Elder Scrolls Online is an MMORPG based off Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series and it takes place before The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Elder Scrolls Online has just launched the housing update, which allows players to purchase a home in Tamriel. The upcoming Morrowind expansion pack this Summer will bring the new Warden class and a new area to explore. For that, you’ll need to make sure your armor and weapons are ready. With so much new upcoming content, you’ll have to earn money to afford all of the new items.
Making money can be challenging for beginner, and even advanced, players. For example, a horse is extremely helpful to move around Tamriel, especially since fast travel through waypoints are sparse, but the cheapest option is 10,000 gold coins. Spending money for virtual content is not an option for most players.
Luckily, Elder Scrolls Online can be played as a single-player MMORPG. Making friends and partying together will make your experience more positive, but it’s not necessary. It’s completely possible to earn money solo, too. So how does one get rich in ESO without spending your real, hard earned money? We have some tips on how to make your character richer in Tamriel.
15 Steal Everything In Sight
When you’re just starting out in Elder Scrolls Online, it can be difficult to earn money. Doing quests and sidequests is fine until you find out you’re under leveled to continue. If you’re desperate for money, you can steal almost everything. Items that are stolen appear in red. Just like most Bethesda games, you can loot almost any item. You can also pickpocket NPCs. After your inventory is full of stolen goods, travel to the Outlaws Refuge. They are available in every city. There, you can sell these items, as stolen items cannot be sold to regular merchants.
If you decide to steal from an NPC, make sure you don’t get caught. You will have to pay a small bounty to clear your wanted level or you will be forced to hide out until your wanted level decreases, which could take several real-world hours. Stealing is a quick, but risky, way to make easy money at any level.
14 Accept EVERY Side Quest
The One Tamriel update in Elder Scrolls Online opened up all regions of the continent to players. Players are no longer bound by the zones of their pact. Tamriel is a large region that offers many quests. Side quests are more than plentiful and multiple players can complete them at the same time. You can accept multiple side quests at one time alongside the main quest line.
NPCs offering side quests are easy to find. You can locate them within cities or on pathways to your next destinations. Side quests range from easy fetch quests or more challenging quests that require you to defeat monsters or enemies. The harder the quest, the more bountiful the rewards.
If you complete all the quests available in one region, just move onto the next. Finish the quest and you’ll receive experience points, items, and coin for your effort.
13 Loot Every Enemy
One of the primary goals of Elder Scrolls Online is to fight enemies. Fighting will increase your experience points, net you valuable items, and earn you gold. The items may be rare pieces of armor or weapons that can only be found from loot that enemies drop. These items can then be sold in Trading Guild Halls or enhanced. The stronger you are, the more enemies you can fight.
Enemies are plentiful in Tamriel. You can find enemies as you travel around the continent or they will find you. If you want to get richer, you’ll need to loot every single enemy you defeat. Even if other players join in on the fight, as long as you contribute 3% of damage to an enemy or a group of aggressive creatures, you will receive something. Loot dropped from enemies is completely random. Everyone gets their own rewards, so you don’t have to fight others to get what you’ve earned.
12 Join The Five Main Guilds
There are five main guilds in the Elder Scrolls Online: Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, and The Undaunted. You can join all of the guilds with no consequences. Joining guilds will net you valuable skills and open up guild quests.
After you join any guild, you can participate in daily guild quests. Each daily quest is unique to their guild. The Fighters Guild might send you to defeat three dolmens in a specific area of Tamriel. The Undaunted guild may request you enter a delve, or dungeon, to defeat the boss. You will receive a key, which unlocks a chest that contains a random amount of gold, food, armor, or weapons.
If you have additional characters on your account that are also guild members, they can repeat these daily guild quests. Finish these quests daily and you’ll soon find yourself much richer.
11 Participate In Cyrodiil’s Alliance Battle
Cyrodiil is Elder Scroll Online’s PvP arena. One Tamriel does not apply here, as each faction is separated. Alliances fight it out to take over each province to claim the Ruby Throne. If you grow tired of making money through PvE alone, Cyrodiil will put you against hundreds of other aggressive players. If your faction wins, you will receive valuable loot in your mailbox. These rewards are a combination of rare weapons, armor, or gold.
The loot you find in Cyrodiil is rarer. Cyrodiil’s Imperial City offers new dungeons to explore. It will be well worth the effort to slither through the Imperial sewers to find rare weapons and armor that will make you stronger in battle and also give you the upper hand to grab more gold and loot from monsters.
10 Repeat Dungeon Battles
There are numerous main and side quests in Elder Scrolls Online. Once you defeat the main threat, the battle is over and you will receive your reward. Fighting the non-bosses can be repeated, but not the story lines. You can return to most areas to find that enemies have respawned. You can defeat them in battle repeatedly to earn loot and coin. By backtracking, you may also find rare items and coin you may have missed on your first way through the area.
ESO’s enemy spawn rate is high. If you remain in an area long enough, you may find that an enemy you just defeated is standing behind you. In an area that is part of a quest, you will have no problem finding enemies to defeat. Grinding battles with these enemies is an easy, though tedious, way to earn more loot, experience, and gold.
9 Help Your Friends
It is entirely possible to play Elder Scrolls Online without interacting with others. Playing with a group or a friend that is just starting out can benefit you more. It will be easier for you assemble a few friends for public group dungeons. If this isn’t an option, you can use ESO’s group finder feature, but it can take hours. Farming for gold with a group will make your Dungeons scale to the level of the group leader. As long as you are within five levels of the leader, you can pick up some loot and gold.
If you would rather show a friend around Tamriel instead of participating in public dungeons, you can accomplish almost any quest with them. All quests which must be completed alone are marked “Solo.” With a friend, you can have fun helping each other get rich.
8 Utilize Your Crafting Skills
Crafting is an important part of Elder Scrolls Online. There are currently six crafting professions that can be mastered in the game: Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Clothing, Enchanting, Provisioning, and Woodworking. Mastering each skill can take months of real world time and most aren’t willing to put in the effort. Valuable skill points must also be invested in each crafting skill line. You will encounter plenty of players in Tamriel who are more than happy to buy high-level items.
You can have up to eight separate characters in ESO. Instead of maxing out crafting abilities on one character, try to make a character who specializes in crafting. You have to invest some time into maxing out their abilities, but the payoff will be worth it. Learning different race crafting styles will make your crafting skills more specialized. By offering your specialized crafting services to others, you can quickly earn gold.
7 Loot From Tamriel’s Environment
Your journey in Tamriel will take you to a wide variety of locations. Though you will earn gold through quests and battles, there is the opportunity to find gold around you. You will have to invest some points into the Lockpicking skill though. Lockpicking can be tricky at first, especially since you only have up to three seconds to unlock it. Once it’s unlocked, all the loot is yours. All throughout Tamriel are hidden chests and these chests contain random amounts of gold and loot. You can sell the lot and profit off of your finds.
Chests hold gold and items. Scavenging for ingredients and items throughout Tamriel can also be sold or used for crafting. There is no set place to forage for loot. Selling one or two items you’ve found on your journey might not seem like much at first, but selling stacks of items can quickly make you gold.
6 Sell In Chat To Other Players
Completing quests and selling to merchants is a slow, but easy way to make money in Elder Scrolls Online. If you want to make large amounts of gold quickly, selling in public zone chat is the way to go. You may have collected large amounts of craftable resources out in Tamriel. Selling a stack to a merchant will earn you a few hundred gold while selling those same materials to a player can net you thousands.
Trusting other players on ESO might be scary at first. Trading an item can often be worrisome, especially if it’s rare and valuable. ESO has you covered. The game has a gold on delivery feature. After your price has been agreed on by the buyer, you send the item to them by in-game mail. The buyer will have to pay the amount of gold listed on the delivery. If they refuse, then the item is returned to you. If they accept, you’re much richer.
5 Participate In Dolmen Battles
Dolmens, or Dark Anchors, are regions where Molag Bag is trying to drag Tamriel into Coldharbour. Molag Bal is the end boss of Elder Scroll Online’s main quest line. There are three dolmens in each zone of Tamriel and ten in the PvP area, Cyrodiil.
When a dolmen is activated, the sky will turn dark and you can hear it from a distance. If you can hear it, be assured that other players will, as well. Dolmens can be defeated solo, but winning the battle is easier in a group. Several enemies will spawn from the dark anchors. As long as your are within five levels of the enemies and participate in the battle, you will receive experience points, loot, and gold.
The Dolmens respawn every few minutes. You can travel to a different area for a new challenge, or stay put and be patient. You can farm these areas to earn more loot and gold.
4 Deconstruct Gear To Create More Items
During your time in Tamriel, you will receive countless amounts of loot you will find useless. You may not need that sixth set of leather boots. Utilizing your crafting skill is well worth the effort. It gives you more opportunities to make money other than completing quests and fighting enemies. By leveling up your crafting skills, you will be able to deconstruct items. The higher your crafting level, the more resources you can successfully extract from higher level items.
Deconstructing items will permanently destroy it. It shouldn’t be an issue if you’ve hoarded useless, under level gear. This way, you will be able to put those items to good use. You can create other items to sell to others or use them yourself in your fight against Molag Bal in Tamriel. You can also sell the resources to other crafters for additional coin. By spending the time deconstructing items, you will earn easy gold.
3 Invest In Hirelings And Assistants
Hirelings are available as part of the Crafting skill line. The only profession without a Hireling option is Alchemy. Depending on the Hireling you hire, you will receive valuable resources daily through your mail box. You may be too invested in a quest and don’t want to step away to craft a new item. With Hirelings, they do all the scavenging for you.
As your crafting rank increases, you will receive more resources. By the time you reach the third and final Hireling rank, you will receive items twice a day, with a better chance of receiving rare crafting mats to create valuable items to sell.
If you are willing to spend money to make money, the ESO Crown Store has two Assistants. The most helpful is Nuzhimeh, a merchant that can be summoned. This means less traveling to towns and more time spent making money.
2 Participate In Group Dungeons
Once you reach level 10 in Elder Scrolls Online, you will be eligible to fight in Cyrodiil and participate in public dungeon battles. Public dungeons can be done solo, while group dungeons can be explored with a maximum of four people. Completing any dungeon in Elder Scrolls Online will win you loot and gold. Once you kill the boss, the battle is over.
Battles in public dungeons are repeatable. The dungeons have a cool down timer of 10-20 minutes. You can either wait until the timer resets or try different options. If you are in a group, you can disband and rejoin. The dungeon will immediately be able to repeated, enabling you to grind for loot and gold much faster.
Repeating a dungeon instance may seem tedious, but the grind will earn you extra experience points for your character, gear that can be sold or deconstructed for parts, and gold.
1 Complete Daily Crafting Writs
Crafting writs are located in every major city in Tamriel. It’s easy to spot the bulletin boards that hold the requests. Quests range from collecting items to crafting some weapons and armor. Once you craft the item, you place it inside a chest at a given location.
Crafting writs for one of your six skills can only be completed once a day. You can work on more than one writ at the same time, but it must be completed within 20 hours of acceptance. If you have all the materials you need, completing a writ only takes minutes.
As a reward for completing a writ, you will receive a package of random goods and crafting materials. You may also receive a treasure map for a resource node that’s unique only to you. Completing a few writs every day will gain you easy gold and resources that can be crafted or sold.
