Veteran System Changes Preview

Persephonius

I don't understand. It seems to me that ZOS are taking these forums too seriously. Everyone I have spoken to in-game have said the exact opposite. That the VR zones were far too easy, the endgame trials are too easy to 'cheese', and the overall feeling of accomplishment is missing as doing everything was a face-roll.

Changing the VR content is not improving the experience of the players that have complained about them, as they will likely never do it, or do it once and forget about it; but rather punishing the players that actually like the VR zones. This will diminish the lifetime of the current content. It would have made more sense to introduce alternatives to the VR zones in levelling

I have felt that the 'big challenges' were coming, the things that get players hooked and make them analyze their character builds rigorously and needing to build strong team orientated mechanisms to accomplish the main endgame objectives. One of the main elements of an MMO are the player-to-player driven interactions which enable far greater complexity than is achievable in a single player game. People choose to play an MMO for these interactions in one form or another. These changes appear to be pushing the game in the direction of a purely single player experience, which does not make any sense. The best experiences I have had in MMO's come from team orientated progression 'raiding'; and the large scale PvP interactions that come from player driven economies and high pressure/consequence PvP battles (such are my experiences in EvE online, Swtor and WoW). I have seen many negative comments around the place as to the state of Swtor, but one of my most memorable times in an MMO comes from joining a Progression team for Denova Nightmare Mode when it was released. It was stated over and over by the player base that this operation was undoable. This was not received by the developers of the operation as criticism, but as praise (no matter how it was worded ). No matter how much it was criticized for being too hard, players continued to attempt it, and eventually it was completed (and once a way was found, it was very doable by a lot of people). That was an achievement worth having! This was reason to keep playing the game and improve not only your character and your own skills, but your teamwork.

It seemed to me so far that it was not really understood what player builds could accomplish in ESO, such as where trial bosses have been killed in literally 20 seconds or less. I can see that the actual mechanics of the trials are challenging, but the ability to completely ignore them and defeat bosses in seconds is purely a PvE content balancing issue. I was expecting that this would be addressed in future trials after greater insight of what can be done with character builds has been understood. With these changes to the VR system, I am now concerned that if ever a truly challenging trial is released, where a true progression raid team can sink their teeth into, it will be re-balanced as too many people will complain they can no longer cheese the mechanics. These complaints I believe have been mis-interpreted. Instead of buckling under and giving in, they should be interpreted as what they really are: hey you have developed something that is quite challenging here and is making me think and adapt what I have been doing, I cannot plant my face on the keyboard and roll side to side anymore.

Everyone that has complained that content is too hard, consider this. After you have face-roll grinded your way to vet-12 in a matter of days, completed the main endgame achievements after a week or so, what then?

themizario

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.

On to something more serious...I bet Jessica is a hottie. I wonder how we could confirm this.

Catches_the_Sun

ShedsHisTail wrote: »

Where do you people even come from? Are you equipped with discontent sensors or something?

All I've ever seen regarding Vet Levels is people talking about how hard it is or people talking about how it isn't so bad. Never seen anyone go, "You know, I really dig it being super tough and double-tedious."

Then a Dev mentions that their going to make it marginally less difficult and you people just swarm all over it with *** like, "Oh, Eldernerf Online amirite, lolz. Gimmie an achievement for doing the hard way. I need validation or I'm cancelling my sub!"

Here's my comment from May 28th...again, I've been vocal on this issue since day 1 and that position has not changed.

Vet Content Discussion

They have dumbed down quest achievements in zones to the extent that you can complete over 12 quests AFTER reaching the achievement in some cases. They have increased Motif drop rates to the point that they are fast becoming useless. They have nerfed the Doshia challenge to the point that it is laughable (my wife killed her before she even transformed into the Harvester). Now they are looking at decreasing the challenge in VR content, further pushing this MMO into the Singleplayer category, and that doesn't sit well with me. Their early track record appears to be focused on watering this game down.

I said it on May 28th & I'll say it again "The rest of us shouldn't have to drink skim milk just because the baby can't eat steak."

Cody

awesome. glad to see the devs are really listening, and not just saying they are. While I myself did not mind the difficulty, having the vet content be easier will make it a lot more fun to play, and you wont feel like you just went back down to level 1.

Oldbushie

Speaking as a Nightblade, I am glad to hear that VR will be toned down a bit. While I have accrued a "bag of tricks", whenever I run into a CC-immune monster I'm left grasping at straws when playing solo. And it's very hard to find any people in my guilds online at the same time as me that are up to the final alliance *and* are willing to help. This is across 5 different guilds.

Mission

Please give us the option to keep it the difficulty it is somehow, not all of us want content to be watered down cause of a few carebears.

I do not like this change at all.

Buck

I don't think vet content is too hard, but I do know that a certain mobs/packs of mobs need toned down. I just don't see a challenge increase as much as "some" mobs super-buffed with one hitters, and getting hit for 2k+ is not a challenge it's just boring and frustrating.

Syntse

Mission wrote: »

Please give us the option to keep it the difficulty it is somehow, not all of us want content to be watered down cause of a few carebears.

I do not like this change at all.

Why cant the questing content be easier for more people to enjoy. Then have solo dungeons, public dungeons, world bosses, dolmens etc the difficult parts where those who seek difficulty can find that? Something for everyone?

xPuppetx

My biggest beef with vr levels isn't really the difficulty of it. I have noticed the mobs have more health and hit a bit harder, but I suppose I'm lucky because I have a duo partner; we cut through mobs like a hot knife through butter.

No, my problem with vr is that it exists at all. I know the biggest reason vr was introduced is because people were saying that keeping us confined to our chosen factions made the game too linear and that we should be free to explore every little nook and cranny on one toon; essentially making ESO just another single player ES game, but with a multiplayer function. This decision has made the whole concept of factions somewhat laughable.

In my opinion the softcap should have been left at 50 until new content was introduced and then raised accordingly. Exploring and questing in other factions should have been accessible only via alts. As it is now, the content is already beginning to taste stale because well, we've been there and done that and oh joy, let's do it all again? There's really nothing that draws someone in to making an alt. (Perhaps if the classes were more balanced, armor mit and stamina actually meant something there would be.) People will lose interest the moment they 'beat' the game and will move on to something else; that's all gravy for single player games but really bad for MMOs. Factions, and rolling alts in those factions, helps alleviate that problem as the player gets to continue enjoying the game from a fresh perspective and ZOS gets to keep that monthly fee coming in. The problem is, there just isn't much of an incentive right now to even bother with another toon.

I recently tried to (unsuccessfully) lure a buddy I've been playing MMOs with for 10+ years into ESO with me. When he asked what role factions played within the game, I couldn't think of an answer. Why? Because there doesn't seem to be one. (The exception being pvp and it's broken.) The only purpose alliances serve right now is to designate which area you start in depending on which race you choose and even that is meaningless to people like me who pre-ordered the game and have the ability to play any race in any faction.

This whole 'let's just tack a grindfest at the end of the main storyline and call it vr for the sake of letting everyone do everything on one toon' feels cheap. I'm not only the hero of DC, but also the savior of Tamriel as a whole because I opened a can of whoopass on Molag Bal, but now I'm questing in a noobie area for an opposing faction because of some generic 'see the war from all sides' prompt? Bleh. This is what they refer to as no replay value, or in this case, no reason to roll an alt value.

It seems like ZOS is struggling to find the balance between what ES fans want and what MMO players want. As I said above, it currently feels more like a traditional single player ES game with a multiplayer function than an actual MMO.

TL;DR: Blah, blah, blah.. embrace your inner MMO.

Persephonius

Syntse wrote: »

Mission wrote: »

Please give us the option to keep it the difficulty it is somehow, not all of us want content to be watered down cause of a few carebears.

I do not like this change at all.

Why cant the questing content be easier for more people to enjoy. Then have solo dungeons, public dungeons, world bosses, dolmens etc the difficult parts where those who seek difficulty can find that? Something for everyone?

But, that is exactly how it is right now.

born2beagator

Not only is this good for us that are deep into deserted VR4+ land, its great for the VR1s just coming in. it won't be so much of a culture shock to them

Lyall84

grizzbi wrote: »

Lyall84 wrote: »

psychoman88ub17_ESO wrote: »

LonePirate wrote: »

Audigy wrote: »

I honestly think removing group elements from an MMO is never a good idea in general, especially if you replace that group element in the open world with pointless dungeon grinding like Blizzard did and obviously ZO wants to do as well.

Sad news, again a vocal minority had a huge impact on an MMO.

You are mistaken if you think it was a vocal minority who was clamoring for these changes. It has been much more like a vocal majority, probably upwards of 75% of the players have requested the Veteran content's difficulty be toned down. The hardcore players who enjoyed the current Veteran content or wanted it to be even more difficult are the quiet minority here.

In fact, they are so quiet that requests for groups or help with quests in the upper VR zones are never answered. I can spend hours in the VR8-10 zones and never see another player. Where are all of these people who enjoy the Veteran content and why aren't they helping people? You simply cannot have (practically required) group content in a game when there are no players to group with, either due to low populations or players who refuse to help others. For the good of the game, ZOS had to act and I am glad they have. We all owe them a big thank you.

Forum whiners are a vocal minority. The majority is having fun playing.

Or just taking their money elsewhere and putting too hard on the why are you unsubscribing block. All of the people that are here on the forums seem to forget they are the minority just by being on the forums. I would wager that as much as 60% of the player base does not look at the forums and if they decided to leave the game they will do so quietly. 20% come here to get information and ask legitimate questions/answer questions/give constructive feed back. The last 20% will either complain about whatever or troll to get a rise out of the complainers.

Just human nature, most people just avoid the potential conflict and move on to something more fun. Trying to make the claim that the majority is too busy enjoying the game in all of its difficulty is too much of an assumption. I will agree that the majority is too busy to bother with the forums. Basic rule about human nature is that a dissatisfied customer is over 10 times more likely to complain about something they don't like vs a satisfied customer.

While you can make the argument that means while everyone else that was complaining about how hard it was before is mucking up the numbers. You also have to look at this current backlash of proposed changes...the number of supporters for the change vs haters of the change is about equal. So for every one supporter you see on this thread, on average there is 9 more that didnt say anything.

Bottom line, zenimax looked at the threads, did whatever marketing analysis they needed, and decided that the content was too hard and the majority of their subscribers agreed that it was too hard.

When Henri Ford asked people about their needs, they answered: "faster horses"...

Zenimax need to hear the people but they should have kept their vision.

Keep the difficulty but make it more rewarding (items, character customization, crafts mats, etc..) => more people would be interested.

And now they would group together if they feel the need to. And for those who don't want to group at all, give them the possibility to hire mercenaries npcs with a cost per hour..

I am all for making it difficult, I personally think they did it the wrong way. They should have made the content more technically more difficult not numerically more difficult.

What it seems like they did to me, is they took your base level 50, non pip (i mean those glowing cubes by the health bar) mob. Gave it 10% more health, 10% more damage, and 10% more armor/spell penetration for each VR level it had. So a VR10 mob has 100% more HP, deals 100% more damage and has 100% armor/spell penetration. Not sure if that is what they did or not or if those are even close to the correct numbers, but the end result is you have VR10 mobs doing quick hits, normal hits, whatever you want to call them, for 500-700 damage, and special skills for 1500+ damage.

How they should have done it is make it so a VR mob has comparable stats, does comparable damage, and has comparable skills to a similar leveled and geared player. Meaning a VR 5 bandit in medium armor with a great-sword should have the same health, armor, and damage as a VR 5 player in either white or green gear. If the player is hitting for 140 a quick hit, so should the bandit. If the player has 1800 health, so should the bandit. The way they should have made it more difficult was by taking away the over exaggerated cast time that all NPCs seem to have. No more 2-3 seconds to cast a 1 second upper cut, or what would be an instant cast whirl wind for a player. Make the NPCs have the same build up/cast time for abilities that a player has, make their frequency of those special attacks closer to what a player might do. Special attack, two or three quick hits, special, repeat. THAT would make the game more difficult in a meaningful way.

Just upping the base damage of the NPCs to the point that even with normal hits they kill you in 3-4 hits regardless of armor type forces every player down the caster/healer path vs playing other styles.

Do I want the game cake mode? No. But I 100% agree that the way they made VR content was the completely wrong way to go about it and it needs to be fixed.

Despite all our objections or support for the changes. ZOS still has not even told us what the changes are!! They have only mentioned that they are putting up changes and are looking to adjust, and we have all this uproar without even knowing what they are changing!

For your main point? I agree, they should make it more rewarding...there was not a single thing I kept or used from my VR quests except for trait research. But I also disagree with your assessment that the difficulty needs to stay how it is. I think they need to change it to be less crushing and more of a learning curve. The content should be a mountain of difficultly, with grouping being the switch backs that make the path more manageable. Right now it is a sheer cliff, while possible to scale with enough determination, is too brutal of a curve to expect a larger player base to continue to play with.

Anastasia

dean_steusloffub17_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone,


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.

I'm scared. Unfortunately, since the majority of the people that post do so because they don't like something, that is what a good portion of changes and tweaks are based on.

What isn't taken into consideration is the number of people that LIKE the challenge. I'm sure we'll be hearing from them shortly (as in when the changes go into effect).

You should consider putting something in-game (a one-time occurrence) that asks people what they think about certain things. People aren't going to flock to the forums to say "I LOVE <whatever>", but if there's something that pops up in game, people would be more inclined to volunteer feedback. Of course, there's going to be people that hate being bothered by stuff like this, but then they should lose their right to complain if they don't offer any response.

This is something that is going to affect a large portion of the playerbase, and that is NOT being accurately represented here.

---

****What an absolutely awesome suggestion dean! Other mmo companies definitely use the ingame poll framework especially for changes that will greatly affect the larger population who may not be active on the forums.

A super quick couple-of-sentences yes/no question poll which pops up at log in once per character on one date would at least provide further data to Zeni staff about the change and would not be super intrusive or waste anyones time.

MrBeatDown

Im neutral on this change. It really doesn't matter to me if its easier than before. I think my biggest issue with finding people to play with is the fact that people would rather power level in Craglorn instead of power level by questing and playing the Vet dungeons.

Craglorn destroyed the vet zones completely. Try to make a V6-V10 dungeon group and see how long it takes you. It took me about 8 hours to find a group of newbs that couldn't even get passed the first boss 2 days ago. This is really sad. My V12 ran those dungeons in 15 minutes or less before craglorn. That was the best power leveling in the game and it gave great loot.

They said they nerfed the xp exploits in Craglorn to stop this. But it simply wasn't enough. They have found new xp exploits that allow them to continue to power level in craglorn. That is not healthy for the game. It is extremely difficult to find quest groups in craglorn due to all the LF Grind groups cluttering up the chat. Tower Runs and Shadow runs need to go away. These people need to be doing dungeon runs and earning there xp that way or playing daily quest. I get tired of these people camping a few bosses in craglorn and exploiting them.

They need to nerf those bosses in craglorn so that they only give xp 1 time per day to kill the grind group in craglorn. If not, they will just find some new spot to exploit a boss at a spawn and continue not playing in the vet zones making them look like ghost towns.

You got 2 full vet zones for people to level and 6 Vet 1-10 dungeons for them to do xp runs in and they choose to go to a V12 group zone and exploit it starting at V1. It needs a serious fix. Put and end to it. Make them play all the other zones or dungeons to get xp. That would solve a majority of the complaints about the game being to difficult. I just got my Alt up to V7 today. Its a Melee NB. The game is still pretty easy for me. I Have SOLO'D all the way up to this point. I haven't had any real problems that I could not solve by myself.

That's why I remain neutral on this subject, I could care less if they made it easier or not, I think the main problem is that craglorn is still being fully exploited and its taking players away from the zone and it makes the V1-V10 zones appear harder than they really are because they are ghost towns. Instead of having to wait 5 minutes for someone to come help you kill that world boss you now have to wait 4 hours. That's because they are in Craglorn camping the Shadow boss or Bouncing between The tower boss and outside spawns. Its Such Huge waste of V1-V10 zones. THey might as well not even exist. Looks like all the exploiters want is 1-50 zone and craglorn. The rest is garbage to them.

Lyall84

Mission wrote: »

Please give us the option to keep it the difficulty it is somehow, not all of us want content to be watered down cause of a few carebears.

I do not like this change at all.

They have not even announced what the changes are yet, so how can you already have formed an opinion? You are upset that there are changes? What if they made it more technically difficult, so the content required more skill, instead of leaving it numerically difficult like it is now where it only requires soul gems and determination? Would you object to those changes too just because they are changes? Or would you embrace the more difficult content?

Mortosk

Catches_the_Sun wrote: »

ShedsHisTail wrote: »

Where do you people even come from? Are you equipped with discontent sensors or something?

All I've ever seen regarding Vet Levels is people talking about how hard it is or people talking about how it isn't so bad. Never seen anyone go, "You know, I really dig it being super tough and double-tedious."

Then a Dev mentions that their going to make it marginally less difficult and you people just swarm all over it with *** like, "Oh, Eldernerf Online amirite, lolz. Gimmie an achievement for doing the hard way. I need validation or I'm cancelling my sub!"

Here's my comment from May 28th...again, I've been vocal on this issue since day 1 and that position has not changed.

Vet Content Discussion

They have dumbed down quest achievements in zones to the extent that you can complete over 12 quests AFTER reaching the achievement in some cases. They have increased Motif drop rates to the point that they are fast becoming useless. They have nerfed the Doshia challenge to the point that it is laughable (my wife killed her before she even transformed into the Harvester). Now they are looking at decreasing the challenge in VR content, further pushing this MMO into the Singleplayer category, and that doesn't sit well with me. Their early track record appears to be focused on watering this game down.

I said it on May 28th & I'll say it again "The rest of us shouldn't have to drink skim milk just because the baby can't eat steak."

You are over reacting. Calm down.

And, trust me, there are very few people left out there as hard core as you. I know where you are coming from though. I, myself, have been playing MMO's since Everquest, and I played the original everquest, where if you died you had to run back naked to get your armour, and you didn't just have a repair bill to contend with, you actually lost a chunk of your experience, and could even lose a level for dying enough times. That was a hardcore game, and while it was probably a lot more difficult that ESO is today, the time it took to get to level cap was about on par with ESO (sadly enough).

After Everquest, I did 10 and 25 heroic raids in WoW during WotLK and Cataclysm. Despite the popular belief that "WoW is easy." Heroic raids were not. My guild was even a blue ranked top 400 in the world on wowprogress.com during cataclysm, so I'm not exactly what you would call a person with a casual mentality. I admit, I no longer play on that kind of level anymore, because mainly it's a full time job and requires a level of dedication I no longer want to contribute to an MMO. Since quitting WoW, I've been trying all the AAA MMO's as they come out, seeing everything the game has to offer, and trying to have fun.

I find veteran content in this game a little over tuned. Little things here and there, certain types of mobs have immunities they shouldn't, or too much health, or they have abilities that do enough damage to 1-shot when they really shouldn't be doing that. It's not that I can't defeat it, but I die one too many times for stupid silly split second mistakes. I would expect to die if I were going up against Heroic Deathwing in a 10 man raiding environment for a simple split second lapse in attention, but not when I am doing the required leveling content just to reach the game's level cap. That is just plain ridiculous if you ask me, and that is why they plan on changing it. It's as simple as that really.

AngryNord

Sounds like ZOS is finally seeing the light. Now make the Mannimarco and Molag Bal quests groupable, and this game can finally be called an MMO proper.

Lyall84

Persephonius wrote: »

I don't understand. It seems to me that ZOS are taking these forums too seriously. Everyone I have spoken to in-game have said the exact opposite. That the VR zones were far too easy, the endgame trials are too easy to 'cheese', and the overall feeling of accomplishment is missing as doing everything was a face-roll.

Changing the VR content is not improving the experience of the players that have complained about them, as they will likely never do it, or do it once and forget about it; but rather punishing the players that actually like the VR zones. This will diminish the lifetime of the current content. It would have made more sense to introduce alternatives to the VR zones in levelling

I have felt that the 'big challenges' were coming, the things that get players hooked and make them analyze their character builds rigorously and needing to build strong team orientated mechanisms to accomplish the main endgame objectives. One of the main elements of an MMO are the player-to-player driven interactions which enable far greater complexity than is achievable in a single player game. People choose to play an MMO for these interactions in one form or another. These changes appear to be pushing the game in the direction of a purely single player experience, which does not make any sense. The best experiences I have had in MMO's come from team orientated progression 'raiding'; and the large scale PvP interactions that come from player driven economies and high pressure/consequence PvP battles (such are my experiences in EvE online, Swtor and WoW). I have seen many negative comments around the place as to the state of Swtor, but one of my most memorable times in an MMO comes from joining a Progression team for Denova Nightmare Mode when it was released. It was stated over and over by the player base that this operation was undoable. This was not received by the developers of the operation as criticism, but as praise (no matter how it was worded ). No matter how much it was criticized for being too hard, players continued to attempt it, and eventually it was completed (and once a way was found, it was very doable by a lot of people). That was an achievement worth having! This was reason to keep playing the game and improve not only your character and your own skills, but your teamwork.

It seemed to me so far that it was not really understood what player builds could accomplish in ESO, such as where trial bosses have been killed in literally 20 seconds or less. I can see that the actual mechanics of the trials are challenging, but the ability to completely ignore them and defeat bosses in seconds is purely a PvE content balancing issue. I was expecting that this would be addressed in future trials after greater insight of what can be done with character builds has been understood. With these changes to the VR system, I am now concerned that if ever a truly challenging trial is released, where a true progression raid team can sink their teeth into, it will be re-balanced as too many people will complain they can no longer cheese the mechanics. These complaints I believe have been mis-interpreted. Instead of buckling under and giving in, they should be interpreted as what they really are: hey you have developed something that is quite challenging here and is making me think and adapt what I have been doing, I cannot plant my face on the keyboard and roll side to side anymore.

Everyone that has complained that content is too hard, consider this. After you have face-roll grinded your way to vet-12 in a matter of days, completed the main endgame achievements after a week or so, what then?

Comparing people that spindle ground, or anomaly ground their way to VR12 than ran through trials to people that are just trying to quest are comparing apples to oranges. I can guarantee that most (I mean 51%+) of the "hardcore trial runners" that you have been talking to, did some sort of vet dungeon grinding, or anomaly grinding, to get to VR12 long before they thought about completing the quests.

I know a lot of you are going to suddenly be up in arms about how you completed the quests, etc. That is why I said most and pointed out 51%, not all. You already know that most people that hit VR12 early did it by grinding spindle, or whatever. Very few, and I mean very very few people hit VR10 solely by completing all the quests before starting to grind the rest of their experience.

The biggest part you are forgetting is that there are already hundreds of people that "face roll to vet 12 in a matter of days" by taking advantage of things like spindle or anomaly grinding. So telling someone that they should have to spend months grinding quests to go from VR1 to VR10, when people already are going VR1 to VR12 in less than a week is a very weak argument.

The point to the VR1-10 content is to allow someone to experience the content without re-rolling, and to allow them to collect more skill points. It should not cost them a wheelbarrow full of soul gems and a warehouse full of frustration to get there. Not when there are already so many work around options to get to VR12 quickly without subjecting yourself to the areas.

Lyall84

themizario wrote: »

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.

On to something more serious...I bet Jessica is a hottie. I wonder how we could confirm this.

I would also like confirmation.

Lyall84

Mortosk wrote: »

Catches_the_Sun wrote: »

ShedsHisTail wrote: »

Where do you people even come from? Are you equipped with discontent sensors or something?

All I've ever seen regarding Vet Levels is people talking about how hard it is or people talking about how it isn't so bad. Never seen anyone go, "You know, I really dig it being super tough and double-tedious."

Then a Dev mentions that their going to make it marginally less difficult and you people just swarm all over it with *** like, "Oh, Eldernerf Online amirite, lolz. Gimmie an achievement for doing the hard way. I need validation or I'm cancelling my sub!"

Here's my comment from May 28th...again, I've been vocal on this issue since day 1 and that position has not changed.

Vet Content Discussion

They have dumbed down quest achievements in zones to the extent that you can complete over 12 quests AFTER reaching the achievement in some cases. They have increased Motif drop rates to the point that they are fast becoming useless. They have nerfed the Doshia challenge to the point that it is laughable (my wife killed her before she even transformed into the Harvester). Now they are looking at decreasing the challenge in VR content, further pushing this MMO into the Singleplayer category, and that doesn't sit well with me. Their early track record appears to be focused on watering this game down.

I said it on May 28th & I'll say it again "The rest of us shouldn't have to drink skim milk just because the baby can't eat steak."

You are over reacting. Calm down.

And, trust me, there are very few people left out there as hard core as you. I know where you are coming from though. I, myself, have been playing MMO's since Everquest, and I played the original everquest, where if you died you had to run back naked to get your armour, and you didn't just have a repair bill to contend with, you actually lost a chunk of your experience, and could even lose a level for dying enough times. That was a hardcore game, and while it was probably a lot more difficult that ESO is today, the time it took to get to level cap was about on par with ESO (sadly enough).

After Everquest, I did 10 and 25 heroic raids in WoW during WotLK and Cataclysm. Despite the popular belief that "WoW is easy." Heroic raids were not. My guild was even a blue ranked top 400 in the world on wowprogress.com during cataclysm, so I'm not exactly what you would call a person with a casual mentality. I admit, I no longer play on that kind of level anymore, because mainly it's a full time job and requires a level of dedication I no longer want to contribute to an MMO. Since quitting WoW, I've been trying all the AAA MMO's as they come out, seeing everything the game has to offer, and trying to have fun.

I find veteran content in this game a little over tuned. Little things here and there, certain types of mobs have immunities they shouldn't, or too much health, or they have abilities that do enough damage to 1-shot when they really shouldn't be doing that. It's not that I can't defeat it, but I die one too many times for stupid silly split second mistakes. I would expect to die if I were going up against Heroic Deathwing in a 10 man raiding environment for a simple split second lapse in attention, but not when I am doing the required leveling content just to reach the game's level cap. That is just plain ridiculous if you ask me, and that is why they plan on changing it. It's as simple as that really.

Finally, found someone that seems to have the same thoughts I have about this entire mess.

Persephonius

Lyall84 wrote: »

Persephonius wrote: »

I don't understand. It seems to me that ZOS are taking these forums too seriously. Everyone I have spoken to in-game have said the exact opposite. That the VR zones were far too easy, the endgame trials are too easy to 'cheese', and the overall feeling of accomplishment is missing as doing everything was a face-roll.

Changing the VR content is not improving the experience of the players that have complained about them, as they will likely never do it, or do it once and forget about it; but rather punishing the players that actually like the VR zones. This will diminish the lifetime of the current content. It would have made more sense to introduce alternatives to the VR zones in levelling

I have felt that the 'big challenges' were coming, the things that get players hooked and make them analyze their character builds rigorously and needing to build strong team orientated mechanisms to accomplish the main endgame objectives. One of the main elements of an MMO are the player-to-player driven interactions which enable far greater complexity than is achievable in a single player game. People choose to play an MMO for these interactions in one form or another. These changes appear to be pushing the game in the direction of a purely single player experience, which does not make any sense. The best experiences I have had in MMO's come from team orientated progression 'raiding'; and the large scale PvP interactions that come from player driven economies and high pressure/consequence PvP battles (such are my experiences in EvE online, Swtor and WoW). I have seen many negative comments around the place as to the state of Swtor, but one of my most memorable times in an MMO comes from joining a Progression team for Denova Nightmare Mode when it was released. It was stated over and over by the player base that this operation was undoable. This was not received by the developers of the operation as criticism, but as praise (no matter how it was worded ). No matter how much it was criticized for being too hard, players continued to attempt it, and eventually it was completed (and once a way was found, it was very doable by a lot of people). That was an achievement worth having! This was reason to keep playing the game and improve not only your character and your own skills, but your teamwork.

It seemed to me so far that it was not really understood what player builds could accomplish in ESO, such as where trial bosses have been killed in literally 20 seconds or less. I can see that the actual mechanics of the trials are challenging, but the ability to completely ignore them and defeat bosses in seconds is purely a PvE content balancing issue. I was expecting that this would be addressed in future trials after greater insight of what can be done with character builds has been understood. With these changes to the VR system, I am now concerned that if ever a truly challenging trial is released, where a true progression raid team can sink their teeth into, it will be re-balanced as too many people will complain they can no longer cheese the mechanics. These complaints I believe have been mis-interpreted. Instead of buckling under and giving in, they should be interpreted as what they really are: hey you have developed something that is quite challenging here and is making me think and adapt what I have been doing, I cannot plant my face on the keyboard and roll side to side anymore.

Everyone that has complained that content is too hard, consider this. After you have face-roll grinded your way to vet-12 in a matter of days, completed the main endgame achievements after a week or so, what then?

Comparing people that spindle ground, or anomaly ground their way to VR12 than ran through trials to people that are just trying to quest are comparing apples to oranges. I can guarantee that most (I mean 51%+) of the "hardcore trial runners" that you have been talking to, did some sort of vet dungeon grinding, or anomaly grinding, to get to VR12 long before they thought about completing the quests.

I know a lot of you are going to suddenly be up in arms about how you completed the quests, etc. That is why I said most and pointed out 51%, not all. You already know that most people that hit VR12 early did it by grinding spindle, or whatever. Very few, and I mean very very few people hit VR10 solely by completing all the quests before starting to grind the rest of their experience.

The biggest part you are forgetting is that there are already hundreds of people that "face roll to vet 12 in a matter of days" by taking advantage of things like spindle or anomaly grinding. So telling someone that they should have to spend months grinding quests to go from VR1 to VR10, when people already are going VR1 to VR12 in less than a week is a very weak argument.

The point to the VR1-10 content is to allow someone to experience the content without re-rolling, and to allow them to collect more skill points. It should not cost them a wheelbarrow full of soul gems and a warehouse full of frustration to get there. Not when there are already so many work around options to get to VR12 quickly without subjecting yourself to the areas.

I for one completed all 3 zones before ever going to craglorn. I don't know, I must have been playing a different game, it was no where near as difficult as you are making it out to be. I don't hold much regard for people that grind dungeons to level then complain that they have ran out of content afterwards. My argument is that, I believe the majority of people that did the work-around grinds and missed everything are probably complaining the loudest that it is all too hard. There are a lot of players with a similar mindset to myself, that are not active on the forum (I only started on this forum yesterday as I strongly disagree with this change and want to put my opinion out there). So my concern is that the feedback is coming from a skewed and biased set of players that is not a real indication of what the majority actually want.

AngryNord

Very pleasing to see all the butthurt from the L2P elitists too. Hopefully we won't have to see your condescending posts in the forums anymore, good riddance.

polar

Great news on the changes! I know 4 subs right off the top of my head that will now be staying with the game quite a bit longer than they currently intend, and 1 that will re-sub once she learns that the other two faction zones will represent incremental difficulty increases rather than what is there now.

Thanks for listening!

Mortosk

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

I have to say, I am somewhat disappointed by this decision. I really wish ZOS would erect the spine of standing up to the whiners already, but it seems with this company whenever the vocal minority complains they get whatever they want even if it ruins the game for the rest of us.

I will reserve final judgement however until I see how easy they actually make it...

I have felt all along that veteran zones were very well balanced even for solo play. 1-50 was actually boringly easy. I know that the majority of the player base was complaining about it being too hard though, so I understand in a way why ZOS felt the need to abandon their vision and concede defeat to the calls for a difficulty nerf, but still, a bit disappointing.

I honestly feel that part of the blame lies with the players. I think there is some overly stubborn refusal to try new skills and abilities to get through content, and people abuse the "play how you want" cliche to assume the should be able to beat things with fishsticks and win if they want to.

I really hope this isn't the beginning of the dumbing down of Elder Scrolls to WoW faceroll status, but I guess the vocal complaints always get what they want, so it was probably inevitable.

I have already been facerolling content with some minimal CC and actually using the mechanics we are given, and my fear is this will not only abandon the vision of veteran content as end game but also completely trivialize the whole purpose of block and rolldodge mechanics.

Skill? "Ain't no one got time for that!"

I erect the spine of my bruising sense of betrayal.

I erect the spine of where the hell did everyone go?

(Talking about veteran zones.)

Do you see any people there any more? Why do you think that is? They are doing this for a reason.

Rev Rielle

This makes me very sad.

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO

Character imbalance still seems to be a bigger problem than the actual VR zone difficulty. If armor type made a bigger difference and weapons did as much damage as spells there is a good chance that VR zones wouldn't have to be toned down.

Make traditional rogues,knights and warriors viable.

Persephonius

Mortosk wrote: »

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

I have to say, I am somewhat disappointed by this decision. I really wish ZOS would erect the spine of standing up to the whiners already, but it seems with this company whenever the vocal minority complains they get whatever they want even if it ruins the game for the rest of us.

I will reserve final judgement however until I see how easy they actually make it...

I have felt all along that veteran zones were very well balanced even for solo play. 1-50 was actually boringly easy. I know that the majority of the player base was complaining about it being too hard though, so I understand in a way why ZOS felt the need to abandon their vision and concede defeat to the calls for a difficulty nerf, but still, a bit disappointing.

I honestly feel that part of the blame lies with the players. I think there is some overly stubborn refusal to try new skills and abilities to get through content, and people abuse the "play how you want" cliche to assume the should be able to beat things with fishsticks and win if they want to.

I really hope this isn't the beginning of the dumbing down of Elder Scrolls to WoW faceroll status, but I guess the vocal complaints always get what they want, so it was probably inevitable.

I have already been facerolling content with some minimal CC and actually using the mechanics we are given, and my fear is this will not only abandon the vision of veteran content as end game but also completely trivialize the whole purpose of block and rolldodge mechanics.

Skill? "Ain't no one got time for that!"

I erect the spine of my bruising sense of betrayal.

I erect the spine of where the hell did everyone go?

(Talking about veteran zones.)

Do you see any people there any more? Why do you think that is? They are doing this for a reason.

This is also a good argument for the other side. Those that do not wish to do the veteran zones do not have to, there are already alternates to them. I did comment before that a better fix is to introduce more alternatives. Those that are complaining about them most probably do not wish to do them, and have no intention to do them, or that they will do them once. Those that are actually doing them, have done them and wouldn't mind doing them again, are doing them because they are completionists, or they enjoy them, or a whole myriad of other reasons. Are they not the better set of players to hear from about these changes?

BlueHaze

While I'm sure that the ZOS team means what it says, I still think they have a big headache on their hands. I think this redo is going to be a painful process. Still, I look forward to my main being viable again in PvE.

LonePirate

Persephonius wrote: »

Syntse wrote: »

Mission wrote: »

Please give us the option to keep it the difficulty it is somehow, not all of us want content to be watered down cause of a few carebears.

I do not like this change at all.

Why cant the questing content be easier for more people to enjoy. Then have solo dungeons, public dungeons, world bosses, dolmens etc the difficult parts where those who seek difficulty can find that? Something for everyone?

But, that is exactly how it is right now.

Are we playing the same game? In the VR zones, the solo dungeons, the public dungeons, world bosses and dolmens are all easier than the quest content, especially the Cadwell's Almanac quests. Today, I've cleared several VR8 and VR9 solo dungeons - all of them without any assistance because the zones are dead. If these changes help repopulate the VR zones, we should all be grateful and willing to give them a chance. I would rather see the Veteran zones teeming with people after a slight decrease in difficulty than to experience more of the emptiness that fills the upper VR zones nowadays.

mw8472_ESO

Thank You for these changes. While I could get through the VR content with my Sorcerer, it just wasn't fun and took much longer to accomplish the questing. My sub was to run out on the 9th, I will be re-subbing now.