70 CP is Still Not Enough to Retain Current Capabilities

ThatNeonZebraAgain · February 2015

After playing on the PTS since 1.6 was updated, and even with the changes to gear and overhauling of class abilities, 70 CP still renders my current VR14 character less effective and flexible than what I currently have on live. While I cannot speak for other players, from my experience, only having 70 CP forces me to specialize in order to make up ground for one role, either PvE (where I play a tank) or PvP (where I mostly solo gank or play in small groups). With my current live build, I can swap gear/enchant sets and still be hitting (or close to) the relevant softcaps to be effective in both contexts/playstyles (I can even fulfill PvE DPS role if need be). But this is not the case with 1.6, especially with softcaps gone the value/utility of my racial passives (Argonian) now pale in comparison to others. On top of that, and again from the perspective of my current main character, Bow damage has been significantly reduced, so I'm probably going to need to level up another weapon (grind... but where?), and given the changes to potions and how many of my class abilities don't work against damage shields, I'll also likely have to switch to Resto staff in order to be able to both have a chance to kill enemies and stay alive in Cyrodiil. With only 70 CP, I am now forced to pick one role/play context over another, which equates to an overall loss of capability for my character.

Now, this largely wouldn't be a problem if I could easily make up the difference in a week or two, but given the current exp requirement and steadiest ways for earning CP (ie quests), it will take me considerably longer to get back to where I was before 1.6. As a VR14, I have already completed almost all quests/achievements outside of Craglorn and Cyrodiil (and many of them in these two zones as well), and so spend my time running Vet Dungeons, Trials, crafting, and PvP. However, these end-game activities grant little and/or unsteady experience toward gaining CP. Between this and my play schedule, it will take weeks (likely a couple months) for me to get back the utility I had before 1.6. It would probably be faster for me to level an alt and re-do all the same content on it, than it would be for my current main character to gain that same amount of exp/CP -- something that is incredibly problematic from a design standpoint.

This is still a major issue with 1.6, and while my situation seems worse than what many other players face, it nonetheless is a broad issue that needs to be addressed by ZOS sooner rather than later. The fixes to it aren't ground-breaking or even difficult, but so far they've not been introduced.

Awdwyn · February 2015

I haven't experienced a significant loss in character power, but it certainly does seem that some people have.

It would be interesting to hear from ZOS what their intent is, but it does seem to be an overall lowering of the maximum power of a character. It seems that characters below cap aren't negatively affected while at cap are above what ZOS intends.

Perhaps the intent is not for us to be at the same character power after 1.6 hits live? This is a complete change to the game, and if at 70CP we were at the same level of power as in 1.5, what would max CP look like? Would that be so overpowered as to unbalance the game?

ThatNeonZebraAgain · February 2015

Awdwyn wrote: »

I haven't experienced a significant loss in character power, but it certainly does seem that some people have.

It would be interesting to hear from ZOS what their intent is, but it does seem to be an overall lowering of the maximum power of a character. It seems that characters below cap aren't negatively affected while at cap are above what ZOS intends.

Perhaps the intent is not for us to be at the same character power after 1.6 hits live? This is a complete change to the game, and if at 70CP we were at the same level of power as in 1.5, what would max CP look like? Would that be so overpowered as to unbalance the game?

Yes, max CP is incredibly powerful, as we are seeing right now on the PTS. But they won't have to deal with balancing that for at least 2 years (someone crunched the playtime/exp numbers), so I don't think it's a concern right now.

Awdwyn · February 2015

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Awdwyn wrote: »

I haven't experienced a significant loss in character power, but it certainly does seem that some people have.

It would be interesting to hear from ZOS what their intent is, but it does seem to be an overall lowering of the maximum power of a character. It seems that characters below cap aren't negatively affected while at cap are above what ZOS intends.

Perhaps the intent is not for us to be at the same character power after 1.6 hits live? This is a complete change to the game, and if at 70CP we were at the same level of power as in 1.5, what would max CP look like? Would that be so overpowered as to unbalance the game?

Yes, max CP is incredibly powerful, as we are seeing right now on the PTS. But they won't have to deal with balancing that for at least 2 years (someone crunched the playtime/exp numbers), so I don't think it's a concern right now.

Right, however I see two possibilities here:

1) keep character power as close in 1.6 as it was in 1.5. This means within a defined timeframe those characters will be very overpowered compared to newer players and existing content. This will require rebalancing in the future, or require new, very high difficulty content to cater to those players

2) reduce the maximum current power in the 1.6 conversion. This may still require what option 1 dies, but to a lesser extent.

It seems like their going with something like option 2.

Stella75 · February 2015

What I do not get is why they would need to rebalance the game when I get to cap cp. They should have new content that is balanced for cap cp by the time I get there. Making the demotion of 1.6 only show how little zos has thought about and planned into the future. Other wise they should have no problem with us retaining the power we have now, because they will have new stuff for us to do. I personally think Zos has very little going on in the pipe works and would not mind making us re grind what we are loosing, or even loosing us as customers.

MaxWipes · February 2015

Indeed your are right. Come 1.6, V14 is the new V6-ish. So come one, come all, and spend the next couple of years grinding to get back what you have now.

angelyn · February 2015

I will need to spend most of my starting point on fire resistance since Dunmer took a nerf? And fire resist glyphs took a nerf too, (so that you will need x amount more than 1 glyph to get same resistance as live.Although I have fed this back since I'm sure it's a bug that vamps will take more fire damage than in live.

So...I ..Hopefully what other points I have left can make up the rest of the "rebalance" to my stats,sets,skills and other glyphs

Ezareth · February 2015

My live character with 70 CP is less mana efficient, less powerful and overall far less survivable than my character on live right now. It is easy to determine this by fighting guards in cyrodiil (with only 70 CP not 3600).

ThatNeonZebraAgain · February 2015

ezareth_ESO wrote: »

My live character with 70 CP is less mana efficient, less powerful and overall far less survivable than my character on live right now. It is easy to determine this by fighting guards in cyrodiil (with only 70 CP not 3600).

Yea, the issue is beyond certain builds/playstyles.

ThatNeonZebraAgain · February 2015

MaxWipes wrote: »

Indeed your are right. Come 1.6, V14 is the new V6-ish. So come one, come all, and spend the next couple of years grinding to get back what you have now.

Ahh yes, but where/what to grind?

Relevant thread #1: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/151997/new-content-or-lack-there-of#latest

Relevant thread #2: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/1563642#Comment_1563642

Voltos · February 2015

I'm getting so tired of reading threads like this. Aren't you the least bit interested in having something to look forward to with the Champion System?

Yes, things have changed. New content has been introduced that affects your characters setup, but the whole point is to keep things interesting and fresh. I would much rather "lose" some relative power now, for a game that doesn't stagnate in 2 months. You're missing the big picture here, mate.

Cheers.

dharbert · February 2015

Oh noes!!!

I can no longer go from being a tank in PvE to omgwtf insta-ganking players in Cyrodiil......

Asgari · February 2015

ezareth_ESO wrote: »

My live character with 70 CP is less mana efficient, less powerful and overall far less survivable than my character on live right now. It is easy to determine this by fighting guards in cyrodiil (with only 70 CP not 3600).

Went from being able to solo a resource very easy and now can be a challenge. Things have indeed changed

Ysne58 · February 2015

I didn't notice much difference in effectiveness, but resource management is different. I run a hybrid NB. I'm only V6 and I'm sure that makes a difference.

likewow777 · February 2015

It's definitely more difficult if you run a hybrid build, as people have mentioned in other threads. I run a magicka based tank, but obviously you're always going to need stamina. That need went from being something I could manage via heavy attacks and class skills that give stamina, to completely unplayable when 1.6 first went on PTS.

On the plus side, I was able to do a few things to compensate. First, reenchanting all gear to give me stamina basically solved the problem of not having it. Then, using CPs. Unfortunately, in order to make my character more like it is on live, I had to invest in things that essentially negate the cost increases of skills, blocking, and damage taken from enemies. So I got back my survivability, but I can't try some of the more exotic Champion abilities until I get more XP.

My testing is generally done in Craglorn, messing about with mobs, Spellscar, delves, and whatever else. I get decent XP doing that, so if you want a pretty good place to grind, that's an option. For the most part, after much tweaking, I feel like my character is now as good or better than my live server one. Which sounds like I'm disagreeing with OP, but it's more that by default, I agree, we're less powerful. But once I decided to rethink how I see my character, it helped. That and CPs going into reducing damage taken.

ThatNeonZebraAgain · February 2015

Ysne58 wrote: »

I didn't notice much difference in effectiveness, but resource management is different. I run a hybrid NB. I'm only V6 and I'm sure that makes a difference.

Yeah, up to VR6 it is relatively even. The difference become more and more apparent up to VR14.

AlnilamE · February 2015

It's a bit more challenging for now and will require some learning, but that is the interesting part.

With some of my friends, we ran Vaults of Madness on the PTS and then on Live to see what the differences were. Some good, some bad, some learning to do.

And we'll be earning CP while we are learning.