We had the opportunity to test TESO under exclusive press access allowing us to publish a preview of the beta up to level 15. The NDA remains in place, except for authorized sites.
As a Dragon Knight specializing in tanking, I have logically turned to crafting weapons and armor to equip myself for the battles that lie ahead.
Extraction
In order to be able to craft objects, you obviously need materials. It is in the Extraction tab that it happens. It is thus possible to destroy weapons and armor that you already have to collect basic materials, for example iron ore at the very beginning.
But that is not enough. These iron ores must then be refined so that they can then be used. It is in the Raw materials tab that it happens, where we will be able to transform our iron ores (minimum by 10) into iron ingots. Then head to the Creation tab.
Creation
Here is the place where we will manufacture what interests us. The tab is in the form of four lines.
- Type : this is where we choose what type of weapon or armor we are going to make, swords, daggers, torso, gloves, etc.
- Material : The type of material will determine the damage or resistance of an armor, as well as the level required to use it.
- Style : we will be able to choose via this line the appearance of the weapon, according to certain styles (races, daedric, imperial, primitive, ...). Applying a style will require stones of a certain type, but also learning them beforehand through books.
- feature : it is possible to apply additional effects to an object, for example increasing the armor or the number of experience points gained, by adding a trait to it, which must first have been learned in the Research tab
To start with, I would like to make myself a new sword, so I select this guy in the first row. I'm just starting out so I only have access to iron ore at the moment. To craft a basic sword, I need 3 Iron Ingots. But it is possible to increase the number of ingots required, which will result in a better quality sword, but in return, the required level will also increase.
For example, the basic sword with 3 ingots is equipable at level 1, with 9 points of damage. If I add an ingot, it becomes equipable at level 4 for 13 points of damage. And with 5 ingots, I could equip it at level 6 with 18 points of damage. And so on.
In terms of style, for the moment, I don't have much choice, I only have the Nordic style available. That's good, it's my race! And for the lines, it's also very simple, nothing at all. Is it by forging that you become a blacksmith?
So here I am with my brand new sword, and I even took the opportunity to make myself a torso, helmet and shoulders!
Improvement
Once a weapon or armor has been created, it is then possible to further improve its attributes through quenching. Five quality levels are available:
- Normal
- Refined
- Superior
- Epic
- Legendary
Once you have an auspicious weapon in your possession, you will need Temperatures in order to proceed with the upgrade. Each quench involved in the process will give you a 20% chance of successfully upgrading. This means that with 5 tempers, you will be sure to successfully improve your item. If so, if the upgrade fails, your weapon will be destroyed at the same time. So it's up to you to gauge whether you are lucky or not.
For the example, I will try to improve the sword that I made previously. Luckily, I have an Honing Stone in my possession, so I will be able to try to increase the quality of my weapon, whose damage should go from 18 to 23. Unfortunately, I was not in luck, and my sword was eventually destroyed. It only remains for me to find tempers to redo the tests.
Search
Research allows you to discover new traits available on certain objects and then apply them to your own creations. However, it takes time and requires destroying the object to recover its trait.
To search for a trait, all you have to do is choose a type of weapon or armor. You will see for each if you have any traits that you can research. All that remains is to select the desired line.
I recovered a torso with the "Strengthened" trait, which has the property of increasing the armor value of the item. I tell myself that this is quite interesting for me as a tank, so I sacrifice the torso, which ultimately does not serve me much more, and after 6 hours of research, I finally learned this trait that I will be able to apply on another armor that I will manufacture.
Skill trees
Six passive talents will allow you to further improve your weapon and armor crafting skill.
- Metal work : allows you to use different types of materials (9 rows)
- Observation - ore : makes it easier to locate ores (3 rows)
- Minor : a miner will send you ores and other items every day (3 ranks)
- Metal extraction : Increases the chances of extracting materials in the Forge
- Metallurgy : reduces research time by 5% and allows two to be conducted at the same time
- Quenching expertise : increases the chances of upgrading items with tempers
