Any tips to prevent out-leveling?

Gidorick

I am a pretty casual player and have not yet reached vet ranks. I have multiple alts, none above level 30. I play 4 nights a week or so and only for a few hours each night. I have found I have a problem.

I keep outleveling the zone I am in! My quests turn grey and I receive no experience for killing the local wildlife. It's a catch 22. I would like to receive experience for these quests and killings but when I DO receive experience it causes me to gain levels and then I'm in the same boat I was in before. I'm already getting too much experience and I out-level quests faster than I complete them so about half of the campaign I'm completing quests beneath me, which kind of takes away some of the fun of questing.

Is there anything I can do to even my game experience out a bit so I'm not always on the precipice of out-leveling what I'm currently doing?

hutchinsonhatch

I have just turned VR1, well VR1.5 when I faced the ultimate challenge in my personal story-line, and being in the same situation as you are concerning the casual approach to the game, I haven't found a way to prevent it that would not involve researching on "quests that could be delayed and/or skipped altogether".

I have given the aspect of outlevelling some thought while I was still on my journey and came to the conclusion that a) the game is still too young for an in-depth article somewhere on the internet on this specific topic, and b) I am too old now to do the research on my own.

I know, my answer doesn't solve the problem, at all.

As a matter of fact, I look up the location of the public dungeons and try them on-level, meaning when the quest-chaining leads me into their general direction, just to find out that I better wait another level or two to fully explore them.

On a side-note, in Coldharbor is such a very challenging dungeon that by far exceeds the difficulty level of anything I have encountered thus far. When my assumption is correct, and the dungeon-scaling works as intended, that dungeon will get re-visited a fair number of times.

On a second glance over your post, I saw

Gidorick wrote: »

My quests turn grey and I receive no experience for killing the local wildlife.

I only had that happen to me in Reaper's March, after I extensively explored all the other AD-regions. We're going full circle here: As long as I don't have a plan of do's and don'ts, I can't help it. It should be less of an issue on any alt I intend to play, for they will not be doing any crafting that needs hunting animals for materials.

Gidorick

So it's either we're too high a level or the area is too hard. lol. Got it.

My biggest problem is I'm a bit of a completionist. I don't have to find every single little thing in an area before I move on but every sky shard, every quest, every dungeon? oh yea... I'm compelled to find and complete those. If I just plowed through the story and did a couple side quests (and not ALL the side quests) I wouldn't be having this issue.

someuser

Yeah, I'm VR2.5 and only half way done with the first zone of Cadwell's Silver.

Panda244

Sorta unrelated but I got emperor in Blackwater blade, and crashed right beforehand so didn't get the xp but eh. I knew I was gonna hit v1 and get kicked out soon enough but I mean... If you play the game you can't REALLY prevent leveling out. So you just go to the next zone...

Gidorick

I'm actually at the point where my journal has 6 quests for my current zone, all grey, and 2 yellow for the next zone.... so I COULD just move on but... I'm not going to.

I wish they had system where the lower the experience you recieve, the more gold you get, or the better the dropped gear is. Some incentive other than story to go through the missions.

hutchinsonhatch

Gidorick wrote: »

I'm actually at the point where my journal has 6 quests for my current zone, all grey, and 2 yellow for the next zone.... so I COULD just move on but... I'm not going to.

I wish they had system where the lower the experience you recieve, the more gold you get, or the better the dropped gear is. Some incentive other than story to go through the missions.

Yeah, don't move on, the quests are fine (read: fun).
Dropped gear is mostly cosmetic to me, at one point, I'm trying to complete a couple of sets I have 3 or 4 parts for right now.
I tend to sell white and 'ornate' stuff, and throw the rest onto the work-benches, which hands-down provides anything I need for crafting.

Sharee

I (kinda) solved this by completely skipping one zone

Gidorick

Sharee wrote: »

I (kinda) solved this by completely skipping one zone

There's an idea.... and leave it for an alt to do. Ill have to think about that one.

MissBizz

I also solved this problem so I started skipping dolmens, solo dungeons and world bosses in the last couple zones. I then went back later during VR. Although not as bad I can see I'm ourlevelling the VR content as well. The good news is your quests won't turn grey there

zaria

MissBizz wrote: »

I also solved this problem so I started skipping dolmens, solo dungeons and world bosses in the last couple zones. I then went back later during VR. Although not as bad I can see I'm ourlevelling the VR content as well. The good news is your quests won't turn grey there

This is probably the best idea, the solo dungeons however has skyshards who is very nice on low level characters.
Come back and solo it for the achivements, as I understand you still get xp for the achievements and quests but not for the kills.

eliisra

Level 1-50 comes with way more quests than needed to level.

It prevents zone achievements from being auto rewarded, I guess. They become like any achievement, where you have to work for something special without getting loads of exp. ZoS also boosted exp from monster kills (2 times already if I remember correctly). So it's even harder now to stay on level, if you want to clear a full zone.

Mentoring down or scaling would be a great feature in ESO, to solve the issue of out-leveling content. Most commercial mmoprgs comes with that system. ZoS already started with scaling of dungeons and some main quests. Would be nice with something similar covering zone quests, delves and so on.

firstdecan

If you're taking your time playing the game, you will probably out level each zone. I recently worked my fourth toon up to VR level, I "power quested" through each zone. I basically did every quest \ dolmen \ boss in each zone, but as quickly as I could. I killed a minimum number of trash mobs, didn't read the dialogue (after the fourth time who needs to), and rushed my character through making each map "all white."

By the second zone, almost every quest I would get was green (meaning I was higher level but not too high level). I focused on completing the lowest level quest I had (rinse, repeat) and managed to avoid having too many gray quests (no xp for completing). The point being, there's an abundance of XP just riding the roller coaster, and at normal levels you will easily out level your zone if you're doing what you do in a typical TES game: wandering around, exploring, checking things out.

It's different at the VR levels, the game feels more open and more explorable there, mostly because advancement once you hit VR is much slower (about 1 level per zone as opposed to 10). But at the regular levels, you can easily out level your current zone.

As far as advice goes - I don't really have any other than "enjoy the game." You can still play the gray quests and keep exploring each zone even if you've out leveled it, you simply don't get xp or drops. If you're looking for a bit more challenge, push one of your toons up to VR level, and then go back and complete the regular level stuff when you feel like doing something relaxing \ mindless \ non-challenging.

Vizier

Sounds like you are just one of those folks that likes to do any and all quests that present themselves. You probably dive into all the dungeons and delves too. Shrug. There's not much you can do about it IMO. Either you are in it for the experience awarded or.. you are in it for the personal experience.

I'd focus on the quests that give skill points, Skyshard and lore book dungeons, the main quest and if you still need more before moving to the next zone grind or quest until you feel ready. Completing everything will just over prepare you for the next zone.

Gidorick

Thanks for all the insight everyone!

I think what I'm going to do is not white the maps or and come back as a vet level. This also solves one of my unspoken gripes of there being little to no reason to revisit zones one they are cleared..... If I don't clear them, there's a reason to come back. The completionist in me blinded me to this very simple solution.

Nestor

Gidorick wrote: »

I think what I'm going to do is not white the maps or and come back as a vet level. This also solves one of my unspoken gripes of there being little to no reason to revisit zones one they are cleared..... If I don't clear them, there's a reason to come back. The completionist in me blinded me to this very simple solution.

Its a good way to approach the game. Revisiting a zone weeks later can make it fresh in your mind. I do what I need to do in a zone the first time through* and then come back later and fill in the blanks.



*You will find at the VR levels, you will need to be more of a completionist than you were in the leveling zones, so you can go back to your old ways then.

Gidorick

This has actually gotten me really excited to play tonight where before it was starting to feel like a drag.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

Oh Lord. I'm at least 2 levels behind, normally 4 or more. I have no idea how you guys get even with the game.

My new level 20 NB is playing between level 22 and 26 right now. I do tend to wander off the map it's true.

I have been playing since Jan and I have never been even with the game, let alone ahead. Probably a good thing in my case. The NB died a couple of days ago, fell in some lava. Nothing else is killing him.

That is boastful I must admit so I'll go a bit further. He is pampered beyond belief. He gets all new Hunding's Mother every 2 to 4 levels. He gets the best tri pots that can be made. His food is all blue and his gear all Enchanted to a ridiculous level. Who uses Kutas on a level 20 char? I do, I have quite a few. His advantages spring from my maxxed out crafter army which supports my fighters and my son's.

AlexDougherty

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

Oh Lord. I'm at least 2 levels behind, normally 4 or more. I have no idea how you guys get even with the game.

My new level 20 NB is playing between level 22 and 26 right now. I do tend to wander off the map it's true.

I have been playing since Jan and I have never been even with the game, let alone ahead. Probably a good thing in my case. The NB died a couple of days ago, fell in some lava. Nothing else is killing him.

That is boastful I must admit so I'll go a bit further. He is pampered beyond belief. He gets all new Hunding's Mother every 2 to 4 levels. He gets the best tri pots that can be made. His food is all blue and his gear all Enchanted to a ridiculous level. Who uses Kutas on a level 20 char? I do, I have quite a few. His advantages spring from my maxxed out crafter army which supports my fighters and my son's.

If you do enough quests to get the achievement for quests in an area, then you should be slightly overlevelled, especially in you do the pathfinder and cave delver achievements too.

Kutas are sadly irrelevant to enchants, you get the same strength enchantment from a Ta as from a Kuta. Not actually sure what the aspect runes are meant to do, apart from give your more exp when you deconstruct.

ahstin2001nub18_ESO

supposedly they are designing something similar to rift's mentor system. i hope they do, just so i can go farm lower level content if i want to, or if they add quests to the lower level zones i can enjoy the experience more at the level of the quest.

Muizer

At the risk of stating the obvious, most zones are designed with a specific route in mind. If you're a completionist, following the main storyline in a zone ensures that any other quests you do along the way will be as close as possible to your own level. If you do that, the game becomes rather easy throughout. Not sure if you'll get that much more XP in the end if you do so, or whether it just evens out the XP gain.

Oh and about the NB: I suppose there's the temptation to bypass mobs with stealth. I wonder if that won't cause you to drop behind the XP curve in the long run.

Rosveen

AlexDougherty wrote: »

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

Oh Lord. I'm at least 2 levels behind, normally 4 or more. I have no idea how you guys get even with the game.

My new level 20 NB is playing between level 22 and 26 right now. I do tend to wander off the map it's true.

I have been playing since Jan and I have never been even with the game, let alone ahead. Probably a good thing in my case. The NB died a couple of days ago, fell in some lava. Nothing else is killing him.

That is boastful I must admit so I'll go a bit further. He is pampered beyond belief. He gets all new Hunding's Mother every 2 to 4 levels. He gets the best tri pots that can be made. His food is all blue and his gear all Enchanted to a ridiculous level. Who uses Kutas on a level 20 char? I do, I have quite a few. His advantages spring from my maxxed out crafter army which supports my fighters and my son's.

Kutas are sadly irrelevant to enchants, you get the same strength enchantment from a Ta as from a Kuta. Not actually sure what the aspect runes are meant to do, apart from give your more exp when you deconstruct.

Where did you get this from? Aspect runes determine magnitude, Essence base effect, Potency direction and level of the glyph. For example, when I was making fire resist glyphs for my vamp, Rekuta gave me 1000 while Denata just 750.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

AlexDougherty wrote: »

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

Oh Lord. I'm at least 2 levels behind, normally 4 or more. I have no idea how you guys get even with the game.

My new level 20 NB is playing between level 22 and 26 right now. I do tend to wander off the map it's true.

I have been playing since Jan and I have never been even with the game, let alone ahead. Probably a good thing in my case. The NB died a couple of days ago, fell in some lava. Nothing else is killing him.

That is boastful I must admit so I'll go a bit further. He is pampered beyond belief. He gets all new Hunding's Mother every 2 to 4 levels. He gets the best tri pots that can be made. His food is all blue and his gear all Enchanted to a ridiculous level. Who uses Kutas on a level 20 char? I do, I have quite a few. His advantages spring from my maxxed out crafter army which supports my fighters and my son's.

If you do enough quests to get the achievement for quests in an area, then you should be slightly overlevelled, especially in you do the pathfinder and cave delver achievements too.

Kutas are sadly irrelevant to enchants, you get the same strength enchantment from a Ta as from a Kuta. Not actually sure what the aspect runes are meant to do, apart from give your more exp when you deconstruct.

You obviously have no idea about Enchanting. My Enchanter is a level 50 one and does know exactly what the runes do. Has been that way for a while now. The Kuta I used on his jewelery gave him 260 armor. A Rekuta would give 210 and so on down the Aspect Runes. It is true there is less difference in effect on simple Armor and Weapon Glyphs but it still is significant.

I have always been behind. My Vampire Witch took Mages Guild Master Wizard at level 36, nearly 10 levels down and took Fighters Guild Hero a level later. Ended up with the Prismatic Weapon, a level 43 piece at level 37.

The game is stupid easy now. It's been nerfed hard and I kinda need to play quite a bit above my level just to keep it interesting. My NB did get killed yesterday. Fell on Vox from behind, it was dumb how she spawned. She went down just fine when I got to face her. I do carry soul gems.

ahstin2001nub18_ESO

@poodlemasterb16_ESO try what i do- i let my gear all break when soloing to raise the difficulty. until you reach full gear breakage, the game is indeed on the fisher-price side of things.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

ahstin2001nub18_ESO wrote: »

@poodlemasterb16_ESO try what i do- i let my gear all break when soloing to raise the difficulty. until you reach full gear breakage, the game is indeed on the fisher-price side of things.

I just move on. My level 26 NB is in Eastmarch now.

I have a full suite of maxxed crafters and I like playing with the numbers so I make my chars very strong. Hi ***.

Amazingly the *** is the word 'h o', like in hi *** the common English expression.

bedlom

They really need to remove this 5 level above limit nonsense. It has been screwing me constantly since I started playing.

This minor issue sucks so much fun out of ESO.

Nestor

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

He is pampered beyond belief. He gets all new Hunding's Mother every 2 to 4 levels. He gets the best tri pots that can be made. His food is all blue and his gear all Enchanted to a ridiculous level. Who uses Kutas on a level 20 char?

If you have Crafters to support a character, you can easily be 2 to 4 levels below the mobs for the entire game. Even at the VR Ranks, well, maybe 1 to 3 VR levels below.

But, find a grind spot and spend an hour or two catching your character up, that is what I finally did. I was trying to go after every mob everywhere I was going and it just was not working. I finally camped in a public dungeon and just spent two evenings in there (couple hours each one) and got him caught up. I also got about 30K in Gold and a bunch of researchables too.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

Nestor wrote: »

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

He is pampered beyond belief. He gets all new Hunding's Mother every 2 to 4 levels. He gets the best tri pots that can be made. His food is all blue and his gear all Enchanted to a ridiculous level. Who uses Kutas on a level 20 char?

If you have Crafters to support a character, you can easily be 2 to 4 levels below the mobs for the entire game. Even at the VR Ranks, well, maybe 1 to 3 VR levels below.

But, find a grind spot and spend an hour or two catching your character up, that is what I finally did. I was trying to go after every mob everywhere I was going and it just was not working. I finally camped in a public dungeon and just spent two evenings in there (couple hours each one) and got him caught up. I also got about 30K in Gold and a bunch of researchables too.

I was like that before I had crafters. I have a VR9 Vampire Witch who just sews now. We did find the 3 plates in Craglorn that bring soloing to a halt, quite a while ago.

I just forge on till Coldharbour. Then I go back over the faction's areas, hoovering up little quests and doing World Bosses. I love Coldharbour and if I need to grind that's where I do it.

Audigy

Gidorick wrote: »

I am a pretty casual player and have not yet reached vet ranks. I have multiple alts, none above level 30. I play 4 nights a week or so and only for a few hours each night. I have found I have a problem.

I keep outleveling the zone I am in! My quests turn grey and I receive no experience for killing the local wildlife. It's a catch 22. I would like to receive experience for these quests and killings but when I DO receive experience it causes me to gain levels and then I'm in the same boat I was in before. I'm already getting too much experience and I out-level quests faster than I complete them so about half of the campaign I'm completing quests beneath me, which kind of takes away some of the fun of questing.

Is there anything I can do to even my game experience out a bit so I'm not always on the precipice of out-leveling what I'm currently doing?

There are a few things that help but wont fix the issue.

Skip dungeons (LFG tool). I only do them once and only the one of my faction, its about 1/2 of a level per dungeon so that you have 1 more level to spend time on so to speak.

Don't kill every mob you see, try to only clear those that protect chests, lore objects or belong to a quest.

Do world bosses and dolmens just once.

With that tactic I am usually on an average level speed so that quests can turn green but most of them are yellow. Greys I had as well though, you cant prevent this from happening I guess


The biggest xp however comes from dungeons and pvp, avoid this as good as you can and you will be able to level slower.

Gidorick

Yea, I'm going to skip dungeons now... when I eventually come back to them, they'll be leveled to me so it shouldn't be much of an issue!

Thanks for the advice!

Dubah

To the OP. I did the same thing all the way up. I wanted to complete everything and outleveled it all after the first zone... Sadly if you are a completionist such as myself which i still have tons of work to do lol, there is no real leveling done. I was VR10 by like the 6th VR zone but that was a long time ago. I still got some quest work to do and im VR14 already but i stopped questing and started grouping for that. I really don't want to run out of stuff to do so i fill my time with groups and go do quests when none are available, although that is getting old fast lol.