This has been bugging me... why Vet ranks and not just more levels?

Gidorick

As a single player RPGer I’m not really familiar with “end game” type advancement systems. While I understand the need to find an enticing way to keep the player engaged in the game I can’t help but wondering, especially with the confusing shift from the VR system to the Champion system, why not just have the level cap higher?

Instead of having veteran ranks or champion ranks or whatever, why not just have the level cap be 64 or 65 or whatever. Then, periodically the level cap can be raised to allow players to progress further. If they opened one additional level per month, it would be 3 years before anyone hit level 100. That frequency of progression seems slow enough that it wouldn’t be out of control but frequent enough to entice people to keep playing. It would be more than 10 years before level 200...

I still think it would make sense to have certain perks only available at certain levels. If they want to have certain types of points/rewards like Champion points locked behind a certain level, so be it… it makes sense that a higher level character have access to abilities and systems that lower level characters do not. Future game system upgrades could be released and unavailable for characters under a certain level to prevent environment inundation. For example, Houses could only be owned by those who are level 70+.

So, I guess my question is: what is the benefit of there being a different leveling terminology for post level 50 gameplay?

Gidorick

I am having trouble finding any reason ZOS ever gave for having post 50 leveling be called "Veteran Ranks" other than... that's how it is. Did they ever give any specific reasoning for this or was it to make ESO more "MMOy"? Because as I understand it, there are plenty of MMOs that use only levels for their progression.

I'm just really starting to wonder why even have Vet Ranks. I'd prefer to just level more.

drschplatt

I personally see no point to it. I don't understand why, after completing the main story line and beating the big bad guy at the end, I have to play the game 2 more times just to get to level cap and participate in end game stuff. I'm a casual player putting in a few hours a week on the game. I started playing a BETA and my main character is just now VR 6. Without grinding or just mindlessly clicking through quests as fast as you can in VR content, it takes forever to level through the VR content. Yes, I have a couple of alts that I started playing once the VR content got so boring I couldn't stand it, so I haven't been focused on leveling 100% of the time. But wow it's slow.

nerevarine1138

The VR system hasn't worked out the way ZO hoped, which is why the Champion System is replacing it. And it is a better solution than a constantly expanding level cap because it introduces a sideways mobility that doesn't force people to play the game "in order".

To use a popular example, if you look at WoW's progression, players leveling up have to go through zones in a very particular order (even though there's some flexibility at lower levels). ESO is shooting for (with the champion system) the ability for all zones to be fair game once you've completed the main quest, and they're clearly trying to design a system that will encourage people to go back through zones they may have already explored at a lower level to find new challenges.

Gidorick

So, if Veteran Ranks/ Champion ranks (?) is a more sideways mobile progression will the regular level cap be raised at some point? Where a person who is VR14 will be able to raise their base level to... let's say... 60?

Gilvoth

Gidorick wrote: »

So, if Veteran Ranks/ Champion ranks (?) is a more sideways mobile progression will the regular level cap be raised at some point? Where a person who is VR14 will be able to raise their base level to... let's say... 60?

if i understand it correctly then the short answer is "no"

once you hit 50 everything will then be only a matter of gaining enough experiance to unlock certain things within the champion system.

nerevarine1138

Gidorick wrote: »

So, if Veteran Ranks/ Champion ranks (?) is a more sideways mobile progression will the regular level cap be raised at some point? Where a person who is VR14 will be able to raise their base level to... let's say... 60?

They may raise the level cap in the future. Anything's possible. But based on the way the champion system is being described, I don't see that happening.

AngryNord

Because originally there wasn't going to be any continuation of the story past level 50 - you'd fight Molag Bal, get your soul back, and then go to Cyrodiil to PVP. Veteran ranks would then be PVP ranks. Then people started complaining that they wanted to be able to experience all the zones with one character, and not have to make alts, and we got what we have now...

Alliel

They better take their time and do the champion system right, and not release it before it's ready like they did with the game itself.

snowmanflvb14_ESO

the point was to have not as great a difference between the 50+ lvl players when it came to pvp . Remember vet ranks gave no additional attribute or skill points. By VR1 most people had a workable build to use for pvp. Thus a vr1 would have a chance to kill a vr10 the gear being the variable besides individual skills. With the new system a vr14 will have 14 more attribute points to use which may not seem like a large advantage till you take into account how many buffs from gear and skills work off % of the attributes.

Ninnghizhidda

After all these months, it is still hard to understand, for me too, since the whole "Veteran Ranks" business seems rather contradicting to the story, to say the least.

In fact, it always looked like a cheap way to "triple the content", just by forcing you to (slowly) crawl through the other two (enemy) alliances, in effect "betraying" your own. I hear there were folks who at some point asked for exactly this. Mighty idiotic I may say and even more idiotic from ZoS if that was the real reason and they gave in.

Anyone who really wanted to experience the whole content and all the quests / storylines ESO has to offer, could have made a new alt, start in that other alliance, feel part of it, and go through their particular story line feeling at home at all times.

I don't think it would be so terrible. Some may say, you would not have enough skill points and such? I believe acquiring a ton of skill points on one character going through every single bit of Tamriel is more than you would ever need. And why really one character absolutely must learn every single skill available? This would only serve those few "completionists", and in that case I would just make respecs cheaper so they could play with different skill lines if they absolutely must do so.

In any case, most players seem to agree that the whole VR process has never been really popular or attractive, so in the end it was an experiment with disappointing results.

On the other hand, there would still be a question, as to why we must have more and more levels to gain and an ever increasing "level cap" to chase. This is again not necessarily the best way to prolong the life of a game or keep the interest alive. Instead, offering players content, activities and goals to achieve is, and hopefully ESO will finally manage to get it right, because it really has all the prerequisites there, only a good strategy and planning is needed.

Gidorick

AngryNord wrote: »

Because originally there wasn't going to be any continuation of the story past level 50 - you'd fight Molag Bal, get your soul back, and then go to Cyrodiil to PVP. Veteran ranks would then be PVP ranks. Then people started complaining that they wanted to be able to experience all the zones with one character, and not have to make alts, and we got what we have now...

Wow. That's pretty shortsighted.

Rosveen

AngryNord wrote: »

Because originally there wasn't going to be any continuation of the story past level 50 - you'd fight Molag Bal, get your soul back, and then go to Cyrodiil to PVP. Veteran ranks would then be PVP ranks. Then people started complaining that they wanted to be able to experience all the zones with one character, and not have to make alts, and we got what we have now...

Well to be honest, even though I don't like Cadwell's, it was a much better option than giving people no PvE endgame whatsoever at launch. Not that Cadwell's quests count as proper endgame, but at least it was something to kill the time.

Gidorick

Ninnghizhidda wrote: »

... In any case, most players seem to agree that the whole VR process has never been really popular or attractive, so in the end it was an experiment with disappointing results.

On the other hand, there would still be a question, as to why we must have more and more levels to gain and an ever increasing "level cap" to chase. This is again not necessarily the best way to prolong the life of a game or keep the interest alive. Instead, offering players content, activities and goals to achieve is, and hopefully ESO will finally manage to get it right, because it really has all the prerequisites there, only a good strategy and planning is needed.

Oh I 100% agree. ESO needs.... I repeat, NEEDS, to introduce activities that will keep players coming back day in and day out. Preferably that content would be dynamic and procedurally generated so it doesn't require specific design from the devs on an ongoing basis.

One idea would be to have trade routes that need protection (or looting, if you're on that side of the law) that have an actual economic impact on the cities within Tamriel.

But then we don't know what the ESO framework is capable of....

There are many of us that like to chase that level carrot so having an "all-stop" to leveling would alienate a LOT of players.

Cazic

Considering we are getting the Champion System, It's safe to say the VR system was either a temporary thing in the first place, or did not work out as planned.

I think VR was/is good for the time being since it does allow everyone to explore every zone. But it obviously has it's faults. The Champion System is a better idea than simply increasing level cap, because it offers sideways/non-linear progression. Once you hit level 50 you're free to explore anywhere and gain XP towards Champion Points, that will be the end-game PvE. At least, that's how I hope it turns out.

Nestor

Ninnghizhidda wrote: »

Anyone who really wanted to experience the whole content and all the quests / storylines ESO has to offer, could have made a new alt,

You would be surprised at the number of people for whom abandoning a character and rolling an alt would be like going to the dentist for a root canal without Novocaine.

Not me, I have 4 alts all in different alliances or classes or both.

Robocles

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

The VR system hasn't worked out the way ZO hoped, which is why the Champion System is replacing it. And it is a better solution than a constantly expanding level cap because it introduces a sideways mobility that doesn't force people to play the game "in order".

To use a popular example, if you look at WoW's progression, players leveling up have to go through zones in a very particular order (even though there's some flexibility at lower levels). ESO is shooting for (with the champion system) the ability for all zones to be fair game once you've completed the main quest, and they're clearly trying to design a system that will encourage people to go back through zones they may have already explored at a lower level to find new challenges.

I don't see this at all with their (minimal) communication. What new challenges? You already had the ability to see the other factions once you completed the main story. Instead of having a static cap for a while, and designing content to challenge people at that cap, they have created a constant treadmill.... a treadmill which will just be infinite basically once the Champion system comes out.

Pmarsico9

Levels, in general, are so played out and blase at this point, in my opinion, that I can't even draw myself to level an alt in this game.

Yet, the sick thing is that Craglorn and end-game overall has been such a let down to me, that I miss having ANYTHING to do solo.

Aeratus

I think the rationalization behind this is pretty easy.

Each vet rank is approximately equal to 9 normal levels. You can see this in that doing all 10 vet zones should get you up to about vet 10 (9 ranks-ups), whereas 5 of those vet zones is equivalent to going from level 1 to 44 (43 level-ups). So 43/5 is about 9. Meaning that each vet rank is about 9 levels.

So given this, it wouldn't make sense to change v14 to level 64, since it doesn't make any sense that level 51 takes 9 times longer to level than level 49.

In other words, v14 corresponds to something like level 160, rather than level 64.

AngryNord

Rosveen wrote: »

AngryNord wrote: »

Because originally there wasn't going to be any continuation of the story past level 50 - you'd fight Molag Bal, get your soul back, and then go to Cyrodiil to PVP. Veteran ranks would then be PVP ranks. Then people started complaining that they wanted to be able to experience all the zones with one character, and not have to make alts, and we got what we have now...

Well to be honest, even though I don't like Cadwell's, it was a much better option than giving people no PvE endgame whatsoever at launch. Not that Cadwell's quests count as proper endgame, but at least it was something to kill the time.

Yeah, well, actually - I agree

Gidorick

Aeratus wrote: »

I think the rationalization behind this is pretty easy.

Each vet rank is approximately equal to 9 normal levels. You can see this in that doing all 10 vet zones should get you up to about vet 10 (9 ranks-ups), whereas 5 of those vet zones is equivalent to going from level 1 to 44 (43 level-ups). So 43/5 is about 9. Meaning that each vet rank is about 9 levels.

So given this, it wouldn't make sense to change v14 to level 64, since it doesn't make any sense that level 51 takes 9 times longer to level than level 49.

In other words, v14 corresponds to something like level 160, rather than level 64.

Interesting! I had no idea. I'm still working on the main story so I wasn't aware how the vet ranks compared. Thanks for this explanation.

Nestor

Aeratus wrote: »

Each vet rank is approximately equal to 9 normal levels. You can see this in that doing all 10 vet zones should get you up to about vet 10 (9 ranks-ups),

Except the mobs are the same level from the beginning of the zone until the end. Also, it is expected and part of normal game design to have an increasing amount of experience needed to level up at the higher levels.

So, while I don't agree with L160, I don't think L64 is right either. More somewhere in between.