(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.