New ESO player here. What are some things you know now you wish you knew when you were new?

NineInchSnails · November 2019

I've been playing for almost two weeks after buying Elsweyr and subscribing to plus. So far I'm having a lot of fun but there seems a lot to take in. So I'm looking for tips from veteran players. As the title states, what are things you know now that you wish you knew when you were new to the game?

Thanks in advance for any info and happy adventures.

VaranisArano · November 2019

Use a food or drink buff. Buffed health and resources made my life so much easier when I figured that out...sometime after level 50.

Also, if you like crafting, start researching your traits early. Divines and Infused traits are great for PVE. Impenetrable is a must for PVP. Sharpened, Infused, and Precise tend to be good weapon traits.

The new Zone Guide is really nice for guiding players through zones, but not so good for the Story Arcs. I didnt have this problem because I started pre-One Tamriel, but if you want to do the other content in chronological order, here's a guide: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/413807/what-order-should-i-do-esos-story-arcs-a-guide/

Hope this helps. Most of all, have fun playing!

Royaji · November 2019

Don't make a hybrid.

Taleof2Cities · November 2019

If you’re going to have longevity with the game, start your equipment crafting (Blacksmithing, Clothing, Woodworking) trait research right away.

Same applies if you simply have interest in the crafting side of the game, @NineInchSnails, start equipment trait research yesterday.

It also helps to have one dedicated crafting character. That character can be your main combat character, too. You just have to be diligent about getting skill points.

fred4 · November 2019

Make your first character your crafter, as well as adventurer. Research the traits that you are most likely to use FIRST. These IMO include:

Nirnhoned, Training, Infused, Sharpened for weapons.
Divines, Impenetrable, Sturdy, Training for armor.
Infused, Arcane, Robust for jewelry

Don't learn the Nirnhoned weapon trait last, if you can afford it. It takes 3 weeks to a month each to learn the last two traits of a piece of equipment. Half a year to a year will go by, before you've learned all crafting traits on all items. While others can craft gear for you, only YOU can transmute gear and that requires trait knowledge.

yRaven · November 2019

Make a character focusing on craft, make sure to learn Nirnhoned on Daggers

In the end all my characters are Master Crafters now (Khajiit is the only one with Nirnhoned thought) and this made me rich

FrancisCrawford · November 2019

Always use a food buff (or rarely a drink buff instead).
Join the Fighters Guild immediately. The Mages Guild is less urgent, but you might as well join it too.
Put all or almost all your attribute points into one of stamina or magicka.
Passive skills are of wildly different value. Read their descriptions and find the points to put into some of the best ones.
Listen to the voice acting BEFORE engaging the NPC in dialogue. That's some of the best and most flavorful stuff.
Leveling skills to the morph point is a LOT faster and commonly also more important than leveling them post-morph.
One of your skill bars -- probably the one you fight from less of the time -- will have skills that level more slowly than the other. Flip to that bar to get XP whenever you can, e.g. at quest turn in or just before a dolmen blows.
If you play on PC/Mac, there are many add-ons that will improve your life greatly.
Level your riding skills at every opportunity. Opportunities occur daily.

FrancisCrawford · November 2019

Actually, my old and once very popular tip thread has some content that still applies, particularly in the first post.

https://www.tamrielfoundry.com/articles/general-tips-for-new-or-returning-players/?page=4

Edit: This site shut down. Oops.

fred4 · November 2019

Go to Cyrodiil and do the "Welcome to Cyrodiil" quest to obtain Rapid Maneuvers skill for faster riding. No PvP needed.

Look at your class and the skills you have unlocked, so far, to see which skills heal you. If none do and the skills you really want are further down in the skill lines, you might temporarily change from a stamina to a magicka build, for example on templar or nightblade.

Be aware that there is a dichotomy between stamina and magicka characters. Stamina characters are ones that use stamina-costing skills for damage and healing. They should invest into stamina and weapon damage. The damage and healing scales with BOTH. Putting all your attribute points into stamina is fine and is what most people do.

Conversely, magicka characters use magicka-costing skills for damage and healing. They should invest into magicka and spell damage. The damage and healing scales with BOTH. Putting all your attribute points into magicka is fine and is what most people do.

Avoid investing attribute points into health, unless you want to play a tank.

Roughly speaking:
Stamina-centric races include Nord, Imperial, Orc, Redguard, Wood Elf
Magicka-centric races unclude High Elf, Breton
Races suitable for either stamina or magicka builds include Khajiit, Dark Elf, Argonian

If you want to level quickly and are buying expensive XP drinks (Mythic Aetherial Ambrosia), level your Provisioning first, as one of the passives prolongs those drinks from 30m to 50m.

Level your Alchemy for the Medicinal Use passive.

Life starts at CP160. Gear before your reach that milestone is not worth keeping nor selling in guild stores, by and large.

http://tamrieltradecentre.com

fred4 · November 2019

If you want to power level, put skills from all different skill lines onto your front bar. When something dies, you gain experience from the kill. This levels the skills you have slotted, as well as the skill lines. You can slot a skill from the wrong weapon type to level that skill and skill line. You won't be able to use that skill, but it will still be levelled.

By the same token, wear mixed armor, typically 5 pieces of one armor type and 1 each of the other two.

Minyassa · November 2019

Break down your junk equipment at crafting stations rather than selling it to a vendor! The mats you eventually get (and you'll want to invest some points in retrieving materials while deconning) will be worth WAY more than just the price you get from selling to a vendor.

NEVER pay gold to use a wayshrine! If you use one wayshrine to go to another it's free. If you travel to a player, it takes you to the nearest wayshrine to them if they are not already inside a quest hub, delve, dungeon or trial. There are two addons you really want to get right away to save gold: EasyTravel, which will take you to a player from your friend list or guild(s) in the zone where you want to go, and Port To Friend's House which will let you travel to any home owned by someone whose @name you know--you can use those homes as travel points to get into zones where you don't have any wayshrines yet. You can also take boats or caravans to other zones. There's never any reason you HAVE to spend money on a wayshrine...in a pinch you can even "blood port" (or as we called it in LOTRO, telecorpsing) by deliberately dying, though this is really only a great idea in Cyrodiil where your gear doesn't take damage if a player or NPC kills you. I really wish I had the gold back I spent my first few months using on wayshrines, I'm sure it's in the thousands.

Make sure you are in the Fighter's Guild and the Mages' Guild, and put a point into the very first passive skill for each guild. One is Intimidation, the other Persuasion, and they will save you money in quests. Many quests will have bribery situations but there's often an Intimidation or Persuasion option you can use instead of spending your precious gold.

Riding training with a stablemaster EVERY DAY. It takes 180 days to fully train your toon in all three riding skills and you want to max those out ASAP. Riding Stamina is really important and I learned the hard way to level it second and leave inventory slots for third (I'm too impatient not to level Speed first).

Get a free house, and start doing Master Writs for vouchers (get rid of the writs that cost more than 500 gold per voucher in mats) as soon as you start getting them, so you can buy housing chests that add inventory slots. The more traits you know, recipes you have learned, and motifs you know, the better your chance at Master Writs dropping from daily crafting writ quests.

Watchdog · November 2019

If you can, create an Imperial character and make him/her your main crafter. The Imperial crafting motif is very expensive, especially for a new player, and your crafter will know it as his/her default motif for free.

As said above, do NOT go hybrid. Focus on either Stamina or Magicka only. Pay attention to what resource a skill uses and what damage type it does. Magicka skills doing Magic or elemental damage are not the most effective for a Stamina based character.

Train at the Stablemaster every day. It takes 180 days to fully train a character. If you plan to eventually play more characters, create them early, park them at the Stablemaster and train them until you get to actually playing them. The training is painfully slow.

Join a good social guild and ask your guildmates to craft you some training gear. Do not worry much about builds and gear before level 50 CP 160, though.

Oh. And have fun. That is what really counts.

ghastley · November 2019

There are a number of things in the game that take a long time, and you don't have many options to speed them up. Mount training is a one-per-day operation, and there are 180 lessons to max out. Trait research takes a long time, even with all the passives, and doing as much in parallel as possible - a year for everything, but you'll have a useful capability well before that. Skill points are not time-gated, so you can gather as many skyshards, and do the awarding quests, as fast as you can manage.

The main quest was once level-gated, and still behaves that way. You don't have to do the individual quests as soon as you get them, even though the Prophet tells you so. It used to be one each five levels, and pacing yourself that way still makes sense.

Food has been mentioned. Make it a habit to stay fed, as you won't want to be down on stats when you get ambushed.

NineInchSnails · November 2019

Thanks everyone for the helpful advice.

El_Borracho · November 2019

Didn't see this one above, but:

* Buy all the cheap apartments you can as soon as you can

It not only opens zones you can't physically walk to, but it provides free quick travel to (some) city centers when you just don't want to walk to the wayshrine. Plus, since it unlocks it across all characters, when you make alternates, you can port over to easy XP grinding zones like Alik'r.

And this one:

* Gold is the one thing that comes easy in this game. Don't be afraid to spend it.

I know it feels like you are dirt poor now, but once you level up and wreak havoc in overland content, you will accumulate a lot of gold. Spend it. Spend it on houses, bag expansion, repairing gear, etc. You can, and will, always get more and get it quickly.

Finally:

* Sell all white gear that is not researchable but has gold value

Its useless for deconstructing.

TheImperfect · November 2019

Never pay for travel to save gold quickly.
Use the guilds you are in, look in the roster on the guild tab and you can travel to your guild mates location. Once you have 5 guilds there is pretty much always someone in a zone you need to go. As El Borracho said you can use houses to travel and some have really convenient locations.
Or ride to the nearest wayshrine.
When I first started if I wanted to go somewhere I just opened the map found the nearest way shrine to where I needed to go and paid the gold price. I wish I could have the gold back I wasted.

ghastley · November 2019

El_Borracho wrote: »

* Sell all white gear that is not researchable but has gold value

Its useless for deconstructing.

It's true that you get little inspiration from white gear, but if you have the ESO+ craft bag, the materials from grinding anything up can be as valuable as the item you deconstruct. That won't include any tempers, of course, but can give you style mats and trait items, as well as part of the basic material.

But the sheer variety of stuff you can get that way makes the craft bag essential. You won't have enough inventory slots for one or two of everything. Without that, the above advice stands.

cjhhickman39 · November 2019

Glad to see you on the forums, now remember one thing about most threads is that the discussion is about end game .
Trying to follow some of the recommendations given there will probably not work for you.
To get the best help do what you just did and ask for help in the area you need it and try to put in as much information as you can.

cal50 · November 2019

Join a guild ASAP and don't be shy to asking questions:

ghastley · November 2019

cal50 wrote: »

Join a guild ASAP and don't be shy to asking questions:

This. We can tell you, but a guild can show you.

El_Borracho · November 2019

ghastley wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

* Sell all white gear that is not researchable but has gold value

Its useless for deconstructing.

It's true that you get little inspiration from white gear, but if you have the ESO+ craft bag, the materials from grinding anything up can be as valuable as the item you deconstruct. That won't include any tempers, of course, but can give you style mats and trait items, as well as part of the basic material.

But the sheer variety of stuff you can get that way makes the craft bag essential. You won't have enough inventory slots for one or two of everything. Without that, the above advice stands.

Yeah, early in the game you get a bit more inspiration for the white gear. But with the amount of green and blue items you pick up in the game, I found it was better to sell the white gear and decon the colored gear (man, that sounds racist). I feel like you have a better chance at getting mats from the colored gear, too. Plus, you get more inspiration/XP for leveling that skill

Love the craft bag. I waited for a while to buy the ESO+, until I realized I was going to be playing this for a while. Would never go back now.

SydneyGrey · November 2019

At level 10 go accept the "Welcome to Cyrodiil" quest, and go do basic training in the army even if you never plan to do PvP (player versus player gaming). It's easy and it immediately gets you two skill points. Spend one of them on the "Rapid Maneuvers" skill in the Alliance War skill line so you can run/move a lot faster.

Also, get certified for crafting as soon as you can. To get certified, you'll see a message board in all the major cities with an arrow pointing to it. Accept the quest and do all six crafting certifications (alchemy, enchanting, provisioning, woodworking, blacksmithing, clothier).

Build up the provisioning skill first, since this will let you make food and drinks.

Indoril_Nerevar · November 2019

Listen well;

Never let other players irritate you or get under your skin. Remember that there are people who play to ruin your game, cheaters and bad people in general BUT there are also good ones, too.

Always double check the price of items online or in a discord. Never give away your information anywhere, and just make sure not to trust anybody too fast or to be too gullible too quick at the first sight of a helpful person or two.

Lastly, don't play too often for so long or you will burn out your interests.

ESO is huge and you've got a lot of options to explore. Just be sure to surround yourself with the right company

DarkLordLegion · November 2019

Here is my favorite saying.... You are the Pilot, You are in control of your own avatar. Design Your Avatar the way you want to play the game. There is never one true way of playing out the whole ESO series.

SydneyGrey · November 2019

On the chat box you can right-click on the word "chat" and then click on the word "options," and it'll take you to another menu. Here you can uncheck the "tells" box. Those are private "whispers" that you get. If you're playing solo, unchecking that box will keep other people from harassing/bullying you by private messaging.
I strongly recommend unchecking the "tells" box unless you're playing with a friend.

Dusk_Coven · November 2019

Honestly, NOTHING.
Getting told everything from the start ruins the sense of discovery. That new-game-feeling only lasts so long and I look back on it fondly.

This isn't like League of Angels 2 where the more you know, the faster you can optimize your f2p account and make a rush for the #1 spot on the clone server before you jump ship and start all over on a new server.

Langdon64 · November 2019

Try every single class, including werewolf and vampire. I wasted a ton of time on what I thought would be my "main", questing and crafting. Think I repeated Cold Harbour 6 times on alts before I found the Main I really love. Also, have a dedicated crafter start crafting and researching traits. And train riding speed first.

ZOS_Nith · November 2019

These are wonderful suggestions! Thanks to everyone who provided really solid and thought out advice!

xMovingTarget · November 2019

When I first started, if someone would have told me that this game will end up neglected, a lagfest, and heavy monetisation, I would have quit right away.

Cireous · November 2019

Make sure your character looks exactly the way you want it to look from the start because the appearance change tokens are not very helpful. After you use one and have changed your appearance to what you think might look great, it may look very different once you enter the game, and gone is your expensive, real-world money token if you get it wrong.

The key to looking wonderful is to get it right from the very beginning by screen capturing your sliders every time you make a tweek and repeatedly logging in your character to a place where you can see how they actually look. Before ever starting your first play through, do this over and over until your brain no longer tells you that something looks off about your character.

Also, if ever you notice something during your initial (beginning) play time that you don't like, even when you were sure you had it perfect, don't hesitate to dump that character and change its appearance, because if you don't do it early on you will, likely, deeply regret the "ugly" later.

RavenSworn · December 2019

I'd you are in a guild, use the online guildies to quickly travel to anywhere they are. You can also travel to their homes for quick outs when you are in a dungeon run.

Sell all whites, decon the rest. Learn all profession if you want to solo the game. Get all wayshrines. Do all quest as some quest even in the base game nets you so free account based items like costumes and such. Finish up quests in all public dungeons to get mementos that are account shared.