devastation, and more about single target hunting and burst.
    • We’ve also seen some desire for ranged capabilities for tanks, and while we’d love to find something that makes sense both thematically and with the kit they have, range doesn’t align with the experience of Werewolves. Many of the suggestions of spawning direwolves to attack and taunt an enemy also lack a suitable home to be built in a performant manner, but we are aware of these wants and we’ll continue to investigate solutions.
      • Something we could investigate sooner is making Pounce and morph’s work with Deafening Roar’s taunt upgrade – causing them to also taunt if cast while Blocking (which we’d need to update them to be able to do as well). While they aren’t able to be used stationary from a range, they are a form of range that would let you quickly jump back and forth between enemies before clumping them up.
  • Werewolf Transformation
    • Werewolf Berserker: This morph’s Bleed now lasts for 4 seconds with 1 second delay against monsters (partial reversion to pre-PTS), up from 2s with a 1s delay. Against players, it will last for 1 second after a 1s delay.
  • Gnash: Reduced the execute scaling of this ability and the Rip and Tear morph to 175%, down from 200%. Bloody Gnash retains the 200%.
    • Rip and Tear: This morph now longer gains the 25% bonus damage with Blood Hunter, but retains the increased healing effect. Reduced the base healing value by ~43%.
      
      [Developer Comment]
      We're toning down how much damage and healing this morph offers compared to week 1 of PTS, since this morph was both out damaging the other morph and adding too much self-survivability to the Werewolf kit.
  • Rending Claws: This ability and the Bloodclaws morph now last for 6 seconds against players. The duration against monsters remains untouched.
  • Feral Cruelty: Fixed an issue where this passive did not apply its Weapon and Spell Damage bonus at rank 2. This passive now has reduced effectiveness against targets with Battle Spirit, reduced to 5|10%, down from 16|33%.
  • Call of the Hunt: This passive now has been gently buffed for non-maximum group sizes, primarily focused on helping the lone wolves. This passive now reduces the cost of remaining in Werewolf form by 8|16% + 8|16% for every transformed Werewolf or Direwolf in your group, including yourself, up from 10|20%. This means in solo, your cost reduction will be 16% or 32%, up from 10% or 20%, while still being higher at every additional integer increase, but also retaining the same maximum value of 40|80% at 4 total targets.
  • Visuals and Audio
    • Polished various Werewolf locomotion and Slaughter animations.
    • Fixed a visual issue with the Power of the Daedra buff from Dark Anchors on the new werewolf models.
    • Updated the Werewolf markings based on player feedback. Originally, these markings were intended to provide an obvious differentiation between the Werewolf Transformation morphs outside of the dire wolves present on the Pack Leader morph. The markings still function as a source of differentiation between morphs, but have now also been tied to the Rampage ability to provide better visibility on the ability's functionality. The following changes have been implemented:
      • The markings will now only become visible when Rampage is ready to cast. Once Rampage has been cast, the markings will remain visible until Rampage is over.
        • You can build up Rampage and leave combat to have the markings remain visible outside of combat.
      • The intensity of the Berserker morph markings has been decreased.
      • A blue version of the Pack Leader markings has been added to the base Werewolf Transformation ability to provide consistent mechanical clarity for Rampage.

Class Mastery

• Arcanist
  • Ink-Scribe's Verve: This passive now grants you and group members Major Force for 10 seconds when it activates. Increased the activation threshold to 100k Health healed or overhealed, up from 75k, to account for the new power it can grant.
    
    [Developer Comment]
    We're hesitantly adding a powerful bonus activation here, offering a named effect that groups normally build and coordinate around aggressively. This won't necessarily add power across the board, but it will help your group potentially run other ultimates or item sets if you can manage to keep fate in your hands.
  • Fate Realigned: This passive no longer causes Crux to reapply or generate while out of combat. The previous issue caused you to never be able to lose Crux by decaying anymore.
  • Erudite's Rigor: This passive now inflicts Minor Cowardice on the attacker and Major Vitality to you and your group for 4 seconds, while granting you 1 Ultimate per Crux you have, rather than granting 1 Ultimate and 200 Magicka and Stamina, increasing by 100 Magicka and Stamina per Crux you have.
    [Developer Comment]
    We've heard the feedback that this passive felt flat and unimpressive, granting bonuses that Arcanist tanks don't really need. We've put more emphasis on the selfish aspect by buffing the potential Ultimate you gain, while adding more utility with the named effects.

• Dragonknight
  • Booming Voice: This passive now has a 15 second delay before the recovery bonus activates, in efforts to correct the cases where the recovery was wasted.
• Nightblade
  • Above and Beyond: Increased this passive’s bonus to Critical Damage and Healing Done to 25%, reducing to 5% against targets with Battle Spirit, rather than granting 15%, reduced to 7% against targets with Battle Spirit. Increased the Critical Damage and Healing maximum to 35%, up from 25%.
  • Eye for Exploitation: Increased this passive’s maximum Weapon and Spell Damage to 2500, up from 1250, and damage reduction to 20%, up from 12%. Both values are halved against targets with Battle Spirit.
  • Cutthroat’s Focus: This passive’s damage taken effect now lasts for 20 seconds against monsters.
  • Share the Spoils: This passive now grants 2 Ultimate and the Magicka and Stamina to all group members, rather than granting 1 Ultimate and the resources to only 4.
• Necromancer
  • Cycle Unending: This effect now grants potency to damage done, rather than damage done, making it apply to base damage calculations – or multiplicative in simpler terms. Reduced the bonus against players to 10%, down from 12%.
  • Malevolent Promise: This passive now also forcibly triggers rank 1 of Corpse Consumption’s Ultimate (5), ignoring its cooldown, in addition to its existing effects.
  • Pound of Flesh: This passive now has a base 10% chance of activating, up from 1%. Note that the calculation for this passive also occurs after taking damage, meaning your remaining Health % will add to this 10%, making it trigger significantly more than before.
  • Veil’s Forfeit: This passive now triggers when you heal a target at 66% Health or lower, up from 50%. This passive now passively increases the duration of Major Vulnerability sources you apply by 50%, rather than granting 2 Ultimate to the target that the living corpse effect was removed or replaced on.
• Sorcerer
  • Calculated Defense: Increased this passive’s Weapon and Spell Damage bonus to 6%, up from 3%.
  • Conservation of Energy: Fixed an issue where this passive did not trigger off many abilities that did not require a target.
  • Sphere of Influence: Increased the Tri Recovery bonus from this passive to 225 for 12 seconds, up from 150 for 4 seconds.
  • Static Reverberation: This passive now has a base 1% chance to activate in addition to its 1% increase for every 1% missing Health the target has. Increased the cooldown to 500ms, up from 200ms, to reduce how powerful this passive could be, especially on non-pet builds. This should lower the crazy ceiling by a decent chunk, while also tightening the gap between pet and pet-less builds.
• Templar
  • Judment’s Brand: Increased the damage bonus of this passive to 1500, reduced to 750 against players, up from 1250, reduced to 625 against players.
• Warden
  • Bountiful Harvest: This passive now grants you and group members Major Heroism for 3 seconds and 125 Magicka and Stamina, rather than granting the healed target Major Heroism for 4.5 seconds and 250 Magicka and Stamina.
  • Tundra’s Maw: Fixed an issue where this passive could fail to apply Major Brittle in some cases, namely with certain ability interactions that used AoE 2.0 tech.

General

• The Prowler’s Talisman
  • This item is now flagged as unique.

Item Sets

• Class Sets
  • Aerie’s Cry: This set can now stack between multiple users, correcting the conflicting design the set originally stated. Apologies to all the PvPers out there, as this means you can have multiple dive bombing birdos on you if mutliple attackers wear this set. We’ll keep an eye on how frequently this happens, as the audio is quite loud.
  • Corpseburster: Updated the damage of this set to Disease damage, rather than Magic damage. This is purely a mechanical change as the visuals remain the same. This set now always triggers the Diseased status effect. We’ve also seen the request to make this set be treated as a class effect – which we can’t do – because it already is.
  • Monolith of Storms: Reduced the Weapon and Spell Damage granted per Monolith to 100, down from 200.
  • Pyrebrand: Increased the cooldown of Wildfire generation to 12 seconds, up from 2s.
    
    [Developer Comment]
    Week 1’s changes dramatically increased the power ceiling of this set, making it effectively best in slot in all cases. While we're okay with making class sets contextually incredibly powerful, this was a bit too far ahead. This will also correct some of the behaviors we've seen with Werewolf passes, allowing us to balance the experience better there without having it become too powerful with this interaction. This reduction won’t affect a pure class damage over time build on Dragonknight much, but it will lower its effectiveness with other builds – which we’ll keep an eye on, as we’ve heard the sentiment with certain builds like Flamecarver Engulfing Dragonfire.
  • Soulcleaver: Increased the duration of the new damage bonus to 20s, up from 12s.
  • Wrathsun: Fixed an issue where this set’s Magicka Recovery could appear to become stuck on your character in the character sheet – this was purely a visual error.
    • We’ve also seen the feedback that this set is still lagging behind, namely in PvE. Unfortunately this is a larger issue we don’t have time to iterate on within U50, but we'll certainly keep it in mind when the Templar refresh rolls around.
  • Mythic Items
    • Shattered Path Signet: This set now only reduces in power when Feral Guardian or its morphs are active, rather than any permanent pet.

ZOS_Kevin

• General
  • Fixed an issue with how progress was being calculated on Veterancy tiers.
  • Fixed an issue with “claim all” when claiming a repeatable reward.
  • Added refresh screen keybinds when updating a repeatable reward.
  • All Loadouts and Perks for the Vengeance Campaign should have proper icons.
  • Vengeance
    • Battle Medic
      • Combat Intercession
        • Updated the tooltip with the correct break range.
    • Soldier
      • Battle Trauma
        • The tooltip will now display the Health Absorption value or duration.
        • The visuals of Health Absorption will now properly be removed.
    • Loadouts: All default loadouts should have their proper abilities.

• General
  • The forehead of all races with the “Warrior Wave Locs” equipped will now display correctly.

Challenge Difficulty

• General
  • Adjusted calculations for Challenge Difficulty, so the experience is more consistent across gear sets and positive/negative effects.
  • You will no longer see an erroneous difficulty selection on the initial load screen for the game.
  • Player Housing no longer allows Challenge Difficulty modifiers.
  • The Challenge Difficulty Help screen has been updated to reflect the Player Housing changes.

• Achievements
  • Fixed an issue where several Trial motif achievements were not moved into their associated trials with the achievement reconsolidation including:
    • Craglorn Trials
    • Maw of Lorkhaj
    • Dreadsail Reef
    • Sanity's Edge
    • Lucent Citadel
    • Ossein Cage
  • The favor capstone achievements are now being awarded correctly.
  • Added the Thieves Guild Armory Station achievement, which you can gain by finding all the fragments for the station.
  • Asylum Sanctorium is now correctly included in the Trial list under the Achievement menu.
• Antiquities
  • The Thieves Guild Armory Station has been moved from the Antiquity Furnisher in Glenumbra to the one in Hew's Bane, for purchase after you've completed the codex through the Antiquity system.
  • The Thieves Guild Armory Station now has a proper icon in the Antiquity menu.
• Itemization
  • Fixed several issues with Unformed Planar Keys:
    • Updated the item type to Key.
    • Added a new icon.
    • This item no longer has a level.
    • Will now appear as Blue quality.
  • Shard of Parched Stone has an updated icon.
  • Updated the Rogue's Refuge fragment text to list other needed fragments you need before using. Also added "use" text.

• The Star-Gazer's Vigil House orrey animations are now changing properly.
• Increased the visitor cap in the Rogue’s Refuge house to 12.
• Furnishings are now easier to select in the housing editor when decorating in the Dancing Waters Wellspring home.
• PTS Item "Reward Furnishing Crate: Update 50" should now contain the 5 new Antiquities items being introduced in Update 50,
  • Thieves Guild Armory Station
  • Fool's Gold Pile
  • Tapestry of the Prince's Hunt
  • Window of Divinity
  • Zenithar Devotional Stele
• The furnishing “Vine, Moonlit Cove” should now be closer to it’s orginal color.

• General
  • Fixed memory leak in Mac clients.
  • Addons that use compressed DDS images will now show correctly on PS consoles.

• Critters
  • Fixed issues wherein critters would instantly respawn. Super respawn critters no more!

• General
  • Addressed animation issues with characters hitching or clipping into each other or themselves.
  • Characters are no longer missing props or have props disappear and reappear unexpectedly.
  • Fixed voice over & animation problems regarding lip sync/audio mismatches and twitching during VO lines.
  • You no longer are able to click off debuffs caused by monsters.
  • Map pins should now show up in the correct places.
  • Cleaned up conflicts with Group Sharing and Item Sharing in various quests.
  • The Thieves Guild Reacquisition Board no longer offers you interaction if you don’t qualify to take a quest.
  • Addressed issues where theaters break if you progress through them too quickly.
  • Logging out of the game, should no longer put you in a broken state.
  • Updated appearances for Lion Guard and other characters.
  • Addressed missing or incorrect sound effects tied to postures or effects.
  • Cleaned up issues with characters talking over one each other. Need to be a bit more polite in conversation!
  • Adjusted issues with characters and items spawning partially or completing underground or inside other fixtures.
  • Addressed icon consistency with several items in multiple quests.
  • Fixtures should no longer cause you to be stuck or dismounted.
  • Updated audio mix and added missing sound effects in multiple quests.
• Favors
  • Corrected issues with map pins and favors.
• Tales of Tamriel
  • The Last Laugh
    • Fixed world-building issues that allow you to get into bad locations.
    • Ash piles left behind by defeated bosses no longer disappear despite still having loot available.
  • Sheogorath Takes a Holiday
    • If you leave the game or the Shack during the step to retrieve the Tomeshell, you will have to search the bookshelf and get it again.
    • You can't enter the Lounge in the Shivering Shack before speaking with Noth in the main room.
• The Thieves Guild Comes to Glenumbra
  • General
    • You should not see Skeever Nivo if the Thieves Guild holiday is not active, nor should Quen grant you The Codex Caper if you finish the Abah's Landing Thieves Guild quest line before the holiday is active.
  • Codex Caper
    • Servants in the Yvierry Estate no longer spot you if you are hidden or invisible.
  • Codex and Cartel
    • The fight with Gavin Koldane now starts after you have a chance to see the lead-up theater.
    • Somnal powder is only consumed if you actually throw it.
    • Servants in the estate are now much less observant than they were.
    • If you are caught in the mansion while in combat, you are no longer stuck in combat.
    • If you get caught, you need Basil to rescue you.
    • When stunned, you can no longer use doors in the mansion.
  • The Nowhere Keys
    • Removed invisible collision in Ravik’s Pool.
    • Seline tries the door to Ravik’s Cache even if you run ahead.
  • Racing into Nowhere
    • The door out of Seline's gallery is no longer usable after you fail the puzzle.
    • The Tomes Seline searches for are all unique.
    • Cleaned up issues with the penultimate and ultimate battles.
    • Allied followers now engage in combat in appropriate locations.
    • The exterior of Sage’s Isle now has more wildlife.
  • Three Thieves in Daggerfall
    • When entering the upper stairs of the bank, only spawn 1 guard for grouped players.
  • Quenneth Lumena’s Warrant
    • If you leave Damar’s room prematurely you no longer get stuck.
    • Quen returns if the you die and resurrect.

• Gamepad UI
  • Fixed a UI error that could occur when using screen narration on the gamepad quest journal.