General:Ask Us Anything: Variety Pack 14

Originally published May 12, 2014. The original article can be found here.

Find out more about tanking in ESO, loot in dungeons, and more in our new Q&A.

Still have questions after our recent reddit AMA? Don't worry—you don't have to wait for a special event to ask them. We have some answers to new questions in today's article, and we're looking forward to responding to even more in upcoming features. If you have a query for us, send it in to community@elderscrollsonline.com and it may find its way into a future Ask Us Anything. We hope you'll enjoy today's answers.

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I don't start working until 1 PM and I like to play some games before I leave at noon. Why is the NA server down for maintenance every morning? – DaOsoMan

Our regular maintenance windows for the North American megaserver are now Monday mornings at 8 AM (Eastern) and Thursday morning at 8 AM (Eastern). The duration of those maintenances varies based on the maintenance being performed. Outside of these windows, we do not perform maintenance unless it is absolutely necessary to ensure a stable play experience for all our customers.

Most maintenance periods will last for no more than a few hours. During these times, we deploy patches, server optimizations, database updates, hardware upgrades, and perform other routines that keep ESO running smoothly.

We've adjusted our regular maintenance times to impact the fewest players possible based on time zone, player population, and regions of the world served by that megaserver.

So I'm trying to figure out how to hold decent agro, and it's just not working out right. On bosses, I hit them with Ransack and it doesn't even do anything. I can empty my magicka and stamina with offensive abilities and it just seems like bosses don't care about abilities; they just randomly attack players. – Anrik

There are two taunt abilities in the game, Inner Fire and Puncture. Puncture, which morphs into Ransack, will definitely taunt a boss or any creature off of a teammate. Repeated uses of the ability, however, don't taunt the boss any more effectively. Use it once and give the enemy time to re-acquire a target: you. If the enemy was in the middle of an attack, it won't pull off of your teammate immediately. Also, remember that other actions (such as damage and healing) may cause the enemy to re-acquire those targets even if it is focusing on you already. Using your taunt at those times is important.

Remember that you don't want all of the enemies on you. Your other teammates will likely have enemies engaging them as well. In a boss situation, if used sparingly and in a timely manner, Ransack will allow you to hold and effectively tank the boss. You can also hold the boss by being the sole damage dealer on it and dealing a lot of damage, but the boss is more likely to re-acquire if you don't use some kind of taunt.

How does boss loot in group dungeons work in ESO? Do the bosses of every instance have a Loot table or do they just randomly drop some soulstones and a random green/blue Item? – Jutschge

In the group dungeons, the bosses do have their own special loot tables.

Are there any plans to modify how chests are handled in private dungeons? As these are often run by pick-up groups (either via the finder or zone chat), there's a pretty major scope for fallout over chests. – Llamaalarmallama

Yes. Starting in the Craglorn update, once a chest has been lockpicked, all group members will have access to loot instanced to that party member. This means everyone in a party gets loot from a chest.

Right now, bots are farming public dungeon bosses and ninja porting to gathering nodes. Where are you on this issue? – Alphashado

We currently find bots that are farming and remove them from the game as quickly as possible. We're always looking at other methods to discourage and reduce the amount of botting. However, the issue is tricky because we don't want to hurt normal players by changing the gameplay or implementing draconian measures. So the methods we use have to be well-considered and involve many people.

What's your purpose in making guild stores for guild members only? Why not make them for everyone? – sliyerking

Our goal is to make the economy more player-based, but not to have a system that allows you to find anything at any time because there are so many players involved on a megaserver. With extremely large communities, low-percentage drops can become highly available in auction houses. It ends up harming the "gear chase" portion of the game.

Will you be going for a certain tank/healer/DPS setup for Trials? – Eccentric

Not really. You'll need all of them, to be certain, but in which proportions will be up to you. Also, role switches are a weapon swap away. You'll probably need to be ready to weapon swap to be effective.

I just saw the number of resurrections they will allow in Trials. Do you really expect it to be that difficult for some people along with the 1.5 hour maximum estimate? - SconeOfDoom

Yes. We expect people will die quite often in Trials.

Will loot in Trials be handed out randomly (as it is in the rest of the game), or will a group leader have the ability to distribute loot in whichever way they want? - ryohara7b14_ESO

Trial loot, like loot in the rest of the game, is instanced per player. Trial items are given out by two systems that are used in other parts of the game. Every opponent you kill in a Trial has a chance to randomly drop loot, with bosses having a guaranteed chance to drop several items for each player from a large list of possible items. The Trials will also have a weekly reward for completing them given out by The Undaunted, which functions similarly to how hireling rewards have been given—each player gets a box that contains a random reward.

Thank you for reading, and don't forget to send your questions to community@elderscrollsonline.com!