…what are Writs?
Basically a daily crafting task you can perform to get earn some money, some crafting XP, some materials/loot and a chance for
- gold tempers <-- you’d never use these until you’re at max level and 160CP, but they’re worth ~4-10k gold each
- surveys <-- basically a treasure map of sorts, you go that location on a map and there’ll be lots of materials to harvest there.
Or I probably should have just linked to this instead.
So a guy named Lord Dickbutt sent me a notice to group. I just sighed heavily and logged off. Life is too short.
So I spent a bunch of time in Orsinium last night (which is beautiful by the way).
After playing Skyrim, I realize why I’d not been clicking as hard with ESO is because I wasn’t embracing my pure love of the battlemage. Sure, my sorc had some fun spells and staves, but I was forgetting the up-close and personal nature of it all when a spell didn’t stop a bad guy entirely, so I switched up my second staff for some one-handed swords, and then could switch between a staff and spells for range and swords and spells for melee.
OMG I am having so much more fun now. I feel like I’ve clicked with my character, finally, and I just wanna play more more more.
Sneaking around for the Dark Brotherhood is so much fun. Especially with the Blade of Woe. And looking like a skeleton from the Witch quest. I am become Death.
@BrianRubin so glad you’re getting into the groove. Lot’s of fun to be had.
I’ve been so out of the loop with ESO I have no idea where Orsinium is… but it looks great!
It’s Orc country, basically.
It’s almost been one year since it was released, so there’s actually an upcoming Orsinium event (as well as a sale.) It’s probably the best DLC they’ve done, so well worth your money.
Also, double vMA weapons! Guess I’m heading back to that crazy place.
Okay, the quests in this game are really good for an MMO. In lots of other MMOs, I play by doing ‘whatever quest is closest at the moment’ - bear asses, gathering poop, whatever - cause it doesn’t matter, it is loot and xp. But in ESO I find myself pursuing a questline from start to finish (when practical - and many quests are a questline, not just a one-hit deal), only stopping to pick up the ‘start’ point of other quests I find along the way so that I can actually follow the story of whatever I’m doing.
On top of that, a bunch of the quests I’ve done thus far have amazingly ambiguous morality endings. Even though it has no in-game impact (which is too bad), I actually fret about my decisions. And when you talk to the other NPCs after making a choice, they respond in ways that either make me feel better or make me feel pretty bad. So even without having an in-game impact, it has an impact.
I realize this isn’t anything that a quality RPG doesn’t already do, but this is an MMO!
Yah, there are a surprising number of quests that are good as well. The sheer volume of them is pretty impressive. I constantly find myself being surprised by a quest line, when I expected it to not be much.
I’m having the dilemma of not knowing which character to play, my magic sorc, my stamina sorc, my magic templar or my stamina templar… Every time I hop on any of those, I think it’s “the one”. Great game.
Pretty happy with my magplar at the moment. He seems to have the right mix of range and melee to make me happy. I like playing ranged typically, yet dislike kiting. Templar has just enough range-shooty stuff to scratch that itch, but then when the mobs storms over face-to-face, I can deal with it head-on and not feel too squishy.
(Amazingly, it has taken me a loooooong time to figure out that this is my preferred playstyle. Usually it is a binary choice between ranged or melee, and I’m never entirely happy with either and spawn alts galore). I suppose this is nothing more than a ‘battlemage’ in effect, but…
I’m still early in the game. I just finished Perils of Diplomacy in Khenarthi’s Roost. I’m only level 6.
I’ve been doing the quests as they come up, but it seems like all I’m doing it going from one quest marker to another. Investigate this or that just means go to the quest marker and examine whatever object I’m supposed to examine. Is this really how it will play out the entire game, or is it just because I’m early on in the game?
It’s a nice looking world, but I’m finding the experience a bit empty.
There are some very good quests in this game. I’ll paste a write up I did awhile back on another board–this is an example of one of the quest lines for The Pact.
[spoiler]Played for a couple hours last night. I have a new found appreciation for the quests in this game. After several years of WoW I have a very bad habit of just accepting quests and looking to see what the objectives are without reading any of the text. You can do that with ESO but you’ll be skipping all of the fully voiced dialog from the NPCs.
And for anyone wondering if the quests are ‘collect 10 bear asses’ this is just a quick run down of one of the zone quests I did last night in Eastmarch (Nord zone level 30ish)
I came to Fort Amol to report to the Thane about something I don’t remember (this was the lead into the quest area) and found him trying to preside over a meeting between the members of the Pact. This was all triggered when I walked up the first time without me engaging an NPC. The Dark Elf and Argonian representatives were taking turns being insulted by the hot headed son of the Nord King Jorunn which led to them each leaving for their respective camps.
The Thane asked me to intervene and try to bring the two sides back together. To get the Argonians back I had to kill a named troll that had terrorized their town and for the dark elves I had to enlist the aid of a female Dunmer assasin that is a recurring character in your quests.
Meanwhile I was also asked by one of the local guard commanders to find a drunken guard that had left his post. I eventually found him, passed out under a bridge after drinking too much Argonian wine and wound up taking his uniform since he wouldn’t wake up. When I reported back to the commander she insisted that I had found the wrong man because she had just seen the guard in question walk by with a senior commander. This then led to me following the senior commander and eventually finding out that he and several of the guards in town were imposters under the command of an enemy illusionist who had infiltrated the meeting going on at the Fort with the king.
Eventually, I made my way to the meeting to find that the illusionist himself had poisoned the king and taken his place. I defeated him and now am on a quest to secure the ingredients to try to save the poisoned king.
All of that for just a local ‘quest hub’ in one part of the zone. And the game is filled with these kinds of quests.[/spoiler]
Spoiler’ed it because it’s actually pretty cool and wouldn’t want to ruin for someone playing through the zone.
So I bought a kitty in game. I wish I could make it a calico like mine.
I followed a lot of comments on here about making a Stam or Magika character. Is that meant to imply that you forsake Health as you level up? Just dump all points into Stam or Magika?
Do you also aim for gear with +Stam or +Magika, depending on which you chose?
Yes to all.
To maximize their damage output, most characters put all their points into either stamina or magicka. You will still use both resources, but all damage/ healing skills scale with the max of one or the other. So, you max one resource and choose damage/ healing skills that use that resource. You will use the other resource for utility purposes.
For example, a sorcerer who goes the magicka route would max his magicka, then pick magicka-based abilities from both his class lines and weapon lines. But he would still use stamina for some skills (e.g., Rapid Manuevers from the alliance assault line) and for dodge-rolling. So stam remains relevant to him, but magicka is far more important.
That said, everyone still needs some health. While you’re leveling, feel free to allocate some into health and some into your main resource. You can always switch it up later. Respeccing attribute points is fairly cheap and easy. Once you are at the point where you need to min-max a bit, then you can worry about it. That point is normally when you feel ready to start vet dungeons. For those, you’ll want at least 18k health for DPS or Healers (and no more than 20k). Note that much of that health can come from food. The best food is usually ‘blue food,’ a level-appropriate recipe that boosts health and your main resource stat. There is also purple food, which boosts all three stats, but by a lesser amount.
It’s a bit different for tanks, of course :) They’ll want far more health. It’s also a bit different for magicka sorcs, whose conjured ward can let them get by with less health.
Thanks for the clarification and info. That’s helpful!
I’m looking at an old level 23 character I made at launch, and since it’s a Redguard Templar who used only heavy armor and sword/shield combo, magika is not the best path for him. Probably best to start over with a different race and set up.
You could. But Redguard Stamplar is a good spec! Here’s a Deltia guide:
Is there a QT3 guild?
If not, is there any need or desire for one? Even if it’s just a couple of guys who are sporadically around to answer questions and/or a shared guild bank we can throw stuff in, it could be helpful.
Is it worth the effort and/or money to create one?