The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/
The issue is resolved, and the North American PC/Mac megaserver is now available. Thank you for your patience!
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8100050/#Comment_8100050
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8100050/#Comment_8100050
Another way of looking at the Champion system issue
Grith
Soul Shriven
Good morning ESO players,
I would first like to apologize, English isn't my best skill and I'm French (maybe there's a connexion here ^^).
I've read and thought a lot for the time Zenimax announced the disappearance of Veteran ranks and its replacement by Champion system (several months ago already).
It seems to be a major change in the game and quite a difficult one to manage in order to keep the current players happy, encourage those who left to come back and gain new players/customers (without this, let's be honest, considering the today players base, ESO is going to crumble very soon).
But before to go to my point, I would like to emphazize why the veteran system is a
failure.
IMO, this is because:
Veteran rank improvements through attributes and stuff are critical. The players expecting to do HL can't avoid them. Whatever is the cost.
Veteran ranks are very long to gain and only one activity is giving you enough experience to improve if you want to avoid grinding: Cadwell and all the secondary quests of every areas of the game.
All this failure could have been corrected simply by:
Drastically decreasing the amount of xp needed for a veteran rank (maybe by a factor 5 or 10).
AND
Drastically improving the xp gains with other activities than questing (PVP in my mind here), allowing players to have several ways to gain those veteran ranks fast. Maybe not as fast as they earnt their "normal" level, but half of it would have been good for everybody I think.
So, Zenimax wants to get rid of them now.
They are taking a big risk: to lose their loyal customers, furious that the time they
invested in their characters will be lost forever. And the new system doesn't look so good if you're thinking of it.
You will still need to xp farm in order to gain champion points. And there is still one and only one efficient way to xp farm if you don't want to grind: questing.
Champion system is not adressing this major issue and Veteran ranks is a wrong target.
In addition, Zenimax made a lot of efforts and invest a huge amount of time to those
veteran ranks. If they get rid of it, they will put everything in the trash and it will
require a long period to equilibrate everything (old VR areas, Craglorn, trials, stuff,
etc...) without those veteran ranks and the stuff coming with them.
All this time invested in reversing back to a game without Vereran ranks will be time which could have been put into new contents. Into what the players are expecting (Imperial city, jewelry, etc...).
A small point: today, an experienced character Veteran 14 with a lot of achievements is spending most of his time in trials, undauntables, veteran donjons, PVP, etc... When the veteran ranks will disappear (let's imagine 1 month after 1.6, in March so), if this guy has just 50 points of Champion (30 from scratch and 20 won during one month of playing), there will be two possibilities:
Either this guy can still, without his Vet14 stuff and attributes, and with only 50
Champion points, do the trials and HL content he used to do or he can't anymore.
If he can, Zenimax is in trouble because it means that they would have create a Champion system wich will empty HL content for players very very fast (faster than it can be added).
If he can't, Zenimax is in trouble because a loyal customer suddently have nothing to do other than grinding (again !) in the game and will probably left, angry.
They announced the death of Veteran ranks for several months... and nothing's changing.
They even improved the rank 10 to12 then 12 to 14. Worst, they are now announcing some new Veteran 10 recipes... just when the Veteran ranks are supposed to disappear.
I really have the feeling that they are lost and maybe should do it the other way:
XP Vet is too long ?
Cut it by factor 5 or 10. Easy to do, simple to implement, and nothing complex has to change.
Improve by factor 5 or 10 Xp earnt in PVP.
Give us a reason to put time in Cyrodiil, which is currently empty 99% of the day.
Improve the xp earnt in dongeons, to allow players to have several ways when they go for Veteran 14.
Doing this, you don't have to destroy content. You don't have to reequilibrate the game from scratch. You don't have to rethink the stuff. And can do more productive things.
Implement at the same time your Champion system, but according to what you said: a simple conversion from xp earnt into champion points.
Doing this, in a few weeks, we would have a game with:
- a lot of veteran 14 players, even among the newcomers
- some veteran 14 with a pretty good pool of Champion points, which is logical because they are your loyal customers, they followed you from beta, and if they leave, you can close the game
- some veteran 14 with less Champion points, having put less time through the hassle of vet rank progression, but with a lot of possibilities to keep earning new points in different activites
You can even give the possibility to those who want to avoid the xp grind to step up from vet 1 to vet 14 just after the main quest. Vet 14 players will have no problem with that.
I'm thinking that often the best solution is the simpliest. And to destroy a whole system just because you have trouble to solve some minor issues is not the simpliest possible solution you have. Especially if this change is creating new issues.
It might sound harsch, but I love the game and it would be a mess to see it close so fast because of bad design decisions.
What do you think of this solution ?
I would first like to apologize, English isn't my best skill and I'm French (maybe there's a connexion here ^^).
I've read and thought a lot for the time Zenimax announced the disappearance of Veteran ranks and its replacement by Champion system (several months ago already).
It seems to be a major change in the game and quite a difficult one to manage in order to keep the current players happy, encourage those who left to come back and gain new players/customers (without this, let's be honest, considering the today players base, ESO is going to crumble very soon).
But before to go to my point, I would like to emphazize why the veteran system is a
failure.
IMO, this is because:
Veteran rank improvements through attributes and stuff are critical. The players expecting to do HL can't avoid them. Whatever is the cost.
Veteran ranks are very long to gain and only one activity is giving you enough experience to improve if you want to avoid grinding: Cadwell and all the secondary quests of every areas of the game.
All this failure could have been corrected simply by:
Drastically decreasing the amount of xp needed for a veteran rank (maybe by a factor 5 or 10).
AND
Drastically improving the xp gains with other activities than questing (PVP in my mind here), allowing players to have several ways to gain those veteran ranks fast. Maybe not as fast as they earnt their "normal" level, but half of it would have been good for everybody I think.
So, Zenimax wants to get rid of them now.
They are taking a big risk: to lose their loyal customers, furious that the time they
invested in their characters will be lost forever. And the new system doesn't look so good if you're thinking of it.
You will still need to xp farm in order to gain champion points. And there is still one and only one efficient way to xp farm if you don't want to grind: questing.
Champion system is not adressing this major issue and Veteran ranks is a wrong target.
In addition, Zenimax made a lot of efforts and invest a huge amount of time to those
veteran ranks. If they get rid of it, they will put everything in the trash and it will
require a long period to equilibrate everything (old VR areas, Craglorn, trials, stuff,
etc...) without those veteran ranks and the stuff coming with them.
All this time invested in reversing back to a game without Vereran ranks will be time which could have been put into new contents. Into what the players are expecting (Imperial city, jewelry, etc...).
A small point: today, an experienced character Veteran 14 with a lot of achievements is spending most of his time in trials, undauntables, veteran donjons, PVP, etc... When the veteran ranks will disappear (let's imagine 1 month after 1.6, in March so), if this guy has just 50 points of Champion (30 from scratch and 20 won during one month of playing), there will be two possibilities:
Either this guy can still, without his Vet14 stuff and attributes, and with only 50
Champion points, do the trials and HL content he used to do or he can't anymore.
If he can, Zenimax is in trouble because it means that they would have create a Champion system wich will empty HL content for players very very fast (faster than it can be added).
If he can't, Zenimax is in trouble because a loyal customer suddently have nothing to do other than grinding (again !) in the game and will probably left, angry.
They announced the death of Veteran ranks for several months... and nothing's changing.
They even improved the rank 10 to12 then 12 to 14. Worst, they are now announcing some new Veteran 10 recipes... just when the Veteran ranks are supposed to disappear.
I really have the feeling that they are lost and maybe should do it the other way:
XP Vet is too long ?
Cut it by factor 5 or 10. Easy to do, simple to implement, and nothing complex has to change.
Improve by factor 5 or 10 Xp earnt in PVP.
Give us a reason to put time in Cyrodiil, which is currently empty 99% of the day.
Improve the xp earnt in dongeons, to allow players to have several ways when they go for Veteran 14.
Doing this, you don't have to destroy content. You don't have to reequilibrate the game from scratch. You don't have to rethink the stuff. And can do more productive things.
Implement at the same time your Champion system, but according to what you said: a simple conversion from xp earnt into champion points.
Doing this, in a few weeks, we would have a game with:
- a lot of veteran 14 players, even among the newcomers
- some veteran 14 with a pretty good pool of Champion points, which is logical because they are your loyal customers, they followed you from beta, and if they leave, you can close the game
- some veteran 14 with less Champion points, having put less time through the hassle of vet rank progression, but with a lot of possibilities to keep earning new points in different activites
You can even give the possibility to those who want to avoid the xp grind to step up from vet 1 to vet 14 just after the main quest. Vet 14 players will have no problem with that.
I'm thinking that often the best solution is the simpliest. And to destroy a whole system just because you have trouble to solve some minor issues is not the simpliest possible solution you have. Especially if this change is creating new issues.
It might sound harsch, but I love the game and it would be a mess to see it close so fast because of bad design decisions.
What do you think of this solution ?
0