New Character Revisions
As part of ongoing efforts to improve the experience for new players, we have made some changes to the way new players are onboarded into The Elder Scrolls Online.
Soul Shriven in Coldharbour
The first chapter of the original Main Quest now serves as the tutorial and starting point for all new characters. The previous tutorial quest, “Gates of Adamant,” is retired, but you can still finish the quest if your character is still in progress.
Those who are in the state of having completed “Gates of Adamant” but not having completed “Soul Shriven in Coldharbour” will still engage that story as before; the Hooded Figure will appear to you when entering a major city, and you will be brought to the Wailing Prison as normal if you acquire the quest this way.
You may skip the character tutorial after your first time, if you prefer. You'll automatically complete the quest and be eligible for subsequent quests in the storyline, starting with "The Harborage" upon reaching the first major city of your alliance.
Developer Note:
We recognize that much of what you experience in this space is repetitive for veteran Elder Scrolls Online players. The changes and updates were made based on careful data gathering and analysis. Specifically, how and why new players engage with or choose to avoid certain experiences based on what they were taught early on. Of course, we can’t force players to engage with certain mechanics (beyond those first moments where we, you know, *do*. Just so you what is being taught at the time.) but ensuring we’ve taken time to explain the basics to the uninitiated is super important. More can and will be done on this front in the future.
The following changes are in place for the Soul Shriven in Coldharbour quest experience:
- The opening cinematic is now reminiscent of ESO’s original, with new and improved audio and visual fidelity.
- Upon your first load into the game, you will no longer be overwhelmed with Collectible Acquired, Mail alerts, etc. You still get these Collectibles and/or account updates, but it will not overload your visual space upon this first arrival in your cell.
- If you note any other messages that seem “noisy” to you upon first arrival, please call them out!
- You always start in third-person mode now. You can switch to first-person as you see fit.
- Your first conversation will be with the Prophet, when he appears in your cell as you approach the door. Lyris will proceed to break you out afterward.
- You will receive a new weapon from the Dremora corpse outside of your cell based on your selected class, based on the most familiar “archetype fantasy” related to your class choice. These weapons are in the Daedric style.
- Arcanist: Fire Staff
- Dragon Knight: Two-Handed Axe
- Necromancer: Ice Staff
- Nightblade: Bow
- Sorcerer: Lightning Staff
- Templar: Two-Handed Sword
- Warden: Ice Staff
- The first Dremora you defeat in battle (the Light Attack tutorial fellow) will drop an additional weapon or set of weapons for you. These weapons are in the Daedric style.
- Arcanist: Twin Daggers
- Dragon Knight: Fire Staff
- Necromancer: Two-Handed Axe
- Nightblade: Twin Daggers
- Sorcerer: Twin Daggers
- Templar: Ice Staff
- Warden: Twin Axes
- You can, and will, find other weapons throughout the Wailing Prison to equip yourself the way you want if you go exploring and loot enemies.
- The combat training tutorials have been updated to current standards, as were laid out in Gates of Adamant’s combat teaching moments.
- Vaekar the Forgemaster is your first “apply what you learned” encounter, with the expectation you will do what you were just taught as those attacks become available (without being too mechanical/phase driven). He will also instruct you on how to Dodge Roll, albeit not in a friendly manner!
- Itemization in the Wailing Prison has been completely reworked, stripping out unnecessary teaching moments that are not immediately relevant. Specifically:
- You should no longer receive any kind of crafting components in this space. This is to reduce inventory pressure on a new character and remove prompts to craft things at stations that do not exist in the tutorial zone.
- You will still receive other loot drops such as potions, equipment, and other items that are immediately useful in your escape attempt.
- You can still loot world objects (your precious urns!) to find items. But you should not be surprised that funerary urns in Molag Bal’s Happy Fun Time Jail mostly contain ashes and bones. At least you can sell them later.
- The Stealth training section is mostly reworked. There is but one path to sneak through now (nearest to where you exit the cell block), and the teaching moments here are more thoughtful and paced.
- Barrels to hide in are also interspersed along the path with a relevant tutorial if you get close to them.
- You are not mandated to proceed through this area in any form of stealth. If you want to bash your way through, feel free; but we do ask that you at least press the button that makes you sneak, so you know that you *can*.
- Many ambient scenes and characters throughout the Wailing Prison now have different “actors” and behaviors.
- Ambient encounter composition and staging is improved and modernized throughout the Wailing Prison.
- The Lockpicking tutorials have been revised somewhat; you’ll receive several prompts/pop-up tutorials leading up to the door itself, and the timer has been greatly increased in duration (to 5 minutes) to give you ample time to practice. You can still force the door if you don’t want to bother or are getting frustrated, but this is your opportunity to take your time and practice with it.
- Just inside the Undercroft is a new Break Free teaching moment. You will trigger a freezing trap (appropriately staged with surrounding frozen escapees) and be prompted to Break Free.
- The Undercroft has been streamlined to have fewer dead ends and give you a single (if windy) path through it. The general threat level in the Undercroft has also increased.
- The Child of Bones is your second “apply what you learned” encounter. You will be able to use everything you’ve learned against it, and its health and damage output have been increased (the Prophet is still around to heal you, and death is still unlikely for new players if you aren’t just standing in the proverbial fire).
- You will continue to be sent to your alliance’s “starter island” after leaving the Wailing Prison.
Developer Note:
These islands continue to be the best way to introduce new players to the game world and give them a sense of continuity. Both new and experienced players can still travel to their preferred content by using wayshrines or travel-to-player methods.
- Steps were taken to ensure Skill Point parity for players who were in various states of completion for Gates of Adamant and/or Soul Shriven in Coldharbour. Specifically:
- If you create a new character from scratch, since Gates of Adamant is no longer accessible, you will receive two skill points upon completing or skipping Soul Shriven in Coldharbour (plus the partial skill point you would get for claiming the skyshard in there).
- If you have completed Gates of Adamant on a given character, but not Soul Shriven in Coldharbour, you will receive only one skill point for completing the latter when you get around to doing it (and will get the partial skill point from the skyshard as normal).
- If you are still in Gates of Adamant when this change rolls out and complete it, the previous bullet point still applies (you won’t get “more” skill points by setting yourself up to be in this state).
Other Changes
- The Novice and Champion armor previews during character creation are less Blackwood-themed and more modern.
- The “portal movies” that normally play upon using any of the Gates of Adamant portals (for characters who may be in that strange limbo between tutorial quests) no longer play, as they have been removed from the client to save space.
2 Sided Battlegrounds
Update 44 introduces 2-Sided Battlegrounds! The Pit Daemons and Fire Drakes will battle on 7 New Maps designed for 4v4 or 8v8 battles. Four of the new maps are tailored for 8v8, while three maps are better suited to 4v4 due to their smaller size. Players can join these queues at level 50, whereas players between levels 10 and 49 have their own level-banded 8v8 matches. These queues support solo, duo, trio, or full group participation, but not Large Groups.
- The 8v8 Queue will feature all game modes: Capture the Relic, Team Death Match, Domination, Chaos Ball and Crazy King.
- There are also variants on Chaos Ball
- Variant one: There are 3 Chaos Balls in play at once.
- Variant two: 2 of the 3 Chaos Balls have transformative powers, turning you into a Vampire Lord or Werewolf Behemoth.
- There are also variants on Chaos Ball
- 8v8 Matches will also have ‘Power Ups’ scattered throughout the map. These power ups include increased damage, super speed, increased damage mitigation, and 1 time burst Ultimate grants.
- The 4v4 Queue will feature the following game modes: Team Deathmatch, Domination, and Crazy King. However, they will have additional functionality highlighted, such as Rounds, Lives and Spectator Camera.
- Round matches are a ‘Best of 3’ format and last 5 minutes each round.
- Some matches will have lives as are displayed in the upper right corner UI HUD. Lives are per person, not per team. When you run out of lives, you can no longer respawn in the match.
- Spectator Camera will only be in matches where there are lives. You can only spectate members of your team who are still alive.
- In Team Deathmatch with lives, if you wipe the enemy out, that is considered a round win.
- A new single Competitive Leaderboard will replace the existing three, based solely on scoring from 4v4 matches and based on your medals earned, similar to the current system.
- Tie breakers have been added to scoring. If a match ends with both teams having the same score, the match will be determined by looking at medals earned, and lives left for tie breakers. In the rare case of a ‘true tie’ across all other determining metrics, both teams will be assessed as not winning, but also not losing for reward purposes.
Battlegrounds Rewards:
The Battlegrounds Daily Quest has had its reward structure improved:
- Rewards will now follow new tiers:
- 1 win will award a Green Coffer, containing:
- 2,000 Alliance Points
- Any battlegrounds item set in green quality.
- 1 Soul Gem
- A small chance at a battleground style page.
- 2 wins will award a Blue Coffer, containing:
- 5,000 Alliance Points
- Any battlegrounds item set in blue quality.
- 2 Soul Gems
- An increased chance at a battleground style page.
- 3 wins will award a Purple Coffer, containing:
- 9,000 Alliance Points.
- Any battlegrounds item set in purple quality.
- 3 Soul Gems
- A guaranteed battleground style page.
- 1 win will award a Green Coffer, containing:
- In addition, all containers will contain:
- Any battlegrounds style item.
- A Battlemaster Token, a new item earned in battlegrounds used in conjunction with Alliance Points to purchase new collectibles at the Battleground Supply Merchant.
- Style pages are limited to 1 per day. They are curated, so you will only obtain new style pages before getting a random one.
There are also new mailers for 2 sided battlegrounds, which also contain improved rewards, broken into competitive and standard:
- Winning a competitive battleground will award the following:
- 1 PvP item set in purple quality, either a new battleground exclusive set or a still current Rewards for the Worthy set.
- Battlegrounds style item
- 3 soul gems
- A white transmutation geode.es
- A guaranteed battleground style page.
- A very low chance at Chef Arquitius's Lost Thesis.
- A standard win will award the following:
- 1 PvP item set in item set in variable quality determined by performance, either a new battleground exclusive set or a still current Rewards for the Worthy set.
- Battlegrounds style item
- 1 soul gem
- A white transmutation geode.
- A chance at a battleground style page.
- An extremely low chance at Chef Arquitius's Lost Thesis.
- Any loss will award the following:
- 1 PvP item set in item set in variable quality determined by performance, either a new battleground exclusive set or a still current Rewards for the Worthy set.
- 1 soul gem.
- Style pages awarded by battleground mailers are limited to one per day. This is separate from the daily quest and other sources that award style pages.
- We have increased the chances of obtaining Chef Arquitius's Lost Thesis. However, it is still rare to acquire.
Leaderboard Rewards have also had its structure improved, with every leaderboard coffer containing the following:
- A new battleground set piece in gold quality.
- A battleground set piece in purple quality.
- One style page, curated.
- Starting with the new Galeskirmish Gladiator style pages, which are currently exclusive to leaderboard rewards.
- Once you have all the Gladiator pages, they will fall back into other new Battleground style pages, then old ones. Should you have a completely awesome battleground style page closet and all the styles, a 10,000 gold sellable awaits for you.
- A purple transmutation geode.
Imperial City Revamp
Imperial City has gone under a comprehensive reward restructuring, as part of a major overhaul to how PvP item sets can be acquired.
The first major callout is that Imperial Keys and Imperial Key Fragments are being converted to a new account-wide currency called “Imperial Fragments”. Keys and Key Fragments will be automatically converted from your inventory, or when they first go into your inventory from banks, guild traders, etc. Going forward, enemies will also drop this new currency instead of either keys or key fragments. Unlike Tel Var, you do not lose this currency on death.
Another major callout is vault doors in both Imperial City and its dungeons (Imperial City Prison, White-Gold Tower) are no longer gated by keys or key fragments. You can now freely enter vaults without having to worry about fragment conversions or having keys.
Inside the vaults are new vendors who have replaced the treasure chests. This is where you can spend the new Imperial Fragments currency. These vendors contain many of the spoils usually found in the vault chests, as well as some additional item sets and other collectibles. Sets are spread out across all six vaults, as well as in the two dungeons, so everyone is encouraged to make sure to hit all the vaults to get access to what they need.
As for the Imperial City Sewers, vendors there have also been restructured to make more sense and brought up to standards matching those set in previous updates:
- Tel Var First Armourer and Tel Var Second Armourer are now Tel Var Armourer and Tel Var Grand Armourer
- They no longer sell certain individual armor pieces
- They now sell Item Set containers, similar to the Elite Gear Vendor, meaning:
- Blue containers are uncurated, but bind-on-equip.
- Purple containers are curated, and bind-on-pickup.
- The Tel Var Jewelry Merchant is now the Tel Var Rotating Merchant, which contains a weekly rotating stock of goods including:
- Gold PvP Jewelry
- Mythic Antiquity Leads
- Skill Styles and Skill Style Fragments
- Treasure Map Containers
- Scripts for Scribing
- Tel Var Equipment Lockbox Merchant is now the Tel Var Collectibles Merchant, which has:
- Xivkyn Polymorphs
- Siege of Cyrodiil Glue Items (for combining with Siege of Cyrodiil Merits into other collectibles)
- Dragonguard Berserker Style Pages
- Red Rook Garb Style Pages
- The Tel Var General Merchant is staying in place, now only selling the following:
- Crafting Materials
- Glyphs
- Soul Gems
- Style Items
- Furnishings
Achievements associated with Imperial City and its keys and key fragments have been changed:
- The following have been removed from the game:
- Key Collector
- Imperial City Locksmith
- Imperial City Dungeon Locksmith
- The following has been added:
- Imperial Fragment Collector
- If you previously had the "Key Collector” achievement, then you will have this achievement automatically granted to you.
PvP Item Set Reward Cadence
With the reworking of Battlegrounds rewards and Imperial City itemization, we have also reworked the overall PvP item set reward cadence. Currently, as we introduce new PvP item sets, new sets start off in Rewards for the Worthy. These sets then filter entirely into Cyrodiil. As part of this update, we will be establishing a more thorough reward cadence to fit with all the various PvP modes in ESO.
- New sets will continue to be added to the Rewards for the Worthy – this is unchanged.
- As new sets are introduced, the previous new sets will continue to remain in Rewards for the Worthy, herein referred to as “old sets” – this is also unchanged.
- Old sets will also become part of the Competitive Battlegrounds Item Set reward structure.
- This will be in addition to the Battlegrounds Exclusive Item Sets.
- When an additional set rotates into this pool, the previous set rotates out. In other words, only one update of sets is available as a reward at any time.
- Old sets will also become part of the Competitive Battlegrounds Item Set reward structure.
- Previous old sets will be removed from Rewards for the Worthy – again this is unchanged.
- Previous old sets will be filtered into various PvP modes:
- Into Cyrodiil via Town Merchants and content drops (Delves and Dolmens) – this is unchanged from the existing rewards structure.
- Into Imperial City as part of the Vault Vendors for Tel Var and/or Imperial Fragments.
- This would be in addition to the other Tel Var merchants who sell the Imperial City Exclusive Item Sets.
- Into standard Battleground rewards.
This is how the new cadence works, visualized:
Golden Pursuits
Golden Pursuits, a new feature designed to give players even more ways to earn in-game rewards, makes its debut in this update! This new feature will be dynamic and appear during special limited-time windows.
Participation in Golden Pursuits will allow players to earn special account-wide rewards including items, in-game currencies, and more. When active, a selection of activities will be available to complete and appear in a special menu within the Group and Activity Finder. As players complete Golden Pursuit activities they will unlock milestone rewards along the way, all while working to earn a special capstone reward. These new activities won’t always be available but when they are live, a notification for Golden Pursuits will appear on the announcement panel. Players will be able to track specific tasks as they work to earn the capstone reward.
The first Golden Pursuit campaign will go live sometime after Update 44 rolls out to all players, so be on the lookout for an opportunity to earn great rewards!
ESO Plus Changes
In Update 44, we have some new perks coming to ESO Plus.
- ESO Plus members will now receive a 10% increase to earning Alliance Points (Currency, PvP Skill Lines, and Alliance rank only) and Tel Var Stones (monster kills only).
- This perk will not increase leaderboard rank AP gains nor faster progress for gaining Rewards of the Worthy.
- If you are a current ESO Plus member, our brand new Companions Tanlorin and Zerith-var are free to claim within the Crown Store.
- After claiming they will be yours to own regardless of ESO Plus membership status.
New Homes
Two new homes will be available after the Update 44 launch period:
- Kthendral Deep Mines
- Glowing crystals dot the walls of this abandoned Dwarven processing facility perched over fathomless mines in Blackreach. Smiths and others who require steady heat for forging materials can use the active furnace to craft wondrous creations.
- This Notable home will be available for purchase later.
- Grand Gallery of Tamriel
- Once the primary museum for collections curated by the University of Gwylim, this stately structure and its grounds provide a perfect setting for the display of art, curios, and more. Show off favored possessions in a refined locale!
- This Notable home can be acquired sometime next year (2025).
New Furnishings
In this update, we are focusing on refreshing various zones with an emphasis on West Weald.
- 57 new furnishing plans sourced in 5 different places.
- 25 new Dawnwood and Bosmer recipes can be obtained from monsters, containers, and more across West Weald.
- 5 new Lucent Crystal recipes exclusive to West Weald’s World Event.
- 16 new Ayleid themed recipes can be found in West Weald, Gold Coast, and Blackwood from bonus loot when excavating antiquities of intermediate or higher difficulty.
- 10 new mine track themed recipes can be obtained from monsters, containers, and more across Tamriel.
- 1 new Dwarven recipe can be obtained from defeating the “Dismantler the Dwarven Colossus” world boss in Blackreach.
- 24 new reward furnishings can be found in the battleground reward containers “Battlemaster Rivyn's Reward Box” and “Battlemaster's Spoils”.
- 9 new furnishings can be purchased for Tel Var from the Tel Var Collectibles Merchants in each alliance's safe area in the Imperial City Sewers.
- Daggerfall Covenant - Bernamund Bertault
- Aldmeri Dominion - Enruvie
- Ebonheart Pact - Skoref
- 10 new home goods furnishings can be purchased from “Mahei-Jekka” in Skingrad’s “Stalwart Hearthgoods” shop.
- 2 new achievement furnishings have been added for each of the companions that can be purchased once you’ve completed the associated achievements.
- Tanlorin’s furnishing can be purchased from “Athrahgor” in Skywatch’s “Sky’s Edge Tavern”.
- Zerith-var’s furnishing can be purchased from “Athrahgor” in Rawl’kha’s “The March Bazaar”.
New Skill Styles
U44 brings four new earnable Skill Styles. Both Psijic Order skills Accelerate and Undo (the ultimate) are getting purple variants. The One-Hand and Shield skill line’s Puncture ability is getting a molten variant, while the Destruction Staff’s Force Shock ability is getting a wildburn variant. Both Puncture, Lavaburst and Force Shock, Wildburn feature all-new visual effects—the first of their kind! You can acquire these new Skill Styles via new in-game Achievements or with Archival Fortunes, with the exception of the Accelerate, Purple style, which can be rarely found within Psijic Portals.
New Companions
Update 44 also introduces two brand-new Companions to ESO: Tanlorin and Zerith-var. Tanlorin is a scrappy High Elf who mixes Soul Magic with Dragonknight abilities, while the stoic Khajiit Zerith-var utilizes the power of Necromancy. If you are a current ESO Plus member, Tanlorin and Zerith-var are free to claim within the Crown Store. After claiming they will be yours to own regardless of ESO Plus membership status.
