[1.6] Champion System (again) - Official Forum Edition

Berinima

Dear Community!


I have been spent the last days testing Patch 1.6 on the PTS, but also writing a lot about it. I feel the need to summerize my thoughts on the Champion System here *again* and here is why...

While sticking around mainly in the PTS section I got the impression that the system is not very well percieved by pretty much everybody - here in the official part it seems to be totally different. Many people are defending it, which is - as I can respect everybody's opinion - totally fine for me. I am not making a deal about it, I personally hate the system. Still, I am trying hard to be objective about it. I read through every post in these threads during the last hour:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/149302/on-overall-1-6-nerf-issue-its-time-to-stand-up-and-say-enough-is-enough

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/149441/champions-system-is-a-timesink-not-funny-at-all

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/149598/1-6-and-why-the-sky-is-not-falling


I am not entirely sure if the people who are liking it have actually tested it on the PTS but it doesn't really matter to be honest. I think however that the discussion derailed a bit and most if not all people are missing the point. So I feel the need to post my thoughts again here. So this is a re-post of the champion system part of my review:

[...]

And finally, my biggest problem with the patch. The champion system, also known as the alternative progression system of the endless grind. While I love the art style and the different choices you can make for your character, right now I have the very strong feeling that this will break the game, at least for me. Let me elaborate:

It probably has to do with my playstyle that might not be compatible with MMOs or what the industry thinks how an MMO should be. Since Aion I probably played every game ever released and I spent LOTS of time doing so. Since then I am somewhat resistent to „content“ that can be defined as „grind“. I am mainly PvP focussed and I never quite understood the need of „progressing“ your character after a certain point. It took me around four months to get to VR 10 because I mainly play PvP. At release I was kind of fine with the progression ESO provided although I percieved the veteran ranks as an unneccessary grind but with the help of crafting and guild mates it wasn't that bad. True, I was always behind power wise because I spent a lot less time questing once Molag Bal was defeated because I percieved my story as over. But again, it wasn't that bad. You could get decent gear quite early on once somebody had the required traits researched and everything beyond that was more of a soft progression.

If you have watched the ESO live show when they first introduced it I was instantly reminded of the planar attunement in Rift. Exactly the point in their release cycle when I quit the game. While I can adapt to a horizontal progression with a slight vertical tendency the claim that this actually the case here is simply not true. The developer in that show claimed that a new player can easily catch up with a veteran player because of the diminishing returns of the stars. While this is true for ONE star it is not for the whole system. There are plenty of stars to chose from and many of them are viable for every possible build (which is a good thing in theory), also there are several very good perks that are unlocked when you put many points into one constellation (which is also good in theory). The problem is, if you have many points and distribute them correctly I think you will get a huge edge over new players over time. Not only because of the different stars and the perks but also because for every point you put into the constellations you get addtional hit points, magicka and stamina. As we all know, this does not only scale your resource pools, it also bolsters your damage and healing.

So for me, several questions arise here. I haven't figured out the exact math behind how much resources you get from one champion point (I haven't even tried to be honest) but it's not a flat bonus. When I adjusted my template I first picked my gear from the bags, then added the armor runes, then distributed my champion points and THEN my attribute points. For one point health I didn't get +122 HP, I got more. So I am assuming that you get a percentage bonus on your already existing pool instead of getting a flat value. So first, this means strong characters become even stronger the more champion points they spend. Also, does this percentage bonus diminish at some point? Are there any soft or hard caps on your resources? Since they removed any caps I have to assume that there are no caps at all. But even with diminishing returns how the system is set up I assume that the veteran characters will become MUCH stronger over time.

Another problem here:

„As part of the overall rebalance, a certain amount of power in each area was reserved for the Champion System.“

Okay fine. But this rises the question how would you even balance new content? While in other games where the power of a character is tied to certain gear you can aquire or be helped to acquire by your fellow guild mates this is purely tied to XP, meaning how much time you have spent in the game so far. When I compare how much power you can get by only our initial 70 points (it's way more bonusses than wearing an additional set of armor) how much difference will that be in a year from now? If you are releasing a new area, a new dungeon or a new raid in a couple of months how are you planning to design your encounters? How much champion points do you assume we should earn in these couple of months? I mean an encounter has to be challenging so you HAVE to assume a certain power growth during your release cycles. If power growth is tied to gear, one could acquire that. Either by buying, crafting or getting help from your guild mates by grinding out the previous raids. This growth is only tied to XP so there is now way to gear up to be en par.

Also people are already thinking about clever ways to acquire champion points in the most efficient way possible:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/148707/how-long-does-it-take-you-to-get-a-champion-point

And I can't even blame anybody for that. It is a grind after all and people want to be efficient at it. It is not even the problem that it is outragously slow at the moment. How it is on the PTS I don't see myself getting more than one champion point in a day. But this is NOT the point. The problem is that a) there will ALWAYS be a certain playstyle that just provides more XP than others. In PvE it might be grinding, daylies or dungeons in PvP it might be zerging. So no matter how much you TRY to balance it, you just won't. This system forces you to adapt to a certain playstyle if you want to be efficient. This is fine for levelling because sooner or later levelling will be over and you will be en par. But this system is endless. We are talking about 1200 champion points at the current rate this is a couple of YEARS of adapting to that playstyle.

I mean in our very small guild (I know we are not the benchmark for the MMO market whatsoever but still) we have people that just like to hang out in the game and craft, acquire all recipes and styles, do some fishing for the achievements and I am sure they would enjoy the new justice system. This playstyle will NOT be valid in terms of developing your character. Everything you don't get enough XP for will suddenly feel like a waste of time again. And we are not talking about two more veteran ranks, we are literally talking about until the end of time here.

And also b) if you have wasted your time for a while how would you catch up? You can't. You will ALWAYS be behind people that are very efficient at grinding. How MUCH behind that will be remains to be seen but this enlightenment mechanic just does NOT cut it. I for example as I stated at the beginning of this very long post play only PvP. I do not grind and I do not zerg. So MAYBE I will get one champion point a day (and I am playing almost every day of my life) while other people might get two or three a day because they are just a little bit more efficient that I am. This is not a problem today or in two weeks from now but it will be in a couple of months.

[...]


I also posted this as a reply to somebody who defended the system as he compared it to a gear progression in other MMOs:

[...]

I must disagree. If you tie progression to gear grind you are always able to catch up if you skip some tiers. Also if you have a look at release cycles in for example WoW you will notice that with every major expansion the progression is somewhat resetted to zero by introducing new super-easy-to-acquire drop gear that is better than everything before. While this is not ideal as well, it is kind of mandatory to keep the game alive. You can't have this with an endless XP tied system unless you award CP Points for free at some point in the future.

In addition, gear is always tiered, meaning you have time to catch up because the content is gated. People that are very efficient at acquiring gear have an advantage in a certain time frame but their progression is stale from then on.

Both is not true for an (almost) endless progression system without tiers and gates. If one player is behind the power gap, he will always be behind. Depending on his efficiency he might be behind even more after some time has passed.

[...]


And finally, this goes out to my dear friends at ZOS:

[...]

Dear ZOS, I am humbly asking you to prove me wrong and give us a template on the PTS with 1200 champion points so I can see that it isn't that bad. However, I am assuming that it actually is. If you are introducing a system like that you have to be REALLY clever about it. If I would have done that I wouldn't have tied it to XP. I would have tied it to just be in the world and interacting with it. I would have limited it to a certain amout you can get over a certain period of time. I would have removed that limit from new players until they are en par. I would have distributed the points at a MUCH higher rate. But even without all these mechanics, it would STILL be relatively hard to catch up if you start a couple of months from now.

If you are not clever about it, you have to fix your mess later. You have to give new players a head start with a couple of hundred points later down the road. Do you think your player base now would like that? People now are actually freaking out because they only get the same points no matter how much alts they have grinded to VR 14. Do you think THESE players would like if you gave new players tons of points for free because you have to at some time in the future? I highly doubt that.

And last but not least, you are putting some nice little XP potions in your cash store (EDIT: This might actually not be confirmed, we will be able to test that on the PTS tomorrow). Usually I wouldn't have a problem with that because it is just XP. Everybody who cries „pay to win“ is a little bit out of line in my opinion. But honestly, with a system like that I think XP potions are very problematic. What you get out of the champion system is worth much more than an item and the system is DIRECTLY tied to XP. To me it's pay to win in a vicious disguise, but maybe this is just me.

[...]


TLDR: The system is not as horizontal as people that have not seen it might think. It is pretty vertical. It diminishes at some point, but that point is far down the road. While I understand that a system like that appeals to a certain player base, it also divides the community (as it can be seen on the forums). And that is probably the worst part about it. I understand that our current characters somehow had to be nerfed to implement it and I also like challenging content. However, the implementation that ZOS has in place at the moment is very problematic. If the sky is falling can decide everybody on his own.


Kind regards,
Berinima

Vahrokh

There's also another additional couple of things that you have talked about but I think might be best consolidated in short text:

1) If you are a PvP player, expecially if you are a PvP player, FORGET to ever be competitive if you did not grind as much as "power grinders" did.
This becomes doubly true if you shall join ESO in some months after patch 1.6, people shall have months of grinding advantage over you, and you SHALL be a defensless weakling in front of them.

2) If you are a "raider" and love trials, FORGET to ever be competitive if you don't also spend substantial time grinding outside.
If current XP gains have any tie with CP levelling speed, doing trials is a massive time sink that yelds minuscule XP.
Who does not have 4 hours+ a day to play is going to slowly lose terrain to those who do. 2 months later you SHALL be the one guy who keeps dying again and again and doing poor performance because you did not farm those CPs required to survive and do best. So you'll be a drag to your guild.

Imo these two things may happen, and if they happen to enough people it could really mean bad stuff for the future of ESO.

Berinima

Exactly. This system - as good as it might sound - is actually a balancing nightmare. It does not reward everybody the same way, actually in the state it is right now that claim is far from true.

AshySamurai

OP, awesome post. And I agree with you. CS was a good idea on paper, but it could create a huge gap between old players (if they don't leave) and new players who will buy this game .