Why Veteran gameplay is unimmersive and broken (Wall of Text)

Menelaos

Hello fan base, hello Zenimax,

this may or may not contain spoilers. Folks, ye have been warned!

Ever since I got to Veteran level I’ve been thinking a lot about Veteran content in the two remaining alliance regions (let’s call them that). At first, I found the idea great that you would be able to travel all alliance territories with one single character. Now, standing in Deshaan in the middle of the Ebonheart Pact looking north towards Stonefalls and south towards Lizard Country I can only shudder at the level of fail Zenimax allowed themselves to implement into, well, Veteran gameplay.

But let me recall the story so far: I am a proud member of the Aldmeri Dominion. Choosing an Alliance at the start of the game was one of the most important decisions I made. Then the story unfolded: I met one of the coolest cats since Puss In Boots from Shrek and helped a hands-on no-*** juvenile Queen secure her realm against multiple staggering odds, including Covenant and Pact forces.
Simultaneously I did everything possible to help a blind old man across the street and interdict Sansha Daedra Incursions all across the Dominion. Finally, after many a great obstacle I managed to get a spark of Divine Power and defeat Malcom McDowell Molag Bal, thus halting the Planemeld and negating all his plans to absorb Tamriel for I don’t know how long. I still smirk when I think of Abnur Lannister trying to reactivate the Amulet Of Kings. So far so good. Ah yes, and I was awarded Veteran Level 1.

The prelude to the opening up of the other alliance territories was an intermezzo with Meridia explaining that there was another war going on and that in order to combat my enemies I had to understand them first. Well, apart from having thwarted Covenant and Pact forces for 50ish levels already, who am I to complain to a Daedra who had obviously read Sun Tzu’s “Art Of War”?

All that ended in a complete disappointment when I began my travels in the Ebonheart Pact. It had virtually nothing to do with the story and all the decisions I made so far. I don’t mind the difficulty and I don’t even mind moving through enemy territory. I don’t mind mushroom forests and volcanos and I don’t mind incompetent conjurors fumbling around with the Brothers Of Strife. Hell, but I have a serious problem with having to do quests that require me to help my enemy and kill my own folks who are in turn essentially trying to give my enemy a hard time on their home turf. I don’t want to get XP for killing my brothers in arms. I play Aldmeri Dominion! I mean, if I recall correctly I am even an honorary member of the Auridon First Marines. And you give me this? Then to add insult to damage people keep telling me I have no soul. You gotta be joking! I mean, I know Meridia did a thing or two to me but this is just hurting.

Then, it’s the Dark Anchors. They are there. I may be suffering from Alzheimer but wasn’t I the one who halted the Planemeld? Wasn’t I the one who stopped Little Mo’? There should be no Dark Anchors anymore for crying out loud! Or is it a splintered cult or something that has usurped Mo’ and stole his secret technology? Gosh! What a waste of opportunities to continue the dense storyline any further.

Zenimax, seriously: You destroy your own story the moment your players become Veterans, because you turn everything they have achieved so far in the storyline upside down. No, you delete it basically. Let me repeat: What you spoon-feed us are two warmed-up 1-50 areas with NO connection to what players accomplished before. You just raise the difficulty and offer us quests that make no sense for our faction. I hate the decadent and debaucherous Pact and I despise the arrogant and militaristic Covenant.

Like I said, it’s nothing against moving through enemy territory, but you should design other quests or at least give us other quest choices so the quests make a difference. I would like to HELP my folks there, not kill them. This is unimmersive in the extreme in an online game of a game series that was always proud of the level of immersion it offered to its players. You seriously have to fix this and give us alternate storylines in those areas.

Here are some alternatives I could think of:

• Let players join the “Senior” ranks in the Mages Guild or Fighter Guild so that they can move freely and act neutrally in other lands. They would have HQs in the major cities and can mop up remaining Daedric resistance and local cults from there. This would work especially well with all the scattered dungeons and temples where you face Daedric enemies. After all, there are other Daedric Princes appearing throughout the storyline
• Let players join black ops/covert forces: Add military locale markers for enemy camps, add a new variety of books that represent enemy orders and other correspondences and boost exploration XP. You might fill the new locales with tough mobs that alert even more tough mobs, when the players are spotted.
• Install recon/scouting missions like in Cyrodiil. You might spice them up by offering other goals that we know from similar “behind the lines” quests like burning stuff, poisoning stuff, installing portal foci, etc.
• Let players join embassy staff and act from the major cities. Ideal for more subterfuge and more “place object A in house B” or “meet person X and stay hidden” quests

Some of this may or may not be already directed towards the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves’ Guild motifs but I really came up with these basic ideas, because – well, I said it – the storyline beyond level 50 is unbearable.

One word about Craglorn: I was sceptical about an update that addresses the high end players only two months after the game’s release but today my opinion on this is a different one. There can be no complaints about all the Veterans migrating to Craglorn, because it lets your character start (again) where he deserves it: The storyline is neutral and detached from alliance territories, therefore it makes sense, it is a true post-Planemeld one and has no freaking Dark Anchors that make you think “Hmmm, wasn’t there something?”

I’d appreciate it if Zenimax gave this a thought and thinks of ways to implement this in the alliance territories as well. All good things should come to those who wait (or hope)…

Thanks for reading and considering,
Menelaos

danreckerpreub18_ESO

While I am in an identical situation to you in terms of an AD entering enemy lands upon reaching veteran levels... it seems to me that this is just a way to let you play through other factions' storylines. A sort of alternate reality was created, perhaps even a bubble of oblivion (you aren't there with pact players, just other AD Veterans) to show you what was going on in other regions during your initial 1-50 AD run.

Or, at least thats how I prefer to look at it.

As for the Skin Stealers... I have to think that Queen Elfie wouldn't have known about them. How many veiled heritance kept their opinions to themselves, and went on to lead incursions in other regions? Either way, it certainly opens up new levels of intrigue for the Dominion storyline. I for one don't mind taking out overzealous *** that go against what the Dominion stands for.

anakaki

Which is why I rushed veteran content.

Metacon

Altough im an Ebonheart player.. Im feeling with the OP. because thats what im Thinking all the same.. "Why the frack am i helping the Daggerfall guys?"

I think the story twist is just a lame excuse to "recycle" the very same content.
I give them that.. anyone who wants to enjoy this.. should be able to enjoy it.

But what realy pi**es me off is the fact that to advance in veteran ranks.. or to be able to collect all shards in the gameworld I'm basically FORCED to play all the quests of the enemy factions.

Where did the "Play as you want" mantra go to? I must have missed the line when they threw it overboard.

-No I dont want to help enemy factions. (If i wanted to do that, I would create an Alt-character that had that faction selected)

-Yes i would like to explore entire Tarmiel, without being locked out from 2/3 of the explorable areas. Find and collect Books, Shards and kill world bosses..

Milanna

I haven´t gotten that far yet, but I completlely and utterly agree with you.

This is an immersive game after all, so this makes no sense what so ever.

Matt.vanelsenb16_ESO

The way I look at going to the veteran zones is basically entering an alternate reality that never happened, but is just there for you to learn about the other sides of the war. Meaning that you don't harm your own faction, and learn about the enemies' side of things. Another explanation would be a dragon break, but just like the way you look at VR content, it wouldn't really fit in properly with the story.

p.hurst1b16_ESO

OP you make a very good point but you missed something so I shall inform you of it and also offer a critique and suggestion. Ahem !

- The reason you still fight the Anchors at the Dolmens is because if you had listened or read more carfully when Cadwell offered you the task then you would have got it.

You are sent back in time.

Now then. That little misunderstanding is out of the way and the rest of your post makes a fine point and I applaud you and will mark as an agree,

The suggestion.

It would have been better to offer an alternative future and show you what it would have been like in your own faction ten years from now. This would drop beautifully in to what TES can be all about, possibilities.

A doom laden landscape with tougher enemies, many more Daedra and very few people left. A world under siege.

Instead they cheaped out and lost many subs including mine, probably.

Menelaos

I didn't realize Cadwell sent me back in time, I must have missed it. If I would have read this in the game in some dialogue though I guess I would have laughed out loud.

So I have victory over Molag Bal and that guy sends me back to a point in time where I have to redo all this shite? Seriously? Well at least it explains why I only find Level 1 ingredients in the Pact area.

I know, I know, it is a cheap excuse at best. Thanks for your thoughts on this, I really would have preferred the "doom laden landscape with tougher enemies and many more Daedra" you mention. In fact, it is pretty close to Craglorn. I only would have hoped ZOS would have been smart enough to implement it in their other alliance territories.

elowan

I completely agree with the general thrust of the OPs comments - I'm hating the Vet levels for the same reasons. I've posted my own views on vet levels in other threads, so I'll just say quickly:

Like the OP, I don't mind the difficulty, but I detest having to play through quests where I'm literally stabbing my own people in the face, the same people I struggled for 50 levels to save. (Unless the claim is that all faction forces assaulting the other factions are made of of maniacal extremists that don't have central government support.)

I agree with the rest of the OPs points, as well.

As far as being "back in time" as an explanation, it's done very, very poorly. Yes, Caldwell specifically says "what if you'd washed up on a different shore?," implying that this is sort of alternate-reality-esque. However, spend some time listening to the hours of flavor text from the various NPCs in the vet zones. It's pretty clear that:

1) NPCs regularly make comments about things you've done during your first 50 levels, particularly in Coldharbour (I heard somebody broke into the Lightless Oubliette, and rescued King Laloriaran...)

2) The portals to Eyevea are present in every Mage's Guild location.

3) The whole notion of you being sent back in time would require some seriously convoluted, twisted reasoning. You're massively more powerful than you once were (e.g. you're a Vet level character, and haven't lost that), but you apparently don't have a soul anymore (not just "don't seem to" - there's a whole bunch of quests that /hinge/ on you in fact being soulless (i.e. you'd die if you had a soul, that kind of thing)), etc..

Let's face it - the Vet levels being the way they are are the pure result of two issues:

1) They felt they needed end-game content to occupy people at 50 until 'real' content could come out.

2) There was /some/ kvetching early on in the development / public access process about how they were making the game too "mmo-y," and that this would be an ESO game that wasn't really open-world, because you couldn't access the other faction zones.

Setting the levels the way they are "fixes" both of these issues. Bam, you have an absolute ton of leveling / questing that you have to do before you reach the 'true' endgame, and also, no complaining, you can get access to all quests in the game with a single character.

I personally wish they'd set vet levels as some sort of prestige / min/maxing class that you could get access to by obsessively finishing the other faction quests, and just left the real max level at 50 until they could release real content.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

Yeah I don't get a lot of this. I am leveling my chars to fight. The PvP is where they will end up, I thought that was the point of the game.

You make it to 50 and then go to war. I don't know how you could provide endless content for an endlessly leveling PvE game. The option to play the other factions offers you a pile more PvE and I fail to understand one who wants more of their own faction made for PvE and has problems playing the others. I'm not a big cake guy but really.

Darrett

I agree. It destroys faction pride to help your enemy kill your comrades.

Also, by the end of 50 levels I've had enough of helping people with their petty problems. Give me something important to do and epic monsters to fight, not more quests to kill a Guar inexplicably leveled up to VR6.

Zenzu

This aspect didn't bother me too much, only because I've only ever seen those quests for 'my' faction as selfish profiteering and highly paid political posturing.

Thats just me, if my immersive factor didn't have this basic position at its start, and I wanted to be in the role of the 'hero of my people' bit, that whole starting over again would kill my immersion and my will to continue.

The excuse was flimsy and poorly explained( I think Meridia actually sends you back in time), and could cause a dissonance of perspective for those who like story immerison.

Maybe veteran + quest options that have some kind of subterfuge in place for the main faction quests could help. Nothing to change overall story or rewards, just some extra dialogue or secret plots that unfold later outside of the quest.

Pewpie

Vet content is just a way for zenimax to squeeze money from you, when you have FINISHED the single player game story, and keep doing it over again so they can suck more cash from your for a couple months until you get bored and unsub. The quicker you realize that and get out of the loop, the more money you will save. Unfortunately i unsubbed now at vr7. I should have done it at vr1.

Game over.

aipex8_ESO

For the least traitorous route, choose EP as your alliance for 1-50. The reason being, the other two alliances hardly ever mention the alliance war or the Pact, and I think I've fought Pact soldiers once so far (I'm VR8). The EP on the other hand, has you fighting Dominion and Covenant soldiers right from the beginning, which I imagine is quite disturbing for AD and DC people.

Metacon

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

You make it to 50 and then go to war. I don't know how you could provide endless content for an endlessly leveling PvE game. The option to play the other factions offers you a pile more PvE and I fail to understand one who wants more of their own faction

the basic probmem is... if you are level 50... and go to Cyrodiil. you are still being mauled by V12 players.. simply because they can equip better Weapons and gear.

Of course increases in weapon damage and armor between veteran levels are only sublte.. but in the range of currently 12 veteran levels - it adds up.

Recalling from my memory: Level 50 Onehand Weapon 93 Damage, V12 Onehand Weapon 124 Damage. Thats a 33% increase in Damage - which in a PVP context is everything else but neglectable.

Adding to the fact that aslso armor and glyphs scale.. and higher veteran ranks unlock armor and jewellery with better set bonusses.

In the end it boils down to: "If one wants to play competitively in PVP, he has to be max veteran rank"

Now to the second part of your quote:

The option to play the other factions offers you a pile more PvE

Yes it would be cool if it actually WAS optional. But it is not.

You are forced to play the first entire enemy alliance, before you are even allowed into the territory of the other enemy alliance. (and only the GAME is the one telling you what your first and second enemy alliance will be)

I wonder why Zenimax decided to "forcibly linearize" the PVE content of the game when their design mantra should have been "play the game how you want".

Wheres the problem to have level 50 as the real max level? And Veteran numbers only for prestige? then scale both of the two enemy alliances zones to be level 50/veteran difficulty and allow the player to roam around freely at his discretion. THEN and only then I would not care how hard/difficult/slow or boring veteran content is.. because from a technical gameplay alternative, it would NOT make a difference on a PVP battlefield.

The way it is implemented right now, there IS a difference, but the veteran ranks that make this difference are gated behind linearized forced PVE content.

I guess this is the reason why many players are upset.

Inco

Have to agree with the well written post by the OP.

I HATE... how VR1-VR10 was done. Complete GRIND from hell and annoying that story line is now ruined for me to run an ALT in another faction.

I will still play each "Class" once, but now just from the same faction. The only "CATCH" is I will refuse to do VR content grind again. ZOS scrwed the pooch on that one and I'll leave my ALT's sitting at VR1.

Storyline was GREAT 1-50, but went sideways and crappy for VR1-VR10.

I agree that CRAGLORN was a great storyline as well, but not a lot of people interested in doing them. (After they spend 8 hours grinding to VR12 they seemed more likely). No wonder VR1-VR10 are in Craglorn (Grind is easier than the crap we had before Craglorn).

smokes

zenimax have stated they are going to address the issues with veteran ranks and content - we should hopefully see some news in the next road ahead development post...

Rylana

Darrett wrote: »

Give me something important to do and epic monsters to fight, not more quests to kill a Guar inexplicably leveled up to VR6.

This, times a thousand ^^^^^^^

steveb16_ESO46

smokes wrote: »

zenimax have stated they are going to address the issues with veteran ranks and content - we should hopefully see some news in the next road ahead development post...

Unfortunately 'addressing the issues' isn't going to cut it. Removing and replacing is what is needed. It's not just the pointless, stupid grind of fighting inexplicably super-powered trash for next to no character development, it's the stories themselves.

A lot of us just do not want to run those stories. We're done with finding lost dogs and all that other crap. And we certainly don't want to help fight our own faction.

Can you see them coming up with three entirely new VR stories?

No, neither can I.

smokes

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

Unfortunately 'addressing the issues' isn't going to cut it. Removing and replacing is what is needed. It's not just the pointless, stupid grind of fighting inexplicably super-powered trash for next to no character development, it's the stories themselves.

A lot of us just do not want to run those stories. We're done with finding lost dogs and all that other crap. And we certainly don't want to help fight our own faction.

Can you see them coming up with three entirely new VR stories?

No, neither can I.

i'm pretty sure we discussed this in the "veteran zones are killing the game" thread - i still say the way to go is rollback to VR2 and remove XP/VR gains from other faction content and make the lore, skillpoints and skyshards the only rewards.

when you look at it, cyrodiil was intended as endgame until craglorn released - you can tell by the mobs which were level 50, all the ebon crafting materials in the zone and even the enchanting runes.

players in beta asked for the other faction content to be made available - zenimax obliged. honestly, as a completionist, i think it's a great idea to make that content available - but the VR level grind on top of it was just too much.

craglorn should've been the first area in which to level veteran ranks.

either zenimax have to roll things back to the original veteran design, or they have some serious tweaking to do. such tweaks might include: buffing the quest rewards in veteran areas to blue quality items, nerfing the mobs, or increasing the XP rate. or all 3!

it's all gone a bit wrong - but tbh, the players asked for it and i can't blame zenimax for trying to appease the playerbase, which is one of the reasons i'm sticking it out to see how they are going to address it.

steveb16_ESO46

I asked for no such thing. That's what alts are for. Besides what I remember being asked for was to go into other faction areas. Completely different thing.

Zynster

@Menelaos - good post. I haven't gotten to 50th yet, but your description confirmed my fears. I'll be retiring my char at 50th and playing an alt in a different faction.

masotmnb16_ESO

I was going to write a gigantic post about this but the OP did it much better than I could have. I couldn't agree more. I loved the 1-50 game all the way to Coldharbour, but the veteran 'content' is a game killer.

hamon

this has been talked about at lenght for over a month now... seach my threads for a flavour of folk discussing it back then ..

so i agree and have already raised this whole subject long ago. so they know the feelings of folk on this issue.