Veteran Content – A Guide to Enjoying 50+

Winnower

(wall of text follows)

First there were 50 levels. Most games, you level up to max level, and that’s it. You have some “end-game” content, like raids or hard bosses that you run in groups – and you run it over and over, possibly after mastering the mechanics of a given raid. Over time, this content grows stale and players clamor for more “new content”.

In ESO, when you get to 50 you are still technically done. But you get this optional content – run the Veteran ranks, open up the content you haven’t experienced yet via Cadwell’s Almanac, and with the same character.

Your stats don’t go up as you gain Veteran Ranks. Each veteran rank takes about 10 times as much work as each level from one to fifty. It’s not a bad analogy to say that the 10 veteran ranks equals about 100 levels of regular content.

Some people prefer to stay with their one character rather than making two more level 50s, so doing the content to VR10 is a way to keep playing that character along.

And now that you’re level 50+ you can start experiencing Cyrodiil without being “boosted”. (The benefits of veteran ranks in PvP is another story, and maybe one that I’ll address at another time.)

And it’s all optional. I don’t find it any particularly easier at VR7 to do mobs in VR2 zones then it was at VR2. My stats haven’t increased, except by small gains from higher level gear (and I mean small). I’ve hunted through the VR1-VR5 zones and Craglorn since VR1, and with other people it’s not significantly harder in a V5 than a V1 zone. This is, I believe, working as intended.

What you do get is access to many more skillpoints via the skyshards and the quests, the delves and the dungeons. As the gear levels go up, you get more to deconstruct for materials for crafting. You do have access to gear with some increased stats, though ESO is not really a gear-driven game.

Except for the group dungeons, level 1-50 can be pretty easily soloed. Yeah, you want to get together with informal bunches of folks to do dolmens and possibly the pirate-skull mini-bosses in each zone. Or the public dungeon challenges.

VR1-10 zones work better with more than one person. There, I said it. You *can* solo from VR1 to VR10, but it’s a grind. Nonetheless the option remains for those who want to invest effort and time into it. But if you want to make the veteran ranks easier and more fun, get together 1-3 more folks and you’ll find the content relatively easy and it goes fast.

I’ve seen surprisingly good responses from people when joining Dolmen groups to go through the veteran dolmens in all 10 zones. Get together 8-12 folks for Dolmen runs, and a good time can be had by all.

The same thing goes for the pirate-skull mini-bosses. I’ve been in groups that run several zones at a time of this content, and working with the same people is engaging and rewarding.

The public dungeons and the group dungeons of course, benefit from 4 person groups; the public dungeons don’t even need “balanced” groups, just get any 4 folks together.

I’ve made more hunting/questing friends doing the Veteran content than in leveling any of my characters in the 1-50 ranges.

Go to Cyrodiil, pick any guest campaign – you can run the PvE content there at VR1 with 3 other folks and you’re safer from random ambush – and there is a LOT of PvE content in Cyrodiil, plus daily quests related to PvP content. The occasional PvP encounter just spices things up a bit.

Veteran content – and how much you like it – has a lot to do with expectations and perspective. For me, it’s the true beginning of ESO being a real social MMO – the game is just better at veteran levels with other folks. And that’s how I think the designers saw it as well. They were kind enough to allow the pure soloists an opportunity to do it by themselves, even if it is more tedious.

I’d have preferred they just out and out stated “this is pure group content” and scaled it accordingly. But I see the benefit of allowing the solo option.

None of the content in ESO is as hard as the original EQ1 content; the implementers have made sure in recent years in all MMO content that the casual solo players with limited time can still get through the game. I don’t think it is realistic to expect it to go “back” to the old “default content is group content”, even though I preferred it 14 years ago. I too have a real job and a spouse and a garden and like to cook.

But veteran content gives you an excellent opportunity to group if you want to. Having problems with trolls and gargoyles? Or groups of 3-5 mobs? If there were 2-3 of you, you wouldn’t have a serious problem.

And I haven’t even touched on Craglorn yet. I personally think Craglorn is too easy, based on how it was presented to us. I’d like to see it harder, honestly. A group of 4 should have to *work* to do the basic content, and the 8 and 12 player content should require coordination, balanced groups, etcetera, etcetera. But when you hit VR1, find a cart and head over to Craglorn as soon as you get your feet on the ground. You can do that content with others as well. Don't forget that there are 12 skyshards (4 skillpoints) in the 12 Craglorn delves, meant for 4 players.

If you get tired of leveling VR content, go work on another level 1-50 character, you have 8 slots for characters on each of the two main servers, giving you the option to have 16 characters.

I guess the summary of my thoughts is “you have options”. And folks have the option of looking at the positive ways to implement their choices, or they can look at the negatives. Me, I prefer the positives, and in that light, Veteran content provides me with viable ways to play that I enjoy.

Best of luck to you.

P.S.: I've seen objections regarding the journeying in other lands; remember what Cadwell told you when he gave you the gift.

GeeYouWhy

The content is not optional if you wish to be effective in end game. If you mean optional as you can choose to do the quests or you can choose to grind then yes, it's optional, but in that sense so are the first 50 levels of content.

Robocles

Well written... I don't agree, but well written.

For quite a lot of us, recycling the other faction's content to "extend" gameplay is a lazy out.

I will say this: Your assertion that vet content makes this a more "social" mmo seems off. This game, with it's lack basic social features and it's design to make it seem more like a single player game (phasing in ever area, on almost every quest) makes it hard to quest with anyone. You either have to do all of them together, or you do them with the random people who happen to be running by.

That said, I am glad you are enjoying yourself.

Natjur

V1-V10 used to be forced (no faster way to get the exp)
Craglorn broke that as a V1 player can get 1 million exp an hour in a 'grind' group.

So now you have tons of V12 who have never done any of the V1-V10 areas and are now grinding V12 trails for gear.

Sure the V1-V10 zones where slower but I liked them as there was tons of interesting quests. Now, those zones are empty, or they are V12 coming back at max level to do the main story lines for the extra skill points.

I had finished the V1-V10 zones before Craglorn but had fun with a few of the quests in Craglorn, but now no one does them. Craglorn is either V1-V11 griding exp or V12 trails, the rest, you can look for a group for hours.... The 'questing' side of the game is dead.

alphawolph

The more i hear about vet levels, the more I start thinking that i will need too move on, once i can't solo any more.

Ohioastro

alphawolph wrote: »

The more i hear about vet levels, the more I start thinking that i will need too move on, once i can't solo any more.

Try them. I'm not racing to anything, and there are plenty of places where you can do well solo (including Cyrodil).

devincutlerb14_ESO

Well, as a VR 6 bow Templar (yeah...I know) I am soloing through the VR content and I am enjoying it. I welcome the opportunity to go through new quests and storylines and fight new enemies and experience new terrain as opposed to most MMOs where you just grind the same raids ad nauseum.

Most of the content is soloable...and I am not a great player and my build, according to most on the forums, is less than ideal.

The content does tend to get harder, relatively, since an increase in VR doesn't net you a lot of extra power or ability. But given that I can think my way through most of the content, I rather enjoy having to use tactics and really plan an attack when there are 2+ trash mobs. I don't really need to speed my way through the VR content. Why should I? I am never going to outdo anyone on the speed trials or leader boards. So why should I race through content just to hit a brick wall when I run out of new content?

I recommend a leisurely stroll through VR content...enjoying the questing and exploration. Maybe even (shudder) reading the lore!

Sakiri

Reading the lore would be infinitely more enjoyable if my second faction wasnt chock full of pretentious arsehat npcs(Bretons in general).

kirnmalidus

alphawolph wrote: »

The more i hear about vet levels, the more I start thinking that i will need too move on, once i can't solo any more.

You probably won't have much trouble soloing the vet content.

There are specific formats that can become very difficult for certain playstyles in vet levels.

For example, as a Bow/DW Nightblade I really have a hard time with the multiple wave fights because they take away my advantage of stealth.

gclifton58ub17_ESO

I soloed all of the content up to VR 9 except for the obvious quest bosses and group dungeons that were not meant to be solo-able. I did this on a DW NB Vamp with more than a fair share of my points in crafting. All of this was done pre-craglorn. If I ran into a snag, such as large groups of trash mobs in a quest or a particularly difficult or tricky boss fight, I took a couple steps back and rethought my strategy even if it was just waiting for someone else to happen by doing the same quest. Sometimes I even switched up my abilities (gasp), and approached the problem from a different angle. Or I would gather some mats and make some better gear. Or I would go find some more points to spend on an ability that I thought would help me.

The problem with some people, I guess, is they want instant gratification. They want results right now the way they want to do things because they could never be wrong or even slightly off in their thinking. This game will probably be around in some form or another for several years. There is no rush to get to the end (if there even is one). Why not take your time and think things through instead of trying to force a square peg into a round hole?

Kililin

VR is optional like wearing armor or equipping weapons is optional...

rusila22

Man your guide is not Op, people don't have the choice and must do both because you need skyshards to up your skills. there is no content optional.

Altan

The whole game is optional - as in, forget this hassle, I'm off to do something else!

From lvl 1-50 the game is fantastic, then after defeating Molag Bal and apparently at the height of my powers, I move to a zone/system where I get thrown around like an empty tracksuit by a couple of landscape mobs with a mix of range and melee attacks (don't even mention the healers).

It make me wonder how these other factions are not overlords of the earth since I, a god destroyer, am so roundly and regularly slapped around by trash.

If Vet content doesn't get some kind of re-tune soon, I'm taking the option to cancel my sub. This has ceased to be enjoyable.