Elder Scrolls Online release date 4-4-14

[KidNiki1]

I'd have to disagree about the crafting; I think it's the worst I've ever seen.

Blacksmithing for example; there is NEVER a time when I craft my own armor. You can always find better gear from drops, that already has a trait and enchantment on it. All I do, is research and deconstruct.

Enchanting is totally whacked. You can have a full inventory of enchantments, and still never have one that 'fits' the piece of gear you want to enchant. They are all level bound (10-20, etc) and item bound (10-20 jewelry only, etc). It's also very hard to get the skill up, since there are limited runes. Again, I just deconstruct, and craft on the rare occasion I have a rune I don't know (incredibly rare at lvl 38).

Just keeping up with them for end game, where I'm sure they will be useful, but for playing through the game... completely worthless.

have you put any skill points in any crafting?

 

[HumblePie]

I'd have to disagree about the crafting; I think it's the worst I've ever seen.

Blacksmithing for example; there is NEVER a time when I craft my own armor. You can always find better gear from drops, that already has a trait and enchantment on it. All I do, is research and deconstruct.

Enchanting is totally whacked. You can have a full inventory of enchantments, and still never have one that 'fits' the piece of gear you want to enchant. They are all level bound (10-20, etc) and item bound (10-20 jewelry only, etc). It's also very hard to get the skill up, since there are limited runes. Again, I just deconstruct, and craft on the rare occasion I have a rune I don't know (incredibly rare at lvl 38).

Just keeping up with them for end game, where I'm sure they will be useful, but for playing through the game... completely worthless.

In a sense, I quite agree. Crafting in this game is not something you spend an hour at the end of your nightly leveling session to "keep up" and pop out gear for your level to use. You either focus on it from the get go or you wait til after you are done "leveling" on your character and focus on it last.

This system basically allows for those that want to be dedicated crafters and have a guild/group of people supporting them to excel beyond others that dabble as they level. It gives a reason to specialize and the massive point dedication needed to master a "craft" skill line.

The great thing about the game is the lack of RNG for item creation. No random stats really and no worry about item destruction.

 

[Worthington]

This system basically allows for those that want to be dedicated crafters and have a guild/group of people supporting them to excel beyond others that dabble as they level. It gives a reason to specialize and the massive point dedication needed to master a "craft" skill line.

This sounds pretty reminiscent of Vanguard

 

[parfemit]

That is exactly what I was thinking. But it should be a well working system.

 

[JamesV]

have you put any skill points in any crafting?

I'm level 23 Blacksmith, and level 11 Enchanter, so yea, I put skill points into them. Put one into everything (hireling/etc), plus have the main skills appropriate level for my character level (ie up to Dwarven metal for Blacksmith).

Just never really use them, except research and deconstruction. I have traded daggers though, for the increased inspiration you get from deconstructing other peoples work.

 

[HumblePie]

That is exactly what I was thinking. But it should be a well working system.

It is, but I think the current need for 5 improvement items per rarity upgrade is a bit much or 4 with skill points. Should be 4/3 or even better 4/2. Realistically 5/2 to give an edge to those that spend the points in that line.

Or at the very least make it a sliding scale for how much based on the rarity level.

 

[dougp]

What does best in PvP? Also, how does stealth work in this game - is it like Skyrim where you duck/shadow and you're sneaking - can people still see you?

 

[Leyawiin]

Dammit - you guys are pulling me into this when your positive comments! I actually have an online friend I've know for years and she works in quest development for ES Online (didn't know until recently - she kept her job under her hat). She told me they are really working hard on the quests to try to make them something other than the usual MMO fetch quests. I dunno - I'm not sure if I can handle another MMO after WoW and LotRO.

 

[Rhezuss]

I must say: what a effing awesome game it is. Never thought I would get in another MMO like that.

If you want a nice deal go over Greenman Gaming and get the game for 20% off...$48 for this is a great price for all the stuff you get.

About the crafting, I really enjoy how they did it. I'm certainly not a hardcore gamer with lots of free time but still I really enjoy farming stuff and building items. Smithing is great and involving but a bit hard to understand at first.

I just killed Balreth from a quest chain. Was awesome! Quests are really nice and fun even though they can feel redundant like "Gather X" or "Kill Y".

For $48 and 1 month free you'll have enough to know if it's for you or not.

 

[KentState]

Dammit - you guys are pulling me into this when your positive comments! I actually have an online friend I've know for years and she works in quest development for ES Online (didn't know until recently - she kept her job under her hat). She told me they are really working hard on the quests to try to make them something other than the usual MMO fetch quests. I dunno - I'm not sure if I can handle another MMO after WoW and LotRO.

Questing has come a long way from back when I started MMO's in the late 90s. However, this game isn't really doing anything revolutionary from what I've seen. Still plenty of run here, go there, fetch this, kill those and so on.

 

[Tequila]

Yea quests are not revolutionary but are incredibly fun for the most part. Many of them have you running into a small to medium size dungeon where there are other people about. I just get a kick out of running around enjoying the scenery, environment and the sound.

I'm in Shadowfen and just love the look of it. I normally don't like swampy zones but this one is just breathtaking.

24th level now and taking my time with my journey to 50 and beyond.\

Working up the energy to replace my mobo and cpu but almost don't want to. This game runs so good with my current system at ultra.

 

[asteldian]

The key to the quests is how they are dressed up - ther is only so much yo can do with quests for progression, you need a lot of 'fluff' quests, the difference here is they actually put a lot of effort into fluff quests with a proper fleshed out story and reasoning behind it and with decisions and consequences in some cases. Really disguises what you are doing whereas a lot of games give a really lazy excuse to make you go kill 10 flamengos. Also the quests tend to involve a lot less running to point B, then back to A for hand in, followed by a quest at point B again - usually if a quest is going to keep you going back to an area, the quest giver actually spawns in that area once you do the first part.
It's little things like that which make a big ifference - in a lot of MMOs the travel time to and from the quest area often takes longer than the quest.

Regarding the crafting, I love the way it is done because it is less tedious than most games.
As for its usefulness, that kind of depends really. For the first 14 lvls I almost always used my made gear because it was superior, and as a tank type better AC tends to be king.
A lvl 16 made Item is superior to a lvl 16 dropped item of same quality.

The issue with the crafting isn't so much actually a crafting issue and is just an MMO issue - you lvl fast and replace gear constantly, therefore you are not inclined to waste your time and resources upgrading an item to green and enchanting it etc. If you did, your gear would be more powerful than that you found or were rewarded, but the simple reality is it is not worth doing, at least probably for the first 35 or so lvls, debatably not worth it until 50 where you know you will keep the gear for some time, and even then you likely won't use the purple upgrade items because you'd rather keep them for your real end game items.

Encahnting actually is useful because if you have the runes you can put the specific enchantments you want on gear (so long as the item in question is not 'locked'). As with all MMOs, provisioning and alchemy are the safe bets that are always useful.

 

[HumblePie]

Questing has come a long way from back when I started MMO's in the late 90s. However, this game isn't really doing anything revolutionary from what I've seen. Still plenty of run here, go there, fetch this, kill those and so on.

Dude, "questing" has changed since the notion of doing something for someone else. The post below has some good thoughts.

The key to the quests is how they are dressed up - ther is only so much yo can do with quests for progression, you need a lot of 'fluff' quests, the difference here is they actually put a lot of effort into fluff quests with a proper fleshed out story and reasoning behind it and with decisions and consequences in some cases. Really disguises what you are doing whereas a lot of games give a really lazy excuse to make you go kill 10 flamengos. Also the quests tend to involve a lot less running to point B, then back to A for hand in, followed by a quest at point B again - usually if a quest is going to keep you going back to an area, the quest giver actually spawns in that area once you do the first part.
It's little things like that which make a big ifference - in a lot of MMOs the travel time to and from the quest area often takes longer than the quest.

Regardless of the game type, there is only so much you can do in a game like this for quest types. It is how to dress them up. Quests can only be 1 of a few things.

1) Kill X things.

This is a combat quest. You either kill 1 or 50. The number doesn't matter. It could be pink fluffy bunnies or Vladamir the Ancient vampire lord. That is the fluff or window dressing. Obviously a game that only makes you kill 50 pink bunnies over and over again would get boring quickly.

2) Collect X things

This is to gather something. It could be related to combat in that only a certain enemy has the item that "drops" for a quest. It could be completely no combat. Such as picking stuff off the ground or "asking" other npcs for items. Or it could even be a crafting based quest where you "make" the thing that you are collecting.

3) Stand here

This is a "babysitting" quest. It can be combat related in that you guard an area from invaders, or just watch over an imaginary playground of kids for a set period of time.

4) Follow me

Escort quests. You basically are following around an npc or in some cases leading them around. Some may be combat oriented and they may not. This is one type of sight-seeing quest type.

5) Go over there

This is the other type of sight seeing quest. You are to check out areas. You either just enter an area, which could spawn a wave of monsters to fend off, or be forced to walk around a town talking to various npcs. You can be forced to see 1 location or many. The difference between this and number 4 is that you aren't dependent on having an npc being close to you during the sight-seeing our.

6) Solve for X

Puzzle quests. Basically you are forced to solve a brain teaser puzzle of some sort. Stacking blocks, playing angry birds, or doing algebra are all examples of this quest type.


That is it. Those are the basic building block principles to quests. There is literally nothing else you can do for quests building blocks. Everything else is just fluff on top and presentation. Most quests involve more than 1 of the basic building blocks to keep them interesting. To make quests fun and interesting it is a matter of how you weave the story around the basic quest building blocks to make the game fun. It's how you differentiate the quests and make them not seem to building blockish in nature. Many games never get beyond single building block, no real presentation style quests. They are literally, please go kill 50 bunnies because I don't like them kind of quests. Or they are please go gather 50 pieces of drift wood off that beach over there because I need them. There isn't much of a story progression involved and they are boring. What separates the good games from the bad ones is a good game takes those basic blocks and weave them into a storyline that makes them interesting to see the results of the story based on doing one or more of those questing blocks.

 

[Rhezuss]

I'm not sure if it's a good idea but I think i'm gonna reroll my toon...
I think I started badly with skill points distribution all over the place and switching weapon types in the middle of it. I'm only level 8 though but I feel my toon is weak and frail even with 1H+shield.

But I have put some time in the game...dunno if it's a good idea lol

 

[Wardawg1001]

I'm not sure if it's a good idea but I think i'm gonna reroll my toon...
I think I started badly with skill points distribution all over the place and switching weapon types in the middle of it. I'm only level 8 though but I feel my toon is weak and frail even with 1H+shield.

But I have put some time in the game...dunno if it's a good idea lol

It's really not necessary to remake your char at level 8. A few wasted skill points is no big deal, you get plenty in this game. You also can re-spec all your skill/stat points later on (I may be wrong, but its in a city you will reach around level 15-20ish I think).

Make sure that you do all dungeons. These are represented by a torch icon when you spot them on the compass/map. They are very short, and they always have a skyshard inside them. They also almost always contain a short mini-quest (often just requiring you to go talk to someone back in town for a little extra gold/exp), and they always contain a mini-boss that drops nice loot, and also gets you a decent amount of exp the first time you kill him.

 

[asteldian]

Depends where you have put your points, you will want 2 weapon skillsets anyway so it may just be that having split so early it will take a couple lvls more to get focused on your main skills but not a waste in the long run.

First thing I do with my char is split points into all my class skill lines and get them on my bar even if I don't plan on using one of the lines much, so early on some points are of little use but it means I level up all the areas which is very helpful later.

The same can be said with weapons, some actually recommend getting a point in a weapon set you don't yet use - becuase putting it on your skillbar will gain you xp in that line even if you are not using that weapon.

If you have put points in more than 2 weapon types it may be a case o a few wasted points, but again at your lvl you probably haven't put so much in that it is not recoverable. I intend to have 3 weapon styles eventually - 1h and shield, dual wield and probably resto staff, so again, if you have dipped a lot early it wil lbe a little painful for you, but within the next couple lvls once you have had a few more skills from skyshards, quests and the lvls it will barely be noticable, then even later than that it won't have any impact.

I have 2 points lost totally into crafting which is not any use to me in combat, but I still function fine and will bedropping more in there too

 

[Rhezuss]

I limited myself to two weapon skill set: 2H and 1H+Shield. I started with 2H and found I was dying too quickly and switched to 1H+Shield. But I think i'm gonna switch back to 2H since mobs are not dying quickly enough.

I also put 1 point in Heavy Armor for a passive, 1 point in the healing skill set and 1 point in Blacksmithing for the gatherer minion. I also upgraded a couple of skills to a more potent one.

I'll keep the toon and continue to play with it a bit more in hopes it gets better!

 

[Clemenza]

The hardest part for me right now is picking and staying with a class. I have terrible Altidis. I've always had it and I don't see it being cured anytime soon.

 

[HumblePie]

I limited myself to two weapon skill set: 2H and 1H+Shield. I started with 2H and found I was dying too quickly and switched to 1H+Shield. But I think i'm gonna switch back to 2H since mobs are not dying quickly enough.

I also put 1 point in Heavy Armor for a passive, 1 point in the healing skill set and 1 point in Blacksmithing for the gatherer minion. I also upgraded a couple of skills to a more potent one.

I'll keep the toon and continue to play with it a bit more in hopes it gets better!

What class are you playing? Spending points in the weapon sets early on is, in my opinion, makes your early game a lot harder than it should be.

The base class skills are the real power house skills early on for combat. Templar, Nightblade, Sorcerer, or Dragon Knight skills are far more powerful at low levels than weapon skills. Weapon skills are meant to compliment the main class skill lines. Meaning you might have 1 weapon skill on your bar at low levels, and maybe 2 at later levels. This is of course speaking strictly for solo play.

You don't need to reroll at all. It's not hard to get skill points. Look online for sites that show where all the skyshards are on the maps you have access to. Those you are missing are all easily collected. There are several "public" quests that give skill points as rewards. Most of these are easy to do, and if you just follow behind a group of other players, you'll get the completions as long as you "tag" the monsters that need to be tagged along the way.

 

[Rhezuss]

I play a Templar and I should have put some points in the damaging class skills, which i'll do tonight. I read some and thought they looked awesome but wanted to go more melee so I invested in 2H early on.

Yeah I guess there's no need to reroll for now but maybe i'll roll a Dragoin Knight to give it a shot.

 

[Dahak]

If you follow the roads you could walk all the way to the 2nd major city for your faction and spend gold to respec. It costs 100G per point though so if you do not have alot of gold it might be a problem.

I did a respec and it coated me 3700G . But im level 18? cant even remember and had just entered that area, and did not want to re-roll as i had done this area 3 time now (2 in beta and now on live)

had focused too much around a bunch of things, primarily crafting

 

[Rhezuss]

So in short, like in the ES series, if I use 2H weapons my 2H skill will go up and eventually unlock other skills in the tree that I can put points in right?.

So I could put 0 point in 2H, use a 2H weapon, unlock let's say a skill that need 2H at 10 and put my first point on that skill?

 

[Tequila]

The hardest part for me right now is picking and staying with a class. I have terrible Altidis. I've always had it and I don't see it being cured anytime soon.

That has been a problem for me in the past but not with this game. With only 4 classes and not a whole lot to distinguish them I find it very easy to focus on my templar.

Any class can dps, tank and heal if skills are spent wisely.

 

[Tequila]

I play a Templar and I should have put some points in the damaging class skills, which i'll do tonight. I read some and thought they looked awesome but wanted to go more melee so I invested in 2H early on.

Yeah I guess there's no need to reroll for now but maybe i'll roll a Dragoin Knight to give it a shot.

Just stick with the templar, they kill just as well as anyone and are very durable. Even when I switch from 2h to staff there isn't a big difference. With 2h I stampede -> biting jabs -> solar barrage and repeat biting jabs -> solar barrage or slip in my ultimate or use a few heavy swings of my 2h. If it gets dicey I switch to resto staff and throw on my hot(mutagen) and heavy attack with staff to get magicka back. Or for boss fights I just use resto staff along with my other 2 heals and biting jabs and can outlast anything.

Biting jabs is morphed from puncturing strikes and does a ton of damage especially to low health mobs.

 

[HumblePie]

If you follow the roads you could walk all the way to the 2nd major city for your faction and spend gold to respec. It costs 100G per point though so if you do not have alot of gold it might be a problem.

I did a respec and it coated me 3700G . But im level 18? cant even remember and had just entered that area, and did not want to re-roll as i had done this area 3 time now (2 in beta and now on live)

had focused too much around a bunch of things, primarily crafting

You can't follow a road from Auridon to Grahtwood for respec since Auridon is an island. You have to travel by boat which isn't opened up until you complete a quest at around level 15 to open. You can get there if guild mates or friends that are higher level are already there. Then you can port directly to them in grahtwood and head over to the major town to respec.