Here is why I think ZOS should have never promised to remove veteran ranks.

Twilix01

I think ZOS should never have said they will remove veteran ranks. Not because I believe they'll never do it, or that they're trying to lie to us to appease us. I think this because removing veteran ranks just would be too much work for a new system that may end up pissing the community off even more. Here's why.

First off, we can't remove the ranks entirely, cutting out all of the progression. Why? Because it's tied to gear tiers, attribute points, and skill points. If we just remove the ranks they'd have to either cut off skill points and attribute points you would have earned from each rank for characters that did not reach them, take them away from everyone, or find a new way to distribute them. We can't have it tied to cadwell's silver and gold because everyone who hated doing those zones and avoids them like the plague will be whipped into a frenzy. We can't have it tied to the champion system because then we have the same problem as veteran ranks did, it just gets a bit of extra bonus too which we already have now. The latter really is no different from what we have.

Second, I don't even know what they could replace veteran ranks with that doesn't really boil down to renamed vet ranks. The simplest way to remove veteran ranks is really to just rename it to something else and pray no one notices.

Finally, there's still the issue of how to rebalance gear progression if vet ranks are removed entirely. Being able to give a fresh 50 voidsteel gear would give them a far greater advantage than they do now and would defeat the purpose of the lower vet gear, it would make it entirely useless without some way to bar the progression.

Elsonso

The Veteran Ranks really are not a problem until they try to raise the base level cap from 50. At that point, the Veteran Ranks sort of get in the way.

They raise the Veteran Rank cap when the have need to in order for end-game players to have something to work towards. The new area and the Veteran Rank are only loosely coupled and the Veteran Rank increase is mostly headroom for power and itemization.

If they ever decide to have an Expansion to the main quest, it will likely be an extension from Level 50. If they don't do it this way, base level characters would be blocked from the new expansion until they get through Cadwell and all that Veteran content. By expanding starting at level 50, characters can go straight into the expansion content after completing the main quest.

With Veteran Ranks in place, and with everything based on XP, that becomes confusing. The XP raises level, veteran rank, and gives champion points. On top of that, itemization conflicts will be everywhere.

So, my feeling is that Veteran Ranks have to go in order to clear the way for paid ($$$) expansion content with a new main quest that raises the max level from 50.

Now, I am as eager as everyone to see what color the rabbit is that they pull out of their hat to unravel this.

lathbury

lordrichter wrote: »

The Veteran Ranks really are not a problem until they try to raise the base level cap from 50. At that point, the Veteran Ranks sort of get in the way.

They raise the Veteran Rank cap when the have need to in order for end-game players to have something to work towards. The new area and the Veteran Rank are only loosely coupled and the Veteran Rank increase is mostly headroom for power and itemization.

If they ever decide to have an Expansion to the main quest, it will likely be an extension from Level 50. If they don't do it this way, base level characters would be blocked from the new expansion until they get through Cadwell and all that Veteran content. By expanding starting at level 50, characters can go straight into the expansion content after completing the main quest.

With Veteran Ranks in place, and with everything based on XP, that becomes confusing. The XP raises level, veteran rank, and gives champion points. On top of that, itemization conflicts will be everywhere.

So, my feeling is that Veteran Ranks have to go in order to clear the way for paid ($$$) expansion content with a new main quest that raises the max level from 50.

Now, I am as eager as everyone to see what color the rabbit is that they pull out of their hat to unravel this.

They are not barred then and have no requirement for new content untill the reach the level of that content. my money would be on the new content coming at max level but also bringing in some other options as alternatives to cadwels which is and has been since launch the biggest problem with this game.

tordr86b16_ESO

I've recently been playing FFXIV and I can attest to what the OP is saying... the LFG tool and how leveling works is a trillion billion billion times better.

NotSo

The veteran ranks were originally supposed to function as an indicator of your characters accomplishments past level 50, not some cheap way to push the level cap without pushing the level cap (level 50).

All the gear and item tiers tied to vr1 - 14 is as easy as reasigning the level requirement.
Focus on rebalancing for level 50 later, I mean what the hell.
For the attributes and skill points, I say cut them. Unless there is a good way to incorporate them into present content, like you said just put them into the cadwels. The biggest grind is the skill points coming out of pvp ranks, nobody will be mad about cadwels still offering something.

Soz likes the idea of horizontal progression. They f***ing love it (even though their idea of horizontal progression becomes 100% vertical, talking about CPs). All that sweet gear neeeeeds to be toned down to level 50. The veteran tiered crafting gear should be flat rate for level 50. Asthaetic being the only difference.
And while we're at it. Lets bring all the other crafting tiers up to 50, gotta love that first tier heavy armor.

But if zos wants true horizontal progression, (there is always some form of vertical progression no matter how you build these games) a level 10 character with a full skill bar should be able to take on the level 50 content, but everybody will scream no and babies will crap in their pants and zos will ignore everything I have to say because I complain a lot.