Disclaimer: I'm not sure if I'm posting this in the right place. If I am, that's great. If not, I would appreciate the thread moved to the appropriate place. Thank you.
Anyway:
With the advent of the Champion Point system, there are players – myself, included – who have been under the impression that the Veteran Ranks are going to be removed entirely, given the amount of negative feedback in the past about its nature as being grindy, in particular.
However, in the recent previews of the Champion System in ESO Live Episode 8, which aired last December 23, 2014 – that does not seem to be the case. It appears we will be earning Champion Points alongside Veteran Ranks (provided that the characters in question have not yet reached Veteran Rank 14, or whichever cap ZOS may determine for ESO in future updates) as opposed to the new system replacing the old one entirely.
Although the team at ZOS has done a tremendous and outstanding job with listening to and considering player feedback to determine certain outcomes within the game on a developmental basis – I, personally, am of the belief that removing the Veteran Ranks entirely would be a sound path to follow for the future.
I will admit here that some of the concepts and ideas that you, dear reader, will find herein are those that I crafted after having experienced the style and system of other MMORPGs. However, I will not name for the sake of taste and integrity for both ZOS and these particular companies. That said, experiences tend to be the one true path to better understanding something, I’ve come to realize.
But, I digress.
There are many factors which I can elaborate upon but will not do so in this segment else I would run the risk of being redundant. All I can say is that, though this may seem like a radical overhaul idea, I will not be so inconsiderate in my own right to leave it to ZOS to grope in the dark with regard to how they may go about it if they choose to consider and – hopefully – implement it in the future, should it appear favorable for ESO in the long run.
All of those ideas, I have compiled as such:
Level Cap At 50
To get to the nitty-gritty of it, the reason I feel that keeping the level cap at 50 is a more interesting choice, instead of the current Veteran Rank system, is because it would allow for a more horizontal style of progression.
What I mean by horizontal progression is that, at level 50, players will no longer have to worry about an entirely new tier of vertical style progression where they would have to quest and grind for yet another twelve (or fourteen) levels without much reward, save for progression with equipment every three Veteran Ranks or so, with the promise of Veteran Trials and Dungeons in between.
Instead, with this revamp, players will be given the opportunities to run the dungeons, delves and other content that they want at level cap 50 but – much like the present with the Dragonstar Arena – they are given the choice to increase the difficulty as they feel would befit their playstyle, the degree of challenge they desire, or level of competitiveness.
Which leads me to my next point:
World Re-Balancing:
Although I must confess that I have not been an avid follower of the ESO Live series, what I’ve managed to see therein is that the development team at ZOS is always hard at work modifying and re-balancing variables in the world every time a new features comes in, or when skills, stats and abilities have been re-worked to suit old and new content.
With this in mind, it goes without saying that ZOS would ultimately be tasked to re-balance the variables out in the world with regard to levels and statistical imbalances that would come with revamping the Veteran Rank system entirely, to make zones like Craglorn and Upper Craglorn scale to just level 50 instead of the normal VR12-14 that it currently is today.
It is, of course, a grave consideration that balances across the board regarding items, classes, monsters, skills and abilities would be foremost with regard to the system here but that is not to say that I don’t have a few suggestions of my own to help the process along.
Most especially with regard to materials for armour and weapons found only in the Veteran Rank zones. (Calcinium to Voidstone, Kresh to Voidcloth, etc.)
That brings me to:
More Tempering Options:
Back in TESV: Skyrim, the factor that determined how much you improve your equipment was based on how many points you’ve spent in certain areas of the Blacksmithing constellation. That is, you could improve your equipment in increments not unlike the current improvement system on ESO at present.
However, the similarities end there.
In ESO, the temper options range only from Fine, Superior, Epic and Legendary. In Skyrim, however, it went from Fine, Superior, Exquisite, Flawless, Epic, and finally Legendary.
Why is this relevant, you might ask? Well, simply said, removing the Veteran Ranks – as I mentioned before – would pose problems with regard to the VR-tier materials for crafting weapons and armour.
However, by adapting Skyrim’s system of tempering, by adding Exquisite and Flawless (as well as corresponding tempering materials for them) between the Superior and Epic brackets, it basically compensates players as well as giving them opportunities to better strengthen their equipment in certain ways.
For example, ZOS could implement a new mechanic to the Metallurgy, Stitching, and Carpentry passives for Blacksmithing, Clothing, and Woodworking respectively. Or perhaps implement a new passive in the skill lines altogether.
It would be that players are only able to temper their gear up to the Fine bracket without putting skill points into this particular passive. One point would afford them the Superior and Exquisite brackets while the next would allow them the Flawless and Epic brackets, while the final point would afford them the ability to temper their gear up to Legendary.
However, as with the other passives, the capacity to be able to put points into this passive depends on the level of Blacksmithing, Clothing and Woodworking the player has. So levelling up one’s skills – as it goes without saying – is still a consideration.
A system like this would allow players the opportunity to progress and improve their gear based upon and with relation to the difficulty of the challenges they intend to face, be it delves, dungeons or trials.
With that said, as I spoke of being able to increase dungeon difficulty on a whim in a topic prior to this one, let’s say that a group of players is able to finish an instance of Blessed Crucible which had its difficulty increased. Where normally, items and refinement would yield tempering materials, completing delves, dungeons and trials with increased difficulty would yield tempering materials in a certain bracket superior to those found from refinement and salvaging equipment.
A normal player, though he has his Blacksmithing passive maxed to allow tempering up to Legendary, only manages to yield tempering materials from Fine to the Exquisite bracket vis-a-vis deconstructed items and refinement. He would need to complete dungeons, delves and trials with increased difficulty to be eligible to obtain tempering materials between the Flawless, Epic, and Legendary bracket as a reward, depending on how difficult his group had tuned the dungeon to.
This system gives the players the opportunity to still be able to improve their gear while encouraging them – and those who play competitively – to further improve their equipment by finishing challenges and difficult dungeons if they so wish. If not, they sacrifice nothing in the process as the extent and relevance of tempering from Flawless to Legendary shines the most when traversing challenging scenarios and dungeons, by the player’s choice – though the added improvements is still a welcome thing outside of these events.
This complicated topic is obviously still subject to many considerations and re-iterations. I merely offer my thoughts, concepts and ideas upon it and defer to you, ZOS, experts of the technicalities that accompany such an undertaking should you choose to accept it.
Moving away from the technicalities of that topic, however, I would like to move on to another topic which opens up to yet another aspect in which equipment may have moderate relevance.
Zone Restrictions and PvE /PvP Niches:
It’s been discussed in some circles that the addition of the War of the Three Banners, the initial faction selection, and the Alliance War PvP mechanic has made ESO deviate from the normal TES formula, no matter how close it feels and seems to be currently with each update that’s come so far.
In previous TES titles, the protagonist(s) are able to explore areas as a neutral hero or mercenary, aiding the people in those areas regardless of there being any present and particular conflict (with the exception of Skyrim further on, but that is still an otherwise mitigated choice).
With regard to PvE content and PvP content, as I open above, I would suggest that each be given their own niches that don’t necessarily encroach upon one another.
In PvE, allow the players to freely explore the zones of the Daggerfall Covenant, Aldmeri Dominion, and Ebonheart Pact as they desire, considering them as adventurers, much like The Vestige, whose one great desire is to help the beleaguered settlements riven by the Alliance War and the Soulburst.
Give them the choice to decide on which adventures and storylines they would like to undertake without barring them from exploring other avenues, as it takes away the so-preferred sandbox element that so many roleplayers and story-driven gamers yearn for but find absent in MMORPGs today.
On the other hand, for Alliance War and PvP, consider the player as a mercenary who chooses which Alliance he would like to fight for and have him commit to the choice much like a soldier or volunteer would be drafted into the military. Likewise, offer them the choice to change sides, but at a cost.
However, upon leaving the principal battleground of Cyrodiil (in this case, to the PvE zones), he returns to being the adventurer who is free to explore as he wishes – until he returns to Cyrodiil to fight in the Alliance War again.
With that in mind, this gives the diverse races across Tamriel, regardless of the area they’re currently in, a more relevant position. At present, we have NPC characters that have rumor dialogue options when you pass them that are unique to their race. Using this as a player, you can tell what troubles plague a particular race and where.
An example: Say you’re a character who chose to do the main questline of Glenumbra in the Daggerfall Covenant zones and you want to figure out which adventure you’d like to go on next. On your adventure in Glenumbra – or after all of the quest elements are done – and you wander into town, you might hear a travelling Dunmer merchant talking about troubles of an organization called the Maulborn in Deshaan. As the troubles appear to be similar to the one Glenumbra suffered, you opt to check out what goes on in Deshaan. Personally, I feel that this would give further immersion to the game with urging you to listen to NPC dialogue and rumor-mongering to best figure out where to put your skills next.
As a roleplayer, you’d have the opportunity to progress your character through the quests that you do – within reason, of course. None of us are truly the penultimate Vestige, after all.
Currently, when you pass NPC characters, they already recognize you for your achievements in a particular questline, unique and exclusive to their race or faction. Why not turn that around and give them options for aspiring adventurers – who haven’t done these questlines – to point them to it as breadcrumbs? Even as a passing quip?
If I might use Skyrim as an example, it's not unlike those guards you pass, Imperial or Stormcloak, who suggest you join them, and then a breadcrumb quest appears in your quest log, giving you directions and a brief summary of what quests might await you. In ESO, however, it has room to diversify with rumors not coming just from the guards but from townsfolk, merchants and travelers as well.
I feel that doing this would allow the elements that made the TES games iconic to flourish within ESO without having to compromise any of the existing systems set in place. In addition, it adds a certain flavor for roleplayers in the myriad zones to interact with one another when not fighting in PvP and the Alliance War, turning ESO further into an immersive, living, breathing world without barriers save for those that are within reason for a sandbox-styled MMORPG, while still being able to retain the myriad questlines that already exist.
Next, I would like to expound upon the remedies and fixes that can aid the advent of the removal of zone restrictions – particularly Level Scaling.
Level Scaling:
What does one mean when they say Level Scaling?
It is a system implemented in an MMO whereby a player of a certain level, when entering a zone in which the effective level bracket is lower than his own, has his effectiveness reduced to that level bracket in terms of statistics (i.e. Health, magicka, stamina, damage) to give the monsters in the area a fighting chance, offering challenge to the player and keeping him on his toes.
To keep gameplay engaging no matter your level.
Upon the removal of zone restrictions, players are able to choose which zones they would like to explore, not necessarily following a linear path between the Alliance zones. A player may choose to finish Davon’s Watch on the Ebonheart Pact from level 1-15, then travel next to Stormhaven in the Daggerfall Covenant zones for 16-24, for instance.
Level scaling comes into play for those players who would like to go back and experience the zones which no longer fit within their level bracket, still providing them with a sufficient amount of experience though less than the zones that have levels that are within their bracket.
A character, for example, who has finished every zone in the Aldmeri Dominion and has reached level 50 would like to travel and experience the Ebonheart Pact. When he starts from Davon’s Watch, though his level still remains at 50, his effectiveness in combat is scaled to that of a level 5 character’s, or another bracket depending on the subzone of his current questing zone.
However, said character would still be able to benefit from the bonuses from his equipment. It will be his edge or advantage over a newly-made character but not to the extent that it will make him overpowered and destroy enemies with a single blow – unless considerably within reason.
Lastly, I would like to talk about…
Weapon Gilding:
Though I use the term gilding, as it is the proper term used in metallurgy, it is just basically the ability for players to apply dye to their weapons, shields, bows and staves much like ZOS has allowed at present with Armor Dye when the system arrived in Update 3.
There isn’t much to expound on this particular topic as it’s self-explanatory.
Miscellaneous:
Of a few I’d like to tackle briefly, I would like to make note of the fact that weapons disappear when riding a mount. Though I understand there are addons out there that help to refresh it, it’s merely for client-side and I don’t personally see the merit or logic for equipped weapons to disappear when mounting one’s horse.
Perhaps a change of this might be a consideration. As a player, I do enjoy seeing my weapons equipped when riding my horse.
Closing Remarks:
In closing, these are the ideas I have which I feel may benefit ESO and shape it to become a powerhouse of an MMO, surpassing the boundaries of those that came before it. I hope, pray and anticipate that ZOS will, at the very least, consider these points and it would hearten me – and likely many others – if even just a few of these were acknowledged—better yet, put into the game.
Thank you very much. [T]7
Edited by TheBastion on January 19, 2015 5:18AM