ZoS incompetence rears its head again (re: initial champion points nerf)

Samadhi

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

...
"You can keep earning XP and you'll get more champion points when CS goes live."
"Uh, oops, no, its fixed at 30 pts for everyone with 1 or more Vets, sorry you wasted your time."
...

How did this lead me to have wasted my time in the first place?
Was I going to be otherwise not spending any time on ESO except with the aim of having more Champion Points than anyone else when the system launched?

Enodoc

RDMyers65b14_ESO wrote: »

When Maria Aliprando, Gameplay Designer on the Champion System gave her answer, she said:

Continue to play! We are tracking your XP as you advance your way through Veteran Ranks and even past VR14. When the Champion System comes out we will reward you points right away based on the amount of XP you have earned up to a cap. In general, most people won’t reach the cap and we do not know what that cap is yet. We're still working out that value and making sure to take a look at the XP you all are earning.

They have /always/ said it didn't matter how many Veteran characters you have, everyone would get the same no matter if they were V1 or V14. The only thing new is we now know the cap is 30 champion points.

That's not a cap, that's a flat rate. That opposes both we will reward you points right away based on the amount of XP you have earned and In general, most people won’t reach the cap.

Guppet

Faulgor wrote: »

... Nothing Maria said invalidates what was stated earlier. It's just that everyone gets at least 30 champion points once Update 6 goes live so you can enjoy the new system even if you didn't level your vet character yet, and so there is not a huge gap at the start between players with 0 champion points and players with more than 0 champion points - because, as she also said, the first points are the most valuable.
On top of that 30 points, you'll still get more champion points based on your accumulated exp.

She did also say your vet 5 gets 30 CP to spend too.

bellanca6561n

Rev Rielle wrote: »

If you think playing the game is wasting your time then honestly I think you need to take a critical look at the reasons why you play.

This.

Tavore1138

xaraan wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

I'm sure those players that don't play much or level slowly are loving this, but in the end, it's really not fair to some of us.

Anyone who grinded xp in the hope of gaining an initial advantage in the CP amount knew he is risking being over the cap already and not getting anything from his grind(since the actual cap was unknown).

I have four veteran characters and i am not bothered by this.

What about those of us that didn't grind? I have completed the quests on all my guys, I have no content to go back and do for points. My choices are PvP (which I don't like) or grinding for points (which isn't what I pay a sub for). I'd love to just do quests and earn points. I now have two non vet characters that I can do that with, that's it, until they add more content to the game. Or slowly walk my way up the ladder with daily pledges (a little slower than being able to spend a few hours questing).

They mentioned in the live that they aim for all activities in the game to award champion points at roughly the same rate. So whatever your favorite activity is, chances are you will be able to gain CP through it.

I like questing. But with only two non vets and one half way through vet ranks, the amount of quests I have available is MUCH less than someone whose first character just hit v1.

Unless they plan on giving us a million points every time we do an undaunted pledge or run the arena, my v14s aren't going to earn that many points.

They said that they want all activities to award roughly the same amount of champion points. I am fairly sure that includes the activities done by veteran rank 14 characters who already did the majority of quests.

They also said they were tracking xp past v14 so that when you earned xp you'd still get credit for it when the champion system rolled out.

But, let's be real, when they say that, they mean they want pve and pvp to award the same amount of points per hour played. But anyone that has leveled even one character should know that there is a big difference between points earned from killing a dungeon boss and from turning in quests (huge difference actually). Those that still have questing, especially main story questing, will have a huge advantage in the rate they gain points over a PvEr that has completed most of the content and just running a pledge a day.

Yes, assuming we are reading this right a VR1 who actively quests couls soon surpass a VR14 who has completed questing especially if they do not have access to good groups.

Seems like a rushed and ill considered u-turn.

bellanca6561n

xMovingTarget wrote: »

Hmmm. So player Bob just starts to play the game and makes it barely to vr1 before champ hits, he gets 30 points.
Whilst myself playing this since 30.3.2014(early headstart) with like 1000+ hours ingame playtime, multiple vr14s, cleared all content also gets 30? This is my understanding after the live show. This needs clarification.

This does sound so wrong. What did they track xp for then?

The finest expansion thus far in online gaming - Lord of the Rings Online's Mines of Moria - was essentially a start over a year and a half after the game came out. This one will be as well. Why? Because there really wasn't a proper player lifecycle in place when ESO launched.

Playing an online game is not a religion offering an eternal reward.

Yes, many current players will move on. Many already have. The idea is to have something more extensible in place for the future. They can't come out and say that but the game has no future in its current form.

whsprwind

Giving a 1*VR1 and 8*VR14 is a foolish and wrong move

Doing this basically means they will have completely removed VR from the game as if it were never introduced into the system which is the one thing majority players have been saying they do not want to see happen

Never mind the tracking of xp which is obviously now a blatant lie.

The correct move would be toat least live up to your own words by giving players who have progressed beyond VR1 the extra points the deserved.

Since the cap has yet to be defined ZOS already has lots of room to play with finding the perfect amount to reward, instead of NO reward beyond VR1

Valencer

As if anyone even has 8 legit VR14s.... come on. Hyperbole, if anything

Been playing since launch and I've currently got 2 VR14s. Primary levelled by questing and running dungeons. Completed Cadwell's Gold on both characters. In addition to that, I have 2 VR1s.

I've now spent almost 2000 hours on ESO, and I consider it time well spent. Why else would I play? This is a game for entertainment, right?

If you've been grinding 8 VR14s in Craglorn just to "get to VR14"... well, I guess I can see why you think playing the game is a waste of time. But I definitely don't feel sorry for you.

Guppet

whsprwind wrote: »

Giving a 1*VR1 and 8*VR14 is a foolish and wrong move

Doing this basically means they will have completely removed VR from the game as if it were never introduced into the system which is the one thing majority players have been saying they do not want to see happen

Never mind the tracking of xp which is obviously now a blatant lie.

The correct move would be toat least live up to your own words by giving players who have progressed beyond VR1 the extra points the deserved.

Since the cap has yet to be defined ZOS already has lots of room to play with finding the perfect amount to reward, instead of NO reward beyond VR1

This entire thing was specifically to completely remove VR from the game, that was their intention, so the fact it feels like they are just removing VR is kind of expected!

eserras7b16_ESO

ZENIMAX - It's pretty simple: /played

Give people points depending on they /played based on your calculations for XP.

eserras7b16_ESO

Problem/Solved

Elloa

As I said in another thread...
We are speaking about PH3, not PH4. They have not given informations about the PH4 yet and I believe that Veteran players and their experience will be compensated in PH4, not PH3. So you may need to keep your complain a bit longer, wait the informations about PH4 being released, and then you will see.

Bladorthin

I am a fan of the system of rewarding with people with a flat 30 points. I remember all the players that exploited dungeons and went from VR 1 to 12 in a couple of days and then wrecked face in AvA. And the grinding exploits. Start everyone off on an even foot.

zaria

Rev Rielle wrote: »

If you think playing the game is wasting your time then honestly I think you need to take a critical look at the reasons why you play.

So much this, also how is this different from raising the level cap or other levels.

At any WOW expansion everybody started at level 50 up to 90, did not mattered if you had been at cap a year or reached it yesterday.
More fun, after 2-3 levels the new questing gear was better than the raiding gear you had build up over a year.

I55UE5

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

What is it with ZOS that causes them to make such bad decisions about ESO?

"You can keep earning XP and you'll get more champion points when CS goes live."
"Uh, oops, no, its fixed at 30 pts for everyone with 1 or more Vets, sorry you wasted your time."

Seriously? That is a monumental level of incompetence.

Here are some alternate ideas which I am going to free-type right now, thinking them up as I go. Let see... uh...

1. You get base of 30. Then you get +1 extra for each Vet char you have.
2. You get base of 30. Then you get +1 for every 10 Vet levels all your characters have.
3. You get 1 base, but you get +1 for every 3 Vet levels all your characters have.

Lets stop there. Say I have one account with 8 VR14s (the max you could have) and one account with only 1 VR1.

1. I get 38 CPs vs 31 CPs
2. I get 41 CPs vs 30 CPs
3. I get 38 CPs vs 1 CPs

So, while FREE THINKING, I came up with NOT ONE, NOT TWO, but THREE SUPERIOR IDEAS TO ZOS which doesn't RENEG on their promise that XP earned now will grant more CPs, YET still keeps players fairly balanced with each other except for the last option (which we can eliminate).

Whoever is the "idea person" over at ZOS needs ... better ideas.

Oh, so you had a lot of time on your hands to get 8 VR characters? That is like Usain Bolt complaining about being at the same starting line as McDonald's employees in a 400 meter race.

Winnower

I have 2 VR14s, 2 VR7s, 3 VR1s, and 9 toons between 12 and 50. Yes, I have more than one account.

I have Tamriel Hero, 2 cadwell's golds, 4 cadwell's silvers. Put that in your "exploit grind" pipe and smoke it.

There is no way to differentiate between a PvPer, a PvE quester, a PvE dungeon hopper / raider, a PvE mob killer, a scorpion grinder, or any other playstyle once they're at a certain level. Deal with it.

/played doesn't reflect goals accomplished. you can be an rp'er (which I am also) who always socializes and never levels and have a massive /played.

An easy cap of points (whatever arbitrary number it is) for anyone who has reached vet levels is going to be viewed as a massive insult by the vast majority of players who have have VR14s - whether they have played that one character on continuously as a real main or whether they divide their time amongst multiple characters like I do.

Once they said "go ahead and keep playing your VR14, we're tracking your XP" they set themselves up for certain expectations.

If they don't provide a difference at the beginning between a VR1, a VR5, 5 VR10s, and a VR14 who has played every day and constantly added (non-visible) xp to that VR14 - well they can expect a ****storm of biblical proportions and a lot of canceled subscriptions.

Good, bad; no matter the rationale behind it a decision in this direction is going to seriously hurt ZOS. Which I'd prefer not to see, personally - it should be obvious I enjoy this game.

What I personally believe should have been done is not even an issue. The issue (once again) is the perception that ZOS is projecting. Until they learn that perception can hurt you at times even more than reality they're gonna continue to take body blows from their own base.

helediron

I like the low flat 30 points. I have four VR chars, and i prefer to have something ahead to play. I don't want to be pushed to end of CP progress.
Besides, i have all the VR14 attrbutes, legendary gear, more Aether sets than i could wear and i even have learned to play. For me there is no reason to increase the initial CP points.

Merrak

Let's face it guys, we knew something was going to have to give with this. As much as we wanted to believe that they actually tracked the XP for the Champion system, we learned the hard way that it didn't matter how many dungeons you have done, how many achievements you have earned. In their mind, everyone should start in the same place. It's unfortunate, and I'm certain it will make for a LOT of unhappy people who were told they would benefit from continuing to play their current main character instead of mass grinding a bunch of VR1's.

Vlakna

You got 3 ideas. really those might be good for you. But not for everyone else. In reality those ideas you posted suck. Its your decision to grind multiple characters to VR14 why should you be consider special for that. Go work for Carbine if you are so bright and fix there poor mmo....

Gyudan

Right now, I'm considering the following:
- If my XP isn't being tracked, maybe I should stop playing until update 6 is released on live, to avoid losing potential XP from the quests that I would have completed before the update.
- If I stop playing, should I keep my subscription running?
- If I stop my subscription, will I ever come back?

DanielMaxwell

when they said they where tracking your XP they where also planing to have a much higher number of points required for each constellation in the champion system . Since that time they have reworked the champion system to have a significantly lower number of points for each constellation in the champion system . That change resulted in them not being able to use the tracked XP to determine how many champion system points you would be awarded as it might have resulted in some players capping out at the launch of the phase 3 , leaving them with no progression in the new system.

your reward for grinding out all of those VR1-14 characters is being stronger under the current system and the new system is a reset for all players who have any VR ranked characters .

Valencer

Gyudan wrote: »

Right now, I'm considering the following:
- If my XP isn't being tracked, maybe I should stop playing until update 6 is released on live, to avoid losing potential XP from the quests that I would have completed before the update.
- If I stop playing, should I keep my subscription running?
- If I stop my subscription, will I ever come back?

Or, you can have fun now by questing. Then after update 6 you can still have fun with other stuff that will supposedly give you XP for champion points too!

Oh my!

Gyudan

Valencer wrote: »

Gyudan wrote: »

Right now, I'm considering the following:
- If my XP isn't being tracked, maybe I should stop playing until update 6 is released on live, to avoid losing potential XP from the quests that I would have completed before the update.
- If I stop playing, should I keep my subscription running?
- If I stop my subscription, will I ever come back?

Or, you can have fun now by questing. Then after update 6 you can still have fun with other stuff that will supposedly give you XP for champion points too!

Oh my!

I have done every single quest in the game at least twice and it was a lot of fun. The effect wears off after a few times though.

DanielMaxwell wrote: »

when they said they where tracking your XP they where also planing to have a much higher number of points required for each constellation in the champion system . Since that time they have reworked the champion system to have a significantly lower number of points for each constellation in the champion system . That change resulted in them not being able to use the tracked XP to determine how many champion system points you would be awarded as it might have resulted in some players capping out at the launch of the phase 3 , leaving them with no progression in the new system.

your reward for grinding out all of those VR1-14 characters is being stronger under the current system and the new system is a reset for all players who have any VR ranked characters .

Why not divide the amount of Champion points that players were supposed to receive by 3 (just like the total amount of CPs got divided by 3) and cap it at 150 or somewhere around that value?

DanielMaxwell

Gyudan wrote: »

Valencer wrote: »

Gyudan wrote: »

Right now, I'm considering the following:
- If my XP isn't being tracked, maybe I should stop playing until update 6 is released on live, to avoid losing potential XP from the quests that I would have completed before the update.
- If I stop playing, should I keep my subscription running?
- If I stop my subscription, will I ever come back?

Or, you can have fun now by questing. Then after update 6 you can still have fun with other stuff that will supposedly give you XP for champion points too!

Oh my!

I have done every single quest in the game at least twice and it was a lot of fun. The effect wears off after a few times though.

DanielMaxwell wrote: »

when they said they where tracking your XP they where also planing to have a much higher number of points required for each constellation in the champion system . Since that time they have reworked the champion system to have a significantly lower number of points for each constellation in the champion system . That change resulted in them not being able to use the tracked XP to determine how many champion system points you would be awarded as it might have resulted in some players capping out at the launch of the phase 3 , leaving them with no progression in the new system.

your reward for grinding out all of those VR1-14 characters is being stronger under the current system and the new system is a reset for all players who have any VR ranked characters .

Why not divide the amount of Champion points that players were supposed to receive by 3 (just like the total amount of CPs got divided by 3) and cap it at 150 or somewhere around that value?

Because they do not want anybody to have zero progression in the new system .
There is also the diminishing returns part of the new system that gets steeper the more points you spend in a single tree of a constellation . The first ten points will have the biggest impact , with the next ninety points having an increasingly lower impact .

They want everyone to be able to be competitive with each other at the launch of the new system and to keep the "power creep" from players advancing under the new system small enough that you do not have huge differences between characters who are with in a few points of each other , the gap in points is not known at this time that is considered reasonable so starting all existing VR /Level 50 plus characters with the same number of points makes the most since.

This is also only the phase 3 part of the champion system , it is possible they might give players who have VR 2-14 characters at the launch of Phase 3 extra champion system points at the launch of phase 4 where the Veteran ranks are going to be removed . This would allow them to award the points in a manner that does not create a power gap that they consider to large .

MrGhosty

The way I understood it is that they're giving everyone who has at least one vet1 character 30 points to spend, I don't think this means those above that aren't going to get the points they've been earning beyond that. I think they're just letting everybody have a taste of the new system so they can find bugs and balance issues faster. It is hard to get proper info from ESO live sometimes when you have people being clever and constantly interrupting each other as they're trying to give info out.

I would say relax and wait to see what is going to happen when it drops in a month or so before you start worrying. Personally I'm using all this time to be excited for the stuff coming rather than declare the sky is falling. Let's yell at them after it comes out if they messed up rather than assume based on one casual interview that we're all doomed.

xMovingTarget

MrGhosty wrote: »

The way I understood it is that they're giving everyone who has at least one vet1 character 30 points to spend, I don't think this means those above that aren't going to get the points they've been earning beyond that. I think they're just letting everybody have a taste of the new system so they can find bugs and balance issues faster. It is hard to get proper info from ESO live sometimes when you have people being clever and constantly interrupting each other as they're trying to give info out.

I would say relax and wait to see what is going to happen when it drops in a month or so before you start worrying. Personally I'm using all this time to be excited for the stuff coming rather than declare the sky is falling. Let's yell at them after it comes out if they messed up rather than assume based on one casual interview that we're all doomed.

I was thinking that too. They never said everybody will get only 30. They said everybody with a VR char gets 30 initial points. But never a word about the points for back tracked xp etc. I think this is just a marketing strategy and we probably get mor points on top of the 30 if we played enough.

This actually starts discussions etc so they can see how we think. Clever @ZoS, i give you that

But at the end of the day we have to wait and see how it will be. I still would be pissed if I only get 30 points and bob who just started the game gets 30 too. With all fairness, this would be very unfair to ppl that played for so long and ofc so active and supports this game.

Averya_Teira

derpsticks wrote: »

Those 30 points are the equivalent of 5 days play time as if it were used to solely grind champion points without rested xp (aka enlightenment).

This is because they stated that the rate to gain a point while enlightened is 1 hour. They also said enlightenment grants 4x the regular amount of xp towards a champion point. I don't think this means xp is earned 4x faster while enlightened, it is just 4x more valuable.

So 30 points at 4 hours each is 120 hours or exactly 5 days /played.

Even with 1000 hours of play time since early release they are still awarding you for 12% of that time.

Who here has /played at least 5 days time since 1.5 went live?

Sure someone with a total of 10 days or 240 hours /played will get a 50% play time equivalent award, do they deserve it? Yes.

For them that 10 days probably consisted of mostly non vet content, with around a day of vr1+. So here ZOS applied enough rested xp to earn those 30 points at a rate of 1 per hour. Therefore, a new 10 day account spent 8.75 days building enlightenment, and the remaining 1.25 earning champion points. In other words, they were awarded champion points for 12.5% of their time.

Lets assume that a 1000 hour account also spent 10 days online, post 1.5.

Now, this means they spent 240 hours either earning champion points, leveling an alt, or just messing around. They most likely didn't level a non vet character and instead played with a vr character. At worst, having no enlightenment, this player could earn 60 champion points at 1 per 4 hours on a vet character. However, the vast majority of players most likely spent a large portion of their 10 days time earning at a vastly inefficient rate so instead of awarding points for 25% of the hours played they were probably awarded something closer to average. In this case, my best guess is the average was darn close to awarding these players for 12.5% of the hours they played.

So the rate at which a new player could earn champion points within 10 days using enlightenment is roughly the same rate that an average vet player was earning them without enlightenment in the same time frame.

Am I saying you should've been awarded more? Maybe, maybe not. It is hard to say.

Finally lets look at how many points leveling from vr1 to vr14 should award.

Lets assume the same ratio of days spent earning enlightenment to days spent using enlightenment as applied above to earn 30 points.

There, we had to spend 8.75 days to earn 1.25 days of enlightened time which gave us 30 points.

So every 210 hours spent gathering enlightenment to get 30 points at a ratio of 7 hours spent earning to 1 hour spent yeilding 1 champion point.

Now, given 14000000 total xp to get to vr14 and since we know that points are usually awarded 4 times slower than enlightened points, we can divide by 4 yeilding a total of 3500000 enlightened xp needed to get the same number of points 14000000xp awards regularly.

Now we know 7 hours time is needed for each point to be earned entirely by enlightenment. So we divide by 7 yeilding 500000 xp needed per point regularly. Dividing by 4 again we get 125000xp per point when enlightened.

Therefore we can get up to 28 points if leveling to vr14 without enlightenment and 112 points if we level entirely using enlightenment.

I cant remember if 50 becomes vr1 instantly or if an additional 1M xp is needed to get there. If so, then leveling from 50-vr14 would yield 30 points.

So in conclusion, the 30 points awarded are equivilent to 10 days spent leveling an alt and using up any earned enlightenment, the average number of champion points a player earned while playing at vr14, and the number awarded to a player who leveled a character from 50 to vr14.

I think this is fair and covers the majority of players. I am sorry if anyone falls outside of these categories.

Please correct any of this if I am wrong. This was just how I saw it all, and I might have based some of those on wrong info.

A champion point is about an hour WITHOUT enlightment, not with it. Your math is all kinds of wrong

Pallmor

MrGhosty wrote: »

The way I understood it is that they're giving everyone who has at least one vet1 character 30 points to spend, I don't think this means those above that aren't going to get the points they've been earning beyond that. I think they're just letting everybody have a taste of the new system so they can find bugs and balance issues faster. It is hard to get proper info from ESO live sometimes when you have people being clever and constantly interrupting each other as they're trying to give info out.

I would say relax and wait to see what is going to happen when it drops in a month or so before you start worrying. Personally I'm using all this time to be excited for the stuff coming rather than declare the sky is falling. Let's yell at them after it comes out if they messed up rather than assume based on one casual interview that we're all doomed.

If that were the case, I'm pretty sure they would have jumped into these threads and clarified that pretty quickly. Their silence seems to tell a different story. Of course, there is always the chance they could (wisely) change their minds, and come up with a system that doesn't screw over their most dedicated players so much.

Elsonso

@ZOS_MariaAliprando‌ on ESO Live at 1 hr 13min:

"As long as you have a Veteran character, you will be rewarded with 30 champion points on the onset of the system. As soon as you log in, day one, you will get 30 points."

Nowhere in that statement does the word "cap" appear and nowhere in that statement do they say that no more than 30 points will be awarded on day 1.

I never heard them clearly state that there would be no other points awarded on day one.

xaraan

Guppet wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

I'm sure those players that don't play much or level slowly are loving this, but in the end, it's really not fair to some of us.

Anyone who grinded xp in the hope of gaining an initial advantage in the CP amount knew he is risking being over the cap already and not getting anything from his grind(since the actual cap was unknown).

I have four veteran characters and i am not bothered by this.

What about those of us that didn't grind? I have completed the quests on all my guys, I have no content to go back and do for points. My choices are PvP (which I don't like) or grinding for points (which isn't what I pay a sub for). I'd love to just do quests and earn points. I now have two non vet characters that I can do that with, that's it, until they add more content to the game. Or slowly walk my way up the ladder with daily pledges (a little slower than being able to spend a few hours questing).

You already admit that you expected to be over the cap. So you already knew you had used up content, that you would not be rewarded for completing. Unless you stopped playing once you thought you were at the cap, you knowingly did this to yourself, but now you want sympathy? You play 70+ hours a week (Taken from your 110 days played), you'll get ahead soon enough once the system is out.

Nothing you said makes what they did fair. You are simply telling me to "live with it" and that's exactly what I've been mulling over.