Elder Scrolls: Online

[Buddy Bradley]

Reaching the second big zone (around L16-17) really starts to make clear how important it is to specialise in only one or two crafting professions. There's no way to juggle bank and bag space to support 'kind of' levelling everything, plus you need to put points into each profession skill tree to be able to make anything with the second-tier materials.

 

[Vintage Paw]

I haven't done BC yet, Epona. I want to, though. I'd be up for it. I'd likely be able to find a couple of others from Reddithium to come along.

I've never done private dungeons like that before (in any game) so I don't really know what to expect. I know I want to follow the story, listen to the dialogue, see all there is to see, and try not to die.

I'm level 19, so I expect I'd have a decent chance

Once you've done the one in your zone you can use the map to teleport to the other 2 in the other faction areas as well. You get a skill point from each, regardless of your level. I'm not sure whether you get XP and/or loot if you're overlevelled (not sure if the same mechanics apply to private group dungeons as does regular questing), but I'm not especially bothered about that. I just am terribly completionist and want to turn those black icons white, and see all the story I can.

 

[Vintage Paw]

You get so many skill points though, Buddy, you can afford to put them into a couple of professions, maybe even 3 if you don't take every single skill in the profession line. For example, with provisioning there's no need to get the hireling (it's shit), and it's best to focus on either food or beverages, rather than both. There's no real need to get keen eye in the others if you're the sort who enjoys exploring rather than relying on spotting materials while you're heading from A-B. The jury's out atm as to the benefit of the hireling in other professions. I've had a few blue improvement materials from my clothier, none from my woodworker (but apparently turpen may be bugged - no one seems to be able to get any other than from deconstructing blue items - I have 2 turpen and something like 15 embroidery right now). The only one that is truly necessary is the line that lets you craft at higher levels, the others are quality of life perks really.

As for bank/bag space, you're right, it's difficult, but there are ways to make tough decisions and keep it manageable. I keep most of the important materials on my character (wary of the bank bug) for woodworking and clothier. Provisioning materials go in the bank, but I'm not bothered about losing those because they are so easy to find again. Iron ingots and jute are in my bank, again if they disappear I'll not miss them. I currently have my runes in my bank, and some nice aspect runes too, which I'm slightly worried about, but they are for a different character and I'm avoiding logging into any of my other characters right now because that always seems to be a commonality amongst those who lose their bank slots (that's not to say it's definitely related, but until it's fixed I'm avoiding potential high risk activities - it could still happen to me though, of course).

I think there are ways and means to make multiple professions work, you just have to be very efficient, only hold onto what you know you're absolutely going to be using in the near future, and be prepared to spend time hunting and gathering for the other stuff when you need it. Making frequent trips back to town to deconstruct and sell gear and bank (currently low risk) materials helps as well, rather than thinking that you can keep questing for hours without having your bag fill up. I had to destroy an absolute ton of stuff from Cyrodiil last night because my inventory is at a permanent 40 slots full with the various mats I'm storing on me, and a few items I'm waiting to learn the traits on. That gives me another 40 slots to fill with loot drops, which fills up in an hour of PvE questing in Cyrodiil (heck, you can fill that in one dungeon).

I'm saving up to get my 90 bag slots on this character. I don't generally repair my armour, I just make new ones. It saves money. But I have a handful of really nice pieces at the moment, and since I'm level 19 still stuck in Auridon I don't have access to higher tier materials yet so I haven't bothered putting skill points into unlocking the next tier in crafting... I'll save that for when I can actually use them. So I replace the gear that is easily replaceable, and then I pay to repair the 2 or 3 nice items (remove the broken stuff from your inventory or the price will be to repair all of that as well). I sent about 50k AP on random armour from the AP vendor in Cyrodiil last night and ended up only keeping a couple of pieces. They were all blue, and I deconstructed what I didn't like/need. I have just under 6k in gold atm, and really need to focus on some questing today to get more for that bag upgrade.

 

[Epona]

I haven't really made a decision about crafting yet - on one character I put points into provisioning to get more portions just to make some cash, and I'm doing research on clothier/smith/woodwork with all 3 characters as research is really the thing that takes most investment of time (it's not difficult to level up the crafts themselves if I decide to specialise later). I thought I'd wait until I got into the higher level materials and see how to divide it up at that point, probably based on who has researched what.

I'm not feeling the love when it comes to alchemy tbh, I don't use potions that much anyway as the system on Q is so bloody fiddly to use, it's not as though you can easily change potions mid-fight. I'm doing it to get the level up just in case poisons gets implemented at any point but not really using it. Enchanting is very useful but so much stuff to store whilst you're looking for that elusive aspect rune! I made a mule just to hold all the other runes I have. I'm going to be jumping for joy when the bank slot bug gets sorted, before it was known I had already upgraded considerably and now I get a slightly sick feeling every time I look at my bank wondering if my slots are all still there, just at the moment storing the more important stuff on mule alts rather than putting it at risk.

 

[Epona]

My lvl 12 character just managed a lvl 11 dark fissure solo. The thing opened up and there was another player coming up the road towards me and I thought they'd probably help (I would!) so I attacked the first wave - cowardly git just got on a horse and sprinted off leaving me to deal with it on my tod.

Managed it though, feeling quite pleased with myself atm (and maybe I'm not quite as useless as I thought )

Oh and Vintage Paw if you want to tackle that dungeon I would love to group up to do so if you have a couple of others as well that's great (I'm NB using a bow), pretty much any time over the Easter weekend is good for me, just let me know Think I might be a bit low for it as I'm only lvl 12 and I've heard they're quite hard so will try to gain a bit more xp beforehand

 

[Vintage Paw]

I made it to level 20 without really trying , and I bought my next bag upgrade so I have 90 on this character now. That'll take the pressure off a little bit. I also learned you can't research 2 traits on the same type of item at the same time. I can research 2 things at once, but I tried to research 2 different traits on pauldrons and it wouldn't let me. Grr.

I played for a few hours this evening and spent most of it talking to people via whispers or in guild chat.

Incidentally, a couple of new people joined our silly little Urban guild. I know them from flickr, husband and wife, they're lovely people - from Portugal I think (don't quote me on that though!). They are WoW vets, and feel like ESO is their new long term home. They only got the game yesterday (they'd ordered it earlier but their retailer took ages getting it to them). They have characters in EP and AD. They seem like they'd be up for doing things together, so eventually maybe we'd all be able to head off skyshard hunting and dungeon delving in Cyrodiil or something

Epona, sounds good about the dungeon. I'm NB with a bow too, so we'll need a tank and a healer. I'm sure I'll be able to find someone. If you let me know when you're free to do it we can group up and I'll start the awkward process of trying to find 2 more

Now, we have a mumble server in the reddit guild. It has different channels for different things. It has a couple of PvE group channels, and people often jump into them when they're doing a dungeon so everyone can stay coordinated. If I'm getting the other 2 from Reddithium they'll likely want to use it (unless they are members who haven't set mumble up yet). I don't know what your view on voice comms is - I've found it really useful in Cyrodiil (although my mic seems temperamental). Now, I don't know what the line is on inviting people who aren't part of the guild to use it. However, I'm reasonably certain we are allowed to invite people who aren't members of reddit to the guild if they are our friends and we vouch for them - which would of course grant you immediate access to the mumble server.

The choice is yours though. I can explain in chat that it'll be with someone outside of Reddithium so no mumble if you'd rather. I'm good either way

 

[Vintage Paw]

Very short snippet of us all piling on a massive daedra boss in Cyrodiil. Basically a raid, I suppose. It took forever to take down. There was very little strategy involved - just hit it to death in a massive spam attack.



(That's me, on the right nearest the camera in the still ^^ )

 

[Vintage Paw]

Right.

If you have any milestones you're planning or any marathons of playing on the cards for the next day or so, hold fire.

There's a rather large exploit. It's been going on for some time, apparently, but it's only just getting a lot of attention.

Item and gold duping. Using the guild bank and lag players are able to duplicate any item and amount of gold to their heart's content. It's flooding the economy, it's being sold online, etc. There's a twitch streamer streaming himself duping stacks of 100 filled grand soul gems to sell for 3k gold a stack right now (presumably to draw attention to it - which it is doing).

So, I don't know about the implications of this sort of thing. I don't know whether it's a simple "bring down the guild store function until it's fixed and ban those who did it" thing, or - as many people are suggesting should happen - a case of everything being rolled back, which is the only way to take that money and those items out of the economy (since the items are also used for crafting, they are being sold in guild stores, etc.). How far that rollback would be is anyone's guess.

Or, it could be something in between. With only accounts that are suspected to meet certain suspicious criteria to be rolled back, known dupers banned, and the rest of us trying to carry on as we were.

Anyway, nothing might happen. Something might happen. But if you have plans for investing a great deal of time in a character in the very near future I'd hold off and just do some fun exploring or mindless killing in Cyrodiil or something for a while, just in case - whether that's a slim chance or not - they do indeed rollback. Unless you don't mind the idea of redoing a bunch of stuff. I kind of don't mind that, but I'm aware I might be in the minority there.

And I'd suggest monitoring the forums for anything that might come up about it too.

Edit: I should say that since I don't have experience with this sort of thing in other games and I haven't been involved in 'the economy' in them either, it's the sort of thing that mildly irritates me because some people are cheating the system, but overall doesn't have an impact on how I experience the game. I know that's not the case for everyone, and particularly in this instance where ZOS stated that a strong player based economy was a central part of their vision, so I really have no idea how big of a deal it is, or isn't.

Because of my inexperience and my lack of personally being affected (beyond annoyance at the sense of injustice) my initial hunch is that they won't do anything other than try to patch it and let it all just die down, maybe banning those they can identify as being really naughty with it. But I really have no idea, so I posted this just to let you know it was happening, on the off chance it means some kind of rollback (of a day, a few days, whatever) in case you don't want to risk losing progress.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Guild banks have gone offline. I'll keep you posted tomorrow if I find out more, unless you do first, of course.

 

[Epona]

Blimey sometimes I really can be a bit dense about working out certain boss battle mechanics.
Just had a hell of a time with my DC character vs. Faolchu, died loads and eventually left having decided to come back later.
A few seconds with google has explained the mechanic to me


Edit: thanks for the heads up VP, saw something about this on the official forum a couple of hours ago but didn't know what the problem was because anyone saying what the problem was had their posts deleted so I didn't actually know what was going on.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

EU server is down at the moment too, according to @TESOnline on Twitter.

I'm levelling a healer on DC as well as my NB now, because I want to see what healing is like in dungeons.

 

[Epona]

This time Friday morning is part of regular scheduled maintenance on the EU server is it not?

North American Megaserver
Tuesdays at 8:00am EDT (12pm GMT)
Fridays at 8:00am EDT (12pm GMT)

European Megaserver
Tuesdays at 6:00am CEST (5:00am BST)
Fridays at 6:00am CEST (5:00am BST)

 

[Buddy Bradley]

This time Friday morning is part of regular scheduled maintenance on the EU server is it not?

No idea.

 

[Epona]

Patch notes - short and sweet, very very sweet:

Patch Notes v1.0.4
ZOS_GinaBruno Administrator, Moderator admin
April 17 edited 4:56AM in Patch Notes
DEUTSCHE PATCHNOTIZEN
NOTES DE VERSION 1.0.3


OVERVIEW

The Elder Scrolls Online v1.0.4 features fixes to existing content. This is the second patch this week, and addresses the high priority fix of missing bank slots, stored bank items, and missing skill points. We’re continuing to work hard on other issues, and will let you know when they are fixed.

FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS

Miscellaneous
General
Fixed an issue where your characters could lose bank expansions you purchased, including the items in these slots.
Note: This will not return any items or slots lost prior to this fix. If your character was affected, please contact Customer Support.
Addressed an issue with guild invites that could cause latency with social systems such as guild chat, player-to-player chat, and long loading times.

UI
General
Changed the functionality of auto-stacking in guild banks. You will now have to stack items in your inventory before placing them in the guild bank.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

Just been reading up on this duping bug on Reddit - lots of very worried people over there, talking about rollbacks, server wipes, widescale item cleanup, even alternative currencies.

It would be nice to see ESO evolve into a true sandbox game along the lines of EVE, where virtually everything is determined by the players and there's no option for the company running things to screw stuff up like this.

 

[Epona]

I am so completely paranoid about scammers at this point that I practically had a panic attack buying a motif book off someone. I got the book, the person I was buying it from got the g, I am just being completely paranoid worrying about this sort of transaction aren't I? It was done through trade in person, not using mail.

 

[Vintage Paw]

How do you trade face-to-face with someone? Is there an option for it on the F-wheel?

I really like the idea of people meeting up in person in the game to trade.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Go easy on the bank slots. Reports coming in that people are still losing them post-patch.

 

[Epona]

How do you trade face-to-face with someone? Is there an option for it on the F-wheel?

I really like the idea of people meeting up in person in the game to trade.

Yep hold F while targeting and select trade - it's a good feature. I bought the motif from someone who was using /say in a crafting area, replied, they then invited me to group so it's easier to see each other in the crowd because of the group markers, then we opened a trade window and did the trade in person (had a chat too), best thing is no fees for personal trades. Edit: only real gripe is that there's no specific chat channel for trading, so sometimes /say gets a bit clogged up around crafting stations.

Go easy on the bank slots. Reports coming in that people are still losing them post-patch.

Oh FFS! Need more bank slots! Have cash to buy them! Thanks for the warning

 

[Epona]

Actually although it's early days yet, I could imagine that eventually there will be some unofficial markets set up, go to a certain place in a city if you are looking to buy or sell goods. I am not aware of any player-designated places for this at the moment, but I could see it happening and that will be a good development. I am starting to see the potential of the trade system tbh despite being a critic during beta, as it has potential to be a very social and face to face experience.

 

[Vintage Paw]

I did a good deed today. I was right at the very end of Auridon, doing the Firsthold quests. And there's a poor lonely level 8 character wondering why they keep dying to level 15 dremora

So I helped them get through the part of the quest they were on, and we got talking. Today was their first day, and they didn't really know what they were doing. They'd abandoned Khenarthi's Roost because of that weirdness that happens with quest markers right at the beginning - they tell you to keep going in and out of Eagle's Strand. I remember that boggled me a bit when I first encountered it. They thought it was bugged so went back to Auridon, and had just been following quests there. How they made it as far as Firsthold I don't know. So I talked them through some stuff, we made friends, and they've gone back to KR. I hope I managed to make their first day a bit less stressful

 

[Epona]

Good on you I was in beta since January, and that bloody thing in Kenarthi's Roost with the quest marker pointing you out of one gate then back in it (I reported it several times) still floored me when I started new AD characters! And that is coming from someone who wanders a lot and doesn't really rely on quest markers as such, so god only knows the sort of confusion it must cause to some people being pointed one way then another. Glad you were able to help out

 

[Epona]

The duplication glitch has hit me, but not in an expected way - right before it hit the headlines I listed a motif book in one of the guild stores on the NA server, then the bottom dropped out of the market and my item is now priced way too high. To remove it from sale (or relist it at a lower price), it seems I have to pay the listings fee for the original price I put up.

I hope I am wrong about this, if not I just got burned trying to use a guild store (not through any fault of the guild). Think I might stick to private sales from now on.

 

[Epona]

While I was playing this morning, I somehow managed to turn on Windows Narrator accessibility feature - it completely freaked me out, theres suddenly a robotic voice telling me which keys I am pressing :/
Tbh it doesn't seem like it would be that great for blind folks anyway, there was a fair bit of delay between hitting a key and hearing the voice, and sometimes I couldn't really make out what it was saying anyway.
How I managed to turn it on whilst gaming is another thing entirely, and I don't quite know tbh. It did cause a bit of consternation though. Some relief though to realise it was a feature of Windows and not imaginary voice in my head - it's always a fairly good feeling to realise that.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

I listed a motif book in one of the guild stores on the NA server, then the bottom dropped out of the market and my item is now priced way too high. To remove it from sale (or relist it at a lower price), it seems I have to pay the listings fee for the original price I put up.

Clearly it's telling you that you should be donating all your motif books to your Urbanite guildmates first...

 

[Epona]

Clearly it's telling you that you should be donating all your motif books to your Urbanite guildmates first...

Aye and if I were talking about the EU server of course I would have offered them to you lot first, but if any of you are on the NA server as well you haven't told me that you're there, and I can't mail stuff from one server to the other I already gave away 3 motif books on the NA server, so don't question my generosity Rather question the fact that on NA I have found 20+ assorted motif books, and only 8 on EU.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

You're doing better than me, I've only ever found one

 

[Vintage Paw]

With that in mind, I have an orc motif if anyone needs it. It's sat in my bank gathering dust.

Can you send mail to people with attachments from your bank or does it have to be from inventory? I have a feeling it's the latter.

 

[Radar]

With that in mind, I have an orc motif if anyone needs it. It's sat in my bank gathering dust.

Can you send mail to people with attachments from your bank or does it have to be from inventory? I have a feeling it's the latter.

I'd generously free your bank slot up, I've only found one motif so far

Spoiler

@sdunne

 

[Epona]

I'd generously free your bank slot up, I've only found one motif so far

Spoiler

@sdunne

Best places to find them are in chests/trunks, dressers, and cabinets, so keep checking high class homes and manors. For example, the bank in Vukhels Guard in Auridon has a load of dressers and cabinets and will occasionally offer up a motif book if you go through all the containers every time you log on.