Thinking of Returning - Questions

Wanderica · April 2017

Greetings all,

I've played ESO a couple of times but never made it to level 50. Highest character was a 42 NB, followed by a high 38 Templar healer. Sadly, I never could get into the game for a couple of reasons with the crappy AH system and the skill point grind topping the list. One Tamriel seems to have changed a lot, though, so I'm hoping this time will be different, and I want to give it another shot! Just a few questions though, as I hop back into things.

1.) Previously, one had to complete tons of quest lines for zones, grab all of the skyshards, etc, etc, to get enough skill points to fill out builds. I found myself getting bored before I ever got to the next phase of the main story. What's changed here? Keep in mind, we still had veteran ranks the last time I played. It seems that One Tamriel might be a little counter productive in that regard as I'd still have to do everything, only I could do it in any order.

2.) I assume the AH is still the same awful system it used to be. This I could live with, but quality of life changes would certainly make me a happy return camper.

3.) Last I played, I remember sitting forever in a queue waiting on a dungeon to pop only to outlevel it in the process or simply get bored and log out. And that was as a healer. I really wanted to experience the social aspect of this game, but wasn't able to before. Have recent -ish changes made queue pops more frequent?

4.) Finally, how does CP compare to Vet Ranks? That wasn't something I was looking forward to back in the day. I know 160 will allow me to equip the best gear, but is there still a divide between newer players and true veterans? In other words, I don't want to get to CP 160 and craft decent gear only to discover I still can't be taken seriously because you need very high CP ranks.

OK, that seems pretty pessimistic. Sorry for the doom and gloom. I really am looking forward to trying this game again. Thanks for any and all advice!

Nordic_Pirate · April 2017

Alrighty well, first, welcome back.

As for skyshards they still exist, it's fundamanetal to skill points and builds. I've collected all skyshards in game, so grab yourself a 6-pack and order a pizza and get to work.

AH system doesn't exist, just trade guilds. WarMart, Spicy Economics, Shatners Trade Dominion are a few good ones, there's plenty of others. Their leaders dedicate a lot of time to incentivizing members with auctions, raffles, etc. get yourself into on of them, and all of the other trade stores you can just buy out of. If you're a big time seller, the three aforementioned guilds are solid. I can't remember warmart or shatners leader right now, but @JHartEllis is the person to talk to for Spicy economics. There's a list to be able to enter the guild.

There's still a wait depending on role, and dungeon popularity. If you're doing the undaunted daily pledges you'll get into one of those fairly quickly regardless of class and role.

CP160 is VR16 and now we're on CP600 is VR60. But, armor only goes up to CP160 as of right now. And as far as I know will be staying that way for a long time. CP after that is just to help fine tune your build into whatever you want it to be.

Cheers.

Nordic_Pirate · April 2017

Oh, and as far as outleveling dungeons go, you don't out level this game anymore. A level 10 can do everything in game, but obviously without gear and skills you won't be that great. But you'll always gain control equal to your level.

And once your character hits level 50, it automatically shares all CP on your account. So if you grind one character to cp600 and are definitely thinking you don't ever want to do that again, good news is you only have to get the alt to lvl 50 and bam. CP600.

Cheers

SydneyGrey · April 2017

I have no idea what an AH system is.
As for getting skill points, I use an add-on to help me find skyshards. It's saved my game and made it 10 times more fun, because I finally have enough skyshards to build my character the way I want.

Magdalina · April 2017

To address some of the things not addressed above - you do still need skyshards and main quest and stuff to get skillpoints, but now you get 3sp for every level that is divisible by 10(10, 20 etc) and 2 for those divisible by 5(5, 15 etc) to compensate for veteran level skillpoints you no longer get. Also keep in mind stuff like group dungeons - first time completion grants a skillpoint with the quest, public dungeons - skillpoint for "group" challenge(which is generally easy to solo), and if you PvP you get a skillpoint for every rank(which while high ranks take a while, you literally just need to go to Cyrodiil and do the tutorial quest there for first 2 ranks and 2 free skillpoints) too

Far as some other stuff you mentioned, you will never ever outlevel the content again. All the content is technically max level now but you are getting scaled to max level(cp 160) too. Battle leveling is actually really strong, just don't forget to keep your gear updated because it becomes exponentially weaker as you outlevel it.

You'll keep getting help from battle leveling until you hit cp 160, at which point you will technically be weaker than a cp 600 - assuming you're using same gear, skills and rotations. The difference of sheer cp does not make or break the player, it's the skill and game/build knowledge that do. Depends on content you're aiming for - normal dungeons aren't harder than overworld for the most part, vet dungeons are generally pretty easy too and you definitely don't need 600 cp to do them. He'll I'd say you don't even need 100 cp but you do need ~your level set gear and some build/game knowledge.

Dlc vet dungeons are more challenging, mostly in the mechanics department but there are some dps checks and stuff there too, so that is something you might want to leave for later.

Trials I haven't done for a while but I imagine that's one part of the game where you might indeed want to be 300+ cp or something - for vet hm trials at least.

onemoredragon · April 2017

The game improved quite a lot since the removal of veteran ranks, so you should totally give it another chance.

1) Skyshards - upon leveling, you will get some but it won't be enough to have a complete build honestly. If you are planning one character as a main, which can do many things at the same time like crafting and fulfilling a few PvE roles or a PVP build maybe even - then yeah, collect as many as you can.
Quick tip for getting nice amount of skillpoints (this is how I do it on my alts) - getting to level 50, then collecting all overland skyshards except for Cyrodiil (a nice little walk all over Tamriel on a slow slow mount

), doing main story (not too long, really), and then doing most of 4-man dungeons (picking up quests since they give you a skillpoint upon completion). Group events in public dungeons reward you with a skillpoint as well.

Also if you eventually find your way into some questing and want to make sure you do only those which give you skillpoints, there's the list here that can help you out (+ combine it with Quest Map addon and you're good to go).

2) We don't have a global AH system, but there are certain addons for improving your interaction with guild traders. For example, Amazing Guild Store adds a ton of search options to the guild vendors, Master Merchant tracks your sales and prices. Joining trading guild also helps if you want to sell you items and not only buy them. For only buying options, there are plenty of guild vendors in big cities, I personally prefer shopping at Rawl'kha, Elden Root or Windhelm.

3)Dungeon queue - now this is important, group finder is broken as hell! But I hope they will fix it with Morrowind expansion at least.
Dungeon queue can take a long time even on a healer, sadly. So the most effective way to get into dungeons - joining a guild or few or use zone chat. For daily Undaunted Pledges, zone chat is quite good and seems to be more useful really, you can get a group in no time. But as you said, you want to experience social aspect of the game - guilds are the way to go, not dungeon finder tool for sure

4)CP160 is perfectly fine for most of the content, don't have to worry about getting to CP cap asap.

Wanderica · April 2017

Thanks for all the feedback guys. Good to know it really is any level anywhere. I was concerned that would fall apart later on. I'm glad it works so well.

Sorry for using the wrong vocabulary for guild traders. You knew exactly what I meant. It's still awful, though not as bad as it was at launch.

See you all in-game!

zaria · April 2017

If you are an healer dungeon queue tend to be less than one minute. so you better eqip the healing staff and set up the bar before queuing.
Dungeon finder is broke for finding replacements in dungons and it tend to mess up with ready four man groups but it tend to work for solo queuing.