
Check out some of the big quality-of-life improvements and changes coming soon with Update 23!
The Update 23 base-game patch is a free update coming soon in tandem with the Scalebreaker DLC game pack. This free patch brings a host of improvements and fixes for all ESO players, including big changes to Undaunted Keys, crafting, and Guild Traders.
Undaunted Keys and Merchants
Previously, any Undaunted Keys you’d earned from completing daily dungeon quests had been stored within your inventory or bank and could be spent on one of the three Undaunted chests. With ESO’s ever-growing library of dungeons, this created a problem for Tamriel’s dungeon explorers.
“We knew that as we continued adding more and more dungeons (and thus more monster shoulders), it was becoming increasingly difficult for players to obtain the set they were interested in,” explains Philip Draven, ESO’s Lead Systems Designer. “So we needed a solution that would be sustainable and fair to players over many updates to come.”
With Update 23, Undaunted Keys are now a currency and no longer take up inventory or bank space. In addition to this, the Undaunted quest givers (Maj al-Ragath, Glirion the Redbeard, and Urgarlag Chief-bane) are now also merchants. For one key, you can purchase a mystery coffer from them that contains a reward similar to the ones you could previously receive from the Undaunted chests. Additionally, they sell specialized coffers that you can purchase for five keys. These new coffers provide a guaranteed monster shoulder set from only two potential sources, increasing the chance of you receiving the one you want! Finally, they also offer the monthly monster shoulder style page for 50 keys (and this page has a chance to drop from regular mystery coffers, as well).
Get the shoulders you need!
“With Undaunted keys now stored as a currency, players regain some inventory space, can narrow their reward possibilities down, and can choose from rewards that are much more clearly labeled,” says Draven. “Additionally, this new approach provides us with much more flexibility for future growth.”
Bid on Multiple Guild Traders
Update 23 also introduces multi-bidding for Guild Traders. Previously, each Trading Guild could bid on only one Guild Trader Location each week, meaning there was a risk that some Guilds could miss out.
“Having access to a Guild Trader can be essential for trade guilds to operate, and with a single bid in a blind bidding situation, there was a significant risk of not having one at all after a bidding cycle,” explains Bobby Weir, ESO’s UI Lead.
To help alleviate this issue, the team gave Guild Leaders the ability to place bids on up to 10 different Guild Traders each week.
Don’t miss out on a Guild Trader location
By bidding different amounts on different Guild Traders, you can set your preferences and priorities. Should you miss your first preference, the game will check your second choice and so on. Even if you have winning bids for more than one Guild Trader, you are awarded the location that you placed the highest bid on.
“While having 10 available bids may seem like a large number, only the highest winning bid will be applied,” explains Draven. “And once a guild has been assigned a guild trader from their highest winning bid, all of their other bids are completely refunded and are no longer factored into the final auction for any other trader.”
Happy bidding!
Craft Multiple Items at Once
With Update 23’s multi-crafting addition, you’ll never have to waste time crafting or refining the same items over and over again. This change allows you to perform various crafting actions in bulk, including refining, creating, deconstructing, and extracting.
“With multi-crafting, we really wanted to streamline a lot of the repetitive things done at crafting stations so that you can get back to playing the game,” says Weir. “This benefits many different players, from the crafters and farmers that have a ton of materials to refine, to the dungeon explorers who return with a large amount of items to deconstruct, all the way to the hardcore PVEers and PVPers that burn through hundreds of potions and/or poisons in a play session.”
With this change, you’ll save a lot of time at Crafting Stations.
“Refining a whole stack of materials at once is pretty straightforward, but you can also refine several stacks of different materials at once too by first selecting each stack,” explains Weir. “You can do the same in deconstruction by selecting each item you want to deconstruct, rather than having to hit Deconstruct for each item.”
A Better Base Game
All of the updates and improvements above (and much more!) are coming free for all ESO players in tandem with the Scalebreaker DLC game pack launch. If you’re looking forward to these changes to crafting, Guild Traders, or Undaunted keys, let us know via Twitter @TESOnline, Instagram, or Facebook!