How can I make my single player experiance better? What should I do. Opinions please.

Davor

Thinking of coming back to ESO again. I only play single player since I never got into this MMO playing with others. I just don't know how to. Social awkward I guess I am. I use to role play my character but I find myself many times just rushing things just to complete them. I find I am not exploring as I use to. So I am wondering maybe there is some stuff I am missing or forgetting when playing. Just like I have done many times in TES games, I play but some times I forget to stop and smell the roses and just rush quest to quest and that has gotten boring for me in ESO so I have taken a break.

I have a character to level 30s. Funny eh, playing since almost launch and I haven't gotten far. Dang restartitis. Since I haven't played in months, I almost wanted to restart a new character again but this is what my last character was lol. So I am wondering if I should continue with my Altmer mage or make a new character. Actually I did that, an Argonian mage and loved it. Thing is I was getting a bit depressed with the doom and gloom of Morrowind (not Vvardenfell) so went back to my Altmer.

Maybe I should just stick with my level 30 character and transform him into an argonian? I want to stick with the Aldmeri Alliance but don't really want to go through all those quests again. So what do you think, stick with the Altmer or go to Argonian?

Also any tips or something that would make me have more fun in ESO? I have been soured a bit from reading the threads and was about to quit again, but woke up this morning missing my TES and trying to keep the negativity away. So would love tips on how to better my enjoyment of ESO that I may not have know I can do.

Davor

erliesc

You need to look for a variety of things to do. There's always something you've not tried? I'm running 4 characters and am always finding something new to try....usually something I was afraid of or not interested in....

Go fishing? Complete that and get back with us?

FrancisCrawford

If you want to wander around and engage the world in a classic TES way, different regions have different "personalities", and you may find some more fun than others. If you listen to random conversations, read note lying around, and so on, you get a real sense for what's going on the world, at least in the better-designed areas of the game.

Highlights for me included the island of Stros M'Kai (main regional quest), Daggerfall City, the entire region of Rivenspire, the Main Quest, the main regional quest line in Wrothgar, the whole Thieves Guild area, and the main regional quest line in Clockwork City. The also are isolated great stories/quests/characters all over the DC, to a lesser extent all over the AD, and in a few cases in the EP as well.

Generally, most cities and towns have quest lines that basically amount to "set this town to rights", often with some kind of mystery involved. I think the DC's are generally best, followed by the AD's, with the EP's lagging far behind.

Davor

erliesc wrote: »

Go fishing? Complete that and get back with us?

Yes I have tried it. Didn't like it. Then on my last outing I have done plenty of fishing, at least for me. After 5 minutes of fishing, it's starts to get boring and it looses it's appeal. What makes fishing so great for some? Not knocking it down, just trying to see what I am missing.

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

If you want to wander around and engage the world in a classic TES way, different regions have different "personalities", and you may find some more fun than others. If you listen to random conversations, read note lying around, and so on, you get a real sense for what's going on the world, at least in the better-designed areas of the game.

That I didn't know. Notes on the ground? Will try and keep a better eye for them. Thank you, I knew I was missing something.


So it seems I have been rushing it a bit and I need to slow down a bit more and explore the cities more as well. Will try that instead of just rushing them. I didn't know listening to conversations would help.

Really appreciate it the both of you.

Kram8ion

Go hybrid it's tricky but rewarding and keeps your character interesting

Sintao

Heya @Davor

Aye being a solo player in an MMO can be a challenge. Thinking about this, I can see some silver linings you might find enjoyable! I heard 'exploration' in there too. All that follows is just observations and suggestions, so please take what you like and leave the rest!

• Consider three or four characters, and enjoy them. Maybe different classes. Consider one character for each faction and use that faction's storyline as the 'backbone' to guide you.
• (Once you have these, log on each day simply to raise their riding speed, so when you do get to them they can move quicker than expected!
• (At level 10, do the initial Welcome to Cyrodiil mission. It takes 10-15 minutes, has zero PvP, and lets you get the Rapid Maneuver skill that gives you a movement boost).
• Switch characters when getting burned out or frustrated.
• Know that simply doing all the solo content can easily take a very long time (a good thing!), and is a lot of fun.
• Find some classes and builds that are solid, fun the play, suit you, and versatile.
• Don't dwell in the forums too much, or if you do go hunting for good threads, not sour ones.
• Work on getting one of your characters to be able to craft armour and weapons (three skills there) with four traits. This is cheap and fast to do!
• Make your own armour and weapons as you level. Frankly, I make armour at levels 6, 16, 26, 36 and 41. For levelling, blue crafted armour works fine and gives you nice bonus effects, and viable armour can always be had with three or four traits of crafting.

You can see crafted armour here: Crafted Sets

I am no master-builder, but I do have rock-solid fun running characters as they level, and spend plenty of solo time doing so. For example, (Magicka) DragonKnight DPS (with staves, some heals back bar). Sorcerer DPS, Nightblade, etc. These are guys that can solo most delves from level 11.

For world bosses, if you're shy and not liking to join groups in zone, simply keep an eye out and help out when you see a mob taking one down.

There's a few add-ons you may find useful. One to help map areas you do not know, another that shows books, another that shows treasure maps, another that shows possible locations for chests.

I have to say, I do love my DragonKnight DPS. I run him with two staves (Lightning and Restoration), and run a mix of AoE, crowd Control and Single target damage (with some heals). My Sorc and Nightblades are close seconds. I guess for soloing you need the confidence to take on small mobs as well as bosses of delve quality. But very doable and hellishly good fun!

SydneyGrey

Never let this forum sour your enjoyment of the game. People here can be pretty harsh. This forum is like being in middle school again, sometimes.

I play solo, too, and have gotten a huge amount of enjoyment out of it.

Davor

Kram8ion wrote: »

Go hybrid it's tricky but rewarding and keeps your character interesting

I would love to do that but how? At first I thought Skyrim was a total fail without classes but I consider this so genius, having no class and do what you want. I wish ESO had that so we could mix all classes together. Sadly we can't. So how would I go hybrid?

Sintao wrote: »

Heya @Davor

Aye being a solo player in an MMO can be a challenge. Thinking about this, I can see some silver linings you might find enjoyable! I heard 'exploration' in there too. All that follows is just observations and suggestions, so please take what you like and leave the rest!

Oh I will.

• Consider three or four characters, and enjoy them. Maybe different classes. Consider one character for each faction and use that faction's storyline as the 'backbone' to guide you.

I have done this. My problem was I kept deleting my characters so when I have restartitis I keep resetting to zero. I always end up back as an Altmer mage. Just prefer it. That said, I tried Xbox version again, played an Argonian mage and loved it. Just got tired of Morrowind dreary ness. I guess having life sucking I wanted something more cheerful.

I did a Nightblade. Enjoyed that class. I did go back and forth between the two. I just thought I was wasting my time because when I was with the Nightblade I could have used that time with the mage. Now I see what you said, I shouldn't let that negativity thinking turning me away. Good to know people do this and I am not wasting my time as I thought I was.

• (Once you have these, log on each day simply to raise their riding speed, so when you do get to them they can move quicker than expected!

I did just that. Because of life I came to play ESO to get away from life, not work. It just felt like work and had no fun in it. Will try this again.

• (At level 10, do the initial Welcome to Cyrodiil mission. It takes 10-15 minutes, has zero PvP, and lets you get the Rapid Maneuver skill that gives you a movement boost).

I never knew that. I never done this once in what the 3 years of ESO. I will give this a go.

• Switch characters when getting burned out or frustrated.

Great idea. Will do it.

• Work on getting one of your characters to be able to craft armour and weapons (three skills there) with four traits. This is cheap and fast to do!
• Make your own armour and weapons as you level. Frankly, I make armour at levels 6, 16, 26, 36 and 41. For levelling, blue crafted armour works fine and gives you nice bonus effects, and viable armour can always be had with three or four traits of crafting.

You can see crafted armour here: Crafted Sets

I am no master-builder, but I do have rock-solid fun running characters as they level, and spend plenty of solo time doing so. For example, (Magicka) DragonKnight DPS (with staves, some heals back bar). Sorcerer DPS, Nightblade, etc. These are guys that can solo most delves from level 11.

One of the reasons why I quit actually. I wanted to craft my own weapons and armour but finding better gear it was just useless. I did make a post here and some very helpful people gave me great advice. What I took out of it, is that for it to be of any good, it's late level work so basically useless for me right now.

How did you end up using your armour at the levels you mentioned? Would like to try it out so I can see if I can have fun crafting now and not wait till I am almost maxed out in character to enjoy it.

SydneyGrey wrote: »

Never let this forum sour your enjoyment of the game. People here can be pretty harsh. This forum is like being in middle school again, sometimes.

I play solo, too, and have gotten a huge amount of enjoyment out of it.

Usually I don't, but being sick, life and just being emotionally drained for life reasons, I guess I let the forum get to me when usually it doesn't.

Thank you very much everyone. I greatly appreciate all this and looking forward to playing. Just hit the play button and DOH! It has to update LOL. Too bad it's not like on the Xbox One (not sure if PS4 has this feature) where it auto updates.

Jaimeh

I also mostly play solo, and I find that repetitive questing can get a little bit boring sometimes, so what I usually do is interject other activities between quests: leveling crafting skills, gathering materials, doing dolmens, public dungeons, and world bosses (there are usually other people doing these too, so they're not difficult to clear), and picking up lore books. There are also dailies from the Mages/Fighters/Undaunted guilds, and from the DLCs. You could also go to Cyrodiil, and if you don't want to be in a group, just check the map to find where a fight is happening, and join the other players there. Having multiple characters really helps with always having something to do, so if you don't enjoy your level 30 character anymore, then I'd recommend creating a new one, who is maybe in a different class and alliance, because if you like the skills of a character then all the activities become more enjoyable. Finally, when I quest, I try not to rush through it, and be more involved in the story, by reading all the dialogue, or even reading it out loud - that makes questing a lot more fun

Sintao

Heya @Davor

One of the reasons why I quit actually. I wanted to craft my own weapons and armour but finding better gear it was just useless. I did make a post here and some very helpful people gave me great advice. What I took out of it, is that for it to be of any good, it's late level work so basically useless for me right now.

How did you end up using your armour at the levels you mentioned? Would like to try it out so I can see if I can have fun crafting now and not wait till I am almost maxed out in character to enjoy it.

The idea is to sensibly put some points into the crafting skill for light armour, and the one for woodworking (staves). And heavy armour eventually.

For the character that will be your crafter (hint, not someone you may restart!), go to a workstation to learn how to craft a particular trait. You need one piece of gear to learn one trait for one item. For example: Shoulder light armour, training trait. Robe, training trait. The good news is that the first few traits for any piece take hardly any time at all!

You may find that TraitBuddy and AwesomeGuildStore are great addons. Trait buddy shows you what you have learned, and AwesomeGuildStore lets you flick from trader to trader and find a cheap piece of gear with an unknown trait. Focus on learning three traits in (say) five light armour pieces, and hey presto, suddenly you can craft the Armor of the Seducer set at one of the stations shown on this page -- which is a nice set for a mage, as five pieces is giving you magicka recovery and so on.

Truly, getting three or five traits in five pieces of light armour and staves is neither costly nor very time consuming. You can see most crafted sets at a glance here.

The points put into the crafting skill let will you make armour at higher levels and higher quality (and with less material needed to upgrade to blue). I find that if I deconstruct what I get naturally as I explore, and occasional gartering, then I almost always will have enough materials.

Motherball

I have massive wanderlust playing this game, so I set small obtainable goals as to not constantly chase the same thing for too long. Im almost cp300 and still havent finished any of the main story lines and have no idea how close I am for any of them.

Davor

Thank you again everyone. This has helped. I just played for 2 hours straight. Really enjoyed my time.I even got a 6 month sub.

Well time for bed, then work, and hopefully if I am not too tired, play a bit more.

AcadianPaladin

Glad you're having some success. You asked above about fishing. In my case, what I like is that it yields fish for cooking. My magic templar healer is constantly on blue food made with fish so it is satisfying to 'cook and eat what she catches. She normally only fishes a spot until she gets two fish for cooking then moves on. It is a minor diversion that she enjoys for short periods while exploring. Could care less about trophy fish or any associated achievements.

FrancisCrawford

Following up:

• Despite its age, http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/general-tips-for-new-or-returning-players/ may help with some practicalities.
• Altmer sorcerer is an excellent choice.
• Daggerfall in Glenumbra is a good city to explore. Be sure to accept the quest from the barking dog. The rest of Glenumba is not bad.
• Rivenspire is a good region to explore. The perfect start is to walk in from Stormhaven via the more easterly of the southern gates. But if you just map into Shornhelm, start to exit past the stable, and let Darien Gautier give you a quest, that works well too.
• Deshaan is another good region to explore. Start in the northwest corner.

Davor

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Glad you're having some success. You asked above about fishing. In my case, what I like is that it yields fish for cooking. My magic templar healer is constantly on blue food made with fish so it is satisfying to 'cook and eat what she catches. She normally only fishes a spot until she gets two fish for cooking then moves on. It is a minor diversion that she enjoys for short periods while exploring. Could care less about trophy fish or any associated achievements.

I guess I am too low level to make blue food. Will try this. Thank you for that.

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Following up:

• Despite its age, http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/general-tips-for-new-or-returning-players/ may help with some practicalities.
• Altmer sorcerer is an excellent choice.
• Daggerfall in Glenumbra is a good city to explore. Be sure to accept the quest from the barking dog. The rest of Glenumba is not bad.
• Rivenspire is a good region to explore. The perfect start is to walk in from Stormhaven via the more easterly of the southern gates. But if you just map into Shornhelm, start to exit past the stable, and let Darien Gautier give you a quest, that works well too.
• Deshaan is another good region to explore. Start in the northwest corner.

I will check them out.

Thank you both so much for the tips and suggestions.

ZioGio

I, too, am a solo player in ESO, which is kind of ironic since I created my Templar with the idea of being a dungeon healer when the game went live, so I understand where you're coming from because I'm constantly fighting my grass-is-greener temptation to start new characters.

Sometimes it's the simple things that keep play interesting. Change up your mounts or non-combat pets or dye your armor. Maybe wear one of the costumes you've collected along the way (not the Crown Store costumes, but the ones that you may have acquired for a quest, unless you deleted it from your inventory).

I would encourage you to explore, but you said you find yourself driving to complete tasks quickly even though you want to slow down and smell the roses. If you can slow down, that helps a lot with the immersion. Talk to NPCs and treat ESO as an interactive book where each person adds a line to the overall story.

You might also want to wear headphones because you'll pick up more of the ambient, far off sounds and stereo, which helps with immersion.

Monsters scale with your level so don't be afraid to just pick a direction and go. Explore delves and dungeons. You also can't really do quests out of order so don't let that stop you.

Join a guild that doesn't have any expectations from you. I don't know how guild chat works on the console, but sometimes just knowing there are other people out there behind the avatars can make the game less lonely. I like watching guild chat even if I don't contribute.

Pick up crafting. It's a fun diversion. My solo character has mastered all the crafts, maxed the crafting skills, and I still have plenty of skill points left over to get the offensive and defensive skills I want.

It doesn't happen overnight, of course, and you'll likely respect along the way (use in-game gold instead of Crown Store, if possible), but it's satisfying to make and use your own kit, potions, and food.

Since you're a subscriber, you don't have to worry about crafting mats taking up room in your bank so open every barrel, sack, crate, and node! And extract all the non-white gear you don't wear for their materials.

Most of all, remember it's a game for fun. Spend that in-game gold instead of hoarding it if it'll make your gameplay more fun.

You're a solo player so the only one who is going to judge how you look, how you're spec'd, or how you play you is you.

Davor

ZioGio wrote: »

I, too, am a solo player in ESO, which is kind of ironic since I created my Templar with the idea of being a dungeon healer when the game went live, so I understand where you're coming from because I'm constantly fighting my grass-is-greener temptation to start new characters.

So good to see I am not alone in playing this as single player.

Sometimes it's the simple things that keep play interesting. Change up your mounts or non-combat pets or dye your armor. Maybe wear one of the costumes you've collected along the way (not the Crown Store costumes, but the ones that you may have acquired for a quest, unless you deleted it from your inventory).

I do chance my mounts and pets. How to you dye? I tried it and it didn't work for me. I like this idea, makes it more personal.

You might also want to wear headphones because you'll pick up more of the ambient, far off sounds and stereo, which helps with immersion.

I do that because when I was on the Xbox I didn't have head phones but now playing on the PC I use head phones so it doesn't bother the wife. My god what a difference. I am tempted to get a Astro A 50 since I can't get an Xbox One X and 4K TV.
[/quote]

Thank you. You have given me great ideas. Greatly appreciate it.

Update. Went to Warthgor (spelling?) and I forgot how beautiful that place is. My last experience there was horrible because when I was there on the Xbox, all I did was crash to dash board every 5 seconds so could never enjoy it. Now it seems more stable, and I am loving it.

ZioGio

Davor wrote: »

How to you dye? I tried it and it didn't work for me. I like this idea, makes it more personal.

ESO Fashion has a tutorial on dyeing and there are a number of YouTube videos.

The cool thing about dyeing your armor is that you can't really make a mistake. You will always be able to erase the dye and return the armor back to it's default color state.

I'm a subscriber, so maybe there's some limitations on non-subscribers for which I'm unaware.

Have fun!

*fixed dying to dyeing. D'oh!

zaria

One issue with solo play is questing burnout, take an break or mix with exploring, level up crafting as its always useful.
Public dungeons are a fun change of pace, don't do them in prime time as its tend to be too many players around.

And AD quests are nice even if you get bored by Bosmers at the end, think its generally agreement that EP first zones is a bit weak, it improves and the Skyrim themed ones are good. DC might be the overall best,

Loc2262

@Davor : You're totally not alone in terms of doing solo play in ESO. When I joined the game last June, for the first two months I did nothing but solo play. Nowadays I like a good mix of group content, crafting and gear related things, exploration and questing. Luckily this game has tons of content to offer for solo, group, PVE and PVP players.

For questing, you can alternate between main quest, faction quests (since One Tamriel you can do them in any order), more challenging (group) quests in Craglorn, and the DLC regions (Wrothgar, Morrowind, Clockwork City).

@ZioGio: I very rarely make grammar/spelling related comments, but in this case I just can't help it. When I first read your post, I wondered if someone made a guide about how to properly use soul gems after dying, as opposed to coloring your armor which is called dyeing.

The mentioned limitation for non-ESO+ players is just that you can dye your costumes for free only with ESO+. As far as I know, there's no limitation in terms of dyeing armor pieces.

ZioGio

Loc2262 wrote: »

@ZioGio: I very rarely make grammar/spelling related comments, but in this case I just can't help it. When I first read your post, I wondered if someone made a guide about how to properly use soul gems after dying, as opposed to coloring your armor which is called dyeing.

D'oh! Good catch. Fixed it. Thanks!

JKorr

Davor, you might want to find a guild as well. There are guilds that don't have a lot of requirements, don't mind that you want to play solo, but have people who will help with questions, or give you a hand if you need it at some point.

Davor

JKorr wrote: »

Davor, you might want to find a guild as well. There are guilds that don't have a lot of requirements, don't mind that you want to play solo, but have people who will help with questions, or give you a hand if you need it at some point.

That sounds like a great idea. I don't know how to do so. I am basically social inept when it comes to doing these things online. Any tips on how to proceed with this? Also, thank you very much for this idea.

JKorr

Davor wrote: »

JKorr wrote: »

Davor, you might want to find a guild as well. There are guilds that don't have a lot of requirements, don't mind that you want to play solo, but have people who will help with questions, or give you a hand if you need it at some point.

That sounds like a great idea. I don't know how to do so. I am basically social inept when it comes to doing these things online. Any tips on how to proceed with this? Also, thank you very much for this idea.

If you've looked for guides and vids on how to do things in ESO, you probably found a few put up by MissBizz. She runs a guild called Lone Wolf Help. You should be able to send a request to @MissBizz, or @Nestor, or me for that matter, @JadanKorr for an invitation.

Davor

Thank you @JKorr I will do that. @Nestor has said the same thing for me a year or so ago and helped me out a bit. Sadly life happened and I had to stop playing ESO at the time. When I am ready I will try and join the Lone Wolf Help. Thank you so much for that.

jnelson1182

I am also kind of a solo memo player, mostly because I don't know too many people personnelly that play the same games on the same system as me as well as that not knowing anyone just starting a game it can be hard to find groups to play in and if you manage to do that its still hard to get a daily group buddy or whatever you would like to title it out of it but I enjoy the never ending parts that mmo's give you other games don't so that's what keeps me playing. I have played wow in the past and from experience if you want a solo mmo enjoyable experience then this is probably one of if not the best game you could pick because there is so much you can pull off alone that it will keep you playing even when you can't find a group or don't want to. there are dolems in every zone, delves in every zone, hidden skyshards that equal skill points in every zone, achievement runs, special events that happen from time to time, randon dungeon finder[if you do want to try meeting people that is a decent way to do it in this game]. there are also Dailies in many different places once finishing there original quest lines and if all else fails you can go solo pve in the pvp zone, which can be harder do to the enemy player aspect, sometimes you will run into a group of them and alone rarely stand too much of a chance. definitely a fun game with loads of stuff to do as well.