OVERVIEW

The Elder Scrolls Online v0.17 focuses on polish, bug fixes, improvements, and balance to existing content throughout the game, based on tester feedback. So, instead of many big systems or updates, these patch notes are a long list of systems that have been updated, bugs that have been fixed, and improvements.

Here’s a brief overview of what awaits you in this test:
Continue your characters from v.0.16.
Play through level 1-17 content for all three alliances.
Create up to eight characters, increased from four.
Access the Alliance War in Cyrodiil.
Experience many fixes and improvements across the board, including to quests, animations, skill lines, and the UI.

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 few goals we’d like you to try to reach while playing the game.
Attain level 10 on at least one character.
Reach Rank 10 in any crafting skill.
Find and complete at least one group dungeon.
Travel to Cyrodiil and participate in the Alliance War.

FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS

Alliance War

General
The Eastern Elsweyr Gate now has map pins.
Bankers have been added to the following locations:
Northern Highrock Gate
Northern Morrowind Gate
Western Elsweyr Gate
Various crafting resource nodes and quest objectives around Lake Rumare have been fixed.
You can no longer log in to keep or resource locations.
Character stats gained by Battle Spirit have been adjusted to be more in-line with natural level 50 stats.
Towers at keep resources can now be accessed and exited properly.
Mender Guards at keeps and resources will now cast a personal siege shield on themselves when they are hit by siege weapons, similar to what Honor Guards already do.
The Tower Guard at Roebeck Mine is now properly a mage.
Keep walls are now considered “under attack” at 95% instead of 90%. Once a keep wall hits 95%, defenders will get a message stating that the wall cannot be repaired while in combat.
If you log out in a keep and are offline for 10 minutes or more, your character will now correctly be moved to one of your alliance’s border keeps in Cyrodiil.
Fixed an issue where placing a siege weapon at a keep door before placing a ram would result in an error message appearing and no rams could be placed. You can now properly place a ram at keep doors, even if a siege weapon has been placed in front of the same keep door.

Campaigns
When you view the campaign menu during this beta, you will see many more campaigns on the list than before. Bloodthorn and Scourge are still the primary two campaigns for beta. They are the ones that most of you are assigned to and will likely find the most action in.

Also, please be aware that all of the other campaigns on the list, except for Bloodthorn and Scourge, have the standard 90-day campaign ruleset that ESO will be feature at launch, not the 48-hour beta campaign ruleset.

Quests
All Scout quests are no longer sharable, and their XP rewards have been reduced.
The Unseen Quest is no longer sharable, and its quest XP reward has been reduced.

Art & Animations
Fixed a large number of animation issues that occurred when NPCs used items such as tankards, bread, quills, etc.
Fixed an issue that was causing some Wayshrines to appear pink when viewed from a far distance.
Fixed an issue that was causing some combat animations to skip during periods of high latency, giving a false impression that the abilities had not fired after a button/key press.
Improved the running animation for all female character models, based on player feedback.


Audio

General
We have made many audio fixes and improvements throughout the game, including audio for abilities, monsters, UI, etc.
Voiceover has been recorded and implemented for a large majority—but not all—of the game.
In preparation for launch, we have removed all placeholder robotic voiceover from the game.
In cases where the final voiceover is still missing, no voiceover will play (instead of the placeholder robotic voiceover).
Fixed many cases where the voiceover and the text didn’t match. (This is an ongoing effort.)
Audio will now stutter less.


Classes & Skill Lines

General
Fixed an issue where numerous ability buffs were not giving the correct bonus value for battle-leveled characters in Cyrodiil. Here are some examples of affected abilities:
Aggressive Horn
Immovable
Mark Target
Molten Weapons
Solar Flare
Spiked Armor

Dragonknight
Inhale: Decreased the damage this ability deals to your target, and the amount of health per target hit that it heals you
Draw Essence: Reduced the amount of Magicka recovered per target hit for this ability’s morph

Emperor
Tactician: This ability no longer increases siege weapon damage versus players. It still increases the siege damage versus keeps and other siege weapons.

Nightblade
Agony: This ability now deals damage for several seconds after the effect ends, rather than throughout its entire duration.

Sorcerer
Unstable Familiar: Increased the Scamp summon’s health and made him a bit better at protecting his owner.


Combat & Gameplay

General
Fixed an issue that was causing people to see a significant delay between the button press and the ability firing, particularly when using lots of abilities in quick succession.
We have made some broad experience balance changes to better smooth the starting experience and even out overall progression across the three alliances.
Reduced the amount of experience you receive for killing monsters in Cyrodiil
We have lowered battle-leveled stats in Cyrodiil.
We have adjusted all item traits to make each more balanced relative to one another. Here are the highlights:
Increased the gold sell value of items with the “Ornate” trait.
Decreased the critical strike bonus of weapons with the “Precise” trait.
Decreased the attack speed bonus of weapons with the “Weighted” trait.
Player character resurrections will now complete as they should instead of looking as if the cast was completed, and not resurrecting your friendly target.
You no longer need to have an available skill point in order to be able to re-spec at a shrine.
Monsters that respawn instantly and infinitely will no longer appear.
Monster swarms that are level 0 have been removed from the game.
Fixed the difficulty of certain monsters associated Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, and Main Quest content who were more difficult than intended.
Adjusted instant cast and heavy/light attach timers to improve responsiveness and feel during combat.


Crafting and Economy

General
Clear water and natural water can now be used without spending a skill point in alchemy.
Updated the crafting system mails to send the correct resource tier.
All crafting stations within the world are now functional, with the exception of a small number of cooking fires.
Removed all instances of infinitely spawning crafting nodes.
Wilderness monsters in Grahtwood now drop items.
We have introduced a new model for the Jute plant (a cloth crafting resource). It should now be much easier to see and find.
Fixed an issue that resulted in solo instance clickable fixtures all being empty.
We have balanced the inspiration gain rates for all crafting professions.


Dungeons/Group Content

General
We have made many fixes and improvements to group content, including the following:
Fixed a number of voice-over timing issues.
Fixed some cases where monsters had no loot.
Fixed issue where dungeon points-of-interest couldn’t grant bonus xp on completion.
Fixed a variety of world building issues in dungeons.
Fixed an issue that was causing crashing upon entering a handful of explorable dungeons.

Exploration & Itemization
Clickable fixtures (crates, barrels, nightstands, bread, etc.) are now instanced on a per-character basis as opposed to having to compete with others for the items.
Improved drop rates on bows, staves, and shields.

Miscellaneous
Moderately reduced the cost required to re-spec your character’s skills and attributes at a respec shrine.
Fixed an issue that was causing players with special characters in their User ID to run into problems logging into the game.
We have increased the number of character slots available per account to eight.
We have updated tutorials and help systems throughout the game.
Introduced crafting tutorials and hints
Fixed numerous places where player characters could get stuck in objects or escape the world.
Fixed an issue that was preventing some users with foreign characters in their User ID from being able to log in.
The User ID watermark has been removed, in preparation for launch. Please note: The NDA is still in effect until we say otherwise.


Quests

General
We have fixed hundreds of issues with quests and content in the game.
We have streamlined the text for many quests so they are more clear and concise.
It is now easier to find your way to critical quest NPCs who are not out in the open (in caves, ruins, etc.)
Fixed an issue that was resulting in some quests breaking or failing if you logged out, dropped from your group, left the quest area, or if your character died.


Social Systems

General
Members of any alliance can now send each other whisper messages while in “Normal” and “Beta” campaign rulesets in Cyrodiil.


User Interface

Achievements
Fixed an issue that was preventing the achievements window from properly updating when multiple achievements were updated in the same frame.
Fixed an issue that was resulting in the progress bars for achievements not displaying past their first tier.

Chat
Changed the Chat Window background to make it easier to grab and drag the edges.
Fixed an issue that was causing the scroll bar to sometimes not showing when it should.
Chat colors will no longer reset when exiting the social options menu.
Changed the "Create New Window" option to "Create New Tab."
When the Chat Options window is open, you can no longer remove or create new tabs until you close the Options window.

Crafting
Fixed many crafting UI issues.
Added crafting UI animations.

Grouping
When entering a group via the Grouping Tools, the UI will no longer continue to say Group Members 0/4.
If your group members are assigned to a campaign, that data will now properly display in the Campaign Browser window.

HUD
Health and Magicka bars now show regen effects.

Load Screens
Added game hints to load screens.

Localization
Added support for gender-specific names for classes, races, skill lines, etc.

Mail
A confirmation box will now appear when returning mail.
You can no longer simultaneously trigger multiple mail interactions.
Fixed an issue that resulted in returned mail spam when a mail expired.

Maps
Maps have been added or updated for many of the dungeons.
Dungeon maps set to zoom out to the wrong overland zone have been fixed.
All overland maps have been updated to a higher resolution, more detailed style.
A new Mundus map has been added to the game but is not yet fully functional.
Fixed incorrectly placed quest markers on the map.
Filters now properly work on all special maps (keep travel, keep respawn, Wayshrine travel).
Fixed an issue that was causing the Wayshrine travel map to start zoomed all the way in instead of completely zoomed out.
The map for Tamriel has been updated. You can now right click to zoom out to the Tamriel map and left click on another zone to view that map.

Options
It is now possible to set keybindings for the following German character keys: < >.

Quick Slots
Treasure maps (and any other non-consumable items) will now appear as a greyed-out icon on your quick slot menu when you no longer have any of that item in your inventory.
You will now receive an error message when you attempt to equip an item in your quickslots that you do not need the level requirements to use.

Tool Tips
We have polished many item tool tips.
Achievements now have tool tips.