Comprehensive list of limitations without DLC/ESO+?

[peterspam]

I have just started playing ESO and do not intend to spend more money on it than the game purchase price. That means no DLC's, no ESO+, microtransactions, etc.

I would like your advice on whether there is a list somewhere showing the items/activities/areas I will not be able to play. I will start my own here, please feel free to add or direct me to other sources.
Also, is there a way in the settings to switch off everything that I cannot access anyway? e.g. all areas that are DLC only?

An example is jewelry: I can wear jewelry, I can sell it, I can mine for pewter dust, but when I want to do anything with jewelry, it turns out that I cannot operate a jewelry workstation, as it mentions I need to have "Summerset". Summerset is in my menu, but it does not mention that it is behind a DLC, so access denied. So finally I find forum discussions where first someone says that you can use the jewelry workstation irrespective, just to be corrected by others that that is not the case. Add to that all the changes in game mechanics through the years and chaos ensues.
I spent some time mining during the first 20 hours, managing the limited inventory, just to find out it makes zero sense to mine for something that I will not be able to use in future.

How many more of such things are in the game? I would hate to bump into something I have been leveling or focussing on, just to find out that without a DLC or ESO+ I will suddenly hit a brick wall after hunderds of hours.

So my limited list so far of things that with the base game lose their purpose without ESO+/DLCs:
- jewelry materials: you can use jewelry but cannot deconstruct, improve, enchant or create.
- Mining for jewelry materials: since the jewelry workstation is off limits, mining for pewter dust is purely for the neglectible sales value of the raw material.
- Limitation in the number of skyshards in areas you cannot visit.
- Half of the guilds: Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Psijic Order. As these can only be joined by accessing areas that are behind a paywall.
- The skill perks of these three guilds, for example skills relating to thieving, haggling, stealth, assassination, etc. Pretty much makes creating a thief irrelevant, which makes the choice for a Kaijit for example much less attractive, which would have has some strong perks in the thieving skill tree.

[peterspam]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Acpolax:

You can read it here if you want: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/65367
there is the same news post in Steam but I am not able to link that.

Yeah they have a tent outside of the major cities the tent stays there but the event merchant leaves when there is no event.

Many thanks!

[bean]

your last post about the underlying mechanics is spot-on but it should be noted that the same is present in all games in this ( & certain other) genres.

[L]

Dude game will end early for you if you want to PvE. ENd game is all about clearing veteran dungeons and trials. Base game dungeons and trial are extremely easy due to power creep.

If you want to play PvP, just dont. Developers borderline abandoned it. Play something else.

[peterspam]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Acpolax:

You can buy them in crown store alongside two other DLCs released in year one
in a pack called "guilds and glory" This is highly recommended but I would advise to wait for the upcoming event starting on january 18. its going to be all about year one DLCs
and most likely this DLC pack will go on sale during the event or maybe they even do a ESO+ free week or something like that.

Thanks again, indeed it seems the discount of 50% is now on for 10 more days or so.
I must say I am tempted to purchase it, as I checked and such discounts may take another year or so before they appear for a specific package.
On the other hand, I checked the Tamriel map, quite a lot of zones are behind paywall, so if I add these 3 (or 4, if we count the Imperial city, though if I understand correctly that is pure PvP), that would expand the explorable map above the base game by only about 10%. At a price double that of the base game, discounts taken into consideration.
So I wonder if it is worth it, for the new option of being able to add Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood.
What is your experience, how much playtime do these add to the base game? I mean both additional quests, maps to be explored and a possible playthrough with added characters from these two guilds.
Mind you, I play PvE.

[Ghoul Hunter]

You're being fed a lot of misinformation here.

I'm a top 50 world leaderboard guy in the Endless Archive, and none of the DLC stuff matters. I'm using 2 base game sets, and base game skills, with a base game class. So, you're not as limited as you think. A lot of the P2W is imaginary, and people simply believe in it, because they choose to. I've only done 20 runs in my life, too, so I'm not a no-lifer. I could rank a lot higher, if I had some great luck, I'm sure.

I do have jewelry and an Oakensoul Ring (a legendary item), which are not base game. You can snipe these things during a free eso+ event. During said event, you can access the entire game, except for the latest chapter. These events happen 2-3 times a year.

You'll have a week to level up excavation and then hunt down the pieces of the legendary item of your choice. Very doable, if you open up a wiki.

Another topic: Crafting Bag.

You don't need the crafting bag to do crafting. Here's what you need to craft:

Material x200 per slot. 1000 material = 5 slots
Green Upgrade material = 1 slot
Blue upgrade material = 1 slot
Purple upgrade material = 1 slot
Gold upgrade material = 1 slot
Style material of your choice = 1 slot
Trait material = You might realistically only care about 8 of these, so we'll say 8 slots.

So, with 10 + 8 slots for the trait materials, you can create gold items, the best in the game.

Now, there is the jewelry station, the forge, the clothing station (counts twice), and the wood station.

10 slots x 5 stations + 8 trait materials = 58 slots.

You're bank has a max capacity of 200. 58/200 slots dedicated to late game crafting. You absolutely do not need the crafting bag. If someone thinks they need the crafting bag, then they are picking up every single style material they can and hoarding it. There are hundreds of style materials. You don't need them, because they only affect your cosmetic.

[mimizukari]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Ghoul Hunter:

You're being fed a lot of misinformation here.

I'm a top 50 world leaderboard guy in the Endless Archive, and none of the DLC stuff matters. I'm using 2 base game sets, and base game skills, with a base game class. So, you're not as limited as you think. A lot of the P2W is imaginary, and people simply believe in it, because they choose to. I've only done 20 runs in my life, too, so I'm not a no-lifer. I could rank a lot higher, if I had some great luck, I'm sure.

I do have jewelry and an Oakensoul Ring (a legendary item), which are not base game. You can snipe these things during a free eso+ event. During said event, you can access the entire game, except for the latest chapter. These events happen 2-3 times a year.

You'll have a week to level up excavation and then hunt down the pieces of the legendary item of your choice. Very doable, if you open up a wiki.

Mythic item. Legendary items are different. Legendary is a tier of gear where it has golden/yellow name. Mythic is orange.

[L]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Ghoul Hunter:

You're being fed a lot of misinformation here.

I'm a top 50 world leaderboard guy in the Endless Archive, and none of the DLC stuff matters. I'm using 2 base game sets, and base game skills, with a base game class. So, you're not as limited as you think. A lot of the P2W is imaginary, and people simply believe in it, because they choose to. I've only done 20 runs in my life, too, so I'm not a no-lifer. I could rank a lot higher, if I had some great luck, I'm sure.

I do have jewelry and an Oakensoul Ring (a legendary item), which are not base game. You can snipe these things during a free eso+ event. During said event, you can access the entire game, except for the latest chapter. These events happen 2-3 times a year.

I wonder if you enjoy any veteran dungeon or trial you can access? Those were fun back then but due to powercreep they feel like normal mode imo.

[peterspam]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Ghoul Hunter:

You're being fed a lot of misinformation here.

I'm a top 50 world leaderboard guy in the Endless Archive, and none of the DLC stuff matters. I'm using 2 base game sets, and base game skills, with a base game class. So, you're not as limited as you think. A lot of the P2W is imaginary, and people simply believe in it, because they choose to. I've only done 20 runs in my life, too, so I'm not a no-lifer. I could rank a lot higher, if I had some great luck, I'm sure.

I do have jewelry and an Oakensoul Ring (a legendary item), which are not base game. You can snipe these things during a free eso+ event. During said event, you can access the entire game, except for the latest chapter. These events happen 2-3 times a year.

You'll have a week to level up excavation and then hunt down the pieces of the legendary item of your choice. Very doable, if you open up a wiki.

Another topic: Crafting Bag.

You don't need the crafting bag to do crafting. Here's what you need to craft:

Material x200 per slot. 1000 material = 5 slots
Green Upgrade material = 1 slot
Blue upgrade material = 1 slot
Purple upgrade material = 1 slot
Gold upgrade material = 1 slot
Style material of your choice = 1 slot
Trait material = You might realistically only care about 8 of these, so we'll say 8 slots.

So, with 10 + 8 slots for the trait materials, you can create gold items, the best in the game.

Now, there is the jewelry station, the forge, the clothing station (counts twice), and the wood station.

10 slots x 5 stations + 8 trait materials = 58 slots.

You're bank has a max capacity of 200. 58/200 slots dedicated to late game crafting. You absolutely do not need the crafting bag. If someone thinks they need the crafting bag, then they are picking up every single style material they can and hoarding it. There are hundreds of style materials. You don't need them, because they only affect your cosmetic.

Probably I should have explained in my first post what kind of gameplay I am looking for:
1. I am PvE oriented, so don't care about speed leveling or being best in class. P2W is non-existent for me, since I do not intend to be competitive with anyone, in PvE I'm sure at some point my level will be high enough to enjoy bigger challenges too in bossfights and be a reasonable team player in PvE coop. Eventually my characters will grow strong but I don't care how long it takes, so any meta recommendations are lost on me. I consider it to be part of the fun to make mistakes and learn from them to get better. For example I was initially not minding what skills I develop or weapons I use in relation to stamina vs magicka points and I learnt my lesson.
2. I enjoy exploration. The map is large enough to keep me occupied with quests and exploration for a longer time than Skyrim hopefully, but at some point I will probably be looking for new zones to discover, that is why I was asking about DLC's. I am not in favour of treating a game like a barebones shop where I need to cough up regularly for every feature, but it doesn't hurt to know whether DLC deals upfront will save me some money later if I am looking for new zones. If the 50% discount for the 4-part mega pack for example is only once a year, by this time next year I may not even be around anymore if I discovered everything that there is to discover. Maybe the content of the base game will still keep me occupied, but who knows.

Thanks for the tips on crafting and storage. I'm not sure yet what materials will be needed when, but I will try to manage with the limited inventory either way. I will definitely not upgrade for the convenience of more space. Makes for a need to make decisions on what to clean out instead of hoarding endlessly.
I also develop two crafters for the two writ board daily tasks and leveling, so my main does not have to hoard that much variety in crafting materials.
I don't care about cosmetics at all, so indeed the style lines I will probably not be using at some point anymore, when I have enough money to buy the material instead of having to gather it.
Money making is not difficult in the game and can be a lot of fun: a few minutes looting two boats delivers 6-700 gold per turn and after delivery it all respawns again, so when I need money I loot boats for an hour for about 7000 gold. I'm sure there are faster ways of making money, but again, this is one of those things I like to discover for myself, instead of having it handed out on a silver platter, which would have me skip a lot of the adventures that lead to endgame.

[peterspam]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Acpolax:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย peterspam:

Thanks again, indeed it seems the discount of 50% is now on for 10 more days or so.
I must say I am tempted to purchase it, as I checked and such discounts may take another year or so before they appear for a specific package.
On the other hand, I checked the Tamriel map, quite a lot of zones are behind paywall, so if I add these 3 (or 4, if we count the Imperial city, though if I understand correctly that is pure PvP), that would expand the explorable map above the base game by only about 10%. At a price double that of the base game, discounts taken into consideration.
So I wonder if it is worth it, for the new option of being able to add Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood.
What is your experience, how much playtime do these add to the base game? I mean both additional quests, maps to be explored and a possible playthrough with added characters from these two guilds.
Mind you, I play PvE.

The way you want to play this game with no spoilers, no meta gear and figuring out stuff yourself you will be most likely around next year when this DLC pack goes on sale in the crownstore again.
I mean I dont know their schedulle but as far as I remember the guilds and glory DLC pack usually goes on sale like 2 or 3 times a year so one thing you could definitely do is to wait for a crown sale in the steam store, there is at least one during quake con in autumn but there might be also one at an earlier date in this year. Yeah and once you bought crowns on sale you just need to not waste them till the guilds and glory pack goes on sale in the crownstore again.
Its hard to tell how much playtime it adds based on absolutely not knowing what your pace is and also they changed the system a little bit, back when I did thiefs guild and dark brotherhood the last time every single mainquest needed to be unlocked first. The unlocking itself was tied to the rank of your skill line and increasing the rank of the skill line was done by doing repeatable quests from a special quest bord which for thiefs guild required you to either pickpocket 10 npcs or steal specific kinds of items and for dark brotherhood there are quests that require to assassinate a specific target or just go on a killing spree. Every single individual quest isnt that hard and done in just a minute or two but while rank one required you to do 2 of these quests rank 2 required you to do 4 of these quests and so on and so forth so this turned into an annoying grind especially on higher ranks just to unlock the next quest. However they changed it so now you dont need to do this anymore which might be a huge time saving.
Wrothgar (Orisinium) is storywise probably the best of all of the DLCs in this pack and the zone is structured like all of the chapter zones (released after Orsinium) with 6 delves and 2 public dungeons and many sidequests and there also is the Maelstrom (solo)arena which still offers some of the best weapons in the game as reward on the final boss
and they made these weapons available on normal difficulty not just on veteran like it used to initially.
Imperial City is still in the pack even though you can get that without paying anything
and while it is for the most part indeed a PvEvP zone it also has a single player quest line which might be interresting. So the way it works is by killing NPCs you get TelVar stones but getting killed makes you lose half of the TelVar stones you collected
or by killing other players you get half of the TelVar stones they carried.
These TelVar stones are just another currency which you can use in your IC base to buy stuff like gearsets or cosmetics or just put them in your bank so you dont carry high amounts of TelVar with you when you enter IC again which in turn lowers the multiplyer at which you get aditional TelVar from enemies.

OK, that's good to know, I think I might pass on the discount for now.
My pace? Well, I have put a lot of time into the game so far because I enjoy it a lot, but judging from what there is to explore, I only discovered a very small fraction. It's hard to define in % of course, because there is discovering map areas, doing quest lines and side quests, looting and jumping in on fights with the minions coming from the sky and a lot of crafting to level my traits and skill lines.
At the end of the day, we are not talking about more than the price of a dinner with this discount anyway :) so I'll skip that for now.
Thank you for your help in seeing more clearly.

The Imperial city does not appeal to me for the reason that I do not want to commit socially to teamplay in an online game. For me it's a hassle, I'm not a try-hard and I know all too well from Escape from Tarkov how teams are rolling through the same map where solo players play and it just doesn't make any sense to go solo where there is no matchmaking either. So IC would have to be in groups, which takes time and effort.
Granted, in EFT you lose all your gear to your enemy, so ESO is not nearly as frustrating. But if the aim is to collect those stones and I just get farmed, the fun disappears pretty quickly, it's just not for me.
I could imagine that there is a conscious teamplay effort and strategy as well as players roam the PvP map, which is not meant for beginner players like me. I'm not just a beginner in ESO but in MMO as well :)
Wrothgar sounds good, but it will have to wait until I have discovered all there is to see and do on the base maps.

[peterspam]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Acpolax:

Yes PvP isnt everyones cup of tea and there are always some exploits in the game which make some players almost invincible whilst still be able to dish out some insane damage, which is rather what you sholuld be affraid to encounter there cause there are almost no zergs running in IC, at least as long as there is no event going on.

Which makes me wonder: is there any cheating in ESO? It is rampant in EFT, which is why it is so frustrating: you never know whether you died to a legit payer or one with ESP or some other hack. I guess in an MMO cheating makes little sense because there is no such thing is aiming accuracy, but ESP could still be a thing, especially if stealth is an important part of some dungeons.

[bean]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย peterspam:

[previous information]

I did not mention it before since I did not know there was an expansion announced already.

The best 'bang for your buck' if you are still interested in the overland single-player/PVE is to pre-order an expansion. You get all of the released chapters for free (and maybe some goodies) It is far cheaper than buying them piece-meal and they sometimes include 1 or 2 DLC from that expansion.


When I started ESO, I pre-ordered the Necrom expansion and got so much content that by the time Necrom actually launched, I was already sick and tired of the game's thirsty monetization and never even completed the Necrom QL.

I made an Arcanist on day 1 and it is still like lvl 20, lol.

This won't affect you like it did for me though, I stopped caring about the game when I saw how blatantly MTXs affect both PVP and PVE... Content-wise, it is a good deal.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย jcv5000:

1st. Create 9 characters. 3 per alliances, and all different races. Go get 1 free room event, 1 per character. That way you will can fast travel for free to all rooms you have all around the map for every characters, it helps a lot to open map all around the world faster. For the 9 characters, 1 you play, the other are mules to hold items, place them in a cith beetween a Banker, and a stablemaster. to make it easier to transfer items, and level them up, for more inventory spaces. Don't forget, ESO+ is now free for 1 week. In menu go see eso+ and click free trial. With that you have access to all dlc's to play until 25 january. ESO+ for free for a week happened 2 times per year. around 15 jan and 15 july! There are also many dlc's for free, go see dlc's in menu. Also Many Starting quests for free, go see quest in menu! To see what is free, look at the menu often! Also the game is on big rebate on steam around 5 times a year, good to buy a big edition.

^this is excellent advice^

[peterspam]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย jcv5000:

1st. Create 9 characters. 3 per alliances, and all different races. Go get 1 free room event, 1 per character. That way you will can fast travel for free to all rooms you have all around the map for every characters, it helps a lot to open map all around the world faster. For the 9 characters, 1 you play, the other are mules to hold items, place them in a cith beetween a Banker, and a stablemaster. to make it easier to transfer items, and level them up, for more inventory spaces. Don't forget, ESO+ is now free for 1 week. In menu go see eso+ and click free trial. With that you have access to all dlc's to play until 25 january. ESO+ for free for a week happened 2 times per year. around 15 jan and 15 july! There are also many dlc's for free, go see dlc's in menu. Also Many Starting quests for free, go see quest in menu! To see what is free, look at the menu often! Also the game is on big rebate on steam around 5 times a year, good to buy a big edition.

I think 8 is the limit for the base game, but yeah, I created them.
1 main
2 crafters (one for equipment, the other for the other 3 skilltrees)
1 thief (takes the heat and makes money)
4 placeholders/mules
I take free rooms for travel convenience and the 30 extra inventory space, but only needed 2 rooms so far due to limited zone discovery, will expand to other areas with the others.
I leveled most to 80 inventory slots so far and my main to 120, the bank to 90 I think, not ready to waste too much on the mules yet because I trolled with their names and looks, maybe I'll get rid of them at some point, once I know what characters I want to develop beside my main+the crafters.
I was thinking indeed on the ESO+, but not sure yet whether I want to have a sneak peak, because it will not help me in understanding whether I miss out on anything beside the base game.
It's like Charlie entering the chocolate factory and Willie Wonka telling him to try the chocolate slide, no the candy forest, no the bubblegums, etc.
As the free DLC will seize after a week anyway, I don't see how it adds to my gameplay of slow play. Frantic search for any fast benefit I can gain from the zones that I normally have no access to? I would simply be missing those once the trial period is over.
The only reason I would want to do that is doing quests there that I cannot do right now without DLC. But since it's jsut one week, I don't really see a purpose.

One thing I do find increasingly annoying is travelling around, even within supposedly free areas. I would like to get to Craglorn now and the so-called Star-gazer herald that is supposed to give a quest in Wayrest is nowhere to be found (location near the stables, he's not there). And I can't help but think that again I have no clue whether this is a base-game limitation, or something that needs to precede the meeting with this guy, like another pre-quest. The wiki does not seem to indicate this though.
Sometimes I think these are bugs, because sometimes the banker does not appear for me in Daggerfall and when I relog, she appears.

[peterspam]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย jcv5000:

The crafting box. It transfer any items you get to it. It save a lot of spaces, after you still have access to the items, but you cannot put more into it. 1 good place is Vivec city, it have everything there! Also free room is a good way to fast travel if you are stuck, or enemies are too strong! also, you always have travelling wayshrine near to them! You will always get better armors, weapons... by doing events, than crafting. Unless you play 2000 hours! Crafting and... is just for fun to learn them for most peoples! They are mostly done to do the daily quest, and endeavors. 2 things important to do daily and weekly! For all the 6 crafting that can be done, there are a woman and a man beside the banker, in vivec city, that will give you quest to learn all the crafting that can be done for free, no dlc is needed for that!

Is the crafting box like the Ender Chest in Minecraft, so you can put anything in it underway and it is accessible by your alts somewhere else? That's a convenience of course, it's like your travelling bank. But I think that by the time you have 200 slots, you can leave enough space before you leave for a quest to be able to stash away everything by the time you get home. Also, you can teleport home if you are too full.
The crafting is fun indeed, that's why I do it :) But I think it is also convenient because you can select your preferred items that way. If you are always using dropped loot, those might not be ideal with enchantment and trait combo.

[peterspam]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย jcv5000:

for your 8 character, 1 stash plants, 1 runes... that way when you need something you know wich character have it!

Yep, that's how I do it :) Granted, sometimes I start regrouping items and then I have to roll through my characters to remember which is holding which :D Probably time to write it down..

[peterspam]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย jcv5000:

And, why having all those items! I can do the Daily and Endeavors quest in 10 minutes every day! And this is the 2 things that have a good payout if you do them!

Wow, that is extremely fast. For how many characters? I now have 3 of them doing all 6 writs daily, but just about manage to be under an hour. I'm a total noob though and I guess it has to do a lot with the fact that I do not have all materials yet, while you have everything pooled. So I need to go looking for all the individual stashes of all characters, pool those at the bank, make sure there is space, etc. I think I'll be able to half the time spent on this at some point, but I agree, it's a time waster.
Indeed ESO+ is quite the time saver, so if time is money, it's worth the price. With the extra space and convenience of sharing (though the bank can do that too), saving close to an hour every day makes for a no-brainer compared to the monthly fee. If routine is considered a time waster, then paying about a dollar per hour to get rid of routine is no money spent but time saved on real gaming or IRL free time. Hell, an extra hour per day for my workouts could make for the difference between winning or losing in sports :D
It's not as straightforward a calculation however, when play = fun :) So when we call something a time saver, an "efficiency", sometimes it simply means we have less fun.