PTS Patch Notes v10.2.2

ZOS_Kevin

The Elder Scrolls Online v10.2.2 introduces a number of adjustments to Battlegrounds in response to feedback we’ve received – thanks to everyone for taking the time to test on the PTS! We’ve also made some changes to the Shadow Cloak ability, have some fixes for the new Companions, and more. This week, we’ll be activating the Pan-Tamriel Celebration event for testing, and have copied all PC EU characters.

• Overview
• New Features / Updates / Big Changes
  • Battlegrounds
  • Golden Pursuits
  • Event Testing: Pan-Tamriel Celebration
• Known Issues
• Combat & Gameplay
  • Combat & Abilities
  • Scribing
  • Itemization & Item Sets
  • Companions
• Fixes & Improvements, Blackwood
  • Exploration & Itemization
• Fixes & Improvements, Gold Road
  • Quests & Zones
• Fixes & Improvements, Summerset
  • Dungeons & Group Content
• Fixes & Improvements, Base Game
  • Alliance War & PvP
  • Art & Animation
  • Audio
  • Crown Store & Crown Crates
  • Dungeons & Group Content
  • Events & Celebrations
  • Exploration & Itemization
  • Housing
  • Miscellaneous
  • Quests & Zones
  • UI

ZOS_Kevin

Battlegrounds

• Based on player feedback, we are adding Solo queues for 8v8 and 4v4 matches. Please note that queue times may fluctuate depending on population as there are now more queues to join.

Developer Comment:

While we’ve received feedback about allowing solos and duos to queue for the 8v8 queues (and not groups of 3 or 4), this is currently beyond the scope of Update 44. However, we are enabling MMR match making in all queues for 8v8 and 4v4 as the system will attempt to match grouped players against other groups, based on their “group MMR” (this is always how it’s worked with groups since Update 20). Also note, no cross queuing will occur (nor has occurred) between the Solo and Group queues. If you queue for Solo, you will ONLY be matched against other Solo players.

• Based on PTS feedback, any Deathmatch modes in 8v8 queues have been set to “standard team deathmatch” rules with no lives or rounds.
• Based on PTS feedback, matches which are Deathmatch in the 4v4 queue will only be Deathmatch with Rounds and Lives.
• Removed several Game modes from the 4v4 Competitive queues that had combinations of Lives/Rounds in non-Deathmatch game modes. This change was based on PTS feedback noting that game modes outside of Deathmatch will eventually degrade to Deathmatch.
  • This leaves the Game Modes and Maps listed below in the 4v4 Competitive Queue for both Solo and Group queues. Note that all three maps include Team Deathmatch with Rounds and Lives.
    • Huntsman Fortress and Mota-Ka have 2 flag Domination, with no Rounds or Lives.
    • Huntsman Fortress and Mota-ka have Crazy King with no Rounds or Lives.
    • Huntsman Fortress has 3-point Domination with no Rounds or Lives.

Golden Pursuits
As we conduct different stress tests to ensure Golden Pursuits respond as expected, you may notice some changes with active Golden Pursuits on the PTS. These include changes to the rewards, activities, or duration of Golden Pursuits.
These changes will go into effect on September 30 and will persist until the Golden Pursuit ends on October 15th, 10AM EDT. These tests are designed to stress the system and ensure system stability. These tests do not reflect intended use cases for live environments.

Event Testing: Pan-Tamriel Celebration
Our ten-year anniversary of ESO continues with the new Pan-Tamriel Celebration! There's a lot to this, so get a mug of tea and settle in.

• First up, the familiar and expected. This event will award Event Tickets, 3 per day, from the same source that you would earn your first gold-quality reward box from (as outlined below). They should drop at the same time as the gold-quality box, so make sure you loot both!
• You can obtain reward boxes from a number of sources, listed below. The first one of these you do in a day gives you a gold-quality box and your event tickets. Additional activities done that day will give you purple-quality ones with slightly less stuff in them. These boxes have a bunch of goodies in them, including (but not limited to) pages for the Lion Guard Captain outfit style. Sources for the boxes include:
  • Any delve boss in the game
  • Any public dungeon boss in the game
  • Any final dungeon boss in the game
  • Any final trial boss in the game
  • Any world boss in the game
  • Any incursion event (Dolmens, Geysers, Dragons, etc.) in the game
• Attention Anglers! During Pan-Tamriel Celebration, fishing drops are curated. This checks against your current progress for the Master Angler achievement and makes sure that when a trophy fish drops, you get one you don't already have. You DO have to visit the right kind of fishing hole however (River, Foul, etc.), and land a trophy fish with the cast.
• Treasure hunters, during this event any chests you dig up using Treasure Maps will roll again on all of their existing loot, greatly improving your chance to get leads, furnishings, etc. that are exclusive to that source.
• The Impresario's Assistant has raided the warehouse to pull out TONS of old rewards, offering them at discount, so long as you visit him in the right place! The list of what he offers is contingent on where you find him, as outlined below:
  • Necrom: Apocrypha Expedition outfit style (returning from Secrets of the Telvanni)
  • High Isle: Oaken Order outfit style (returning from Heroes of High Isle)
  • Blackwood: Y'ffre's Fallen-Wood outfit style (returning from Gates of Oblivion Celebration) and Voriplasm pet components (returning from Murkmire Celebration)
  • Greymoor: Saarthal Scholar outfit style (from Dark Heart of Skyrim Celebration) and Sovngarde Stalwart outfit style (returning from Lost Treasures of Skyrim)
  • Elsweyr: Claw Dancer Acolyte outfit style (returning from Season of the Dragon Celebration) and Ja'zennji Siir Garb outfit style (returning from Pan-Elsweyr Celebration)
  • Summerset: Evergloam Champion outfit style (returning from Daedric War Celebration) and Snowhawk Mage outfit style (returning from Summerset Celebration), as well as Wooden Grave-Stake fragments (returning from Murkmire Celebration) and Gloam Gryphon Fledgling pet (also from Daedric War Celebration)
  • Morrowind: Doctrine Ordinator outfit style, Slag Town Diver Skin, Thetys Ramarys's Bait Kit memento, and Microtized Verminous Fabricant pet (all from Tribunal Celebration)
    • Most of these bits are going for an absolute steal at 2 event tickets each, with the fragments (where applicable) going for a mere 1 ticket each. Furthermore, everything except the Wooden Grave-Stake and Voriplasm pet fragments (due to the type of collectible fragment they are) can drop from reward boxes!
• The unique and bound style pages from 2024's Anniversary Jubilee are also back, with some improvements on their availability sourcing. As you earn achievements related to the sourcing, the chance to receive them from said sources increases dramatically. Here's the breakdown:
  • Replica Trueflame Sword: Very rare drop from fishing. Less rare if you have either Dominion, Covenant, or Pact Fisherman achievement. Uncommon rarity if you have all base-game Master Angler achievements.
  • Replica Staff of Worms: Very rare drop from dolmens. Less rare if you have either Dominion, Covenant, or Pact Anchor Shatterer achievement. Uncommon rarity if you have Anchors Away achievement.
  • Replica Sunna'rah Staff and Replica Barbas Wolf Helmet: Very rare drop from Vvardenfell world bosses. Less rare if you have Defender of Morrowind achievement. Uncommon rarity if you have Savior of Morrowind achievement.
  • Replica Ul'Vor Staff: Very rare drop from Abyssal Geysers. Less rare if you have Abyssal Devastator achievement. Uncommon rarity if you have Savior of Summerset achievement.
• The new morphing collectible is themed around Julianos, the Tamrielic deity of wisdom and logic. The base item available from the Impresario all year round is the Stonewisp of Truth and Logic, broken into three fragments of 5 Event Tickets each. During this event, she will also offer the first of three fragments for the Logical Rune Extraction customized action morph.

ZOS_Kevin

• ESO Plus on PTS only is currently not awarding the 10% bonus toward Archival Fortunes.

ZOS_Kevin

General

• Fixed an issue where ESO+ bonuses would appear as both a flat and percent increase in the advanced stat sheet tab.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash when scribing some abilities.

Nightblade

• Shadow
  • Shadow Cloak: This ability and the Shadowy Disguise morph now only disable your Magicka Recovery while you are actively moving while either ability is active, rather than during the entire time. These abilities both also cost half as much when active and you are stationary.

Developer Comment:

With weeks 1 and 2 down, we've gathered a ton of great feedback for the new changes to Cloak and the main takeaways have been on how disrupting the new drain and recovery penalty are. While we wanted to tighten the restrictions on how easy it was to sustain Invisibility and create a more lasting penalty after you've used it, our original changes focused purely on translating the existing cost to a toggled one, with nothing but more restrictions - leaving a sense of all nerf, and no new excitement. We've seen a lot of great feedback on how the toggle feels more natural to use (after going through some natural growing pains of unlearning the previous optimal usage), especially when paired with the fact that it naturally turns off the same ways as it did before, so we're confident in sticking with this new model and shifting our focus more towards the cost and penalty to try and make them more curated to this new experience.
Internally, we've been going back and forth with numerous cost models, tick rates, and varying amounts of Magicka Recovery augments to try and find the perfect balance – but something always felt off. We then started sneaking about in the core Crouch gameplay that every class has access to and immediately drew inspiration at how natural the costs and penalties are introduced there. Normally, Crouch comes with heavy penalties too - disabling your Stamina Recovery completely and rapidly draining your Stamina while moving, but it also enabled more strategic use by turning those penalties and drains off when you stopped moving to take in your surroundings and wait for enemies to pass by. While we haven't gone to the exact same steps of completely removing the penalties, since Invisibility is significantly stronger at keeping you hidden than Crouch with none of the movement speed reductions, our hope is that these proposed adjustments now make Invisibility feel better to engage with and strategize around, while still coming with clear costs if you don't.

Scribing
Grimoires

• Traveling Knife: Fixed an issue with the Pull Focus variant of this Grimoire, where the ability could be activated in areas that are meant to suppress pull abilities.

Dungeon Sets

• Azureblight Reaper: Increased the cooldown on this set’s explosions to 1 second up from 0.5 seconds, to reduce the stress it can cause on the server when large groups of enemies chain detonate. Note this adjustment was part of last week’s PTS patch, but was caught in the crossfire of the other adjustments and missed from the notes.

PvP Sets

• Farstrider: Updated multiple debuff visual effects.

General

• Fixed an issue where Azurah's Embrace was not healing multiple allies.
• Fixed an issue where Zerith-var was not responding and granting rapport when killing Tho'at, finishing Cycle bosses, and killing Marauders in Infinite Archive.
• Fixed an issue with rapport and a response when finishing Maw of Lorkhaj.
• Fixed an issue where Sharp, Azandar, Tanlorin, and Zerith would follow your character too closely.
• Fixed an issue where Tanlorin was not giving rapport and responses when picking Dragonthorn.
• Tanlorin now correctly comments when harvesting clothing materials.
• Fixed an issue with Zerith-var's Penance of Lorkhaj ability so it now properly heals viable targets behind him. Viable healing targets include you, Zerith-Var, or allied group members.
• You will no longer see a reticle indicator for Tanlorin's Finesse when looking at an Impossible lock.

Quests

• A Moonlit Shadow: Zerith-var no longer portals away from you at the end of the quest until you finish turning in the quest.
• Ceythalmor Prison: You can no longer mount up in portions of the prison where mounts shouldn’t be allowed.
• Of Crown and Flowers: Tanlorin will no longer direct you to the wrong greenhouse.
• The Dark Behind the World: When you enter the portal, you’ll now see dead inquisitors on the ground when Krin'ze remarks upon them.
• Thorn and Blossoms: The Gardener is now wearing clothes.

ZOS_Kevin

Treasure Maps

• Unearthed a treasure map location in Blackwood just east of Xeemhok's Lagoon whose dig point was below ground.

ZOS_Kevin

Silorn Public Dungeon

• Reduced the power and defenses for Viikor Brazen Hoof.

ZOS_Kevin

Cloudrest

• General
  • The Woe of the Welkynars quest will no longer grant Veteran rewards when completing the quest on normal difficulty.

ZOS_Kevin

Battlegrounds

• The Deathmatch medal “Killing Blow” can now be earned more often in Team Deathmatch Battlegrounds.
• The help entry for Battlegrounds where MMR is noted now states: "Your MMR is derived from a combination of wins/losses and the rank of the opponents you've played against.”

Developer Comment:

There has been some misconception that MMR is derived from Medals, which is not the case. MMR is purely based on your Win/Loss/Tie from Battlegrounds. This calculation also takes into account your opponent’s MMR to determine the amount of gain or loss your MMR takes at the end of a Battleground.

• Fixed an issue where an infinite load screen could occur when joining a Deathmatch in Mota-Ka.
• Grounded some flags that appeared to be floating.
• Fixed an issue where certain UI sounds weren't played when switching between the match view and round view on the Battleground scoreboard.
• Fixed an issue where you wouldn't see the scoreboard at the end of a Battleground if you reloaded your UI.
• MMR will no longer be displayed in the UI.
• The Battleground Activity Finder now states that Champion abilities are disabled.

General

• Cleaned up some visual seams and clipping issues in assets across multiple zones.
• Fixed an issue where previewing a mount could sometimes leave visual artifacts on your character model.

General

• Added some missing sound effects to various housing items and emotes.
• Fixed some audio-related issues for some Destruction Staff and Bow abilities.

General

• The following Skill Styles now properly preview in the Crown Store:
• Critical Charge, Winter's Gale
• Meteor, Winter's Blast
• Volley, Winterfall
• Summon Winged Twilight, Warrior

Dungeons

• Imperial City Prison
  • Lord Warden Dusk
    • The Shades of Lord Warden Dusk no longer have a chance to persist if Lord Warden Dusk is defeated.

Infinite Archive

• Tho’at Replicanum no longer has a chance to exit the fight space, becoming unattackable.

Legacy of the Bretons Celebration

• Updated the Help entry to correct a typo and call out Tales of Tribute dailies as an Event Ticket source.

Morphing Collectibles

• Fixed an erroneous requirement check for hiding visibility of the Dawnwood Indrik fragments.
• Fixed an issue with purchase requirements on Molag Bal Illusion Imp fragments if you owned every collectible up to the Anchorborn Welwa, but not the house.

Pan-Tamriel Celebration

• Adjusted the Pan-Tamriel Help entry to more explicitly call out where achievements are needed, and more explicitly note that different wares are available at each Philius Dormier location.

General

• Several Imperial City monster sets will now properly scale to your level, and their associated boxes will now be properly curated.
• A number of item sets in the new Imperial City dungeon vaults now have the correct tooltip information.
• Unidentified Brands of Imperium item containers will now correctly grant Brands of Imperium items instead of Leeching Plate.
• Non-final bosses in Imperial City Prison and White-Gold Tower now drop Imperial Fragments on Normal to make them consistent to their Veteran counterparts.

Achievements

• The Banner Bearer achievement now awards the correct amount of achievement points and has the correct icon.
• The Imperial Warbear Seeker achievement now properly awards 50 achievement points.
• Updated the icon for the new Puncture and Force Shock Skill Style achievements.
• Progress on the Key Collector achievement will now properly transfer over to Imperial Fragment Collector.

General

• In the Housing Editor, path nodes that have been tab-targeted behind other furniture will now correctly be editable.

Houses

• Fixed a variety of minor visual issues in the Grand Gallery of Tamriel.
• Adjusted the collision slightly to prevent your camera from going into the walls in Grand Gallery of Tamriel.
• Fixed a few minor visual issues in Kthendral Deep Mines.
• Adjusted the collision in Kthendral Deep Mines to prevent you from escaping the house’s space in an unintended way.

Furnishings

• Fixed an issue with the furnishing “Tribunal Altar” where you could see through the bottom of the furnishing.
• Fixed a minor texture issue with the furnishing “Storm Lord Banner, Long.”
• Decreased the prices on new Imperial City furnishings sold by Bernamu, Enruvie, and Skoref.
• Updated the category for the furnishings “Ayleid Lamp, Ornate Stone” to be Lights, Lamps.

Golden Pursuits

• Golden Pursuits activity tracking pin icons now grow when moused over or pinned.
• Fixed an issue where the categories on the left were blocking mouseover of the pins.
• Activities that ask you to enter Normal or Veteran Group Dungeons now more clearly state as such in the name and description text.
• Activities that ask you to achieve certain Battleground scores now use the correct terminology of “Award Medals” instead of “Points.”
• Updated the Golden Pursuits UI element to read correctly as “Golden Pursuits” rather than “Golden Pursuit”.

Soul Shriven in Coldharbour/Tutorial

• Fixed an issue where you could get input locked at specific locations that combat tutorial guards could not reach.
• Fixed an issue where you would do excessive bonus damage with the final attack on Heavy Attack combat tutorial guards.
• Removed Ectoplasm from containers in this space, as there are no relevant ghosts.

General

• Elaborated the currency name "Tel Var" to be "Tel Var Stones" in some associated UI elements.
• Added new icons for some Skill Style fragments when you click and drag them.
• New characters will now always start in third- person camera view, rather than the last camera setting you used.
• LUA APIs will no longer report player MMR.

Gamepad Mode

• Added the correct button icon to the Gamepad version of the Hidey Hole tutorial tip.