Dear ZOS - veteran levels are killing ESO. Please wake up to this.

Altissimus

Your player base is declining. I know this, because all of my friends and all of my guilds are saying the same thing.

Xp gain is too slow. Incentives are too little. Only some specific class/builds are working in Vet play.

Xp gain is too slow: it takes hours of game play to move the bar. Quest rewards are too little. Mob kills are arduous, and reward little.

Incentives are too little: VR3 to VR4...so what. The mobs, however, gain loads more HP. We gain...............nothing. No skill point towards a decent vet-based unlock. No power boost. No significant unlock of higher-tier gear. Nothing. Where's the incentive to do the ggggggrrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnnnnddddddddddddddddddddddd? You're missing the basic MMO equation here: effort must be met with reward.

Only some specific classes: "play the way you want to play" doesn't work into Vet zones. You. Can. NOT. Solo. Vet. Play. on any build, unless you take 2-3 times as long and use potions etc. There are maybe 2-3 builds in the entire game that can solo effectively...pre 1.1.2 nerfs, anyway.

THIS is where your efforts should be focused. The "oh, we're working on bots and gold spammers" excuse is old, and you've demonstrated insufficient progress to justify this.

I can't make this message clear enough: if you don't address more of what the players are wanting, and soon, you won't have to worry about bots and spammers any more because they'll realise there's no players to sell to.

GougedEye

+1
And after 1.1 it's actually worse. Having a character go from Fun to totally useless between sessions is not my idea of fun. Tried to play a bit and just couldn't be bothered anymore.

Subscription cancellation doesn't even ask you why or any feedback. Kindof sums it up really.

Haven

Some players feel vet ranks is awesome. I am not one of them but some do feel that way.

Personally I hate vet rank leveling. If their was other choices aside from mind numbing grinding of quests we didn't sign up for I think it would be better.

A lot of people that I spoke too feel the same way. Not sure how much of the population that is, but a few other options would make a lot of difference.

Syntse

Umm, didn't they just up the veteran xp. Not sure if monsters difficulty is pre of after patch, but it has been announced that patch caused issue in veteran mobs.

In a way I feel like this rant is bit late and things have been addressed already.

Haven

Sorta,They tried a bit. But the exp per mob is still horrible. By no means is it a viable way of leveling. So pretty much nothing changed. Cept the mobs got harder but that was not intended.

Blackwidow

Haven wrote: »

Some players feel vet ranks is awesome. I am not one of them but some do feel that way.

Yes, it is true.

Even a really bad game will find a small niche of people that love it.

Personally I hate vet rank leveling. If their was other choices aside from mind numbing grinding of quests we didn't sign up for I think it would be better.

I'm not a big fan of it, but I don't hate it.

I do hate that I have no new place to go with any new alt. I did it all once, I really do not want to repeat the exact same crap again.

A lot of people that I spoke too feel the same way. Not sure how much of the population that is, but a few other options would make a lot of difference.

I never thought I would say this, but I think ESO will be F2P before the end of the year.

I hope it is not true, but it is looking that way, sadly.

WhimsyDragon

Note that ZOS is fixing a lot of the issues introduced with yesterday's update. I'm posting this comment taking into account my experiences over the past couple weeks prior to the patch.

I think some challenges along the way are ok, as long as they don't become absolute roadblocks. Leveling up between 1-49 was actually a good mix of difficulty--some stuff was not too challenging, but other stuff really was, and a lot fell right in the middle. Whether other players helped out made a difference as well of course.

For veteran levels, I kinda wish it would follow the same path or only be slightly more challenging. I'm not looking to breeze through an easy game, but like I said, previously it was a good mix. More recently in VR 1 and 2, it's felt more like work... work to fight off the trash baddies... work trudging through dungeons... work to see a difference on my xp bar. And while it can be more rewarding to achieve goals that are worked for, somehow it's too much because it's constant. I had more fun 1-49 and hope to see some tweaks made to veteran content so that it feels less like trudging along toward more trudgery. It doesn't have to be that way.

Haven

There is still time for them to fix this stuff. I don't hate craglorn nor do I hate that they were working on it. I do however wish that they update and patch the current bugs before adding new content.

Also I think people said Craglorn was a bit bugged. I hope these get addressed, the two things I think that should take priority for now atleast, is bots and bug fixes.

Sociabear

I am glad it takes time. No one remember trying to level in EQ or Daoc ..
MMO's are a time sink , I'm glad a game has brought that back finally. Group up with friends , grind and just relax and have fun. If you don't have any gaming bros, form a group do the same thing. How do you think old school mmos had such a tight community? Because they spent hours playing together chatting about whatever just relaxing and having fun. I've been playing with the same guys for going on 8 years...

So in summary..this is what a true mmo used to be. Time do consuming, fun and about making friends online to play with. If you don't like it, mmos are not for you. Mmos over the last decade have not been a true representation of what an Mmo really was years ago and should remain. A niche community of "nerds"

Dralzen

talking about EQ. they would have not survived the Hell levels. every 5th and 10th level required a ton more xp to level. i guess you are all used to having levels given to you on a silver plater. how do you survive in real life where you have to do hard work for little gain or none at all.

Blackwidow

Sociabear wrote: »

I am glad it takes time. No one remember trying to level in EQ or Daoc ..

I have very fond memories of EQ.

I am not a big fan of rush to the top MMOs.

This is not about how much time it takes as much as it is boring to do the same quests over and over, at least for me.

BTW, as much as I did love EQ, the hell levels were not a big selling point.

phairdon

Read in another discussion this was unintended. Supposed to be rolled back sometime within 24 hours of the Zenimax post.

Akhratos

Dralzen wrote: »

talking about EQ. they would have not survived the Hell levels. every 5th and 10th level required a ton more xp to level. i guess you are all used to having levels given to you on a silver plater. how do you survive in real life where you have to do hard work for little gain or none at all.

I could not describe what my 10 years between EQ and Lineage 2 subscription were alike.

HP/Mana regen to full in less than 15 secs? Pots everywhere? Sustain skills for everyclass???

muze_ESO

I just quit for reals this time due to the VR gameplay. I enjoy a challenge but not dying every other minute. The rollbacks were exciting too - makes me question if Zenimax has a quality control team.

See you all in WildStar, i just did my preorder. Bye.

AlexanderTheGreat

I've been v8 for like 2 weeks. Once I hit v9 in a few hours I'm unsubbing. This veteran content is abhorrent and should not have launched with veteran ranks. As I have said before, Craglorn should have been V1-2.

ZurinArctus

Being able to hit VR10 in less than 14d played time doesn't seem like too slow.

I don't know how many quests I had left when I hit VR10. Plenty of content to go around. This is a quest oriented game. If you don't like to quest, you will be at a disadvantage. Sure you can grind, but you will still miss out on phased areas and skill credit rewards for the larger chains.

How slow is too slow on exp gain?

GougedEye

Sociabear wrote: »

So in summary..this is what a true mmo used to be. Time do consuming, fun and about making friends online to play with. If you don't like it, mmos are not for you. Mmos over the last decade have not been a true representation of what an Mmo really was years ago and should remain. A niche community of "nerds"

Well maybe for a fraction of the userbase this is true. Others have friends, family, hobbies and you know, things to do. Just want to have fun and not looking to make a game their major life commitment. But each to their own.

Not sure who will be paying for your servers, and development teams when ESO is a small niche community though. But good luck with that.

WhimsyDragon

I was also a hardcore EQ player and I have made some comparisons to ESO. It was very rewarding accomplishing things in EQ, but that game was indeed hugely about community (and having a lot of free time), which is something ESO struggles with for lack of nameplates and it's trade-centric guilds.

To each their own. Some folks want to rush to the end and others are happy to savor it. I think I'm one who seeks a happy medium at this point in my life. I'm not sure how many are on the same page as myself, but commentary regarding difficulty of VR even before the update seems telling.

EQBallzz

They have already stated that the increase in VR difficulty was not intended and will likely be hot fixed within 24 hours.

ElliottXO

Vet content makes me quit.

I was hoping for an improvement with V1.1, but I guess I can unsub now. I'll never have the motivation to make it to VR10 or VR12 this way.

The game offers a great base, but it's just not thought through till the end.

Mablung

Dralzen wrote: »

how do you survive in real life where you have to do hard work for little gain or none at all.

Thats just it, this isnt real life. Its entertainment and what is entertainment for? Relaxation and good times. If the entertainment you pay for makes you feel like you are working then whats the point?

phairdon

What can make it a grind is going through the same maps you had previously been through, at lower levels with an alt.
Gw2 being my only other mmo was the same. You might have 5 chars covering all classes in the game, which generally means going through the same content for each one. By the time you got to number 3 onward it could become a bit mind numbing.

Altissimus

EQBallzz wrote: »

They have already stated that the increase in VR difficulty was not intended and will likely be hot fixed within 24 hours.

This isn't about vet difficulty post-1.1.2. This is about the vet grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrind with no incentive or reason.

Altissimus

ElliottXO wrote: »

Vet content makes me quit.

This.

Haven

Not to derail the thread. But how would you guys do veteran ranks if you could choose? Like. What would you do different? [Note this is a honest question.]

Mablung

I enjoy the game. I loved the story. I am a little put off that the vet content seems to be forced and had little thought put into it. However, up until yesterday, the grind was not too terribly bad and I could deal with it simply because I was getting to see new zones.

I would like to see some beneficial reward system in place for ranking up in veteran levels but its not there so I will trudge onward. I am entertained for the most part even though my gaming experience has been riddled with issues. I completely get that things are not perfect at inception.

However I understand that there is a shelf life to that train of thought but we all need to exhibit a little more patience. Not to say we do not need to come here vent and express our frustration, just temper it a bit with the reality that these things for the most part will not be resolved overnight.

steveb16_ESO46

Mablung wrote: »

Dralzen wrote: »

how do you survive in real life where you have to do hard work for little gain or none at all.

Thats just it, this isnt real life. Its entertainment and what is entertainment for? Relaxation and good times. If the entertainment you pay for makes you feel like you are working then whats the point?

Quite. The idea of slowly grinding through stories that make no sense anyway is not fun. It's a grind. A monotonous grind. As things stand i'll get mt 2 characters to L50 then play something more interesting.

Shame as I had high hopes for this. VR level grind is just a cheap trick to avoid having to develop good content after then end of the faction story. Bullcrap sub-trek 'alternate reality' hand-waving notwithstanding.

Sociabear

I have a wife (no kiddos tho), well paying career and plenty of time to game still.
I like when people bring up well good luck with paying for xyz. All of the old games eq, daoc still have a sub , player base and content updates (daoc not as much with content). WoW created some false illusion you need a massive hit to have a great game. Incorrect at Daoc's height it had 250k subs (iirc) game was alive and flourishing in all aspects, that to you new age folks is just a failure! Not to mention almost every mmo in the past decade went FTP. They kept using a horrid model of no journey , just rush to max level (end game term was created) raid quit. Someone finally had the balls to try the old formula and it's greatly refreshing.

You don't like questing fine go RvR (amazing vr xp) and do all dolmens/solo/pub dungeons. I made it to vr10 barely questing (I did caldwells mainly). Do rvr quest hubs , always fun to do Bruma and kill on the side! With the increase of mob xp go pbaoe grind. I understand they messed up difficulty but that'll get fixed. What I'm showing is you have really quite a few options over questing..

If you're not having fun that's fine just leave , I don't say that to be mean but we don't need a typical toxic mmo community here that just whine after whine. I mean come on people asked for bash nerf (needed) now people whine about the nerf!
There are plenty of the last 10 year FTP games that you can level to in 4 hours and raid and have bgs. Go there if that's what you want, one game doesn't appeal to all and shouldn't.

Zabus

Syntse wrote: »

Umm, didn't they just up the veteran xp. Not sure if monsters difficulty is pre of after patch, but it has been announced that patch caused issue in veteran mobs.

In a way I feel like this rant is bit late and things have been addressed already.

They increased it from like 155 to 285, from what I've seen at v10 anyways. 40-50 I was killing monsters for 500xp, and grinding was actually a viable way to level. Now it just isn't unless you have a group of 10+ people who faceroll dungeons within minutes.

I was actually excited for this update because my friend told me xp was going to be quadrupled which sadly wasn't the case.

The only thing that's changed is that we have to grind MORE because they decided to raise the level cap.

Hodorius

There is something I do not understand...

You want to hit max lvl faster and easier without "grinding".
There is only one other possibility: getting stuff for free (like in WoW).

Some of you are VR8 and still doing Cadwells questline... How is that possible?
You can finish Cadwells story faster then that if you leave everything else out.
So you people run around doing every unnecesary quest you find while feeling bad about it?!

Then you whine about Craglorn...
Today we did quests with 2 VR 2-5 guys and it worked... why dont you do the same?

Madirishman76

I am fine with VR levels taking a long time I do wish however they had better alternatives to questing and they seem to be working on that the XP I am getting from Mobs at VR2 more than doubled and in some cases tripled Mobs that used to give me 90 are now giving me close to 300. Also the amount of XP shown in my tooltip is almost never accurate since I hit VR1 I actually have to go back to my XP bar after killing a mob and calculate it myself maybe thats throwing people off. VR ranks are OK IMO but still could use some XP/Loot adjustments the game is still new by my standards give em a chance.