Leveling in ESO - Remove the barriers

SG_Celerrimus

Hello everyone,

I just finished reading the Road Ahead post for July, and I read that they are going to be fixing the Veteran System. If I may just /throw my 2 cents in, I think that ZOS should completely remove some of the barriers that come with leveling. Yes, ESO is, for the most part, an "open world" game with the ability to explore any zone at any level within your faction's territory for 1-50 content, however, it is incredibly difficult for say a level 15 to go do quests in Bangkorai in the Daggerfall Covenant. If the level barrier could be removed in that a level 15 could survive in Bangkorai and quest in there, it might make ESO feel a bit more open than it does now. The reason why I would like to see this implemented in this game is that some of the zones are just a boring grind to go through and are places I would rather avoid, but that is just coming from personal preference and opinion.

ESO currently feels very linear in that you must quest in these zones and these levels n order to progress, and that just doesn't feel very elder scrollsy to me. I loved Skyrim and still play Skyrim whenever I can in my down time because it is a game where your imagination can just run rampantly wild throughout the entire game where you have the freedom necessary to go anywhere you want and create your own adventure. Sadly, however, ESO seems to have a set story line that you are required to follow in order to progress. If the barriers could be removed and the game modified a bit to allow more freedom, I think it would draw people closer to the game and even draw some people back into it that have left.

In order to amend this, I would suggest adding in a scaling system similar to the one in Cyrodiil where an under leveled player's attributes and what nots are scaled to be on par with a standard player who would be questing in that zone at the expected level and gear. I would also suggest scaling the exp gain so that it is on par with the normal exp gain for that level, so a level 10 would be getting the standard level 10 experience in a level 30 zone.

Pele

I disagree. It would devalue any sense of accomplishment if I were level 45 and battling a level 45 mob, and a level 3 player joined in and could hold his own, dishing out as much damage as I could.

SG_Celerrimus

Here is a scenario of how creating your own adventures right off the bat doesn't necessarily work in ESO.

Ok, lets say I want to become an evil vampire who specializes in destruction magic and wants to bring terror to the world. Alright, I create my character, skip the intro because I don't care about it since it doesn't match my own story line, and now I need to set off to become a vampire (level 3). Alright, after dieing my way through the trip to Bangkorai, lets say by chance I get there during a Vampire spawn. Alright, bitten by a vampire, fantastic. If not, then I can just find a friendly vampire to bite me at the shrine.

Ok, so I have the "Vampirism" buff under my Active Effects, fantastic, lets go finish that part of prep work and go become a vampire for my super awesome self made story line. I start the quest, go to the underground place of vampire stuff and things, and go through all the dialogue stuff, great. Hmm, that quest wants me to practice my vampire abilities on some foolish mortals in the cave below, AWESOME, time to bust out my evil vampire abilities and strike fear into the hearts of my enemies.

*BAP* aww man, I got 1 shot by the enemy NPC for the quest... maybe if I try again... *BAP* ughh, I can't do this

Alright, lets go boost my level up in that zone I started in... Glenumbra, ok.

I head to Glenumbra and start questing there, but I am not enjoying the quests because it isn't part of my story line and isn't stuff I want to do. At this point, I am feeling as if I am being forced into doing stuff and my enjoyment is diminishing.

Eventually, after trying to reach a level close to 40 so I can complete the vampire quest and get on with my self made adventure that I would have enjoyed a lot, I have had to grind through a bunch of quests, that I feel I was forced into doing, and have had my enjoyment extremely diminished to the point where I feel like my self made adventure story isn't even worth it anymore, not to mention that a bunch of quests are already completed that could have played a big role in my self made story and I got no enjoyment out of them because I was forced into them and now they are already complete, so I sign off and go look elsewhere for fun.

Lodestar

I know this may sound like a cheap excuse. But, really it is as simple as that it is a MMOified, TES game. Not an actual TES game where you can do just that. Hence the difference.

Had they not gone for a level based MMO and skills instead, it may have been more valid. And indeed have possibly been this very way. It was that they went with a level based MMO (rightly or wrongly), and to remove this now, would be too far into it's completion.

SG_Celerrimus

@Pele well, lets take the Cyrodiil scaling system real quick and go over that. A level 15 is scaled to be able to hold their own in battle, but a v12 is still much more powerful than that scaled level 15, so if you put the two against each other the v12 would more likely than not end up mopping the floor with that level 15.

Now, that same concept above could be implemented into the questing and leveling system for 1-50 where a level 15 could hold their own in a level 45 zone, but a level 45 would be much more powerful, able to kill mobs much more quickly, and would have a much higher survive-ability chance.

The point I am trying to get at is, make lower levels able to hold their own just enough so that they could take down 1 maybe 2 mobs if they are careful, but still powerful enough to experience the questing zones so they don't feel like they are forced to do the linear story line and questing system that is in place now.

reggielee

rift employs player scaling in certain instances so it can be done, but there are still many problems with coding for this and I doubt they have the time to even think about it

Arsenic_Touch

Bad idea.

They would have to first buff the lower level character, then they would have to change the mob experience gains for that lower level character, then they'd have to alter quest gains and rewards.

They'd also have to alter exploration gains, containers in the open world. It would affect the chest system as well. It would also screw with the economy. This would give also give bots free reign to the materials in upper level zones.

This is an mmo first, elder scrolls game second. It's clear that mmos aren't for you with this mindset.

Also, the cyrodiil scaling is terrible. It would be terrible here as well and it would also cause a logistical nightmare to class balancing and such.

SG_Celerrimus

@Arsenic_Touch if its an MMO first and an ES game second, then it definitely needs a new name, since the name has "Elder Scrolls" first and "Online" second.

I play MMOs all the time, I am just expecting more of an Elder Scrolls game out of this one than an MMO because of the way the game was built up with hype, advertised, named, and portrayed.

SG_Celerrimus

My big problem is that this game lacks freedom.

MonkeyAssassin24

Arsenic_Touch wrote: »

Bad idea.

They would have to first buff the lower level character, then they would have to change the mob experience gains for that lower level character, then they'd have to alter quest gains and rewards.

They'd also have to alter exploration gains, containers in the open world. It would affect the chest system as well. It would also screw with the economy. This would give also give bots free reign to the materials in upper level zones.

This is an mmo first, elder scrolls game second. It's clear that mmos aren't for you with this mindset.

Also, the cyrodiil scaling is terrible. It would be terrible here as well and it would also cause a logistical nightmare to class balancing and such.

^This. There is only so much you can deviate from when it comes to an MMO, and you really can't go that far and just let loose characters out of the gate to be able to venture everywhere capably as it would cause more headaches than enjoyment. We all loved our SP experiences in previous installments, but there has to be a realization that (can't believe I'm going to use this line) we can't have our cake and eat it too.

I do agree that the linear path feels wrong though, I wish there was more of a way that I could choose more than one zone to advance to after finishing the current one. That way if I didn't particularly enjoy it (looking at you Shadowfen) I could go try the other zone. Especially seeing as the Main Quest is basically free of zone requirements, and each zone really has it's own objectives. This I think is far more likely to occur as it just takes time in adding new questing areas to the game. Honestly I probably wouldn't care if a zone, or zones, are eventually added close by the other ones that are tuned towards lower levels (for instance instead of going to Eastmarch, I could go to Falkreath instead). We don't need everything added to be only for Vet content.