mistakes to avoid in ESO headstart?

mistmaker

i didnt want to spoil me too much, so i decided not to play any beta nor did i read through detailed guides.

 

just in short answers, what should i NOT do when starting?

any real bad skills or combinations?

some tipps&tricks for beginners?

Aeonblades

The best tip I can give for someone who hasn't touched the game at all yet:

Crafting is very important, do not neglect it.

Lord.Bachus

Dont rush, enjoy the stories and go slowly exploring the world and the systems.. Make sure you get the combat, with blocking at the right moment and evading when needed nailed...  And search every pot, chest, sack and bookcase you encounter.  

Aeonblades

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Celdryn

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Dibdabs

Don't spread your Skill Points out over a huge selection of active weapon or magika skills early on, as slots on your skill bar are limited.  At 15 you can "Swap Weapons" by pressing a key and thus have an alternative skill bar, but early on don't go crazy on skills you'd have to swap manually if you wanted to use them.

It's worth a look at Passive skills because some can be useful and they don't use an Active slot.

As mentioned, Crafting is important, and don't forget you can Upgrade existing weapons and Armour as well.

It's worth joining both the Mage and Fighter NPC guilds (they don't count towards the 5 guilds you can be in at once) because the Persuade and Intimidate skill you get from the respective guilds often add some extra options to NPC interaction during quests.

 

Pig-Eye

Take your time, observe, and enjoy!

handlewithcare

do the starter zones don't skip it their is a lot to learn and I will do them for loot.

DamonVile

It's a game not a race. You're playing to enjoy it not win the first person bored award.

Daxamar

Originally posted by Comaf

Originally posted by mistmaker

i didnt want to spoil me too much, so i decided not to play any beta nor did i read through detailed guides.

 

just in short answers, what should i NOT do when starting?

any real bad skills or combinations?

some tipps&tricks for beginners?

I would wait until they have the RIft payment model.  They seem pretty smart in regards to trying to regain their investment, so I wouldn't be surprised if they go free to play in 6 months.  I would wait for that.  I can name a few titles I spent $$ on only to see it go F2P some time later.  If this game is viable in any way, it will still be around.

Yeah, this is VERY helpful to playing the game at launch.

OT:

Explore a bit. Just do quest as they come up. You can get xp, gear and have fun all at the same time

Search for Skyshards too. Theres tips in the Journal, under Achivments where to look for the Skyshards. Another tip is look around and above buildings. leave no stone unturned, as it were.

Loofk for gatherbles. You will be kind of limited on bag space, but its good to get Iron and Jute, and crafting mats right of the bat.

 

 

Sovrath

Originally posted by Aeonblades

The best tip I can give for someone who hasn't touched the game at all yet:

Crafting is very important, do not neglect it.

Unless you are part of a good guild with crafters or can purchase from players. You don't need to craft, you just need to have access to crafted gear.

 

@OP: not sure exactly how they will implement the final changes but after you leave the initial "cold harbor" prison sequence you might get a prompt to skip the starter island. Now, you can always go back to the starter island if you choose not to do it but pay attention to where the game points you as far as which npc to talk to.

Otherwise, do the starter island as there are skyshards, mats, etc. They really aren't that bad though some people found them to be slow. Your mileage may vary.

Remember, exploring yields quests and other things. Don't just follow the arrows from one main quest npc to another.

At lvl 10 you can pvp and there is a separate screen that will allow you to join Cyrodiil. Can't remember which options allows this but just look at your hud. I believe it's brought up with pressing ESC.

 

udon

Originally posted by mistmaker

i didnt want to spoil me too much, so i decided not to play any beta nor did i read through detailed guides.

 

just in short answers, what should i NOT do when starting?

any real bad skills or combinations?

some tipps&tricks for beginners?

My main goal for the first few days is to get started on researching some traits.  If a piece of gear drops or rewarded by quest of the type you wear (light/medium/heavy) and has a  trait on it that's valuable don't sell the gear instead go into the crafting tab and break it down to research the trait as you might want it later on.

I'm going to be on the lookup for heavy armor and swords with valuable traits on them as soon as possible since the earlier you get those items the sooner you can start to craft gear with the traits on them.

Beyond that I really want to get the hirelings for the crafting professions ASAP so they start to send me mails everyday with crafting items in them and probably the keen eye skills.

stragen001

When you are in the very beginning / tutorial area "Coldharbour" search EVERYTHING, dont rush through as you can find many useful items there. I got a full set of armor, a good starting weapon, LOADS of lockpicks, and a couple of crafting tomes that enabled me to craft different syles of armor(<--- these are hard to get)

I would also recommend taking the quest to go to the "starter zone" once you get to the main city. They put a change in a few weeks ago that deposits you straight into your main city after the tutorial completely bypassing the starter zones and thus making them optional. (I dont agree with this choice.... but hey). There is lots to be learnt and found in the starter zones and I found them a good introduction to the game. If you havent played the game before, I would say they are a must.

NomadMorlock

Make sure you have one ability on your bar from each class line (that you plan to use in the future) as early as possible while you have open slots. This way that class line is leveling as you play. Also put your freeb Soul Magic ability on your bar as soon as you are done with character creation and use it so it starts to level. This will save you a lot of waiting to skill up in the future.

Arndush

Here are my thoughts, for what they're worth. Most of this is restating info above. Not all, but most

1. Crafting...do it. Also, if your are going to do Blacksmithing, Clothing, or Woodworking on a character, do all three on one character. When you unlock a new racial style (by finding a racial style crafting book) you will unlock that style for all three of those professions. The books will be somewhat rare. Not overly so, but it'll save you time to have all three of these crafting professions on one character. It will be really frustrating to craft Heavy Armor in the Breton and Dunmer style on one toon and then be able to craft Light Armor in the Argonian and Altmer style on another, but not to to have all 4 styles unlocked for both professions.
2. Loot Everything. Chests, boxes, sacks, bookshelves, resource nodes anything and everything. As mentioned in point 1, crafting books, as well as new gear are found in chests. Everything else will give you crafting materials, lockpicks, etc.
3. Feed your horse daily, did you buy the Imperial Edition? If so, starting feeding your horse 1/day (it can be done every 20 hours) Apples will increase your horse's speed by 1%, Oats will expand your inventory (your horse has extra bags for you to carry stuff) and Hay will increase it's stamina.
4. As mentioned above, don't go on an Active Skill Spending Spree. You don't need to. Grab the ones you like. Take a good look at the passives. They give some really cool bonuses.
5. Explore everywhere. There are over 300 skyshards in this game. Every 3 skyshards grants you a new skill point. Plus you'll find quests that are off the beaten path that may lead to cool items.
6. If you're unsure of what class you want to play, or if you have a class, but not a build in mind, take a look at http://tamrielfoundry.com/forums/ They have Theorycrafting forums for each class. Even if you don't take a build directly from someone's idea, you may find some good inspiration there.

Cheers! I hope this helps.

winter

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NomadMorlock

Do NOT try to craft Blacksmithing, Clothier, and Woodworking just because you learned crafting styles. Specialize in one area such as Weapons (7 pieces) or Heavy Armor (7 pieces). Researching all the traits for just the armor will take over 446 days without skill points spent to research two traits at once and 20% reduction in time. Even with this and focusing on only the 4 best traits it's a 6 month commitment.

Focus on one.

Scot

I am in same boat as OP but have done more homework, even though a few spoilers have slipped in. I would advise a couple of days reading before play, just stick to FAQ and the like.

Dihoru

Not having fun. As someone else pointed out this isn't a race, enjoy your time and you already won the game.

Arndush

Originally posted by NomadMorlock
Do NOT try to craft Blacksmithing, Clothier, and Woodworking just because you learned crafting styles. Specialize in one area such as Weapons (7 pieces) or Heavy Armor (7 pieces). Researching all the traits for just the armor will take over 446 days without skill points spent to research two traits at once and 20% reduction in time. Even with this and focusing on only the 4 best traits it's a 6 month commitment.

Focus on one.

I'm not saying he shouldn't focus on one. But, how many toons is he going to play? How many crafting skills are you going to be able to do. There is no point in spreading them out among different characters because as you point out, he'll never have time to do them all anyway. So specialize in one, but if you have to make something from the other two, at least you already have all the racial styles. Or, after you get one of them to where you want it after 6 months to a year, start working the other one up.

NomadMorlock

That's valid. Just warning him it's beat to start with a focus if he wants to master one.

NomadMorlock

Best that is..,

Arndush

Originally posted by NomadMorlock
Best that is..,

Meh, no worries. I read what you meant.

Jjix

OK, so it is important to understand that the skills (and their corresponding skill lines) you have in your hotbar at the moment you gain exp are what will actually gain experience. Ideally, you never want your hotbar to be empty (having empty slots does not increase the amount of exp gained by the remaining slotted skills). Also, the more skills you have from a single skill line in your hotbar, the faster that skill line will level. Finally, when turning in a quest, make sure to slot exactly the skills you want to level because regardless of what skills you used to complete the quest, all that matters is what skills are in your hotbar the moment you gain xp for turning it in.

I didn't realize this stuff during beta.

Edit: Oh, one more thing . . . the skills in your secondary hotbar (i.e., your second weapon set hotbar) will NOT gain xp, only the skills in your active hotbar gain xp.

Bahz

slot 5 skills from different trees/weapons and wear all armor types to level up everything at once.

mistmaker

Originally posted by NomadMorlock
Best that is..,

that is? :-)