Prior to this week there were no queues. Even with fewer campaigns.
HORNS OF THE REACH – BLOODROOT FORGE PREVIEW
INVESTIGATE THE LOST FORGE
The Dreadhorn Clan, an unusual alliance between Reachmen and Minotaurs, has been terrorizing the people of the Jerall Mountains for months, and now you and your comrades must travel to a long-forgotten site to investigate the fate of those taken and discover the truth of Bloodroot Forge.
“The idea behind this dungeon is an ancient forge, buried away within the bowels of the earth, that is unstable and highly volatile," says Mike Finnigan, ESO’s Dungeon Lead. “When building this new area, we wanted it to feel primal and somewhat untouched."
When traversing the winding paths towards the Forge, you’ll notice the twisting growth of pulsing vines and rich Nirncrux veins. These strange plants seem to draw Nirncrux, a rare material reportedly found exclusively in Craglorn, up from the ground in huge quantities, bathing the area in a red glow.
As you work to free the captives and investigate the Forge, you will quickly find that the environment is not the only thing that has changed in unusual ways. The savage Reachmen have been twisted by their Nirncrux Heartstones, and they stand with their fierce Minotaur allies guarding the Forge. Even worse, Nirnblooded beasts, magical creatures imbued with Nirncrux, have been summoned by a powerful Hagraven to assist them.
The deeper you go into the mountains, the more dangerous the environment will get. As you work to uncover the fate of the poor souls captured by the Deadhorn Clan and shut down the Forge, you must navigate the site’s crumbling caverns and red-hot molten Nirncrux lakes.
Finally, as you enter the Bloodroot Forge itself, you will discover first-hand the cost of the Reachmen’s terrible blood rituals and the power they bring to life.
DESTROY THE NIRNBLOODED MENACE
As mentioned above, Bloodroot Forge is defended by a host of new, unique enemies, each ready to fight to the death. The Reachmen and Minotaurs of the Dreadhorn Clan, empowered by blood rites, have unique abilities that’ll require team coordination and mobility to overcome.
Everything in Bloodroot Forge has been saturated by the touch of Nirncrux thanks to the Reachmen’s blood rituals, including the dungeon’s bosses. You’ll encounter massive beasts, insidious Hagravens, Minotaurs, and more before finally taking on the Earthgore Amalgam, a colossal Iron Atronach that is fueled by blood and given life by the Forge itself.
Some of these bosses may seem straightforward, such as the giant Nirnblooded bear Mathgamain, but others threaten to confuse you with tricky new abilities that must be deftly managed. For example, the Hagraven Caillaoife has a unique ability that looks similar to the Warden’s Healing Grove, however, instead of healing, it has different effects depending on whether you’re inside the radius or out. How you manage this ability will help you overcome the cunning witch.
In a similar fashion to Falkreath Hold, the environment also plays an important role in Bloodroot Forge.
“From the start of the lava cave (called Sanguinary Veins), there are various places where you see rocks falling from the ceiling into the lakes, creating temporary platforms," says Finnigan. “So you get to see that unique gameplay element telegraphed before the upcoming boss fight."
These unique mechanics, telegraphed by either the Forge’s guardians or the environment itself, reflect a core tenet found in all of the dungeons that the development team builds.
“It’s important to have mechanics that are both easy to identify and have a big payoff when you do them right. It cannot be too difficult, but at the same time it has to feel rewarding when you do it."
Should you make it into the heart of the Forge, the Earthgore Amalgam boss fight reinforces this environmental element and goes even further by allowing you and your team to actually interrupt or cancel the boss’s attacks.
“A lot of the bosses in ESO can’t be stunned, as it would cancel abilities that we don’t want interrupted. But what we did with the Earthgore Almalgam is that we built interrupts into mechanics of the boss fight itself," says Finnigan. “And you’re definitely going to want to make use of these mechanics if you want to survive the battle."
Stopping a boss in their tracks is a rare occurrence in ESO’s dungeons, but in the case of this one, it is core to how you defeat this challenge.
PLUNDER AN ANCIENT SITE
While the battles you’ll experience in Bloodroot Forge are rewarding in their own right, it wouldn’t be a true dungeon experience without unique gear, furnishings, and collectibles for your efforts.
Firstly, like all dungeons in The Elder Scrolls Online, each one of the five bosses will drop a piece of one of the three new sets (one light, one medium, and one heavy). This could include, for example, the Blooddrinker medium set. This high-critical set increases your Bleed Damage by a full 20%, making some of your Weapon Skills such as Twin Slashes, Cleave or even the Twin Blade and Blunt passive (with axes) much more effective.
Of course, Bloodroot Forge also features a powerful monster mask set. The Earthgore set is designed to help healers by increasing their healing done and providing additional heals to friends who are under 50% health via a pool of blood that grants a heal over time effect.
When completing Bloodroot Forge on normal the first time, you’ll also receive a unique mounted trophy for your home, and if completing it on Veteran, you’ll get a bust. Finally, in addition to the bust, if you complete Bloodroot Forge on Veteran, you’ll also unlock the Keptu-Horn Skull Sallet collectible. As mentioned in our Falkreath Hold preview, you can pair this with the Veteran reward for that dungeon simultaneously, ensuring everybody knows you’ve completed both dungeons on the hardest setting.
Finally, after completing both Falkreath Hold and Bloodroot Forge on Veteran difficulty, you’ll unlock the ability to purchase the Hakkvild’s High Hall home with gold. If you have not completed both dungeons on Veteran, you can still purchase it with crowns in the in-game Crown Store.
SHUT DOWN THE FORGE FOREVER
You can take on this new four-player dungeon this August on PC/Mac, PlayStation™4, and Xbox One. The Horns of the Reach DLC game pack will be available to all ESO Plus members and available for purchase in the in-game Crown Store.
From the official forums:
Recent Issues with NA Megaserver
ZOS_GinaBrunoZOS_GinaBruno
7:12PM edited 7:12PM in General ESO Discussion
Staff Post
Hi everyone,
We’d like to briefly explain what’s been going on with the North American server stability lately. In short, we’ve been getting hit with many repeated DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service). When this happens, it floods our service and prevents you from being able to log in, stay connected, or even group properly. Sometimes they only affect a handful of players, and other times they can cause a much greater and widespread impact. Either way, it’s a frustrating situation.
While we do have protection in place (which we obviously can’t discuss publicly), it hasn’t been enough. We’ve been working hard to implement additional security measures to make sure you’re able to log in – and stay logged in – whenever you want to play, and aren’t interrupted. We hope you understand why we’re being somewhat vague and not discussing specifics here. We take this issue very seriously, though, and are working hard to ensure everyone has the best experience possible.
Thank you for your continued support and patience.
I wonder if this affects sound as well. ESO is really the only game where I drop sound from on a regular basis. It usually happens in a crowded area or when the music starts getting ramped up. It’ll start stuttering and then click out. Happened a lot tonight.
You’ve had this issue for a while though. Just more so lately.
Probably a shot in the dark
WHY IS MY SOUND CUTTING OUT WHEN PLAYING THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE ON MY XBOX ONE?
Updated 05/25/2017 12:57 PM Published 04/10/2016 08:15 PM
If you have lost your sound while playing The Elder Scrolls Online on Xbox One, visit this link and go through the processes listed on this page.
Note: You may experience audio issues with the game if you start it prior to connecting your headsets to their Xbox One. To avoid this issue, we recommend plugging the headset into the console before starting the game
You can find some additional troubleshooting steps below:
Exit to the dashboard and then return to the game.
Exit to the dashboard and then close the game out completely.
Shut down your Xbox One for 30 seconds and then reboot.
Clear your Save Data:
From the Xbox Home Menu, navigate to My games & apps.
Go to Games.
Highlight The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited tile and press the [Menu] button of the controller.
Select Manage Game.
Highlight and select Save Data for the desired user.
Select Delete.
You may also experience issues if your HDMI audio setting is on. There is hardware that will have difficulty with audio while using this setting. You can turn off this setting by following the steps below:
From the Xbox Home Menu,navigate to your Settings.
Select Display & Sound.
Select Audio Output.
Under HDMI Audio select Off in the drop-down options.
Please be aware that deleting this save data will only reset your settings. No character data will be affected.
If the above solutions do not resolve you issue, you should contact Xbox Support here.
If you are using a specific set of hardware and are still experiencing issues, we also suggest contacting the manufacturer for further assistance.
I don’t see how any of that would affect the sound, other than maybe
And I mean it’s from early 2016, So there have been updates to both the console and the game since then.
What about your HDMI cable itself? Could it possibly be a hardware issue on your end? The game could conflict with it somehow. It’s just strange that this is the only game you have sound issues with
Only game with the issue.
It’s his crappy headphones.
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We’ll see it the new expansion this month.
Cost is 1500 Crowns or comes with ESO Plus Subscripion.
- Tackle 2 all-new dungeons: Bloodroot Forge and Falkreath Hold
- Earn new unique item sets and Monster Masks
- New Achievements, boss collectibles, and titles
- Complete all Horns of the Reach Achievements to earn exclusive costumes and a new dye
Oh nice. Been wondering how this will be. Those delves and public dungeons will be busy
I’m still trying to get past all the current content. I have Vvardenfell half done on my Warden. Lately I’ve been banging out Bangkoria on my NB. I was farming Spriggan’s gear and got bored and just started doing quests.
I really enjoy questing in this game.
Questing is fun. I was getting bored of Vvardenfell though. It has a lot of repetitive running around quests. Been having trouble getting into it. I should finish the main story with my mag sorc.
I have done a few quests in Vvardenfell but I lose interest. That’s how it is with all the DLC, I haven’t finished any of the previous ones either.
Lots of DLC coming out recently and this game is over 2 years old. The mention of new monster masks interests me.
I enjoyed the Theives Guild DLC. I just didn’t stay and grind out max level for that skill line. I just did the story and all the quests once and moved on. There is actually quite a bit of content in these smaller DLCs.
Morrowind and Vvardenfell have some really good quest lines and stories.
I still haven’t done thieves guild. I played through the Dark Brotherhood instead. Still my favorite quests in the game
I started the Dark Brotherhood and got the Blade of Woe but didn’t get far. I’ll revisit it soon on my Nightblade.
That’s why I didn’t get far on TG. Dark Brotherhood was too similar. I’ll need to revisit that as well
BTW, I fully upgraded my 3rd horse wang last night. Remember boys and girls, log in daily to run your horse upgrade. I need to create a Dragonknight just to get a head start on his horse upgrade.
That may be the most bizarre try-hard behavior I’ve seen. Or just a scary fascination with horse wangs. Who am I to judge? And I am judging.
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