As we’re getting closer and closer to the release of ESO, Zenimax keeps pumping out new videos and game information. In this video Creative Director Paul Sage, Lead Gameplay Designer Nick Konkle and Lead User Experience Designer Chris Strasz talk about Blacksmithing in Elder Scrolls Online. They show how improving armor works out in practice and what the Keen Eye crafting skill line perks do: they highlight crafting nodes in the world by giving them a bright glow, making them stand out and easier to spot from a distance.
Another cool crafting feature is shown on the video, which is crafting armor set pieces with special bonuses.
There’s lots of different locations in Tamriel which allow you to craft set pieces. They are not found in cities or towns, but out in the world inside special dungeons, ruins and so on. The video showed an Ayleid ruin called Arananga, found in the Aldmeri Dominion territory. This ruin had some special crafting stations in it, allowing players to craft Magnus’ Gift set items. The Magnus’ Gift set is one of the many set bonuses you can craft in Elder Scrolls Online. Magnus’ Gift activates when you wear at least three Magnus’ Gift set items, and the set bonus gives you a 5% chance to negate to cost of a spell.
Another interesting detail you can see in the video is the research time of four days for a single trait, which seems like a long time. It gets even better, though. There’s eigth total traits you can research for a single piece of gear, and the research time doubles after every trait research. Following this logic, the research time progressively increases like this: 6h, 12h, 24h, 48h, 96h, 192h, 384h, 768h. That’s a long time to research traits – the last trait takes 32 days to research! You can reduce the research time by a percentage with crafting passive skills, though.