Day 2 and 3 in ESO – Progress!

The Argonian brothers, Squats-In-Bushes and Eats-His-Feelings, are well on their way!  We just hit level 10 last night after slowing roaming around and just ‘doing’ whatever comes our way.  As I said the other day, we’re taking it slow.  We’re not in a rush to power game to the max level or get into the PvP right away.  When we run across a fellow Argonian needing assistance, we lend a hand.  When a snotty Dunmer demands we kill the Dreugh on his land we begrudgingly clean them out.  We like to roleplay it up a bit!

So far the world and immersion factor has been great.  I’ve always maintained that ESO has a nice world.  It feels almost EQ1 level of open, in a way.  If EQ1 was populated with a lot of quests instead of camps of mobs, that would be ESO.

The act of questing — go here, kill this, etc. – is a little boring.  The way in which ZoS delivers those quests in ESO, however, is fitting.  For example, we helped some guy rob a house earlier in the game and when we arrived in another city he was there to greet us and actually remembered the work we did to help him.  We then, without even knowing to find him here, continued on to another heist.  We’ve met several  — and I do mean several — NPCs who remember what we did for them and it appears provide us an experience matching our actions.  The continuity is actually remarkable.

I also like how we  can be roaming around just exploring and an NPC will run up to us and ask for help fighting back some annoying Shalks or whatever kind of monster might be attacking their house.  Kinda cool.  Sure, once they actually give you the quest and you realize it’s “Kill 1o Shalks” it sorta kills it a bit.

A lot of quests are bugged.  We’ve run into 4 quests now that can’t be completed because of some glitch that won’t let an item activate or a monster be summoned.  I don’t know if it’s their phasing tech or the megaserver to blame, but the broken quests make progressing really frustrating.  We completed this long series of quests to finally get to the boss just to have him not spawn.  Logging in the next day fixed the issue, but it was a buzz kill.

Tonight we’ll experience the PvP.  Stay tuned tomorrow for my first ever initial thoughts on ESO’s alleged “DAoC style” experience.

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  • Ran the first three dungeons last night, planned on being a medium armor wearing stealthy bow/mage Templar but since we couldn’t find any healers I tossed a few points into the healing tree and resto staff. Gotta say it was probably the most fun I have had healing in a dungeon in years. Have to really pay attention to the fight and the placement of the other players as the heals for the most part are pbae and not a huge radius. Also boss mechanics will randomly shoot or charge at you so if you aren’t watching them you can get one shot. Happened to me multiple times cause I was too focused on the health bars in the top left of the screen. Learned to focus more on the action on the screen and look at the health bars above the players heads rather than the party frames. Really like how they are trying to utilize in game information to display information rather than having to stare at a bunch of party or raid frames.

  • I’ve only had the chance to run 1 1/2 dungeons so far. The 1/2 was a lag fest so I dont really count that as “running” it.

    I think ESO nailed the “soft” trinity that GW2 was shooting for. Regardless of your role, if you aren’t doing other things the group will most likely fail. I tanked the instances as a Templar but my heals kept me and other people up. The DPS needs to buff and CC. The healer needs to be active. I dont know how well it translates at the higher levels but it’s promising.

    Having said that, the 4 person groups are going to be an issue. Everyone is DPS. It especially hurts at the lower levels when you dont have a lot of points to spend. I started a second character after getting my Templar to 14. He’s a 2handed/medium armor wearing Sorc who is going to be stam focused. I love playing him but I cant get a group for a dungeon as DPS. I wouldnt mind the if I could get enough points in resto staff to heal alright but I’ve been really focused on my melee abilities.

  • My friends and I are Ebonheart Pact in the Dawnbreaker campaign. It’s so overly populated with AD that they tend to own every single objective at all times. Both the Dagger and Pact made a push last night to retake some keeps which was a lot of fun. But within two hours the AD mustered up the numbers to fight back both and retake everything. They count for 80% of the campaigns population.

    That being said, we’ve had a lot of fun utilizing guerrilla warfare on the AD. Ambushing roads and bridges the AD use between objectives.

  • Doing /reloadui or relogging fixes many quests, I have only run into one where it did not work so far.

    What I find fun to do is just run around the shore of a zone taking in the sites. I have not done that since early EQ days 😮 thats saying a lot. But ya this game I am playing slowly and for fun. I even started Blacksmithing and Alchemy something I rarely do in MMOs

    Good trick for healing is to put one point into first heal then put that skill on your bar, even when you use other weapon it will keep levelling the staff, so you can then pick up other heals

  • @McJigg,

    I was fortunate enough to get my first character in Ariuel’s Bow where the factions have been pretty even. Its been incredibly fun. The other instances are pretty much blow outs from what I’ve seen and read.

    They really should have stated ahead of time that the initial matches were only going to be a week or two to give everyone time to get in the game and level to 10. As it stands there are going to be people who pop in to one of these matches, lose hope (or if they are on the winning side get bored) and give up on the PvP all together.

    I’m curious to see how this all plays out. Will they reset early or let it roll for 90 days?

  • Well I just broke down and bought the game, now to wait for the servers to come back so I can download it and take off work tomorrow >>.

  • @McJigg I am in the exact same boat, but over on the Daggerfall side. We are a trio that ambushes straggler AD as they wander around trying to find their zergmates. It is amazing fun.

    I am certain that after the actual launch of the game, the populations will balance out quite a bit in the individual Campaigns.

  • @Rawbling/Mcjigg: I don’t have a lot of friends who play, is PvP doable for someone who solo’s?

  • Yea Drathmar, you could rock a solo Nightblade and own stragglers all day long.

    I play with two friends, and we do exactly that. Solos/small groups are what we fight currently. Lots of people to find alone out in the RvR zone doing quests.

  • Sweet. I was thinking of nightblade anyway as I wanted to be a stealthy character. Where would be the best way to look at classes and skills while I wait to download this (appproximately 12 hour download 0.0). I never played in the beta so I am going in blind lol.

  • I got off work at 3:30PM MDT, it is now 9:42PM MDT. Been pvping in ESO literally this entire time. Not a moment of boredom in the entire span, no anger, no rage…. just plain old happiness with two friends as we gank/get ganked. And this from one of the “Old Guard” DAoC vets. Oh, I should mention that I am only level 12, hasn’t hampered me yet 🙂

    I don’t know if you can get a more glowing recommendation for a PvP MMO.

  • Can’t wait for your take on pvp. I may hit it tonight but I’m still enjoying the exploring and crafting a little bit too much.

  • @Rawbling/Samantha: Thanks, I will take a look at it tonight before bed and hope that TESO is ready when I get home from work tomorrow.

  • Wow, spent some time looking at the skill trees and it’s almost overwhelming. Is there any tips on creating an effective build? I almost wish I had played the beta so I would have found some of this out already. It seems like you either want to focus on class abilities (magicka) or weapon abilities (stamina) and use the other one as supplements were you are weak more than anything. Not sure how if it would actually work but I tried to make a dual wield sorcerer using Twin Slashes: Blood Craze, Flurry: Rapid Strikes, Whirlwind: Whirling Blades, Surge: Critical Surge from sorcerer as a damage buff/healing, and using the Overload: Power Overload as ultimate to increase damage when its up and then rune cage as the last skill to proc ruffian passive and using most DW passives and ones that focus on crit from medium armor. Not sure if it would be viable but it seems like it would be a fun build and I kinda want to try it.

  • @Drathmar

    A few points from my limited experience:

    -there is no stealth class. Everyone can stealth. So dont feel you have to play a NB for a “rogue” experience.
    -I’m playing a Sorc with a 2hander that mostly uses weapons attacks. Works well so far and its fun. DW should be fine as well.
    -Though I’m sure they’ll come, there are no min/max set ups I’ve seen yet. The game is new so theory crafting and testing is still ongoing.
    -Overload is … odd. Your weapon disappears and you shoot lightning out of your hands. You do get an extra 5 slots out of it as your overload skill triggers 5 new slots like a switch does (not sure if it a bug). Its just not an “Oh Sh–” button like most ultimates are.

    On the topic of min/maxing, so far the game has been refreshingly free of it. The sites dedicated to the game are way more relaxed and open then sites dedicated to say WoW. Maybe that’s the result of not having traditional raids so the hardcore pass over the game? Maybe its their stance on addons? If so I hope it continues and the “elite” go to Wildstar because I’m liking the atmosphere. Realistically its probably temporary and all those bad things will come in time…..

  • @Jim: I’ll hopefully have my thoughts on the PvP up later this afternoon (pacific time). Graev and I wanted to get into the PvP more last night but ended up following a few quest lines and time got away from us.

    @Fergor: I still see a ton of min-maxing going on out there on places like Reddit and Tamriel Foundry. People want to be the best and squeeze out every 1-2% extra effectiveness possible. Frankly, I’m probably not good enough to get the most out of my race let alone a race that could squeeze 1-2% more out so it doesn’t matter to me. In the end, as long as the 1-2% really doesn’t matter then I’m okay.

    @Drathmar: I was in the beta since November of last year. Didn’t help me one bit. I lost an entire day of the headstart to stressing over my build. I settled on a Nightblade who siphons off the enemy’s health, heals with a regen staff, and when able plinks off a few shots with a bow. I’m all about out-living the enemy and making them frustrated with me. Moral of the story: Think up a cool build and as long as you have a plan and your build can accomplish your plan, go for it.

  • @Keen: I can see why. I can actually see this being one of the first games I actually make and enjoy alts for just because of the build diversity. I did want to be a stealthy character and did end up settling on a Nightblade for it, plan being to go from range initially from stealth, doing damage and snaring/immobilizing from a distance, then once it wears off and they can start to close, going invisible and closing to finish them off while striking from stealth again. I think. I am at work messing with builds between calls but I think this is what I have settled on.

  • Sorry for double post meant to add this to the last one: Is your damage from class abilities based on your weapons as well or just those weapons abilities? Just wondering since it seems like if so when trying to finish someone quickly in melee it might be better to use a two-hander to make sure each ability hits as hard as possible especially since with the end game build I planned the first hit would have 100% crit chance. If not I would probably stick with DW as the melee part just because the passives are more useful.

  • Look at the abilities. See what they require: Stamina or Magicka. The stat on the skill is what determines the damage.

    I think all heavy attacks/regular attacks are stamina based.

    Someone please correct me if I have that wrong.

  • See thats what I was confused about because it seems almost all class abilities required Magicka. So is the damage then based off your attribute points into Magicka?

  • I think almost all class abilities ARE considered spells and based on magicka. Like all of my Nightblade Siphon abilities are based on magicka.

  • Heavy and regular attacks are based off weapon damage. They dont use stamina. Blocks and interrupts do use stamina.

    I think all class abilities scale off the magicka pool and weapon abilities (non staff) scale off stamina.

    Your pools are going to be mostly effected by your armor enchants as the level upgrades give you minimal upgrades (10 or 15). Its an interesting system.

    @Keen,

    I know there is some level of min/maxing but its just doesnt seem to be at the level of the last few MMOs I’ve played, even this early. Maybe its the softcaps. Maybe its because people arent 50 so the elitism hasnt creeped in. We’ll see.

  • @Fergor/Keen: Thanks for the answers. Sorry for the questions but I have tried searching a bit and have not found a lot of decent guides on some of this stuff.

  • I have to say, ESO’s choice of creating entirely new systems and challenging combat is really working for me. I had a fighter’s guild quest mini boss fight that was lvl 8 and at 11 I still died twice while working out a strategy to take her down. It felt like an accomplishment I had to work at to achieve and even though it took maybe 10 minutes it reminded me of when I first started playing mmorpg’s. Maybe that’s ESO’s biggest win: making something old new again. OK, back to the game 🙂

  • @Jim: The snake lady with the orbs? 😛 Graev had to help me figure it out. That was an awesome fight.

  • @Keen: I am finding out what you mean about the build even more now. I thought I had down what I wanted to do, but as I mess with the skill calculator more I find more and more builds that I want to try and it’s hard to decide on just one (or even just one set for one class). There is the one earlier, then a more blademaster/ninja type Nightblade that is stamina based specializing in two-handed and dual wield swords. Then a Fire Dragonknight, then a Sorcerer that uses a lot of passive stuff to just increase your basic hits with various things while having the option of spell damage, then a “sunmage” templar build, and a tank sorcerer build and it’s just… so many options all of which seem like they would be viable enough to work.

  • @Drathmar Yea, the build diversity is massive. The nice thing is that you can respec your skillpoints (for gold). When you do this, you do not lose the levels(ranks?) in that skill. What that means is that you can instantly re-morph a skill that you were able to morph before. This makes trying new things really fun.

    Since class skills are the only realm of un-shared abilities between characters, I would focus on finding a class that sounds like its abilities jive with your interests. Everything else can be custom-tailored regardless of that class, so is secondary.

    As far as stamina vs magicka abilities, I honestly think a mixture will be best. For instance, my sorc has almost all Magicka abilities at present. When I go OOM, my only recourse is to squeal like a little girl and run in circles (while normal attacking, of course). Having even one Stamina cost ability would be great at those times, as I could spam that until some Magicka regenerated. See?

    So I guess my real point is, roll a class that speaks to you, and then just experiment the entire time you are playing. What could be more fun?

  • Ya I am running a ninja blademaster redguard type specializing in dual wield and 2h with swords. He uses mostly stamina abilities (from DW or 2h) but has some magicka abilities from the nightblade stuff on his bar as well. Especially the 100% crit one.