Veteran System Changes Preview

nikolaj.lemcheb16_ESO

Oh darn, Iove the veteran content and the constant challenge to your playing skill. Something you never see anymore is challenging solo content and this game were a breath of fresh air.

If the vet game become like the 1-50 game is will become boring.

Montanabum

I love you all. That is all.

Giraffon

I don't like it when all forward movement stops while I deal with some stupid monster that is OP for me. Options of being able to sneak around or hire an NPC mercenary for the next 20 minutes to tank for you would be nice.

I'm just saying that you don't have to go Nerf crazy, just give us some other options. :-)

XanadoX

So nerfing instead of solving phasing problems... How am I supposed to group if our guildmates (or anyone not in the exact same phase that me) cant help me? You want us to group but prevented/prevent that.

You didn't test properly or ignore the beta test warnings....

Thanks to exploits? bugs? many people just skip the veteran content. Btw, this content destroys the experience (I was the great hero, what the hell happened?, I'm doing lvl 1 missions)

traigusb14_ESO2

Just finished VR12, the hard way, with my supposedly impossible to level Heavy armor Templar. Got VR11 and about 1/3 doing everything in the VR zones, and got the rest of VR 12 by doing the Cyrodil PVE and a bunch of random stuff like working on my monster hunter title only killing VR mobs.... only like 300 more mixed mobs to go!

Honestly, I think this is the best choice for the long term health of the game. VR6+ were pretty difficult and VR9 and VR10 didn't allow really any mistakes even with trash mobs (especially casters) Very easy to get instakilled by some stuff like harvesters if your char doesn't have tons of health.

If VR 6-10 was about where VR 1-5 is now (and VR 1-5 is toned down some), I think people would be able to do it without feeling too crushed by baddies, also the difference between coldharbor and VR1 wouldn't be so "wall like" when people moved over.

For XP, I would have liked to have hit VR 12 during my journeys. It is hard to get a non-grind group in Craiglorn.

VR10 by just doing the Caldwell's silver/gold seems pretty fair, with people doing extra delves, dolmens etc. getting VR12+ (when cap goes up again) for their effort would be nice.

aipex8_ESO

Even though I do like a challenge (have already completed Cadwell's Gold) I think this is a positive change for the game and will get more people in those empty VR zones. Please leave some areas (like delves) a little more difficult but still soloable. Thanks!

Daddybigtime

Well a little dissapointed. I just made level 45 and wanted to see if Vet content was really as hard as people were saying. (In my experience what I consider hard and what most consider hard is vastly different.) But I also know we must cater to a more casual crowd. I hope that we can still have a few choice vet dungeons that can offer a near impossible experience in difficulty. There is nothing like beating something impossible and rubbing it in the face of the weak!

Snit

Making VR easier doesn't make them more interesting or rewarding. The challenge was the one thing I liked.

LunaRae

If it makes people happy then good for this change. I'm eagerly looking towards quake con panel for a full debrief on what work is being done on the game right now and what we can look forward too. Hope you guys have some big news planned for this event!

Phantax

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Denaia wrote: »

Thanks for the changes. I just wonder one thing

How hard will this nerfing be? I did not enjoy the difficulty of 1-50 much as it was way too easy for my liking, while vr 1-12 could certainly be a bit easier. But I wonder, will it be the same difficulty as 1-50 or will it be a middleground of what's its now? As I wonder if I will enjoy ploughing through vr 1-12 if it's extremely easy and I fall asleep playing.

Level 50+ and 50++ content will still be more difficult than normal level 50 content, but easier to solo than it is now. So, yes, a middle ground.

HELL YEAH ! ! !

Words

I have been paying my membership without playing much at all these past 2 months. That is because I felt financially supporting the game was important and might bring some refreshing changes to the 50+ and 50++ content.

Level 1 to 50 does not feel like a grind for 2 reasons:
-The level progression is very satisfying and well paced.
-You have access to 3 dungeons for every area you complete (those dungeons very much feel like rewards for finishing an area).

50+ and 50++ content feels like a boring grind for 2 reasons :
-The level progression is terribly slow. 1 veteran level per area is a horrible reward and a massive motivation killer.
-3 veteran dungeons per alliance feels like a rip-off. Whereas you got 3 dungeons for every completed areas in your starting alliance, in veteran content you get 3 veteran dungeons for every 5 completed areas.

The "difficulty" of the veteran content was literally the only thing I enjoyed there. It made fights far more interesting to solo. Now you're even dumbing this down while not addressing what I personally see as the main VR content issues.

And here I thought ESO could not be further dumbed down!

I'm resigning my membership tonight. Best of luck to all players, I sincerely hope you continue enjoy playing.

Justiciar

Can we get an achievement for those that completed it pre Nerf?

Akhratos

Daddybigtime wrote: »

Well a little dissapointed. I just made level 45 and wanted to see if Vet content was really as hard as people were saying. (In my experience what I consider hard and what most consider hard is vastly different.) But I also know we must cater to a more casual crowd. I hope that we can still have a few choice vet dungeons that can offer a near impossible experience in difficulty. There is nothing like beating something impossible and rubbing it in the face of the weak!

While this may sound odd to you, trying to solo vr1-10 zones is harder than craglorn content (so are mobs), many vet dungeons (group difficulty), and well, WAY more than the supposed endgame, trials, wich are being done by semiexperiemced groups in under 20mins already. Pure tank&spank.

So, I hope they greatly buff the reward and difficulty of that other vr content, where finding groups is easier due to no phasing and where the real challenge should have been since the first moment.

Lyall84

Just a shout out to all people linking care bear and nerf bat and complaining about how it should be this hard...reality check. VR content is easy, and boring. I already have made it to VR12, doing every quest up until my VR 10 area ( stopped half way through), and every area was the same, easy, boring, frustrating pattern.

Attack, kill one mob.
Die, revive.
Attack, kill remaining one or two mobs.
When gear broke or I leveled up, make new gear.
Repeat.

This is very easy, very boring, very frustrating. In no way is it hard once you accept the fact that you need to either do a lot of running from way shrines or spend 30 to 50 soul gems each zone reviving. That is the part that is unacceptable. Should delves be hard enough to somewhat force you to groups? Absolutely. Should phasing "solo" quests or open world quests be so hard to force you to group? Absolutely not.

You need to let go of the misplaced pride you had in being so stubborn that dieing would not stop you from leveling and realize that while this is a game, above all, ZeniMax is a business. For them to be successful and keep this game running they need to retain customers. To do that, the difficult content needs to be optional. That is why most MMOs consider the PVP the end game content, because it is as easy or as hard as the player base makes it, and is optional. So any main stream questing and leveling needs to be set to a level that will keep people playing, not quitting after dumping 20 grand soul gems just to complete all the quests in their first VR zone.

ShedsHisTail

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone,

One of the topics we frequently get feedback on is ESO’s Veteran content. Some of you may have seen our recent comments about changes we have in store for ESO’s post-50 experience. We want you to know we’ve been listening to your suggestions and concerns, but more importantly, we want to tell you what we’re doing about them. Today, we have an update from the ESO Dev Team to share with you.

Some of the concerns you’ve called out are: Veteran content is too much of a departure from the level 1 to 50 experience, playing and leveling through it is too much of a grind, and that the rewards you get don’t match the effort you have to put in to progress.

One of the guiding principles of our Veteran gameplay was to encourage you (not force you) to group. We wanted you to be able to reach max level by playing solo if you wished, but still encourage you to group with others along the way. This principle was the reason we made our post-50 zones more difficult; we wanted you to get together with others to take on tougher challenges and form social bonds while you did so. But we understand that, despite our vision, this is not how all our players want to experience the game beyond level 50.

We recognize that many of you love the game you played while leveling up, and that you feel the post-50 zones are too much of a departure from that experience. We hear your requests to continue participating in solo content as you progress through Veteran Ranks, and we’re acting on that feedback.

Starting next week on Monday, July 7th, you’ll see the first significant change we’re making to the Veteran System. We’re implementing some balance changes to content in post-50 zones that will make it much more like the content from levels 1-50. Our goal is to remove the feeling of “I have just hit a wall of difficulty” that many of you have expressed—you’ll be able to solo much more easily. This is just the first of many large-scale changes coming to ESO’s Veteran System, and we encourage you to watch our QuakeCon panel on Friday, July 17th, where we’ll go into much more detail about the other parts.

Thank you for sticking with us, sharing your concerns, and supporting a game we all love.

Aw, man, and I just figured out a reliable way to take down groups of three.
Aw, well. At least I won't be swearing as much.

WebBull

please add more XP to PvP kills also.

hamon

even tho i finished all the quests the hard way and on a templar. I have been vocal to support this much needed change for ages now.

I don't feel like i,m uber cos i done it while it was over tuned and on the weakest class. I'm just glad because this is vital for the health of the game..

thanks zos for listening.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

This sounds like restoring the VR levels to around what they were before 1.1.2. It sounds like a wise decision as long as the phasing problem persists.
I only wish the game would let us "phase in" with other players, such that if anyone in the group has not done a particular quest, you end up being able to pick it up as a group, but with less rewards for group members who have already done it. But I guess that is something we need to put on the long term wish list.
I think this was a good move. Thank you.

starlizard70ub17_ESO

This is great news, I'll be almost done leveling to VR 12 when the changes happen. But I'll be more inclined to try and level new alts with these changes.

KariTR

nikolaj.lemcheb16_ESO wrote: »

Oh darn, Iove the veteran content and the constant challenge to your playing skill. Something you never see anymore is challenging solo content and this game were a breath of fresh air.

If the vet game become like the 1-50 game is will become boring.

Absolutely agree.

The irony is, as I was going through Glenumbra today (VR6 zone) I realised how much easier my Vet is finding the VR content than my L15 who has just about completed this map on normal level now. In fact each VR content has got progressively easier as long as I continue to adapt and have fun playing around with newly learned skills. And boy is it fun.

If ZOS did anything 'wrong' it was adding Craglorn too soon. I get they didn't want to lose the capped players, but they should have gated the content.

I doubt this will appease those who seem to want to complain over trivialities and ZOS could find it bites them on the ass when those of us enjoying the challenge quietly leave disappointed. I will at the very least shorten my recurring subscription. No way will I invest 3/6 months to a game company that doesn't know its own mind and caters to people who refuse to L2P (yeah, I said it).

Shiroro

Excellent. Exactly what needs to be done. Now finish tackling the lag issue and work on removing forced solo content from the game. That will get people to stick around for a while. I'm not saying there's not a potential place for forced solo challenges to be added once the game is mature, but get them the heck out of the story quests!!!

For the people who want "difficulty": low man the dungeons and wait for the delve revamps. This game needs bodies badly and the people you consider "baddies" could be your top DPS guildmates in a few months.

phreatophile

This is good news. Playing a VR9 DW Nightblade.

I would have continued to play either way, but it has become less and less fun as I've gone along. Hopefully they can find a decent middle ground. If PC hit about 5% harder (melee) and mobs hit about 5% lighter it would be perfect.

Overall I'm pretty happy with most of the Mobs in vet content, but there are a few spikes in difficulty that are just crazy. There was a wispmother in Greenshade that wrecked me again and again until someone else rolled in.

Which brings up the other problem, VR was supposed to encourage grouping...
with whom?
Zones are pretty much empty. Zone chat is blank, beyond VR5 it's a mostly forced solo game because there's nobody to group with. If you do find a group for overworld bosses/Dolmens stick with them as long as possible, you may not find another.

The worst part of VR questing is the rewards do not fit the effort. More often than not we get a few hundred gold and vendor trash for all our work. Don't get me or anyone else started on the jokes that are Cadwell's silver and gold rewards. The landmark ending quests in each faction, at least, should have a choice of 3 or 4 rewards reflecting different playstyles and have a high enough quality/strength or have a unique enchantment/look such that they are treasured and used not immediately sold or deconstructed.

Rant over.

Sounds like they've listened to us. Hope the nerfs to VR are small and well thought out, but enough to bring players back into the zones.

apostate9

Daddybigtime wrote: »

Well a little dissapointed. I just made level 45 and wanted to see if Vet content was really as hard as people were saying. (In my experience what I consider hard and what most consider hard is vastly different.) But I also know we must cater to a more casual crowd. I hope that we can still have a few choice vet dungeons that can offer a near impossible experience in difficulty. There is nothing like beating something impossible and rubbing it in the face of the weak!

Dude, you would have been the inevitable 67,000th player to think that, then go to VR1 and get your soul crushed. Be thankful. :-)

Despite

Nerfing down so the incompetent can feel like they're winners too!!!....

Really lame.

Lord_Draevan

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌
A question about the XP after this Vet change: will it be reduced to the extent that completing all 3 alliance zones will no longer bring you to Vet 10 like it has up until this change?

Aeratus

The VR zones did have a reward, and that was the "Tamriel Hero" title for completing all the tedious quests.

Now that the VR zones are getting watered down, that just means the people who did take the time to complete it "for real" will be disappointed, including me.

BrassRazoo

Easier with more XP. What a shame.

I definitely won't be grouping with these "new" Vets anytime soon.

Can the "original" Vets get some sort of Title?

Lord_Draevan

BrassRazoo wrote: »

Easier with more XP. What a shame.

I definitely won't be grouping with these "new" Vets anytime soon.

Can the "original" Vets get some sort of Title?

Actually XP gain is going down for the Vet Zones, not up.

"vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote:
Are there any plans to change the amount of veteran experience needed to level? This really needs to come down quite a bit if the veterans are going to be as easy a 1-50. Talk about boredom.

ZOS_JessicaFolson Wrote:
We do have some changes planned to address that, yes. We'll be going into more detail about them in the July Road Ahead letter, and the QuakeCon panel."

Unless I misread that... I guess we'll see for sure then the "Road Ahead" comes out.

Madval

Fabulous news thanks !

Goibot

Orchish wrote: »

This is welcome news as far as im concerned. I enjoyed my 1-50 experience. Yet i find VR zones incredibly tedious and quickly become bored of grinding through the quests and mobs there.

I would also like to see experience gained in PvP increased more. It takes so long to level up in Cyrodiil that i feel forced to go back to the vet zones in order to level. To be honest, i just want to play some PvP for a while yet at the same time i would also like to keep levelling my character at a decent pace. I cannot do this in PvP alone.

I agree with this, also why did you change the kill player quests? They use to be repeatable all day long kill 20, now you can do one and then get a class kill 20. The Kill 20's should be like they were before the nerf and always available. If you want Class kills they should all be available at the same time.