New player here, what to do after Cadwell’s almanac?

Nyseto · August 2022

So I’ve been playing for a week strictly questing and almost done with Cadwell’s silver, then moving onto gold and then I’ll probably do my own faction’s quests to fulfill my OCD. I have not crafted a single item, done a single dungeon, or interacted much with any other players just yet. I’ve just been getting myself familiar with the interface, the skills, the game and story overall for now. I am a level 26 dark elf vampire necromancer and during these quests I run to every new wayshrine and skyshard that appears on my compass. I’ve spent gold only on my mount, bank, and bag. I have been replacing my gear strictly from drops and rewards and selling the old. Once I finish this almanac and my alliance’s quests (that would be given via the almanac if I was a different faction), what then?

Danikat · August 2022

I'm surprised you managed to get up to Cadwell's Silver and you're only level 26. Between that and the fact that you mentioned not having done your own alliances quests I guess you've only done the ones marked as main story?

ESO is complicated in this regard, it gives you a lot of choice and not a lot of guidance, which would be fine except that a lot of the quests and storylines are written with a specific order in mind and some are designed to interact so if you don't know what to look for and how to find it you can miss a lot. But that only matters if you want the full storyline.

If you don't care about the game's story then the simple answer is you can do whatever you want, in any order you want to do it. You don't need to wait for the game to tell you it's time to join a guild or try crafting or dungeons or whatever, you can just do it.

If you do want to play the whole story in order I recommend using this page as a starting point: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Story_Quests

You're supposed to do the main story alongside your alliance's main quests and the Mages and Fighters guild quests, then Coldharbour, the end of the main story, then Cadwell's Silver and Gold. After that there's Craglorn, the Imperial City (which is pretty light on story because it's designed to be a PvPvE zone), then the DLC storylines in release order.

Nyseto · August 2022

Ok that seems to clear things up a bit. Yes I’ve only done the ones marked as the main story. Other than the main quest and Cadwell’s almanac, what else are quests good for other than exp and rewards? For example doing the mages guild quests?

Is questing alone pretty viable for leveling all the way to max CP or are there much faster ways?

Jaimeh · August 2022

Nyseto wrote: »

Is questing alone pretty viable for leveling all the way to max CP or are there much faster ways?

There are faster ways, but for your first character I'd take it easy in order to familiarize with your class and the combat system, and if you join group content, your role as well. I'd say start doing some normal dungeons to see if you enjoy them, because if you want to later farm CP, random normals is one source of nice experience gain. For future reference, you can farm CP by grinding mobs in certain locations that have big mob density and fast respawn times (like public dungeons, or areas like Spellscar, Skyreach, or group areanas), do random normals, or craft master writs. But I think it's too soon to think about CP farming, and at the point you are the game still has the majority of content to offer, so for a new player taking the organic way and going through the dlc's, while joining dungeons, and later even trying your hand at a solo arena, is a good way to progress and improve, I think.

FrancisCrawford · August 2022

If you enjoy questing, there are a LOT of quests in the game, some better than others. Zones where I generally enjoyed the skill-point or other main regional quests included Stros M'Kai, Glenumbra, Rivenspire, Bangorkai and Auridon. If your tastes are similar to mine, you might also enjoy:

Side quests throughout the Daggerfall Covenant areas, especially in Rivenspire.
Non-repeatabe quests in Thieves Guld.
Main quest line in Orsinium.
Quests, especially main quest line, in Summerset.
Main quest line in Clockwork City.

Public dungeons, which you should do anyway for the 1 1/3 skill points each, can have surprisingly decent quests too.

Group dungeons typically have lame stories that people rush through, but there are exceptions, notably in The Banished Cells (Auridon) and Crypt of Hearts (Rivenspire).