If you're new to ESO, you may find the various game systems overwhelming. However, making gold in ESO is not as scary as it may seem. In fact, many ways to make gold are tied to activities you naturally engage in while playing, such as selling gear or materials. This guide will outline the 8 effective best ways for beginners to earn gold in ESO, with a focus on joining a trading guild. Joining a trading guild will allow you to sell your items on the market, which is essential for maximizing your earnings.

 

• Joining a Trading Guild
• Debunking a Common Misconception
• Daily Crafting Writs
• Farming Materials
• Crafting Items
• Daily Quests
• Participating in Events
• Curated Loot

 

↖ Joining a Trading Guild

If you want to sell items on the ESO Market and earn gold, you need to join a guild that owns a guild trader. Here's a step-by-step guide to joining a trading guild and getting started with selling your wares:

• Find a Trading Guild: Look for trading guilds. You can find advertisements for guilds in zone chat or through the guild recruitment system. Joining a trading guild allows you to access the guild store and list your items for sale.
• Apply to Join: Contact the guild leader or an officer of the trading guild and express your interest in joining. They will provide you with the necessary information and invite you to join the guild.
• Pay Dues (if required): Some trading guilds may have weekly or monthly dues to maintain access to the guild trader. Make sure you understand the financial commitment before joining.
• List Items for Sale: Once you are a member of a trading guild, you can list your items for sale in the guild store. You can usually list up to 30 items per guild. Set prices for your items and wait for other players to purchase them.
• Participate Actively: To make the most of your trading guild membership, actively participate in the trading scene. Keep an eye on market trends, adjust your prices accordingly, and promote your listings in zone chat or through guild activities.
• Profit from Sales: As other players purchase your items, you will earn gold. The more active you are in trading, the better you'll understand market dynamics and be able to price your items competitively.

 

Remember, joining a trading guild and actively participating in the market can help you overcome the initial challenge of high-priced items. By selling valuable wares, you can earn gold and acquire the items you need for your own progression.

 

↖ Debunking a Common Misconception

Some players mistakenly believe that earning gold in ESO requires them to deviate from their preferred playstyle. Here are a few points to debunk this misconception:

• Killing Enemies: Engaging in combat and killing enemies can also be a source of valuable items. Many creatures and bosses drop loot that can be sold for gold. So, even if you enjoy combat, you can still earn gold through the items you acquire.
• Passive Gold Earning: ESO offers various systems that allow you to earn gold passively while you play. For example, participating in PvP can reward you with alliance points and telvar stones, which can be exchanged for valuable items. Completing veteran dungeons can provide you with motifs, materials, and furnishing plans. Simply looting nodes and containers while questing can yield valuable materials as well.
• Find Your Preferred Strategy: Explore different gold earning strategies and find the ones that align with your interests and playstyle. Earning gold doesn't have to feel grindy if you choose activities that you enjoy.

 

↖ Daily Crafting Writs

One of the best beginner-friendly gold earning strategies is completing daily crafting writs. These writs offer a consistent source of income. Here's how to get started:

• Become Certified: To access crafting writs, you need to become certified. Reach level 6 and speak to Meleneth and Danelle Tolano in the crafting hubs of major cities. They will provide simple quests that require crafting specific items using the correct materials. Completing these quests will grant you certification.
• Pick Up Daily Crafting Writs: Once certified, you can pick up daily crafting writs from the writ boards in the crafting hubs. Each day, you can complete these quests for rewards.
• Craft Relevant Items: Crafting writs will ask you to create items relevant to your crafting skill lines. As you progress in your crafting skill lines, you'll be able to craft higher-level items and receive better rewards.
• Turn in Writs: Craft the required items and travel to the rit drop-off location indicated by quest markers on your HUD or map. Turn in your completed writs to receive rewards.
• Rewards: Daily crafting writs provide several rewards, including gold, materials relevant to the writs, and potentially master writs and surveys. Master writs are advanced crafting tasks that require proficiency in specific skill lines and motifs. Surveys add clusters of resource-rich nodes to specific locations for harvesting.

 

↖ Farming Materials

• Consult Add-Ons or Online Resources: Use add-ons or online resources to find the exact locations of survey sites. These surveys scale to the crafting level of your character, so it's best to complete them on characters with maxed out crafting skill lines for valuable resources.
• Farm Material Nodes: Material nodes are scattered throughout Tamriel, with higher densities in some areas. Plan a route in locations with high node densities for efficient farming.
• Use Farming Routes: Look for farming route guides on YouTube or other platforms. These guides provide specific loops or routes to maximize efficiency in farming materials. Consider using routes outlined by reliable content creators.
• Consider Player Population: Node spawn timers are affected by the player population in a zone. Starter zones with many players can be ideal for farming materials. The increased player activity leads to more frequent node respawns.
• Harvest Everything: It's recommended to pick up every material node you encounter. Only skip over any nodes if specific parameters suggest otherwise.

 

↖ Crafting Items

• Crafting Consumables: Use provisioning and alchemy ingredients to craft consumables like potions and food. Selling crafted consumables can be more profitable than selling raw materials. Learn the corresponding recipes, which can be obtained from participating in ESO events.
• Crafting Gear: Crafting gear sets can be a profitable strategy, but it requires researching traits. Researching traits allows you to unlock the ability to craft specific gear sets. Destroy gear with unlearned traits to research them at a crafting station. Once a trait is researched, you can craft gear with that trait.
• Start Researching Early: Researching traits is time-gated and takes longer for subsequent traits. Start researching traits early to unlock more crafting options and the ability to sell crafted gear sets.

 

↖ Daily Quests

• DLC Zone Dailies: Daily quests in DLC zones can be a lucrative gold-making method. These quests involve specific tasks such as killing world bosses, finding items in delves, or defeating world events. Some quests are solo-friendly, while others may require assistance.
• Rewards and Goodies: Completing daily delve, world boss, or world event quests rewards you with valuable style materials for crafting, motifs to learn for outfitting gear, and sometimes furnishing plans. Keep in mind that daily reward coffers in certain zones have cooldowns for dropping motifs.
• Seek Help: If you need help with world bosses or world events, feel free to ask for help in zone chat or your guild chat. Many players are willing to assist you, especially if you offer to share the quest as an exchange.
• Track Cooldowns: Use add-ons like the "Item Cooldown Tracker" to keep track of cooldowns on daily reward coffers. This helps you manage your quest completion and maximize your chances of receiving motifs from the coffers.

 

↖ Participating in Events

• Open reward coffers strategically: If you play on PC, it's recommended to open reward coffers from a specific zone until you receive a motif. Then, wait for the cooldown to open the rest. Daily reward motifs do not share cooldown timers.
• Events are for all players: Most ESO events are designed to be completed by both new and experienced players. While the events may vary, the core principle remains the same - complete event tasks to earn rewards.
• Zone-related events: Events like the Season of the Dragon event encourage players to participate in activities in specific zones, such as Southern and Northern Elsweyr. Completing activities during these events can earn you double rewards and event tickets. Take advantage of the double drops from resource nodes and the availability of large groups for efficient farming.
• Seasonal events: Events like the New Life Festival or the Witches Festival are not limited to a particular zone. Instead, you'll be asked to complete event-related tasks in various base game zones. These quests are usually simple, and completing them will reward you with valuable items, including motifs and style pages. Consider selling these items for quick gold, especially if you're patient enough to wait for the prices to increase.

 

↖ Curated Loot

• Understanding the curated loot system: ESO has a curated loot system, which means that defeating enemies in overland, dungeons, and arenas will often grant you set pieces you haven't collected yet. Collecting a set piece requires binding it through equipping, deconstructing, selling to a merchant, or selecting the bind option in your menu.
• Exploiting valuable gear pieces: If you come across a valuable gear piece that you don't need, such as the Inferno Staff of the Mother's Sorrow, you can use the sticker book system to your advantage. Collect all the less expensive pieces of gear from a specific zone until the only item left is the valuable one. Now, whenever you kill enemies in that zone that drop weapons, you'll receive that specific valuable item repeatedly, allowing you to sell it for a significant amount of gold.
• Expanding opportunities with zone gear: There are numerous opportunities to employ this strategy with zone gear in different zones, such as Frostbite weapons in Blackwood, Mad Tinkerer weapons in Vvardenfell, Briarheart weapons in Wrothgar, and more. As you gain experience, you'll also find chances to apply this strategy in dungeons, trials, and arenas.
• Determine the value of items: As a new player, be cautious about binding or collecting every piece of gear you come across. If you need clarification on an item's value, you can use resources like Tamriel Trade Center (TTC) to look up its market value. Even console players can check TTC for reference. If an item has low listing prices, it's likely not valuable and safe to deconstruct. However, if you see impressive values, it's best to sell the item and potentially receive it again from an overland drop.
• Seek assistance from others: If you need clarification on the value of an item, you can ask other players in zone chat or your guild for guidance. There are many helpful players in ESO who are willing to assist you.

 

Conclusion:

By utilizing these methods and finding a balance between active participation and passive gold earning, beginners can effectively accumulate gold in ESO and enhance their gameplay experience.