There’s a main questline?!??
Oghier
4568
There are two :) Or even more than that in this category.
The Cold Harbour quests are the core storyline of the base game. Those start with talking to the “benefactor” at some point and then meeting the Prophet. They are very rewarding in terms of XP and skill points.
The three factions each have their own major questline, too. Those begin on the old 'starter islands" of Stros M’kai (Daggerfall), Bleakrock (Ebonheart) or Khenarthi’s Roost (Aldmeri), and they involve contact with your primary handler. Eventually, they have you work for your faction ruler, and they take you through every zone in that faction’s territory. These quests, too, are quite rewarding in XP and skill points.
Finally, each DLC and expansion has its own primary questline. All of these have significant rewards.
These ‘main quests’ are distinct from the seventy-billion sidequests you bump into as you explore. Those are often quite well done, even shockingly well done, but tend to have poor material rewards.
Wow, thanks! I just went straight into Vvardenfell when I started so I didn’t bother much about quests outside of that area, but I took up the benefactor quest line now and a quest line with Razum-dar and it’s so much more fun =)
Razum-dar is great. I like that cat a lot!
@witajcie, if you’re asking how difficult it is to get to endgame… it’s not terribly difficult to get started. Getting all the gear you need is a much longer journey though. The steps as I see them are:
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level to 50 while leveling your skill lines: pretty easy. The only challenging part is leveling all your skill lines (many of the current meta builds use Caltrops, which is at 6 in the Assault line, so be prepared to do a fair bit of PvP for that). Many builds need maxed out Fighter or Mage guild lines. Or the Psijic line. Or the Undaunted line. So level up all those strange guild lines!
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Once you hit 50, get to 160 champion points: this is the start of your endgame experience. Once you hit 160 CP you can wear any gear in the game. So yay you!
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Set yourself up with a newbie level 50 set of gear: not difficult, since this set is probably crafted. You can either purchase your gear from a guild store or make it yourself. If making it yourself you will probably need acccess to level 50 6-tier crafters for armor (Clothing or Blacksmithing), weapons (Blacksmithing), enchants (Enchanting). Most starting level 50 gear sets specify “PvP jewelery” which is stuff you purchase from a vendor in (I think) Cyrodil - you can easily purchase this stuff from guild stores. I say 6-tier crafters because many of the sets are things like Hunding’s Rage or Night Mother’s Gaze or Law of Julianos, all of which require 6 traits to be researched before you can craft the set pieces. My specific outfitting experience is below as an example:
As an example of outfitting a new 50 I created armor for my new Warden - except the chest piece (it’s level 50 and a Heavy piece, I’m still leveling my blacksmith so that he can create it). CP 160 gear takes a ton of materials - my 5 pieces of leather armor took 800 Rubedo leather (about 8k to purchase off guild stores). I purchased two blue bows from the set I wanted (around 4k total) and improved one to yellow and one to purple (had to purchase one ingredient for 2.5k for the yellow bow). I purchased a blue axe and dagger from the set I wanted and improved them to purple (around 2k). I purchased two purple rings and one purple necklace from the set I wanted (around 8k). Total cost to purchase the pieces I needed was around 25k then - not including the cost of the upgrade materials I used to improve the items from blue to purple, since I already had them.
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once you have your starter 50 gear, you start improving it: the next tier of gear will be a mix of crafted and dungeon drops (depends on your spec). You will be running dungeons a while, including running Undaunted pledges to get keys for the chests which is where you get shoulder pieces. My warden is going to have to get 5 pieces of armor/jewelry from one dungeon and helmet/shoulder from either the Selene or Stormfist sets. So look for me in Blackheart Haven, Selene’s Web or Tempest Island!
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once you’ve got the upgraded set of gear, your final upgrade will mostly come from 12 man trials. So you will need to either find a good group of people or hope you can find random strangers to help you! For many classes, one of the weapons you need comes from the Veteran Maelstrom Arena, which is a solo instance where you have to survive a grueling nine-stage fight with bunches of bad guys. If you survive, you get a high-end yellow weapon. You just have to hope it’s the type of weapon you want!
See? It’s easy!
draxen
4572
Great post!
I’d also like to add a possible alternate route. I play almost entirely solo and questing is my bag. I enjoy playing ESO like an online Skyrim. Once you finish the main quest you are automatically awarded access to the other factions quest lines. So I’m currently half-way through the 2nd faction.
Here is a useful guide if you’re a quest-ie like me :)
Cormac
4573
You do make it sound pretty easy! But all I can think is that whole process took me at least 6 months… Guess its better if you don’t have other stuff going on in your life, like a job or friends or other games!
WOW so stuck at a mission where I’m supposed to kill the leaders of the Veiled Heritance, and they just keep practically one hit killing me. Went at it 7 different times trying out different tactics and none of them worked, so now I’m annoyed enough to just throw the entire game away.
I mean, aren’t the missions levelled to yourself constantly? Or is there some secret level of missions I’m missing somewhere?
draxen
4575
Quests are scaled to your level automatically but I remember that fight being particularly tough. Perhaps try stocking up on potions (for an emergency button) and food/drink (for buffs). What race/class are you? :)
Yeah, food/drink is key. Even if you just grab some green food off a table it’ll give you a healthy buffer to your health.
Enemies do scale but some encounters have a tougher setup than others. You might just need to unlock more skills before tackling them (for example, if you’re running stamina you might not have a good heal until later down the skill tree)
I have some purple potion slotted but I only get the chance to use it once before they kill me (cool down is a bit long).
I’m a Wood Elf Nightblade, and I’ve basically just levelled health, stamina and magick equally, but I guess that was stupid… heh. I´ll just leave this mission for a while and get better gear and equipment and health and skills… and everything. =(
draxen
4578
I think it’s much more efficient to specialize in a particular area. For example I’m a high elf sorc and my stats are 64 magicka, 0 health, 0 stamina. For a nightblade you could choose to go all in on either magicka or stamina depending on your playstyle :)
EDIT: You can respec for a small gold fee at respec shrines and I believe there is a promotion running right now where the cost has been reduced to 1 gold.
Yeah, in the long run you’ll want to specialize, but while you’re levelling up balanced stats isn’t bad. Plus you’ll get a free respec somewhere along the way to lvl 50.
(Not sure if the free respec currently apply to attriibutes, but it’s not expensive at early levels anyway.)
In addition to potions, there are long lasting (30 minutes to 2 hrs) food/drink buffs that add say 5k to one or more of your stats. Just go to any town and steal some bread, or level provisioning.
Ah well, I might have to do that then. I’m at level 22 now so I guess I have a bit to gain by at least not use points on magic. Hm.
Now, though, I have this stupid problem that I’m “disguised” as a butt ugly veiled recruit since I just dropped the quest and I don’t know how to make her look normal again :´(
KevinC
4581
You’re likely wearing an outfit, I think it’s an item you can remove (check your “paper doll”).
If you’re a nightblade you don’t have an early burst heal like some other classes, but Strife (the first skill in the siphoning tree) is a very good spammable and reliable heal over time. Since you’re a wood elf you’ll probably want to concentrate on stamina weapons (ie. dual wield, bow) in the long run, but strife can probably get you through the story quests no problem.
(NBs do have an early burst heal in Dark Cloak, but you lose the invisibility portion of the skill so I’d recommend against that. There’s also the reapers mark skills but they’re quite deep into the tree.)
Also, since you’re level 22 you should go to Cyrodiil and do the introduction to PvP if you haven’t already. 2 free skill points and Rapid Maneuvers, the most important skill int he game (for your sanity.) No actual PvP required.
There’s your problem right there :P There very few builds in ESO that aren’t 100% in the damage type you’re using. There are some very specific builds/gear combos that can use split stats, but they are very rare, and very complicated. Make a choice on what weapons you want to use, and level the appropriate stat 100%.
In general in ESO, the best defense is a good offense. You very often need to kill stuff before it kills you, especially on the tougher quests. There are a couple of spec choices that have pretty good sustain (Templar for example), so that can vary pretty wildly as well.
ESO is very different to other MMOs in the way skills and builds work. It might be worth your time to go check out some build guides for whatever play style you are interested in.
stusser
4585
Yeah definitely don’t do that. Pick magicka or stamina and stick with it 100%. Hybrid builds flat-out don’t work in this game.
Honestly, those points are a trap. They should remove the allocatable points entirely.
Actually it’s not, apparently, Raz just gave me an earring that turns me into this guy, but luckily the disguise disappears when I travel out of that town.
@soondifferent @Ultrazen @stusser OK wow, I’ll have to redo a lot then probably. Jeez, this is all so complicated. Will probably go for stamina then! And … read an hour or so about skill lines.
stusser
4587
Think of stamina like strength and magicka like intelligence. Stamina doesn’t just increase your power pool but also makes all your stamina-using skills hit harder.
