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

snowmanflvb14_ESO

The xp seems fine the difficulty is ok. Had several groups of 4 doing the ruins some with a tank some without. A few has multiple range dps some were 3 melee and 1 archer. All were in the v1-2 range. It was challenging but fun. Yet I saw when we had to pug 1 person and the guy who joined would be vet 7+ they would just go fail and leave before we even started. This leads me to believe that it is not the vet content that is hard but some are to use to facerolling WoW content and believe anything short of that means something is wrong with a game. One of the nice things about ESO is that it can challenge you. Most of the people that I have seen leave were the ones who raced to vet 10 then complained there was nothing to do and left before the update. These people do the same thing game in and game out they race to max then leave.

Lucifer108

snowmanflvb14_ESO wrote: »

The xp seems fine the difficulty is ok. Had several groups of 4 doing the ruins some with a tank some without. A few has multiple range dps some were 3 melee and 1 archer. All were in the v1-2 range. It was challenging but fun. Yet I saw when we had to pug 1 person and the guy who joined would be vet 7+ they would just go fail and leave before we even started. This leads me to believe that it is not the vet content that is hard but some are to use to facerolling WoW content and believe anything short of that means something is wrong with a game. One of the nice things about ESO is that it can challenge you.

I think people overrate the challenge in this game. If u play a non sensible spec anything will be a challenge in any game. If u play a sensible build things are not a challenge at any point in the game including trials. Bottomline there are very few builds per class that work perfectly at VR 5+, play one of these builds and content will be a joke, if not content will be mildly challenging. I dont even know how to define a skilled player in this game since the gameplay isnt hard. (excluding the 1.1.3 VR mob bug). The difficulty is poorly designed as well throughout the game and there are random spikes in difficulty all over.This is not an elitist post, nor am i an elitist player, i am just calling it as i see it .

Gisgo

If they added new areas, dungeons, quests, gear sets, skills, etc... without touching the level cap i bet most of us would be happy.

Lucifer108

Gisgo wrote: »

If they added new areas, dungeons, quests, gear sets, skills, etc... without touching the level cap i bet most of us would be happy.

This is what they should have done to be honest.

Indarqeen

rais the level cap after 3 weeks he he i dont have words

Gwarok

Lucifer108 wrote: »

snowmanflvb14_ESO wrote: »

The xp seems fine the difficulty is ok. Had several groups of 4 doing the ruins some with a tank some without. A few has multiple range dps some were 3 melee and 1 archer. All were in the v1-2 range. It was challenging but fun. Yet I saw when we had to pug 1 person and the guy who joined would be vet 7+ they would just go fail and leave before we even started. This leads me to believe that it is not the vet content that is hard but some are to use to facerolling WoW content and believe anything short of that means something is wrong with a game. One of the nice things about ESO is that it can challenge you.

I think people overrate the challenge in this game. If u play a non sensible spec anything will be a challenge in any game. If u play a sensible build things are not a challenge at any point in the game including trials. Bottomline there are very few builds per class that work perfectly at VR 5+, play one of these builds and content will be a joke, if not content will be mildly challenging. I dont even know how to define a skilled player in this game since the gameplay isnt hard. (excluding the 1.1.3 VR mob bug). The difficulty is poorly designed as well throughout the game and there are random spikes in difficulty all over.This is not an elitist post, nor am i an elitist player, i am just calling it as i see it .

Now I'll tell you EXACTLY what the problem is:

Stupid over mechanic'd fights are just ridiculously stupid.

Perfect example is Veteran Fungal Grotto

NOTHING MORE NEEDS TO BE SAID

lindechene

So I did it. Reach Veteran level 10. Did almost every quest in all three campaigns. Got Tamriel Hero achievment and now looking forward to PVP and the group content.

What was fun from level 1-V10?
- I enjoyed most quests because the stories actually gave meaning. Especially all those red dialogue options made me really read what I was answering.


What are the issues with veteran ranks?

- The way the veteran ranks work now in most cases I felt alone in the world. Especially from V7 to V10 I felt happy when I at least spotted one other player once an hour and could complete some quest together.

More often I ended up in some annoying situations facing a named enemy with no help around at all.

I have especially annoying memories facing Gargoyles alone.

- All in all the healthbar of standard enemies seems to long for lone players. Because of that weapon attacks and spells do not anymore feel powerful at veteran ranks.

The only time I felt I was doing some kind of damage was when facing wolves...

- I did not anymore enjoy exploring because I did not want to pick any uneccessary battles. I ended up stealthing around and avoiding as much combat as possible from V7- V10. This really hurt the general enjoyment of the game. I may have missed quite a lot of lore books because of that...

What would help?

Some kind of difficulty system that adjusts health bars of enemies especially named bosses based on the number of players engaging them. I guess thats easier said then done...


In general I would feel the combat more enjoyable if the speed of all normal attacks, abilities and spells would be faster.

Quaesivi

My problems with veteran content are;

First, the forced questing on other factions. I chose the faction for a reason, so did many others that comes from TES games. Making us do the other parts is utterly pointless, and the point was to make people see all of the regions and to have no need for alts, that I can understand. However, better implementation would be doing quests that belonged to our own factions on other regions, spywork if you will. The whole Lore is getting stomped on with every quest I do... but starting the game as EP, going up to the King of DC and the Queen of AD, yet with no option to kill them? Seriously that is... ridiculous at best. (Not to mention are doing the whole events upto Coldharbour fights, after killing them, keep being sent to past, twice, instead of doing the events after the banishment of Molag Bal, not getting in there)

Second, the forced magicka builds all around the content, not just really veteran but below veteran, stamina builds are somewhat managable, after veteran content, its basically suicidal, even at contents you are forced to solo, its near impossible at most points (there are viable builds sure, and at vet10, I'm still using stamina builds, but it pales in comparison, and to a ridiculous amount).

Third, since the PvP is locked to Cyrodiil alone, why in the world Craglorn is not a cross-faction area that we can actually group-up together with other people? Coldharbour was lame enough that when the whole world is fighting against Molag Bal, we are all brainless enough to not actually get help from other factions when even after our kings and queens made peace.

Fourth, the veteran leveling. We do the work of 5-10 normal levels, yet we get nothing, no skill points, not stat points, and these veteran levels keep increasing. So why are the normal levels not increasing? I'm hoping, at some point, veteran levels will stay for just -hardcore- players and normal levels will start increasing at some points because, well, why in the world our stats are capped at 49 points? Thats... just annoying, granted a minor one but... why 49 points for 50 levels? Why not 50?

I'll leave these 4 points of my discontent here, sure there are more but those 3 bother me the most, not sure if anyone agrees or not but I'd rather not get flamed for my opinions, civilized argument, I'm up for that though.

dishyfruitcake

It is way too slow. After making vet 1 my brother and I realized we were going to have to grind through the same old stuff in a new faction with little in terms of reward for leveling. What is worse the veteran dungeons are all vet rank 5! So now we have dungeons we are able to get into with loot we cannot even use. So there goes the one thing that would have broken up the monotony. Those who say it is too slow are missing the fact that it is too slow for some people regardless of what they think it is for themselves. We have no desire to grind our way to vr10 so we can hit craglorn. The game is just not that good.

Birfreben_Kinghelred

Soft Cap
A soft cap means characters in a game don't technically have a maximum level, but after a certain level it gets very hard to increase levels and the benefits diminish rapidly or vanish, so the incentive goes away for all but the hard-core power gamers. Diablo I is a Blizzard Entertainment game with a soft cap, where the amount of experience required to level increased exponentially with each level with few benefits. In the past, the MMORPG game Shadowbane had a soft level cap (approximately level 45 - 50 and above).

taken from http://www.wowwiki.com/Level_cap


I think that's what the developers are going for, I don't think you are supposed to grind to v10/12. I think your just supposed to play the game and enjoy it. The reason there is the big rush to v10 is because a handful of players abused RoM on release and got to v10 way to soon. Same with v12 and the boss exploit. Now every1 feels like they need to catch up to compete, it shouldn't be like that, just play the game.

TheBucket

I enjoy vr content

Zarkaz

V15 is coming soon™

kundekort

I'm VR5, and have been the last week. I just cant see the benefits of "stress leveling" anymore. I play only when my friends are playing now, and log on now and then to research and feed the horse.

I guess if the reward for gaining VR levels were even existing, I would have been more eager to gain levels, but naah.

ScribeOfSalmacis

Altissimus wrote: »

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.

Out of curiosity: Which 2-3 builds do you mean? I ask, since I'm not sure I agree with the argument, but haven't counted the viable ones yet.

Razzak

Sociabear wrote: »

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"

This is what the beginning of the MMO gaming was. It doesn't mean it's the best way.
Woud you like to stop using a phone and go back to communicating via letters? If you don't writing letters, communicating to others is not for you.

Islyn

Well what else do you want to do to level in an ELDER SCROLLS game?

I am so over whiners in this forum. Maybe if you read any of the text (meh but I don't wanna reaaad or care about anythinnng!) or RP anything, but you want to be VR whatever right now, and you're missing everything and whining about the grinnnd - well.

So aoe spamming 100000000000 mobs is better?
Please get a grip.

JoyEnergiser

muze_ESO wrote: »

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.

Bye! Enjoy the WoW clone that has lasers.

JoyEnergiser

NaughtyDog wrote: »

I enjoy having more Veteran Levels. For hardcore players like myself, my character was max out and had the best of the best gear. So I made a new char to play on while I waited for the new contents. I was thrilled to find out that Vet levels increased, craglorn released, and more gear are dropping. Now I can play on my main again until it is max out again, switch back to my alt (which is vr7) and wait. As of right now my main character is Vr12 (Veteran Lvls are EASY if you know what you are doing), now I plan on running trials and looting gears until I am max again, play on my alt and wait once I finish all that.

That aside, I SOLO most of the vet content besides the private group dungeon (i.e Fungal Grotto, Vault of Madness, etc). I know how to utilize my builds and execute them accurately since Soloing requires great effort esp if you are fighting a storm atronach by yourself.

Veteran lvls are not killing the game. It is just annoying some of the players who casually play and/or came from another mmo's culture and expects ESO to be the same. Most of the happy players do not have the need to log on forums and rant/vent as they are too busy enjoying the game.

However, I understand many do not like this veteran lvling system that keeps on increasing. If you want a game that has a capped lvl, there are plenty of other games. ZOS is veering away from other mmo styles and I respect them for it.

So in short:
XP is not low, it is fine. It is actually really fast imo if you know what you are doing. Also, although VR lvls do not give much reward, the EXP they give to lvling your skills is great. You are encourage to swapped skills and lvl their morph form up. This way you can try out builds in different situations.

In Vet zones, you are expected to understand your characters' strength and weaknesses base on your build. As the lvl of vet zone increase, they challenge your understanding and forces you to create a more efficient build. Please do not use the "play the way you want to" as an excuse, if that's the case then the way I want to play is "booty arse naked" and run around one hit punching all the mobs in craglorn with my vet 1 char.

Jeezus, get a job man.

devincutlerb14_ESO

I quite enjoy the VR endgame so far. So let me address some points previously brought up:

1. First, I don't find the endgame a grind at all. The endgame grind factor is the singlemost important factor that makes me leave an MMO. In Rifts, which was an awesome game up until the level cap, once you hit top level the game becomes an equipment grind, and the ONLY way to get top tier equipment is to turn in massive tokens that can only be gained by doing elite raids and dungeons....over and over again. When I scoped it out, it looked like in Rifts it would take me 3 months of grinding the same raids and dungeons over and over again to afford even the first piece of equipment. No thanks.

That is my definition of grinding. Doing the same content over and over again. VR is NOT grinding in that sense. I am doing new things! New quests, fighting new bosses. Enjoying new content. That is awesome to me. Does it break immersion a bit that as a Dominion bosmer I am now killing my former allies? Yeah a little. But I justify it as Caldwell essentially transporting me to an alternate plane of reality in order to experience the other factions. Immersion issues aside, it is new and fresh content.

2. I don't find VR content too difficult. A previous poster mentioned a Templar bow build having no chance at VR2+. I play a Templar bow build and I really really suck at MMO combat (I really do....it's kinda sad how often I accidentially switch weapons in combat or drink a potion when I didn't mean to) and I am doing fine on VR5 content. Yes, it is more difficult than mob combat in 1-49...but it should be! I am a veteran. I should be able to handle it. And I can. Yeah, a mob of 3 requires some very careful planning or use of my AoE ultimate, but it can be done consistently. Yes, some combats or bosses (especially with ads) are tough and require a few deaths and some serious thought to come up with a workable plan...but I like that. Most MMOs don't test your strategic thinking...only your hand eye coordination. I appreciate actually having to sit back and form a plan.

3. You can solo VR content. I do it. One of the things I really really appreciate about ESO VR content is that it is all soloable. In SWTOR, I really disliked getting to level 50 and finding that except for a small run of daily PVE content (which you repeat over and over again every single day (that's the definition of grinding my friends) all further content required raids and dungeons groupings.

While I understand this is an MMO and I do enjoy playing with others, I don't play regularly enough or at regular hours enough to really form a guild clique of players. So for me it is PUGs or solo. And PUGs take forever to form. So instead of having to log in and wait for an hour for someone to form a group with me, I can just login and continue solo VR content. Very nice!

4. Finally, I appreciate that in VR content you are still accumulating both skill points and skill experience. You are advancing in VR play, and advancing significantly. A VR 10 character in VR 3 equipment is still going to generally kill a VR 3 character in VR 3 equipment. No you don't get a skill point for actually levelling in VR, but you do get them for doing the things you do to level in VR in the first place. Skill points for completing certain quests, skill points for Sky shards, skill experience for defeating foes and completing quests. It is all still there and all still advancing.

And to me this advancement is important because in most MMOs endgame turns into an equipment check. In ESO so far VR content is not an equipment check. Not by far. The difference between blue, purple, and gold equipment does not seem to be that great, and certainly is not required in order to engage the content. Equipment check is what causes mindless grinding mechanics. ESO has so far avoided that.

TL;DR: I find ESO VR content refreshingly un-grindlike.

dishyfruitcake

Those of you that like to consider those of us that do not like the implementation of veteran levels to be whiners need to take note of the fact that we do have a problem with it and are leaving the game over it. So obviously it IS a problem. Call us all the names you like it doesn't matter because we won't be around to hear them. YOU are in need of a wake up call. Reality checks in now.

dbennett707cub18_ESO

It's depressing, even though I personally don't find them to be quit worthy, they are long and boring, and keep me from the activities I would prefer to be doing, such as spending time in cyrodil. It's pretty obvious it is a problem, I started playing with a group of 10, and I'm the only one still playing because the vet grind was so boring to them.A lot of my guilds are dying, and vet levels are partially to blame, I also think another thing that is driving a lot of us closer to leaving the game is the slow/sloppy development cycles. Why they feel the need to put balance changes and class fixes in with major content patches that need to be tested for extended periods of time is beyond me. Game has been out quite a while now, and NB and vampire skills and passives are still broken. Exploiting batswarm was allowed to run rampant for weeks, something that should have been hotfixed and quickly was thrown into the mix with a major content patch. I just don't understand why things are being done the way they are.

Drazticulous

Honestly 1-50 kills it for me... maybe they should just have vet 1-10 and not 1-50. This will give more areas to level as a vet hehe

BrassRazoo

bg22 wrote: »

My only gripe is... Wasn't VR10 enough? Why are you already adding more Veteran Ranks ZOS? I don't want more levels... I want more ways to improve my VR10 character. I'm sick of leveling. I want end game. Not increasing the cap and prolonging actual end-game.

I like this comment.
I have done the betas and now am a subscriber.
I have basically ticked all the boxes, skyshards, dungeons, wold bosses, and am now V9 in Reapers March (EP) so am near the end of the journey to VR10 ... well I was.

I have quested for what, 50 days now?
Not just questing a few hours a day either, like maybe 8 hours a day.
No farming, no exploiting just moving the way it was designed.
I am 50 in all crafting and have 7 alts for inventory management and support crafting and hirelings.

When do I get to take a breath and develop my character deeper?

I am still researching items so I can craft good "special" sets.
Still waiting for a lot of gold upgrade materials.
Still trying to level Enchanting so I can actually make VR10 Glyphs.

A level cap increase was not required.



EDIT: Spelling.

dbennett707cub18_ESO

BrassRazoo wrote: »

bg22 wrote: »

My only gripe is... Wasn't VR10 enough? Why are you already adding more Veteran Ranks ZOS? I don't want more levels... I want more ways to improve my VR10 character. I'm sick of leveling. I want end game. Not increasing the cap and prolonging actual end-game.

I like this comment.
I have done the betas and now am a subscriber.
I have basically ticked all the boxes, skyshards, dungeons, wold bosses, and am not V9 in Reapers March (EP) so am near the end of the journey to VR10 ... well I was.

I have quested for what, 50 days now?
Not just questing a few hours a day either, like maybe 8 hours a day.
No farming, no exploiting just moving the way it was designed.
I am 50 in all crafting and have 7 alts for inventory management and support crafting and hirelings.

When do I get to take a breath and develop my character deeper?

I am still researching items so I can craft good "special" sets.
Still waiting for a lot of gold upgrade materials.
Still trying to level Enchanting so I can actually make VR10 Glyphs.

A level cap increase was not required.

It's called power creep, its a *** way to try and keep players interested in your game.

BrassRazoo

dbennett707cub18_ESO wrote: »

It's called power creep, its a *** way to try and keep players interested in your game.

I won't be going anywhere soon, I really like the game and am enjoying myself.
I just think give people a time to catch up before raising cap.
If people want to power on to VR10 (VR12) good on them, but leave them there. I'm sure a lot have plenty of skills points and things to do they have missed anyway.

It is unwise to segregate the community or split them so far apart.
People already have a hard time grouping because of so many level and content variations.
Bring everyone together a little bit and it will be a lot more fun for everyone.

Lucifer108

Islyn wrote: »

Well what else do you want to do to level in an ELDER SCROLLS game?

I am so over whiners in this forum. Maybe if you read any of the text (meh but I don't wanna reaaad or care about anythinnng!) or RP anything, but you want to be VR whatever right now, and you're missing everything and whining about the grinnnd - well.

So aoe spamming 100000000000 mobs is better?
Please get a grip.

AoE spamming is not fun. But unfortunately thats what PVE non questing content and PVP are all about .

CerberusCRW

I've been avoiding the whole "Veteran Ranks: Good or not" topic for a while, as I figured everyone has different taste in what they enjoy, but it's become clear to me that this is becoming an issue which should be addressed. This isn't merely a matter of personal opinion. I've watched countless players reach veteran levels and vanish, never to be heard from again, and others abandoning their Veteran characters to play alts. I see them log into their 50+ only to run around lower level zones, getting achievements and such, or play for an hour or two and go right back to their alts. Obviously this isn't everyone, we do have some VR10-12s, but it does affect a good portion of the population and I feel like that is a problem.

As for my own personal experience with Veteran levels, I just got VR7 tonight and promptly switched to my alt. I can't go through more than 1 or 2 VR levels without taking a break to play alts. I get burned out after just a few quests, my enjoyment goes down the drain and even the carrot-on-a-stick that is Craglorn isn't enough to keep me motivated. Why? I'm not sure, but here's what I've come up with so far:

1. I love a good challenge. No, I REALLY love a good challenge. However, I don't enjoy a challenge just for the sake of it. Once the obstacle has been overcome, I like to feel rewarded, accomplished. Veteran Ranks offer quite the challenge yet no reward nor sense of accomplishment. It's just something you go through in-between the "regular leveling" and the actual end-game content. Veteran Ranks 1-10 are not end-game content, or at least they don't feel like it. It's just more leveling/questing once you're supposed to be done questing/leveling. Granted that the journey from 1-50 was a tad too quick, but I'd rather they make -that- last longer than have us do the exact same thing twice over.

2. There's no story progression. Once you're done with Coldharbour, that's it. That's technically the end of your journey. You get a fresh start in enemy territory with no acknowledgment of your past accomplishments. It's like leveling an alt in hard-mode. And when you're done with that, you level another alt. I'm sure the other faction's stories are quite interesting too but my character belongs to the Daggerfall Covenant, that's the folks I want to work for. It's even more disheartening when a quest has you fighting your own faction. I don't want to repel the "invaders", I want to join them and burn those cities to the ground!

When I started playing this game, I thought that by "visiting other faction's territories", they meant we'd get to explore them as members of our own selected faction. I thought the quests would be more like bounties, similar to what you'd find in Cyrodil (PvE bounties of course). I thought they'd have us invade enemy territories: Spy, infiltrate, assassinate. Or perhaps they could send us undercover to deal with other plane-threatening matters arising in these hostile territories. I feel like it's not too late to introduce a bounty mission system, an alternative to playing "pretend" games and going through the other faction's quests (again, PvE bounties, not suggesting they should add pvp outside Cyrodil). I'de LOVE such system. Am I the only one?

ZurinArctus

I agree with others in the delivery of VR12. It seemed VR10 was enough for the time, no need to already increase the cap.

Barely into epic quality gear and already throwing the bone out again. I hope this isn't a bimonthly pattern. I'll get burned out for sure.

BrassRazoo

ZurinArctus wrote: »

I agree with others in the delivery of VR12. It seemed VR10 was enough for the time, no need to already increase the cap.

Barely into epic quality gear and already throwing the bone out again. I hope this isn't a bimonthly pattern. I'll get burned out for sure.

Absolutely.
If it goes to VR14 or VR20 in the next month... God help us all.

Knootewoot

Meh, i am almost VR5. I get around 1 VR per zone which is fast enough. That means i am VR10 when i do all quests. Quests are fun.

I don't like it that on VR4-5 i can kill some bosses with ease, but i just cannot seem to find a way to kill a Troll or Storm Atronach. Yesterday i had to kill 4 mammoths and i got 1 because i got him stuck. The other 3 i need help from others. And these are solo quests. I am NB.

Oh well i still have fun. There are luckily enough people who come by to help kill those TROLLLSS