Looking for some advice on how to play the game (not exactly nooby related)

Erock25 · July 2016

I'm a first day early access player who had a sub up until about 4 months after the game went buy to play. After taking some time off, I recently resubbed for 6 months and have had a bit more time to put into the game lately (probably 10-20 hours a week). I have 370 CP and two characters past level 50 that both have just about max crafting (missing some rare motifs and in the process of researching nirnhoned for my 9 trait crafting sets). Since I've returned to the game I've been doing my daily crafting writs on both main characters and I try to do all the imperial city quests every day on one character because they can take as little as 30 minutes to complete and give six times 650ish gold. Besides those two activities, I've been trying to get through vMA and participating in PVP. I am in only one mediocre trade guild since I've returned to the game. Now on to my questions...

1. I'm having real trouble trying to afford any new gear. Everywhere I look, people keep saying how easy it is to get gold in ESO but I'm barely scraping by. Right now I really want to buy myself some cp160 crafted gear (I want Twice Born Star for pve and Eternal Hunt for pvp) but the thought of affording or supplying the mats for cp160 gear seems astronomical to me. Is there some easy way to get the cp160 crafting material that I am unaware of? Crafting writs are my major source of income right now and my materials have been steadily decreasing since I returned to the game. Between 20k here and there for nirnhoned items to research and the few items I've bought since returning, I'm just about out of cash and am wondering what is a good activity to do to replenish my funds.

2. Everywhere I look, it seems crafting for profit isn't that profitable. Should I give up on the idea of making money by crafting?

3. How much am I missing out on by not being in a guild? I see that a lot of sets are now dropping from trials and I haven't attempted a trial since the max level with VR10 and we only had two of them. Are there any guilds out there for a NA PC DC player that just recently returned to the game?

4. Am I wasting my time by trying to do the crafting writs and IC quests every dya for money? Are there some better options out there and I'm being a fool for sticking to these two sets of quests?

Anyways, I'm really just feeling kind of lost on what activities I should and should not be doing to be a productive ESO player. My time is limited (compared to some ESO players) and I feel like I'm not making a dent in my goals (which is mostly to gear up).

NBrookus · July 2016

1. and 3. Join a guild; provide mats and have someone craft TBS for you. Tip well. You will just need to farm those mats. Run purple until you are happy with your build, then upgrade to gold weapons first and armor after.

2. You are unlikely to make crafting lucrative since many people craft for free on PC NA. The only crafted items I sell are occasionally nirn research items.

3. Yes, you are missing out.

4. I do writs every day on two characters, it adds up but no way keeps up with the gold sink that is vMA. The gold tempers and Kutas are the main "income" here.

More money making ideas:

I sell the glyphs and inspirational items from writs in guild stores; not a lot of money but they move fast for significantly more than vendor prices.
I craft green top level provisions with whatever extra ingredients I have or can pick up cheap and vendor them. 2 ingredients x 4 servings x 5g each = 20g. This is easy with an add-on like Craftstore. Save up mats, read a book, surf the internet or watch TV and tell it to make another 50 every now and then. I can easily make 15-20k once a week with a craft session.
Farm Craglorn for nirn. Stop paying 7k/20k for nirn research pieces and start either providing the nirn for someone to make one for you (I often do this for free but tips are polite), sell nirn research pieces for items you know, or just sell the nirn for 5k/17k.
Pick flowers. Alchemy mats sell very well.
If you like stealing, the basic loot is not very profitable but picking up purple motifs and recipes can be lucrative.
The motif pages that sometimes drop from Orsinium dailies and public dungeons sell for high prices. There are also new motif pages in the DB and TG DLCs that fetch good money.
You can run IC sewers to farm TelVar and turn them into Hakeijos for sale in guild stores (~15k each right now) or "sell" TV by buying armor pieces people want and trading them for gold. This is also an excellent way to get loads of CP160 gear to decon for materials.
Never pass a chest in Cyrodiil (faction motif pages), and run dolmens for treasure maps and loot. Coldharbour siege is highly prized and you can sell it if you aren't using it yourself. Plus, RNG may favor you and you get a boss that drops a Lich piece which can sell for a very high price.
Got lots of AP? Buy Akavari motifs pages and sell them, or "sell" AP like you can TelVar.

There's a re-occuring theme here: loot everything you find and decon it for mats or sell it in guild stores.

driosketch · July 2016

1) you're going to be low on money during that getting nirn for research phase, stuff cost a lot. If you have access to Orsinium, it's a good place to devote to farming up mats for you end game gear.

2) I craft just to help people out, only get tips or mats in return. There are plenty of players like me and others who craft for themselves. Trying to be a "professional" crafter won't make you too much coin regularly enough.

3) If you message me, @Drio, in game, I'll hook you up with a guild perfect player like you. They run trials a few time a week for loot drops. If nothing else, I can also craft the sets you're looking for, or make you the item for research you need if you have the nirncrux.

4) keep the IC dailies, good gold, exp, and tv stones. I recommend only doing consumable writs, not equipment writs. This will also help you save up mats. Look into other dailies, Cyrodiil towns are pretty good until they become capturable.

Erock25 · July 2016

Thanks so much @NBrookus .

You say you do crafting writs every day on two characters. How do you keep up with the material demands? Do you farm materials or do you buy them?

I will look into Craftstore addon. With the craft bag, I can continue picking up otherwise useless provisioning mats and start vendoring some of these myself. Great advice.

Also great advice on Hakeijos (i have a lot of telvar sitting there) and I had no idea about how profitable chests/dolmens could be in cyrodiil. Thanks again.

Erock25 · July 2016

Thanks @driosketch . I do have orsinium and I have been stocking up on rubedite and ancestor silk, but am having issues finding a good place to farm medium armor mats. I will have to look into cyrodiil town dailies... great advice as I definitely enjoy PVP. Also thank you for the in-game support. I'm very interested in joining a guild at this time. In game name is @baneric.

Nestor · July 2016

Your not going to make money from crafting, crafting is more about saving money.

As for Rubedo Hides, max your Clothing skill and Material Level and go grind on CP160 animal mobs. However, the deal is, CP150 gear is all you really need. CP160 Armor is not all that much better. I had someone go on at length n the game about how CP160 gear makes all the difference in the world, and I then replied that is a few more points in spell damage and 500 more magic makes all the difference, then so be it.

So, make CP160 weapons, and CP150 gear and your all set and can avoid the gear mat grind.

Making money is easy, if you do Legerdemain, or, another way to make a bunch of gold, but is time consuming, and requires an add on like Cookery Wiz, is to make Green Recipes from excess ingredients and vendor the results.

Did you notice that Race Change is coming? That is something I know you have wanted for a long time.

Erock25 · July 2016

@Nestor I know cp150 is pretty close to cp160 gear but for the TBS set in particular, I feel it will be best in slot for long enough that the extra mats are worth it. I guess I just need to find a good rubedo leather grind location.

Legerdemain you say? Haven't tried stealing much, but I'll look into it now.

I did notice that race change is on the way. It's funny because now I might not change at all because I feel stamina sorc is in a good place and magicka sorc took a bit of a hit. Honestly can't decide if I'd rather stay khajiit or switch to orc or redguard for a pvp focused stam sorc.

NBrookus · July 2016

Erock25 wrote: »

Thanks so much @NBrookus .
You say you do crafting writs every day on two characters. How do you keep up with the material demands? Do you farm materials or do you buy them?

Mostly I just pick stuff up when I am passing it. I do buy void mats now since I have no more need for nirn and the time spent farming can be spent either playing for fun or doing something with a better return on gold versus the price of void mats.

Occasionally I do farm runs on my sorc, because she's fast. I'm typically only farming specifically for alchemy mats, but if there's a runestone or ruby node, I grab it. She also has the Plentiful Harvest and Master Gatherer passives.

With 5 CP160 toons -- geared but mostly still purple at this point -- I started being a little more aggressive about picking up mats and being sure I deconned everything I looted before TG dropped so I'd have a stash. Some of those toons are on their 3rd and 4th sets of theorycrafted gear and only once did I go out specifically to farm silk for a new set. Not passing by nodes really adds up and is less boring than deliberately farming.

Old Orsinium seems to be the best place to grind for raw rubedo, but those goats all over Orsinium also drop rubedo at a very high rate. Decon is still better.

Curtdogg47 · July 2016

for making gold join a guild trader. I farm materials to list in the store and generally make a good bit of gold. Occasionally I get rare items and armor from drops and list those. Always check your items for value. Because I've totally sold things for way less than what I could have.