The latest update reduces silver chests from 3 hours to 1 hour, or from 36 to 12 gems; plus a few other changes.
Blades Update - 4.11.2019 Hello everyone! Thank you for playing The Elder Scrolls: Blades and helping us make changes during this Early Access period. We’ve updated the following: Silver Chests! These now only take one hour to open, or 12 Gems. (They were 3 hours and 36 gems before). Wood Chests and Elder Chests have been added to Job rewards. Elder Chests are extremely rare, but possible. Silver Chests no longer appear in the Abyss. Adjusted Abyss floors below your level to reward more experience points. Added confirmation for any Gem use above 11, so you don’t accidentally use higher amounts. Thanks again and keep sending us your feedback. We can’t believe how many of you are playing, and playing a lot! We’ll have more changes during Early Access as we tune and balance the game. Stay tuned!
Very happy with the reduced timer and opening costs on the silver chests. I definitely liked the idea when it was suggested a couple of pages back and I’m glad the devs made the change. Making crucial balance changes in early access is what I was hoping from Bethesda and these adjustments are going to help a lot.
It is indeed nice that they paid attention to the feedback. This update brings good and bad points however and I wonder if it was planned like that. The very good point is that Silver chest have a timer reduced to 1 hour and the loot seems to be the same (I was afraid that they would reduce the drop rate of gold and items since they reduced the timer but it doesn’t seem to be the case). However I would like to know if they reduced the drop rates of Wooden chests. I have opened more than 100 Wooden chests and I didn’t find any Cooper for instance (whereas before I could find 12-18 Cooper every 20-30 chests). Did someone noticed something similar or is it just a matter of chance and I didn’t get any unfortunately. Also, it seems really really hard to find Gold chests in Jobs. Sure they have added Elder chests but even Silver chests are rarer. It wouldn’t be a problem if I could simply chain Jobs but the cost of repairs becomes insane at one point (I earn 1200 Gold in Jobs but I need 1800 Gold to repair my armor after every Job).
There was always a fixed rotation of chests, prior to the update the entire rotation of chests was 100 jobs and there were about 7 gold chests littered throughout the 100 wooden. I read on reddit that this update increased the rotation to 500 jobs... with not to many more gold chests in the mix unfortunately. Best Place I’m seeing gold chests now is in abyss. They are in the loot reward rotation and if i go in to stage 20 i usually am collecting a gold by floor 24-25. Seems guaranteed so I assume there is a fixed rotation on the loot in abyss as well, and it definitely is a better odd than jobs. EXP / Gold from Jobs for me Gold Chests from Abyss
Good to know about the chest rotation. Indeed the Abyss rotation stayed fixed and they only removed the silver chest from the rewards and replaced it with an uncommon item instead. But now that I am level 36, I find it really hard to reach more than 4 levels above mine in the Abyss. There are no more critters (like rats, spiders and whips) and ennemies have enchanted weapons that can deal some serious damages, especially with Poison. On top of that, Dragons begin to appear and this makes the progression harder, even if I have to admit that fighting a dragon is definitely a cool thing to do in the Abyss However, I have read through the Twitter of Bethesda and some people are saying that you can easily get legendaries in the Abyss. I would be really really curious to know how they manage that... Even more, this guy sent a screenshot of his character and he was level 43. Maybe it does become easier once you have the last set of armor and weapons. Then, I have heard of an exploit some people use to get good rewards in the Abyss. Basically it uses the fact that the multiplier in the Abyss and the XP you get from the monsters is scaled to your level. So the idea is to never level up and continue grinding the Abyss. Sure you get more XP when you are higher level but monsters are also stronger and it costs you more to repair your items. But the rewards from chests seems to be linked to your city level so you can continue to upgrade the city and farm your equipment from chests without much struggle.
A lot of folks on Reddit also farm high end abyss for legendaries / top level chests. I’ve no idea how they do it, I’m currently lvl22, i usually go in to abyss lvl 20 and end up getting killed around lvl25. reddit folks have begun using the lighter ‘caster’ armors for abyss farming. With the right natural enchants they actually tank better than the bigger stuff and have less of a repair bill
I have looked at the reddit discussions and I walked out shocked... I am lvl 36 and I should be concerned but apparently I was not aware of a lot of bad changes that came hidden with the last update. First: the Abyss. From what people say, it is impossible to drop legendaries anymore. Also, the gold reward was reduced and even the normal items are nerfed in 2 tiers (e.g. instead of dropping items for level 50, stuff is around lvl 30). Second: the Chests. The drop rate has been reduced per chest (you drop less ressources and you have a lower chance of finding rare stuff). The chance of finding Gold chests has been reduced. And apparently, you can’t find legendaries in chests anymore. More things are being found little by little bit it seems that Bethesda tried to sneak in some changes that are heavily oriented toward Pay to Win strategies... I am quite mad that they didn't announce these changes as well and only wrote about the 3 to 1 hour reduction of Silver chests. Despicable...
Deleted this. Loved the graphics and a bit gutted I didn't play it more. I think the randomly generated dungeons put me off. Also if they had MFI controls that might have saved it for me. Otherwise didn't hold my attention.
Patch landed bout 3hrs ago. Celebration reward for E3 upon first log in. Patch Notes follow. Along with this major app store update there have been two minor in game download updates over the last two months that increased daily rewards, easied difficulty of various monsters and reduced armor repair bills (amongst other things). Here's todays update : Patch Highlights Giveaways for E3 2019: We’re giving away FREE items during the week of E3! iOS: If you’re playing on an Apple device, login to receive the Crimson Kiss ruby ring, the Apple Pie banner decoration, and 200 Gems Android: If you’re playing on an Android device, login to receive the Cascadia sapphire ring, the Sweet Roll banner, and 200 Gems. All-new NPC voice-over: VO has been added to NPCs you encounter in town, during major quests, and in the solo arena battle jobs. New Dragon Questline: A new questline has been added featuring a fearsome Ancient Dragon and a mysterious dragonslayer. New Jewelry: We’ve added new skill-boosting rings and necklaces. Look for them in chests, craft them at the Smithy, or buy them at the Enchanter’s Tower. New Jobs and Solo Arena Battles: Adjustments and additions have been made to Jobs including the addition of Solo Arena Battles. Support for Players that are Level 50+: Adjustments have been made to allow for players to level up beyond 50. New Features New Quest A fearsome Ancient Dragon has been rampaging throughout a small kingdom. Team up with a self-proclaimed “dragonslayer” and work to defeat this terrible beast. To get started on this quest, you’ll want to speak with Sorine in town after completing the quest, “The Treasure Hunter”. New Jewelry Stand out from the townspeople a little more by adorning yourself in new jewelry you can craft at the Smithy or buy at the Enchanter’s Tower. Like weapons and armors, jewelry comes in ten tiers. Rings provide bonus ranks to Spells and abilities while necklaces provide bonus ranks to Perks. Higher-tier jewelry can give ranks to more powerful skills, or even more ranks to less powerful ones. Enchanted rings have the same primary enchantments as gauntlets. Enchanted necklaces have brand new elemental Retaliation and Regeneration enchantments. You can find a new Artifact, the Warlock’s Ring. During the week of E3 2019, in addition to a new banner and Gems, you will be able to obtain the Crimson Kiss on iOS and Cascadia on Android. New Jobs New additions can be found to Jobs including some new scenery and new ways to test your skills in combat. Take arms and fight NPC enemies one-on-one in Solo Arena Battle Jobs. Get some fresh air with new Jobs that take place in the forest. Some secrets have been added to select Jobs. Will you find them all? Reward icons have been added to the Jobs Menu. The average difficulty of Jobs at higher levels has been reduced. The timing of the Elder Chest Job rewards has been randomized. Materials to collect can now be picked up by tapping on the objective icon. Removed food from the very beginning of jobs. New Audio – including NPC Voice-over Improvements and additions have been made to various audio around the world. If you thought you heard that townsperson speak you probably did! New voice-over has been added to NPCs around town, during major quests, and in Solo Arena Battle Jobs. You can now adjust any voice-over audio options in the Settings menu. Dremora enemies now have unique audio. New audio cues have been added when an enemy is stunned by a High Block and when a Wispmother blocks an attack. Weapons that have poison applied to them now have new audio. Walking audio has been added that changes depending on what armor you have equipped. Music now continues where it left off once combat concludes. ================================================ General Chests: Elder and Legendary Chests can no longer be lost. They are now still added to your chests if received while at full chest capacity. Difficulty: We’ve improved the accuracy of Skull difficulty ratings. Now the difficulty rating will only depend on your currently equipped items. Dev Note: The Skull ratings are now more accurate in more situations, and at all levels, but we're keeping a close eye on them to identify any remaining cases that need improvement. Leveling: The player level cap has been increased to 100! To complement this adjustment, we’ve also added new level up rewards and offers, as well as more challenging jobs. Dev Note: In order to curb high-level power, level ups over 50 no longer award attribute increases or Skill Points. Abyss Difficulty: The Abyss difficulty has been revised. We’ve also added messaging to identify the recommended starting floor. Dev Note: The new balancing provides a more consistent degree of challenge for all players. Display: Added a celebration when surpassing your current depth record. Enemies: High-level Dremora can now drop Daedra Hearts and Daedroth Teeth in the Abyss. Enemies: High-level Dragons can now drop Dragon Bones, Dragon Scales, and Dragon Claws in the Abyss. Options: Added the option to return directly to town after an Abyss run. Rewards Display: The next Abyss reward name now displays on screen. Rewards: Increased how many enemies must be killed to earn the first bonus reward. Art and Graphics Visual Effects: The Ebony Mail artifact now emits smoke. Creatures and Enemies Attacks: Slowed down some Skeleton, Wight, Bear, and Giant Spider attacks. Drops: Added possible item drops to Spiders, Skeletons, Goblin Wizards, Necromancers, Thalmor Agents, Warmasters, Trolls, Outcasts, and Nether Liches. Shulkunaak: Updated Shulkunaak's scales to a unique new color. Spells, Abilities, and Enchantments Effects: Standardized the prevention of negative effects inflicted by skills. The effects of Ice Spike, Blind, Paralyze, Guardbreaker, Harrying Bash, and Staggering Bash can now all be avoided with the Absorb spell, as well as by dodging all of the skill's damage with a Dodging Strike. Quests Main Quest: Added dialogue and cutscenes to the last two quests of the main questline. Five Stones Quest: Reduced the difficulty of the Undead Dragon in The Five Stones quest. Mercenaries on the Run: Replaced the Leather reward for completing the Mercenaries on the Run quest with Pearls. Quest Items: Assigned higher rarities to important quest items. Town Building Construction: Revised building construction, upgrade and customization costs, as well as associated Prestige rewards. Dev Note: The new balancing makes upgrading and customizing more important to growing your town, with greater Prestige rewards for doing so. Customizing to Stone style now requires Bronze, and customizing to Castle style requires Bronze and Marble, but both materials are now easier to find. Decorations: Two unique decorations have been added to giveaway during E3, the Apple Pie (iOS) and Sweet Roll banners (Android). Decorations: Added new decorations to craft in the Workshop. Decorations: Added new decorations that will appear in the Store over time. Materials: Increased Bronze and Marble drop rates in chests. Reduced drop rate of alchemy materials. Materials: Added new collection jobs to find Bronze or Marble. Prestige Rewards: Prestige rewards have been added when earning and purchasing decorations. User Interface Display: Added buttons to clearly show when Gems can be spent to replace missing gold or materials. Display: Added a button that appears when a challenge is completed to go directly to the Challenges Menu to claim your reward. Inventory Menus: Improved filtering options and default sorting in shop and inventory menus. Lists: Fixed a bug that would return a list to the top whenever an action was taken on an item in that list. Loading Screen: Added loading screen tips about enemy damage types. Menus: Updated the Tips Menu with new and revised content. Notifications: Added a notification for players that stop playing without collecting the daily reward. Settings: Increased maximum camera sensitivity. Store: Fixed a bug that displayed two daily rewards in the Store. Tutorials: Added tutorials for new players about quests, town building, and device orientation. ================================================ Bug Fixes Armor, Weapons, and Items Collection: Fixed a bug that prevented you from collecting an item that was too close to you. Description: Fixed a text bug that referred to “Quicksilver Armor” as “Blades Armor”. Scrolls: Fixed a bug that made Scrolls of Revival take up inventory space. Weapons: Fixed a bug that drastically lowered the power of the Onyx Cleaver and Onyx Saber's regeneration reduction effects. Art and Graphics Animation: Fixed a visual bug that prevented enemies from reacting to the Thunderstorm spell's bolts. Animation: Fixed visual issues with the elves encountered at the start of The Five Stones quest. Graphics: Fixed a visual bug that gave the Dwarven War Axe the same look as the Dwarven Battleaxe. Graphics: Fixed a visual bug where the dragon on an Imperial banner would face the wrong direction. Visual Effects: Fixed a visual bug that made the bolts emitted by the Lightning Bolt and Delayed Lightning Bolt spells look like they were interrupted when they were not. Visual Effects: Fixed a visual bug that misplaced certain visual effects on enchanted weapons. Combat Health: Fixed an issue that would cause your Health to not restore fully upon reviving after death. Combos: Fixed a bug where going from attack to block to attack would turn the second strike into a combo. Spells, Abilities, and Enchantments Abilities: Fixed a bug that prevented abilities from working correctly when used near the end of a Dodging Strike performed with a light weapon. Enchantments: Fixed a bug that made the Fortify Elemental Condition, Elemental Adrenaline, and Elemental Opportunist secondary enchantments too powerful when applied to damage over time. Enchantment: Fixed a display bug where the value shown for a weapon's primary enchantment was not increased by a Fortify Primary Enchantment effect. Perks: Fixed an issue that stopped the Combat Focus perk from applying to Reckless Fury. Perks: Fixed a bug that applied the Enchantment Synergy perk to shield and armor material bonuses. Perks: Fixed a bug that prevented the Enchantment Synergy perk from working, when first learned, until a new area was loaded. Resistances: Fixed an issue that drastically reduced the effectiveness of Fire Resistance against the Wall of Fire spell. User Interface Display: Fixed a bug that made the Skill buttons unresponsive.
Thanks for the comprehensive list. So far I’m enjoying the update, but I did have a job become corrupted when I picked up a skeleton’s dropped shield — had to quit back to town. I’m hoping that was just a communication glitch.
I think the problem with random environment generation, especially with big budget games, is that all too often it isn’t given the same precedence as hand-crafted layouts. There have been many roguelikes and indies that have “more inspired” procedural generation. There is no excuse other than lack of effort or time when random layouts are less interesting than their non random counterparts. For the record I think the random locations in Blades are adequate but could definitely use a bit more of that special something.
Speaking of updates and randomness I’ve been getting secret areas from what I assume are random layouts (I’ve been playing multiple quests from the jobs board) if Bethesda included secret areas in their procedural generation then Kudos for them. It’s been about a month and change since I last played ES: Blades so I’m not sure if this is a new addition to the latest patch or an addition to a prior update but that’s a good improvement to have secrets inclusive all around. My edit 3 minutes later: Read the full patch notes, instead of quickly skimming, and I see that secrets have definitely been added to the job quests in the latest patch.
I love the difficulty rebalancing in this update. Finally. All those 5 and 6 skull story missions just because 3 and 4 woo!
Interesting you mention that. I was on a mission for a crown that ended in a dead dragon. Half way through i killed a skeleton, he dropped a shield and instantly the game errored, i had to reload the game and it requires a new 50mb download to get back in.
Winter update has arrived. Highlights are : . Guilds . Arena . Chest Timers removed (gem refund for chest limit upgrade purchases) . More loot everywhere in jobs . Optional bosses in secret rooms in jobs . Everything’s covered in snow . Optimization / balancing all over the place
The update seems promising. Early days though. I left the game mainly due to the atrocious drop rates of mobs previously. But came back specifically due to this update. Sounded very promising and actual Edler Scrolls-like. Did one arena match and one quest. Went quite well. The drop rates from mobs has increased substantially. They even drop gear now. There are chests which instantly open when found. Moreover, the chest loot has improved. Got two epics already. Fingers crossed.
