You've made ghost zones after Craglorn

Crescent

Why would you ruin the lower level VR zones by allowing people below VR10 to go to Craglorn?

With the massively superior xp gains and purple drops+rewards, everybody is going to Craglorn and skipping the normal VR zones altogether because the rewards there suck for the time spent, not to mention the xp gain (doing a whole VR zone's quests, public bosses, anchors and dungeons won't even net you a single veteran rank unless you complement it with PvP questing or repeat public bosses/anchors).


This has got to be one of the worst decisions you've made, to make entire swaths of contents obsolete. Moreover, since you designed public bosses and dolmens to be group activities, those activities are now incredibly hard to complete because there simply aren't people around.

And I don't blame them, because why bother with a public boss for most likely a paltry green, or if you're lucky a blue drop (which is worthless because by now you can craft better than mots blue quality items)? A bunch of empty soul gems?

Craglorn should have required VR10 and you should have fixed the broken content before implementing new things to distract people from what isn't working.

DarkWombat

Absolutely brilliant observation. I have no idea what these guys were thinking with many other design choices as well.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Flaming]

ShedsHisTail

I dunno. I think they should have made Craglorn a VR1-VR10 zone in order to provide an alternate method of leveling VR levels.

As it is, it's really discouraging to slog through ten veteran ranked levels of content you've already seen if you have any alts on that faction.

subecsanur

Is there a VR requirement for the trials?

Thechemicals

Good point Op. The moment me and my girl went to craglorn as vr2's, it ruined any desire to go back to our perspective vr zone. When we tried we got irritated and tried to do fast skyshard and lorebook hunting while looking for bossess and anchors....once that party ended we went back to craglorn.

Worst idea so far, yet isnt releasing new content and new level caps during first months of the games release kind of a bad idea? People grinded to vr10 in first 1-2 weeks and complained that their was no endgame and they were right so rather than just release the new content for them....zeni realized that that would be selectively favoring the hardcores and grinders to just allow only them inside this content so soon from launch. Its a result of powergaming and trying to make everyone happy. I know i felt a sense of urgency to get vr10 when i heard Craglorn was coming out....and i was only level 45 at the time.

Laura

ShedsHisTail wrote: »

I dunno. I think they should have made Craglorn a VR1-VR10 zone in order to provide an alternate method of leveling VR levels.

As it is, it's really discouraging to slog through ten veteran ranked levels of content you've already seen if you have any alts on that faction.

this. People wanted alternative methods of leveling and they got it.

want more skill points? have to go back and do some questing on your own terms

frwinters_ESO

But if you dont go back you will miss out on all the skyshards and exploration xp.

Armitas

I think they need to find a way to please both sides. On one side you have a group of players that enjoy the reward and difficulty from finishing the other alliances to get those extra veteran ranks. And on the other side are those who do not find any value to that level of difficulty but want to be a part of end game and successive releases. Neither are wrong, but in the case of Craglorn the lengthy efforts made by many to get to V10 by finishing the other 2 alliances were made pointless.

Two possible solutions that come to my mind.

1) Make two Craglorns. Make a V1-2 and a v11-12.
2) Make an exploration (undecided on name) passive line under the "world" category. Leveling that line is progressed by completing all 3 alliances.

Wargasmo

Just adjust the exp and reward that players get based on vet lvl in craiglorn. The game already does this. Just change it a bit for this zone so it will be worth doing old zones and grinding old dungeons.

And change loot quality to drop crap if players are under vr10. And limit Soul shards to the top 4 contributers at group events damage or healing wise (find some fair conversion for healing to dmg)

methjester

frwinters_ESO wrote: »

But if you dont go back you will miss out on all the skyshards and exploration xp.

They never should have made the vet zones in the first place. It's like a badly designed Nintendo game from the 80's. Oh you beat the game? Try it again on hard mode. Oh you beat it again? Try it again on harder mode.

Why would I want to do the other faction's content, only harder? Star Wars may have been bad at launch, but the way ESO is going it might be the new definition of an MMO trainwreck.

ZiRM

Everyone is in Cra*lorn right now grinding out massive XP and they can always go back and get skyshards etc. It was great planning on ZOS part.

I have always said just put off Cra*lorn until they have a sensible plan for end game content and the bots, bugs have been squashed. Instead they choose to release it and further make other zones ghost towns.

The whole VR and Cra*lorn thing needs to be straightened out not to mention the loot drops/rewards system and non existence of an economy.

methjester

NiRN wrote: »

Everyone is in Cra*lorn right now grinding out massive XP and they can always go back and get skyshards etc. It was great planning on ZOS part.

I have always said just put off Cra*lorn until they have a sensible plan for end game content and the bots, bugs have been squashed. Instead they choose to release it and further make other zones ghost towns.

The whole VR and Cra*plorn thing needs to be straightened out not to mention the loot drops/rewards system and non existence of an economy.

The only bad thing is Craglorn isn't endgame content, pvp isn't remotely fixed, and there is no semblance of an economy.

They just bought themselves another month is all. Even the fanboys are seeing that now. I'm just totally bored with other MMO's right now and I'm enjoying the trainwreck.

Lord_Draevan

Is it actually viable to level at VR1-VR10 in Craglorn, or would I just die a lot? I would MUCH rather level in Craglorn than play in the other alliance's zones. It killed the immersion for me to be forced to play in my enemies' zones to level Vet rank.

ZiRM

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

Is it actually viable to level at VR1-VR10 in Craglorn, or would I just die a lot? I would MUCH rather level in Craglorn than play in the other alliance's zones.

Get in a group and go for it, everyone else is.

Lord_Draevan

NiRN wrote: »

Get in a group and go for it, everyone else is.

Nice. If Craglorn means I can avoid the nonsensical "play in the enemy's zone" in order to level Vet rank, I'm all for it.

Natjur

V1 farming from V1 to V12 within a day or so, and then they complain they can not zone into any V6-V10 zone has they have not done ANY vet zone besides Claylorn. They have not even done a single quest in Claylorn.

I understand choices, but its is making all the other zone empty.

kewl

methjester wrote: »

It's like a badly designed Nintendo game from the 80's. Oh you beat the game? Try it again on hard mode. Oh you beat it again? Try it again on harder mode. Why would I want to do the other faction's content, only harder?

Yes

Selstad

frwinters_ESO wrote: »

But if you dont go back you will miss out on all the skyshards and exploration xp.

You don't get exploration XP in Veteran content, nor do you get XP for opening chests either. Only reason I open chests now is compulsive. Not that it does any good.

Making ghost zones of out content is inevitable. I levelled in WoW from 1 to 90 without encounter a single person until I reached "current" content at level 85. And that was the same on all my 12 alts that I got to 90.

Ghost zones happens in MMOs, Zenimax just pushed that a bit earlier. And to be honest, I don't see why they should restrict it, after all, people are free to do what they want. And that is one of the major critical points they'd gotten due to "this being an elder scrolls game, I should be able to go where I want". So I guess that the community is divided as always, on one instance they cry when they can't explore where they want as in "true" elder scrolls fashion, then they cry when they can explore where they want, in true elder scrolls fashion.

Not to defend Zenimax in any way because they do have some issues with the game that is far more serious than this is, but at least, let this stand as a very good point for you Zenimax. The MMO community has some serious issues deciding what's good or not and what they like or not.

Crescent

Selstad wrote: »

frwinters_ESO wrote: »

But if you dont go back you will miss out on all the skyshards and exploration xp.

You don't get exploration XP in Veteran content, nor do you get XP for opening chests either. Only reason I open chests now is compulsive. Not that it does any good.

Making ghost zones of out content is inevitable. I levelled in WoW from 1 to 90 without encounter a single person until I reached "current" content at level 85. And that was the same on all my 12 alts that I got to 90.

Ghost zones happens in MMOs, Zenimax just pushed that a bit earlier. And to be honest, I don't see why they should restrict it, after all, people are free to do what they want. And that is one of the major critical points they'd gotten due to "this being an elder scrolls game, I should be able to go where I want". So I guess that the community is divided as always, on one instance they cry when they can't explore where they want as in "true" elder scrolls fashion, then they cry when they can explore where they want, in true elder scrolls fashion.

Not to defend Zenimax in any way because they do have some issues with the game that is far more serious than this is, but at least, let this stand as a very good point for you Zenimax. The MMO community has some serious issues deciding what's good or not and what they like or not.

The difference is that WoW content is all soloable. And for the group dungeons you have an effective dungeonfinder.

For all the campaign areas, all anchors, public dungeons, and public bosses are GROUP content. Group content that contributes to zone completion and xp progression.

So basically pre-Craglorn people were far more likely to find groups to complete all the maps for achievements, whereas now with Craglorn out a month just out of release, people doing these areas are screwed as everyone went for the Craglorn xp/loot train since leveling outside Craglorn is plain slow and unrewarding.

Selstad

And yet that is inevitable, be it today or a month from now, that would have happened eventually, and it's not like there aren't ways to get to max level, though, it's a whole lot of grinding anyway.

The group UI doesn't work indeed, it never has. And even pre-craglorn, finding people to do dolmens were pretty far fetched in the later zones. I had to go back to get some dolmens in a freak hope that there would be people.

Levelling in this game is slow, excruciating and boring as watching paint dry. Wait, scratch that, I watched some red paint dry the other day and it was actually quite fun. Anyway, sorry for the digression, levelling in craglorn is a bunch of grinding anyway because that's what people do mostly anyway, I haven't completed 1 single quest in Craglorn, not one, because it's impossible to find a questing group. So I've grinded from 10 to 12. And that is not because of the game, but because of the community. They prefer standing around, watching paint dry, rather than explore the content.

So that's why we're back to scratch, it would happen eventually anyway, it was happening, Craglorn didn't start anything, it only finished it.

Hodorius

Crescent wrote: »

The difference is that WoW content is all soloable.

Perhaps today it is... after the noob patch that happend years ago that makes it a dull and boring game.

Alliance:
Do you remember Hogger?
He´s just lvl 9 I can solo him...

Horde:
Fizzle has just 2 friends, is not elite and is lvl 8... I can solo him...

Silithius:
3 Hives full of lvl 60 elite mobs that were too hard to kill alone for most of the classes.
I think Hunters were the only ones who could do that after 10 minutes of kiting and Warlocks with their dot´n fear tactic.
So after 10 minutes... still 89 mobs to go for that quest... yeeha!

Ever region had quests, bosses or whatever that was doable ONLY in a grp.

I my opinion Cracklorn is a great alternative to what was there before.
Now you can choose to "go everywhere and do every quest" or proceed into an area that does not make you feel like a traitor.

Doing the mainquest line and getting all Skyshards in VR1-10 zones takes just a few hours and you do not need them until you want to be a tank and healer and dd and ww/vamp and have 3 professions.

Edit: Spelling mistakes ftw!

ShedsHisTail

Crescent wrote: »

Selstad wrote: »

frwinters_ESO wrote: »

But if you dont go back you will miss out on all the skyshards and exploration xp.

You don't get exploration XP in Veteran content, nor do you get XP for opening chests either. Only reason I open chests now is compulsive. Not that it does any good.

Making ghost zones of out content is inevitable. I levelled in WoW from 1 to 90 without encounter a single person until I reached "current" content at level 85. And that was the same on all my 12 alts that I got to 90.

Ghost zones happens in MMOs, Zenimax just pushed that a bit earlier. And to be honest, I don't see why they should restrict it, after all, people are free to do what they want. And that is one of the major critical points they'd gotten due to "this being an elder scrolls game, I should be able to go where I want". So I guess that the community is divided as always, on one instance they cry when they can't explore where they want as in "true" elder scrolls fashion, then they cry when they can explore where they want, in true elder scrolls fashion.

Not to defend Zenimax in any way because they do have some issues with the game that is far more serious than this is, but at least, let this stand as a very good point for you Zenimax. The MMO community has some serious issues deciding what's good or not and what they like or not.

The difference is that WoW content is all soloable. And for the group dungeons you have an effective dungeonfinder.

Didn't used to be. Much of that content in WoW was still terribly difficult to solo prior to the complete world revamp that came with the Cataclysm release. Give Zeni a few years like WoW and maybe they'll dumb-down their ghost zones too.

Ragnar_Lodbrok

LOLOL. Go ahead and level in craglorn, how many quest skill points are you missing? Dozens? I rest my case.

Silverglass66

NiRN wrote: »

Everyone is in Cra*lorn right now grinding out massive XP and they can always go back and get skyshards etc. It was great planning on ZOS part.

More like necessary planning I think.

The VR implementation was obviously a rush job to get more content for players to play through without there being time to actually create brand new content, it also really harmed peoples' ability to replay the content. I could not see myself wanting to level a character in each faction with the game as it was at launch, with Craglorn I do plan to play through each faction's storyline.

Craglorn obviously fixes the problem of replay and is probably what should have been in the game at launch (and the fact that it came so soon after launch means that it was being worked on during the months before launch).

My guess is that a few months before launch they realised that Craglorn just could not be ready unless the delayed the launch so instead they decided to go for the quick and dirty VR1-10 implementation of reusing existing content and then have that become optional when Craglorn was finally released.

ShedsHisTail

Silverglass66 wrote: »

NiRN wrote: »

Everyone is in Cra*lorn right now grinding out massive XP and they can always go back and get skyshards etc. It was great planning on ZOS part.

My guess is that a few months before launch they realised that Craglorn just could not be ready unless the delayed the launch so instead they decided to go for the quick and dirty VR1-10 implementation of reusing existing content and then have that become optional when Craglorn was finally released.

I would bet that in the last few weeks of Beta, everyone got all down about the Newbie Islands, so Zeni shifted their Craglorn team over to revamping XP gain in the first main zones and making the Newbie Islands skippable. As a result, Carglorn wasn't finished for release like it was supposed to be.

Crescent

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

LOLOL. Go ahead and level in craglorn, how many quest skill points are you missing? Dozens? I rest my case.

I know mental processes aren't your strong suit, but getting skyshards actually has nothing to do with public bosses/dungeons(you can sneak to them without killing anything)/anchors.

And of the entire zone quests, about maybe 2-3 total may grant a skill point. Not that you have much to do with those skill points considering most of the abilities in the skill lines suck and you will only use a few combinations.

ShedsHisTail wrote: »

Didn't used to be. Much of that content in WoW was still terribly difficult to solo prior to the complete world revamp that came with the Cataclysm release. Give Zeni a few years like WoW and maybe they'll dumb-down their ghost zones too.

Yeah, no. I played WoW even before they released Silithus. My druid soloed every single quest. Group quests were a rarity and you could actually find groups for it.

Moreover, the scaling in WoW and ESO is completely different. You can outgear the crap of elites that were in outdated zones. Now try as VR12 player going to Greenshade and soloing the VR8 Public Boss Pela Tarn (Storm Astronach). The power scaling in ESO is much smaller so if you can't find groups for the VR stuff it's not like you can hit VR12 and go back to soloing most of it.

Lord_Draevan

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

LOLOL. Go ahead and level in craglorn, how many quest skill points are you missing? Dozens? I rest my case.

My main character did all the 3 alliance zones and has 21 unspent skill points, because I've got everything I want. Haven't even collected all the Skyshards, either. I'll do just fine skiping the AD and DC zones and not getting those quest skill points, thanks

lao

Crescent wrote: »

Why would you ruin the lower level VR zones by allowing people below VR10 to go to Craglorn?

With the massively superior xp gains and purple drops+rewards, everybody is going to Craglorn and skipping the normal VR zones altogether because the rewards there suck for the time spent, not to mention the xp gain (doing a whole VR zone's quests, public bosses, anchors and dungeons won't even net you a single veteran rank unless you complement it with PvP questing or repeat public bosses/anchors).


This has got to be one of the worst decisions you've made, to make entire swaths of contents obsolete. Moreover, since you designed public bosses and dolmens to be group activities, those activities are now incredibly hard to complete because there simply aren't people around.

And I don't blame them, because why bother with a public boss for most likely a paltry green, or if you're lucky a blue drop (which is worthless because by now you can craft better than mots blue quality items)? A bunch of empty soul gems?

Craglorn should have required VR10 and you should have fixed the broken content before implementing new things to distract people from what isn't working.

agreed

lao

DarkWombat wrote: »

Absolutely brilliant observation. I have no idea what these guys were thinking with many other design choices as well.

I am beginning to think Paul Sage needs to be fired. There, i said it.

none of them have any idea what they are doing rly. i know for a fact matt firor and paul sage once had it. whatever it was but they lost it somewhere along the way after they left mythic.

Kililin

You know, the zones probably would not be empty if they where fun.
But 90% of the quests are the exact opposite of fun, on top of it they give *** rewards. Before craglorn even people only did it V1-5 and switched to (dungeon) grinding mostly.
Just make them fun and rewarding and people will do them.

Also even i (i am not exactly a lore/fluff freak) hat to kill my factions soldiers, there is nothing in the story that makes this understandable.

PBpsy

People that really like questing will still do them. I zerged bosses from 7.5 to 10 since the patch made a the pve zones unplayable solo. Now that it is(almost) fixed I am back and I will probably finish everything halfway to 12).
If you really want to do the quest you would do them anyway for the money,gear etc. I actually support being able to grind VR1 to N even if I enjoy questing because I know people do not.