Remove Vet & Raise Level Cap Concept (OUTDATED)

Gidorick

After some consideration and re-reading this thread, as well as some others, I have made some tweaks to this concept yet again and instead of editing this thread I decided to make a new thread.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/174148/level-50-80-vr-replacement-new-ish-concept

I will leave the original concept below in the spoiler.

I had touched on this a while back and I still haven't really understood why a particular game design mechanic would be a bad thing.

Instead of removing VET ranks why doesn't ZOS just convert VET ranks to regular ranks... and then add monthly increases to the level cap, so... the following would occur:

• Immediately raise level cap to 76 and convert all gear/recipes to the appropriate level.
• Every month raise level cap by 1
• Every level earned past 50 earns the player 1 CP. This would be in addition to the way CPs are earned now.
• Level 50-100, Skill points are awarded every 2 levels. (50, 52,54,56, etc.)
• Level 100+, Skill points are awarded every 5 levels. (105,110,115, etc.)

The XP distribution between the VR ranks is currently set to a steady 1 million XP per Veteran Rank. Suggest that the 13 million XP required to get to VR 14 be divided between level 50 and 76 exponentially. Using the XP required to attain each level from uesp.net I distributed the XP required for each post 50 level in the following way:



Below are the numbers for that distribution

The combined total for all XP is 13,000,000 XP, the amount currently required to attain VR14.

This will create a much more even leveling experience to max level that will make the journey MUCH less of a grind. This way progression always feel natural and players never feel like the work in front of them is impossible.


To achieve this progression, there are only 3 levels that would require 1million or more XP:

• Level 74 would require 1,037,173 XP to attain.
• Level 75 would require 1,175,131 XP to attain.
• Level 76 would require 1,344,445 XP to attain.

The total XP to reach level cap, however, would not change. It would still require 13 million XP to climb from level 50 to level 76

If this rate continues, In 10 years, the level cap would be at 197, which isn't a ridiculously unattainable level. However, by the time level 150 is attainable, the amount of XP per level would get insane, so ZOS would have to eventually slow rate of increase of the required XP. This wouldn't be an issue as long as ZOS delivers regular DLC. My hope is that ZOS can deliver at least 3 DLC packs per year. If each DLC pack caters to the next 4 levels that will be attainable by players, this rate of progression would be easily sustainable.

This would allow players to grind their level every month through DLC or existing content and mobs in the DLC would be, when the DLC releases, at a higher level than any player. So if DLC releases when the highest attainable character level is 81, the DLC should contain levels 82-85. All players who are not yet at max level should be leveled to the content appropriately.

This would keep players coming back for more, each and every month. Players would buy more XP pots to reach the next level more quickly. Levels would provide players with additional CP which, in the larger view of the 3600 CP, wouldn't make that big a difference.

The fact that the level cap raises by only one level would mean new players would be able to catch up to older players with just a bit of effort. Additionally, older players can continue to dominate those below them while they attempt to catch up.

The in-between levels (levels that do not award attribute points) could be used as gear requirements so while players might not get an attribute point for a particular level, they would be able to wear special gear because of the level, making the in-between levels more significant.

What would be the downside to such a regular level cap increase?

Valymer

That is only sustainable if ZOS adds a ton of new content regularly, which hasn't been their forte up to now. An interesting idea though.

Preyfar

Gidorick wrote: »

What would be the downside to such a regular level cap increase?

Unless all gear increases properly it and auto-balances to the current cap it could have devastating effects on PVP, of which ESO is already suffering massive problems greatly.

Gidorick

Preyfar wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

What would be the downside to such a regular level cap increase?

Unless all gear increases properly it and auto-balances to the current cap it could have devastating effects on PVP, of which ESO is already suffering massive problems greatly.

Well, aren't they talking about seasonal PVP gear? If that's the case, new gear would be the new level. Chase that dragon!

Jaxsun

I like it but right now I'd be happy if they removed the term "veteran ranks" and kept the levels. This would make the new cap 64. They could even add a few levels to the cap when doing this giving us something to do immediately after changing it. This should also coincide with, if not sooner, making the amount of xp required to attain ranks 51-64 scale the same as 1-50. I still hate that the veteran ranks take way longer to obtain. It makes no sense to me.

Gidorick

Jaxsun wrote: »

I like it but right now I'd be happy if they removed the term "veteran ranks" and kept the levels. This would make the new cap 64. They could even add a few levels to the cap when doing this giving us something to do immediately after changing it. This should also coincide with, if not sooner, making the amount of xp required to attain ranks 51-64 scale the same as 1-50. I still hate that the veteran ranks take way longer to obtain. It makes no sense to me.

I have seen a lot of people complain about the length of time it takes to obtain a vet rank so I figured splitting them up into 2 levels each would give players a feeling of progression and, in the grand scheme of things, the only difference would be 14 more CPs awarded. That isn't much.

I like your thoughts about the scaling. That should definitely be part of this.

Wintersage

Brilliant. Best idea I've heard on (in?) these forums for a while.

I would much rather character development, than a mad dash to blinding halt and gear grind.

And expanding the level caps every so often? Chase the dragon indeed. Exactly the kind of thing this game needs for long term player retention. Also the best reward ever for us ESO+ subscribers and our continued loyalty. (Or at least monthly financial support)

+1 Auction Horse guy.

Teargrants

They did that, it was one of the stupidest moves they've made with the game. Now we have to grind through 14 vet ranks instead of 10.

Gnarly

Seems like zos should pay heed to this thread. Just saying, sounds like good business to me. And I am personally fond of eso, it so far being almost everything I've been looking for in an mmorpg. I'd hate to cap and feel the need to move onto something else which I probably won't enjoy as much. Or worse, continue to love it only to see the population (which already seems a little thin to me) dwindle until I see no one as far as the beautiful tamriel horizon stretches and every cyrodil campaign is empty/centralized on one keep with a handful of people dickin' around/dueling ect. Do your thing zos but make eso strong and keep it alive with creative ideas like this. I'm pretty ignorant to the logistics of it and I can only assume it would be at least mildly difficult/costly but the best way is rarely the easiest way in my experience. Words.... Elder Scrolls rocks!?

Wintersage

Teargrants wrote: »

They did that, it was one of the stupidest moves they've made with the game. Now we have to grind through 14 vet ranks instead of 10.

Beats standing around grinding "LFG" in zone chat. And perpetual unending wars get stale if that's all there is.

Teargrants

Gnarly wrote: »

Seems like zos should pay heed to this thread. Just saying, sounds like good business to me. And I am personally fond of eso, it so far being almost everything I've been looking for in an mmorpg. I'd hate to cap and feel the need to move onto something else which I probably won't enjoy as much. Or worse, continue to love it only to see the population (which already seems a little thin to me) dwindle until I see no one as far as the beautiful tamriel horizon stretches and every cyrodil campaign is empty/centralized on one keep with a handful of people dickin' around/dueling ect. Do your thing zos but make eso strong and keep it alive with creative ideas like this. I'm pretty ignorant to the logistics of it and I can only assume it would be at least mildly difficult/costly but the best way is rarely the easiest way in my experience. Words.... Elder Scrolls rocks!?

You have 3600 champion points to grind...

Gidorick

Teargrants wrote: »

Gnarly wrote: »

Seems like zos should pay heed to this thread. Just saying, sounds like good business to me. And I am personally fond of eso, it so far being almost everything I've been looking for in an mmorpg. I'd hate to cap and feel the need to move onto something else which I probably won't enjoy as much. Or worse, continue to love it only to see the population (which already seems a little thin to me) dwindle until I see no one as far as the beautiful tamriel horizon stretches and every cyrodil campaign is empty/centralized on one keep with a handful of people dickin' around/dueling ect. Do your thing zos but make eso strong and keep it alive with creative ideas like this. I'm pretty ignorant to the logistics of it and I can only assume it would be at least mildly difficult/costly but the best way is rarely the easiest way in my experience. Words.... Elder Scrolls rocks!?

You have 3600 champion points to grind...

And this concept would give us something else to look forward to. Players would get 1-5 CPs per level plus the 1 CP per level and we would watch for our increase in level and get Attribute Points. It would make the grind much less... gridy.

leshpar

This sounds like a good idea until you realize that new players would never ever be able to catch up to the people who have been here since this idea would have been implimented, thus leading the the demise of the game in a few years time.

Ultimately this is a bad idea.

Gidorick

leshpar wrote: »

This sounds like a good idea until you realize that new players would never ever be able to catch up to the people who have been here since this idea would have been implimented, thus leading the the demise of the game in a few years time.

Ultimately this is a bad idea.

I don't think it would because, let say... in 4 years someone starts ESO at level one and another player is at level 125. Lets suppose the following:

In 3 months: New Player Level 50 & Old Player Level 131
3 more months: New Player Level 75 & Old Player Level 134
3 more months: New Player Level 100 & Old Player Level 137
3 more months: New Player Level 125 & Old Player Level 140
3 more months: New Player Level 143 & Old Player Level 143

In a year and 3 months a new player would catch up with the old player and they would be the same level from then on out. Now, I personally leveled MUCH slower than this but there are those that have leveled much more quickly.

Not being able to catch up would be a problem for those that choose not to run after level gain and those types usually don't care about getting to level cap.

Ace_SiN

Please no.. I have close to 100 people in my community that refuse to return do to the leveling grind.. We should should be grinding for new gear, skill lines, and story/exploration. You know, things that are actually enjoyable to do by the majority. For the few of us that are masochists, we already have the CP grind.

Gidorick

I agree that the solution to content isn't to add additional levels. This idea is more to give players a greater feeling of accomplishment while playing long term and to keep players coming back monthly. Let's say they release a DLC and a player rips through it in a month and the next dlc isn't released for 4 months. There's 3 months in there that the player has no direct incentive to come back and play. Increase the level cap one month, every month and that player has a reason to come back each month and play more. Maybe even through the DLC a couple more times.

Also, let's say a DLC releases when the cap is 105, they could have equipment in that DLC that requires the player to be level 105-110 to equip. Now that DLC is viable for 5 months... That's more perceived value.

This concept reaches farther than players who are 'tired of the grind' and those 100 players in your community @Ace_SiN, I'd bet they would be some of the first to hit that level cap every month.

BuggeX

They should make it like Oblivion,
You Chose 10 Main Skilllines and gain exp in this, like now lvling a Skillline.
After 10 lvl ups in this Lines you rais 1 lvl and get 1 Attributpoint.

So your max lvl is lvl 50 like now.
CP is your futher Progression

Cuyler

To be honest, I'd hate to have to level grind again. But with that said, if it weren't actually a grind and they allowed you to gain the extra levels within a reasonable amount of time (i.e. by completing say half of the new dlc content) then it wouldn't be too bad.

D3 did this and it was ok because by the time you had completed 1/4 of the new content you were already at the new max.

bertenburnyb16_ESO

the concept of steadily increasing lvl cap is generally frouned upon because players have to recraft their gear all the time for a small increase in stats wich costs alot of gold. thats why they went away from the VR rank system and implemented the champion point system

Gidorick

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

the concept of steadily increasing lvl cap is generally frouned upon because players have to recraft their gear all the time for a small increase in stats wich costs alot of gold. thats why they went away from the VR rank system and implemented the champion point system

Ah. Ok. I could see that being a point of contention. I would think one level per month would equal one set of armor per month. If anything it would give those who care about such things more to do. Chasing that dragon can be tedious for sure.

EQBallzz

I personally wouldn't mind something like this but there is a good chunk of people around here that can't even handle 14 nerfed vet levels so I doubt they would be too thrilled about dozens of never ending levels.

I also think it would be too difficult to scale difficulty. Levels are not just a numerical representation of time spent but also of character stats. Presumably, each level adds stats which would either completely trivialize the game or require enormous amounts of new and harder content for players (yeah..not gonna happen). If on the other hand levels don't increase stats or power at all..then what is the point? There is no actual progression outside of 1 CP which is pretty meaningless as far as progression goes.

This would also require a revamping of the XP gain. Grinding, dungeons and PvP would need to be viable options for gaining XP or there is literally nothing to do once you finish silver/gold. This problem already exists with earning CP anyway but with that many added levels it would be exponentially worse.

Frawr

Ify gear automatically scaled up to the new level with me then fine. I like grinding mobs. I can grind cps or levels. Makes no odds to me. I personally enjoy the pvp when it works. I enjoy doing group content. I distinctly do not enjoy 'ggo here, kill that, yay you are the hero'.

Ultimately I don't want to be forced to do theme park rides every month in order to continue my esports. I would rather be left in peace to play.

There are enough theme park rides for me now.

i would LOVE to see more (non-instanced) sandbox elements.

Ffastyl

The reason to not regularly increase the level cap is Power Creep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw

AlnilamE

Ace_SiN wrote: »

Please no.. I have close to 100 people in my community that refuse to return do to the leveling grind.. We should should be grinding for new gear, skill lines, and story/exploration. You know, things that are actually enjoyable to do by the majority. For the few of us that are masochists, we already have the CP grind.

It is very strange to me that grinding for new gear or skill lines is OK, but for levels is not. Don't they come hand in hand?

Gidorick

ESO already has pretty bad powercreep I think. I actually experienced this pretty heavily in the main campaign. Outleveling zones and content left and right. It's a difficult thing to mitigate Especially when the game has essentially been designed with it as a core concept. The higher your lever the better the gear you can get. That's a pretty standard feature of roll playing games in general.

My concept mitigates power creep some by spreading out attribute points. Instead of every level, its every 2.. then every 5. After level 150 it could be every 10.

ZOS could even decide to create more attributes at some point to where players must distribute their points across sub-attributes. Like:

Magica
-Intelligence
-Luck
-Personality

Health
-Agility
-Willpower
-Constitution

Stamina
-Endurance
-Speed
-Strength

This could be post level 100 progression where progression is more granular and players become more specialized. This would work in conjunction with new skill lines and abilities to make it so players get more diverse as they progress.

I'm not saying this solves every issue but the core concept of regular level increase=regular play is sound. Some design decisions would have to be made for post 80 game play but hey... mmos are fluid and growing things and it's better than the level 50 then 3600 CP system we might have.

Yinmaigao

Gidorick wrote: »

Instead of removing VET ranks why doesn't ZOS just convert VET ranks to regular ranks... and then add monthly increases to the level cap, so... the following would occur:

Just curious, where is all this new content coming from every month? Even now, Craglorn has the highest level enemies (outside of Vet CoA) and the xp there is abysmal. Are they going to retune every dungeon/zone every month to accommodate this? Or do you seriously think that they will release a new zone every month? Even if they do.... the map is not large enough to sustain this rate of growth (granted, we could venture to the plane of Obivion etc... but I don't see this happening)

Interesting concept though!

Gidorick

Yinmaigao wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

Instead of removing VET ranks why doesn't ZOS just convert VET ranks to regular ranks... and then add monthly increases to the level cap, so... the following would occur:

Just curious, where is all this new content coming from every month? Even now, Craglorn has the highest level enemies (outside of Vet CoA) and the xp there is abysmal. Are they going to retune every dungeon/zone every month to accommodate this? Or do you seriously think that they will release a new zone every month? Even if they do.... the map is not large enough to sustain this rate of growth (granted, we could venture to the plane of Obivion etc... but I don't see this happening)

Interesting concept though!

Things would have to be tweaked a bit, sure. Like.... i have a passive XP concept for clothes that I've posted. Or allow players to gain miniscule XP for ANY mob killings. Allow players to gain XP no matter what they do. When Content IS released? It can be designed with future levels in mind to where one DLC can be viable for 5 or 6 months as an XP leveling field. Leveled Zones and areas could help also so that the mobs are at the players level all the time.

Gidorick

Gidorick wrote: »

ZOS could even decide to create more attributes at some point to where players must distribute their points across sub-attributes. Like:

Magica
-Intelligence
-Luck
-Personality

Health
-Endurance
-Willpower
-Constitution

Stamina
-Agility
-Speed
-Strength

This could be post level 100 progression where progression is more granular and players become more specialized. This would work in conjunction with new skill lines and abilities to make it so players get more diverse as they progress.

I've been thinking about this idea and am wondering if the idea of having sub-abilities could actually be a viable way to progress a character after level 100. If they implemented this concept in June 2015 it would be May 2017 before level 100 was reached. What benefits could these new attributes have? What kind of progression would it allow?

I was thinking the following:

-Intelligence: reduces all Magica costs
-Luck: increases the chance of getting great gear and gold drops from mobs and chests.
-Personality: Increases how much you are liked and directly reflects merchant prices
-Endurance: increases block percentage
-Willpower: resistance to all magic damage
-Constitution: resistance to all physical damage
-Agility: reduces all stamina costs
-Speed: directly increases players speed
-Strength: increases player carry capacity

All of these attributes would be in conjunction with the Champion System and players could choose to put their attribute points towards any of the 12 attributes available. At this point players would only be earning an attribute point every 5 levels.

Enodoc

I don't really see how removing VRs and replacing them with ever-increasing levels addresses the direct reason that VRs are being removed - the player separation that it caused. Does a new Level 50 have a reasonable chance of killing a Level 176 in PvP under this system?

Gidorick

Should a level 50 have a reasonable chance of killing a level 176 in pvp combat? Shouldn't a player who has put that much effort into the game be enabled to trounce players who haven't?

In this concept a level 176 player would have 90 skill points and a level 50 would have 50, so the disparity between the two isn't 3x as powerful.

In this concept the level 50 player could reasonably catch up to the level 176 if they put the effort in.

Enodoc

Sure, fair enough. Such a thing could exist directly with CPs as well perhaps, without needing the levels. How does this idea address the want for different types of Veteran content to be accessible at 50?
By which I mean the removal of the implied Silver -> Gold -> Craglorn -> PvP/Trials order so that it is possible and viable to do those things in any order. (Or in other words to not be forced into Silver and Gold to be viable for Craglorn, PvP and Trials.)