TEST GOALS

For this test, we have a couple goals we’d like all our testers to try to reach while playing the game.

PVE Content

Get at least one character to level 10 and enter Cyrodiil.
Participate in the Alliance War in Cyrodiil.
Defeat at least one enemy player.
Capture at least one keep for your alliance.
Capture at least one resource for your alliance.
Complete the Alliance War tutorial, then pick up and complete at least one mission from your alliance’s mission board in Cyrodiil.
Control at least one siege weapon during a keep siege.
Find and complete at least one explorable cave.
Resurrect at least one fallen ally (any class can do this).
Visit at least one of the following towns in Cyrodiil: Chorrol, Cheydinhal, Bruma, Vlastarus, and Cropsford.


BIG CHANGES / UPDATES / NEW FEATURES

Guild Stores in Keeps

When a guild claims a keep for their own, their Guild Store becomes available to non-guild member players. Any player can access the owning guild’s store through the keep’s quartermaster. They will be able to browse and purchase the goods that the guild is offering through their store.



FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS

Alliance War

During this test, you will be able enter Cyrodiil starting at level 10. Your character’s stats will be adjusted via the game’s stat adjustment system.

Once your character reaches level 10, you can enter Cyrodiil from the rest of the world by using the Queuing panel in your Alliance War UI (default key is P to bring this up). For this test, there are two campaigns you can choose to enter: Bloodthorn and Scourge. Highlight the campaign you wish to join, and hit the appropriate key noted at the bottom of the screen to queue for that campaign. When your position is ready, you will be notified that you can enter Cyrodiil. You can choose to enter a campaign solo or with your group.

Also. please note that there are two options for Home and Guest. You will automatically be assigned a “Home” campaign unless you have characters from all three alliances on your account in this test. You cannot have characters from opposing alliances assigned to the same “Home” campaign. If there are any conflicts with your campaign assignment choice, you will be notified in the chat window (the way this notification appears is temporary).

Alliance War & Cyrodiil Changes

We have made border locations more secure. Enemy players can no longer enter High Rock, Morrowind, or Elswyr Gates.
Guilds are now able to lay claim to keeps, outposts, and resources.
Speak to the Quartermaster NPC at any unclaimed keep, outpost, or resource owned by your alliance to claim it for your guild. Your guild may claim only one (one keep, outpost, or resource).
When a keep, outpost, or resource is claimed, its upgrade rate is much faster than an unclaimed one.
When a guild claims a keep, outpost, or resource, they gain access to the Quartermaster NPC at that location. Accessing the Quartermaster through the Guild Store option allows that guild to open their Guild Store for people outside of the guild to browse and buy items from. (You must be the same alliance as the Quartermaster NPC.)
You may only claim a keep, outpost, or resource for your guild if the character you are on is the same alliance as the alliance your guild chose to support upon guild creation.





Resources now take one hour to fully upgrade, in turn resulting in faster upgrades for the keep they are associated with.
Resources no longer have an “upkeep” cost.
HP upgrades to keep walls and doors have been slightly increased.
You now earn alliance points for repairing doors and walls, and resurrecting fallen allies.
The Honor Guards that are stationed at flags have had their self-heal decreased, but their overall damage output has been slightly increased.
Foot soldiers across the land have had their damage output and defensive capabilities slightly adjusted.
The timer for distributing Alliance Points for defending a keep has been reduced.
Entering Cyrodiil will now place your character into one of two entry locations for your alliance. Note that the “Welcome to Cyrodiil” quests are still available, at the following locations only:
Eastern Elswyr Gate
Northern Morrowind Gate
Southern High Rock Gate





The respawn rates in Cyrodiil’s explorable caves have been reduced.
Locations which would appear to have cave or dungeon entrances have been blocked off if they do not actually have a cave or dungeon to enter.
You now enter Cyrodiil through the Queue’ing system. To queue up for Cyrodiil, access the Campaign listings panel in the UI options.
Hit P to bring up the Alliance War UI. Click on the icon furthest to the right to see the Campaign listings. Highlight your campaign that has a little home symbol next to it and hit the E key to queue. When the queue is ready for you, you'll get a message stating so in your chat window or it will say your position is ready right there on the Campaign UI. When that message comes up, hit E to enter Cyrodiil.





For this test, there are two Alliance War campaigns you may choose to join. Please note that you can reassign your assigned campaign in the Campaign selection panel, in the UI options.
Locations at bridges, milegates, and Imperial City bridges have been visually improved. They now look like scorched-earth battlezones.
New transit lines have been added between the following keeps:
Castle Roebeck & Castle Alessia
Fort Ash & Fort Aleswell
Chalman Keep & Blue Road Keep






Cyrodiil Quests

Scout quests have been restructured to better inform you when you’ve reach the scouting location.
The Alliance Point rewards for the ‘Kill 20 Enemy Characters’ quest has been increased.
The amount of quests you can obtain from towns and message boards has been adjusted to reduce the probability of getting the same quest that you just completed.


Siege Weapons

We have made some visual and audio improvements to siege weapon projectiles.
Flaming oil now has debuff added to its effects that reduces all healing by half.
Siege weapon costs have been increased based on feedback from prior Alliance War beta sessions.
Siege weapon impact areas now align better with their visual damage indicators.
Ram wheels have been greased and now rotate properly instead of skidding.


UI Adjustments

Center screen messages in Cyrodiil have been culled significantly based on tester feedback. You will now only see center screen messages relating to Elder Scrolls and the Emperor.
Alliance indicators will now follow a dead player character to the ground instead of hovering several feet above them.
Alliance indicators will also fade on dead player characters now.



Audio/VO

General
Known Issues

NPCs who say things which we have not yet recorded have placeholder “Robo Voice-Over.” Replacing the placeholder robotic voices is an ongoing work in progress.
NPCs will sometimes be completely silent and have no voice-over at all.


Classes & Skill Lines

General

You can now spend multiple points in many of the passive abilities in the game.
Each passive point has a skill line rank requirement.
Passives can have as few as one point and as many as three, depending on the nature of the passive.
The progression of the skill lines has been slightly re-arranged to accommodate for this.





Damage shields no longer use the defender’s mitigation.
We have re-worked sneak attack bonus damage. The end result is that normal sneak attacks do the same damage as before, but reduces the maximum damage players could cause when attempting to stack weapon damage.
Now has a 100% chance to cause a critical strike.
Bonus damage scales off the attacker’s level, instead of weapon damage.






Block Changes

Reduced block mitigation.
The “Sword and Board” passive in the 1H + Shield skill tree now increases block mitigation instead of armor.


Nightblade

Hemorrhage: Reduced the critical strike damage bonus.


Emperor

Tactician: Reduced the siege damage bonus.



Combat & Gameplay

General

You can now break out of immobilizing abilities such as Encase and Dark Talons by using roll dodge, but doing so costs you twice the normal stamina.
Fixed several issues that were allowing some buffs (notably speed buffs and mitigation buffs) to stack permanently on player characters in certain scenarios.
Fixed an issue where siege weapon damage and some player character abilities could hit enemies through keep walls.
Added directional knockdown animations to humanoids. You can see these when you surprise an enemy from the rear or flank with a knockdown ability such as Stonefist.


Horses

Fixed an issue that resulted in player characters appearing to be standing up while riding a horse.


Crafting & Economy

Crafting

Crafting is turned off for this test as we work on improvements to all crafting systems. We look forward to having you try crafting again in a future test.


Economy

We have made changes to some of the game’s economy systems.
You will now receive less gold per kill, and less overall gold for selling weapons. Prices will be higher than they were before.
We have also fixed some issues that were allowing economic exploits.





Known Issues:

The economy systems are very much in flux currently. We have some additional systems which are coming online in the future to help even out costs.


Dungeons/Group Content

Dark Anchors

Dark Anchors are not turned on for this test. We’re working on improvements to them based on tester feedback. They will return in a future test.


Shadowfen

Arx Corinium (Group Instance): Fixed an issue where monsters in Arx Corinium had extremely low health.


The Rift

Blessed Crucible (Group Instance): Fixed issues that were breaking the quest in Blessed Crucible.


Quests

Auridon

Corrected several issues that blocked progression in the “Shattered Grove” objective.
Adjusted the ice barrier over the lighthouse door in South Beacon to make it easier to target with the Rune.


Auridon, Glenumbra, & Stonefalls

Fighters Guild: Added a quest to join the Fighters Guild in Davon’s Watch, Vulkhel Guard and Daggerfall, making it easier to find the Hall Steward & Magisters in those towns.


Ebonheart

Lost Little Mittens: Good news for cat lovers! Mittens Q. Deathclaw III has come home, and is once again happily living with his owner Teroni in Ebonheart. (The quest “Lost Little Mittens” is no longer offered.)


Miscellaneous

We have fixed many areas of the world where player characters could previously fall through the game world.
Fixed requirements on many doors to properly allow group access.
Fixed game behavior in several instanced areas to properly allow for quest failure on leaving, logout, etc.
Improved timing and effects for dramatic moments in key areas game-wide.


User Interface

Chat

The UI cursor will no longer appear when entering chat—it will remain in its previous state when you use the chat window. If you were previously using the mouse cursor before you started using the chat window, you will continue to be able to use it. If you were using the targeting reticle before you started using the chat window, the mouse cursor will not be displayed.
Guild messages from people on your ignored list will no longer appear.


Combat

Reduced the number of combat error sounds that can play due to a single error to maximum of once every three seconds.
Targeting critters no longer results in a glow appearing around them.
The targeting reticle will now expand when you target slain allies to show that you can interact with them. (Note that this occurs even if you don't have the correct soul gem you need to resurrect them.)
A pulsing red border will now show up around your screen when you are in a UI window, such as your inventory, and enter combat.


Compass

The compass label for quest givers will now properly indicate (above) and (below) in relation to where your character is.
Fixed compass pin issues associated with certain quests so you are not guided in the wrong direction.
Added new compass callouts for the following zones: Auridon, Khenarthi’s Roost, Stonefalls, Bleakrock, Bal Foyen, Glenumbra, Stros M’Kai, and Betnikh.
Added new notations on the compass to call out areas of interest within each of the zones listed above, and added a new achievement for finding all of the locations in each zone.
Added new notations on the compass for especially challenging encounters in the zones listed above that are tuned for two players.






Help Interface

Improvements have been made to the look of the Help window.
You can now search through tutorials in the Help Window. To access them in the Help Window, select the ‘Tutorials’ tab.
You may now report an item or get help with an item issue by right-clicking the item and choosing the option, "Report Item."
You may now report a quest or get help with a quest issue by right-clicking the quest name in the Journal, and choosing the option, "Get Help."


Mages Guild

"Lore Book Learned" center screen text will no longer appear when your character is not in the Mages Guild.


Mail

We have fixed a large number of issues associated with the Mail system UI.
Improvements have been made to the look of the Mail window.
We have added a new burst animation to the mail icon in the chat window that appears when you receive new mail.
Mail with attachments can no longer be deleted until all the attachments have been taken.


Notifications

Added new notifications for group invites, trade invites and quest sharing.


Reticle

The reticle will now expand when you target dead allies, to show you can interact with them. (Note that this occurs even