Regarding August 2026 Whitestrake's Mayhem

KiltMaster · August 2

It's that time again! PVPers getting ready to have some fun rewards and double AP! But I took note when reading the announcement earlier:

Whitestrake’s Mayhem Event (August 5-12)

Clash with your fellow players in Cyrodiil, the Imperial City, and Battlegrounds to earn bonus Alliance Points, Experience Points, and Tel Var Stones. Fragments of the Colovian War Torte recipe are also up for grabs—go bring honor to the Star-Made Knight! **Note that this event no longer grants Trade Bars**.

What's up with that? We used to get tickets for participating in Mayhem. Is this so that people who are not interested in PVPing don't have to whine about missing out on currency for not participating in an event? Why can't this event just be treated like any other event?

Goregram1 · August 2

They could care less about pvp that's why the class reworks aren't going to be finished till 2030 maybe if the game lasts that long

LunaFlora · August 2

People complaining about imperial City and Cyrodiil Event Tickets probably contributed to this change, but Undaunted celebration and Whitestrake's Mayhem both got changed to be one week and happen every quarter.

And we can get Trade Bars from multiple sources.
- Events, except Mayhem and Undaunted.
- Tamriel Tome
- Veterancy, do PvP activities and you can rank up in there. perfect for Mayhem.
- Twitch Drops
You can also get 2000 Trade Bars right now by redeeming the code Bethesda40.

https://youtu.be/PPibY6qJDpQ?si=T3vgOMlWHvdW4EEL
May Dev Updates livestream talks about both the Mayhem and Undaunted changes a little starting at 13 minutes in.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/691510/pts-patch-notes-v12-0-1#latest
The Mayhem text from update 50 pts patch notes from April:

Whitestrake’s Mayhem
Runs from April 20 through April 27 on PTS.
The Whitestrakes Mayhem live event has seen several changes to its length and design as an update coming this summer. August will mark the first time we are running the new "One Week Whitestrakes" and we can't wait for your feedback and notes on this venerable PvP throwdown.

What is Whitestrakes Mayhem?
At its heart, Whitestrakes remains the same. When the event is live Cyrodiil, Battlegrounds, and Imperial City combat offer a number of additional rewards. Fighting in those zones gives +100% Alliance Points and +100% Experience, as well as +100% Tel Var stones from most sources. All harvesting in Cyrodiil drops additional resources as well.
The vendor called "the Golden" will still make an appearance on the weekend of Whitestrakes Mayhem. She'll be accompanied by a brand new assistant, so you can purchase both amulets and rings from among their beautifully gilded inventories.
Completing PvP quests and engaging in PvP combat will earn you Pelinal's Boon Boxes along with your Rewards for the Worthy containers. These event-only reward boxes offer some tantalizing benefits both new and old!

What's changed?
Whitestrakes is now a one-week event. It no longer gives out Trade Bars (formerly event tickets) through any of its activities while it is live.
The Impresario will be live while Whitestrakes is up so that players that want to acquire past Whitestrakes Mayhem rewards can do so. There's an enormous number of style motifs that will become available via the Impresario and Philus Dormer in the new version of Whitestrakes Mayhem, so keep your eyes open for trade bar opportunities between now and then.
Going forward, any new Whitestrakes Mayhem rewards will be focused through the Pelinal's Boon Boxes.

Why did Whitestrakes Change?
In short, so that the Whitestrakes live event can act as a more lightweight, "drop-in" style activity, we can run several times a year.
As part of our broader Seasons-based strategy we want to try to take different approaches on events both new and old, as you'll see with High Seas of Tamriel later this year.
Our current plan is to run Whitestrakes in August and November of this year, and then roughly "once every three months" in 2027. This is our current plan in April of 2026 and - as with so many things in life - is subject to change.
As part of this change, Pelinal's Boon Boxes have received a bit of a glow-up in terms of their contents.

We look forward to your feedback this week on Whitestrake’s Mayhem!

Luneca · August 2

You're going to participate in that event? It sounds like a total skip tbh. I don't want to play DK, Sorc, or WW; therefore there's no point in playing during the event.

They'll probably have a trillion WWs / DKs out there and every one of them will pretend the game is as skillful as a fighting game.

I'm not participating unless someone gives me siege. Lots of coldfire siege.

KiltMaster · August 3

Luneca wrote: »

You're going to participate in that event? It sounds like a total skip tbh. I don't want to play DK, Sorc, or WW; therefore there's no point in playing during the event.

They'll probably have a trillion WWs / DKs out there and every one of them will pretend the game is as skillful as a fighting game.

I'm not participating unless someone gives me siege. Lots of coldfire siege.

Yes because I play PVP on the regular with my friends

Luneca · August 3

KiltMaster wrote: »

Luneca wrote: »

You're going to participate in that event? It sounds like a total skip tbh. I don't want to play DK, Sorc, or WW; therefore there's no point in playing during the event.

They'll probably have a trillion WWs / DKs out there and every one of them will pretend the game is as skillful as a fighting game.

I'm not participating unless someone gives me siege. Lots of coldfire siege.

Yes because I play PVP on the regular with my friends

I'm jealous. My only friend left is my siege.

MorallyBipolar · August 3

Luneca wrote: »

You're going to participate in that event? It sounds like a total skip tbh. I don't want to play DK, Sorc, or WW; therefore there's no point in playing during the event.

They'll probably have a trillion WWs / DKs out there and every one of them will pretend the game is as skillful as a fighting game.

I'm not participating unless someone gives me siege. Lots of coldfire siege.

I live for the MYM events. (they used to be called Midyear Mayem and server performance used to be perfect for these events...which is how we know ZOS has way more control of performance on the server side than they're admitting publicly)

Oblivion_Protocol · August 4

Luneca wrote: »

I'm not participating unless someone gives me siege. Lots of coldfire siege.

Luneca wrote: »

I'm jealous. My only friend left is my siege.

Okay, we get it. You have so much disdain for Cyro PvP that you’re only here to do the bare minimum and fire siege. What kind of autist are you that you need to carry this ridiculous bit for so long, lol?

At any rate, I’m honestly looking forward to MYM. It always brings in new players, and we could use some new blood in Cyro.

Marronsuisse · August 4

KiltMaster wrote: »

What's up with that? We used to get tickets for participating in Mayhem. Is this so that people who are not interested in PVPing don't have to whine about missing out on currency for not participating in an event?

I'm guessing it's that, and honestly I'm glad that people who have tried it and know they hate PvP don't have to do something they hate just for tickets.

But the whole point of replacing tickets with trade bars was so that there was less FOMO and people could skip events they dislike or don't have time for, so I feel like that already achieves the goal of not forcing people into PvP. Removing trade bars entirely seems like an unnecessary extra step.

Friendly-assasin81 · August 5

Luneca wrote: »

You're going to participate in that event? It sounds like a total skip tbh. I don't want to play DK, Sorc, or WW; therefore there's no point in playing during the event.

They'll probably have a trillion WWs / DKs out there and every one of them will pretend the game is as skillful as a fighting game.

I'm not participating unless someone gives me siege. Lots of coldfire siege.

We always have lots of WWs and DKs. I play in Greyhost almost every evening.
The only thing i don't understand about mayhem is that there is pve players trying to do quests in Greyhost and not the other 4/5 extra campaigns. Then they complain about getting killed in cyro while doing quests. I don't mind the extra cannon fodder but for their own sake they should go to quagmire aso.

PunkAben · August 7

The removal of Trade Bars feels unnecessary. The whole point of replacing Event Tickets with Trade Bars was to reduce FOMO by allowing players to earn the currency from several different sources. PvE players are therefore no longer forced to participate in a PvP event, so why should Whitestrake’s Mayhem reward no Trade Bars at all?

PvP players should not receive fewer event rewards simply because some players dislike PvP. Veterancy is not really a replacement either, since regular PvP players earn Veterancy progress throughout the year anyway.

At least there is double XP to gain, along with double AP and Tel Var, but removing Trade Bars still makes Mayhem feel less rewarding than the other events.

TheAwesomeChimpanzee · August 7

PunkAben wrote: »

The removal of Trade Bars feels unnecessary. The whole point of replacing Event Tickets with Trade Bars was to reduce FOMO by allowing players to earn the currency from several different sources. PvE players are therefore no longer forced to participate in a PvP event, so why should Whitestrake’s Mayhem reward no Trade Bars at all?

PvP players should not receive fewer event rewards simply because some players dislike PvP. Veterancy is not really a replacement either, since regular PvP players earn Veterancy progress throughout the year anyway.

At least there is double XP to gain, along with double AP and Tel Var, but removing Trade Bars still makes Mayhem feel less rewarding than the other events.

Fully agreed, the removal of event rewards from this PvP event only reinforces the notion that the devs dont care much about their active PvP community.

Luneca · August 8

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

PunkAben wrote: »

The removal of Trade Bars feels unnecessary. The whole point of replacing Event Tickets with Trade Bars was to reduce FOMO by allowing players to earn the currency from several different sources. PvE players are therefore no longer forced to participate in a PvP event, so why should Whitestrake’s Mayhem reward no Trade Bars at all?

PvP players should not receive fewer event rewards simply because some players dislike PvP. Veterancy is not really a replacement either, since regular PvP players earn Veterancy progress throughout the year anyway.

At least there is double XP to gain, along with double AP and Tel Var, but removing Trade Bars still makes Mayhem feel less rewarding than the other events.

Fully agreed, the removal of event rewards from this PvP event only reinforces the notion that the devs dont care much about their active PvP community.

The server crashed "last night" since I don't know exactly what time zone anyone reading is in. But it crashed. During Midyear and booted lots of people off. With quality like that, I don't think PvP is important to them. Many are also complaining about extreme lag, though I am still in my 35-60 range (usually 20-50 worst).

On Thursday, I even had a 70-80 ping, which is unheard of from me and on Vengeance levels of bad ping. I cannot imagine how bad it must be for players that live further away than I do. (I live CLOSE to the physical servers). And during this event, they earn nothing and won't be compensated for the issues that occur. Oh and it lasts only 7 days.

I don't know how they can communicate any more that PvP isn't important to them.

reazea · August 8

MorallyBipolar wrote: »

Luneca wrote: »

You're going to participate in that event? It sounds like a total skip tbh. I don't want to play DK, Sorc, or WW; therefore there's no point in playing during the event.

They'll probably have a trillion WWs / DKs out there and every one of them will pretend the game is as skillful as a fighting game.

I'm not participating unless someone gives me siege. Lots of coldfire siege.

I live for the MYM events. (they used to be called Midyear Mayem and server performance used to be perfect for these events...which is how we know ZOS has way more control of performance on the server side than they're admitting publicly)

Yep. Once people started posting they saw performance increases for MYM events then it decreased again with a single maintenance at beginning and end of MYM events ZOS stopped doing whatever they did to improve performance. People realized ZOS actually could keep live Cyrodiil running smoothly and they were choosing not to prioritize PvP rather than not being able to.

To this day I'm convinced if ZOS decided to put in the effort they could fix normal live Cyrodiil and restore the old population caps.

PunkAben · August 10

At least we still get double XP. As a player already at maximum CP, I am sure I will greatly enjoy all the additional XP I cannot use. What a fantastic replacement for the Trade Bars.

Whitestrake’s Mayhem used to feel like a major PvP event. Now it has been shortened to one week, stripped of its event currency, and repackaged as a “lightweight, drop-in” event. In reality, that just means less content and fewer meaningful rewards. The event has become a joke.

dark_hunterxmg · 12:19PM

So far the event had has a population similar to what used to be nightly population a couple of years ago. It nice seeing Imperial City not dead, but it's not popping like a PvP event used to.

ceruulean · 12:29PM

dark_hunterxmg wrote: »

So far the event had has a population similar to what used to be nightly population a couple of years ago. It nice seeing Imperial City not dead, but it's not popping like a PvP event used to.

Imbalance is so bad that most people have quit. IC, BGs, Gray Host and even Vengeance are infested with DKs. DKs galore for 6 months. I like Vengeance but I'm actually sick of fighting DKs 24/7. Who wants to play a game like this?