M's Updated New Player Guide for Elder Scrolls Online
I have to simplify a great deal of this information since the intended audience is people brand new to ESO looking to get into it for questing (not pve or pvp), so if anyone thinks bits of this are a little wrong or lacking nuance, please understand it is likely intended. Credentials: trust me.
Top 3 Important things to know before you get started
Character creation: You pick your class during character creation and this can never be changed. Trust me, people miss this. There's a subclassing system you may interact with far down the line, but your original class is locked in first thing. Your race, appearance, and name can all be changed but for a cost (crowns, the in-game micro transaction currency) and little bits of your appearance can be changed with cosmetics that may or may not be free. Any class can quest just fine, some will be better at solo content than others, but don't sweat this. Some classes are also DLC (necromancer and arcanist, warden was but is now base game). All classes can do all roles for the purposes you, a new casual quester, care about. However, you should build them as a damage dealer primarily. Supports are not needed in questing and you'll often be alone anyway - save yourself the pain of killing enemies at a snail's pace do not design your first character as a healer or tank. You can have multiple builds and change whenever, but you will need a damage dealing build to quest. Most of all, create the character you want and can stick with long term, as you will need a Main for purposes of crafting and crafting knowledge can't transfer to other characters you may make.
Alliances and the Main Quest: The start of the game for new players should always be the Harborage main quest and your respective alliance's main quest. Unless you started with the expansion that unlocks any race any alliance, your alliance will be tied to your race. Bretons, Orsimer, and Redguards: Daggerfall Covenant. Dunmer, Argonians, Nords: Ebonheart Pact. Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajiit: Aldmeri Dominion. Imperials are DLC but any alliance. This can be changed later for crowns, but only affects what alliance you fight for/against in PvP zones, minor dialogue interactions, certain cosmetics, and which version of certain quests you get during the main quest. The starting city/zone for each alliance is as follows: DC: Daggerfall, Glenumbra. EP: Davon's Watch, Stonefalls. AD: Vulkhel Guard, Auridon. When you leave character creation, you'll be sent through the Coldharbour tutorial and spat out on your starter island (DC: Stros M'Kai. EP: Bleakrock Isle. AD: Khenarthi's Roost). Finish those storylines until you hit your starter city on the mainland, and the main quest will progress again with meeting the Prophet at the Harborage.
DLC, Chapters, and ESO+: Depending on the version of game you got, you may be pushed or tempted to play the newest DLC (chapter or smaller zone DLC). This is a trap. ZOS advertises the game as play how you want and in any order you want, and any longtime player hates this marketing strat. Functionally, any DLC can be played at any time in ESO, but you will miss certain bits of dialogue and story by playing out of release order. Characters will remember previously meeting you if you play in order, but not out of order. They may drastically change their appearance to the point of the story making no sense if it happened in that wrong order, or even die and reappear with no acknowledgement of their death. You may also be locked out of certain endings by playing out of order. If this is your first time playing ESO, I highly recommend playing everything in the intended release order at least once, and then decide for yourself what stories you think work as independent stories for other characters you wish to play. Don't listen to the devil telling you to play some random dlc because you like dunmer or vampires or hermaeus mora. Listen to me, some guy on the internet instead.
The intended order is (without listing every single dlc) the Harborage main quest and your alliance's main quest at the same time ➡️ Coldharbour ➡️ Cadwell's Silver and Gold (the other two alliances' main quests) ➡️ Imperial City (PvP zone with a solo storyline, but can be skipped/played at any point) ➡️ Craglorn ➡️ all dlc in release order (including dungeons, zone dlc, and chapters). Dungeons can be done in any order (base game I and II dungeons should be done in the numeric order) up to Wrathstone, which is when year-long story arcs began and included dungeons in the plot, and more returning NPCs appear in dungeons + dungeon NPCs appear in stories.
The Infamous "ESO DLC flowchart" can advise you the order of when you should play certain storylines (base game and dlc), but it's just the release order and natural flow of the storylines. It updates too often for me to post the image here, but you can easily find it by searching those terms. Another good ESO starter guide I like is this one, that explains which early story points to hit and when.
The base game alone is good and contains hundreds of hours of content. Get through the base game's main quests and the free DLCs like Morrowind and Thieves Guild, and decide for yourself if you like the game enough to continue on. And if you do want to continue, then the best way to play DLC is to buy the subscription ESO+. Among many other things, the main use for the sub is access to every single DLC* in the game while the sub is active. If you play consistently, you can play through the dlcs faster than it would cost to buy them individually, and you can end your sub whenever you want/need. The sub also gives free crowns each month which can be used to purchase permanent access to specific DLC for if/when you end your sub. Or spend them on a cute outfit. Up to you. You might get addicted to the craft bag in the meantime and keep the sub forever.
*before 2026, ESO+ did not give access to the newest chapter until the next one released. Post 2026, all future DLC is free and ESO+ gives access to all DLC.
ALRIGHT big stuff out of the way. More advanced stuff for once you're already in the game and playing now. And some M brand yapping.
I know a lot of people's final barrier to starting an MMO is the other people. To which I quote, "I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much". There are absolutely ways to avoid interactions with other players - playing in offline mode so people cannot whisper you, and hiding zone/say chat to avoid seeing other players talking - but generally speaking, other players do not care about you enough to bother you. The overland is not PvP enabled outside of both players choosing to duel, you're not going to get made fun of for being low level or whatever, and you're not going to get harassing messages just for existing. Others have their own lives and things to do in game. Just play the game and mind your business.
Prologues: Avoid any quest that goes into your journal as a Prologue - delete it right away. Prologues are like introduction/teaser quests for zone DLC and chapters. Doing prologues out of order should also be avoided. Once you're onto playing DLC, there is a prologue for each starting with the Morrowind chapter. Do them before doing each new storyline. You can find a list of them in the crown store (free) as quest starters.
Research: Start researching item traits at crafting stations ASAP. The timers for research grow exponentially with each trait, so an early start is good. This is necessary for crafting later on, and everyone should have A crafter (ideally their main for resource reasons). Your crafter should be multidisciplined - do not only invest in blacksmithing because it's more lore friendly to your character. Plan to eventually invest in them all.
Horse training: Find the stable master early on and begin "training your horse" each day for 500 gold. You can also buy a mount there for gold. It takes 60 real life days to fully complete on each character, but you'll notice the difference with your mounts speed and stamina, and to clarify, inventory means YOUR inventory. That's 60 more inventory slots! And mount training progress is shared for all mounts on that character, but not your account.
Gallop: Speaking of mount speed - once you reach level 10 on a character, you should do the Cyrodiil tutorial quest (I promise there's no PvP required for this). Use the alliance war tab to queue into a campaign (any works but go for one that isn't all that busy. Under 50 ideally), and complete the tutorial IN FULL. Do not accept the option to skip parts of it because you know what you're doing. You'll reach rank 3 in the assault and support skill lines and gain a few skill points, all while never having to do any actual PvP. Take the first passive in the Assault skill line to gain access to Gallop for faster horse speed. You want this on all your characters. Finally, leave Cyrodiil using the wayshrine.
Bag and bank space: Find the bag merchant in town and spend your gold on maxing out your inventory space when you can afford it. Bankers can also be found in each town and you can store a lot of items in your bank with them FOR FREE. No other player has access to your bank. Your bank space is shared across all banks and all of your characters have access to the same bank.
Gear crafting: Back on crafting, don't worry about materials or crafting your own gear for a long time. You pretty much need ESO+ to be a crafter due to the craft bag, and you'll out-level any crafted gear very fast. Just put on random gear you loot off enemies (will scale to your level) or get as a reward, and replace it as you level up and outlevel your old gear.
Gear and Skills: As a quester, you can use any gear and any skills you want - with a few suggestions. Don't use heavy armor as your primary armor type (a few pieces are okay), ice staves, 1 hand and shield, or restoration staves. Those are primarily support armor types and weapons. Also, read your tooltips and skill descriptions, and don't use skills that state they will taunt the enemy. ESO's aggro system works differently than you may expect from other MMOs. Anything else is free game. Though I will advise this isn't Skyrim, and using skills will deal far more damage than spamming "basic attacks", or light and heavy attacks. Stealth archer isn't a thing here, sorry.
Also please for the love of god, DON'T PLAY THIS GAME ENTIRELY IN FIRST PERSON. It's very much not designed for that with how combat functions. Save yourself the pain please.
Outfits: Don't be distraught about not being able to look like you're wearing heavy armor though - the outfit station lets you change the appearance of your armor and weapons for gold! The weapons must be the same general type though (maces to swords are fine, but not shield to dagger, or bow to greatsword).
Outfits (cont.): The fashion system in ESO is either using the outfit station to apply motifs (purely cosmetic) you've learned to that character to your outfit, or costumes you can get with crowns or other means (questing, collectables, etc). Motifs learned on one character allow any character to use that motif in the outfit station, but only that character can Craft an item in that style. You should only learn rare/expensive motifs on your main crafter for this reason.
You can pick up lycanthropy and vampirism three ways: other player bites, finding specific overland werewolves vampires on specific days to fight and bite you, or the new overland NPCs in the starter zones. The last option is new and replaced crown store bites, but it still directs you to your alliance's final zone to complete the transition.
The build advisor in game for each class/role is painfully out of date as it hasn't been changed since launch, and entire skills/morphs have changed over the years to be entirely different. Don't use it. With no nuance to avoid it getting complicated, stick to either investing in magic or stamina as your primary resource, and most of your skills costing that same resource. Skills scale their damage with your highest offensive stat, so splitting attributes between mag/stam makes your skills weaker. You can use both stam and mag skills and they will deal similar damage - you just might run out of your lower resource faster. Light armor benefits magicka users better, medium benefits stamina users better, generally speaking. You can put points into health if you like, but it's not optimal or necessary.
Respec: And if you mess up your build or change your mind about how you want to play it, you can respec whenever. Respeccing used to be limited to shrines in capital cities, but is now free and allowed almost anywhere. Change your attributes and skills whenever you want within those menus. You can also use the armory (free crown store furnishing) to save specific setups. This is useful for having an overland questing setup, as well as a pvp, thief, healer, tank, or alternate mag/stam setup saved to quickly swap whenever. The armory saves everything except scribing skills, and general respecs let you change all except mundus stone, curse status, and champion points.
Guilds: Join the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild ASAP in your starter town. Regardless of RP, they have storylines you'll want to complete, as well as skills and passive abilities you may want, and it's better to get a head start on this leveling process. Undaunted is related to dungeons and can be skipped early on, but if you start doing dungeons, make sure you join! It has no respective storyline. Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood are base game as of 2026, but they are DLC storylines best done after the base game (especially DB after the Pact storyline)
Skill levels: Weapon and class skill lines progress by having those skills on your bars upon gaining experience, not with each cast of the skill like main series games. Individual skills rank up and can morph into other skills by gaining experience with that skill on your bars. Armor levels up by gaining exp wearing that type of armor. Guild skill lines have their own unique progression requirements such as specific enemy kills or reading lore books - read your tooltips!
Quest markers: Main quest marker icons appear slightly fancier than generic quest markers, and I would advise to avoid taking them out of order. Most main quests will guide you to the next quest giver easily, so if you find yourself going far out of your way, you may be getting lost or starting a different storyline. If you get lost, open up your map and check the zone guide for an option to lead you to the next quest. Blue quest markers are for repeatable daily quests.
Delves are public instances and can be done solo. Public dungeons are public instances and may be able to be soloed depending on skill. Group dungeons are for 4 people, not public instances, and you should not try to solo them. Trials are raids for 12 people, not public, and you very much should not attempt to solo them.
DLC features: Depending on what DLC may have come with your version of the game, you may be pushed to try the various features added with each chapter. This includes psijic order, antiquities (becoming base game soon), companions, tales of tribute, and scribing (now base game). All of these individually (except psijic and arguably antiquities) can be started/done early without spoiling yourself on future DLC. But there's no real need to rush through getting access/completion of them right away either. I think the organic experience of playing in true release order is better than getting a companion or having scribing skills for the base game.
WORK IN PROGRESS: Daily login rewards and endeavors are no more, replaced with Tamriel Tomes. TT is a battlepass system with free options. They reward you with Trade Bars, a currency that replaces tickets from events and can be used for all the same things tickets were used for, as well as other cosmetic items. You earn trade bars by doing typical daily/weekly tasks like killing certain enemy types or opening chests. This is a new system, so details are not well known yet. Golden Pursuits work somewhat similarly: do a certain number of listed themetic tasks to build toward a specific reward like a mount or outfit during an event.
Add-ons (mostly PC but some on console) are allowed in ESO, mods and macros are not. The application Minion is how most of us download and update our add-ons for various UI and QOL features.
Champion Points: Once you reach level 50 on a character, you start gaining levels in Champion Points, which are shared across all of your characters. Once you hit CP 160, you will stop out-leveling your gear and can start making gear you plan to keep. CP goes up to 3600, but you'll hit the cap on effectiveness around 1500 (role dependent) I think. CP can be allotted on characters under level 50 as well.
Auction House/Guild Traders: There is no central auction house system. There are guild traders instead - storefronts that guilds bid on weekly to gain ownership of and use for their guild to sell items to other players, for a small cut of the profits. Anyone can buy from them, only guild members can sell. Most of the junk you find in questing is worthless to other players, and most players use add-ons to know the marketplace average worth of any item in game.
Guilds: joining an in-game guild is really useful for a variety of reasons. Many guilds will have a "guild hall" with an assortment of crafting stations and other useful home furnishings available to others. Guilds may have a trader, but watch out what their weekly requirement is to remain in the guild and use it - some are not casual friendly. The main use I find is having more players to port (for free) to at any moment.
Gold: If you're looking to just make enough money to get by, you can sell all the random gear you loot to merchants. It will despawn from their inventory with enough time or items being sold. Once you get ESO+ and the craft bag, daily crafting writs is the best way to make easy money with little effort. Get certified in all 7 professions and do your daily crafting writs for about 5k gold per character per day. With enough skill point investment in hirelings that send materials in the mail daily, you never have to spend any gold to do writs. Thieving is mildly good for making gold, but it has a cap on how much you can sell a day. Sell or launder at outlaws refuges in each city.
Dungeons and group play etiquette: Before you start doing dungeons, at any level of difficulty, you should understand how ESO dungeon etiquette works. Players are far less social and friendly in dungeons than other MMOs like final fantasy, but hear me out for why. Dungeons are never mandatory for any questing, so they are primarily dominated by people farming experience, skill points, sets, and transmute crystals. It can take dozens of runs to get the item you're trying to farm a dungeon for, so quickly and efficiently getting to the end is most people's goal. Quests can never be repeated on the same character, so they can't even do the quest with you if you got grouped together. And there is no separate queue for people looking to do a dungeons quest slowly and those looking to do their daily random normal dungeon. You could use the group finder to put out a posting for a dungeon quest run, but it will take far more time to find a team than using the queue. Long story short - ESO does a poor job of keeping their new casual questers from their experienced veteran raiders.
In general, if you plan to use the dungeon finder, do not expect your team to sit around and wait for you to go through dialogue or sniff every corner of the dungeon. At best they will wait for you to spam through it for the quest completion, if you warn them in advance you have the quest. Randos aren't going to be overly social, even a "hi" at the start may be ignored. It's to be expected, but not intended rudely - they're just not looking for an overly social encounter at this time. If you want to see a dungeon's quest in full, this is the time to find a friend or guildy to group with you! It's an MMO! Be social! ZOS is planning to work on a story mode for dungeons, but as of now, many cannot be soloed due to raw incoming damage or mechanical limitations.
Also, you need to know your role before queueing, and that includes knowing how to actually deal damage as a damage dealer. You don't need to be amazing, but please don't just spam light attacks. Understand what a DoT, AoE, and spammable are. Don't queue as a tank unless you actually understand the basics of ESO tanking like what a taunt is. Same for healing - understand ESO healing is proactive not reactive and build your bars accordingly. Look into resources online for beginner builds. If you don't want to learn your role or how to git gud, then I'm sorry but doing group content with strangers is not for you then. It's a team effort, and their time should be respected too. You can play however you want alone or with friends.
Trials: Related, if you get to the point of wanting to try the trials (which do have a repeatable quest), normal difficulty is less scary than you may fear, but still requires coordination and a group. Ideally you come above 160cp in full sets of gear and a decent understanding of your role. While I would recommend running with social/casual raiding guilds so you can have mechanics explained and good advise given, Craglorn zone chat and the in-game group finder are common places for PUGs (pick-up groups, just sorta grabbing anyone that wants to come, versus an organized run). Those groups can really be the wild, wild west, so temper expectations around the fact no one is vetted there. But even those groups may require certain builds/classes, request that you KWTD already (know what to do), or be running at vet or hardmode difficulty. Either way, respect the raid leads requests.
Online build advice is becoming a lot harder to ascertain the value and legitimacy of, what with search engine optimization and AI hallucinations, so be cautious looking for advice regarding builds. I won't go into detail about what I consider good builds as that goes beyond the scope of this guide, but Skinnycheeks (DPS), Hyperioxes (Tank and DPS), and Healers Haven (Healer) are reasonably good resources. But all you really need for a build once you hit 160 CP is to work on completing two 5 piece sets, maybe getting a monster set from the Undaunted, and to put some kind of self heal on your bars. Learn to use potions for resources and buffs, and get used to having food/drink buff active for combat.
Subclassing: related to build advice, I mentioned subclassing earlier. The system is more complex than I can detail fully here, but the gist is that you can replace 1 or 2 of your base class's skill lines with two different skill lines from up to two different classes. Every skill point investment requirement is doubled, it levels slower, and you give up your old skill lines passives and skills. This can be a fun system for character rp, grabbing another class's useful skill, or minmaxing your build's potential. But nothing about it is necessary. Do not even stress about it a little. This early in the game, your skill point investment has little wiggle room and you need to focus more on crafting since this is your main.
If it wasn't clear earlier: ESO is extremely alt friendly. Once you hit level 50, your champion point rank is shared. All gear and currency can be shared via the bank. Fashion is account wide, same with any collectable unlocks. Titles and houses are shared. Quest progress is not, so you can always replay a storyline on an alt at any time. This also means you're not locked into or out of any role just because your main isn't a great class for it. Just make another guy! A lot of us do everything big on our mains, but don't take them into group content or PvP.
For your purposes of leveling, you should not need to grind out levels. You get various buffs as you level that scale your damage to the enemies around you within the base game. Don't race to level 50 or CP160 - if you're questing naturally, you'll level up at a fine pace.
I'm not the best person to ask about detailed builds for the casual player since I play more in endgame and my builds are very overkill for questing. Sowwy
These are all things I ended up inevitably telling people starting ESO who were confused on how to play, or wish I had learned sooner during my own early days. This post is meant get you in the right mindset for character creation when planning a character you'll play for years to come, and be something you can refer back to and to gently guide you in the right direction once you've got your footing and want to grow.
Part 2: Chronology for the story and where to find lore
Hi!! I'm Maga, a daily player in SN Global server, S2 Cloudcrest, and I've been playing since release day. Lately I've encountered a lot of new SN players or Wannabe players on Twitter, and I see some confusion on how the game functions, how to farm diamonds, how does x y z feature work, among other things. So, I wanted to extend a hand and compile some useful videos, guides, docs, and tips that I think would be helpful.
Firsts things first: welcome, stylist! It's great to have you here, and I hope that, in spite of roadblocks and pulling woes, you can enjoy the game and have a positive experience playing it (⌒▽⌒)☆ Looking forward to your creations and reactions to the story~
To begin, I'd strongly suggest joining SNOD, that is, Shining Nikki Official Discord server. There, you will find lots of stylists to chat with, a space to share your outfits, channels to help you find a guild that matches your playing style, a channel dedicated to questions, guides and strategies; also activities with in-game rewards. And lots more, so it just makes sense for you to join and make the most of our community!
If you're planning on playing casually, maybe you're just interested in the story and want to read it, collect few sets here and there, then this compilation of resources will be overkill for you, and you might prefer to skip straight to Part 2 of these Guides. But, even if you're playing casually, you will at some point or another interact with different game features and be blocked by certain requirements, so it will help if you know your way around the game.
On the other hand, if you're planning on committing to the game so you want to build your account correctly from the beginning, or aren't sure yet but would like to play it safe just in case you get hooked, then this will be helpful for you.
Tip: If you haven't started your account yet, make sure to join S3 Rosset. The third server released months after the first two, so most players who locked in are in S1 and S2. Rosset is the most f2p server, with the least p2w players- so even if you're not staying f2p, it'll be easier for you to rank higher, which is a must to save diamonds.
Best server to join as a new player looks like this:
Rosset > Flowerland > Cloudcrest
Miscelaneous: server population and competitiveness (S1 and S2)
Useful Videos
Next, I'm going to add every video that I have personally used all those years ago, plus other guides I consider important to understand the game and play smart from the beginning. Please try to read or skim my notes first and don't just dive into the videos directly.
Simply Nightshade and LoveEffie's Beginner's Guide Playlist
✔ Great, concise introduction to many game features for you to not go in blind.
✔ While these guides will feature an old version of the game with a different UI, the mechanics for the features present there are mostly the same as they are now. This applies to most videos on this list. Some game features aren't present because they hadn't been implemented yet, but I'll try to get those covered through other videos and resources.
✔ I wanted to include this playlist because they cover little things like friend affinity points, which is one of many features that have been left forgotten for a long time now, because we old players are alredy done with them, and have been for a long while.
Vivi Gaming's guides for V0 players for the first week of the game
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7
✔ I don't love these guides, because in retrospective I disagree with certain things, but I can't deny that when you're new and lost and there are so many things to do the first few days, something like this is very helpful.
✔ If I remember correctly, she tells you to buy the diamond stamina pack at first. While I did do that, I don't recommend it if your goal is to start saving from the get go. The schedule used to be a lot more forgiving back then, so that decision didn't affect me too badly, but It's still 300 diamonds down the drain, 60 short of 3 pulls. If you're really itching to speedrun stages and farming, you can do it, I can't stop you, but I have warned you. Maybe the first week it's alright, but it's not a good long-term deal (unless perhaps you're planning on paying for monthly cards often and don't mind it).
✔ I don't remember if she also says to buy diamond arena attempts to get the arena reflection sooner- but in case she does, also take this recommendation with a grain of salt. It will help you rank faster if you're not pulling for current UR limited events, but it's still spending diamonds in an otherwise free feature of the game. Still, if you feel like you want to, go ahead. And do use the Arena Calculator to manage your bought attempts.
✔ My intention with these videos is for you to familiarize yourself with the game and its core mechanics. The long format and repetitive nature of Vivi's videos makes for a great teaching tool regarding the names of different menus, tabs, features and other details. This will help you learn from the basics so you can work your way up to understanding other guides that can confuse you if you don't know the terms, concepts, and names of things very well. It'll also help you develop a routine for dailies: make some actions more natural for you so you don't forget about them. I suggest watching them while you play, so you can see the new locations or looks of certain features that have changed since.
Sei Nikki's guide on Styling Power and scoring
This video covers scoring for Clothing, Designer's Reflection (DR), Awakening, Passive Effects, Call of Reflection, Concepts, and Stylist Academy (This is super important to do early game, I'm begging you to not forget about it. I'll link a farming doc later)
✔ Obviously we've gotten tons more DRs by this point, so when she says "this is the strongest for x attribute" remember this was during global release. It can work as a reference for which DRs you should work on as a new player, but for current rankings refer to the DR tierlists I'll share later. There are plenty of f2p friendly DRs there, that will help you direct your resources to what works best with what you can get.
✔ She mentions that concepts that are part of a Resonance will be numbered, but there are exceptions, so watch out for Concepts that look like pairs, and check their resonance info on 'Promote Concept' in the Ark.
✔ Bond with Nikki isn't super high priority for scoring, but it blocks some rewards, like Chapter rewards in the Achievements menu.
Simply Nightshade's full Concept crashcourse
This video is a wonderful guide to understanding concepts, Concept Voyage stages, how does leveling and petaling (deepen) works, which concepts to prioritize and why, decomposing and merging.
Tip: I didn't go throught the entire video, just skimmed it to verify it was useful, but! In case it's not included: don't decompose R concepts, at least early game. Either merge them to obtain SR concepts (this is just at the very beginning when you're struggling to get new concepts), or leave them as leveling fodder. SSR and UR concepts take a lot of points to level up, so be mindful and allocate your R concepts wisely.
Benign Chaos on Stylist Academy
✔ Stylist Academy is a feature you need to do a lot of farming for, and includes Mind Maze and Challege Stage drops, which you get 10 tries per day for, so you should start farming ASAP so you can be as efficient as possible and not waste those tries. Of course, you'll struggle with stamina at the beginning, so even if there's a lot to work on, it's understandable if it takes a lot of time, be kind to yourself and do what you can when you can. The amount of things to do at the start is simply overwhelming. But don't neglect the Academy.
Tip: what she says about not being sure what the strategy is to choose what to upgrade, she must be referring this:
First, upgrade everything to lvl 3 for the 7-day Tour
Then, prioritize Dress > Hair > Accessory > Shoe > Sock > Coat > Full
Evie Gaming's Guides
Evie has several guide videos, but next I'll list the ones I think you would need the most.
Ultimate Battle Guide: These videos are heavy on math and calculations, but they offer great insight into how scoring works and what features affect your overall scores. The guide is incomplete, sadly, but that couple of videos are already a great boon.
Nail Salon: Both the video on how the feature works, and the one with tips.
Memory Stairway: Full Guide on the feature, with the weekly schedule, currencies, Idea lab recolors and score boost (though please don't reset your recolor levels if you don't want to spend diamonds freely, this is more for monthly cards players), how to best pick your DRs and concepts, and a couple other details. Super useful.
Memory Stairway Shop
✔ She says there's no reason to exchange the Star Wish (puzzle piece) currency for the Rewinding Hourglass one, but that's more for old players. Since you're new, you might prefer to work on old sets that you aesthetically like more, so feel free to play around with that exchange if it's what you want.
✔ Current Idea Lab cap level is 400, soon to be upped to 500.
Feel free to peruse the rest of her playlist, but there's a lot of videos that were meant to be useful before the events came out (pre-farming for example), so I didn't feel it was necessary.
Sei Nikki's other guides
✔ Diamond farming guide (doesn't include Memory Stairway)
Recommendation: Like she says, please don't spend your diamonds on the permanent pavilion sets. And as an adendum, don't spend your Fantasy tickets (InNikki equivalent is the blue crystals) on the Fantasy pavilion- focus on Gleam. You'll collect SR and SSR sets way faster, and slowly but steadily nip at the permanent URs.
✔ Intel Hub Tips
✔ Redundant, but in case you prefer her video about the Nail salon
✔ Styling Competition feature
Tip: These competition DRs are SUPER easy to max for their Call of Reflection, so make sure to check the DR tierlist I shared below and see which ones are worth gunning for if you're lacking a good enough UR. Remember; a good and properly leveled SSR with maxed Passives and Call of Reflection can beat a base leveled UR.
✔ General tips, tricks, recommendations, and reminders
More Videos:
Mind Maze
How to make and/or change your name card: unfocused but it does show you. This video is on a playlist of similar inquiries, such as profile pictures, use lighting, filters, backgrounds etc. I will continue linking a few more I consider important, but you can check out other things she explains in those.
"Why Can't I Decompose My Echoes?"
Hard stages for Clock Workshop and Concept Voyage (same idea applies to Neverfall Courtains and Memory Stairway): This video and This video
Reverie Moment: basics about our Instagram-ish feature
Set Breakdown videos so you can decide what limited events you'd like to save for, and see a variety of other sets.
Docs, Written guides, Tierlists, Archive of Past and Future Suits, and more
Here I'll put together guides and other resources available on Shining Nikki Official Discord (this is partly why I insist you join), that I have used myself in the past and that are incredibly useful. Lots of respect and love for the creators and contributors of these.
Remember to make copies of the docs that require it
Terminology used in the server
So that you can understand the other docs and answers you receive in the server
Farming Docs
Designer's Reflection upgrade costs (elexela)
Academy farming guide (kami.8518)
Crafting Sheet for Main story, Lifetimes and other Workshop sets
Designer's Reflection Tierlist
Go to the Doc
This doc was last updated mid 2024, next is an adendum made on SND
Again, for those times when you want a second opinion deciding on what to prioritize or if a DR is better than another depending on the context, don't hesitate to ask for help on discord!
Make-up Album by lehmi (up to 2022)
Make-up Album by crystalrainchimes (picks up where lehmi left off)
✔ Awesome archives, because you can see the make-up close-ups on all skin tones.
Gallery for past and future event sets (both limited and permanent) by Rummi
Tip: make good use of this archive to create a wishlist. This way, you'll prioritize what you absolutely want to get and plan your savings accordingly.
Recently I sent this gallery to a new player, but they weren't sure how to navigate it, so I made some basic explanations that I'll share as well. Though, on this other post so as to not clog this one
✔ Just in case you miss Rummi's note on this- this gallery uses the TW/CN server rarities, which basically they go up to SSR instead of UR. Our URs are their SSRs, our SSRs are their SRs and so on and so forth.
Event Costs (from SNOD)
✔ Every pull costs 120 diamonds
Single SSR: 70-100 pulls
Double SSR: 130-180 pulls
Single UR + SSR set: 70-100 pulls for just the SSR set, 180-240 for both, up to 360 pulls for echo
Double UR: 180-200 pulls for one set, 300-350 for both, possibly more for awakening
Collaborations: Are a special type of event where SN collaborates with another brand and make in-game sets featuring said brand. Collabs cost about the same amount as regular events of the same rarity, though they don't come with reflections. Collaborations do not return.
Arena Costs Calculator
✔ Remember to make a copy to use it
Weekly Gems Calculator and Gem sources by Ruby, doc by nununana9515
✔ Remember to make a copy to use it
✔ Adendum to set completion rewards: If the UR set doesn't come with a DR, sometimes the reward will be 300 diamonds. If the SSR set doesn't come with a DR, the reward will be 75 diamonds (so half compared to one that has a DR). If the SR set doesn't come with a DR, the reward will be 25 diamonds (so half compared to one that has a DR).
Last words: join the discord!! there are many more guides, calculators and resources there. I just listed barebones here ;) Plus other wonderful stylists you can interact with and ask questions to.
Baulders Gate 3 index to give context for people new to DND stuffs.
I've been playing DND for over 15 years now and all of this is mostly from memory so bare with me.
Let's start with some big stuff then go to smaller things:
Ithilid: a creature of the mind. They are a hive mind species around a singular queen. The queen is called the elder brain and she is the source of psychic power. They originated from the under dark but became an evasive species to the astral plane. These creatures are also known as mind flayers.
Astral plane: In DND lore there are a bunch of different planes. We live on the material plane. The astral plane is where thoughts and prayers are but they exist. Other notable planes are the fey wilds, the 9 hells, the elemental planes, and shadowfell.
Teifling: originally a monster in aDND and 3.5 the teiflings origins are muddy. The common origin story is they were humans who lived in concert with or near the 9 hells. Or offspring of humans and the princes of hells. In 4e they became a player race and became very popular. Largely do to the fact they were humans but cooler.
Faerûn: the name of this settings major continent.
The sword coast: the name of this settings major area. It's the western most coast of Faerûn.
Baulder's gate. The largest trade city on the sword coast do to its location in the middle. It's a tad inland but on a major river that is connected to the ocean.
Other notable cities on the sword coast going from top to bottom are Icewind Dale, Neverwinter, Water Deep (this is where gale is from), Daggerford, Candlekeep, and an area called Calimshan.
The Harpers: a group dedicated to the preservation of Lore of the sword coast. Elminster is one of their founders.
Elminster: a former prince of Athalantar he's got a long messy story because he's a major story character. Read his book in Elminster: making of a mage.
Shar and Selûne: these two are God's of the material plane. Selûne is the lunar goddess and shines light in the darkness. Shar is the night goddess she resents her sister for claiming dominion of people during her time. They have a messy rivalry. Shar is also ambitious and has slain other gods.
Some context from Baulder's gate 1 and 2: those games were about Bhaal, the god of murder, who was foretold by a prophecy to fall from the pantheon. So he created children from mortals, demigods of murder, to have vessels to be reborn and reascend to godhood. All these vessels should have been destroyed by the end of the second game. And supposedly it's been 80ish years since the events of the second game.
If you like this game and want to spend more time here I recommend the famously fun couch co-op game: Baulder's Gate: dark alliance both 1 and 2. Find a friend and get two controllers.
And
The Icewind Dale trilogy made up of 3 books.
The crystal shard, streams of silver, and the halflings gem.
These books start to the north and explore the sword coast a bit. Easy to digest reading.
Diamond Arena Sets: free sets you can find in the Arena shop. You obtain them by buying each set piece with Flower of Odes (for the current season) or Quicksand of Years (for old season sets). Leftover Flower of Odes are automatically converted to the other currency at the end of each season.
Memory Stairway Nikki sets: free sets that accompany each new season of Memory Stairway. You can find them going to Memory stairway, bottom left corner (current) or in the Workshop (all).
All Single SSR events
Gleam sets: Gleam is the better version of the Fantasy perma pavilion. Sets will rotate every 10 days, and each rotation will have drop rate ups for 1 SSR set and 1 SR set. This pavilion includes the perma URs from Loen and Lilith, plus the other Fantasy sets, with same drop rates; so you really have no excuse to waste your pulls over there.
Welfare events: events featuring free sets you can collect by doing simple daily tasks. These events have repetitive formats, but there is a variety of tasks or minigames within that repetitiveness. Some of these have already had reruns on Memory Booth (go to Shop > Supply station), so I'm not sure how/if those are coming back again.
VIP sets: sets you unlock by top-ups, as you increase your VIP level.
Intel Hub sets: free sets you unlock by doing investigations on the intel hub, these investigations consume stamina.
Main Story chapters sets: sets you unlock by playing the main story. You can access them in their respective story chapter or through the Workshop. You craft them by farming mats on their respective -sometimes previous- chapters.
Fantasy pavilion sets: sets from the perma Fantasy pavilion.
Collabs: Collab events, which are special limited events that, due to copyright and partnership reasons, do not come back once they're over.
Pinnacle Battles: Old game feature that got a few seasons and then ended and got removed. Reruns of these have come to Memory Booth, but I'm unsure if they'd come back a second time.
First CNY event; CNY events bring 2 UR sets and 1 SSR set.
Fashion Plan: top-up long term feature, you can find the current one and the corresponding rewards in the Tasks menu
Recharge sets: accompanying sets for some limited events, aside from the set pieces you unlock by tiers, you also get some pulls for the corresponding event they're running along with, plus some other currencies.
Nikki Birthday Sets: free sets we get on Nikki's birthday (Dec 6th)! Reruns of these have come to Memory booth but I'm unsure if they'd come back a second time.
Single UR event: single UR events are pavilions with 1 UR set and 1 SSR set- like how InNikki's 5★ sets run with a 4★ one
Mind Maze sets: free suits that you unlock by playing Mind Maze stages, craft in corresponding Mind Maze chapter or in the Workshop
Purple diamond events: purple diamonds are the top-up currency, you can only get them through top-ups. These events feature a set that you can buy using those.
December Troupe sets: These are free suits that you unlock with Styling Competition currency; that you obtain through voting or ranking in said Styling Competition feature.
Make-up: make-up available in the guild menu, you buy it with Guild coins that you obtain by donating in the guild, participating in the commissions, and weekly guild ranking (plus some welfare mini-events that come every once in a while)
Casual Drinks sets: free suits available for crafting in the workshop
Lifetime sets: called such because they take a lot of time and daily farming to complete, but they're free. Similar concept to Wishful Aurosa from InNikki. You can find them in Time Corridor or in the Workshop.
Double UR event: first wedding sets event! So far we've gotten 3, all of them Double URs
Clear Sky sets: More free suits available for crafting in workshop
Anniversary event: this was the first anniversary event of the game! It was a double UR pavilion. These events are special because they always include a free UR set that you have to complete some daily tasks to obtain. Also these are key events for the lore of the game. This one takes place during vol I chapter 13 of the main story.
Second anniversary event: Single UR
Anniversary sets: free sets available during anniversary! Reruns of these have come back through Memory Booth, but I'm not sure If they'd come back a second time.
Memory Collection sets: this is the feature located in the last tab of the events menu. You unlock nodes by collecting points, points that you obtain by getting pieces from the current limited time events, both pavilions (💎) and welfares (freebies with daily tasks). The Memory Collection sets are collected by unlocking certain nodes after amassing a certain amount of points.
Single UR
CNY 2
Double UR
Diamond expenditure sets: these are events where you unlock the pieces of the set by spending diamonds and completing normal daily tasks. But, you can't complete the suit with only the daily tasks, so the 💎 expenditure is inevitable if you want to complete them. They run along pavilions, so the idea is that if you're pulling in the pavilion, you're spending 💎 that will also unlock nodes for these sets. We haven't gotten new ones in a while though.
Memory Stairway/Ranking Ocean recolors: Available in Idea Lab. They include a variety of recolors of free sets, recharges, pavilion sets, arena sets etc. These recolors have higher scores than their original versions, so they come up in scoring.
Anniversary No.4
Double UR, wedding 2
All Double SSR Pavillions
CNY 3
Single UR
Single UR
Guild Theater sets: free sets that you collect using a special currency obtainable through guild commissions and seasonal guild events like theater and scrapbook. The latter is active only when there are events running, so usually it says 'Guild Theater Resting'. You can see these sets in the Guild Shop.
Anniversary 3
Puzzle sets: These are special events, similar to recharges. You have a 9 piece puzzle and can unlock squares by pulling in the accompanying pavilion and recharging, but can only complete them by recharging.
Double UR event
Anniversary 5
Single UR
CNY 4
Single UR
Store Items: some clothes you can buy in Apple Apparel
Single UR event
MR event: MR sets are special UR sets that usually have an extra color/recolor or play with the color effects of the set. The pulling also works different compared to other UR events, because for your first 80 pulls, you will get another 80 for free. So like- you buy 10 pulls, do them, an automatically the system will do another 10 pulls for you. These events can be expensive though, don't let the free pulls fool you. They're also good events to obtain UR clothes duplicates to decompose, that you can later use to upgrade a Designer Reflection's passive skills for endgame scoring.
Single UR
Anniversary 6, upcoming, first week of July
MR event
Double UR event, wedding 3
CNY 5
Single UR
MR event
Left. CNY 6, coming end of January~beginnings of February 2026
So whats the order to play eso and its dlcs/chapters? in the flow chart it doesn't have the one orc nation, but in your old new players guide, it does, so could you list out the play order? I have a friend who wants to get into eso, and i wanna give him the right order
Good question to ask! The flowchart actually does have Orsinium listed, its after the main quest and craglorn but before thieves guild.
The general play order to go with for doing everything in order and with all context is to do your alliance's main story line (tutorial island(s) and 5 bigger zones in your alliance, the story line tries to keep you on track) alongside the main quest (with the 5 companions and about the Planemeld, started from talking to the Hooded figure), Coldharbour, and finish main quest. From there you wanna do Cadwell's Gold and Silver which is just quest lingo for doing the other alliances main quests.
From there on out it's just going in order of when the dlc was released, which the flowchart can help with since theres a lot of them.
The dungeons in the flowchart, especially the ones during the main quest/non dlc, truthfully arent necessary for any enjoyment of DLC or the main quest. Trials even less so. The dungeons only really started being connected to the zone dlcs and chapters starting with wrathstone and elsweyr. That's where you should ideally be doing those dlc dungeons before the zone dlcs following them.
I lost track of that ask where I gave all my best new player advice for ESO, so here’s a new one.
The absolute basic guide for new players. if you own the Morrowind, Summerset, Elsweyr, or Greymoor chapter (different than DLC), you will not start the game as you normally should. You will start in the tutorial for whatever chapter you own that is most recent, and the game will start you on that chapter’s main storyline right away. This is bad, because you do not know the characters of these locations and some may be repeaters from the base game. I recommend not playing that first. I know the temptation of playing Greymoor for vampires, Morrowind for nostalgia, Elsweyr for dragons, it’s very strong. But for absolute first timers, you really should play the entire game, base and dlcs and chapters, in order for the most coherent story. I mean that. If you want a storyline that makes sense and are possibly in this for the long run, take my advice. Do not play dlc until you finish the main quest.
Also for the tutorial, YOU PICK YOUR CLASS THEN DURING CHARACTER CREATION AND CANNOT EVER CHANGE IT short of remaking your character entirely. You can change your name and race and alliance with a token from the Crown Store (real money) but class is Not Changeable. I saw someone miss this once and felt really bad for them thinking the game wasn’t newbie friendly because of that. It’s pretty hard to miss but lord if that’s newbie unfriendly to them, they’re in for a world of pain.
I’ll explain this later but for your first character, the one you plan to do the most questing on, the one you want to main, plan for them to be a DPS/DD/damage oriented character, not a healer or tank.
What you should do is find a WAYSHRINE and use that to fast travel/teleport to your starter zone right away. For Nords, Dunmer, and Argonians, that’s Davon’s Watch. For Bosmer, Altmer, and Khajiit, that’s Vulkel Guard. For Bretons, Orcs, and Reguards, that’s Daggerfall. If you’re an Imperial (bought through an expansion), you can pick your own alliance. There is also an expansion for anyone to pick their own alliance regardless of race, but you probably didn’t get that. Talk to the Hooded Figure, accept and follow the quest. That starts the main questline with the 5 Companions.
After that, you’ll end up on an island where you start you alliance’s main questline, which is easy enough to follow.
Some more advice is more general stuff. But here it goes.
The order for the DLC and chapters is as so: Orsinium, Morrowind, Clockwork City, Summerset, Murkmire, Elsweyr, Dragonhold, Greymoor, Markarth. Imperial City is PVP but wraps up the Planemeld story rather well from what I’ve heard, but I have no played it because PVP scary. Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild can be done whenever, but I recommend doing them before at least Morrowind and after the Ebonheart Pact, as there are characters who are in both and if you want a chronological story, that’s how to do it. Similarly, the 3 alliance questlines all contain characters who are in various DLC, like the Vanos siblings, Darien Gautier, Razum Dar, Naryu Virian, Gabrielle Benele, Stibbons, Rigurt the Brash, etc. So if you REALLY want the chronological order to be right, doing EVERY alliance before ANY DLC or chapter is the best way to go (but no one really does that). Once you figure out which characters you really care about, you can play the quests that have them again in the proper order. The only reason I’m not listing every one of them is because there’s a lot. You have to do that yourself, sorry!
There’s only one benefit to getting ESO plus before finishing the main storyline: the crafting bag. If you’re a new player, you shouldn’t be bothering with the DLC and Chapters, but if you really want to, go for it. Otherwise, you’re wasting your money on DLC you shouldn’t really be playing considering it costs money monthly and you should get your money’s worth by finishing the main base storyline first. However crafting is not a big deal for new players, as you should be focusing on leveling up, not crafting. But to each their own!
Find the woodworking, blacksmithing, and clothing stations right away, and use them to Research traits and Deconstruct right away. Researching allows you to learn the traits from certain items to apply to ones you make yourself, or change the traits of items you already have (eventually). You know they have a trait you haven’t researched by the magnifying glass symbol on the item. Start researching right away because researching can take up to a real time month to finish PER ITEM once you’ve progressed far enough. Deconstructing is a quick way to increase that skill line AND get free items in exchange either to sell or for crafting. Once you hit level 50 in each crafting skill line, you can go and sell all those items now, or keep deconstructing for materials.
You level up skills in your class and weapon types by killing enemies with abilities from that skill line that ability bar, or by having that bar active while turning in quests. You can use this to level up skills you don’t use in combat, like healing if you play DPS but want to someday learn healing. You level up armor by wearing it in combat and killing enemies. You level up guilds by doing specific tasks in that guild, like finding lore books or doing dailies or killing daedra. It all depends.
Delves turn white when you’ve defeated the boss in them. Every delve contains a boss and a skyshard. Public dungeons also contain a skyshard, but only turn white when you’ve done all the quests for that public dungeon. Other locations turn white on discovery if there’s no quest, or after finishing the quest for that area. If the location on the map is black, you haven’t done the quest there yet. You map key should also tell you this if you look at the left side and look under “(area you’re in) point of interest”
Main quest markers look fancier than normal once. Do not accept them out of order. I know that man in Riften has been chasing you around saying he was sent for you, but he has not and you should ignore him. Normal quest markers are typically fine, but might not make sense. See Riften, where I have to help a refugee from an attack that shouldn’t have happened yet in the main story. You know what main story quest you should be doing next by that same map key but under “(area you’re in) zone story quests”. If you get lost in the main quest you can always use the zone guide to restart the zone's main quest.
Join the mages guild and fighters guild right away regardless of your class. Their questline progresses alongside the alliance questline you’re doing, so you might as well do it. Also do it for the perks you get for finishing. Their skill lines have some good abilities too.
Undaunted is dungeons. The kind you need a team for. You can gain the skill line by just accepting the quest for them from the person outside in your first zone (auridon banished cells, glenumbra spindeclutch, stonefalls fungal grotto), entering the group dungeon (not the same as a public dungeon), and then immediately leaving and returning to the city to finish the quest. You can accept delve dailies from the undaunted enclave in your capital to level up the skill line before you can accept pledges (level 45), but for the most part, it’s safe to ignore them if you’re a new player. You’re not soloing one as a total newbie, don’t try it.
Do not bother with Craglorn. It’s group dungeons and bosses and stuff. Not friendly for new players. If you end up in Craglorn, you should leave. Come back when you're stronger. The quest isnt that important so don't worry.
The bank in each major city lets you store stuff for free. You have access to it while crafting, which is good if you want to store items to research later. The bank is shared on all characters. ESO plus gives you a crafting bag for stuff like wood, alchemy ingredients, metal, clothing, runestones, etc.
You can increase bank space by opening bank and paying gold for it. Pack merchants sell increased inventory on each character. Get that right away. The stablemaster trains your mounts to be faster, have more stamina, or increase your general inventory space. Start paying for that early on to save yourself the slog of trying to get a fast horse after weeks of not training anything.
YOU ONLY HAVE ROOM FOR 25 QUESTS AT A TIME. USE THEM WISELY.
Avoid all prologue quests like the plague. Prologue quests are like teasers for all the DLC and chapters that have been released/are about to be released, and the starter zone for your alliance is FILLED with them. Gwendis, Stuga, Vanus, Lyris, Kasura, the Order of the Eye dispatch, good lord the starter zone is cluttered. They do not force you to start that DLC or chapter right away, but new players shouldn’t bother with them unless you really want to do that chapter or DLC right away. You can abandon them with no penalty, they will still be there when you get back. I only say this because they often ask you to travel to zones you shouldn’t be able to travel to (like Riften if you’re in Daggerfall Covenant), and thus they clutter your journal. A list of them for reference. Please I'm begging you to read that to know what quests to avoid. They also have a tab now in your journal. The best time to play them is right before you want to start the corresponding dlc. Look at the list to know which is which
The prologue quest for Elsweyr interacts with the main story quest “The Tharn Speaks”, as in having the prologue quest active interferes with The Tharn Speaks triggering. Definitely delete the prologue quest and continue on.
I recommend doing your alliance questline alongside the main storyline for the 5 Companions at the same time. There used to he a level lock for main quest stuff, which isnt a bad thing to reference but don't bind yourself to it. I find the best way to do it is to finish the storyline in Bangkorai, Reaper’s March, or Riften, then “The Council of the Five Companions” then get “Messages Across Tamriel”, do Coldharbour, then meet up with the 5 companions again. In general, don’t do Coldharbour until you finish your alliance AND have the Amulet of Kings. That’s how I think the story is done best. But look up the list of main story quests and pace it out yourself if you wish.
You cannot solo a world boss as a new player. You probably cannot solo a dolmen as a new player. You can try, but you might die. Just two other players is often enough to do a dolmen though.
If you go to a zone you’re not supposed to be in yet, like one ahead of the main story or outside your region, don’t touch the main story quests. It will interfere with how the main story progresses when it comes time to actually do them. Side quests are fine, delves are fine, public dungeons are fine. They just might not make sense. Stick to your alliance and its zones and you’ll be fine.
If you want to be a bow, two handed, or dual wielding user, you should be primarily using stamina abilities and medium armor. If you want to be a staff user, you should be primarily using magicka abilities and light armor. Don’t use a frost staff or sword and shield if you want to be a damage dealer, you’ll thank me later. (Reason being is that both do less damage than their counterparts and certain abilities will taunt enemies, which only tanks should do) You CAN be a hybrid build but it will lower the damage you can deal and you won’t be taken seriously in meta like, ever. Heavy armor is for tanks, but if youre are struggling to survive as a new player, you can do whatever you want. I’m just saying this because the passive perks for what I listed synergize best together.
The reason you want your main to be a damage dealer and NOT a healer or tank is because once you get them leveled up to max level 50, you need to be able to damage enemies to do most storyline content. You do not want to have to depend on your damage dealing friends to help you through storyline content where certain fights are mandatory, or just general exploration. Additionally tanks and healers have little to no use in non-group content. Many of the quest bosses are either solo only (no asking for friend help) or you'll rarely see another player there with you, so there's no real need to limit your ability to kill things on the off chance a real dps shows up. Killing enemies at a snail’s pace in delves and across Tamriel will take its toll on you, so don’t torture yourself by trying to defeat x final boss of a DLC on your 3k dps max tank. Just make them a DPS and save yourself the pain. You can make a tank or healer later I PROMISE.
You also will need more skill points on characters who plan to do DLC like Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood and want to unlock the passive skills from those skill lines, and on characters who do crafting. My main character has nearly every skill point possible to gain in this game and she only has like 10 to spare right now out of Hundreds. So the character who you plan to do the most on will not only get more skill points through adventuring and questing, but they will NEED them as well. You really, really want this character to be DPS.
Don’t be afraid to look stuff up! If you think somethings off, it probably is. Let me know if there’s anything else I should add to this!
Shining Nikki Story and Lore Guide for New Players
Part 1: Game mechanics
This is Part 2: Chronology for the story and where to find lore
So, you want to tackle SN lore, but— there are so many places where you can find different stories! Where to begin, what to prioritize? I will go over all of it, from the most obvious to the more hidden.
If it wasn't clear, this is NOT a story recap, this is simply an aid for you to dive into the story and experience it for yourself 🩷 in the way and amount that best suits you.
I hope this serves as a helpful guide for my fellow lore and story junkies. Or, maybe, as an invitation to experience the wonderful story, characters and other details that this game has to offer.
🩷 Main Story
Shining Nikki: Story Guide, Characters, Factions, and Terms
The most important thing is for you to read the Main Story, of course. Lovely u/piendish put together this guide to facilitate:
A chronology of events, including the relevant Anniversary events.
Chapter summaries (very brief, intended to jog your memory when a new chapter drops— not to replace actually reading the chapters).
A list of the characters plus brief descriptions for each.
A list of different factions/organizations that exist in the game and who belongs where.
A list of terms you will encounter that are specific to the game's world.
That said, I will still go over other things about this point.
The Main Story (1) is structured by Volumes (2), then Chapters (3), then stages. For stages, there are normal ones (4), there are what I think of as 'Book' stages (5) (because of how they look), and then there are Challenge Stages (6) at the end of most chapters.
Normal stages include a styling battle, "Book" stages just play the next bit of story uninterrupted.
Challenge stages... Okay, more tricky. What they tell depends on which Volume they are in.
For Volume I they're either a fun, lighthearted side quest with barely any relevance for the story of the chapter, with few exceptions. Still, I suggest you read them as a palate cleanser for the end of the chapter.
For Volume II though, they stepped up and gave them a special spotlight; there, they can expand on what's happening directly after the chapter ends, give more attention to certain characters and context on things they were doing before/during/after the chapter, or deviate from the chapter because they're giving you context FOR something that happens or shows up in the chapter. Essentially, they have the role of filling in some gaps that would've been too much of a tangent for the storyline of the chapter to go into. Please don't skip these, they're really good.
✔ From Volume II Chapter 6 onwards, you won't need to craft certain items from the chapter set to pass stages and progress with the story. Styling Battles will only depend on your Styling Power.
✔ Volume III will not consume stamina while reading the story, because all stages are "Book" stages. The exception is the prologue, because it features a special format. Drops for crafting the chapter sets are now obtained through 'Investigations'.
✔ In case you didn't already know, almost every Anniversary event is straight up part of the Main Story. That's why the guide I linked above is super useful to know the chronology.
✔ For the first two relevant Anni events, they had the foresight to add shortcuts. For the first Anni event, which takes place at the end of Volume I, they actually made an independent chapter for it: chapter 13— so, this one is actually part of the Main Story. For the third Anni (the second one has a stellar story, but it's not really key for the Main Story), Tides Rise to Everlasting Flames, they added a shortcut to Journey Review (more on this later), that will take you directly there to be able to read the event story.
✔ The main story can be understood by sticking to the Volumes and Anni events only, but every other feature I will explain next can add a lot of context and help you better understand some of the things that happen, plus the characters involved and their motivations.
💭 Mind Maze
Like the game description says, this story section dives into a character's inner world. It features characters that are key for the Main Story; they are all part of our main cast— Not all characters from the main cast have a Mind Maze chapter, but all of the Mind Maze chapters focus on characters from the main cast. Mind Maze shows you some of their core memories, and helps you better understand what has shaped these characters to become who they are.
Mind Maze (1) is structured by Chapters (2), then stages. There are normal stages (3), and "Book" stages (4).
All the stages work with the same logic as they do in the Main Story
✔ Every chapter is dedicated to one designer only, and there are a total of 5 chapters.
✔ As far as we know, there will not be more chapters added to Mind Maze.
✔ All the chapters operate the same, though chapter 3 is a little special. Almost at the end, you will be met with a different stage layout. Just play them as you see fit (this will make sense once you get to it), and then you can finish the chapter.
✔ All chapters except for chapter 3 feature an SSR set. Chapter 3 features a UR; our first Lifetime set in the game. This set and the special stages in the chapter served as the prototype for Time Corridor (more on this next), where you can find the rest of the UR Lifetime sets.
✔ I suggest you read the DR associated with the chapter set, since the story in them is complementary to what happens in their respective Mind Maze chapter.
⌛ Time Corridor
The spiritual successor to Mind Maze
In Time Corridor, we are presented, for the most part, with stories from the Past. Here we meet historical characters, some of which appear in the Main Story, others who are only mentioned in passing. The exception to these descriptions is, of course, Nikki's Star Sea Dream, which has a very particular story to it.
Time Corridor is organized in Seasons, and then stages that are visually varied depending on the Season.
When you open Time Corridor, you will be met with a simple enough layout. I'm not sure if the game opens the first or last season for someone who has never opened Time Corridor before, but I'll stick with the first season.
To change seasons, just go to the Switch option on the top right, and then select the season you want to go to.
On the bottom we have some more options.
+ There's the PV trailer for the season, which I recommend you watch either before or after you're done reading the story. They're really great additions.
+ Then there's the Stages option, which will lead you to the story stages— these, just play them as they come.
+ Lastly, there's the option to craft the Lifetime set of the season, which you can also access through the Workshop.
✔ Time Corridor features stories that give a lot of context for the distant past of Miraland, through different important characters. Seasons 2 and 3 dive into characters we don't meet in the Main Story, but that occasionally get mentioned in passing, either in the Main Story or elsewhere, because they were really important people. Seasons 4 and 5 feature characters we do meet in the Main Story, and tell us about their origin stories.
✔ Lifetime sets get their name for a reason. For you to unlock the DR, if you're a f2p with no extra tries for the Time Corridor stages, it will probably take you around 5 months.
🪞Designer's Reflection (DR)
DRs are character cards that come with specific sets, and the character in them is the person who designed that set.
They feature art for the designer, plus a complimentary story that explains the inspiration of the set and tells us more about the designer; personality, flashbacks, side stories, etc.
Canonically, they're a version of the designer that has been frozen in time, forever embodying the memory fragments related to the set they designed. When we use them in battle, the explanation is that we're channeling this Designer's specific state of mind and intentions to boost our Styling Power.
DR memories are contained within Personality Mirrors, that in turn are stored in the Ark. This is also the way you look for them within the game.
Go to the Ark of Memories, then to Designer's Reflection.
Once there, just choose the DR you want, and tap the option "Into Memory". Here, you will be presented with the chapters available for this DR's memories.
✔ There are three types of rarities for Designer's Reflection: SR, SSR, and UR.
✔ SR rarity DRs have 3 chapters, SSR DRs have 4, and UR DRs have 5.
✔ There are a variety of dialogues you can have the character from the DR say, and you can unlock some of them by upgrading the designer. If you like to see these, keep tapping on the art to trigger a different line and see if you have read all of them.
» Which DRs are more relevant?
First, I'd like to tell you that all DRs are worth reading for different reasons. Some offer incredibly valuable context for things that happen in the Main Story, some expose facets of a character that aren't too deeply explored elsewhere, or tell you more of their story (which you'd be interested in if you like them or find them intriguing). But! They can also include more lighthearted stories or simple recounts, either for important characters, or straight up background characters. So, there's a variety of tone and themes that they cover, which is why I think there's a time and place for all of them, depending on what you want to read at any given time.
With that said, and whether you do want to read them all or priorize what is more key to the overall state of the lore, how do you recognize which are more important/interesting, and which are more silly fun? Let me provide some pointers for this.
✔ All URs have great, interesting stories. I've yet to come across one that didn't. But, that aside, I'd recommend prioritizing the ones from Diamond Arena and Anniversary, and the ones from Fantasy/Gleam and Time Corridor. For other limited event URs, their stories are really good, and can contain very interesting or important tidbits here and there; but at least those come with an event that usually reflects what the DR is going to be about, so you can read them at your leisure.
✔ SSRs are mostly the same, but what you will notice is that, since there are a lot of them (there are many URs, but not that many from the same character), this is where you'll find the thick of the character development content. Here is where I usually see the most perspectives on who a character is, because I can see them in different scenarios and memories that show me varied sides to them. For SSRs you can see the sources to decide which you prefer to prioritize.
✔ The DRs from Mind Maze are very relevant in regards to their respective chapters.
✔ There used to be a feature called Pinnacle Battles, but it was eliminated immediately after its last season ended. Some of these DRs touch on very important plot points, and some are just to expand on the characters.
✔ The December Troupe SSRs from Styling Competition are like a different storyline, because yeah, they feature designers we know, but here they're interpreting a role. So, these ones are pretty cool, but maybe not that relevant in the grand scheme of things.
✔ SSRs from Welfares and Crafting tend to be more lighthearted, but honestly they have a variety of stories in them.
✔ I'd recommend reading all the ones from Fantasy/Gleam, because they're all a good baseline to get to know some main and secondary characters.
✔ The ones from Limited events are varied as well, but! Mostly they're good for developing a character, since there will be many events for the same character. So, they're an interesting read.
✔ SRs is where it can get tricky regarding what kind of stories they feature, and whether they're all that relevant, but like SSRs you can get an idea depending on their source.
✔ I suggest reading all Main Story Chapters' SRs, because they offer more insight into the characters that play an important role in the chapter.
✔ Welfare and Crafting SRs are where most lighthearted stories are at.
✔ Fantasy/Gleam I'd say the same I said about the SSRs
✔ Nikki SRs from Memory Stairway are a wholesome recollection of Nikki memories and hobbies, and in general serve as more characterization for her, as well as more situations and interactions outside the scope of the Main Story for her to exist in.
✔ The ones from Intel Hub I would recommend reading as well.
» I can't access multiple DRs because I don't have them, but I still would like to read them
Luckily for you, the lovely Tumblr user Shining Reflections has every DR available in the game and is currently working on sharing them through their blog, in a written format. Not all DRs are up, but they will be, eventually. So check it out, see if the one you're looking for has been uploaded yet.
Some people have also uploaded a number of DRs on Youtube, but this method isn't very consistent. Still, the DR you're looking for might be one of the lucky few there. To give you a starting point, I do have a playlist where I've put all the DRs I've been able to find there. If you find more, feel free to DM me the link, I'd love to add them.
🗃️ DRs Index Profiles
This is one of my favorite aspects about DRs! The Profiles offer a deeper look into the designer and the memory featured in the DR. Sometimes they tell you more about their personality, their thoughts, their principles, state of mind, among other things.
Some of the profile entries come from some sort of omniscient POV, and they include different analysis on the designer. How cool is to have that sort of thing inside the game itself! If you ever want to pick at a character's brain, make sure that aside from the DR memory itself, you also take a peek into its accompanying Profile.
You can find these Profiles in the Index menu, in the Reflections archive.
Once you're there and have selected the DR you want to explore, you will see different options and tabs on the bottom. I'll explain all of them a little, but I will focus more on the last three tabs.
The profile will open directly in the first tab: Image.
Pretty self explanatory, but here you can see the DR art in its full glory. If you tap on the image itself, the Profile menu will be hidden and you can move the image atound to see the entire art— because the full piece is almost always cropped to fit the screen of your device. Then, if you select Illustration, you will see the set from this DR displayed on Nikki. Next, by selecting Source, you can see what feature you obtained the DR from. Lastly, the third option allows you to switch the DR art between its original and awakened state (In case you prefer to see one or the other in the miniature, you can select which you want the DR to display by doing this process in the Ark instead).
The Second tab will be Skills/Stats
This section doesn't have much in the way of lore, but each skill does contain a brief description that will fit the DR. I just think it's nothing you won't already get from the other tabs.
Also (nothing to do with lore, skip ahead if you want), It'd be remiss of me not to add that this tab is super important when you're debating between one reflection and anotherin terms of Styling Power, and don't have the DR tierlist on hand or someone to give you a second opinion. This tab will show you the fully levelled and ranked up potential of that particular DR, with all its Passives maxed, and Call of Reflection maxed as well. Just look at the number besides the DR main attribute, and compare it between the two you're undecided about.
Up next, the last three tabs that I consider the true goldmine of the Profiles: sure enough, Profile, then Pieces, then Audio.
From all the text, I think you can already tell what I mean with these being such a fantastic trove of information.
On the Profile tab
✔ You will get a brief introduction to the designer that will give you a description of them that best fits the context of the DR memory and the set. You will also get what age they were when they designed this particular set, plus height, sex and birthday. Well, these latter characteristics... most of the time you will get them. Sometimes you'll be met with "Unknown" in either one or more or all. Some are obscure or mysterious like that, tee hee~
✔ Then, you will see the analytical entries I mentioned. For these, you will always get some fixed categories, and some others unique to each DR. Fixed categories are: About Design, About the Ark, about Nikki, About Self/Ego, True to Self, and About Styling Power. Now, with "fixed" I mean that they are consistently present, not that they are always in all DRs. I think the only one that does exist in every single Profile is "About Design". You will see what I mean if/when you dive into Profiles yourself. Also, Nikki sometimes signs off on these, marking that she wrote that specific entry herself ("By Nikki").
✔ In these entries you will really get to see a deepdive into the designer and that particular design and memory, sometimes putting what was subtly implied in the DR memories into actual words, or simply elaborating more on what's behind some actions or dialogues that took place there.
✔ To unlock all entries, you need to get the DR to a certain level. I will probably need to come verify this later, but I think it's lvl. 40 for SRs, lvl. 60 for SSRs and URs. Basically, same level requirements as awakening.
On the Pieces tab
✔ You will be able to see all the set pieces and their flavor text, most of the times arranged in an specific order they should be read in. I will go into more detail about clothing flavor text later, but for now know that these do add to the overall story being told.
✔ From the get go, you should know that while both versions have something to offer, the more juicy flavor text is usually in the awakened version of the pieces. Sometimes it adds to the mental state of the designer through some of the events from the DR memory, sometimes it's a short but poetic recount of these same events. They can have really cool rewordings or perspectives of the DR memory.
✔ More often than not, the Original pieces are about the design and the pieces themselves in a more literal sense, but they are still pleasantly poetic, or nicely worded, so don't dismiss them entirely. They're also a great choice if you would ever want to make those kinds of collages with a few blocks of text, and don't know what to use. I've done that myself before.
On the Audio tab
✔ You will find the character voicelines available in the Ark. To be able to see them all displayed on the profile, you will have to have triggered them in the Ark prior.
✔ When selecting a voiceline, you will get a speech bubble next to the designer's miniature, plus them saying the line out loud (if you have VO on) just like they do in the Ark. But, here you can actually choose which they say. It's randomized in the Ark.
✔ Voicelines can be similar to entries, but rather than thoughts it's what the designer actually has to say about certain key things from the DR memory. Sometimes it's really cool, because it's like they're making commentary on themselves. Or, they can be sharing principles they live by, conclusions they've come to from their experiences, etc.
✔ Leveling - Ranking that blocks voicelines is as follows: DR ascending 1 and 2, 2-Star and 3-Star rank-up, Any (passive) skill reaches lvl 2, and Awakening.
✔ The other consistent lines across all DRs are: Summon, Meet, and Select (this last one is what plays when you "select" the DR for a Styling Battle). Consistent in that they're in all DRs, not that they say the same, for clarity's sake.
✔ The rest of the lines' names are particular to each DR.
Fun tidbit: a few of the lines will be the exact same across different DRs, when they're from the same character. Mostly the ones tied to levelling and ranking up the DR. I think this is just a nod to their more important/iconic lines overall, so they include them in more than one DR in case you're not collecting everything from everyone, but rather one here and there from different designers.
📆 Limited Events
Here, I'll talk about the Timed SSR and UR events in the game. You can always find the current one(s) in the upper left corner of the Homescreen Menu.
Timed events always include a storyline to complement the Event Set and the DR associated with it. This storyline varies in length and overall quality, though almost all of them are super interesting to read. Some, like with DRs, are more silly fun and friendly shenanigans— which I honestly find nice enough every once in a while.
The obvious elephant in the room is: okay, but how can I read these storylines if the event is already over?
And, thankfully, for some time now there has been a handy answer: Journey Review.
I mentioned Journey Review earlier, when talking about the Anniversary events. Now, let me explain it in more detail.
Once you open the feature, you will be met with three tabs: Time Record, Major Events, and Video Collection.
Time Record is where you will want to go for almost all events, be it SSR or UR, single or double; the grand majority are there. If you're looking for a specific event and not just browsing, you can use the search option in the upper right corner to find it more quickly and efficiently. You can input either character names, event names, or set names. And, if I understand correctly, searching a character's name will show you events where the character is either present or just mentioned. You can also filter events by nation (weird filter, but it is what it is).
Major Events is where you will find all Anniversary events, bar one. All the events in this tab are an essential part of the Main Story, so it's only fair to highlight them and separate them for easier access. I reiterate, The first relevant Anni is part of the Main Story— However, not everything from the event is in Chapter 13, only the Main Story of the event, so you will need to head to Journey Review for the full picture. The shortcut to the second relevant Anni will directly take you to its Journey Review archive. In case you don't remember, please refer to the Story Guide I linked at the very beginning for the chronology of these events in the context of the Main Story.
Video Collection will show you all the UR event PV trailers, which you can also simply look up on Shining Nikki's Youtube Channel. They're an awesome addition, so I do suggest you watch them. Plus, they're just fun. But, beware, they don't always upload all PVs to the channel dedicated to the Global Server (my best guess is not wanting to translate the voiceover). So, I will also give you the link for their TW/CN Youtube Channel, in case it's something you would like to check out. Of course, remember their server is ahead of us in terms of events, so keep in mind that you will come across spoilers.
✔ When you select any given event in either Time Record or Major Events, you will be met with a simple menu where you can select the chapters or story segments that make up the event's narrative. Some events have two or three tabs, and these are side stories that usually played along the main one, or showed up as extra tidbits after certain parts of the story were read. For example, for the Anniversary I mentioned earlier that is incomplete (Vol I Chapter 13), it's because of these extra tabs with additional story and context.
✔ The multiple tabs are confusing— what do I read first? To be completely honest with you, I couldn't tell you this exactly; I recommend you go in the order they're presented. The first tab will always give you the Main Story, so you can hardly go wrong from there.
✔ Will Journey Review give me the same experience as the event itself? Sadly, no. You will not get a map or illustration where the chapters will pop up as you're going through them, or experience any visual alterations this map/background might have gone through in the actual event. Additional cinematics that might've played in between chapters will also be absent.
Luckily, you can review some of these events in this stylist's archive channel! I found it while looking for Designer Reflection stories, and I'm incredibly happy someone had the foresight to do this. Please do check the rest of her channel, because it has super well curated playlists. I'm sure there are more loose videos from event stories here and there, but I think this is a great starting point, specially if what concerns you the most is getting the full experience for Anni events.
✔ For some events not present in the Major Events tab, they can also have relevance in the Main Story chronology. Never as prominent as the Anniversary events, but rather to offer some connecting tissue for certain chapters or things that happen behind the scene. I don't remember all of them, and I remember even less where some would go in the context of the Main Story, but I can list the ones I remember for you to sort through, maybe after you've caught up with all the Volumes. I'll add chapters to a few I feel confident about, and probably update the list in the future.
+ Lodden's Night (Around chapter 6)
+ Angelic Prayer (After vol II ch 3)
+ Ocean of Storms (After vol II ch 5)
+ Game Royale
+ Windtraveler's Forest
+ Deep Sea Treasures
+ Stellar Scales
+ New Chapter of the Glory
🖼️ Concepts
Concepts aren't really important for the story, but the art and flavor text add to it, in my humble opinion.
If Designers' Reflections are the full recollection of a memory, I'd define a Concept as a snippet of one. This snippet can be a thought, an emotion, a wisdom, etc. What's interesting is that you can easily link some Concepts to DR memories, and look at some others to put a visual to some characters' lives and experiences.
You can see Concept art and flavor text either going to Promote Concept in the Ark
Or going to the Index and into the Concepts archive
To see the flavor text, select a concept. Let's assume you've selected to view the concept in the Ark. You will see this text below the Concept's name and Designer, and you can also see it when you open Show Details. With the latter, if the Concept is part of a Resonance Set, you should also go to Resonance for an extra bit describing the overall theme.
✔ Just like DRs, all Concepts have designers. Though, some of these designers are "concepts" themselves; like Time, Desire, and Emotion. Because Desire is here, my running theory is that these are from gods, but that's just a theory.
📱 Moments
Moments is a Social Media in Miraland that I would describe as a mix of Twitter and Facebook. Almost every relevant character has posts here, and also replies to other characters' posts.
This feature is a really cool way of seeing a bit more of the connections (friendships or relationships in general) between characters. Moreover, to see how the rest of Miraland interacts with or reacts to the things that happen in the story.
New Moments posts will appear on your feed every time you do certain things (like getting concepts, completing sets, obtaining specific set items, etc), play story chapters, read DRs, and also in response to limited events.
From left to right, 1) because of a limited event, 2) after a story chapter (large scale), 3) after a story chapter (character response)
If you want to focus on a specific character or account, you can go into their profile (an actual profile!! neat!) by tapping on their profile picture, see how many Moments they've posted, and scroll down to see them.
✔ I recommend reading them as they come, because eventually you have a TON of them to go through and you'll have to scroll too much. If you do leave them for later, the most organized and easy way of going through them is by account.
✔ When you reply to a Moment, there will be many new replies from other users, maybe between themselves, maybe to you, but not only a response to your comment. So, make sure to leave a Reply so that you can see all responses.
✔ Moments is a great way to get to know more about Nikki. She's the user with the most Moment(s) and she posts about many different things. Sometimes about the story, or about an event. She posts about her art, and design studies as well. She also shares some of her hobbies, or whatever has her attention at any given time. If nothing else, you might want to see her posts to get more interactions with her!
I could probably mention more tidbits about why I think Moments is a cool feature, but I prefer to leave you with this brief rundown and explanation so I don't spoil it too much!
👗Clothing
Of course, Clothing. All clothing pieces in the game have flavor text, and this text can be easily accessed at any moment.
You can see this flavor text when you first get an item, by looking up an item in the Index' Clothing archive, or by long pressing on an item in the Wardrobe.
The kind of flavor text these items have can be wildly different depending on where the clothing comes from; a full set, chapter drops, limited event rewards, etc. But even then, aside from set pieces, the rest of sources don't really automatically inform whether the flavor text is related to stories or characters, so it's a tricky thing to talk about
✔ As a rule of thumb, set items' flavor text is a worthwhile read. Though, of course, these are best read in the DR Profiles. Both because they're all already on display, and because they give you the best reading order. Specially awakened pieces— those can sometimes follow coherent sequences across different pieces.
✔ If you look at the first example I used, the SSR earrings, I'd consider that one to be a great flavor text that is in sync with the story and characters. It doesn't come with a set, it's just an isolated piece. The item's connection to the story and characters makes it more valuable to me: because I can appreciate it beyond its aesthetic. This specific item I'm pretty sure was a reward for the daily tasks of that limited event. But there are others that come from the same source and are much more random in content. So, it's really a toss-up.
✔ Like I mentioned earlier, this flavor text can provide you, at the very least, with some cool caption or text for your edits and collages, so they can still be fun to play with even if they aren't giving you particularly substantial information. The second example I used is a good reference for this.
Phew! Are you still good? I didn't lose you? Sorry (not) about dumping so much information on you! Thanks for making it to the end if you did, I put a lot of love into writing this... I even lost a chunk I'd already finished and had to rewrite it again OTL
Thanks to the lovely @alluskies for checking this over for me, you're the sweetest!
War Thunder: Japanese ground forces starter guide.
Want to start playing War Thunder? http://warthunder.com/en/registration?r=userinvite_37881463
Click the link and join up, also below is my Discord feel free to join and ask for help if you need it! We keep going with Japan for the 1.87 starter guides! Today we look at the odd line of Japan where you have one of the best MBT's at top tier, and in my opinion the best 75MM gun in the game with the Type 2. A line with some hidden gems and absolute dogs. But join me as i try to help new and old players alike start their Japanese tank line.
