The new Update 11 patch, Shadows of the Hist, features 2 new 4-player dungeons, Ruins of Mazzatun and Cradle of Shadows, as well as a whole load of updates to the remaining Craglorn Trials:
- 4-player Dragonstar Arena will now scale to CP 160.
- 12-player Aetherian Archive and Hel Ra Citadel will now feature Normal and Veteran modes, as well as scaling all the way to CP 160.
So we're going to go to the Public Test Server and try out some of the updated Trials.
The event will be held this Saturday at 1pm Eastern Daylight Time / 10am Pacific Daylight Time / 5pm GMT / 6pm British Summer Time. It's early to allow our friends from the European branch to join us if they would like. (I am afraid it is probably a terrible time for our Australians and New Zealanders and apologise because there are too many timezones in the world.)
I expect we will start with CP 160 Normal Aetherian Archive and, depending on how that goes, progress to CP 160 Normal Hel Ra Citadel and/or CP 160 Veteran Aetherian Archive. Please allow 30 minutes for each Normal Trial and up to 2 hours for the Veteran Trial.
If you'd like to come along, you'll need to download the PTS client. If you've ever been on the PTS, the patch is about 4.5 GB, but if you've never downloaded it, it'll be a full download of around 60 GB. Teamspeak will also be required. The UESP Teamspeak server is:
server: ts.uesp.net
password: SothaSil
Please arrive ready to run a Trial at CP 160 level. This means that you should be in a minimum of purple CP 150 gear with all Champion Points and passives assigned. Since this is the PTS and materials are therefore "free", I am willing to craft armour for anyone who needs it. If you need armour crafted, please let me know the sets and traits you require by Saturday at 1pm GMT at the latest. I believe that template characters come with decent armour and jewellery, and should have all crafting skills unlocked, but I know that people often prefer to play with their usual sets where possible, and that getting to certain crafting stations (e.g. the Earth Forge for Kagrenac's Hope) is often a problem on a template.
If you are going to play with a template character, please allow at least an hour to get your character set up. Players who are usually in the European UESP Guild will have to do this since it is currently the North American server which is copied onto the PTS. European players, please send a mail to @baratron or @Reorx on the PTS to be added to the North American UESP Guild, or leave me a note here in the thread. Our Guild is set up so any member has invite permissions, so as soon as one of you is added, you can invite everyone else
.North American players should find that very few changes have been made to skills, so no respec should be necessary. There are some changes to racial passives but almost all of them are bonuses rather than nerfs. However, the CP cap has been raised by 30 points, so those of you with more than 501 CP will find you have up to 10 CP of each colour to assign. Therefore please arrive 10 minutes early so that you can assign these points.
Please also read the PTS Patch Notes for 2.5.0 so that you are prepared for changes.
Be aware that I will be streaming and recording the Trial. This is at the request of members of the Dungeon Team including Mike Finnagan, the Dungeon Lead, who gave us some instructions in a meeting last week. The stream will be on my Twitch account. I am sure they are used to hearing players swearing and cursing ZOS
.I know this is a lot to take in. Please ask if you have any questions! Also, please drop a note in this thread to let me know you're coming, along with your preferred role. We usually have enough Tanks and Healers but a desperate shortage of good DPS.
~baratron (GM of the North American PC/Mac UESP Guild)