At its core, ESO is a beautiful game that treads the balance between a traditional MMO and a true role playing game. It has the benefit of being able to change up your playstyle on a whim but with the draw backs of not being able to flow as freely in traversal or combat as TES (The Elder Scrolls) veterans may be familiar with. However, its differences shouldn’t hold you back from trying it out. You don’t need to be a TES or MMO veteran to get into this game. The controls are easy to grasp and the mechanics clear to understand.
Don’t Expect Skyrim
Let’s get this out of the way early, ESO is not Skyrim, and by extension it is not like any other single player Elder Scrolls game. It has many similarities, and of course it takes place in the same universe, but you should not come into this expecting the same play styles you found in those games. The freedom you would find in those games is not here in ESO. You won’t be running around killing NPCs on a whim or selecting from multiple dialogue choices very often. Exploration has also been toned back quite a bit. You can’t freely roam the world either, and you won’t suddenly find a Daedric weapon laying around, as that would break the balance of the game.
A major difference is the lack of social RPG element. As stated already, you won’t be making personal choices. The story and game itself is much more linear to keep your world in a similar state as the people running around you. Those people are going to be your greatest assets, as some battles are extremely difficult on your own.
The mechanics and structure of the game focus on the fact that there are other people in the world with you. In other words, you aren’t the only hero. Because of this, you can do more than before.
Races
The Elder Scrolls Online has ten playable races divided into three warring Factions. The Imperials are the tenth race who are currently only available if you purchase the collectors edition or ESO:TU Imperial Edition.
Classes
Elder Scrolls Online has 4 (5 with Morrowind) classes currently available for play. Each one has a distinct feel, making them play different than all the rest. One of the greatest parts of the class system is how diverse an individual class can be. Unlike other MMOs, ESO’s classes have very differing skill trees, meaning that a tank class could also spec to be a healer or DPS.
Dragon Knight
The powerful Dragon Knight wield the power of fire to dish out serious amounts of damage. They are great in close quarters battles, but also have a skill tree that can be teched into, allowing them to tank enemies for your group. They can easily wield any weapon, so don’t be surprised to see people running around with bows, swords or giant 2 handed weapons.
Sorcerer
These long range damage dealers have multiple skill trees that allow them to dish out powerful spells. They can wield the power of lightning, or summon powerful Daedra from the realm of Oblivion. No matter what skill tree you pick, you will always be a back line caster, using a staff to sling your powerful spells.
Templar
The Templar is one of the most diverse classes in the game. Each skill tree allows you to do something different, ranging from tanking to crowd control effects to healing. For this reason, it won’t be uncommon to see multiple Templars in a group, but each one filling a different role within it. Depending on the skill tree you pick, your weapon of choice will be different, with tanks option for a sword and shield while a Templar healer might want to use a staff.
Nightblade
The most dedicated DPS class in the game, the Nightblade allows players to deal large amounts of damage, while being heavily focused on stealth. No matter the skill tree you pick, you will always be able to deal tons of damage with this class. They are also great at soloing, and have very high sustain values thanks to their many skills that drain health, magicka and stamina from targets. Although a bow is an option, expect most Nightblades to be getting up close and personal with their foes.
Warden (Morrowind)
The Warden is ESO’s first new class since its launch. From healing to tanking to damage, this class can do everything and it can do it well. The Animal Companions tree focuses on summoning creatures to assault the enemy while Green Balance summons heals and boons from nature, allowing the Warden to keep their teammates alive and tanks healed. If neither healing nor DPS suits your playstyle, Warden’s third tree Winter’s Embrace manipulates the weather to create defensive barriers creating an ice-based tank.
Factions
Aldmeri Dominion (Most of GRG use this for Cyrodil)
Daggerfall Covenant
Ebonheart Pact
DLC
Imperial City
Orsinium
Thieves Guild
Dark Brotherhood
Shadows of the Hist
Morrowind (Expansion)
Crafting Basics
Alchemy
Alchemy is the Art of crafting potions. To create potions first you will have to collect the various ingredients from around you. Reagents can be found throughout the wilds. Solvents can be found in rivers and lakes or along the coast. You will need to take all the necessary ingredients to an Alchemy station somewhere in town. To create potions you will need two reagents and a solvent. With a skill add on you can use three reagents for making additional potions. . There are 18 reagents in the Elder Scrolls Online.
Blacksmithing
Blacksmithing is one of the six crafting skill lines in The Elder Scrolls Online (TESO). Blacksmithing focuses around creating weapons such as Swords, Axes and Daggers. These can be made out of a range of materials, from Iron to Ebony.
Clothing
Clothing is the art of medium and light armor. There are seven different pieces of clothing you can make for each type (medium & light). There are nine types of material for both medium and light armor. You have eight different traits you can apply and four different tempers to improve them. And of course 14different racial styles. That’s a whooping 5,040 different unique items for each piece of clothing for both light and medium armor.
Enchanting
The process of Enchanting involves taking three runes, and forming a specific word from them. Once you have, you receive a glyph that can be applied to weapons and armor. What you receive is based on the initial runes you use. Enchanting is great as a secondary craft, allowing you to supplement the gear you make from your other trades.
Provisioning
Provisioning is the craft of cooking meals and drinks that can temporarily buff a player. The duration of these buffs is, relative to other enhancements, significantly longer and can last for hours.
Woodworking
Woodworking is a crafting method used to create wooden weapons and shields. As with other crafting methods, resources are needed to create the desired shield or weapon. The player may gather these resources from existing weapons using a method called extraction or collect the required materials as they travel throughout the world.
While every character in the game begins with the basic woodworking skill the style of the weapon and shield they can create is initially limited by the race they choose. Crafting stones are used to determine the style of the weapon or shield and are, in turn, paired with each race. If a player wishes to craft weapon/shield of another race they are compelled to discover the style as the game progresses. After discovering the style of a particular race they may use the corresponding stone to craft the desired weapon or shield using the woodworking bench.
Crafting Sets (More Complicated)
Crafting sets are unique sets of armor and weapons that players can create in the Elder Scrolls Online (ESO). Unlike regular sets of armor and weapons, when you equip the number of pieces required you get an additional bonus on top of all other active bonuses and/or effects. There are two types of bonuses: three item bonuses and five item bonuses. Crafted sets can only be made at special crafting stations hidden throughout Tamriel. There are 19 different sets you can make. And you can only make one kind of set at each location and each location has three different crafting stations (smithing, clothing and woodworking). There are one of each location in each alliance with the exception of the one in coldharbour (Spectre’s Eye) and the three for the Fighters and Mages guilds. That’s a total of 49 special crafting locations in the game.
The number of sets may be more as of now. They keep adding to the game
Racial Motifs
What are Racial Motifs
When you create a character they can naturaly craft in thier own racial style. To craft in any other style you need to find and learn new Racial Motifs. These are books in the world you can find and read. Once you read it you can craft in that style. There are 14 different Racial Motifs to choose from. You will also need a racial trait stone for each item you make in that racial style.
Builds
Getting a little more in-depth, you can start building and gearing toward a certain goal, or roll in the game. There are many resources out there for finding builds, and I’ll list a few of the more popular and recommended people.
When making builds, take your personal play style into account and adjust accoprdingly. What works for once person may not work for you. Also decide if this is going to be a PvE or PvP build. The skills/attributes/set gear willbe completely different
Deltia
Easily the most popular and hardest working guy out there on ESO. His builds are proven to work for the most part
Sypher
One that I use that has similar play-styles to mine with his builds for PvE
ESO Mastery Guides
A popular reference for a lot of gamers
ESO Academy
Another popular resource
Delves and Dungeons
A delve is a small solo dungeon. The kind where a zone usually has several of, mostly with a quest attached.
Public Dungeon
A public dungeon is a larger, more difficult dungeon meant for a group of players. Each zone (usually?) has a single public dungeon. Public Dungeons are large and expansive dungeons filled with enemies, bosses and a couple of quests. There is one Public Dungeon in each zone, except for the Starter Islands and Cyrodiil. Public Dungeons are open to everybody at the same time and will not scale to your level. You will often meet other players inside completing quests. The enemies inside these dungeons often come in large packs which can make exploration difficult without fellow players to help you. Public Dungeons often come with a main quest and several side quests which take you throughout the dungeon and often give trophy or collectors items as a reward.
There are several bosses in Public Dungeons which, upon slaying them all, will reward you with an Achievement. Once you have completed all of the Public Dungeons in an Alliance you will unlock a new dye color specific to your Alliance. Public Dungeons also feature a Group Challenge – a difficult boss with several adds – which is best completed with a few other players. The Group Challenge rewards a Skill Point upon completion so it is worth the time to comlete. It can be difficult to find the Group Challenge and the boss requires activation – often by interacting with an object in a room such as a flame or an item.
Group Dungeons
Group dungeons are the most difficult ones, of which there are three shared across the factions per level bracket. Group Dungeons are difficult dungeons which are completed with a group of 4 players and will scale to the group leader’s level or to CP 160 if you use the Group Finder. Group Dungeons come in Normal Mode and Veteran Mode – these can be toggled in the Group Interface. Normal Mode can be completed at any level and is the less difficult option. Veteran Mode is much more difficult and can be completed when you reach Level 50. Group Dungeons require cooperation and teamwork in order to be completed successfully and take much longer to complete compared to a Delve or even a Public Dungeon.
Group Dungeons also feature a quest which can be completed whilst you go through the dungeon and will reward you with a Skill Point.
According to the developers, Group Dungeons were designed for a group with two damage dealing players, one tank and one healer. Group Dungeons are flexible in different ways and will require different things from each player. Certain dungeons may require more damage from the tank and healer in order to quickly defeat a difficult boss and others may require the damage dealing characters to survive on their own, without a healer, for a temporary time.
There are several bosses in a Group Dungeon which often have different strengths, weaknesses and abilities. Some bosses have high damage burst attacks which must be healed through while others will test your group by pinning down a random member temporarily.
Trials
One of the first things you’ll notice about Trials is that they bring a new experience to ESO designed to test even the toughest veterans. You’ll need a group of 12 to take them on, but they’re not just dungeons that require a large group—we’re applying additional pressure. Your team will only have a limited number of resurrections available, and additional rewards will be granted to those who defeat the weekly challenge with one of the top times across the megaserver.
In Trials, all 12 players have to be flexible and agile. By the time you reach the Veteran Rank you’ll need to be ready, you’ll have access to a large number of abilities, and Trials expect you to be prepared to face a number of situations. You’ll need to know what skills to bring for each encounter and be able to adjust your strategy and loadout to react to boss abilities.
Though you’ll face powerful bosses in Trials, they aren’t the only serious threat. They created a special type of adversary called “bannermen” that your group will need to deal with. Bannermen are easy to spot on the battlefield, and each needs to be handled correctly if your team wants to survive. One of our bannermen, for instance, has a nasty power that turns your group’s area of effect heals against you, making them cause damage for the duration. On top of devastating abilities like this, you’ll often face more than one bannerman, and your group needs to recognize the greatest threats and handle them quickly.
ESO Crown Store and ESO Plus Membership
The Crown Store is an in-game digital marketplace that was introduced alongside the release of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited. Through this marketplace players can purchase additional content, including but not limited to, DLC, costumes, mounts and pets.
Purchases require crowns, an in-game currency that was added with the introduction of the Crown Store. Crowns can be purchased from the official ESO account store for PC/Mac, the Playstation Store for Playstation 4, and the Xbox Live Store for Xbox One. New players will receive a free one-time gift of 500 Crowns Icon, and ESO Plus members can receive a monthly allotment of 1,500 Crowns Icon.
Crown Crates are item bundles found in the Crown Store’s Utility category that contain a randomized selection of consumables and valuable collectables, including discontinued items and items exclusive to the current season. There a category in the Crown Store called Crown Crates where players may purchase rewards featured in the current season. However, purchases within this category require a special in-game currency called Crown Gems, which can only be obtained by playing the Crown Crates mini-game.
ESO Plus is a premium membership system that started with the release of the Tamriel Unlimited payment model, for the same price as the old subscription: $14.99/€12.99/£8.99/¥1,944 per month.
The following are included in an ESO Plus membership:
- A stipend of 1500 Crowns per month, given at the start of the subscription period.
- Access to all DLC game packs for the duration of your membership. This does not include Morrowind.
- A 10% bonus to XP, gold, crafting research and crafting inspiration earned.
- As of Update 10, an account-wide Craft Bag to hold unlimited crafting materials.
- As of Update 11, the ability to dye costumes and hats at a dye station.
- As of Update 13, the ability to place twice as many objects in player houses.
The crafting bag and new double bank space alone is what keeps me subscribed personally