So this is a new format. I’m still going to be reviewing the Expanse and more video games, but I’ve decided to create a guide on ESO Online. These are simple guides, but I am wanting to do something different. If you are on the ESO + membership, I would recommend it. If you don’t want to, that’s totally fine because you can still get most of the items in the game. Either way, you are grinding for gold and resources at the end of the day along with quests and battlegrounds to better your character. Please bear in mind, I am no expert. This is the result and culmination of my playing experience so far, so take what I say with a pinch of salt! There are better guides out there on youtube and the internet but this is the humble experience that I want to share.
First, let’s look at Quests:
The first and foremost thing. When you join ESO and you’re on ESO+ or not, you’ll get crowns. I advise you to get Summerset, Vvardenfall as these will be CRUCIAL for harvesting and grinding resources. If you’re on ESO+ you get a monthly allowance of crowns for 1650 which you can then spend on the crown store, or you can gather a lot of gold and swap them in the Tamriel Exchange. The exchange rate is around 500 gold to 1 crown. So you’ll be paying in the millions even if you want 10,000 to 20,000 crowns. That’s how expensive it is. But if you’re willing to put in the effort, more power to you. That’s the free method without operating on ESO+. And please note. You can only go to zones that you’ve unlocked with crowns. Or you can wait for event trials that allow you as the player to explore all of Tamriel for a certain time. When I was on trial, I did the Thieves Guild DLC, which I completed the quests for, but I didn’t realize the trial went for a week or two. So USE the FREE TRIALS TO DO CERTAIN ZONES that you aren’t allowed access to. The free trials allow you to explore all of Tamriel and you can harvest for resources, grind where you couldn’t. Make use of dungeons, battlegrounds, and whatnot. Also, free trials can mean that when you start up ESO, you can simply gain experience by traveling to new areas. Oh, and travel to every Wayshrine in this game. Wayshrines are like fast portals to travel to different realms. Find one and make use of it!
Gain Bonus XP & Levels
Firstly, Quests are good because it gains you two things: Bonus XP and level up. Quests can matter in all sorts of ways. There are daily quests that can have you take on a single boss or some quests which require you and a team of players to take on a dungeon raid, or a location where a boss and his minions are needed to be destroyed. There are summoning storms, and the best place to farm them is in the Alikir Desert. These storms allow you to gain experience. You can also do quests in a dungeon raid and the new update that is coming with Gates of Oblivion will allow you to have companions! Also, you can do daily repeatable quests that can gift you gear. So I’ll explain in a little more detail.
Do the Main Quest lines
Another form of questing is to do the main quest lines of story locations. So Rivenspire, Western Skyrim, Greymoor, Reaper’s March. Each of these locations has excellent storylines. I would even recommend the Summerset storyline which has an incredible storyline as well. Part of the reason I say this is because the stories written in this game have incredible voice acting, and it can get you easily gripped. One of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had in my gaming experience when playing ESO was the Dark Heart of Skyrim or the Greymoor Expansion. I also advise you to get the Dark Brotherhood DLC chapter, which you can unlock with crowns – that is a recommended chapter as you can complete daily assassination quests. But they are grinding and can get monotone. You get 332 gold for each quest. But it is quick and easy gold for a starter player and one which I recommend. So for a new player looking for crowns, take these chapters: Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, or Summerset. Because if you’re going to play this game for free, these chapters are your best bet. If you’re going to go ESO+ trial, you can use those crowns depending on how many months you have, to spend them on the chapters and zones you want to play. It’s up to you.
This had me take on the personal story of a Vampire and confront his failures. I went to incredible locations, and a lot of ESO’s lore spilled into this game from Skyrim in some regards. You also get cool bonus weapons and gear so make sure to keep collecting gear. I would also recommend taking all the gold that is offered to you. And sidequests! Do them! You have got to be doing them. If you’re not in the mood for quests, you can ignore the multiple choices and just quickly do the quests as you will. I would recommend saving a lot of points gathered in these quests so you can later spend unlimited points on your skills. Now for gear sets. Fancy a gear set that you want that is displayed in the Crown Store? Easy! You can find the gear set in the crown store, and see a message saying: This armour can be obtained by doing dungeons and defeating twelve bosses. Basically, just defeat monsters in these dungeons! For example, with the Western Skyrim expansion, I go to the Reach. Make sure you’re in a way shrine to travel there. Or ask in group chat for someone to teleport you there. I do these daily repeatable quests that are marked in blue in the capital of the reach, and I get motifs or gear for completing those quests.
Crafting in ESO and ESO+plus
Crafting in ESO was very hard for me to grasp initially because I did not have a large amount of gold, and not a lot of resources. If you’re not on ESO+ your inventory is limited and say if it’s 70 spaces, you’ll need in excess of around 10,000 to 20,000 in gold just to increase it.
With ESO + your inventory is infinite, and you can upgrade both your inventory space and your bank. For now, since I’m still learning the grasping of this game, let’s just focus on inventory space But you will still be constrained by the number of items you can keep if the amount of gold that you have is not high enough. So I can say this: When you are doing quests if you find a glowing resource in yellow, it could be scrap wood, rubedite ore, or torn cloth. Take it! Harvest every single plant, wood, iron, anything you find harvest!
This goes onto the next level: Your best crafting locations from what I’ve discovered is the City of Alinor and Vivec City. I would recommend Vivec City because of how easy it is to do crafting quests. I would thoroughly recommend you to do crafting quests as they are quick and easy to do. Once you have mastered them, any loot you’ve gained from quests, you can deconstruct them. If you have a lot, I would recommend deconstructing. Because you gain a lot of resources. And claim the daily rewards. Because of this, I was able to get 100,000 when my gold was around maybe a 1000? With this, you can to go any guild and buy the resources you need that you are missing. Bear in mind, this is costly. You can ask in guilds for help with food and such. But as I say, you can totally steal from the bars and inns of ESO Online, and you can use them as well. Do most of the crafting quests every day which are called Writs, and once you have the resources, you can pretty much do it! The writs have a blue marker and can be found on boards.
There are plenty of guides to find about how much gold you can earn. To harvest, upgrade and craft. Do writs if you can. Defeat bosses, go to guilds, and join them in their daily quests. You will gain a lot of gold instantly. And claim the daily rewards! Claim it as much as you can, well, just claim it daily. You will get some lucky rewards as I did. And claim the crown restoration potions they are excellent for keeping you alive in combat. Also, spend on the essence of stamina and the essence of health. Bring around 100 of these to help you when you fight bosses. This will help you a lot in the early stages of the games. Also. Quests allow you to gather FREE costumes at the end! You can visually change your gear and armour with ESO Plus, so its a win-win the only thing is you need a lot of gold. And I mean in excess of a million – so that you can spend for good armour/gear.
Guilds/Rewards
There are three main levels I’ve discovered in this game. One is going from level 0 to level 45. For a new player, it’s initially well designed and well built. You get special rewards for every level you go. There’s a certain threshold. Before you start the game, I recommend going to Alqast.com or Youtube to see what race you want to try out. You can build gear sets because of this. Okay once you’ve reached 45, fantastic. By the time you get to level 50, you get more XP, more research bonuses and your character becomes stronger. By the time you get to 160, all your gear becomes normal. By the time you get to 300, you can participate in 12 team PVP group trials. Which have you as a player doing dungeon raids with 12 players. And there’s the famous level 810. I don’t know what that is yet, but you’ll soon figure it out. That’s as far as my knowledge as I can reach out for now. Look at this screenshot for what I mean. You can claim daily rewards and once or twice, you might strike lucky in getting potions, gear, maybe even a free chapter zone, or even gold! Or items to decorate your house but that’s the endgame really for this game.
And if you’re in a guild, you can go to the bank. You can sell your items in the guild exchange store, but for a fee. It’s worth it. You can also upgrade your bank inventory, but really the amount of gold you’ll want to get in this game is max 500,000. This should allow you to increase your investment in bank and inventory upgrades, and should allow you to buy if not most of the weapons, items and resources. Once you’ve reached a comfortable level, you can pretty much extend beyond the inventory upgrades and harvest and grind as you wish!
Battlegrounds
Do Battlegrounds especially when you start out, but when you’ve got a good gear set. And you will not win in the first stages. Doesn’t matter. If you’re a healer, and going for a healing set, fantastic. If you’re going for a tank, and tanks are supposed to be the most powerful players to hold down a dungeon OP boss, then fantastic. If you’re going for DPS, which is bascially players doing damage, then fantastic. See the three classes before joining a raid, and then participate. You won’t have an idea of the battlegrounds and you’ll be lost and worried and lose instantly. Worry not. This is how you learn. You work in teams for every battleground. You either have to play the following:
- Chaosball – capture a ball for your team and run around while trying not to get destroyed. It’s hard to master and you need to trust your team.
- Arenas – I have not had the chance to partipicate in them but I am sure you will at some point.
- Capture the Point. I love this mode as you have to capture the points so your team wins, but it is hard. A lot of veteran players participate in these battles.
- Capture the Relic – Same as this one, but once you figure it out, its easier. Simple plan is to take the relic and go back to your capture point.
The rewards you get are XP, gold and loot especially if you win. If there are events going on during this time, you get double the loot. Talk to Battlemaster Rivyn where he will be located just outside of the city. He gives you quests, and they are repeatable. You get alliance points as such which is the currency to spend on gear and such. Combat is easy to master in this game, but difficult if you don’t have the right gear set. So ask in a guild group. And once you figure out how battlefields work, you’ll get there. Avoid Cyrodill for the time being as that will need a more complex guide for me to figure out. Also go to the Impresario. She’s an Imperial event merchant that you can do quests for during special events, found at the event exchange pavillions, and if you do battlegrounds, you can get tickets to spend on motifs. Motifs are pages that allow you to unlock customizable armour to change – but beware. They cost money. They are for visuals mostly. And doing dungeon trials allows you to get new weapon and gear and loot. But make sure your inventory space is good enough to handle it.
And that is it for now! I have not mastered the entire mechanics of this wonderful game, but I hope this will help you at least get started! Enjoy and have fun adventuring in the lands of Tamriel! I would recommend subscribing to this channel on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEkDvelHaw8
This video gives you a breakdown of what you can do in ESO. ArzyeL Gaming makes very good guides, easy and not clickbait or another video that goes on for minutes without explaining what to actually do. Start with this channel as it is very highly underrated and the amount of value that is in this channel is enough to get you started in ESO! Whether regardless if you’re ESO+ or not.