Newcomer questions

Findariel · December 2019

So finally after reading some encourtaging news about bugfixes and better content I decided to give this game a chance.

I got some ESO keys installed the game and have now been playing for some hours to lvl5.

I do encounter some difficulties though:

1. Storage. My backpack (if here is such a thing) becomes full extremely quickly. Is there a way to get bags and stuff? And where? or is it better to discard everything as you can buy all the ingredients and food later on, for almost nothing?

2. Official forum. I didn't get an invite to join the official forum, which apparently you need. How do I get one?

3. Imperial character. I noticed you can only create one of you own the imperial pack, which costs 2100 crowns and the only way to get that is to pay RL money for crowns, either by subscription or a one time investment of 21 euros for a pack of crowns. Or did I miss something?

For the rest it's an OK game. I am not particularly impressed by the character creation and my Skyrim with some mods looks a bit better than ESO. The fighting tutorial was good, I missed that in Skyrim, and I like the block and interrupt mechanics.

Generally it makes me wonder though if paying without subscribing is worth it. Without stuff like a crafting bag and crowns apparently being the main way to unlock a lot of not only cosmetic but also lots of very useful stuff, doesn't the game get quite tiresome after a while?

Scot · December 2019

I will let others answer as I am a little out of date, but it does not look as good as Skyrim. Skyrim is single player, ESO is massively multiplayer sacrifices have to be made.

Iselin · December 2019

1. You can increase both your bag and bank space with in-game gold but yes the max capacity sucks relative to all the miscellaneous loot you get showered with and that's even the case if you get rid of the crafting mats problem with a sub. You can either turn off auto loot which is a PITA or have to frequently stop to manually drop stuff you don't want/need. Even then you'll need to head to town to deconstruct items for mats and/or bank stuff much more often than is average in MMOs. EDIT: the bag capacity vendors are in almost every town and definitely in the first town you get funneled to after the tutorial.

2. It's a funky system in that the forum is not synced with your account for some bizarre reason. I recently changed my email. No problem having the change recognized by the account page but I can no longer log-in to their forums lol. They could learn a thing or two from Blizzard on how to do that properly.

3. Yeah the Imperial race has always been locked behind a paywall. Even back in the days when it was a sub-only game you could only play that race if you had bought the "Imperial Edition" of the game. They moved that option to the cash shop when they made the sub optional. Edit: The good news? Unless that has changed very recently, its racials have never made it one of the better races to play for anything other than tanking and even then, it's one of the top races for that but not THE top.

Derros · December 2019

Playing without subscribing for the crafting bag is inventory management hell

Findariel · December 2019

Iselin said:

1. You can increase both your bag and bank space with in-game gold but yes the max capacity sucks relative to all the miscellaneous loot you get showered with and that's even the case if you get rid of the crafting mats problem with a sub. You can either turn off auto loot which is a PITA or have to frequently stop to manually drop stuff you don't want/need. Even then you'll need to head to town to deconstruct items for mats and/or bank stuff much more often than is average in MMOs. EDIT: the bag capacity vendors are in almost every town and definitely in the first town you get funneled to after the tutorial.

Thanks!

I bought the Elsweyr expansion so apparently I have to start there. I can not find anyone that teaches me to craft or sells bags, though. I really like to learn to cook and craft, but how?

I also wonder: is there a personal stash? And do auction houses exist?

Sorry for the questions, one way or other the game isn't all that intuitive.

Sovrath · December 2019

Findariel said:

Iselin said:

1. You can increase both your bag and bank space with in-game gold but yes the max capacity sucks relative to all the miscellaneous loot you get showered with and that's even the case if you get rid of the crafting mats problem with a sub. You can either turn off auto loot which is a PITA or have to frequently stop to manually drop stuff you don't want/need. Even then you'll need to head to town to deconstruct items for mats and/or bank stuff much more often than is average in MMOs. EDIT: the bag capacity vendors are in almost every town and definitely in the first town you get funneled to after the tutorial.
Thanks! I bought the Elsweyr expansion so apparently I have to start there. I can not find anyone that teaches me to craft or sells bags, though. I really like to learn to cook and craft, but how?
I also wonder: is there a personal stash? And do auction houses exist?

Sorry for the questions, one way or other the game isn't all that intuitive.

You don't craft or sell bags. Not really Everquest.

Go to the warehouse area. It's either the manager or another npc that should help you with expanding some of your inventory.

Keep in mind that they want you to sub so that you get expanded inventory/crafting bag so if you craft you will start running up against lack of space. Have fun.

Iselin · December 2019

Findariel said:

Iselin said:

1. You can increase both your bag and bank space with in-game gold but yes the max capacity sucks relative to all the miscellaneous loot you get showered with and that's even the case if you get rid of the crafting mats problem with a sub. You can either turn off auto loot which is a PITA or have to frequently stop to manually drop stuff you don't want/need. Even then you'll need to head to town to deconstruct items for mats and/or bank stuff much more often than is average in MMOs. EDIT: the bag capacity vendors are in almost every town and definitely in the first town you get funneled to after the tutorial.
Thanks! I bought the Elsweyr expansion so apparently I have to start there. I can not find anyone that teaches me to craft or sells bags, though. I really like to learn to cook and craft, but how?
I also wonder: is there a personal stash? And do auction houses exist?

Sorry for the questions, one way or other the game isn't all that intuitive.

I agree that it has gotten less intuitive in some ways since they started adding Chapters a few years ago because a "feature" of those chapters is that they all have a brand new tutorial that dumps you into the new chapter's area when you're done.

Where you got dumped after the original "vanilla game" tutorial was better designed in that everything you needed to get started with inventory, banks, crafting, fighter's and mage's guild, mundus stones etc., was all there near at hand. The new chapter zones are hit and miss with that and they're all missing mundus stones which is an essential buff.

As to personal stash there are banks that are shared by all characters in your account. It's a good and bad thing: shared stash is great and handy if you play several characters, but the lack of an additional personal one compounds the inventory management hassles.

And no, there is not an AH. What there is instead is many NPC vendors that are hired by a guild where the guild members can sell their wares. They're everywhere near every town and sometimes out in the wilds too.

Nanfoodle · December 2019

I would suggest not getting into crafting at the start. You won't have much in the way of extra skill points till you play for a bit. Join a trader guild or two and then harvest everything you come across. Sell everything you harvest and use the gold to upgrade you bag space and bank space. Also you can use gold to increase your bag space on your horse upgrades. Within 2 months you can max out your inventory. Once you do that you can start getting into crafting. By then you should also have a few extra skill points to put towards crafting.

Some crafting passive will help you harvest higher level mats that sell for way more. I wish someone had told me that early on. Enchanting mats can sell for a small fortune. Make sure you blow up all items you can't use. Getting your crafting skills to 50 is a must. It will also get you mats to sell for more then the items would sell for themselves. Only items you should not blow up are the ones that show up with + to gold if you vendor them.

Nanfoodle · December 2019

One other small thing, use this site to help you know how much things are selling for.

https://us.tamrieltradecentre.com/

Findariel · December 2019

Iselin said:

I agree that it has gotten less intuitive in some ways since they started adding Chapters a few years ago because a "feature" of those chapters is that they all have a brand new tutorial that dumps you into the new chapter's area when you're done.

Where you got dumped after the original "vanilla game" tutorial was better designed in that everything you needed to get started with inventory, banks, crafting, fighter's and mage's guild, mundus stones etc., was all there near at hand. The new chapter zones are hit and miss with that and they're all missing mundus stones which is an essential buff.

As to personal stash there are banks that are shared by all characters in your account. It's a good and bad thing: shared stash is great and handy if you play several characters, but the lack of an additional personal one compounds the inventory management hassles.

And no, there is not an AH. What there is instead is many NPC vendors that are hired by a guild where the guild members can sell their wares. They're everywhere near every town and sometimes out in the wilds too.

I have tried that now, it's a bit better to do the main quests in your alliance's starting city. Especially as I am playing multiple characters now (although my dk and templar are furthest around lvl20)

Next to that I decided to upgrade my account for a few months and the enormous extra storage alone is very handy. I would say that without premium you'd better don't do crafting at all. Even the piles of recipes I've found but can not use yet alone would justify extra storage. Alternatively I guess you can have a few mule characters, tough?!

I looked on the ESO forum and I noticed there's a lot of trading guild recruitment. Why so many trading guilds? Is it more or less a necessity because there's no auction house or do poeple need all that money for repairing gear after PvP or dungeons? Or consumables? And additionally: do you actually need a lot of gold to be a successful player, does that requitre a significant time investment?

One other thing I noticed is that every NPC monster in this game is easy. I encountered only one quest boss that proved impossible to kill, for the rest it's mostly easy mode. Especially once you get healing skills. How is this in the endgame? Like raiding and tough dungeons, are there very hard dungeons that almost impossible to complete unless you are very experienced, well equiped and (hopefully) skillful players?

Nanfoodle · December 2019

Findariel said:

Iselin said:

I agree that it has gotten less intuitive in some ways since they started adding Chapters a few years ago because a "feature" of those chapters is that they all have a brand new tutorial that dumps you into the new chapter's area when you're done.

Where you got dumped after the original "vanilla game" tutorial was better designed in that everything you needed to get started with inventory, banks, crafting, fighter's and mage's guild, mundus stones etc., was all there near at hand. The new chapter zones are hit and miss with that and they're all missing mundus stones which is an essential buff.

As to personal stash there are banks that are shared by all characters in your account. It's a good and bad thing: shared stash is great and handy if you play several characters, but the lack of an additional personal one compounds the inventory management hassles.

And no, there is not an AH. What there is instead is many NPC vendors that are hired by a guild where the guild members can sell their wares. They're everywhere near every town and sometimes out in the wilds too.

I have tried that now, it's a bit better to do the main quests in your alliance's starting city. Especially as I am playing multiple characters now (although my dk and templar are furthest around lvl20)

Next to that I decided to upgrade my account for a few months and the enormous extra storage alone is very handy. I would say that without premium you'd better don't do crafting at all. Even the piles of recipes I've found but can not use yet alone would justify extra storage. Alternatively I guess you can have a few mule characters, tough?!

I looked on the ESO forum and I noticed there's a lot of trading guild recruitment. Why so many trading guilds? Is it more or less a necessity because there's no auction house or do poeple need all that money for repairing gear after PvP or dungeons? Or consumables? And additionally: do you actually need a lot of gold to be a successful player, does that requitre a significant time investment?

One other thing I noticed is that every NPC monster in this game is easy. I encountered only one quest boss that proved impossible to kill, for the rest it's mostly easy mode. Especially once you get healing skills. How is this in the endgame? Like raiding and tough dungeons, are there very hard dungeons that almost impossible to complete unless you are very experienced, well equiped and (hopefully) skillful players?

Im in 3 trading guilds. You only get so many slots for selling in each trading guild. Dont worrie about gold so much. At low levels you only need to spend money on upgrading your horse and bag space. You can live off the gear you get off quests. Make sure you always have some Med, Light and Heavy armour on as you want to max out all 3 skill lines.

As for content, the OG maps are easy. The quests never get hard but things like World Bosses do get harder and harder as you get to DLC and the new expansions. But that being said, as you get to 810 CP, most things just become easy again other then PvP and hard mode dungeons, trails, battlegrounds. I play the quests for the stories as they are awesome. Also to earn more skill points. Trust me, this game has many ways to challenge you end game.

Nanfoodle · December 2019

BTW one other suggestion. Focus on one char till you get one to level 50 CP160. Having a char that can earn top level gear can earn you some coin. Also once you start earning CP's. All chars you have that get to level 50 all get to use the CP you have unlocked.

Kajidourden · December 2019

Nanfoodle said:

I would suggest not getting into crafting at the start. You won't have much in the way of extra skill points till you play for a bit. Join a trader guild or two and then harvest everything you come across. Sell everything you harvest and use the gold to upgrade you bag space and bank space. Also you can use gold to increase your bag space on your horse upgrades. Within 2 months you can max out your inventory. Once you do that you can start getting into crafting. By then you should also have a few extra skill points to put towards crafting.

Some crafting passive will help you harvest higher level mats that sell for way more. I wish someone had told me that early on. Enchanting mats can sell for a small fortune. Make sure you blow up all items you can't use. Getting your crafting skills to 50 is a must. It will also get you mats to sell for more then the items would sell for themselves. Only items you should not blow up are the ones that show up with + to gold if you vendor them.

You should do the exact opposite of this. The best time to level up crafting is while you're leveling up because you get xp from dismantling gear that you get as you go. Additionally, you will want to learn traits which require a waiting period that will make it a pain in the ass later on if you haven't at least learned the better traits. Skill points are dime a dozen, especially with all the new content that's been added that has more skill points. This is especially true if you are playing it like an ES game and going lots of exploring. There are also addons that will show you where skill points, skyshards, etc are at.

lotrlore · December 2019

Completely agree with @Kajidourden. Because I didn't focus on crafting early on going back and trying to do so feels a bit insurmountable now that I'm champion level. Definitely spend some energy on this while leveling, especially the trait research.

Iselin · December 2019

Findariel said:

One other thing I noticed is that every NPC monster in this game is easy. I encountered only one quest boss that proved impossible to kill, for the rest it's mostly easy mode. Especially once you get healing skills. How is this in the endgame? Like raiding and tough dungeons, are there very hard dungeons that almost impossible to complete unless you are very experienced, well equiped and (hopefully) skillful players?

Combat difficulty for regular quest mobs and mini-bosses has changed a lot over the years. The ones that used to give many fits have been toned down significantly. Once upon a time the first of those bosses you encountered in both the Fighter's and Mage's guild quests, Doshia and Gutsripper, were tough fights but now they're dead simple.

There are still a few quest fights here and there that are relatively tough but not many.

Difficulty exists but you have to go looking for it and is normally only to be found in instances (the only exceptions to this are world bosses and some areas of Craglorn.) Group dungeons unlock gradually as you level and you don't even see the trickier "version 2" for dungeons that have 2 versions until level 45 nor do you see the even tougher DLC dungeons until then. Those version 2 dungeons used to be the veteran dungeons and it's why their mechanics stand out as tougher than the 1's but now all of them, 1's and 2's, are available in normal or vet mode and vet does ramp up the difficulty quite a bit.

For the ultimate solo challenge there's Maelstrom Arena which is a multi-stage solo raid that many find too tough to complete. It is also available in normal and vet mode.

And then there are the "Trials" which is what ESO calls raids for the ultimate in difficulty.

Personally I make my own difficulty while soloing by doing some things kind of meant for group play:

Those Dolmen world events (if you can find one that's not camped by hordes of players since grinding all the dolmens in a zone sequentially - they are on predictable timers - is one of the favorite ways for many to level these days)
The public dungeons (not delves which are very easy but the one per zone marked differently) can also be soloed including all the bosses and group-event boss that awards a skill point.
Some world bosses are also not too hard to solo, others not so much.
Even some of the easier group instanced dungeons can be soloed for the challenge.

But generally yes, the mobs you run into in regular questing are very, very easy these days. And the better your build (AoE rules in ESO in most cases) the easier it is

Iselin · December 2019

lotrlore said:

Completely agree with @Kajidourden. Because I didn't focus on crafting early on going back and trying to do so feels a bit insurmountable now that I'm champion level. Definitely spend some energy on this while leveling, especially the trait research.

I actually did it both ways. In the early days there was no benefit in the game for concentrating all your crafting on one character but furniture crafting changed that by requiring proficiency in 2 or more for some recipes.

I started the game with one crafter for all the armor and weapon crafts that used cosmetic style pages - that was just more economical and another for Enchanting, Alchemy and food and drink.

When furniture crafting came in I made my "others" crafting character into the all trades character and leveling up all the armor and weapon crafts was very easy by using a level-appropriate alt to gather the lower tier mats... bought some too when I needed it since those low level mats are normally dirt cheap.

Mind you I didn't need this character to actually craft any weapon or armor since I already had one that could do that. I only needed all crafts in one character for the furniture I though I would make but never got around to doing

The real crafting time sink as @Kajidourden said is in grinding all the traits because it's time gated with some very long times as you get near the end.

And also as he said, the abundance of skill point sources these days is quite different from early days when you had to actually use them wisely when you had several crafts on one character.

Gutlard · December 2019

I think subbing for the bottomless bag is well worth it. It turned me into an Epic Hoarder of colossal proportions. Fun stuff! Easily Amused!

Gut Out!

Nanfoodle · December 2019

Iselin said:

lotrlore said:

Completely agree with @Kajidourden. Because I didn't focus on crafting early on going back and trying to do so feels a bit insurmountable now that I'm champion level. Definitely spend some energy on this while leveling, especially the trait research.

I actually did it both ways. In the early days there was no benefit in the game for concentrating all your crafting on one character but furniture crafting changed that by requiring proficiency in 2 or more for some recipes.

I started the game with one crafter for all the armor and weapon crafts that used cosmetic style pages - that was just more economical and another for Enchanting, Alchemy and food and drink.

When furniture crafting came in I made my "others" crafting character into the all trades character and leveling up all the armor and weapon crafts was very easy by using a level-appropriate alt to gather the lower tier mats... bought some too when I needed it since those low level mats are normally dirt cheap.

Mind you I didn't need this character to actually craft any weapon or armor since I already had one that could do that. I only needed all crafts in one character for the furniture I though I would make but never got around to doing

The real crafting time sink as @Kajidourden said is in grinding all the traits because it's time gated with some very long times as you get near the end.

And also as he said, the abundance of skill point sources these days is quite different from early days when you had to actually use them wisely when you had several crafts on one character.

Also every time you research a trait the time it takes to research the next trait takes longer. Researching blues and greens just makes your end game take longer, when all you really want to research is purples. And when you get level 50 - CP160 you will have an endless supply of purples. Also getting 1-50 takes very little time or money. Took me 8k gold and 30 min to get alchemy from level 1-50. You can earn 8k gold at CP160 in about 1h game play. You can do this with every trade. This was not the case 3-5 years ago when crafting mats used to sell for allot more.

Deddmeat · March 2020

if you want bag space, i'm afraid your best option is to subscribe so you can get the crafting bag which will hold all crafting mats, freeing up a ton of space

SpiritofGame · April 2020

Generally it makes me wonder though if paying without subscribing is worth it. Without stuff like a crafting bag and crowns apparently being the main way to unlock a lot of not only cosmetic but also lots of very useful stuff, doesn't the game get quite tiresome after a while?

~~~

Here's the truth about "tiresome."

The people who find the game "tiresome" are people who MAKE the game tiresome by attempting to rush to max level, to max CP, to rush through all content -- basically, they do NOT even try to enjoy the game at a slow pace.

More truth:

This game is not for the cash-poor. To play this game to the fullest, pay the subscription, get the benefits from that. Otherwise, some generic FTP game is for those who want a worn-out freebie game.

And this point:

Do NOT "farm." Do NOT "grind." Do NOT "make gold."

Don't do anything in a boring, tiresome way and you will not get tired of the game.

KnightFalz · May 2020

Findariel said:
Generally it makes me wonder though if paying without subscribing is worth it. Without stuff like a crafting bag and crowns apparently being the main way to unlock a lot of not only cosmetic but also lots of very useful stuff, doesn't the game get quite tiresome after a while?

There are two options available, subscription or buy to play.

If you wish to craft a great deal maintaining a subscription is best due to being able to store unlimited crafting materials.

Otherwise, subscription gives access to all DLC content so long as it is maintained. That access is lost once your subscription lapses. It also gives a stipend of game shop currency.

Buy to pay requires one to purchase access to DLCs outright. One retains access to that content whether the have an active subscription or not. Any gift shop currency must be purchased. Crafting materials occupy regular storage with all the associated limits.

Other than crafting related elements it comes down to ongoing subscription costs for all DLCs vs. a one time cost for each DLC. The latter method allows you to cherry pick those DLCs that appeal to you, but doing so can make it difficult to play with others in some cases.

Thenumber9 · May 2020

Hi everybody, im totally new to EOS. Id like to play the game from its very beginning. I watched a youtube video that redirected me to the starting zone ( daggerfall covenant).. it was a bit bumpy because the hooded figure disappeared. Then i noticed she was elsewhere so i went to her but anyway, i found myself in the prison, saving the prophet etc. now im in a zone with alot of snow. Did the first parts like finding the runes to release the dragon.

my question is: is where i am now the starting zone of the main questlines? Or must i go back to the dagger covenants starting zone? And quest there? Im really unsure and no tutorials seem to mention it. More walking you through how to get to the prison. Thanks i advanced.

Sal1 · May 2020

Thenumber9 said:

Hi everybody, im totally new to EOS. Id like to play the game from its very beginning. I watched a youtube video that redirected me to the starting zone ( daggerfall covenant).. it was a bit bumpy because the hooded figure disappeared. Then i noticed she was elsewhere so i went to her but anyway, i found myself in the prison, saving the prophet etc. now im in a zone with alot of snow. Did the first parts like finding the runes to release the dragon.

my question is: is where i am now the starting zone of the main questlines? Or must i go back to the dagger covenants starting zone? And quest there? Im really unsure and no tutorials seem to mention it. More walking you through how to get to the prison. Thanks i advanced.

Finding the runes to release the dragon sounds to me like you may have begun the Dragon Bones Quest line. You need to go back to the daggerfall covenant area.

Hit J for journal and quests and Main Story or Main Quest line should be listed there. If you highlight what quest you need then hit M for map it should show you the way

Thenumber9 · May 2020

Hi there, yea makes sense. Since everything there are skeletons etc.. sorry i dont have all the details as im not ingame atm and im not familiar with the names/quests/zones. I only went as far as finding the runes for the dragon. Now the undead npcs dont attack me anymore.

Thanks for the reply anyway. I will head back to daggerfall covenant and begin my journey there.

Sal1 · May 2020

Thenumber9 said:

Hi there, yea makes sense. Since everything there are skeletons etc.. sorry i dont have all the details as im not ingame atm and im not familiar with the names/quests/zones. I only went as far as finding the runes for the dragon. Now the undead npcs dont attack me anymore.

Thanks for the reply anyway. I will head back to daggerfall covenant and begin my journey there.

I forgot to mention that a few times at the beginning that sometimes you need to gain a few levels then the Prophet contacts you and asks to meet you. So if you don't see another quest in the Main Quest line in your journal gain some levels. Just run around Daggerfall and try some quests or public dungeons or whatever you want to do. The game is huge and you can explore and encounter quests all over the different maps.

Iselin · May 2020

Sal1 said:

Thenumber9 said:

Hi there, yea makes sense. Since everything there are skeletons etc.. sorry i dont have all the details as im not ingame atm and im not familiar with the names/quests/zones. I only went as far as finding the runes for the dragon. Now the undead npcs dont attack me anymore.

Thanks for the reply anyway. I will head back to daggerfall covenant and begin my journey there.

I forgot to mention that a few times at the beginning that sometimes you need to gain a few levels then the Prophet contacts you and asks to meet you. So if you don't see another quest in the Main Quest line in your journal gain some levels.

That's not true any longer unless they've changed it back to the level-locked way it used to be for the first couple of years again recently. When they went to full level scaling everywhere a few years back you could chain that main quest line back to back to back without any level requirement. Some did just that to get the skill point reward that each step gives you.

Some parts still have other requirements, like going to a delve in a different zone or doing enough of the Coldharbour zone to unlock the final part of it but you can complete a step, walk out of the Harborage and run into the Prophet again immediately and walk right back in for the next step.

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