Lol, uh oh.

Last time I had to bring a friend to ride shotgun while I plucked up the nodes, lol.

Craglorn’s difficulty is deceptive to this one. You can move around there without getting into serious trouble, but Mira got absolutely destroyed doing some of the Stargazer quests. Granted she may or may not have been under lvl50 at the time. Can’t remember.

I have a dumb question: how does one get a bow? They never seem to drop from archer enemies, so do you have to make your own? Fleur at least wants to try using one before the free period is over.

Edit: I went browsing UESP and found that there are bows in sets, but not very many, and they seem to be unique rewards for specific quests. She might try and do one of those.

So did you do the intro? Where did that take place? Well in anycase, there is usually a personalized urn or waterlogged box in your inventory that you can open and they usually have a bow in them. Also, you can always craft a bow in your race’s style at a woodworking workstation, this usually doesn’t require a whole lot of materials and wood is very plentiful lying around in the world if you don’t have enough. You can also pick them up from the environment. Sometimes you’ll see weapon racks with takeable weapons on them and sometimes they will have bows.

I can make you a bow and send it to you; but they are usually pretty easy to find at your level. If you can go into that dungeon just to the left outside the Daggerfall gate (don't even cross the bridge, just jump into that river to the left and swim to that tower; go down that hatch inside the tower. Fight your way around and you will find many weapon racks, several should have bows on them; and sometimes you might find one on top of a crate near a fire or near the weapons racks.

I may have it wrong, but it seems that the bow skills don't value accuracy. There are a number of things like "scatter shot" and "volley" that assume the archer can't hit anything, and needs to blast at an entire area to hit anything. I may not bother going that way.

On the other hand, Fleur using one- and two-handed weapons has no ranged attack, so she can't yet draw an individual enemy away from a group, and must rush in and take them all on at once. The AoE bow skills would be a negative for that kind of use. It may be that she needs to learn ranged spells to take advantage of the DragonNight class instead (and all in only two more days free play).

And of course, I'm playing a Solo character at the moment, so Fleur has to be Tank, DPS, and Healer all at once. Blossom may get to choose a single path.

Yeah Khajiit is not particularly fond of how bows work in ESO. Feng carries one but really only uses it to hunt weak animals with, lol

Bows are hard to work with and be effective as your only weapon. Hard to stay alive and requires quite a bit of research & application to survive and be marginally effective.

That said, Buffy the Butterfly is a bow/bow sorceress and, just today, soloed a dark anchor. That was tough and took a long time.

When she goes out as a healing templar or storm sorceress the same feat is not big deal.

Free trial weekend(!) ends today, so I may or may not get some last hours of play this evening. Fleur did a bit of tourist travel yesterday (Auridon, Grahtwood, Stonefalls, ...) and then went back to the main quest where she's now in Coldharbour running around like a headless chicken trying to figure out what she can achieve in the last day. She probably won't have to choose between the three, as the trial will be over first.

Didn't really get to try anything but Heavy Armour/Big Axe, as each style would take to long to build up skills. And playing solo, you have to be both tank and DPS (with no time to heal). Can't afford to try mounts, pets etc. because not enough Crowns; or Writs, Trait Research, etc. because not enough time. There's a huge amount of the game left to try, and no time to do it. Some of it, I deliberately chose to ignore, like co-op play, some of it was just out of reach.

But it all worked well, even on the surround video. A few delays connecting, (especially at the start, where it took some time to discover what ports it needed), but considering that a free trial probably causes a peak in server load, it wasn't bad.

Sounds good, ghastley. I can easily see how a weekend with this truly massive game could lead simply to frustration by overwhelming a new player. I'm glad you seem to be coming away with a glimpse of the depth of what is there. I've got the mechanics down pretty well after a year but the actual content is so sweeping that before you could ever get through it, you would forget the early stuff you did and it would be all fresh again.

As I'm sure you know, you can make multiple characters if you like. Each does their own questing, research, personal inventory pack (with any upgrades), horse training.

Multiple characters share champion points (which accrue after level 50), cosmetic items (like costumes, mounts, pets and crown store hairstyles/headbands/earrings), 'momentos', items that are 'bound' to your account, homes, bank space and membership in any player guilds you might choose to join.

If I were to decide to purchase, I'd be confused by the options. Especially the bundling of some DLC in ESO plus, which makes the subscription versus pay-as-you-go choice for getting Crowns more complex. And then there's Morrowind, and that bundle complicates it further.

What did everyone else get? And would you do it the same way now?

I got ESO + and am happy with it. Only add on I had to buy was MW since it considered an 'expansion' instead of DLC. The crafting bag is brilliant and would hate to play without it. The base game lets you dye armor but ESO+ lets you dye costumes and that is very important to small fashion-conscious elves. Other bennies include more pack and house slots and 'free' crowns and a few others.

Here's what I think it boils down to since ESO+ is not expensive. If you play the game a lot then ESO+ is a very good deal. If ESO is one of many games you have and you only play it a few hours a month then ESO+ is probably not a great deal. Since I only play one game at a time (for years) then move on to another, the ESO+ is a no brainer for me.

What I did was got the basic game and played it for a week or two to help me decide. By that time the game impressed me enough that I got ESO+ and remain happy with it.

When I bought my base game I got the Imperial Edition so that I could play an Imperial, which I haven’t actually done yet. Then I added the Adventurer Pack for race/Alliance flexibility. When Morrowind came out I bought the upgrade, and I’ve subscribed to ESO Plus always. I’m still happy with these choices, and they’re all still available in one way or another.

If I was buying the game today, I’d get the base game with Morrowind, then in-game I’d add the Adventurer Pack upgrade (so I could play any race in any Alliance) and the Imperial Upgrade (for the Imperial race option and the pretty white horse). I’d subscribe to ESO Plus for the reasons Acadian covered. You can add the Adventure Pack and the Imperial Upgrade at any time, not just with the initial purchase.

Same, but I'm getting there even if I won't have the hair I wanted for that character.

==

Anyways, more to the point. I bought the upgrades little by little as I decided I was going to stick with the game in the long run. Looking back, I almost wish I had subscribed instead, but then what made ESO+ worth it (unlimited crafting material storage, costume dyeing, doubled bank space) didn't come until the next year or so after I got an account.

If it were me, I'd do what Grits said. Aside from adding a full zone, Morrowind adds a special PvP mode and an entire class to the game. The Crowns you get from subscribing can also be used to "permanently" add the DLC you want to the game so that you can play them should you ever cancel your subscription for whatever reason.

Khajiit got the “Gold Edition” which was on sale during a steam sale for like 20 something bucks (the regular edition was like 10 or 15). This included the base game, Imperial City, Orsinium, Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood DLCs, as well as a pretty horse to ride around on! This one then almost immediately subscribed to ESO+ and got the Imperial upgrade which allows you to create Imperial/Cyrod characters and also gives you another pretty horse.

Pretty horses do not sway my choice. A bear might!

They have bear mounts in the Crown Store! Sadly none come with an edition of the game though.

And no Snow Bear right now, I looked. Only a brown Cave Bear.

I can just hope they'll bring those back in the new year.

Yeah, Khajiit saw the snow bear when it was available and it was pretty cool (no pun intended)

I bought the Imperial Edition game a few years ago; but a lot of people bought the base game and then the Imperial Upgrade and got the same thing I did.

I pay for the ESO Plus membership every 6 months; which gives me 9000 Crowns to spend every time it renews. With ESO plus you have free access to all the DLC; so I can play each and decide if I want to buy it or not. What I have been doing is playing each for one year; and on its anniversary they usually mark them down to at least half price = then buy them if I want them.

So far I have gone ahead and purchased Orsinium; Dark Brotherhood; Thieves Guild; Imperial City; and plan to buy Clockwork City when it goes on sale for its anniversary.

I don't have any plans to buy Shadows of the Hist or Horns of the Reach because both of those are just hard mode Veteran dungeons for groups only; neither offer any skyshards and only one skill point per dungeon = not worth the cost of the DLC.

When the Morrowind expansion came out; I bought it right away since it would not be free with the Plus membership = not sorry at all, I love it!

I would absolutely do it the same way. The Plus membership is WELL worth it for all you get; and it gives you the opportunity to test run all the DLC to determine if you even want them before spending money on them.

Of course, I didn't need to buy any of the DLC; but I did want to own it just in case I ever dropped my Plus membership or couldn't pay it anymore; and this way I was able to choose when I bought = and in waiting for the sales I ended up owning them for half price or better. (Orsinium was 75% off the regular price on its anniversary both years since its release).

ESO almost always marks DLC down to half price on their anniversary; and a couple times a year they have Crown store sales where you can get Crowns for very low prices. Always worth waiting for those sales and then buying a bunch of Crowns up in advance to spend throughout the year.






Yes, they almost always have a bear mount available; and you can usually buy matching cubs that roll around at your feet and play with butterflies (with Crowns). I love the cubs!

The other thing I need to research before committing myself is how close I can get to this.

Bear: check - but the white one may have to come along later
Blond Nord: check
Separate cuirass and greaves: almost - looks like some lower body bits get included in top.
Wield weapon while mounted: check
Eyepatch: check
Bastard sword with shield: ??? (but couldn't do that in Oblivion or Skyrim, either)

You can get pretty close to that. The biggest problem you are going to have is no mounted combat so your sword will be on your hip and your shield will be on your back while riding. There are some one handed swords that have longer hilts that would accommodate two handed use (Breton style swords come to mind immediately). Tassets (hip flappers) are indeed included in the upper body part of the armor (for some reason; probably to avoid clipping issues), the leg armor for most styles is little more that a pair of pants.

There are wonderful costumes you can wear to hide your armor. That permits loads of appearance options without impact to the actual armor you may be wearing underneath.

The mounted combat was out in Oblivion too. Realistically, the rider wants to get off, to let the bear fight, so I don't consider that a negative. However, Oblivion also hid the weapon while mounted, which was kind of silly. In both the single-player games, I had to add the bear mounts myself, and in Oblivion, I could only get it to work when galloping. The walk animation had weird glitches that made it unusable.

Khajiit added some to the post you quoted. May want to take another look.

Sword and shield is a check; but I don't think mounted combat is. The second combat starts; your mount usually runs to safety (leaving you there to fight alone!) You can get your mount to take a few hits by building up their stamina; but the second you pull out your weapon that bear/horse/etc is going to head for the hills. It literally rears up and dumps your butt on the ground (like a real horse would, lol).

On the outfit = you can wear the lowest level Bosmer cuirass for that top; just dye it the color you want. For the bottoms go pantsless and you'll have your bikini bottom.

A friend of mine said they are coming out with a bikini costume in the near future; I plan to get it if they do.

Here is an image of the lowest level Bosmer Cuirass (those shorts are the lowest level Argonian guards = both bottom and top are medium armor). Just because I liked them in the natural color they come in; I didn't dye them at all. You can make them closer to that silver color in the screenshot by dying)


https://i.imgur.com/a5huTii.png


Oh, and you can do this top without those pointy shoulder pieces, those are her (armor) arm cops; just don't equip any arm cops for more of a sexy "top" look.


** Using the panties as your bottoms instead of armor: Here is my Aldmeri girl "Pantsless Calia" showing off how she played the game without any armor from the chest down:


https://i.imgur.com/c97LJV9.png



She actually started a fad going around Auridon that way; for a while there I was seeing people playing pantsless everywhere;

The problem is going to be when he gets into the 4th tier when the gear drastically changes appearance. As far as Khajiit has seen, there aren’t many middrift bearing armors, Mazzatun being the most notable. Definitely no “metal bikini’s”, lol

Well, they DO have the metal bra; but it comes with its own bottom that can't be separated:



https://i.imgur.com/o3JVKBC.png


https://i.imgur.com/xWZIrXi.png



Here is "Pantsless" Calia wearing pants for a change; but going topless to dance on stage with Buffy...



https://i.imgur.com/uHUd8FR.png

The Dark Seducer armor might work for him. It’s so... Daedric, though, lol

Ghastley Loves Daedric style! Dig through pictures of his mods some time!!!

Ooh! Khajiit forgot about Draugr medium style! It would be almost perfect.

The basic rule I set myself in the Bear Rider lore was that the bears don't like armour next to their fur. Bare midriff is not a requirement, just fallout from style. So even steel plate panties were out, but cloth pants would actually be OK. Just don't pluck the fur, by catching in chain, or between plates.

The "weapons while mounted" was more about Oblivion actually hiding any equipped weapons, and not necessarily being able to wave them.

Well Khajiit has no doubt you can create a character you will be fairly happy with. Start with getting the Cave Bear (since it’s always available) until they release the Snow Bear in the Crown Store, and maybe go with the Bosmer medium cuirass to start with. Breton sword, maybe a Redguard shield. Rest of the armor should probably be Nord. Khajiit will be happy to make you starting gear (as this one is sure others here would be happy to do too) in a set so you’ll be better off than using found gear.

Can you give another player furnishings? For instance, this one got a Khajiit style lantern in a New Life box but knows it would look good in one of you folks’ Khajiit style home.

I don't know about the stuff from the gift boxes; see if it says "Bound" on it on the upper right corner. I know anything from the Crown store and Achievement furnishings are all bound; but don't know about stuff like rewards unless it specifically says it is bound.

If it says bound in the upper right corner of its description, then no. If it does not say bound, then yes.

Edit: Oops, slower than mALX.

Ok I’ll have to check it later.

So for the purposes of the Master-at-Arms perk in the Atronach Constellation of the champion menu, what counts as “direct damage attack”?

I don't know - except to appreciate that such things are almost never 'simple' in ESO. I'm sure I've seen this question asked on the official forums before but don't recall the details and couldn't quickly find a thread on it.

Though the gazillions of posters on the official forums can sometimes often be less than gracious there is a ton of really smart folks there and some of them likely know. I'd ask over there.

Ok thanks

I was just told this the other day and can't remember exactly what they said; but I am pretty sure it is any damage you do directly with your weapons or spells that hits on impact = No Area of Effects; no Damage over Time; etc. But better to look it up somewhere than trust my memory.

That said; everyone whose builds and advice I follow online has advised sinking points into Master-at-Arms. Even my Tank has 26 in it; while my two DPS have 56 in it.

Here is what I found on the official site about it (but written by a member, not Zos) =

Ok cool, thanks. That’s what this one was thinking but just wanted to be sure before putting points into it.

Having just started, I'm finding this thread very useful. I didn't know the "Don't show helmets" option even existed, so Unna's been deconstructing all she gets. I'll have to look for a "hide pants" setting, too. I believe there are options for mount equipment, so there's hope!

Yeah Khajiit doesn’t think there is a setting to hide pants (though really an option to hide all pieces of armor would be nice, or perhaps an “Emperor’s New Clothes” motif). On mount equipment, you get leg armor when your riding “speed” training reaches 20, a head armor when “stamina” reaches 20, and saddle packs when your riding skill in “carry weight” reaches 20. To train these things talk to stable masters at any stable and pay the gold. You can only train one point in one riding skill per 24 hr period

Yes, I know about the additions relating to riding skill, but I also read that if you don't want them showing, they can be turned off. Unna would like bridle-only, if she can.

She's also concerned that styles change with blacksmithing levels. Once she's found "the right look" she wants to upgrade it to awesome without making it look different. Maybe I should suggest the option to freeze an equipment combo as a DIY "costume" to ZoS. Then you can wear one set and have it look like another.

Oh yes, you can definitely hide it all if you want. That said, bears look badass when they are geared up!

You can hide all three horse upgrades but the mount will still have its 'out of the box' bridle and saddle. Can't show bareback - which is too bad, considering the ghastley bear-rider lore considerations.

Like the disappearing shirt you made for Eyja in Oblivion? I just had my Calia go around without any pants on for her first 20 levels or so; lol.

Similarly, Mira ran around without a cuirass for a little bit.