Crafting is making NO SENSE to me!

Shogun

Hey, guys. I made another thread about just starting up. I'm still playing, and doing some questing. I got some suggestions to start crafting right away - but looking around online has not helped at all and only led me to confusion.

I have no idea how to craft, what to craft, or where to craft. I have a full inventory of stuff and no idea what to sell/junk/craft with.

Someone told me to head to Glenumbra, since I'm Daggerfall, and learn crafting there. Is this true? I have NO idea how to get there from Summerset. They also said something about Jewelry in Alinor, or something like that.

Anyway - I'm curious about trying to craft with some stuff I have; but I have no idea what's going on.

I have never felt so lost in a game since I tried playing Dwarf Fortress. I have a full inventory, confusing quests, no idea where I am or what I'm doing! I'm a sorcerer wearing mostly heavy armor and killing things with a sword because my spells are weak and I run out of mana (3 points in Magika and Crystal Shard IV, Mages' Fury IV, Lightning Form I).

I have no idea what to toss or sell from my inventory to clear up room; or why I feel like more of a warrior than a sorcerer.

I have an inventory with a lot of stuff for 'provisioning', 'alchemy', 'enchanting', 'style material', 'furnishing', etc.

I asked about an auction house kind of thing and if I should sell stuff - some people said you do that in guilds in this game.

VaranisArano

Crafting.

In the Fighters & Mages guild of your starter city or Summerset, there are NPCs who will train you in crafts once you reach level 6. They will teach you to refine raw materials, craft a basic weapon/gear/potion/food, and deconstruct that for exp.

For Blacksmithing, Clothing, Woodworking, and Jewelry, you'll collect raw mats in the world and refine them to produce the mats for crafting and the mats for improving their quality. You'll gain a little exp from crafting items and even more by deconstructing them (to learn how they are made, supposedly.) These items have traits that can be researched, and your research completed allows you to use different crafting stations you find in the world.

For Enchanting, you'll find runestones in the world. Combine a square, circle, and triangle rune to make various glyphs to effect weapons, Jewelry, and armor. Decon glyphs for exp.

For Alchemy, you'll find flowers, mushrooms, animal parts, waters, and poison solvents in the world. Combine a water or poison solvent with at least two plants to make potions or poisons for exp.

For Provisioning, you can loot food and drink ingredients feom the world, but frankly its easier to buy them in large quantities from the guild stores. Chefs and Brewers will sell recipes at your level, so you can combine those ingredients to make food/drink and gain exp. Easy to level, just mass produce food at your level.

Shogun

So I have to wait until level 6? Why was someone telling me to go to Glenumbra?

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Shogun wrote: »

So I have to wait until level 6? Why was someone telling me to go to Glenumbra?

Daggerfall in Glenumbra is one of the faction main leveling areas. These areas are where players started before Morrowind and Summerset. ZOS decided when the chapters came out they would start players there to get them into current content. Personally I think you are better off with the original areas as that is where the story and game lore starts which makes sense out of some of the things you will run across in the later chapters and DLC's. Depending upon where you are in the Summerset line if you like questing that you go to the starting city for your faction and run the full quest line. I would also look at going for the Cadwell Gold which lets you run the other two factions main quest as well.

VaranisArano gave you good information about where you can find the crafting trainers and the rudiments. If you are not an ESO+ player I would suggest leveling only a couple of crafts at a time to save on bank and inventory space. You can purchase low level recipes and plans from the various crafting vendors (i.e blacksmith, clothier, brewer, etc). You can also find them in containers in delves or dungeons, lockboxes, backpacks or pick pocketing.

VaranisArano

Shogun wrote: »

So I have to wait until level 6? Why was someone telling me to go to Glenumbra?

Probably because that's your starting city if you are Daggerfall Covenant, and they may well not know that the certification quests unlock at level 6.

You can start crafting whenever and you certainly don't have to wait until an NPC tells you how to do it. Just walk up to one of the crafting stations and check it out.

• Alchemy stations will require a water/poison solvent and at least two plants/mushrooms/animal parts to combine. Not all combinations are useful, but you'll learn the qualities of the reagents that way.
• Provisioning requires you to learn recipes first, so if you find a chef/brewer, you can buy starting recipes from them.
• Enchanting will have you combine a potency, aspect, and essence (square, circle, triangle) rune to make a glyph, which will teach you the effects of those runes.
• Blacksmithing, Clothing, Woodworking will require raw mats to refine. Refined mats can be crafted into weapons and gear as long as you have a style material (buy the one for your race from a nearby crafter merchant). Use the + sign to add more mats to make higher level stuff. Researching items with certain traits will allow you to craft items with that trait. Learning motif books/pages will let you craft items with different appearances using style stones.
• Jewelry will require raw mats to refine to make the necklaces and rings. These don't require style mats.

Also take a look at the Crafting passives in your Skills menu. You'll notice that Crafting is very skill intensive. If you try to level and craft at the same time, you may find yourself starved for skill points unless you are very diligent about hunting for skyshards as you level. If you do want to craft as you level, you'll want to put points into the passives that increase the level of materials you can craft with.

VaranisArano

Confusing Quests? Here's the intended story order, but you can do it however you like: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/413807/what-order-should-i-do-esos-story-arcs-a-guide



And, sorry, missed that bit about the Auction House and selling items earlier.

ESO doesn't have a centralized Auction House. So there are three main ways to make gold: Guilds, Zone Chat, and vendoring.

Guilds
ESO allows you to join 5 guilds. If you want to sell items, you'll want to join a trading guild. Trading Guilds make a weekly gold bid on a trader location where anyone can come and search their guild store listings. This means that while some trading guilds are free to join, others may have requirements like "sell 5000 gold worth of items a week or buy a raffle ticket." This helps them fund their weekly Trader bid.

Joining a Trading Guild is pretty simple. They often advertise in zone chat, so watch out for one that you like. Or, you can type something like "Looking for a trading guild" and see who answers. I suggest asking two questions: "What are your requirements?" and "Where is your trader?" Pick a guild that suits how you play. If you gather a lot of materials to sell, you can go for a guild with higher requirements. If you are mostly just playing the game and having fun, pick a guild with low requirements. Don't stress yourself out trying to meet sales requirements because there are plenty of guilds out there.

Once you are in the guild, you'll be able to browse their listings, list your items for sale, and check your listings from their trader or from any banker. You can sell up to 30 items at a time per guild. Items that don't sell within 30 days will be returned to you via mail or you can cancel the listing at any time.

If you are on PC, I recommend the addons Master Merchant or Tamriel Trade Center. They do slightly different things, but both will help you get a decent idea of what to sell your items for.

Guild Stores are good for selling pretty much anything, but especially crafting materials, desirable armor and weapon sets, food, drink, potions, motifs, furnishings, and recipes. At low levels, one of the best things you can sell is alchemy reagents - flowers and mushrooms - since high level players are constantly in need of those for potions.

Selling in Zone Chat
Selling in zone chat goes like this.

Type in zone: "WTS [link item here] 10k" (WTS is "want to sell")
You can list your price or have people whisper you with their best offer. If you are on PC, again, Master Merchant/Tamriel Trade Center are good addons to have. If not, you'll want to have a good item of what those items sell for. People may want to negotiate.

So you and a buyer agree on a price. You'll mail it to them using the Cash on Delivery (COD) option in the mail where you type in the agreed upon amount and attach the item. When they take the item, you get paid. If they don't take the item, it will bounce back to your mail in 3 days.

Zone chat is good for selling high priced items or crafting materials in bulk. You have to put more effort into selling in zone chat, so its about selling items that make it worth your time and effort. So if you have a valuable piece of an armor or weapon set, a valuable motif, or stacks of crafting mats to sell, zone chat can be worth the time and effort.

Selling to an NPC Vendor
NPC vendors will offer a low price for nearly everything in the game world. Most of the time, their price is lower than you can get selling to players.

Trash like daedra husks, carapaces, and foul hides are Vendor trash, designed to get you a little gold. So is any gear you've outleveled that you don't intend to deconstruct for crafting exp or research the trait.

The Justice system allows you to steal from and murder NPCs to get special items that you can sell to a Fence in the Outlaw's Refuge for gold.



So for a general rule of thumb while leveling:

Gear and glyphs get deconstructed for crafting exp if possible. If not, sell it to a vendor or destroy it when its outleveled.
Non-crafting mat junk from monsters gets sold to a vendor.
Alchemy reagents are worth a ton of gold, usually 30 to 200 gold each. Columbine, Blessed Thistle, Lady's Smock, Namira's Rot and Cornflower are big sellers on guild stores or in zone chat if sold in bulk.
Crafting mats (iron, jute, steel, pewter dust, etc.) are used for crafting, or sold on a guild store if you don't have space for storage.


Hope this helps!

ghastley

You can do crafting at level 1. Just mine ore/gather materials, take them to a crafting station in a town (not all towns have them all), and you'll be able to make something, but at that level, generally not any better than you can find.

At level 6, you can get certified as a crafter, and then you'll be able to do daily writs that reward you with materials, gold, and advance your crafting skill faster. Eventually you'll get crafting skills that let you improve the items you find or make, and get ahead of the drops that way.

Pheefs

Alchemy - you can nibble on each ingredient/reagent to learn the first effect.
Provisioning - if you don't have ESO+ don't pick up any ingredients you aren't using for your current favorite foods/drinks.
Enchanting - The blue square runes are for the level, you can buy them for gold at the Mages Guild.

Equipment - Run as many trait research as you can, prioritizing the stuff you actually use, so you'll be ready to craft some sets!
Then sell the whites & deconstruct green or better to get the materials & xp.

I'd recommend you join a Casual or Newb Friendly Guild...
& have fun!

valusthecateater

How do you run trait research? Do you have to be a certain level?

TheCyberDruid

valusthecateater wrote: »

How do you run trait research? Do you have to be a certain level?

You just need the right item with the trait you want to research. Then you can research it at any crafting station. No level or skill requirements.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

valusthecateater wrote: »

How do you run trait research? Do you have to be a certain level?

Items that can be researched will have a magnifying glass beside them in the inventory list. When you go into the crafting research tab you will see the various types of gear and the number of researchable pieces of equipment under each. Select the gear want to research and it will bring up the traits and tell you which can researched. Select the trait to see the list of the pieces you can use to research it. Note that researching an item destroys it so it is best to use the lowest item level you can and don't use gear you need to equip. At first you will only be able to research one item at a time. As you level you can use skill points to research up to three at a time.

LadySinflower

So, I was very confused about crafting at first. It's more complicated than crafting in skyrim, which is what I played before this game. I'm only just now feeling like I'm starting to get it.

Whatever town you started in or were directed to if your starting area was not a major city, there will be two NPCs who are there to "certify" you in each crafting discipline. There's a man named Danel Tellano who teaches enchanting, provisioning, and alchemy. There's a girl whose name I forget who teaches blacksmithing, woodworking, and clothing. They explain basics and have you craft something in each of the crafting types. I was directed to these people by reading notices around the crafting areas in the city on what looked like notice boards. You don't have to do the certifications to craft, but doing them teaches you the basics of how to craft each type of thing. After you do the certifications you can also pick up "crafting writs," which are basically requests for you to make and deliver certain items to the shipping guy in the city. The writs are a good way for a low level player to start making some gold as you can do one writ in each type of crafting per day and they pay a few hundred gold each.

If you are on Xbox NA you're welcome to friend me and I'll help you with basic crafting. My gamertag is ShadokatPH66. There's way too much detail to try to explain everything in forums. I usually play for a few hours every afternoon/early evening. I am by no means an expert at level 25 but I can help you get started. @Shogun

LadySinflower

Also, if you decide to accept my help, I can't go to Summerset or help you with jewelry because I don't yet have the Summerset expansion. But I'm still glad to try to help. @Shogun