Questions after returning to game since 2014

qvamp

Hey everyone.

I've recently started playing again since stopping playing in 2014. I was a beta player and then bought the game, but life came up and I needed to take some time off. I tried playing again in 2015, but all my skill points had been returned and I didn't remember where I had previously put them. The idea of setting everything up again just kept me from coming back year after year. But now I'd like to get into the game again, which brings me to my questions.

To start off, I'm sure these have all been hashed through by everyone years before, and I'm not meaning to re-open old arguments.

First, when my points were returned, I was given no information about where they were used previously. I contacted ESO about it and they made it clear that they didn't care. Did everyone go through this? Was ESO really that unconcerned? Is there any way to figure this out other than guessing and seeing if skills/morphs have been levelled up? And then paying money to undo it if I make the wrong choice?

Second, I noticed that the price of the game dropped to 1/3rd AND there is extra content in the base game. I was told I would need to buy Morrowind if I wanted to play it. Are there any benefits given to people who paid $40 more for the game? If not, didn't this *** off... well, everyone? If there aren't any benefits, then I'm baffled, as it seems like a deliberate way to upset all the early adopters.

I haven't played using my main character yet because of the skills problem, but I've been playing my secondary character. I've noticed that there are additional things that are given at every level (though I might not be remembering getting them before). Does this mean characters who are already levelled up can't get those? I have no idea how beneficial they are, though some of them are housing decorations, which didn't exist when I played before, so it would still be nice to get them.

VaranisArano

1. Skill points have been returned for various reasons since then, and no, ZOS doesn't remember where we put them. In your case, this is probably a good thing, since skills have changed since 2015, and it won't hurt to take a second look at what skills you want.

2. Fortunately, if you want to change skills or morphs, you can change them one at a time now. However, you still have to pay gold as if you were changing all of them. This happened with the Horns of the Reach update.

3. Welcome to ZOS' new expansion model, wherein you pay cash for the latest Chapter, then a year later it becomes a DLC. In the case of Morrowind, it becomes a part of the base game. If you want to play all the content available now, you'll need to buy Greymoor for cash, and buy the other DLC for crowns. All past Chapters are now DLC. If you wait until Blackwood launches, Greymoor will also become a DLC.

No, there are no special prizes for buying the Chapter for cash, except that you get to play it a year before the people who didn't get it with their ESO+ subscription.

And yes, when Summerset was announced and ZOS said that Morrowind was becoming a DLC, people were angry. You can go look at the old threads if you want. It hasn't stopped ZOS from rolling on with that model.

4. Level up rewards were added to the game. They are not retroactive, so only leveling characters can obtain them. Some rewards, like the Flame Aronach crates are available only once per account, to prevent bots from exploiting them. Many of the rewards are character-bound for the same reason.

Welcome back!

qvamp

Thanks for all the answers. Wow, it sounds like as a company ZOS has absolutely no player loyalty. This really makes me disinclined to buy more things from them, but we'll see how it goes.

VaranisArano wrote: »

1. Skill points have been returned for various reasons since then, and no, ZOS doesn't remember where we put them.

This I can confirm is not true... They remember exactly where we put them, but the company just decided they didn't want to bother with telling us. If I'm remembering how skills work, you unlock a skill with a point and it starts at level one. You then level it up to 4, where you can morph it which then costs another point, and then you can level it up to 4 again.

But, what I have are skills that are locked that are already at level 4. And, if I unlock it and morph it, I have morph skills already levelled to level 4. This means they have this information or I would have lost my progress. Sadly, it likely would have only been a day or two of programming to give us each a list of what we had unlocked and what morphs we have.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Fortunately, if you want to change skills or morphs, you can change them one at a time now. However, you still have to pay gold as if you were changing all of them.

Ugh, thank you for telling me this before I did it. I'll have to do my best to guess all my morphs, record which ones have progress and which ones don't, and then reset them all and switch the non-levelled ones. Is there a list of morphed skills that have been retired somewhere?

VaranisArano wrote: »

No, there are no special prizes for buying the Chapter for cash, except that you get to play it a year before the people who didn't get it with their ESO+ subscription.

Sorry, I mis-explained this. I was more wondering if people who paid $60 for the first game got anything for when they dropped the price to $20. But reading between the lines it sounds like they/we didn't. For even a mildly arrogant/greedy company, I would have at least expected them to give a token exclusive icon just to not irritate their current customer base. The fact that they then added more content to the base game and didn't grandfather in people who already owned the game is just beyond me. This would only create bad feelings/press for them and it would literally have cost them nothing to have turned this into good press/feelings.

Thank you for all the explanations and the warm welcome back!

Fennwitty

When you go to a skill reset shrine, you can play around with all your skills and not pay anything -- until you confirm the change.

So if you're not sure which of the two morphs you got to 4, you choose the one morph, and if that's at 4, there ya go. If it's not at 4, you change it to the other morph while you're still in the shrine menus.

As long as you don't commit the change then you didn't really do anything. You're just looking.

And I haven't confirmed this, but I've heard if you make a new character and level it up you'll get the more recently added level up awards. The only repeatable ones are small, pretty common furniture you can buy from other players. Or blue/purple character bound items one every couple levels.

Haenk

I'd say don't bother about your old skill points. A lot has changed since 2014/2015, so just put them where you think they sound being useful. You can (and most likely will) change them later on, when you are into the new mechanics.

As for buying - you should be able to play the "vintage" zones without purchasing anything (and even ESO+ is not required at first). So just run with your old account and figure things out; the zones/enemies now scale with your level, so you don't even have to change zones to level up to the maximum (however that would be boring...).

qvamp

Thanks for all the info/suggestions there, they really help!

qvamp

Fennwitty wrote: »

When you go to a skill reset shrine, you can play around with all your skills and not pay anything -- until you confirm the change.

This worked perfectly. Many I re-took, one I changed, and several others didn't exist any more. And after getting all the passives I know I want, I still have 60 more skill points to figure out what to do with.

Haenk wrote: »

As for buying - you should be able to play the "vintage" zones without purchasing anything

The problem was, and it looks like it still is, that I finished most of the quests. I'm looking around now and trying to find new areas. And hopefully refamiliarize myself enough with this before I try to take on Bolag Mal again.

Athan1

Don't struggle to necro a character you had 7 years ago. It's a different game now and should be treated as such. My recommendation is to try a new character (there are 2 new classes so you may want to test them out) and see where the game takes you. If you like the experience you may then consider spending cash on it. If not, there's hundreds of hours just with the base game. Have fun and enjoy! It's a great game.