Seasonal Caps Are Not the Best Option To Fix Champion System
Jando
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In yesterday's ESO Live Q&A ZoS stated that their solution to solve the player separation issues of the Champion System will be to implement a game-wide seasonal cap on Champion Points. I know there some very vocal supporters of this idea. But i am not one of them. I think there are some serious problems with this approach and that it doesn't truly consider the underlying issue. Instead, I think the Champion System would be much more fun, fairer, and manageable as a shorter closed system.
Some Problems with Seasonal Caps:
1. How do you figure out what that cap should be? Should it simply be whatever the highest number of CP's anyone has before each new "term" starts? Probably not..By the time this finally gets implemented, I imagine there will be outliers out there with close to 1500 CP's or more. Should it be some derivative of the highest outlier? Like Highest Outlier +300, -300, or 80% of the Highest Outlier? Should it instead be a function of the set of all outstanding Champion Point values - for example pick a value representing something like the 75th percentile? No matter what it is, there will still be outrage, and a huge gap between that cap and 0. Each season will make that gap between new players and long-time vets even worse. Which means there must be an insanely powerful catch-up mechanic.
2. Catch-up will need to be absurdly powerful. But, how can you design an insanely powerful catch-up mechanic that doesn't completely marginalize the effort other people have put into gaining Champion Points? So, let's say we are at the end of season 2 and the cap is at 1200 CP's. Johnny50 is a new level 50 (or God forbid VR1 at that time if veteran ranks are still not yet removed..but i will stay on track here). How can you design a system that will allow Johnny50 to get caught up to those 1200 CP's that isn't going to completely *** off everyone else that put in 10 times the effort to get to the same place.
3. Seasonal Caps do not solve the problem of player separation because that solution ignores the fundamental flaw of a never ending system. That flaw being that there's absolutely no way to offer endless progression to long-time players and expect that there will be a fair way to have new players completely caught up in a reasonable amount of time.
The Better Solution, In My Opinion:
Is to speed up progress through the Champion System such that people actually complete the whole system in the same amount of time it used to take to reach vet 14. Once completed, you are a "Champion of Tamriel" and it's over, you feel powerful, there's no shifting seasonal cap, no dilution of effort to achieve "Max Level" and it would solve all of the outstanding issues of the current system.
Some people feel that a finite system ruins "the point" of the Champion System because "it was intended to be a never ending progression." First of all, im not so sure that was in fact the stated goal. No doubt, the goal was to replace the Veteran System, that's for sure, but whether it was "supposed" to go on forever is not clear to me.
Further discussion of a finite Champion System can be found: forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/155768/the-champion-system-its-problems-and-a-proposed-solution#latest
Some Problems with Seasonal Caps:
1. How do you figure out what that cap should be? Should it simply be whatever the highest number of CP's anyone has before each new "term" starts? Probably not..By the time this finally gets implemented, I imagine there will be outliers out there with close to 1500 CP's or more. Should it be some derivative of the highest outlier? Like Highest Outlier +300, -300, or 80% of the Highest Outlier? Should it instead be a function of the set of all outstanding Champion Point values - for example pick a value representing something like the 75th percentile? No matter what it is, there will still be outrage, and a huge gap between that cap and 0. Each season will make that gap between new players and long-time vets even worse. Which means there must be an insanely powerful catch-up mechanic.
2. Catch-up will need to be absurdly powerful. But, how can you design an insanely powerful catch-up mechanic that doesn't completely marginalize the effort other people have put into gaining Champion Points? So, let's say we are at the end of season 2 and the cap is at 1200 CP's. Johnny50 is a new level 50 (or God forbid VR1 at that time if veteran ranks are still not yet removed..but i will stay on track here). How can you design a system that will allow Johnny50 to get caught up to those 1200 CP's that isn't going to completely *** off everyone else that put in 10 times the effort to get to the same place.
3. Seasonal Caps do not solve the problem of player separation because that solution ignores the fundamental flaw of a never ending system. That flaw being that there's absolutely no way to offer endless progression to long-time players and expect that there will be a fair way to have new players completely caught up in a reasonable amount of time.
The Better Solution, In My Opinion:
Is to speed up progress through the Champion System such that people actually complete the whole system in the same amount of time it used to take to reach vet 14. Once completed, you are a "Champion of Tamriel" and it's over, you feel powerful, there's no shifting seasonal cap, no dilution of effort to achieve "Max Level" and it would solve all of the outstanding issues of the current system.
Some people feel that a finite system ruins "the point" of the Champion System because "it was intended to be a never ending progression." First of all, im not so sure that was in fact the stated goal. No doubt, the goal was to replace the Veteran System, that's for sure, but whether it was "supposed" to go on forever is not clear to me.
Further discussion of a finite Champion System can be found: forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/155768/the-champion-system-its-problems-and-a-proposed-solution#latest
Dear ZoS - Sell us great content at a reasonable price. Stop the Grind!!
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