Weekly Trial Rewards at Risk? Leaderboard Changes Could Hurt Most Players (U48)

loveeso · September 16

Isn't this change going to push a lot of players off the weekly leaderboards—and by extension, out of the weekly reward pool for gold trial gear? Right now, many veteran trial runners rely on the class-specific leaderboards to earn those weekly mails with gear. They’re often edged out of the overall top 100 by meta / elite score-pushing groups, but still manage to place within their class bracket.

Under the current system, players are effectively competing for (number of classes + 1) × 100 leaderboard spots. But if it shifts to a single unified leaderboard, that shrinks to just 100 total spots for weekly rewards. That’s a massive reduction in opportunity—and it doesn’t seem like a great deal for the majority of the player base, does it? 😉

The only fair solution would be for ZOS to expand the unified leaderboard to at least (number of classes + 1) × 100 spots. Anything less—say, a flat 500—would be a significant downgrade, no matter how they try to justify it.

But...

Even if they did match the current total and promised never to reduce it, the experience would still change. There’s a big difference between being the 55th-best Warden and being the 788th overall player. One feels like a meaningful class achievement; the other feels like a footnote in a sea of meta comps. Players would lose not just rewards, but identity and recognition.

Soarora · September 16

In my experience the top 100 for weekly isn’t covered by score-pushing groups. There’s really not that many score-pushing groups and they’re not going to drop their current prog to do the weekly unless the weekly happens to be their current prog. The top is more people in tri progs whose prog happens to be the weekly or asap tri pulls I think. Regardless, as it stands now, you can just do the trial thats the weekly and get a reward for it. It doesn’t feel competitive. Also, the gear isn’t curated from the mail I don’t think? It never helps me.

loveeso · September 16

We do run weekly trials. Just because we're not actively score-pushing a particular weekly trial doesn't mean we won’t land in the all-class top 100 of a weekly leaderboard. I wrote the original post after some guildmates brought this up in chat—they consistently earn weekly leaderboard rewards, yet almost never show up in the all-class top 100. So yeah, there's no question: if the system shifts to a unified leaderboard, a lot of players who currently receive those rewards will lose them. That’s not speculation—it’s a certainty. Plus the other point we raised still stands

Ishtarknows · September 16

I agree, it was one thing that stuck out to me during the stream.
Why do they not want us to repeat content? Instead of spending a few hours repeating the weekly trial/arena/IA on different characters for the mailed rewards there will be no point after you've done it once.
Maybe 30 minutes game play once a week instead of possibly a few hours. That makes no sense to me, why are you discouraging repeating content ZoS?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · September 16

@ZOS_Finn
If you put this change through can you at least make the weekly rewards be curated? If you're farming gear and trying to do the weekly on multiple accounts currently you can get duplicates of pieces you already have. This is frustrating but can be worked around by doing it with multiple accounts to at least have a higher chance of getting a new reward. After this change you cannot do so.

Also the weekly from IA rewards specific class based gear. What's going to happen now? you randomly get any classes gear?

Gabriel_H · September 16

If/when the change happens I very much hope the leaderboards will retain the base class identifier. It will be a sea of Arcansit DDs with an occassional smattering of DK tanks and Warden healers. Maybe that will be enough of a wake up call for ZOS?!

Gabriel_H · September 16

Ishtarknows wrote: »

I agree, it was one thing that stuck out to me during the stream.
Why do they not want us to repeat content? Instead of spending a few hours repeating the weekly trial/arena/IA on different characters for the mailed rewards there will be no point after you've done it once.
Maybe 30 minutes game play once a week instead of possibly a few hours. That makes no sense to me, why are you discouraging repeating content ZoS?

For the same reason they spent years pushing multi-character accounts (and then threw them under a bus with sub-classing) ... they think sub-classing will save the game, just like they thought multiple characters would.

dcrush · September 17

Crosspost from my reply to the PTS topic about this:

For me the removal of class-based leaderboards is a quality of life downgrade.

I don’t enjoy solo arenas so I only do them once in a while, and then I check which class has a short leaderboard list and do it on an “unpopular” class to get an extra weapon from the arena that happens to be the weekly.

Guess I’ll be doing some farming until U48 drops and then… never do the arenas again.

But for newer players it will make getting an extra weapon from a weekly solo arena more difficult and it will take more runs to complete their stickerbook.

loveeso · September 17

dcrush wrote: »

Crosspost from my reply to the PTS topic about this:

For me the removal of class-based leaderboards is a quality of life downgrade.

I don’t enjoy solo arenas so I only do them once in a while, and then I check which class has a short leaderboard list and do it on an “unpopular” class to get an extra weapon from the arena that happens to be the weekly.

Guess I’ll be doing some farming until U48 drops and then… never do the arenas again.

But for newer players it will make getting an extra weapon from a weekly solo arena more difficult and it will take more runs to complete their stickerbook.

Good point. Yet another reason to keep separate boards for each class.

loveeso · September 17

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn
If you put this change through can you at least make the weekly rewards be curated? If you're farming gear and trying to do the weekly on multiple accounts currently you can get duplicates of pieces you already have. This is frustrating but can be worked around by doing it with multiple accounts to at least have a higher chance of getting a new reward. After this change you cannot do so.

Also the weekly from IA rewards specific class based gear. What's going to happen now? you randomly get any classes gear?

True. Another problem with the changes ZOS wants to implement.

Ishtarknows · 7:07PM

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Ishtarknows wrote: »

I agree, it was one thing that stuck out to me during the stream.
Why do they not want us to repeat content? Instead of spending a few hours repeating the weekly trial/arena/IA on different characters for the mailed rewards there will be no point after you've done it once.
Maybe 30 minutes game play once a week instead of possibly a few hours. That makes no sense to me, why are you discouraging repeating content ZoS?

For the same reason they spent years pushing multi-character accounts (and then threw them under a bus with sub-classing) ... they think sub-classing will save the game, just like they thought multiple characters would.

Well I still log into my 20 characters daily and they're not going anywhere unless there's a new class (doubtful about that) and I will select one or two to delete for that class.