You can travel between wayshrines for free, you only pay to travel to one if you're not at another
You can feed horses (like levelling) to increase speed, bag space and sprint
There are hints for finding Skyshards built into the UI (Press J (opens quest journal) > Click "Achievements" Tab > Click "Skyshards" Tab > Select the zone you want to find Skyshards in > Read the hints they give you.)
If you buy the Imperial edition your horse will be available to all your characters (Launch only if from 3rd party)
The parts of the map with skull and cross-bones are veteran areas and are extremely tough without a group, even the mud-crabs are twice as deadly!
Speaking to random npc's can reveal locations on your map.
Don't rush out of the tutorial area (the prison). Loot everything you can. You will end up with some armor, weapon, dozens of lockpicks, at least 1 racial motif book and all sorts of other loot.
The Achievements tab in the Journal lists the titles of the zone-specific Lorebooks so you can refer to it to determine if you have found all of the lorebooks found only in that zone.
Monsters in Cyrodiil can drop set items which are scaled to your current level. They drop more often from "named" mobs inside of caves, also these "named" mobs drop soul gems of your current level frequently.
All caves in Cyrodill have a skyshard inside of them. (At least the ones i've been in all had one)
Explore. Most things are off the routes to quests.
There's a guild that you can join called "The Undaunted" much like the mages or fighters guild. It's usually in an Inn in your starting city.
Swimming can be deadly. You may get slaughtered if you swim in a spot you're not supposed too.
You have to discover your faction's dungeon before the dungeons of the other factions will appear on the map (ie. you have to discover Spindleclutch by traveling to it before you will see Banished Cells or Fungal Grotto).
There are places on the map and things to do that no quest is going to lead you to, so get out there and explore.
Can confirm coldhourbor has at least 1 racial motifs, most i have gotten in a single run was 3. the tutorial not the questline.
PvE in cyrodil, monsters will say level 50 but they scale to your level.
Swimming in deep water brings the wrath of the slaughterfish.
Trying to recall to a wayshrine immediately after recalling a previous time will cost several hundred gold. The amount of gold required to recall again will reduce by 1g a second.
To rez another player, the soul gem needs to match the level of the person DOING the rez, NOT the person being rezed. So, if you are level 20, you cannot rez anyone until you fill a level 20 soul gem. The level 10-19 gems will not rez a level 3 player if you are level 20 either (moderator has stated it needs to match the level of the person you're rezzing - so this needs to be checked)
If you want to pve in Cyrodiil and REALLY dislike pvp, find a empty campaign and sign in as a guest.
You can see quest status by the colour of the icon on the map. If it's white, it means you completed the quest for that area, if it's black, you haven't. It's quite easy to overlook if you don't know about it.
Go off the beaten path. Don't just go from quest to quest. Walk around a little bit, go explore. There are a ton of locations that offer books, containers, chests, world bosses, and more.
Don't ask in zone chat about where you can find a horse...go to the nearest town and check your map for the stables!
Often times when you wander from the beaten track, you might find an npc in an alcove or hidden location from plain sight. There would be no marking on the compass or merchant tag in the name/map, and only by talking to him you would understand he is a merchant. Make sure you look through his wares thoroughly, there might be some uniquely named items which start quests. I was lucky enough to find two in beta, and each rewarded a nice blue gear at the end of the quest chain.
Example: One time there was this mine entrance which was on the way to getting another quest hub. right to the left of the mine entrance i saw one of those rocky paths going up. i always check these for chests and this time right above the mine door, hidden from view from the front of the mine unless you go up that rock ramp, was a Dunmer sitting by a campfire. talking to him made me see that he has a merchant inventory. and in that inventory was a particular item called something like a "fetish figurine". i won't spoil the rest of the quest.......
Loot
Looting Barrels, Crates, Back Packs give Provisioning mats such as grain, malt, water, and recipes.
Looting Wardrobes, Nightstands, Drawers, Dressers give you lock picks, crafting racial stones, and racial motif books (used to craft in different racial style).
Boss mobs in dungeons can be killed multiple times. They spawn when a new player or group moves through the dungeon. You can assist them, and get loot. Over time the loot quality diminishes to white loot, but each boss will have a blue item that you will get as a reward. I'm not sure about the trigger on that, either total damage done or starting the fight. It is only awarded once.
Resource nodes that spawn Runes will randomize between the three types when they spawn.
Boss Mobs in dungeons will drop potions and a filled soul gem appropriate to your level. You can farm the boss for a bit to build up a supply.
In dungeons, there are chests that have loot that goes to only the person who opens the chest first (or interacts with it and opens it first, rather). Try to spot them in corners of dungeons to snag em.
You can leave items in a chest for others to take if two of you are nearing the chest and you opened it first. They can also take your chest items the split second you open it so be fast if you want it all.
Questing & levelling your skills
You can level multiple different armors at the same time by mixing up what you wear, however each one will level slower than if you have a full set of light/med/heavy
The NPC-owned towns in Cyrodiil have repeatable PVE quests
You get a big chunk of XP from completing quests, so to level up a 2nd weapon skill, switch to it before turning in a quest
You can reset your skills for gold, there are locations to do this for each faction (thought to only be in live not beta)
You can level a skill line by having an active ability slotted on the hotbar, even if you never use that ability
At the very start of the game when you have empty hotbar slots, add the Soul Trap spell to your bar. It's a reasonable dot and even if you never use it, you start to level up the Soul Magic skill line
Recommend Soul Trap from the Soul Magic skill tree as your first skill point. Get as many Soul Gems as you can afford as early as possible. They are invaluable for self-resurrection from the same spot you died, resurrecting others or charging certain weapon enchants. It is cheapest and quickest to fill empty Soul Gems by nuking 1HP criters, like rats, sheep, etc. Empty or full Soul Gems can be obtained randomly from loot drops or by buying them from the Mages Guild or some ‘mage’ vendors
You get upgrades to stamina, magicka and health at every level even if you never put points into them. So for efficiency it's a good idea to put some class skills that use magicka and weapon skills that use stamina so you can make use of both pools. At least early in the game anyway.
You only get one point to spend in one magic/health/stamina tho. The increase in pools of each are just because you are a higher level character and skills cost more of each. Its not related to how much you use each one.
Mundus stones offer buffs to your character which can be changed by visiting other stones. There is a complete set of Mundus stones for each Alliance so get exploring to find out what they do.
Also, you can boost the Mundus stone's effect on your character if you wear equipment with the relevant trait on it.
When using a Bookshelf, there is a chance of reading a book that will raise one of your skills with 1 level.
Book cases offer XP based on the book inside.
PvE quests are usually around the "miscellaneous" icons (tree icon and so forth) on the map. Completing the quests near the icon will turn it white.
Press T to cycle through your quests in the quest tracker.
If a quest fails to spawn a mob for completion, relog to fix the issue.
The more skills from the same tree you have on your active hotbar, the faster that skill tree gains XP.
Skills can be morphed once you level them up enough, to upgrade it you have to use one skillpoint.
The biggest thing players should keep in mind when starting out is that experience is tied to what's on your skillbar, so you want to try to have a skill on your skillbar from every class tree and your weapon tree while you level, and only focus on min maxxing much later in the game.
Your first three skill points should go into each of your classes' tree so they will all level up. If you don't do this one of your trees will stay at 0 until you start to invest a point there otherwise they will all level up a bit even though you never have an ability from one tree slotted.
You have to put the soul trap spell on your bar. Cast soul trap right before you kill an enemy and if you have an appropriate level soul gem it gets filled. However, After a while I was just finding both empty and full soul gems throughout the world.
Not all quest givers stay put. Many quests will have the quest giver move closer if not right to you when you complete the quest. Caused much back tracking when I wouldn't catch it.
When you run out of magicka and stamina before your opponent is even down to half health in PvP, you begin to see the wisdom in assigning every single attribute to health.
Crafting
Pick up materials and actually craft, its not super lame like every other mmo
Crafting armor and weapons is the best way in the early game to get the best stuff. Items come in five quality levels represented by five colors: white, green, blue, purple and gold. The colors signify the quality of the item in ascending order, but only for that particular level. For example, a gold level 10 item might be better than a green level 12 item.
Killing many of the level 1 mobs such as rats & spiders give fishing bait. Collecting insects like butterflies also. Fishing requires using a proper bait at the proper location. Your chances of getting a rare fish improves when more people fish at the same spot, but that can also make a fishing hole dry out faster.
You can create any of the tier1 crafted items without investing a single skill point
In order to create tier 2 of ANY of the six disciplines, you have to spend a skill point IN THAT DISCIPLINE to create tier 2 stuff. (IE to create tier 2 across all six disciples will require investing 6 skill points, one in each line.)
Eating an alchemy ingredient will reveal one of it's properties: Question asked: There are 4 four effects for each herb in alchemy, so can you learn more than first affect buy continuing to eat an ingredient or is it capped at the first ability? Answer: Capped at the first.
You can craft at a crafting station with materials stored in your bank.
You gain more crafting Exp from breaking down gear others have created than the ones you create.
You can mail excess items to an alt character. They don't count toward your bag space until the mail is opened. Unless something has changed in the last build, this one is incorrect - you cannot mail anything to your alts, only to players on another account.
You can buy glyphs to enchant your armor, weapons and jewelry cheaply. Armor glyphs are for max stamina, magicka, and health, and there are 8 with a shield.
Recipes are more reliably found in desks, cupboards, wardrobes, and other non-provisioning containers.
"Heavy Bags" contain random crafting materials, up to and including legendary tempers. These spawn like chests, and when looted they disappear.
Remember that there are "Set" Armor crafting stations. Try to research the traits needed for these if you want a set. It will take 18 hours of research per piece if those are the only two traits you unlock.
All stations have the same research options, but Set stations will allow you to craft Set bonus items if you have the 2 required traits for each set researched on the armor pieces you want to make.
Plan on crafting gear every 2 levels in the early leveling stages. That way you'll always have best gear available for the most part, and never run around gear-less. Weap upgrades every 2 levels is huge too for damage output.
You can only have 1 provisioning effect on at a time.
Breakdown and extract all loot you don't plan to use. You'll get tempers, trait gems, racial materials, and the processed resources sell for more than the item.
In some/most cases you CAN recharge your weapon using a level appropriate soul gem. HOWEVER, soul gems are expensive. If you have some weapon runes, they will just replace the depleted charge with a new effect and not cost you a soul gem.
If you are crafting your own medium armor, level up with light armor and save your leather pieces for actual armor, the only way to get the sub-component is through dis-assembly or drops off of animals.
Bank all gear with researchable traits and the trait stones. Constant uptime on your research is the optimal way to go.
Start your 12 hour research right before logging at night if you can time it right.
Begin crafting early. You can make much better gear than the overpriced junk offered by shops
Deconstruct everything when first starting out. You can sell unwanted materials for much more than early-game gear.
You enchant by right clicking an item in your inventory... I can't be the only one who was scratching their heads at the enchanting table...
Enchants are applied to items directly.
10 minutes running along the coast instagibbing mudcrabs gave me more rawhide than I knew what to do with.
Btw the best way to level is to wait to 50 and extract level 50/veteran gear (doesn't mean don't do it before - just good to know)
You have several options for selling crafted items: 1. Through mail, you send the item you want to sell with a COD ( cash on delivery) attached. Easy, fast and the worst possible way for trade. Since each mail you send takes about 10% of the total value (10% of the item value and 10% from the cod) 2. Guildstore, not sure if guilds can make it so that they recieve a percentage of the profit..i personally never tried this. 3. Trading in person. The most easiest way of selling stuff without any loss of profit. Make sure they give you the right amount of gold though. I prefer this since i will not lose any profit.
For researching traits to put on a bow, you need to research a bow with the trait you want (not e.g. a staff)
Each trait you research of one item ( a bow for example) takes longer then the last. It starts a 6 hours ( i think), next one is 12 hours etc.
You can research one trait at a time for each crafting skill, which means that you can research multiple things at once as long as they aren't from the same crafting line.
To make ingots of a certain type of metal you extract the ore material, there is no smelting in ESO - needs 10 ore to make some ingots.
The edges of rivers and lakes spawn water solvent nodes needed for alchemy. Water solvent can also be found in waterskins near camps.
Roll your main but if you tend to insist on more than 2 crafts; roll an alt bankbot right away. Don’t spend too much money on bag/bank expansions for at least a few weeks. Not all crafting is created equal and provisioning will require more space than blacksmithing, woodworking, or tailoring. When you are rich and have less inventory issues, you can always delete that bankbot to make space for legitimate alts. The bankbot will use their own inventory (not their bank as that is shared) as a temporary bank.
If you are not adverse to external websites, get crafting guides. It doesn’t do you much good hanging on to a tier one crafting item if you are doing level 30 type stuff. Currently there are no tooltips that guide you adequately. For instance; I used thin broth a lot starting out. 3 weeks later while struggling to find bank space (yet again) I discovered a stack of 96 of them that I did not even realize I had stopped using a few weeks before.
Crafters: spending skill points on the right things at the right times is more challenging to you than a non-crafter. The two specs in most craft lines that should be considered for investing in very soon after rolling is your companion (they often send better items than what you can acquire easily in the world) and the “Keen Eye” skill (It really does help a lot)
General Gameplay & gear / skill use (PVE or PVP)
The easy way to interrupt is to click and hold the right mouse button, then click the left mouse button. If you interrupt the target, using heavy attack while the target is disoriented will knock the target down. Pay attention to the effect your abilities have on different types of monsters. Some powerful creatures are immune to certain effects, while whole groups of monsters might be resistant to others.
There are only 3 jewelry slots, and those cover regen, resistance, and other modifier buffs. Plan accordingly!
Any merchant can repair your gear (but it may be better to replace - see crafting)
You have to buy your IE horse at a stable for 100g (at any stable) Your vanity pet is in a mail you will receive.
Weapons with a glyph enchantment to do additional elemental (fire, frost, disease, etc.) damage use soulstones to recharge. Item traits enhance the damage of enchantments or the time between recharging.
Increasing your critical hit chance will also increase your critical healing chance, i.e. healing for far more than normal. You can’t heal crit on HoTs via the restoration staff (or other Heals Over Time). True healing spells (ie ones that heal flat damage) can crit via the Templar Restoring Light line (though perhaps even the DK’s self heal “Dragon Blood” might crit as well.)
By pressing L and R mouse buttons at the same time you can snap out of disorient and off-balance effects for 30% stamina cost.
Spiders feed off corpses to heal themselves, interrupt them by clicking both mouse buttons at the same time.
Intimidation and persuasion are passive skills from the fighter and mage guilds skill line
Keep a weapon in your inventory for a ranged attack if you are melee. Either a staff or a bow. If you're having trouble defeating a mob (like Gutsripper) you can kite it.
If you choose a DPS melee class, you're going to need multiple anti-kiting tools such as snare, teleport, fiery chain, stealth. Bow users have a lot of options to snare, knockdown, kite and put out extreme damage - a lot will be naive enough to spec for maximum damage, because there are even more naive players who will feed their XPs by not being kite-ready.
You need 10 accounts in a guild to unlock the guild bank with 1k spaces
To quickly and easily fill petty soul gems kill critters. Soul tap does all the work.
The sneak mechanic - If you use sneak before entering combat with a bow and charge up a full attack, you will 100% crit with it unless you are seen. This also applies to weapon skills. You can charge a bow attack and immediately cast a weapon skill to crit on both attacks. It helps a lot when soloing content.
The more points you have in stamina, the more damage your stamina skills will do. The more points you have in magicka, the more damage your class and magick skills will do.
You can move while using a skill with cast time on it - you don't have to stand still for it. It slows you down a bit while moving but don't worry about stopping and being rooted. This was in the Nightblade line. Maybe not all classes react this way but for sure I overlooked being able to move when using them because in other games you usually had to be stable. There are a few games that let you cast while moving but it's far from all games.You can't sprint and use abilities at the same time.
You can drop items into the bank and it will auto stack them. You can split the stacks when you remove them from the bank.
When you unlock weapon-swapping at level 15, you can decide to place the same type of weapon in both slots but select different abilities for your ability bar.
PVP
You need to complete the 'welcome to cyrodiil' quest first before the boards become active (update - you can skip training by speaking to npc to gain access to quests.)
You can get PVP quests in Cyrodiil by visiting the notice boards e.g kill enemy players, scout area, attack keep etc.
Soul-stones can be used to revive ally players and yourself (note you can't revive yourself in the Alliance War).
Third person view is usually the most effective in AvA (PVP)
If you plan to AvA, then PvE like you would AvA.
AvA melee targeting is difficult, because your opponent is going to be running around like a rabbit. Most in the Beta used ranged weapons due to this difficulty. Therefore you must master CC if you wish to melee in AvA.
Know when to run in AvA. If you get in sprint range, expect to respawn. Try not to stream singly into a fast moving zerg.
When entering a contested keep, sneak when going through a postern and door. You don't know what's on the other side.
Oil can be poured on the floor the pot is sitting on, causing an aoe hit to anyone in the damage radius.
Use ballistas on the walls to defend, trebs on the ground to attack.
Keep a seige shield up on the ram when it's on the door. It'll batter through before oil kills it and the drivers.
Set items drop in Cyrodiil that are scaled to your level that are different from the crafted sets.
Expect stealthed opponents when you follow the standard reinforcement line to a fight. Going out of your way a little bit might get you there in one piece.
Alternately, run magelight and bring a friend, and hunt the hunters.
When casting magelight, it stays visible even when you are sneaking.
Pets do not stealth with you
The wayshrines to get out of Cyrodiil are at the gates.
Some AvA quests ala capturing a scroll do not have to be completed by you personally just your faction. So if you see a scroll moving head to the board and cycle through them all till you get the one for that scroll.
You can pick up a deployed siege engine after you deploy it by pressing 'x'.
Always carry around a stone treb to break down walls and doors quickly. Always carry a fire ballista for "other targets".
As you get points you will receive mails from your alliance with level appropriate greens on them. Easy way to quickly gear up if you complete AvA quests.
All classes can stealth by crouching.
Siege weapons must be put in quickslot to be used
Use the WAYSHRINES to leave Cyridiil, not the Transite shrines.
Equip your siege weapons in your quick slots to use them, same as your repair kits.
Trebuchets are best for damage to walls
Ballistae for damage to siege weapons
Catapults for damage to enemy players
Healing damage caused by enemy players in AvA will award Alliance points and XP.
Have a separate moveset (skills)t for PVP. The best strategies against NPCs (unload all of your highest damaging skills in a row) don't work on players who do more than rush in for melee hits. Moves that immobilize, negate skills, or prevent damage are so much more useful.
Dont be afraid to spend Alliance Points in PVP, your total accumulated number will not decrease. So you dont have to worry about dropping in the leader boards if you want to buy equipment.
Don't pick a home campaign early on the first night of the beta. Wait and make sure you're not in a 10:1 odds fight before committing.
You get gear when you pvp, it is basically the same as pve gear, you can also buy gear in the pvp area, that is basically the same as pve gear, there are a few set bonuses that give bonuses to pvp (have to have the set of 3 ot 5 pieces), i've seen one that gave 5% extra damage against players, not sure what else is out there, its not a trait that you can research and put on every piece of gear.
UI
You can go into interface settings and turn of glow, action bar, and quest tracker and health bars to make it more like a TES game. This really makes it feel more like skyrim.
You can type /fps in the chat to see your frames per second.
You can also turn on autoloot and AE loot in the options.
Under settings there is an option to hide your helmet
Check your keybinds; Some keybinds are unbound by default, such as Toggle UI.
When you find a lore book, it doesn't go to your inventory. You can find it on the "Lore Library" tab of your journal (it is the second tab, next to "Quests").
Press and hold Q to open quickslots for potions
You can set a keybinding to toggle the entire UI on or off quickly, including the compass and chat window. When combined with turn off the glowing outlines it made for a bit more immersive playing experience.
Try right clicking in the game in places, often there are menus.
IIRC - you use P for party to leave a group.
You can adjust the millisecond timing of your dodge when you double-top WASD keys in settings to suit how fast you press keys.
You can see buffs on you at the bottom of the character screen C key by default. I did not notice this and would often check it when someone ran past me and gave me a buff to see what it said. I used that to see which heals worked on myself and not just a group so that I could plan my bar better. There is a heal that says it heals players in front of you but it heals you too when alone, you don't have to try to get ahead of yourself (if that's even possible).
If you plan on joining multiple guilds, you can color the chat of each different by using right click on the chat tabs. There are lots of other settings there including creating tabs. By default all 3 guilds I joined were the same color text.
If you want to walk you can, but it is not mapped. You have to go to the options and pick a key for it.
Use 'V' or mouse wheel, to go between 1st and 3rd person.
You can select dialog options with the number keys (1 = first option, 2 = second etc).
Some commands that people might find useful
/bug = report bugs
/feedback = report feedback
/p = party chat
/z = zone chat
/s = say
/t or /w = tell or whisper chat (same thing, just different commands)
/g1 - /g5 = guild chat, since one can be in 5 guild at a time thus g1 = guild, g2 = guild 2 .. g5 =guild 5
/emote_command = the different emotes one can do, one have to use web site to find the commands, just the way one inputs the command.
/played = total time played
/reloadui = reset the UI if one gets trap in the interface after crafting or talking to a NPC
/stuck (/unstuck?) = it kills your char and sends you to the nearest wayshrine -- used for the reason as /reloadui
You can hit the "." (period) key to show the cursor. Handy for chat.
Q (hold) – Open quickslot radial menu
Q (press) – Use selected slotted quickslot item
Left Mouse Button – Attack with equipped weapon. Tap to execute a light attack, hold down for a heavy attack
Right Mouse Button – Block
Right Mouse Button + Left Mouse Button – Perform a bash, interrupting some enemy attacks
Hold Right Mouse Button + Click Left Mouse Button – Break crowd control effects
/jumptofriend - The slash command to jump to the wayshrine/graveyard closest to a named friend.
/jumptogroupmember - The slash command to jump to the wayshrine/graveyard closest to a named group member.
/jumptoguildmember - The slash command to jump to the wayshrine/graveyard closest to a named guild member.
/jumptoleader - The slash command to jump to the wayshrine/graveyard closest to the group leader.
/yell or /y - The slash command to set the current chat channel to Yell. The following text will be sent to all players in your local vicinity, wider ranging than /say but not zone wide. Followed by a space, and then the text to send.
/chatlog - The slash command to toggle chat logging on or off.
/invite - The slash command to invite another player to your group. Followed by a space, and then the group-invite-target's name. (Account name can be used with an @ symbol before the full name.)
/fps - The slash command to toggle the display of current framerate.
One more way to exit the interface if one gets stuck in a NPC dialog or crafting -- just click on the mail icon and will let one exit
/help = help screen (another way for feedback, bug reports or a wiki)
I never really got into MMO's but as Ive got older i feel compelled to play.
