VR Levels and your thoughts?

irishdexy

Ok so I've been playing up through the VR Content and I'm now VR9 at last but I can't help thinking that VR12 and beyond is a little nuts. Why you ask?

Well when we started I'm sure we looked at the Veteran Gear and how shiny it was and some of us learnt the skills to make it so we could enjoy looking at our armour and stats that it provided. Then we hit VR10 and we can make a cool uber set of VR 10 Gold Armour and weapons so we can have fun but...

Now that there is VR12 and confirmed reports of VR15 on the PTS when is the leveling going to end. Don't get me wrong I love the game but there is only so much questing and grinding that I am capable off before I burnout and need a break and I am sure there are others who feel the same way. The sheer amount of XP you need to get to VR15 will be nuts. Add to that the XP you need to go higher if they release higher VR Content then you have the materials situation in the second paragraph to make gold at high level crafter level you need 8 of the Gold Material to guarantee a successful upgrade. Times that by 7 for your armour, and then for your weapons and well you'll see what I mean. I don't know anyone who has enough materials for all that every few VR Levels so do we not make these sets any more?

What are your thoughts on all of this, we're all in this content together weather we like it or not but does anyone else feel a little miffed?

torplin

Almost all my friends have cancelled, they see the writing on the wall. There is no gear treadmill in this game, instead there will be a level treadmill. Think VR 20 by years end, and who knows what else is beyond.

The more you increase the rank caps, the harder you make it for people to make alts. As it is already, getting to VR10 is upwards of 300 hours, this is an insane amount of time. Oh you're a VR8 templar or NB and want to reroll? Have fun spending another 200++ hours making an alt. Now imagine this with an even higher ceiling, VR 12, 15, 20, ect. Alts (at near equal level) will truly be a rarity and something that only the most dedicated/hardcore players possess. For the rest of us who don't want to sink another 200-300 hours into the game on making an alt, we are screwed with our "main".

Additionally, the more you increase the rank caps, the harder you make it for new players to catch up. Imagine making a new char today, with a VR12 cap and trying to pvp. Have fun sinking 200-300 hours to getting to a near competitive VR rank. Advance this 6 months into the future, where a player joins in November and faces a VR18-20 cap. Have fun sinking 400++ hours to getting to a competitive VR rank. So for new players, this sucks. For veterans like myself who are only interested in pvp, with the cap will come better gear and additional advantages to those who are willing to grind it out. So its not an option to remain at VR1 or 2 when the cap is will be 12, 15, or 20. So unless we want to remain gimped, grinding these levels on the treadmill will become a requirement. Pvpers will have to grind it out, and get used to the fact that every few months, they will need to set aside time for future VR ranks.

jeevin

torplin wrote: »

Almost all my friends have cancelled, they see the writing on the wall. There is no gear treadmill in this game, instead there will be a level treadmill. Think VR 20 by years end, and who knows what else is beyond.

The more you increase the rank caps, the harder you make it for people to make alts. As it is already, getting to VR10 is upwards of 300 hours, this is an insane amount of time. Oh you're a VR8 templar or NB and want to reroll? Have fun spending another 200++ hours making an alt. Now imagine this with an even higher ceiling, VR 12, 15, 20, ect. Alts (at near equal level) will truly be a rarity and something that only the most dedicated/hardcore players possess. For the rest of us who don't want to sink another 200-300 hours into the game on making an alt, we are screwed with our "main".

Additionally, the more you increase the rank caps, the harder you make it for new players to catch up. Imagine making a new char today, with a VR12 cap and trying to pvp. Have fun sinking 200-300 hours to getting to a near competitive VR rank. Advance this 6 months into the future, where a player joins in November and faces a VR18-20 cap. Have fun sinking 400++ hours to getting to a competitive VR rank. So for new players, this sucks. For veterans like myself who are only interested in pvp, with the cap will come better gear and additional advantages to those who are willing to grind it out. So its not an option to remain at VR1 or 2 when the cap is will be 12, 15, or 20. So unless we want to remain gimped, grinding these levels on the treadmill will become a requirement. Pvpers will have to grind it out, and get used to the fact that every few months, they will need to set aside time for future VR ranks.

Totally agree with you, when I hit VR1 I hoped I was done with leveling and would be ready for endgame/pvp but boy was I wrong. By the time I reach VR10 the cap will most likely be VR15 and I'll still be on the back foot for pvp.

While I do enjoy the VR zones there should be no need for additional levels here. The freedom to explore the rest of Tamriel as a veteran would go a long way to giving us the freedom to explore which is what we expect from an Elder Scrolls game. Zenimax needs to rethink these level cap increases.

Zimnel

As much as I like questing and leveling, the game is too young for level cap increases. I would have released Craglorn without the level cap increase, that way VR10 could make trials/raid for better gear and consider that activity high end.

Questing or doing activities in Craglorn for veterans of every level could have been half a solution to avoid the overall grinding feeling. Veteran 15 is like science fiction to me. They should stop a bit and give a breath in that sense.

Lovely

I don't think VRs should restrict your gearing. They should reward you something so it feels like progress, but if it's gear restriction, it's not post-max level activity, it's actually part of leveling.
So as time progresses it will become a roadblock for newcomers.

I like the content, love the questing - mostly because I look at it from a single player game perspective. I'm not sure what the target audience for this game is, though.

Pewpie

My biggest concern with new levels is that gear gets fubard.

Suppose you really put some effort in making a shiny gold VR 10 item. Now, VR12 comes along, and your item is total crap, as well as your level.

This really sucks. They shouldn't make VR levels on items IMO. Just make the items level 50. Keep your veteran ranks for your level only, not the gear.

To improve gear, just add new ways to improve stuff without breaking your old. Add new improvement ranks, or new glyphs that you can craft or drop from zones.

My biggest disappointment is that you spend LOTS of time to get high level and work A LOT of getting the top gear. Then one day, POOF it all changed, you have to get new beacause of an expansion where a green item suddenly is better than my gold one that i crafted after TONS OF WORK. THAT STINKS! It would have been more fun if i could keep on improving my current stuff.

SantieClaws

I think there is just too much of an exp squeeze in vet levels. You have to do every little thing - all of it - to hit the next level. You are forced to do some quests that you might otherwise find not to your taste. Also if you get stuck there is no real way to level round the quest and get back to it without doing higher level content that you need the exp from later. You also don't have the exp from the guild quests and main quest that you had as a supplement in the original levelling areas.

What we really need is more content to pad out the zones a bit and make it a more comfortable, less forced journey.

I have suggested it before but perhaps some roadside inns that could act as quest hubs for a small number of daily repeatable quests? From an RP perspective it does also seem weird there that are no inns out along some of the very long roads between towns.

Also I hope they have something planned for us to be able to level to V12 without doing Craglorn. Levels dependant only on group/raid style content are a very bad idea when there are no alternative pathways.

monden1980b16_ESO

Absolutely agree to OP.

There are many players, that are mainly interested in PvP. Although PvE was fun for quite some time (till hitting 50 / VR1), it gets tedious to get to VR10 (and above). I'm actually low VR and see me getting VR10 in 2 month maybe... By then, there may be the next level cap increase and I will never be able to enjoy PvP without getting destroyed by higher VR players.

It starts to feel like work... and I have enough work at work already...

Ruddertail

I don't think you understand how minimal the difference between v10 and v12 is. Epic (purple) v12 gear is the same as legendary (yellow) v10, stats-wise. It's a minimal upgrade and hardly anything you should feel pressure to get.

rusila22

I would like to see in Game some notoriety to grind which will allow me to buy epic/legendary gear or legendary materials with cheap price ! need more mini activies game and plz unnerfed biting jabs ty

LariahHunding

VR has the game feeling like a part-time job now.

Xuxilbara

I'm not that thrilled about VR leveling as a whole - I kinda wish they'd implemented Craglorn as some sort of alternative if you don't want to quest trough the other factions zones. I'm also not that fond of.. needing a group to level. I know, mmo, not a sologame, etc - I play with a friend, and I'm not unwilling to group with strangers, but I feel I should be able to choose.

Also, VR looks somewhat grind-ish to me. Can't be sure, I'm only V2, and I did that mostly by pvp'ing a lot.

Fruity_Ninja

So for those on VR12- how do you craft VR12 gear? Does having max crafting automatically allow you craft VR12 gear?

I haven't even got to VR10, it's such a long grind. I don't mind it, but it would be nice to stop at 10 and then start a new character. If VR20+ is the end goal, then it's just a little too much with one character to be constantly leveling.

Looks like I'll be saving my legendary tempers for a long long long time.

smokes

i just posted this in another thread:

i can't remember if i posted in this thread already, but i'm actually convinced that for the long term health of the game, zenimax need to roll back veteran ranks to VR2.

yep, that'll pee off a bunch of the playerbase that grinded their way to V12 already - however, all those rolled back would still have the gold, loot, achievements, skyshards and skillpoints to show for it.

rolling back gear/items might be more of an issue, but it's not impossible to do.

zenimax dun goofed - this is the only real way to fix it at this point and it needs fixing now, before it gets any worse.

roll veteran ranks back to a cap of VR2.
make craglorn level 50-VR2. (with the same XP requirement that was VR10-12)
make level 50 an actual level.
remove XP gain from the other factions quests altogether, but do not remove skillgains (questing through the other content should be an optional experience for gold, skill points, skyshards, ability levelling, etc - not mandatory as part of the grind to max level).
silver almanac mobs level 50, gold almanac mobs VR1 (or preferably scaled to player level, considering that more VR ranks will be added).
reset cyrodiil mobs to level 50.

give all players 5 days free playtime - including those who dropped subs. (to try and re-kindle userbase)

apologise profusely.

the benefits of doing this:
no mandatory grind to get into adventure zones.
other faction content that is optional from 50+.
cyrodiil pve content becomes optional VR levelling content.
pvp becomes more balanced - would only be offset by 2 VR levels and gear.

i also want to iterate that i am more than fine with the difficulty level of mobs, world bosses, delves, dolmens, dungeons and all that jazz - it's purely the VR levelling process that needs addressing, as it's currently a massive brick wall of grind and you'll be hard pushed to see anyone born in the 90's that's willing to push through it, without exploiting or finding a niche group willing to grind.

i'm VR4 at the minute and i am burnt out. i have quested my balls off and have resigned to the fact that unless i find a way to exploit, i'll be rolling multiple alts to 50 and waiting for changes to the veteran ranks. i picked up this game to get into the adventure zones, not to play the entire game through from 3 different angles before doing so.

Kayira

The problem is that they called it Vet ranks. If they just continued the numbers no on would feel like the endgame should start at Vet1. But they changed the name of it and thus everyone thinks: I am Vet1 I am endgame. If they would have just kept everything at Vet 1 so you can do trials and craglorn at Vet1 it would be a different story. But I could also tell you a lot of gamers would have dropped the game because they have nothing more to achieve after Vet1 apart from PvE that doesn't give any exp and is useless and only for completion or PvP which might not be what everyone wants to do.
It would be similar to GW2 and after reaching 80 there was no real incentive to do anything. You had the best gear and everything else was for completion only.
So ESO tried to fix it with Vet levels... Guess what that didn't work well either. People just see it as a chore and leveling can be a nuisance. But to be fair I don't have a better idea than zeni had (except that I would put in a vet zone and not let others repeat the other zones but nvm. At least that gives them more space in tamriel to do expansions and new content).

Zarkaz

VR are easy and fast if you do quests and dolmens with wb, with casual 5 hours of daily play(around 8 on weekends), 10 days(16 from pre launch) and i was V10, it is really easy and fun.
Don't understand how people are considering it hard...
Leveling at wow launch was much much more slower beacause you had to grind mobs for days, there wasn't enough quests, took me month to hit 60.

Just keep calm and do quests.

steveb16_ESO46

Zarkaz wrote: »

VR are easy and fast if you do quests and dolmens with wb, with casual 5 hours of daily play(around 8 on weekends), 10 days(16 from pre launch) and i was V10, it is really easy and fun.
Don't understand how people are considering it hard...
Leveling at wow launch was much much more slower beacause you had to grind mobs for days, there wasn't enough quests, took me month to hit 60.

Just keep calm and do quests.

I dunno. Maybe because we have tiring jobs and tedious families demanding love and attention?

Therefore putting in a 40 hour plus work week of tedious grinding for no good reason after a 40 plus hour work week of tedious grinding for no good reason isn't likely.

For my game time I expect a fun challenge. Grinding the story lines of the other factions, while fighting off suddenly super-powered mud-crabs is not fun. It's a cheap trick cop-out.

roguearchonb14_ESO

Are you paying attention, Zenimax? The end game structure is baaaaad. MMOs are all about the end game, and what you're doing is clearly the wrong direction according to your player base.

Levels 1-49, I rate this game a 9/10. Veteran Ranks? Maybe a 6/10 if you're lucky. Endlessly grindy, boring as all hell, and now you just moved the finish line, with plans to move it again??? I'm not even VR5 yet and you're telling me that I have another 10+ VRanks to get through???

Honestly, wtf were you thinking?

Stop adding Veteran Ranks and start adding enjoyable, reward-based content.

You can not do that if you don't want to, I suppose, but I give you a max of 8 months before you're free to play and everyone's talking about how great this game could have been.

Your choice.

zeuseason

Yea they should have left it at level 50 period. Then the end game grind for gear from there. Maybe even implement an ilvl system, but doing other faction content end game should be for fun, achievements, materials, faction rep, etc....NOT leveling.

SantieClaws

Also worth mentioning that I have my main at V2 in Grahtwood and one of my alts at level 32 in Malabar Tor. I'm getting confused as can be between the two of them! I keep thinking I am logged in as one when I am logged in as the other. Then wondering why my skills are different and why the seemingly innocent critter is knocking me flat when I am sure I was able to easily take down two of them 5 mins ago.

Alpha_Protocol

I posted a thread saying ZOS should place hard caps every 15-20 VR levels.

For example, at VR15 we become level 51 and the cap stands for about 3 months while ZOS drops progressively harder content on us. Then another 15 VR levels and we get hard capped at 52 etc..

It's a solid solution but the thread was buried... maybe I'll make a poll...

Zarkaz

Honestly i don't see why you can't have both leveling and gear progression(which is happening while you level), same for guilds etc. there is no end game, there always progression and adventure to more zones with small stops. I imagine in few years whole tamriel will be filled with zones, and new player will see that giant world which he can endlessly explore wihtout a rush.
There is no point to stop for gear grind if you already know that with new content patch\expansion it will be obsolete, then why stop ? Onwards!

zeuseason

Zarkaz wrote: »

Honestly i don't see why you can't have both leveling and gear progression(which is happening while you level), same for guilds etc. there is no end game, there always progression and adventure to more zones with small stops. I imagine in few years whole tamriel will be filled with zones, and new player will see that giant world which he can endlessly explore wihtout a rush.
There is no point to stop for gear grind if you already know that with new content patch\expansion it will be obsolete, then why stop ? Onwards!

One word: tedium

At some point you must stop on the road of travel and take a deep breath, regroup, resupply, regear. With an endless level grind, this never happens. I see *no* reason to create great vet gear for my character cause I'm not at level cap and never will be. A hundred billion xp is too tedious without fun rewards.

mechasauce

Why o' hhy did they increase to V12?? Add good drops to bosses and keep the Vet levels down...its not hard.

kitsinni

I agree it is getting absurd. I play a lot every single day. I made the mistake of making an alt then Craglorn just drops with like a day notice. So I go back to my main that was VR4. I finally have him almost to VR10 and now I'm still 10+ million XP from cap .. then what is there to do once you hit it anyway?

As far as playing with friends basically there would be no point in asking a friend to join up because if you quit playing your main for even a minute the next set of 20 million XP will pop up and you will be behind a month later when they want you to gain 40 million more. So I'm supposed to tell my friend he come play ESO we will be able to play together .. um .. never once ever in the game. Even if you spend a solid month grinding your butt off you will never be at the same level or content as me ever in this game. So why bother trying to recruit someone new?

Why even bother with the crafting mats and upgrading your gear? So I have a bunch of yellow tempers that I want to save to upgrade the best gear .. which will change every other month?? What is the point.

At least with the traditional expansion model you know you can get to the level, get through the content and get gear that you know you will have around for at least 6 months. With this model all you have to look forward to is a non-stop grind that never ends if you are lucky enough to even hit the level cap before it is raised again.

No one likes non-stop level grinding they want end game content. You should have figured this out years ago when pretty much every other game company in the world stoped with the non-stop grind games.

Aeaeren

They need to add some more things to so in the PvP zone. An example once you have taken the keeps to be Emperor why not open up the main city as a zone to siege ect? Epic EverQuest God Mob Raids where it requires a lot of people and alot of very good team work and put it in the PVP zone! Give us a REAL reason to want to take the keeps other then the fun of plinking arrows into VR12s. Don't raise the level cap any more, it's insane to have to play the grinding game ect just to be competitive in PvP. I can see me having to work to get greater gear ect but to have to grind every couple of months on junk that requires groups ect just so I can play PvP without being slaughtered well that will get old quick!

While we are at it, you need to fix the lagging/crashing ect in the PvP zone. Figure it out and do it fast. If the battles are like I had yesterday where the numbers are not overwhelming it's OK, but add some more and then it just down right becomes too much to even think about and time to go watch TV ect. I don't mind losing but I do mind it when I lose and never had the chance to fight back or was dead and didn't even know it.

One other thing, if you going to CHANGE something like the VR mob Levels/Health ect this should only be done in new zones. As you have seen on many threads outside of this one you have destroy my solo playing ability. Yes I might be an idiot who gimped his toon but the issue is BP (Before Patch) I could do the content and after, well now I just PvP with this toon using poison bolt and 18 bow which I leveled with nothing but PvP and of course the FOTM alt when the lag becomes to great and I want to play a game but really I am now starting to look at spending my time doing other things.

zeuseason

kitsinni wrote: »

No one likes non-stop level grinding they want end game content. You should have figured this out years ago when pretty much every other game company in the world stoped with the non-stop grind games.

I heavily agree. Tedium.

Zarkaz

kitsinni wrote: »

Why even bother with the crafting mats and upgrading your gear? So I have a bunch of yellow tempers that I want to save to upgrade the best gear .. which will change every other month?? What is the point.

At least with the traditional expansion model you know you can get to the level, get through the content and get gear that you know you will have around for at least 6 months. With this model all you have to look forward to is a non-stop grind that never ends if you are lucky enough to even hit the level cap before it is raised again.

Crafting better gear while level will save you from crafting it again next few (even veteran)levels. If gather everything on your path you will loads of mats to point of selling it.

Have same gear for 6 months, how is it a good thing?

To bad players see leveling in this game as grind, not as bonus to adventure it is not typical mmorpg and this is good thing, for me anyway.
Levels past V1 do not matter only gear and enchants(food etc) are getting better so it is same gear progression but instead of chance of drop each week lockout you have XP to get you closer to target.

Rocksteady

zeuseason wrote: »

kitsinni wrote: »

No one likes non-stop level grinding they want end game content. You should have figured this out years ago when pretty much every other game company in the world stoped with the non-stop grind games.

I heavily agree. Tedium.

I fail to see the difference between an "end game" quest or dungeon and a dungeon on the way to "end game". Is it that you just want to be at the top but you can't get there and are frustrated?

zeuseason

Rocksteady wrote: »

zeuseason wrote: »

kitsinni wrote: »

No one likes non-stop level grinding they want end game content. You should have figured this out years ago when pretty much every other game company in the world stoped with the non-stop grind games.

I heavily agree. Tedium.

I fail to see the difference between an "end game" quest or dungeon and a dungeon on the way to "end game". Is it that you just want to be at the top but you can't get there and are frustrated?

I see no reason to continue into the vet ranks for millions of xp and no rewards for hundreds of hours of play. And no reason to upgrade my vet gear till max level, but then it's even questionable to do so as they keep piling on vet levels every other week. Repair costs also deter me from creating great gear. I replace.

kitsinni

Rocksteady wrote: »

zeuseason wrote: »

kitsinni wrote: »

No one likes non-stop level grinding they want end game content. You should have figured this out years ago when pretty much every other game company in the world stoped with the non-stop grind games.

I heavily agree. Tedium.

I fail to see the difference between an "end game" quest or dungeon and a dungeon on the way to "end game". Is it that you just want to be at the top but you can't get there and are frustrated?

Here is the difference. Right now I can pretty much only play this game with one friend. We have to only play at the same time and make sure not to get in front of each other. The quests at V8+ are such a pain to do solo that we pretty much have to do them together or get very frustrated. I can't play with any of my other friends because they are 100+ game hours behind or too far ahead to play in the zones we are in. Most of them quit playing because they got tired of soloing and having no one to play with.

With end game content people spend typically far less hours getting to the top level and then play together every day at that level. They run different dungeons together, play alts that they can get to max level and then typically have six months or so to play together befor and expansion comes out. You spend that six months perfecting your end game content raids/dungeon teams and getting better gear and hopefully have it mastered when the expansion comes out and are ready to take that on. Then when it does come out they are at the same level and can do it together.

In ESO it seems you are never at the same level as most of the people you know or are in a guild with. They are adding new level caps before most people can get to the first cap and then having almost no time at all at that cap for you to play with your friends and no chance to get an alt caught up unless you are a very hardcore player. There is basically one raid and a weekly challenge. The weekly challenge is time based and the top guild gets it done in 15 mintues with using only the top FOTM builds.

TLDR: The biggest difference is that with end game dungeon/raid/gear content you can actually catch up and play with friends and get alts to that level. Here it is just a non-stop grind that never ends with people getting bored once they hit the cap.