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So...I've purchased ESO [PS4] recently, and am finishing another MMORPG before wading into this one.

I have an idea of what I'd like to do:
--Nord
--Stamina focus/build
--Two-handed and/or Sword-n-board
--Werewolf

But the classes confuse the hell out of me--it seems like Dragonknight might suit my purposes, but would the Templar be better? Or is there another option that might be better?

What I bought was the "Collection" when it was on sale, so it comes with Sommerset Isle, Morrowind, and the four other micro-expansions--but I'm finding out that the Imperial isn't included, nor is the Warden class--just saying for context ahead of any advice.

I've only ever kinda/sorta played the game up until so I know very little about the specific mechanics wrapped-up within the game, or even the culture of the current player-base (as in whether he player-base is very open, or stuck in set cliques). I had heard/read, for instance, that one trying to become a Werewolf/Vampire might run into issues with griefers choosing to gate access to doing so (in-game)--so I'm a bit wary of that aspect, too.

With that said, is there anything I should know starting out? There always things you did first in Skyrim and Oblivion, for instance--are there any must-dos after the Tutorial to start-out?

My advice for the "must dos" would be as follows:

(1) Get your free housing right away, and don't worry about collecting (i.e., buying) additional housing until much later. When you're out in unfriendly territory or if you have a bounty on your head-- or even if you just completed the last requirement of a daily dungeon quest and you don't want to have to make the trek back to the nearest wayshrine so you can go turn in the quest-- you'll want to be able to port back to a convenient safe spot. And since most housing isn't too far from at least one wayshrine, being able to port back home from just about anywhere (i.e., from everywhere but Cyrodiil) also gives you convenient access to a wayshrine, and hence to any wayshrine you've already discovered. If you don't have any housing, you can still port to a known wayshrine from out in the wilderness, but you'll have to pay a fee to do so-- and the fee goes up each time you do it (but then starts to slowly drop back down to the normal price). One other situation where it's handy to have housing to port to is if you get stuck while questing-- as in, stuck in a spot where you literally can't walk or climb or jump or swim to freedom. There's a command you can enter into the chat box (I think it's /stuck) to get ported to the nearest wayshrine, but it will deduct a fee from your gold. And one other situation where it's handy to have housing to port to for free is if you've collected one of the 30-slot or 60-slot storage chests. If you're out questing and find yourself with no more available slots for picking up more stuff, you can port home, drop your storage chest (i.e., place it in the house), deposit stuff into it (as long as there's still room or you have stuff that will stack in it), port from your house to a house you haven't collected yet (don't exit your house first), then exit the previewed house, and you'll find yourself back out in the wilderness where you started-- unless you were in a delve, dungeon, trial, etc., in which case you'll find yourself back at its entrance.

(2) Start buying the daily riding lessons that increase your carrying capacity. You can increase it by only 1 additional slot per day (or every 20 hours), but you can increase it by up to 60 slots-- which will take about 2 months, so get started immediately. The extra slots won't be available unless you've collected a mount and set it as your active mount, so you'll also want to either buy a mount as soon as possible (which will take time because they're so expensive) or else get to Level 10 really fast and get the free mount. But you don't want to wait until you get a mount before starting your riding lessons, because that will just delay your goal of getting those 60 extra slots. And if you've bought one of the collector's editions that come with a free mount, or if you luck out and get a free mount in a crown crate, then so much the better! Furthermore, don't worry about buying riding lessons for speed or stamina until after you've maxed out your 60 additional carrying capacity slots.

(3) You'll also want to buy pack upgrades to increase your inventory slots by 10 with each upgrade, as well as additional bank space to increase your bank account by 10 slots with each upgrade. These upgrades become increasingly more expensive, so you'll want to save every piece of gold you get and use it for buying those upgrades. You'll also want to pay attention to the cost of the next two upgrades (pack versus bank) so you can buy the less expensive one first; it will usually alternate-- upgrade pack, upgrade bank, upgrade pack, upgrade bank, etc. Don't even think about spending your money on any of the collectibles (such as additional housing) until you've maxed out your pack space and bank space.

(4) If you find yourself impatient for more inventory space, you can also create one or more other characters whose main purpose will be to hold your extra stuff, and park them near a bank for making quick withdrawals or deposits (or park them in your house if you don't mind them having to head to the bank each time-- or if you've collected one or more storage chests that you can use in your house to shuffle stuff between your toons). Of course, each new toon will also have a limited number of inventory slots, so you'll want to start buying them daily riding lessons for carrying capacity, as well as pack upgrades. (Your bank account is shared by all of your toons, so for you secondary toons you don't need to worry about buying additional bank space, since your main toon will be taking care of that.)

(5) Start your life of crime right away-- steal whatever you can, and (of course) try to avoid being seen and getting a bounty. There are different types of stolen loot-- treasure (i.e., items that have no purpose other than to be sold for gold, or possibly to satisfy the demands of some quest-giving crow or rich lady), recipes and patterns, provisioning materials for food and drink, alchemy materials (I think just water), style motifs, style and trait materials, etc. Sell everything that's treasure-- as well as any ornate gear-- to a fence. You'll start with a limit of 50 items that you can fence (and 50 more that you can launder), so as far as items that you're going to sell to a fence. just leave the small stuff alone and go for the pricier loot. Treasure comes in 5 colors/qualities-- white/normal is worth 40 gold (grab it, but don't be afraid to drop it if you're out of space and want to pick up something better), green/fine is worth 100 gold, blue/superior is worth 250 gold, purple/epic is worth 1500 gold, and gold/legendary is worth 0 gold (it exists so you can turn it in at the main Thieves Guild headquarters for an achievement). There are only a certain number of legendary items, they're unique, and are always in the same places (and they glow! ooh, pretty!), so they don't really apply to this discussion. Each quality of treasure is progressively rarer. so you'll find lots of stuff worth 40 gold, occasional stuff worth 100 gold, maybe something worth 250 gold, and once in a blue moon something worth 1500 gold. Keeping in mind that you can sell only a limited number of items to a fence each day, you'll usually want to leave the 40-gold items be and focus on the 100-gold items, because selling 50 of the 40-gold items will get you only 2000 gold a day, but selling 50 of the 100-gold items will get you 5000 gold a day. However, if you've spent skill points on increasing your daily fencing limits, you might find it difficult to make your daily quotas-- unless you devote a large chunk of your daily playing time to stealing stuff-- so as your fencing limits go up you'll find yourself more inclined to grab the 40-gold stuff as well. Also, the likelihood that you'll find higher-quality treasure will go up based on something (skill level? perks bought? I'm not sure), so at first it will seem like you can never find anything worth 100 gold or more, and you'll have to settle for the 40-gold items just because; but eventually you'll be finding 100-gold items right and left.

(6) Don't launder anything that you don't need to. Consumable items-- which includes recipes, patterns, motifs, and counterfeit pardons, plus miscellaneous items like treasure maps-- can be used without laundering them, so the only reason you would ever want to launder them is if you want to store them in a bank or storage chest (since stolen items can't be stored that way) or if you want to be able to hang onto them without the risk of having a guard confiscate them. Laundering items uses up gold that could otherwise be put toward something else, so unless you've reached the stage where you no longer need to scrimp and save to buy more pack or bank upgrades, or you've either got a lot of gold or can easily acquire more gold as needed, then you shouldn't launder anything except when you've got a good reason to.

(7) As far as those daily limits on how many items you can sell or launder at a fence, there are perks which will increase those limits, although each one costs a skill point. The first perk will more than double your limits, letting you sell up to 110 items or launder up to 110 items, so it's one that you'll definitely want to spend a skill point on. But the additional perks increase those limits to a maximum of only 130 items per day, so it turns out that they aren't really worth spending skill points on unless you're a dedicated thief who spends a lot of time looking exclusively for 100-, 250-, and 1500-gold items. And you'll want to have your secondary toons loot, too, even if you never increase their daily fencing limits past 50 items, because every little bit helps. My rule is that I make each of my secondary toons steal the money needed to buy their next daily riding lesson, and anything extra goes into the bank.

(8) There are also haggling perks which will increase the amount of money you can get by selling stolen loot to a fence. The maximum perk is for 110% of the item's value, so a 40-gold item will get you 44 gold, a 100-gold item will get you 110 gold, a 250-gold item will get you 275 gold, and a 1500-gold item will get you 1650 gold. The extra money per item can really add up, especially if you've increased your daily fencing limits, so you'll definitely want to get the haggling perks on your main character (or at least on your main thieving character).

(9) Get certified in the six-- or seven, if you have Summerset-- crafting lines as soon as possible, so you can start making money by doing the daily crafting writs. As far as your secondary characters, it depends on how much time you want to spend on them as opposed to your main character, but the daily crafting writs can usually be done very quickly (unless you need to spend time looking for the necessary materials), so it's a good idea to go ahead and get them certified and fulfilling daily writs even if you don't plan on having them become master crafters. You should also do any other preliminary requirements that are needed for other types of daily quests-- Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Undaunted, and the various zone-specific dailies. Again, you may or may not want to spend time on doing the dailies with your secondary toons. But the dailies can be a good source of daily revenue, as well as special bonus rewards such as crafting surveys, master crafting writs, special set items, exotic style materials, exotic style motifs, etc.

(10) Start researching the various traits on weapons, armor, and jewelry as soon as possible. Each trait must be researched on each type of item-- for instance, learning the Charged trait on a Dagger won't automatically teach it to you on a Sword-- so you'll need to research each trait on each item if you want to be a master craftsman. Aside from letting you add special benefits to gear when you're crafting, the traits are also important for being able to craft set items-- items that confer special bonuses if you've equipped 2, 3, 4, or 5 items which belong to the same set. Some sets require knowledge of 2 traits, but they go all the way up to 9 traits. Also, each trait that you learn on a particular type of item will double the time needed to research the next trait on that item-- i.e., the first trait takes 6 hours to research, the second takes 12 hours to research, the third takes 24 hours to research, etc. There are perks that let you shorten these research times, but in general you'll want to manage your trait research schedule for best results depending on what you're interested in-- that is, the specific types of weapons or armor or traits that you want your character to focus on. In any case, the sooner you start to research traits, the better.

(11) Branch out from your starting zone as soon as possible by taking a wayshrine, boat, wagon, or-- if necessary-- the road to each and every available zone (except the ones that are only accessible during or after some quest). Some zones will have a wayshrine available to you even though you've never been there, but many of them will not. You'll want to visit each zone and discover at least one wayshrine in it, so you can easily get back to that zone if you should happen to get a treasure map or crafting survey for that zone. Don't worry about your character's alliance and level, because you can visit each zone regardless of which alliance it's part of, even if you haven't completed (or even started) the main quest. You don't need to visit each zone right away, but you'll definitely want to visit a given zone as soon as you get a treasure map or crafting survey for it, because the treasure maps and crafting surveys are unique items, so you won't be able to pick up a new one if you already have that particular map, which means you'll end up losing out on that opportunity to collect the treasure or crafting materials.

I'm sure there are more "must dos," and mine might be different than someone else's, but those are the ones I wish I'd known about when I first started to play ESO.

Welcome to the Second Era!

I don't know much about the PS4 community as a PC user, but on my end the community is very welcoming and helpful. I hope you will find it the same way!

As for builds, my suggestion is always mundane - play your first character the way you want. You can always make another, and you can always change skill and attribute points, and even your race. The only thing you can't change is your class, so that does bear more careful consideration.

Nords are pretty hardy - they make good tanks, too. Dragonknight is a great class to play and I think pretty easy to learn, and not terribly difficult to master. I have a stamina DK (bows and dual wield) and he does PVE content without breaking a sweat. Templars are a fantastic class and easily my favorite, but I have run them all as magic based damage classes or healers. You can do a stamina based Templar, however. Templar is nice because you get a whole skill line dedicated to cool healing skills, which can help in sticky situations.

Personally, I would recommend DK if you want to run a Nord. I think it will favor your idea of how you want to play better than the Templar. But in the end, it's really personal preference. If you just want to enjoy the game - you can do anything, and honestly, once you learn your class, skills, and gear sets, you can do just about any combo to really good efficiency, at least enough to cover the overworld quests and just about any 4-man dungeon. If you're worried about min-maxing, I would take time to research builds and races.

Thanks for the incredibly detailed set of advice! You obviously put a lot of time into your response, and I really appreciate it. I'll definitely be coming back to this many times as I start out...

Where's the cheapest house for the Nord's alliance, do you think?

Avron! Holy-Moly, long-time/no-see! How have you been?

Thanks for the advice--I was kinda thinking that based on what I've read, so far... I'm somewhere between wanting to min/max or simply wing it for fun; I'm leaning toward the latter, but I also want to avoid looking too n00bish.

Nords default to the Ebonheart Pact alliance (unless you have the "Any Race, Any Alliance" expansion), so in the base game where you start out in your alliance zone-- rather than Morrowind or Summerset-- the free housing would be the room in the Ebony Flask Inn, which is in Ebonheart, Stonefalls.

However, it appears that a new player can freely travel to any zone in any alliance-- at least, my newish EU character can, and he hasn't completed any quests other than the ones for being certified in the seven crafting lines. Therefore you could probably start out with any of the five inns, depending on which zone you'd like to spend the most time in during the early stages of the game (but I haven't tried that yet to see):

Auridon (Aldmeri Dominion) - Vulkhel Guard - Mara's Kiss Inn Room
Glenumbra (Daggerfall Covenant) - Daggerfall - The Rosy Lion
Stonefalls (Ebonheart Pact) - Ebonheart - The Ebony Flask Inn Room
Vvardenfell (neutral; requires ESO:Morrowind) - Vivec City - Saint Delyn Penthouse
Summerset (neutral; requires ESO:Summerset) - Alinor - Golden Gryphon Garret

Once you've acquired the free room at one of the five inns, you'll need to buy the others for 3000 gold each. On the other hand, since each collectible that you acquire is shared by all of your characters across your account, it might be possible to get the free room with your first character, then start a new character and get a different free room, and repeat until you have the rooms at all five of the inns for free. But I haven't tried that on the EU server to see if it works, and on the NA server I've already bought the four rooms that my main character didn't get for free.

As far as actually buying a house in Nord territory (i.e., in one of the Skyrim zones), the least expensive one appears to be the Autumn's-Gate house near Nimalten, The Rift.

See https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Player_Housing for a sortable list of the available player housing.

I'm doing science and I'm still alive.

Unless you don't try at all, it's incredibly hard to look n00bish, trust me. You might not be the world's best in the beginning, but you totally can learn tricks of the trade. And honestly, as long as you know what role you'd like to do (damage, tank, healer), spend some time getting decent gear, and eat a stat-boosting food or drink, it's incredibly hard to be bad! Shoooot, I have a Breton Templar tank (very not min-max race-class-role combo!) from my first days in the game who solos everything in PVE on his own. Would I take him to a trial or dungeon? Definitely not. But am I gonna crush everything when I play by myself? Heck yeah. (Albeit slowly, 'cause boy's a tank.)

You can read up on builds to get an idea of what to do. It doesn't hurt to follow one or two in the beginning to help you learn a few things, because you can always change it up. I think Alcast has quite a lot of easy to follow builds, and quite a lot of variety too. But enjoy the beginning. There's a bit of a learning curve in the middle levels, before you get to 50 and get champion points, but trust me...you'd have to not try at all to be bad.

Well, where's the cake? I assume you ain't run out, yet, hopefully...maybe?
I've been meaning to drop-by and check things out over time, but work and newer/shinier systems (PS4) have kept me off Skyrim, and away from most forums. It is definitely nice to say "hello", though.


I know that, and you know that...but does GrieferMan1987 know that? Probably, but the players he BM's about me to don't--next thing I know, those players start telling me I need to go back to Hello Kitty Online: Island Adventure, or calling me names like "House of Chihuahua", or even "Direpomeranian (you know, like a regular Pomeranian, only dire)".

Seriously, though...I'm glad it sounds like the difficulty isn't necessarily that steep for PVE/solo content. My experience with MMORPGs has been that there's an early spike in difficulty (as soon as lvl40, or there about). New question...is PVP a "must", or is it almost like it's own sub-game, like other MMOs (the two I've played have their own subcultures/fan-bases dedicated strictly to that part of the game)?


Sweet, I'll check that out once I get a firm grasp on all the basics, so thanks for providing that I think my primary concern is actually avoiding having to pay to respec, but it sounds like that can be handled in-game--albeit at the expense of precious gold.

Ausgezeischnet, thank you. 3k Gold sounds pretty cheap to my ES ears--hopefully it is in ESO terms?

Not at all a "must," but definitely a bonus. If you want to play seriously, you can get some great skills from the two PVP skill branches, but it only requires getting to rank 5, I believe. After level 10, you have the option of going to Cyrodiil to participate in the Alliance War, or you can just play Battlegrounds, which are PVP mini games. Both will earn you Alliance Points and gain XP toward ranking up there. You also get skill points with each new named rank. (Small gripe: the grind for AP to get to higher PVP ranks is insanely intense. If you do plan to ever get involved in PVP, go in knowing that ahead of time!) The daily rewards ESO has also give AP from time to time - just a handful, but every bit counts if you don't plan to do a lot of PVP.

If nothing else, I recommend trying it out. I personally really enjoy the Battlegrounds.

Do you still playing ESO?

Welcome, @Garenia!

I assume you're talking to the OP; but speaking for myself, *I* am still playing ESO every day, usually several hours a day.

In fact, right now ESO is the *only* ES game I can play, aside from Blades and Legends, because my Windows desktop computer suffered a hard drive failure a few weeks ago, so I'm currently playing on my MacBook Air and iPad.

I know that ESO has been having a lot of technical problems with the servers, and a lot of players-- especially non-USA players who connect to the EU servers, but not exclusively so-- have been unable to play ESO due to login issues, disconnect issues, etc., but I've been very fortunate in that I've been able to play every day, earn my event tickets, and claim my login rewards.

What about you? Are you new to ESO, or a longtime player, or just thinking about trying it out for the first time? And if you're already a player, have you been frustrated by all of the technical problems with the servers?

Hi,

- It is completely possible to create a new character, take the mission for one of the 6 "free" houses (1 per alliance + 1 per chapter), delete character and keep house on account. You also get 1 house for clearing North Elsweyr questline. If not interested in decorating the house, they make free teleport points.

- Upon starting a new character, go to Options->Gameplay, so you can disable "attack innocents" (which may avoid a lot of trouble in towns)

- I would also advise to join guilds as soon as possible:
1) Mages and Fighters are in your alliance starting zone first city (Auridia/Stonefalls/Glenumbria)
2) Undaunted are in this same city, in one of the taverns (you get a quest asking you to enter a group dungeon - just enter it, then get away)
3) You get Thieves by just walking steps in Hew's Bane (unlocks thieves chests for extra gold)
4) You get Brotherhood by taking the first quest on Gold Coast docks (unlocks Blade of Woe, NPC instakill move)
5) You get Psijic Order by clearing the main first quest of Summerset and then taking a quest in their headquarters (long walk, but unlocks psijic breaches spotting, for extra materials)
If you don't own/don't want to buy DLCs for steps 3-5, check ESO+ free trial times, which happens twice a year ; you will have about 1 week to do that.

- It may be tempting to create and level several characters at start, but you should focus on a single one until you hit level 50, and start earning Champion Points. CP are tied to your account and benefit all characters, which makes the journey way easier on secondary toons (that's about 30% extra damage dealt/less damage received with basic setting)

For class choice, any class is able to clear solo/pve content (and deal damage). Your choice may rely on playstyle, or which role you expect in group:
- Healer : Templar is the go-to class because of a built-in group purge, Wardens and Necromancers can also fit
- Tank : Wardens currently have one of the best toolkits, DragonKnights and Sorcerers can also fit
If you are NOT a tank, avoid Sword&Shield "Puncture" skill, and Frost staves in pve group activities : these taunt enemies, and you will make the tank's job just harder.

I am super-dee-duper late to the game. Only by a few years. -_- My husband bought the game as an early Christmas present and I'm trying to find my UESP homies. Any advice on how to link up with you guys would be appreciated.

Welcome to the game! ^_^
What platform/server are you on (PC-North America?), and what's your @username? We can send you an invite to the UESP guild and add you to our friends lists.

Yay! I'm @DanHirschberg under my husband's account, PC north america. My character is Arushen and I'm still getting the feel for the game so...

P.S. I love it so much!