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daggerfall · 8 months ago

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M's Updated New Player Guide for Elder Scrolls Online

I have to simplify a great deal of this information since the intended audience is people brand new to ESO looking to get into it for questing (not pve or pvp), so if anyone thinks bits of this are a little wrong or lacking nuance, please understand it is likely intended. Credentials: trust me.

Top 3 Important things to know before you get started

Character creation: You pick your class during character creation and this can never be changed. Trust me, people miss this. Your race, appearance, and name can all be changed but for a cost (crowns, the in-game micro transaction currency), and little bits of your appearance can be changed with cosmetics that may or may not be free. Any class can quest just fine, some will be better at solo content than others, but don't sweat this. Some classes are also DLC (warden, necromancer, and arcanist). All classes are capable of all roles for the purposes you, a new player wanting to quest, care about. Make the character you want and can stick with, as you will need a Main for purposes of crafting, and crafting knowledge can't transfer to other characters you may make. Also, plan for them to deal damage primarily. Supports are not needed in questing and you'll often be alone anyway - save yourself the pain of killing enemies at a snails pace and invest in damage with a smidge of survival.

Alliances and the Main Quest: The start of the game for new players should always be the base game main quest and your respective alliance's main quest. Unless you started with the expansion that unlocks any race any alliance, your alliance will be tied to your race. Bretons, Orsimer, and Redguards: Daggerfall Covenant. Dunmer, Argonians, Nords: Ebonheart Pact. Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajiit: Aldmeri Dominion. Imperials are DLC but any alliance. This can be changed later for crowns, but only affects what alliance you fight for/against in PvP zones, minor dialogue interactions, certain cosmetics, and which version of certain quests you get during the main quest. The starting city/zone for each alliance is as follows: DC: Daggerfall, Glenumbra. EP: Davon's Watch, Stonefalls. AD: Vulkhel Guard, Auridon. When you leave character creation, you'll be sent through the Coldharbour tutorial and spat out on your starter island (DC: Stros M'Kai. EP: Bleakrock Isle. AD: Khenarthi's Roost). Finish those storylines until you hit your starter city, and the main quest will progress again with meeting the Prophet at the Harborage.

DLC, Chapters, and ESO+: Depending on the version of game you got, you may be pushed or tempted to play the newest DLC (chapter or smaller zone DLC). This is a trap. ZOS advertises the game as play how you want and in any order you want, and any longtime player hates this marketing strat. Functionally, any DLC can be played at any time in ESO, but you will miss certain bits of dialogue and story by playing out of release order. Characters will remember previously meeting you if you play in order, but not out of order. They may drastically change their appearance to the point of the story making no sense if it happened in that wrong order, or even die and reappear with no acknowledgement of their death. If this is your first time playing ESO, I Highly recommend playing everything in the intended release order at least once, and then decide for yourself what stories you think work as independent stories for other characters you wish to play. Don't listen to the devil telling you to play some random dlc because you like dunmer or vampires. Listen to me, some guy on the internet instead.

The intended order is (without listing every single dlc) the Coldharbour main quest and your alliance's main quest at the same time ➡️ Cadwell's Silver and Gold (the other two alliances' main quests) ➡️ Imperial City (PvP zone with a solo storyline, but can be skipped/played at any point) ➡️ Craglorn ➡️ all dlc in release order (including dungeons, zone dlc, and chapters). Dungeons can be done in any order (base game I and II dungeons should be done in the numeric order) up to Wrathstone, which is when year-long story arcs began and included dungeons in the plot, and more returning NPCs appear in dungeons.

The Infamous "ESO DLC flowchart" can advise you the order of when you should play certain storylines (base game and dlc), but it's just the release order and natural flow of the storylines. It updates too often for me to post the image here, but you can easily find it by searching those terms. Another good ESO starter guide I like is this one, that explains which story points to hit and when.

The base game alone is good and contains hundreds of hours of content. Get through the base game's main quests and decide for yourself if you like the game enough to continue on. And if you do want to continue, then the best way to play DLC is to buy the subscription ESO+. Among many other things, the main use for the sub is access to every single DLC in the game* while the sub is active. If you play consistently, you can play through the dlcs faster than it would cost to buy them individually, and you can end your sub whenever you want/need. The sub also gives free crowns each month which can be used to purchase permanent access to specific DLC for if/when you end your sub. Or spend them on a cute outfit. Up to you. You might get addicted to the craft bag in the meantime and keep the sub forever.

*ESO+ does not give access to the newest chapter, until the next one comes out usually a year later.

ALRIGHT big stuff out of the way. More advanced stuff for once you're already in the game and playing now. And some M brand yapping.

Start researching item traits at crafting stations ASAP. The timers for research grow exponentially with each trait, so an early start is good. This is necessary for crafting later on, and everyone should have A crafter (ideally their main for resource reasons)

First I wanna address the final barrier a lot of people have with starting an MMO: the other people. To which I'm going to quote something I have found incredibly therapeutic: I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much. There are absolutely ways to avoid interactions with other players - playing in offline mode so people cannot whisper you, and hiding zone/say chat to avoid seeing other players talking - but generally speaking, other players do not care about you or others enough to bother you. The overland is not PvP enabled outside of both players choosing to duel, you're not going to get made fun of for being low level or whatever, and you're not going to get harassing messages just for existing. Others have their own lives and things to do in game. Just play the game and embrace the goofiness of someone's name or how wild their costume looks. Be brave and just Do It. Have fun! Okay? Okay back to the actual advice.

Avoid any quest that goes into your journal as a Prologue - delete it right away. Prologues are like introduction/teaser quests for zone DLC and chapters. Doing prologues out of order should also be avoided. Once you're onto playing DLC, there is a prologue for each starting with the Morrowind chapter.

Find the stable master early on and begin "training your horse" each day for 250 gold. Also buy a mount there. It takes 180 real life days to fully complete on each character, but you'll notice the difference with your mounts speed and stamina, and to clarify, inventory means YOUR inventory. That's 60 more inventory slots! And mount training affects all mounts on that character!

Speaking of mount speed - once you reach level 10 on a character, you should do the Cyrodiil tutorial quest (I promise there's no PvP required for this). Use the alliance war tab to queue into a campaign (any works but go for one that isn't all that busy. Under 50 ideally), and complete the tutorial IN FULL. Do not accept the option to skip parts of it because you know what you're doing. You'll reach rank 3 in the assault and support skill lines and gain a few skill points, all while never having to do any actual PvP. Take the first passive in the Assault skill line to gain access to Major Gallop for faster horse speed. You want this on all your characters. Finally, leave Cyrodiil using the wayshrine.

Find the bag merchant in town and spend your gold on maxing out your inventory space when you can afford it. Bankers can also be found in each town and you can store a lot of items in your bank with them FOR FREE. No other player has access to your bank. Your bank space is shared across all of Tamriel and all of your characters as well, to allow for easier item transfer to alts

Back on crafting, don't worry about materials or crafting your own gear for a long time. You pretty much need ESO+ to be a crafter due to the craft bag. Just put on random gear you loot off enemies or get as a reward, and replace it as you level up and outlevel your old gear.

As a quester, you can use any gear and any skills you want - with a few suggestions. Don't use heavy armor as your primary armor type (a few pieces are okay), ice staves, 1 hand and shield, or restoration staves. Those are primarily support armor types and weapons. Also, read your tooltips and skill descriptions, and don't use skills that state they will taunt the enemy. ESO's aggro system works differently than you may expect from other MMOs. Anything else is free game. Though I will advise this isn't Skyrim, and using skills will deal far more damage than spamming "basic attacks", or light and heavy attacks. Stealth archer isn't a thing here, sorry.

DON'T fall for the crown store trying to sell you respec scrolls, werewolf and vampire skill lines, etc. You can redo your skills and attributes at any point for gold in a capital city, other players can give you lycanthropy or vampirism for free upon request. Merchants and banker assistants from the crown store I don't consider a scam. Those are good uses of crowns once you're further into the game.

The build advisor for each class/role is painfully out of date as it hasn't been changed since launch, and entire skills/morphs have changed over the years to be entirely different. With no nuance to avoid it getting complicated, stick to either investing in magic or stamina as your primary resource, and most of your skills costing that same resource. Skills scale their damage with your highest offensive stat, so splitting evenly doesn't do anything besides make your pool bigger, but you can use both stam and mag skills and they will deal similar damage. You just might run out of your "off" resource faster. Light armor benefits magicka users better, medium benefits stamina users better, generally speaking.

And if you mess up your build or change your mind about wanting to play mag or stam, you can respec whenever. There are shrines to respec skill points/morphs and attributes in any base game capital city or chapter big city. It costs gold, scaling with how many skill points you have. Additionally, you can use the free armory station (from the crown store) to save builds and revert back to them for free. A good use for this is to save your generic PvE/questing setup and a second different setup for PvP or playing another role like healer. Currently it saves everything except scribing setups.

Join the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild ASAP in your starter town. Regardless of RP, they have storylines you'll want to complete, as well as skills and passive abilities you may want, and it's better to get a head start on this leveling process. Undaunted is related to dungeons and can be skipped early on, but if you start doing dungeons, make sure you join! It has no respective storyline.

Weapon and class skill lines progress by having those skills on your bar upon gaining experience while On that bar, not with each cast of the skill. Individual skills rank up and can morph into other skills by gaining experience with that skill on your bar. Guild skill lines have their own unique progression requirements - read your tooltips!

Main quest marker icons appear slightly fancier than generic quest markers, and I would advise to avoid taking them out of order. Most main quests will guide you to the next quest giver easily, so if you find yourself going far out of your way, you may be getting lost or starting a different storyline. Blue quest markers are for repeatable daily quests.

Delves are public instances and can be done solo. Public dungeons are public instances and may be able to be soloed depending on skill. Dungeons/group dungeons are for 4 people, not public instances, and you should not try to solo them. Trials are raids for 12 people, not public, and you very much should not attempt to solo them.

Depending on what DLC may have come with your version of the game, you may be pushed to try the various DLC features added with each chapter. This includes psijic order, antiquities, companions, tales of tribute, and scribing. All of these individually (except psijic) can be started/done early without spoiling yourself on future DLC. But there's no real need to rush through getting access/completion of them right away either.

There are daily login rewards that reset each month. Most of them are bad, but it's good to keep up on them for the monthly cosmetic or big reward. Sometimes they give AP which can level the PvP skill lines without PvP, sometimes gold, sometimes crafting materials, could be anything. There are also daily tasks to gain "seals of endeavour", currency that allow you to purchase things that otherwise can only be gambled for in crown crates. Keep up on them, and about twice a year, you can buy the most expensive mounts in the game. Golden Pursuits happen every few weeks/months, with multiple themed tasks to unlock a specific reward.

Add-ons (PC only) are allowed in ESO, mods and macros are not. The application Minion is how most of us download and update our add-ons for various UI and QOL features.

Once you reach level 50 on a character, you start gaining levels in Champion Points, which are shared across all of your characters. Once you hit CP 160, you will stop out-leveling your gear and can start making gear you plan to keep. CP goes up to 3600, but you'll hit the cap on effectiveness around 1500 (role dependent) I think.

The fashion system in ESO is either using the outfit station to apply motifs (purely cosmetic) you've learned to that character to your outfit, or costumes you can get with crowns or other means (questing, collectables, etc). Motifs learned on one character allow any character to use that motif in the outfit station, but only that character can Craft an item in that style.

There is no auction house system. There are guild traders instead - storefronts that guilds bid on weekly to gain ownership of and use for their guild to sell items to other players, for a small cut of the profits. Anyone can buy from them, only guild members can sell. Most of the junk you find in questing is worthless to other players, and most players use add-ons to know the marketplace average worth of any item in game.

Speaking of guilds, joining guilds is a good way to get access to free wayshrine porting for easier movement across Tamriel, and more. Porting to another player is free, even if you're not at a wayshrine. Many guilds also have a "guild hall" (player owned house open to all that has many resources depending on the owner). Plenty of social guilds don't even have serious requirements to join - a lot are aimed at newbies.

If you're looking to just make enough money to get by, you can sell all the random gear you loot to merchants. It will despawn from their inventory with enough time or items being sold. Once you get ESO+ and the craft bag, daily crafting writs is the best way to make easy money with little effort. Get certified in all 7 professions and do your daily crafting writs for about 5k gold per character per day. With enough skill point investment in hirelings that send materials in the mail daily, you never have to spend any gold to do writs.

Thieving is mildly good for making gold, but it has a cap on how much you can sell a day. Sell or launder at outlaws refuges in each city. Thieves guild and dark brotherhood are DLC content so don't look for them in the base game.

Before you start doing dungeons, at any level of difficulty, you should understand how ESO dungeon etiquette works. People here aren't as friendly as final fantasy, but hear me out before you say we're all mean. ESO does an extremely poor job of keeping the casual questers from the sweaty endgamers, and forces them to share the same dungeon queue when they're in that queue for entirely different reasons. Endgamers need transmute crystals quickly, questers just want to see the quest, and each person needs the other to achieve their goal, but you can't do both at the same time. Both are valid reasons to do dungeons. Quests can't be repeated on the same character, so they can't even do the quest with you if they already did it years ago. Quests also give a skill point for completing, which is another valuable endgamer resource. In general, if you plan to use the group finder to find a team for a dungeon, do not expect them to sit around and wait for you to sit through dialogue. At best they will wait for you to spam through it for the quest completion, if you warn them in advance. Randos aren't going to be overly social, even a "hi" at the start may be ignored. It's to be expected, but not intended rudely. If you want to see a dungeon's quest in full, this is the time to find a friend to group with you! It's an MMO! Be social! Many ESO dungeons are unable to be soloed unfortunately, for strange mechanical reasons.

Also, you need to know your role before queueing, and that includes knowing how to actually deal damage as a damage dealer. You don't need to be amazing, but please don't just spam light attacks. Don't queue as a tank unless you actually understand the basics of ESO tanking, same for healing. Look into resources online for beginner builds. If you don't want to learn your role or how to git gud, then I'm sorry but doing dungeons with strangers is not for you then. It's a team effort, and their time should be respected too.

Related, if you get to the point of wanting to try the trials (which do technically have a repeatable quest), normal difficulty is less scary than you may fear, but still requires coordination and a group. Ideally you come above 160cp in full sets of gear and a basic understanding of your role. Checking Craglorn zone chat or the in-game group finder for normal PUG (pick-up group, just sorta grabbing anyone that wants to come, versus an organized run) trials is the best way to find a group without using discord or joining a guild. But I do recommend finding a social guild that does casual normal runs! Just please read if they're doing normal runs or vet hardmodes runs, or if they want specific classes/roles. And of course respect the raid lead's requests and requirements

Be cautious looking for advice regarding builds. The top result when searching for a solo build is not necessarily the best build - it is the most Search Optimized build. And it's most likely intended for crazy strats like soloing vet dlc hardmodes dungeons for views. You do not need any of that!!! You at most need to learn how to block, roll dodge, interrupt, sneak, and walk out of damaging areas. When you hit cp 160, all you need is gear at your level, start looking to complete set bonuses, and some kind of self heal.

For your purposes of leveling, you should not need to grind out levels. You get various buffs as you level that scale your damage to the enemies around you within the base game. You shouldn't race to level 50 or CP 160 on your first go-around. Enjoy being a baby. You will hate the game if you spend your first hundred hours listening to sweatlords telling you that you need to pay them to level you to 50, and then pay them to make you gear.

I am willing to offer specific advice in dms or asks if people have build questions, but I prefer to not use Tumblr for this. Join my friends discord server in my About Me (pinned) if you want detailed answers!

This isn't meant to be the most strictly followed list of all time, but things that I end up inevitably telling people or wish I had learned sooner. It's meant more as something to refer back to and to gently guide you in the right direction, as well as get you in the right mindset for character creation when planning a character you'll play for Years of quests.

#eso #elder scrolls online #tes #the elder scrolls #m speaks #new player guide #fysh said im allowed to say this: dont be like fysh when making your first character #lovingly said. most of these bits of advice are like. dont do thing my good friend did and still deals with the consequences of akgjakfja #starting with a healer. never finishing the main quest. crafter main and antiquarian different toons. L Ratio

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pathological-runaway · 2 months ago

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The Pianist opens their eyes reluctantly and takes off their mask, trying to keep their hands steady. The light shaking must not have escaped the other’s attention, yet they choose not to speak of it. And the Pianist is grateful for their understanding, even if, deep inside, they feel like they do not deserve it. “I’m sorry,” they say, faster than they intended, quieter than they wanted.

you can read the fic here or below the cut

When the children stop jumping around in excitement and the scavengers say their goodbyes, when the hall is empty and the lights are dimmed, the Pianist is grateful for their seahorse mask to have hidden their face the whole evening. The whole day, even. Their hands are shaking, and, the moment there finally is no one to hide it from, the musician breathes out and lets their exhausted body — well, whatever that has replaced their body; they have not had much time to dwell on their current state, their mind too busy to think about themself for even an instant — do whatever it wants to, even if the only thing it wants to do at the moment is trembling uncontrollably.

The Pianist closes their eyes and reflects on whether they should take off their mask when they hear a swoosh of a dress and feel the radiance of a smile so familiar they do not even need to open their eyes to see every detail on that beautiful face.

“Too much excitement in one day for your old age, ain’t it?” the Cellist asks jokingly, laughter audible in their voice.

Always a tease, their partner thinks, and this thought is followed by a pang of sadness that crawls into their chest, unwelcome yet persistent.

The two remain silent for a while, the only sound in the deserted hall being the gentle murmur of the brook. It is easy to imagine that it is but one more quiet night on the seashore, the two of them together with nothing to worry about but their naive dreams, just like in the old times. Except it is not.

“Don’t you go around calling me old,” they reply in a similarly teasing voice despite the weight of guilt in their chest and the lump in their throat, “’cuz that’d make you ancient. And it’s implausible with how pretty you are.”

The Cellist laughs, and their laughter is the most beautiful sound they have ever heard. More beautiful than any musical instrument they can think of.

The Pianist smiles, too, drinking in the sight of their partner. They have spent every single moment since this morning watching them, and yet they somehow do not seem to be able to have enough.

When the laughter stops, they sit in an amicable silence, contemplating the soft moonlight seeping through the window on the roof and dancing on the calm surface of the brook. It all seems unreal, in a way: the concert hall and the flowers, the quiet evening and the presence by their side.

The peaceful moment is tainted the moment the Pianist thinks about how close they were to losing — having lost — all this, and their breath starts getting heavy and ragged.

The Cellist looks at them, brows slightly furrowed, studying their face. They place a tentative hand on the Pianist’s, worried eyes never leaving theirs.

The Pianist wants to drown in them, and feels their lungs contract as their whole body seems to be drowning in something else, something far less pleasant that has invaded their chest and head and tries to suffocate them.

“Cellist-“ is all they can say.

“It’s alright,” the Cellist responds, not letting go of their hand.

It takes them some time to regain control over their own body, to be able to properly breathe again and to trust themself to speak. The Cellist does not leave them for a moment, and this idea alone almost send the Pianist spiralling again.

“I’m sorry,” they say, faster than they intended, quieter than they wanted.

“It’s okay.”

“No, I mean-“

“I know what you mean,” they reply, a shy smile on their face that does not reach their eyes, “and it’s okay. I know you didn’t want to.”

The Pianist lets out a humourless laugh and looks away, their chest tightening again at the mere thought of seeing that expression on the Cellist’s face. The expression they caused.

“This isn’t an excuse. Me not wanting. I left you. I abandoned you. I-”

“I know it isn’t an excuse,” the interruption follows almost immediately, “but I promise, I understand. It’s okay-”

“Please let me finish.”

They hear the rustle of the dress as the Cellist straightens their back, prepared to listen to whatever they are going to say. They squeeze their eyes in an attempt to make the picture disappear from their head, yet, as if out of spite, it does not. The Pianist throws a quick glance at their partner and sees a worried but trusting look in those bright eyes.

Oh, they do not deserve the wonderful person they still have by their side.

“I-,” they are unsure of what they are going to say. They have thought about it many times this day, but the words are all jumbled up in their head now that they actually have to pronounce them, “I hadn’t thought it through. Leaving, I mean. Giving up on everything. Giving up on you. I had no idea what I was doing. It was an impulse. A stupid one. And- and when I did think about it,” their voice starts shaking and they have to wait for a few seconds before continuing, “it was too late. I rushed back to the concert hall a few days later, but there was so much darkness in here… You were already gone. And it got me shortly after that. I think. I- I don’t remember that time very well,” they confess, “but what I do remember is… I needed space. To think. To process things. But instead of telling you, instead of thinking about you at all, I just… isolated myself. Pushed you away. I knew it was hard for you, too, but I could only think about myself, of what I needed. I was selfish,” the Pianist concludes, drawing circles on the ground with their finger, “and I’m truly sorry for that. You didn’t deserve it. I should’ve stayed. I would have. If I could go back-”

There is a soft press of lips on their cheek. Startled, they jump and abruptly turn to face the person whose gaze they have been avoiding for the past several minutes. The Cellist’s eyes shine with unshed tears, but the smile on their lips looks genuine.

“You’re such an idiot,” the Cellist laughs and sobs at the same time and hugs them again as the Pianist freezes in place. The pose is uncomfortable, but, afraid of shattering the moment, they dare not move.

“Well, that’s just rude,” they reply jokingly as they bury their face in the crook of the Cellist’s neck, making the latter giggle.

And for a brief moment it feels like they are back on that seashore, two young fools with a distant dream.

“I don’t blame you,” the Cellist says quietly while playing with their partner’s hair, “I know you too well to have ever doubted your intentions. But thank you. For telling me. Because it did hurt,” their voice is barely audible, and the Pianist holds them tighter, “when you just walked away.”

“I’m not mad at you,” they add after not speaking for a while, “and I’m happy you’re here again. I missed you.”

The Pianist leans back a little to see their face, eyes as deep as the night sky itself and freckles shining like tiny stars on the ghost-like skin.

“I missed you more.”

And kisses them.

#it's been months and i'm still not over the fourth duets quest......#my aroace ass was struggling a lot while writing this. by struggling i mean trying to figure out how love works and giggling like an idiot #i do apologise if something about these two's interaction seems a bit off #in my defence i don't understand romance and haven't opened up to another human being in 812482 years #sky children of the light #sky cotl #runaway draws #duets guide #compassionate cellist #season of duets #they're so disgustingly sweet i hate them

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