ESO: Joining a Guild Basics, Pros & Cons, How-To’s

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Human Made

Penned by Angus Green

Angus is our resident Elder Scrolls Online specialist. He lives in Eugene and is a teacher by day.

Reviewed by Sharayah

Elder Scrolls Online offers a huge range of experiences for players, though none capture niche interests quite as well as guilds. Guilds are player-created groups that focus on specific aspects of ESO, including PVP, Trials, and even roleplay. They range from casual to hardcore, meaning everyone can find their ideal community. If not from joining a guild that already exists, then by creating their own!

In this guide to guilds in ESO, we’ll cover all the basics of joining or creating a guild. We’ll go over the pros and cons of each to help you decide what’s right for you and get you started on the path.

Let’s get to it!

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ESO Guild Basics

What is a guild?

Guilds are places for players to come together over common goals (or just to chill and chat). You can find a PVP group to conquer Cyrodiil, a guild trader to sell your wares, or a group of RPers to help you feel immersed in the game. Guilds are made by and for players, so they can morph into anything the members desire.

Guilds have a Playstyle tab that offer three categories: Casual, Balanced, and Hardcore. These are generalizations, but they help potential members to know what to expect upon joining.

Can I join more than one guild?

You can join a max of five guilds, including any you create yourself. That may seem limiting, but it’s hard to actually be active in more than five guilds!

You’ll have to send in an application to get accepted to a guild (we’ll cover that in more detail below).

How many people can be in a guild?

Guilds range in size from a minimum of ten members to a maximum of five hundred. The ten-member minimum is needed to unlock the guild bank feature. If you want to join a guild that’s already at maximum capacity, you’ll need to wait for a current member to drop out.

Joining a Guild

How do I get into a guild?

Each guild requires an application to join. To apply, simply open the guild interface (the shortcut is “G” on PC) and create your application. This is typically a short, written statement explaining why you’d be an asset to the guild. Casual guilds tend not to care about your application, but hardcore guilds are often much more rigorous. You may be required to show a parse (how much DPS you can deal to a target dummy) or other measures to show you’re capable and a good fit for the guild. This may include your class(es) and roles, your CP, or other qualities. In a big trading guild, for example, you may need to specify that you’re an “active trader” to show that you’ll fill up the guild trader slots.

When applying to a guild, make sure you read their guild page statement. Guilds will often ask you to include a particular word or phrase to show that you read the statement and actually want to join that particular guild.

Guilds aren’t high-stakes unless you want them to be. Send in multiple applications to various guilds and test them out to see if they meet your needs. I recommend a mix of causal and hardcore guilds so you have groups to fit different vibes for the various content you want to run.

If you don’t know what kind of guild you’re looking for, there’s an in-game quest to help you out. Check out the city of Markarth in The Reach for “Which Guild Is For You?” The quest looks like a help wanted sign right by the city’s wayshrine. You’ll get average leveled gold and standard XP — not bad for a quest that can be completed in under a minute. 

Joining a Guild: Pros and Cons

Because guilds are so customizable, the pros and cons to joining specific guilds can’t really be compared. Instead, we’ll cover the most important considerations to help you decide if guilds are right for you. From there, it’s up to you to determine what you’re looking for and which guild will best deliver.

Pros

• Community for answering questions, grouping up, and simply chatting
• Improved group content experience with guaranteed allies
• Access to guild traders
• Plenty of fun activities and events
• Guild Hall with transmutation station, crafting stations, parsing dummies, etc.

Cons

• Dues that can drain your gold if you aren’t actively making money
• Weird or unmanageable expectations (this is rare and more of hardcore-style guild problem)
• May be hard to find the right fit

Guild Community

Guilds can be a solid way to make friends in ESO. Guild members often talk on the guild chat, and may even have an active Discord. If you’re just starting the game, you can utilize your community to ask questions and get additional support. Guilds really look after their own to help their members learn new things, earn new gear, and overcome difficult content.

Note: If you’re part of multiple guilds, you can create separate chat tabs for each guild! Simply click on the “+” above your in-game chat to neatly organize your guild chats during peak gameplay hours.

The Benefit of Trust Building

Joining a guild guarantees a level of trust that you can’t find elsewhere in ESO. Because guilds often spread into Discord and talk so frequently, people really get to know and trust each other. The trust you build has many benefits, most prominently the practice of buying and selling crowns.

One player sends gold to the other via mail or trade, which the other uses to buy the desired item and gift it back to the first. These trades are completely based on trust, so it’s difficult to do with strangers. With guild members, you know who you’re dealing with and can even have a guild officer “broker” the trade.

Guild discounts are also common, so that’s another bonus of buying through a guild member!

Grouping with Guildies

Once you group with Guildies, most ESO players swear to never PUG again. It can be much more comfortable to group with guild members to get through content smoothly. It dispels the sense of anonymity and guarantees the people you’re working with will at least hear you out if you need to step away from the grind for a moment.

Your guild will also guarantee you a spot in PVP endeavors, so you won’t be stuck in zone chat spamming “lfg” without any invites. 

Guild Halls

Guild halls often have loads of useful things within them, from just a banker and merchant to everything but the kitchen sink. I personally love when a guild has every form of crafting station in the game. It’s a one-stop shop for crafting sets and completing master writs!

Guilds may also offer parse dummies (often both 21M and 6M health dummies) and mundus stones to help test out your damage. You might even find a Soul Swarn Thrall and a Basin of Loss (to increase and decrease your vampire stage, respectively). The list goes on!

Guild Traders

For every guild you’re in, you can sell up to thirty items at once on the guild trader. Players can visit your guild trader wherever they’re posted in Tamriel to buy items. These slots will always be available for you to fill, even if your guild doesn’t have an active trader.

If you’re unsure how much to post items for, Tamriel Trade Centre can be a great resource for ballpark estimates. You can check online or get the add-on. You can also ask guild members for a price check by right-clicking on the item to post it in your guild chat.

Dues & Trader Locations

Many guilds have “dues,” which differ by guild. Some require nothing, others require that you at least play the game once every fourteen days. Some have major requirements, like donations of 50K or sales of 200K per week to maintain their guild trader location.

Guilds have to bid for trader locations, meaning the guilds who make the most gold can secure the highest-traffic locations. Some spots are highly prized, and guilds drain their coffers to maintain their spots.

Heavy-traffic guild trader locations include:

• Mournhold in Deshaan
• Wayrest in Stormhaven
• Elden Root in Grahtwood
• Rawl’kha in Reaper’s March
• Rimmen in Northern Elsweyr

These areas are major cities with plenty of necessary resources like banks, crafting stations, and merchants. They’re close to wayshrines and can hold up to seven guild traders, explaining the heavy traffic.

What if my guild trader doesn’t have a storefront?

If your guild loses its trader bid and is without a guild trader for a while, you may notice that items are posted for lower than market average. This motivates guild members to buy, thereby giving the guild more money to bid next week. This is a good time to stock up on items to help support your guild. You may want to buy even if prices are higher than average, as it’ll help your guild regain their location the following week.

Ways to Support Your Guild other than Guild Trader

There are many ways you can actively support your guild. Depending on your guild, certain actions will be more beneficial than others. Sometimes all it takes is showing up to events to make a difference. In hardcore guilds, you may be expected to do a bit more.

You can find a good chunk of information in the guild tab about the group, but most of what you’ll need will be posted in the guild chat or on Discord.

Discord

While the in-game guild chat in game is everything all at once, Discord chats have the advantage of segmentation. Members also often use Discord to communicate to coordinate trial groups, PVP battles in Cyrodiil, raffles, and more over voice chat.

Raffles & Donations

Raffles and donations are some major ways to support your guild monetarily. Guilds will often announce when they’re doing raffles or looking for donations via in-game mail. You can also check the guild tab home page to see what the specific amounts you should be sending in.

Guild raffles require you to turn in a set amount of gold, either to the guild bank or to a specific member of the guild. Anything outside of the specified gold amount set for raffles will often be seen as a donation, so make sure you don’t accidentally give away money!

If you accidentally deposit money or items into the guild bank that you didn’t mean to send, you can message the guild and an officer can usually help square it away and get you your items back. Guild banks can hold a lot, but guilds often only want specific types of items to be donated, so be sure not to treat it like a personal bank or put items nobody wants in there. 

Join the High Ground

To answer the question of whether you should join a guild or not, our answer is a resounding yes! We hope you’re able to join the guilds that are just right for you. For more information on all of your favorite games and the latest in all things ESO, follow us on social media and subscribe to our newsletter. 

Happy gaming!