Nerdful Things – Elder Scrolls Online

I’ve been playing Elder Scrolls Online [ESO] since it first came out on Playstation.  Since Oblivion, back on the PS3, I have been in love with the series.  From the plethora of quests and characters, to levelling up and honing your abilities – there’s so much to enjoy.  While Oblivion and Skyrim may have had their infuriating bugs, they provided me with hours upon hours of gameplay.  I completed Skyrim on PS3 and, like many others, I ended up buying it again on PS4.  Once again, I got all the trophies but my experience that time around was different – I discovered a shit ton of quests I had never found let alone completed before.

It was only natural that, when I heard ESO was being released on PS4, that I pre-ordered it.  The promise of online gameplay se tin a universe that myself and my friends loved?  It’d be foolish not to.  But I made a mistake.  I was never really an MMO person.  I had no idea about rotations and builds and all the other MMO jargon.  I created a character that I thought looked cool and just kept his skills and abilities fairly balanced.  Every time I levelled up, I’d add a point to Health or Stamina or Magicka but I’d keep them equal – if I had 18 Health and 18 Stamina, the next point would go to Magicka as it was only on 17.

After I had completed the main quest line and at the time, you were limited to the regions within your starting faction so once you reached end-game, you could then move on to the next faction’s area – I progressed onto the Daggerfall region.  Back then, the enemies were scaled differently and I reached a point where my character was not able to solo some of the, what should’ve been, easier enemies.  So I created a new character.  And another.  And another.  But I never really worked with them.  For a time, I would just go on and collect my materials from my hirelings and do the occasional crafting writ.  If there was an incentive on such as kill a monster to unlock a reward, I’d do it.

Then I hit a period where I just stopped going on at all.  A lot changed and when I went back it was like a completely different game.  I had played it when the One Tamriel update had happened but didn’t really know what it was or what it brought to the finely crafted table.  I created a new character to try and envelop myself in the lore once more and have another shot at a kick-ass character.  His was a name that had rattled about in my head for some time.  Grunt Fatkhok.  A bad-ass orc that took no shit.

And so it was done.  I started looking into builds and what I should be doing as far as levelling goes.  I messed up, again keeping my resources out of whack – I stopped keeping them equal but I focused more on Health and every two points or so I would put one in Stamina or Magicka.  I joined a guild.  My mind was opened.  I’m still no expert but at least I have more of a clue what I am doing.

Grunt went from this shitty all-rounder to a pretty decent DPS.  All the points were chucked into stamina so he could be a Stamina Nightblade.  I started focusing on the Champion Points and the best spots to allocate the and a guild-mate kindly crafted me a decent set of armour and weapons.  By this point, I’m pretty much only playing ESO.  I would attend guild events such as World Boss battles, skyshard hunts, lorebook scavenging and dolmen busting.  I am still to do a trial but I don’t think I’m ready just yet.

Today, my Blacksmithing hit level 50 with my Clothier and Woodworking on 49.  My Provisioning, Enchanting and Alchemy are all around 30.  Jewellery is fairly low but I haven’t really been focusing on that.

Seren has also been getting into ESO and I ended up creating a new character to join her and level as well.  I’d never played as a mage-type character before so I created a High Elf Sorceror called Eldritch Magefellow.  No idea where his first name came from.  We’ve done a few quests together and I am trying to teach her what I’ve learned thus far but I’m hoping her young mind absorbs all the other stuff my old brain isn’t quite grasping so she can help me out too.  I hit level 14 with Eldritch and, thanks to my first character Aldo Storm and Grunt Fatkhok I have a load of Champion Points allocated to Eldritch.

That’s one thing I love with ESO – once you hit CP any points you gain are all available to spend across your characters.  Not shared, if you have 300 on one character and use them, then all your others have those 300 too.  Any houses you buy are available for all your characters as are any banked items or stored items.  The annoyances are the crafting motifs, recipes, diagrams and riding lessons.  They’re a bit of a ball ache – especially the riding lessons.

The latest event, Summerfall, has me pretty pumped for the next few weeks what with a new pet, mount and house all free as part of hitting the target for the event and Murkmire is due out soon too!  Can’t wait!

As for Grunt Fatkhok, I hit endgame with him the other night so after being transported to Ebonheart, I have shifted back to Aldmeri to finish up the Adventurer achievements for the Hero of the Aldmeri Dominion trophy.  I fear I also made a mistake in becoming a vampire – the extra damage fire does to him and the reduced HP regeneration is killing him.  Literally.

 

At the time of writing this, I am CP 261.  The cap is currently 780 so I have quite a way to go yet.  Being a member of active guilds who run regular events is a massive help – and if you hit a rut like I did or feel you want/need to know more about the mechanics then I cannot recommend it enough.  It’s helped me figure out how to create effective characters and given me some good inspiration as well as the actual help of taking down bosses and dungeons.

I am currently a member of:

The Final Chapter

Hell’s Tainted Angels

Grownups Gaming EU

Dumbledore’s Army-DA

All of them are on Facebook (linked above).

You can find Grunt Fatkhok on Facebook and Twitter.

If you’re new to ESO or you’re just getting back into it, I definitely recommend ESO+.  Not only do you get crowns to spend in the crown store with your subscription, you get one of the most invaluable bonuses ever.  The craft bag.  Struggling for storage space is a nightmare in the game and pack upgrades and horse storage takes time and gold.  A lot of gold.  The craft bag frees you from the shackles of the poor storage by allowing you to store infinite crafting items and allows you to fill your pockets and bank with items to aid you in battle or to loot the spoils of war and learn new traits, gain key crafting components or just sell them for gold.  £53.99 for six months is a bargain.

And, whether you’re a Playstation or XBox user, why not get discounted wallet top ups to fund your ESO+ or just top up your crowns every now and again?  Check out the amazing deals at ElectronicFirst.  I use them all the time and I usually get the e-mail with my code(s) within ten minutes.  Some great savings to be had – £43.99 for a £50 PSN top up?  You’d be daft not to!

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—The Trying Scotsman has a ‘Don’t Be A Dick’ policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—