EXCLUSIVE - Scribing ('Spellcrafting') and PvP Update Coming to ESO In 2024

2024 for ESO Revealed

By the time this article is posted, the 2024 Global Reveal for the next Elder Scrolls Online expansion or Chapter will have finished.

Going with the past history of naming Chapters after zones or prominent areas such as Morrowind, Greymoor, Summerset and so on, the 2024 Chapter will be called Gold Road. The name Gold Road refers to the marked road that runs East to West from Imperial City to the city of Anvil. The Gold Road passes through Kvatch in the Gold Coast which is an explorable region already in ESO and the city of Skingrad in the region of West Weald which will be the main zone for the Chapter. 

West Weald will actually be fairly large bordering the zones of Cyrodiil, Gold Coast, Reaper’s March and Craglorn on the player map of Tamriel which again continues to fill up ESO’s map satisfyingly yet again.

West Weald Content

The biomes of the West Weald will include three biomes: The Gold Road, Valenwood Annexation and the Colovian Highlands.

The Gold Road biome has windswept beautiful forests with autumn foliage which refers to those autumn leaves sent out to content creators and hints by developers that the autumn season will play an integral role in ESO for 2024, the Valenwood Annexation is a section of the West Weald which is a jungle rainforest.

The Colovian Highlands is a dry-climate biome with rocky hills that’s also apparently gorgeous. 

Just like with other DLC zones or Chapters there will be a major hub city that comes with the usual Guild Traders and other amenities. The West Weald zone itself will have 11 objectives to explore or fulfill. In addition, there will be 6 overland delves, 6 World Bosses, 2 Public Dungeons and 1 12-player raid, referred to as a Trial in ESO. We couldn’t get any more details about the Trial but the name of the new Trial will be Lucent Citadel. 

There will also be a new type of World Events like Dolmens, Harrowstorms, Elsweyr dragons, High Isle volcanic vents and so forth. The typical World, Group and Event Daily quests will be present in West Weald along with the independent content quests or side quests. 

With West Weald also comes things like housing and antiquity items. All of this apparently amounts to approximately 30 hours of new content or more depending on what you’re going for with the Gold Road Chapter. 

Scribing

At this point you’re probably wondering what the main feature of 2024’s Chapter is. 2018 was jewelry crafting, 2019 was the Necromancer class, 2020 was Antiquities and Mythics with the reworked Vampire skill-line, 2021 was a Companions system, 2022 was the ingame tavern card game called Tales of Tribute and last year was of course the extremely powerful Arcanist class.

What is Scribing? It’s basically a system described to be the Precursor to the Spellcrafting you could do in TES IV: Oblivion at least lore-wise and in many ways functionally. Now before you get too excited, Scribing will not be as insanely free-form as you may expect or think simply because ESO is a MMORPG and combat balance needs to be taken into account. However I do have more information on this system I will share. 

To start off, the first iteration of Scribing will focus on letting you customize Weapon skills, World skills which includes Soul Magic, Mages Guild, Fighters Guild and even the Alliance War skills under Assault and Support skill-lines. If you’re wondering why not class skills at launch, it’s because the devs didn’t want to lock specific classes out. 

There is a questchain involving a NPC called Ulfsild and her research into the “precursors” of magic that will let you unlock Scribing. How you obtain the materials such as grimoires containing spells or skills and effect modifications for those things was hinted at being obtainable through questing, general gameplay and so on.

How It Works

Note: What we were shown was a WIP (work in progress) and not the complete/final product.

First you have to obtain a Grimoire which dictates what skill or spell you’re using. An example given was the ability to shoot an enchanted arrow at the ground that also propels you into a backflip. This would be called a Vault Grimoire. After you obtain a Grimoire, you can Scribe up to three additional effects called Scripts on it as Grimoires have three sockets or script slots for these effects.

So let’s say you want to slap on these effects. You can end up with a skill called Venomous Vault that lets you shoot the ground with an enchanted arrow, dealing Poison Damage to all enemies in that area while you do a backflip. While you’re doing your backflip, you give yourself the Hawk Eye passive as a Secondary effect or maybe you want a heal over time effect. And finally with the Tertiary effect, you could make sure those enemies that were damaged earlier get affected by Minor Vulnerability for 10 seconds on them. 

If you’re excited about the potential possibility or just fun enjoyment of Scribing the next thing we're going to tell you might be even more exciting particularly for people who love fashion or just the look of things.

Styling

A system called Styling will be implemented with the Gold Road Chapter which will give all players the ability to change the colors or appearances of your abilities like making your Wall of Elements be purple. 22 styles have been confirmed to go live with Update 42 at the launch of the Chapter with more planned after Update 42 by the developers.

All 22 styles will be earnable ingame. Furthermore, you will need to obtain something called Inks, basically consumable reagents to change or scribe an ability.  

The Styling system is actually really interesting because we were told that players could in the future change abilitiy appearances beyond just colors. Pet skins for example was mentioned or a fireball from your Inferno Staff could become a flaming Skull.

The potential application of Styling seems pretty open based on what was said at the press meet. It was also noted that Styling is unlockable ingame and not some sort of Crown Store exclusive.

2024 Content Schedule (PvP UPDATE)

Quarter 1 or Update 41 will include two DLC dungeons. One is called Oathsworn Pit while the other is called Bedlam Veil. There will be miscellaneous quality of life improvements or additions. 

Alongside the Chapter in Quarter 2, there will also apparently be performance improvements for ESO being done. 

In Quarter 3, Quality of Life additions including a brand new Housing feature will be added to ESO. Unfortunately, the developers were tightlipped about what the Housing feature could be so that’s something I don’t have information on. 

Notably, instead of two Companions being added with the Gold Road Chapter in Quarter 2, they will instead be added in Quarter 4. Last but definitely not least, a PvP content update is finally finally coming to The Elder Scrolls Online which is incredibly fitting considering the MMORPG started on a bedrock of intense PvP focus.

All we know right now from the press meet is that this PvP update will NOT be Cyrodiil-related. And based on Zenimax Online Studios Director Matt Firor’s statements about development plans for ESO specifically Quarter 4 being a patch where a new tentpole system could be introduced, it may be likely something on the scale of Infinite Archive from 2023 could be introduced mainly for PvP’ers but time will tell.

Developer and Press Q/A

• In regards to the slowdown of combat changes after the standardization and hybridization rolled out, it was mentioned that Potions and Food, basically the Consumables for combat play, are going to be looked at as part of finishing hybridization. 
• Someone asked if a story mode for Dungeons, basically dungeon versions where you could experience the story without risk of dying, is coming but this is not a priority for the developers at the moment compared to other things 
• Someone asked if there will be more Class Item Sets added to the Infinite Archive and it’s again confirmed that 14 more Class Item Sets will be added in the future. 
• On the topic of Item Sets, someone asked if more Item Sets are still going to be added with content updates or will alternatives be looked at due to the clutter? The devs answered that they are discussing this internally as it’s become harder and harder for even them to come up with new concepts or ideas for Item Sets. They acknowledge that removing Item Sets may be hard as they’ve become woven into the game as part of ingame rewards or incentives for players to expect for new content. 
• Someone asked if Overland Content or Puzzles difficulty would be adjusted to be more difficult and the answer was that it would unlikely be changed any time soon. 
• Someone asked if there were any plans for development focus on the Guilds system in ESO and the developers acknowledged they have received feedback. 
• Someone asked if crossplay will ever be a thing for ESO and it was answered that while it’s unlikely to come to ESO due to original development decisions back in 2008 and also due to the need to wade through “political waters”, probably a reference to Microsoft and Sony, the devs are looking into something for it. 
• When asked what is planned for ESO now that it’s reached the 10 year mark and beyond, the answer was that a focus on taking advantage of new technology, introducing more accessibility and of course focusing on more content would be big factors in how ESO continues. 
• Someone asked if Grimoires are character-specific or account-wide and it was answered that they are leaning towards probably making Grimoires account-wide. 
• Someone asked about the potential variety of Scribing and the answer given to that was “Scribing has more possible combinations than Enchanting.” 
• Someone asked if Scribe skills would be affected by Infinite Archive buffs and the answer is yes. 
• Someone asked if there were any plans to increase player inventory size and capacity but it was answered that this is unlikely any time soon due to database drain and potential performance issues. The developers are looking for ways to reduce inventory pressure and pointed to examples like Craft Bag from ESO Plus and the Stickerbook Item Set Collection. 
• Someone asked if West Weald is the only Chapter zone in contrast to Necrom’s two zones of Apocrypha and the Telvanni Peninsula. West Weald is confirmed to be the only Chapter zone unlike 2023. 
• Someone asked if players needed to have played Necrom for the Gold Road Chapter to make sense story-wise. The answer is that while you don’t HAVE to have played Necrom, it could be nice story-wise to do so but new players were taken into consideration. 

STORY (SPOILERS for Necrom, Upcoming Prologue)

The Prologue quest that you can do before the Chapter comes out will let you investigate several locations in Tamriel and discover the location of the Forgotten Daedric Prince’s prison. You will arrive too late, and the Forgotten Prince or Ithelia the Daedric Prince whose former realm was called Mirrormoor revealed at the end of the Necrom Chapter escapes.

The prologue will set up the premise of the main story for the 2024 Chapter which is when we players arrive in West Weald to chaos – a jungle has sprung up overnight, the local Wood Elves splintered off and are working with a group called the Recollection. This jungle magic we will see is a direct result of the elves and the Recollection working together.

The elves just want a place to build their nation while the Recollection is desperately looking for Ithelia – the prince who escaped. They want to restore her powers as her devoted followers. Ithelia, the forgotten prince, can be found wandering aimlessly in the zone with no memory of exactly what she is but will be inexplicably drawn to powerful artifacts.

These artifacts we can help find unlock more of her memories and provide us with more story of what happened between her and the other Daedric Princes.