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• PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – December 15, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
• Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – December 15, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
• PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – December 15, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
Returning Player and The Problems with Questing
Hoodster92_ESO
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So I just returned to the game, and found myself needing to level up to VR 14 from VR 12. After playing for about 9 hours I realized that leveling not only had the same problems as before, it was actually worse than when I left (Didn't think it was possible....).
After taking the necessary evil that is grinding spots away from the players Zenimax made it a struggle bus to get any VR levels in a timely fashion. As much as I agree that you shouldn't get to max level by spending 2 hours grouped with players killing the same mob, you also shouldn't expect players to do 2 weeks’ worth of questing to simply get 2 levels.
Anyways I have never been much of a forum poster but I have been playing MMO's for years and here are some of the problems / possible solutions to fixing the leveling and questing in the game.
1). Give me more of that XP!
This is the very basic problem in ESO where everyone knows that the XP gained by questing is.... "lackluster".... ok I am sugar coating it, it’s pretty bad. In the 9 hours that I have returned I have received approximately only 15% of the amount of xp I need to get to VR 13, this is by doing quests in Cyrodil and doing some PvP with guildies. I understand the idea of taking some time to get to max level, but for two levels needing to complete roughly around 140 + quests to get 1 of those VR levels.... seems a bit much.... Offering more XP from those time consuming quests ultimately is necessary, and keeps people doing them.
2).Rewards
Another problem with questing is that it often leaves the player in this scenario:
"I beat the final boss that has been plaguing these lands for hundreds of years and all I got was this stupid t shirt."
Without better rewards players stop doing the "epic quests". This is shown recently with the lack of anything going on in Craglorn zone chat. Previously you would at least hear "LFG Grind spot", now its nothing because there is no real value in doing the quests.
Other MMO's gave worth to doing the daily quests by adding in a reputation system, or even giving commendations that would allow you to by a crafting recipe, mount, cool piece of gear, ect. Rewarding players for their accomplishments is necessary for an MMO to have lasting content. You save yourself a ton of work by simply adding replayability to content instead of pushing out new quests every month that no one will continue to do.
3). Reading the book or just the last page
This has baffled me from day one. This is "supposed" to be an Elder Scrolls game, which means that there is a ton of story in the game! But..... I am allowed to skip it entirely??
Imagine if in Skyrim, instead of picking a side to fight the imperials or the storm cloaks and helping them fight their way to the others capital, I simply walked up to ulfric and said "I heard you dropped some pretty epic loot" and killed him. I would be defeating the whole point in having all those missions and stories in the first place!
The same thing is being done with big encounters such as Trials. Ya I get it raiders want to hop right into the content and kill the big bad boss, I have done that myself. But if you want to make content like story quests that provide little to no rewards and barely any XP, make them gateways to content players DO want to do....
For a game that advertised itself as providing the epic elder scrolls story in an MMO format, why can I go kill "The Mage" who is a threat to the lands of Craglorn without even having to know WHY I am killing him?? Just saying adding "attunements" to quests will make more people get involved in doing them, and it provides players who are trying to level up a larger quantity of players who are willing to help them get XP while also completing something they need to do.
I know that ESO struggles to find the audience of players it is trying to make happy (The casuals / the hardcore players). But these are simple basic mechanics that can be implemented in to appease everyone. Ya, players with less time won’t be able to jump in to content right away with their friends, but they will have something to do and enjoy the game longer, instead of getting right to the end game, and realizing now they have nothing.
So please for the love of god, start fixing the content you have, focus on replayability of the content and rewarding the players for their accomplishments instead of pushing out more stuff players don’t care on doing!
After taking the necessary evil that is grinding spots away from the players Zenimax made it a struggle bus to get any VR levels in a timely fashion. As much as I agree that you shouldn't get to max level by spending 2 hours grouped with players killing the same mob, you also shouldn't expect players to do 2 weeks’ worth of questing to simply get 2 levels.
Anyways I have never been much of a forum poster but I have been playing MMO's for years and here are some of the problems / possible solutions to fixing the leveling and questing in the game.
1). Give me more of that XP!
This is the very basic problem in ESO where everyone knows that the XP gained by questing is.... "lackluster".... ok I am sugar coating it, it’s pretty bad. In the 9 hours that I have returned I have received approximately only 15% of the amount of xp I need to get to VR 13, this is by doing quests in Cyrodil and doing some PvP with guildies. I understand the idea of taking some time to get to max level, but for two levels needing to complete roughly around 140 + quests to get 1 of those VR levels.... seems a bit much.... Offering more XP from those time consuming quests ultimately is necessary, and keeps people doing them.
2).Rewards
Another problem with questing is that it often leaves the player in this scenario:
"I beat the final boss that has been plaguing these lands for hundreds of years and all I got was this stupid t shirt."
Without better rewards players stop doing the "epic quests". This is shown recently with the lack of anything going on in Craglorn zone chat. Previously you would at least hear "LFG Grind spot", now its nothing because there is no real value in doing the quests.
Other MMO's gave worth to doing the daily quests by adding in a reputation system, or even giving commendations that would allow you to by a crafting recipe, mount, cool piece of gear, ect. Rewarding players for their accomplishments is necessary for an MMO to have lasting content. You save yourself a ton of work by simply adding replayability to content instead of pushing out new quests every month that no one will continue to do.
3). Reading the book or just the last page
This has baffled me from day one. This is "supposed" to be an Elder Scrolls game, which means that there is a ton of story in the game! But..... I am allowed to skip it entirely??
Imagine if in Skyrim, instead of picking a side to fight the imperials or the storm cloaks and helping them fight their way to the others capital, I simply walked up to ulfric and said "I heard you dropped some pretty epic loot" and killed him. I would be defeating the whole point in having all those missions and stories in the first place!
The same thing is being done with big encounters such as Trials. Ya I get it raiders want to hop right into the content and kill the big bad boss, I have done that myself. But if you want to make content like story quests that provide little to no rewards and barely any XP, make them gateways to content players DO want to do....
For a game that advertised itself as providing the epic elder scrolls story in an MMO format, why can I go kill "The Mage" who is a threat to the lands of Craglorn without even having to know WHY I am killing him?? Just saying adding "attunements" to quests will make more people get involved in doing them, and it provides players who are trying to level up a larger quantity of players who are willing to help them get XP while also completing something they need to do.
I know that ESO struggles to find the audience of players it is trying to make happy (The casuals / the hardcore players). But these are simple basic mechanics that can be implemented in to appease everyone. Ya, players with less time won’t be able to jump in to content right away with their friends, but they will have something to do and enjoy the game longer, instead of getting right to the end game, and realizing now they have nothing.
So please for the love of god, start fixing the content you have, focus on replayability of the content and rewarding the players for their accomplishments instead of pushing out more stuff players don’t care on doing!
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Kaynehusky✭✭✭For the record, the experience issue after 1.5 for attaining higher veteran ranks is actually a bug they will be fixing with the next incremental patch, so you don't need to worry about that one at least.
As for quest rewards, from what I gather, players are supposed to make gear that's relatively on par with gear that can be received from quests. I believe the few exceptions to this are legendary gear gotten from trials, or undaunted gear and the like. The uniqueness tends to come from the set bonuses.
As for your LAST point... Well, that's more like a personal preference thing. I myself love story, and listen to dialogue and all that, but some people are just those "hardcore MMO gamer" types who just don't want to bother. The options for ingaging story are there if you want them. It's better than forcing everyone to sit though it.
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CoolsHisHands✭✭✭
Could not disagree with you more here. If anything, I wish leveling was slower, and I wish it was not possible to max level solely with quests. It took you 9 hours to get 15% of a VR level? So what? My question to you is: why do you feel the desperate need to get to VR14 so quickly? Do you feel your contribution as a VR12 is in some way significantly inadequate compared to VR14?Hoodster92_ESO wrote: »1). Give me more of that XP!
In any case, the VR system will eventually be going away and all this nonsense about grinding and XP will be moot.
Agree with you here. Itemization and investment-vs-reward in this game is awful. It's gotten better, with new rewards for topping the leaderboards in PvP and weekly trial rewards, but it's definitely not enough.Hoodster92_ESO wrote: »2).Rewards
Especially for the 4-man group content. 12 person trials? 1 great piece of set loot almost every time you finish it. 4 man vet dungeon? Get the same purple bow for decon 5 times in a row. Or if you do get a great drop, it comes with a garbage trait like Sturdy or Training.
Desirable set pieces should come from everywhere, and nowhere should it be an exercise in frustration waiting for it to drop. I'm actually a bit flabbergasted that they had to add this entire Undaunted meta-content on top of the vet dungeons, instead of just keeping the loot tables freshened up.
Regarding attunement, don't forget that there are plenty of other quests in Craglorn that do require some form of attunement, and I hear more complaints about those than praise. It just so happens that they're all 4-man quests instead of 12-man.Hoodster92_ESO wrote: »3). Reading the book or just the last page
Whether something requires attunement or not doesn't really make all that much difference to me.4 -
Hoodster92_ESO✭✭✭@Kaynehusky
Ya I am glad that they notified it as a bug and are fixing it.
As for rewards, yes you can achieve equal quality gear by crafting instead of doing the quests. However due to how easy it is to craft in this game, personally I feel that making that piece of gear should require a little bit more effort, or at least money into gathering a material. I was primarily talking about rewarding players who to repeat questing with the capabilities of getting cosmetic or more interesting items or schematics that add more diversity to the game, also allowing for replayability.
As for my point about story, yes you have the choice on listening to the story or certain parts by skipping through what they have to say and such (or not doing it at all). But more on the lines as a suggestion to add more content is by adding a pathway to end game content, providing content even for end game players to go through.
@CoolsHisHands
No doubt about it with the whole Champion System coming the XP system in the long run wont mean much.
However leveling itself isn't supposed to be the main goal of the game, the content is, so whether or not you decide to participate in the content is what players should focus on not the time it takes to get to it. If I want to get max level and then work my way through a story while still participating in the higher level content that should be something players can do without hours on hours of time simply to obtain one level. I agree that experiencing the content is an issues which is why I made my third point, content that deserves to be exemplafied such as giant trials or big boss fights should require players who want to participate in it to work towards it, not just jump right to.0 -
Evergnar✭✭✭✭✭
✭Good post OP. Agree with pretty much everything you said.
I particularly enjoyed this,Hoodster92_ESO wrote: »"I beat the final boss that has been plaguing these lands for hundreds of years and all I got was this stupid t shirt."
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