The Elder Scrolls Online Catch-All

Looks like I'm not the only noob around here

Was thinking of giving this a spin because I'm feeling nostalgic about Morrowind. Is it correct that I either pay $40ish for the "chapter" or $15 for the subscription which gives me access to all previous expansions?

Also, I'm a little bit confused about the level scaling...Is there a decent sense of progression? Scaling is what made me hate prior Elder Scrolls games, so I'm not confident I'll enjoy it in a MMO setting. That being said, at least it increases the amount of players you can party up with?

The “chapters” (Morrowind, Summerset, and Elsweyr) you have to pay for regardless of the subscription, though you might be able to find bundles with Morrowind and/or Summerset free. All the non-chapter dlc you get free with a sub (including Orsinium, Dark Brotherhood, Thieve’s Guild, Shadow of the Hist, Clockwork City, etc). There’s more than enough subscription content to keep you busy for a long time even without the chapters, though.

The level scaling is fine, or at least not completely broken like it is in the single player games. Most of the progression comes from skills, gear, story, and unlocking/building cosmetics and stuff for your house.

Balthezor wrote:

No problem Abu, Ranalin helped me out.

Noob question, if I create a new char, it automatically takes me to Elsweyr. How can I start my new character in Morrowind or Summerset?

AFAIK, you can’t. But, it should be fairly easy to go where you want. I recall starting in Morrowind and wanting to do an original starter zone and it was pretty simple.

Balthezor wrote:

Noob question, if I create a new char, it automatically takes me to Elsweyr. How can I start my new character in Morrowind or Summerset?

If you have the dlc you can look in your journal and see starter quests for each area.

You can also see the lands on the map and if you travel into them they will send starting quest npcs to you to start.

ShynDarkly, who says they work on the game, said in this thread recently that an ESO Plus sub does get you older chapter DLC:

ShynDarkly wrote:

Regarding the ESO+ access to chapters, yes it is a little confusing, easiest answer is the FAQ on the website (general concept being 'older' chapters get rolled into ESO+ after new chapters come out).

Are the guilds cross-platform, or are there separate guilds for each? If I can get an invite to a GWJ guild as an Xbox player (mrlogical on Xbox) I'd appreciate it.

Has anyone gotten their free loot from the Bethesda press conference? I killed a monster during the time period as required for Xbox players but haven't seen my crates or mount show up yet, not sure if my completion failed to register or if it'll just take some more time to show up...

Some tips / info to help out the newbs (I am still fairly new as well):

There are many (many) types of quests and quest lines in ESO, so it may help to clarify these first:
1. The Main Quest is the main story quest of the initial ESO game. This one is the story of the Five Champions and starts when you meet a mysterious hooded figure in the starting zone (more on this later) for your faction.

2. The expansions (Morrowind, Summerset, Elsweyr) each have their own self-contained questline. If you buy Morrowind (but not Summerset or Elsweyr), any new character starts in this quest, but you don't have to do the quest first, you can always start with the Main Quest or your character's Faction Quest (see below). Keep in mind that if you buy Elsweyr, you get Morrowind and Summerset as well.

3. Each Faction has it's own quest line as well. Depending on your race, you are either in the Daggerfall Covenant (DC - Breton, Redguard, Orc); the Ebonheart Pact (EP - Nord, Dunmer (Dark Elf), Argonian); or the Aldmeri Dominion (AD - Altmer (High Elf), Bosmer (Wood Elf) or Khajit).

Faction quests start out either in the tutorial or in the intro zone for each Faction. The starting zones are the islands of Stros M'Kai (DC), Bleakrock Isle (EP) and Khenarthi's Roost (AD). You can use the Fast Travel system (Wayshrines) to travel to the starter zone for your Faction at any time.

Once you complete the intro zone quests, the story will take you to your faction's Starting City, which is generally the first time you will have access to the bulk of the activities available to your character. The Starting Cities are Daggerfall (DC - in Glenumbra); Davon's Watch (EP - in Stonefalls) and Vulkhel Guard (AD - in Auridon).

4. Guilds - There are various guilds in the game, each with their own quest line. Some guilds are included in the base game (Mages, Fighters, and Undaunted) while others are DLC (Thieves and Dark Brotherhood). You can join these guilds and start their quests either at their guild halls (Mages and Fighters); in the Outlaw Refuges in each city (Thieves and Dark Brotherhood) or in Taverns (Undaunted).

So... there's a lot to do. If you buy Elsweyr and just want to go where it takes you, you can simply do the Elsweyr questline then choose where to go from there. If you want to start at "the beginning", go to the starting island for your faction and pickup the main quest there (you can do this by opening the map, choosing the option to view the Zone Guide, then Choosing Start Zone Quest, or some such). If you want to start the Main quest, you need to get to your starting city.

Hope this helps, and I would be happy to offer up any more info if you need it. There are also some great resources out there on the interwebs in both text and video form.

mrlogical wrote:

ShynDarkly, who says they work on the game, said in this thread recently that an ESO Plus sub does get you older chapter DLC:

ShynDarkly wrote:

Regarding the ESO+ access to chapters, yes it is a little confusing, easiest answer is the FAQ on the website (general concept being 'older' chapters get rolled into ESO+ after new chapters come out).

Are the guilds cross-platform, or are there separate guilds for each? If I can get an invite to a GWJ guild as an Xbox player (mrlogical on Xbox) I'd appreciate it.

Has anyone gotten their free loot from the Bethesda press conference? I killed a monster during the time period as required for Xbox players but haven't seen my crates or mount show up yet, not sure if my completion failed to register or if it'll just take some more time to show up...

1. I can confirm that ESO+ gets you older chapters, as I just confirmed this last night. I got into the game on Xbox last year with Morrowind but never bought Summerset. Since Elsweyr is out now and I have ESO+, I was able to start Summerset quests yesterday.

2. Guilds are sadly not cross-platform.

3. I have not yet received my loot on Xbox, but I have received it on PC. The requirements were different though, on PC I had to watch the E3 presser on my (account linked) Twitch. I too killed a monster in the required timeframe and have not yet received anything on console. That said, ZOS said that it may take until the 19th to receive the goodies.

Abu5217 wrote:

3. I have not yet received my loot on Xbox, but I have received it on PC. The requirements were different though, on PC I had to watch the E3 presser on my (account linked) Twitch. I too killed a monster in the required timeframe and have not yet received anything on console. That said, ZOS said that it may take until the 19th to receive the goodies.

Twitch rewards are based on the account you bind to them and they only allow one platform to be bound at a time. So if you got it for PC you won't get it for anything else.

Correct. Also, AFAIK, ESO doesn't do Twitch drops for console, only PC.

They didn't do Twitch drops for console with the E3 briefing, console players had to login between 3p and 11p EST and kill one monster. It was a totally different thing that PC.

Thanks all. This game has so much content, it's actually confusing. For a 5 year old game, it still looks great.

The writing, world design, and quest design have improved a lot over the base game as well. Don't be afraid to start with the expansion content, then go back later to do the original main quest and faction quests. There is some connective story stuff between base game, DLC, and expansions, but not enough to force yourself to go through in order of release.

I think I'm going to clear off half the games from my PS4 and reinstall this.

The only thing stopping me is the damn research for crafting. Hate that crap and don't feel like dealing with it again.

BTW, Balthezor (or anyone, really), if you are in the GWJ Discord (or Slack) and want to chat, feel free to ping me (I am Abu5217 on both). Some of this stuff is better explained through voice coms than the in game chat.

I ignored the crafting completely for a long time, and never felt like I was missing out on anything. Getting the subscription gives you the crafting bag, which makes getting into crafting more feasible. Easy to instantly run out of bag space otherwise.

I ran out of bag space like 20 min into playing...

Just realized Abnur Tharn is voiced by Doc Ock

beanman101283 wrote:

I ignored the crafting completely for a long time, and never felt like I was missing out on anything. Getting the subscription gives you the crafting bag, which makes getting into crafting more feasible. Easy to instantly run out of bag space otherwise.

Thievery and crafting are my favorite things. Combat is a means to do more of both!

A_Unicycle wrote:

Also, I'm a little bit confused about the level scaling...Is there a decent sense of progression? Scaling is what made me hate prior Elder Scrolls games, so I'm not confident I'll enjoy it in a MMO setting. That being said, at least it increases the amount of players you can party up with?

I was just wondering to myself about why the level scaling still seems fun, but it does. I hated the scaling in Oblivion; it made everything I did seem pointless. Whereas in an MMO setting it lets me play with friends no matter what place they're at. Maybe the combat itself is more fun, maybe placing skill points makes it feel as if I'm getting somewhere, maybe you do get a little bit more powerful as time goes on, I'm not sure. All I know is I'm still having fun.

If the guild is seeing some activity, could someone send an invite to @BuzzW? I'd be happy to help with whatever.

The level scaling in Oblivion was broken. Level scaling in 2019 is better understood and applied.

Something to keep in mind is that leveling in ESO isn't exactly the main thrust, like it generally is in something like WoW. You won't be dinging up levels left and right.

garion333 wrote:

The level scaling in Oblivion was broken. Level scaling in 2019 is better understood and applied.

Something to keep in mind is that leveling in ESO isn't exactly the main thrust, like it generally is in something like WoW. You won't be dinging up levels left and right.

Partly correct. Your levels won't come super fast, but your skills depending on your activity will be dinging all the time at the start.

Great tips from Abu and folks for people starting out. A couple of others to throw into the mix:

- Enjoy your shiny new Morrowind, Summerset or Elsweyr character, each of the chapters have their own great (yeah I'm biased, sue me) storylines, but if you find yourself wondering why you seem to be making no progress in the Soul Magic skill line; its gated by your progress in the base game's main quest and the whole soul shriven thing.

- ESO's lucky to have a very busy fan community making a ton of tips and build videos. Build videos are great for demonstrating some of the finer points of theorycrafting and getting the absolute max out of a certain play style, but please, please, please, start off by finding skills and weapons that you find fun. Variety of ways to respec later on if you need to, but giving yourself carpal tunnel trying to follow the bar setup and style of a likely long term endgame player is likely to hamper your initial time in the game.

- Hey, non-tanks .. see that button on right? That trigger on the right? It says block so you never need to use it right? Many people think that, but blocking, without a shield, without heavy armor can not only save your life when the big bad decides they likes the look of you (armor makes a differences sure, but being hit without blocking vs being hit while blocking), but if you're not so much into madly dodging out of red stuff, is a more relaxed way to play (vet dungeons and world bosses ... you know, things that hit really, really hard ... excluded ... dodge).

- In a similar vein to blocking, are those casters ruining your life? Constantly melting in those circles of flames they're putting down? Well, you could interrupt them! Its our downfall that even some players in veteran dungeons really don't understand how important stopping those folks from casting can be.

How important is Soul magic line? Should I do that? I just dinged level 10. First time in this game ever even though I got this on release day. I never got into it until now.

Soul magic, for a starting character, is used for filling soul gems, which you need to resurrect and to charge magical items. There's probably a lot more depth there, but having a skill in your bar that allows you to fill gems is pretty important, at least to me.

Also, Shyn is right on about blocking and interrupting and VERY right on about not worrying so much about your early builds. I certainly fell down the well of min/maxing. Just enjoy the game up to at least level 50. Try a variety of skills and gear. I know that, because of build guides, I had never really tried bows. Bows are FUN!

In my opinion, you should try and level up all skill lines at the bare minimum to level 4. You may not currently have a need, but down the road you'll end up using all of them at least once.

Agree Ranalin, and for those with ESO+ or the appropriate DLC, would recommend doing the initial Dark Brotherhood couple of quests for a useful, if situational, extra toy when you want a little diversion.

Also don't get too worried about gear; drops and quest rewards do you pretty well. Save your money, the only real gear you will be worrying about only happens post level 50, at 160 champion points in, so ... a while. At that point you no longer out level gear and can focus on the gear that best suits your style.

When you unsubscribe. What happens to all the stuff in the crafting bag?

No clue. I never play and not be subscribed. It's always there when i log in.

Balthezor wrote:

When you unsubscribe. What happens to all the stuff in the crafting bag?

You can take things out but you can't add anything back in.

Yep, same with the double bank space, its removable from, but not addable to if you stop subbing. Useful tip for folks when the occasional ESO+ trials come around, worth hopping into the free trial as all your mats will go into the craft bag and save you some space.

Howdy, been a long while since I played ESO, but I bought the expansion and I'm back. Looks like I'm still a member of the GWJ guild, I can access the bank. Just started a magica necro since it's been too long since I have played and would have no idea how to play my L50 Templar.

On Steam I am Felonous, if you are playing PC and want to group up send me a holla.