Dear Zenimax: We don't all want to quest, we want to Play as We Want.

TehMagnus

After this week's patch, all Craglorn grinding was nerfed. Bosses in dungeons and in the world don't even give 1K XP anymore, Spellscar was nerfed, everything was nerfed.

Here are some facts:

- For many people, questing is boring and useless, you must admit that in any case questing is nothing more than: Go to A and talk to X then to B, then kill x mobs, deliver quest, get useless item, start over. Which gets old very very fast.
- Many people are not in here for the quests, some want to PVP, some want to do end game content, you're forcing those people to waste time questing to VR14 till 1.7 is released and everybody is at level 50.
- Many people have already done all those quests on more than 1 character and even though they want a new VR14 character, they don't want to spend weeks doing the same quests they already did 4 times to get to VR14 on their 4 previous chars.

Last be not least important:
- You're forcing people to quest from VR1 to VR14 until 1.7 kicks in, thus forcing players to go through the content you're basically removing because it's very unpopular.

I understand that the aim is to avoid CP farming when 1.6 kicks in, but the problem is that while people wait for 1.7 which could take 3 to 4 months to come, you're forcing people to experience the content you are removing because of it's unpopularity, moreover, you stealth nerfed it before the CP system was implemented. Players who only have 1 char that isn't VR14 yet will be forced to quest to get to VR14 when the rest of the players have been grinding those levels since Craglorn's launch, thus making it extremely unfair for your newer players or people who planed to level quickly to VR14 in order to get 70CP.

You won't be able to nerf everything without breaking the game and good players will always find a way to grind CP faster than normal players by optimizing anything that gives a the most of XP for the less time, moreover they won't talk about the new spots since you've clearly started the war against grind and thus only a selected few will be advancing faster than the rest of the players.

At least with grinding spots everybody has a fair chance.

KhajitFurTrader

But, but... I just love to quest!

How can you say I don't want to?

TehMagnus

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

But, but... I just love to quest!

How can you say I don't want to?

I tried to say "many people" everywhere to leave room for people who like to quest

xherics

I personally some times like questing but sometime not, i just want a progress. So there have to be 2 ways to level up, not the only one (questing) forced by developers...

The biggest marketing motto of this game is, that "Play as you want" but it is not true, because developers are forcing people to do, what they they (developers) want...

RazielSR

I completely agree with the op.
Im one of those who likes questing and like a lot the stories and lore,because im a hardcore TES fan. But I stopped questing once I knew about the future champion system. I stopped at vr 4 zone. Now im vr8 and I was grinding and leveling skills, etc. So whag Im I supposed to do now? I dont want to continue questing until 1.6. I wanted to get my char to Vr14,have the 70 points and start 3 new chars.

Even spellscar is nerfed now? This is madness. What the hell are u doing with the game? One days seems is gonna be perfect and later seems is gonna be a disaster.
Now you have thousands of players having vr14 because of the grinding and laughing at people that was starting to grind now.

Please ZOS stop nerfing and LET PEOPLE ENJOY YHE GAME AS THEY WANT. This dictatorial behaviour is just getting ridiculous.

pronkg

Farming xp on mobs is very easy. It was very hard when you needed 10million VP for rank 12.

Enodoc

I'm surprised that ZOS nerfed enemy XP when they said before that they wanted all different forms of content to give comparable XP/CP for the Champion System.

Derra

I would be fine with questing (i enjoyed the first run) if there we´re actually enough quests to go an alternate route with a second character. As is stands now i have one VR14 character that has every zone quest achievement because you HAVE TO DO ALL THE F****** QUESTS in EVERY zone to get enough xp.
I simply don´t want to quest level an alt because i have already done the majority of those quests and i find it mindnumbingly boring to repeat them.

If they want people to quest their way up they have to give them enough content to do so without repeating too much of it. They fail to deliver on the content they want people to expierience.

The way it is now i can´t even make a twink in another alliance because i allready quested through their zones too? Whoever thought this was a clever approach should not have become a video game designer but rather an entertainer for ppl with alzheimers as they don´t care if you repeat your jokes every day. They won´t know five minutes later.
I don´t have the right words for how stupid some of their design decisions are, from my perspective ofc.

LtCrunch

Grinding XP is fine. Exploiting game mechanics for unintended amounts of XP(Rkund, Scorpion, Shadow) is not fine and should be addressed accordingly. That being said grinding XP should be no quicker than questing or PVPing for XP. One playstyle should not be rewarded over another in terms of XP gains, period. Even now it's skewed towards grinding and PVP is far behind. With 1.6 and the changes to equalize XP gains across all content hopefully this is addressed.

Valencer

This hurts questers in Craglorn too. Questing XP is now largely balanced with the idea that questers kill a lot of enemies while doing quests, so the quests give out less XP while enemies contribute a significant amount.
But I guess that's what we get when good rewards in the game get abused on an extreme scale. Seems to be business as usual in MMOs

I think the bottom line is that no one playstyle should stand head and shoulders above the others in terms of XP gain. If grinding in Craglorn is/was 5x faster than questing, then that was a problem of its' own. Especially with the champion system around the corner with (virtually) endless progression.

RazielSR

And hey dont forget that now a whole vr zone is not giving you a complete vr. At least not just questing like before. This is a really stupid situation

pronkg

I gained About 10% xp in one craglorn dungeon last night at vet rank 14. In about 30/60 minutes. Seems fair to me

Volla

I think it should be 1 or 2 grind spots for large or small groups, but make it grind spot with some hard mobs so its not to easy.

Im totaly agree that MMO's is not all about follow quest lines, its about choose what you want to do in the game. if questing appeals you then you do that, if grinding is the one even if you have to go around and collect sky shards,
lorebooks after it should be a matter of choice not force.

Do some areas for grinding in each realm for low levels and one for high end levels. Also include so ppl can grind gold/items in same place. maybe some rare drops or what ever.

If you look at Daoc they had a grind spot where you did the last 10 levels. it was hard, you needed a good grp for it.

But not to hard, just enough so you can't grind solo a minimum of 4 ppl i think.

cheers guys

RazielSR

I think this is the first mmo not letting you grind.

ArconSeptim

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

But, but... I just love to quest!

How can you say I don't want to?

Man I really adore you, your strength to repeat the same quests over and over and over again without losing any breath, man you are really a robot! Robots are not like you are haha

Djem

I actually do want questing (I enjoy the stories), but I agree that people should be supported in playing the way they want.

TheShadowScout

magnusnet wrote: »

Here are some facts:

Facts. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

magnusnet wrote: »

- For many people, questing is boring and useless, you must admit that in any case questing is nothing more than: Go to A and talk to X then to B, then kill x mobs, deliver quest, get useless item, start over. Which gets old very very fast.

For some. Many others like it. I suppose once you done them with one character, and experienced all the stories, the questing does get a bit old, but... enter the champion system where every alt gets what one character earns. In the end though, the "many" people who really don't care about questing and fast click through all the conversations without caring for the story behind them are most likely playing a different kind of game anyhow...

magnusnet wrote: »

- Many people are not in here for the quests, some want to PVP, some want to do end game content, you're forcing those people to waste time questing to VR14 till 1.7 is released and everybody is at level 50.

I still hear "gimme the same stuff others play weeks to earn for cheap".
If you just want PvP, you can have PvP at level 10+. You'll just respawn a lot until you are up to the level of players who spent the time to get to their V14 the hard way. And miss out on all those neat skyshards, but if you manage your skills carefully, you can still be good. And you'll likely take a bit more time getting your levels. But you can have only PvP, and you'll likely amass so many AP you can buy a lot of nifty gear once your level gets there. Impress them all with your big PvPness!
Endgame content is not something you should be skipping the game for. That's kinda like skipping most of a book and going to the last ten pages right away...
And yes, the time until 1.7 is a bit iffy, as playing a vet character now is a bit "oh, look at all the ChP I could have earned" annoyance. Which is why I play my alts to level 49 instead, eagerly waiting for the update that leats me earn extra ChP. And anyone without one V14 will still be compensated for everything they get until then. I fail to see any problem.

magnusnet wrote: »

- Many people have already done all those quests on more than 1 character and even though they want a new VR14 character, they don't want to spend weeks doing the same quests they already did 4 times to get to VR14 on their 4 previous chars.

Funny thing, the champion system helps exactly those people from all I hear... want more? Then spend the darn time to earn it. Yes, that may mean doing all the quests over again to grab all those skillpoints for your new alt, visiting all the places over again for the shyshards. Or just restrict your playing to a main or two, and leave the other alts at lower power levels... you make your choices, you pay your dues...
The only thing you do get right is that a lot of people who did spend the time go get several alts to V14 will miss out a bit in the ChP scale. Still better to have them pber-powerful through getting all those possible ChP for each V14. Although, they could have made a scale of dinimishing rewards (First V14 gets 70, second adds 30, third +15, fourth and further each +5, )

magnusnet wrote: »

Last be not least important:
- You're forcing people to quest from VR1 to VR14 until 1.7 kicks in, thus forcing players to go through the content you're basically removing because it's very unpopular.

The way -I- hear it, they are not removing and -content- just the veteran ranks. The content is still there, waiting for you if you choose to do it to get all the rewards (soon obsolete levels/Champion Points and skill points mostly, the drops are meh, I give you that... wouldn't it be nice if all the green drops were blue in silver and purple in gold?)
And noone is forcing anyone to do anything, they are rewarding those who do it for time spent in the game. There are always people who want shortcuts. Who want stuff but not spend the time to earn it. Who are looking for some way to exploit the rules to get that. I must admit, I have little sympathy for that kind...

magnusnet wrote: »

At least with grinding spots everybody has a fair chance.

Sure. Why not remove all quests and just have a game that lets people grind until max level, then PvP? Maaaaaybe because then most of 'em would play some other game if they had to spend hours doing boring repetition to earn their stuff? I know I would...

RazielSR wrote: »

And hey dont forget that now a whole vr zone is not giving you a complete vr. At least not just questing like before. This is a really stupid situation

Actually I tested what a zone gives you now...
- Before the last "how much of what for a VR" change my main got about 70, 80% to the next Vet rank, and had to make up the rest with PvP and doing daily quests in cyrodil. Which was a lot more fun then I expect grinding some mobs would be, though I suppose a good grind spot may take you there faster, possibly too fast.
- Now my secondary character got 110% from one zone, everything done. A nice improvement, now I could do it all with questing if i choose to (though naturally I am waiting for champoiun system to come on - no sense wasting all those ChP I could get doing it)
I'd say, cadwells silver/gold is much better now, with that.
For me anyhow.

AngryNord

Strange, I never had any problem leveling VR in the VR zones, was usually the NeXT VR about 2/3-3/4 thru the zone...

RazielSR

Something is wrong then. Me and more people claim that now it costs a lot more to get vr in just one zone by questing. In my case its happening.

AngryNord

I finished VR zones just before the VR change, and as I said, I always had the NeXT VR rank before the zone was finished, this included doing dolmens, world bosses etc. Never did any grinding.

xherics

If people do story main quests, zone main quests and all side quests, then it is like 120% XP/level... but this means like 20 hours and more playtime to obtain 1VT level... with grinding it was 1,5-2h to obtain VT level.

When somebody already finished one time the whole story and all, I repeat ALL quests on VT zones, why should he do them again?
I can totally understand, that who did not finish at least with one char the whole story, should be forced to do it, but a hardcore raiders will never do it...

With this XP nefr, again a *** of people will leave the game...

TheShadowScout

xherics wrote: »

...but this means like 20 hours and more playtime to obtain 1VT level... with grinding it was 1,5-2h to obtain VT level.

Says to me those 20 hours were the designers intention as to how long it should take to gain a VR, and those who ground it in 2 hours are exploiting to go against the design.
In which case I as questor say: "right on Zeni, nerf those grindspots!"

xherics wrote: »

When somebody already finished one time the whole story and all, I repeat ALL quests on VT zones, why should he do them again?
I can totally understand, that who did not finish at least with one char the whole story, should be forced to do it, but a hardcore raiders will never do it...

That point I can relate to. But then, different character, different advancement. Though here there may be options...
I recall "Age of Conan" used to offer people who finished the main quest a choice to start each new alt at level 50 (of 80, back when I still played that one). Something like that could be done, if enough people cry for it... I would never choose the option though, but that's me.

TequilaFire

To get a full VR in a zone now you just have to kill max mobs in all quests.
If you like to play stealthy and sneak by mobs you may end up under leveled.
Going for the monster hunter achievement killing as many mobs from that list in each zone helps a lot too.

pppontus

If they intended 20 hours per VR level, they should be happy that these "exploits" existed as they wouldn't have had many players left otherwise.

Not a ******* chance I would have stuck around for 280 hours leveling one character to get to do what I enjoy. Now I have surely over 1K hours played, most of it spent having fun instead of fetching 10 of random **** for stupid NPCs over and over.

Enodoc

xherics wrote: »

If people do story main quests, zone main quests and all side quests, then it is like 120% XP/level... but this means like 20 hours and more playtime to obtain 1VT level... with grinding it was 1,5-2h to obtain VT level.

If people grinded out one level during 1-50, how long would that take? Grinding a VR should take 10 times longer than grinding one level in 1-50 by design (since 1 VR is worth 10 levels).

xMovingTarget

TheShadowScout wrote: »

xherics wrote: »

...but this means like 20 hours and more playtime to obtain 1VT level... with grinding it was 1,5-2h to obtain VT level.

Says to me those 20 hours were the designers intention as to how long it should take to gain a VR, and those who ground it in 2 hours are exploiting to go against the design.
In which case I as questor say: "right on Zeni, nerf those grindspots!"

xherics wrote: »

When somebody already finished one time the whole story and all, I repeat ALL quests on VT zones, why should he do them again?
I can totally understand, that who did not finish at least with one char the whole story, should be forced to do it, but a hardcore raiders will never do it...

That point I can relate to. But then, different character, different advancement. Though here there may be options...
I recall "Age of Conan" used to offer people who finished the main quest a choice to start each new alt at level 50 (of 80, back when I still played that one). Something like that could be done, if enough people cry for it... I would never choose the option though, but that's me.

In Age of Conan you could also just sit on a tent in Keshatta and let ppl grind for you
Hach, good old times. The xp nerf suxx though. Just when i tried to level a Character in another Alliance they nerfed it. Didnt level anything really after the 2 chars i leveld to max in the first 2 month.

pronkg

Grinding group mobs in public dungeons will get you 1 vet rank in about 5/10 hours (Maybe less) these days. The 2 hours grinding was an exploit. Grinding 1 to 50 would take somewhere between 30 and 50 hours i guess

Knootewoot

Sometimes i like quests and mostly i don't. Been playing Vanguard and i could go to a zone and do some quests. Then go grind some and do some quests again. Many same level zones so i could go from thestra to Qalia to do quests/grinding there. That was freedom. Teso is a great game. But it has NO freedom, except the choice of skills for 90% of the available skills.

pronkg

The way lvling works ik this game is okay with me. Only problem is it's not rewarding enough. Champions system will be the solution to me

Derra

xherics wrote: »

If people do story main quests, zone main quests and all side quests, then it is like 120% XP/level... but this means like 20 hours and more playtime to obtain 1VT level... with grinding it was 1,5-2h to obtain VT level.

When somebody already finished one time the whole story and all, I repeat ALL quests on VT zones, why should he do them again?
I can totally understand, that who did not finish at least with one char the whole story, should be forced to do it, but a hardcore raiders will never do it...

With this XP nefr, again a *** of people will leave the game...

Exactly this. The first playthrough is fine. The problems start if you want to level an alt as there is not enough questing content to avoid having to do 80% of the same things you already did on your main.
It is boring, it is stupid and people will quit if you try to force content down their throats that they do not enjoy by hiding the content they want to play behind a playtimewall of 100+ hours to get to vr14 by questing.

Edit:

TheShadowScout wrote: »

xherics wrote: »

...but this means like 20 hours and more playtime to obtain 1VT level... with grinding it was 1,5-2h to obtain VT level.

Says to me those 20 hours were the designers intention as to how long it should take to gain a VR, and those who ground it in 2 hours are exploiting to go against the design.
In which case I as questor say: "right on Zeni, nerf those grindspots!"

xherics wrote: »

When somebody already finished one time the whole story and all, I repeat ALL quests on VT zones, why should he do them again?
I can totally understand, that who did not finish at least with one char the whole story, should be forced to do it, but a hardcore raiders will never do it...

That point I can relate to. But then, different character, different advancement. Though here there may be options...
I recall "Age of Conan" used to offer people who finished the main quest a choice to start each new alt at level 50 (of 80, back when I still played that one). Something like that could be done, if enough people cry for it... I would never choose the option though, but that's me.

It may or may not be that they intended the veteran levels to take 20+ hours. Personally i don´t think so as it does in no way relate to the paste of the pre veteran leveling nor to the intended time for the coming champion system. It is simply to long for casual players to be entertaining as some would not progress their character in a whole week of playtime (that would be 3 hours a day thats not even casual anymore though it does not take 20 hours if you just skip the quest dialogues).

The point is: Different character different advancement is NO option in eso. I´ve leveled the veteran zones back at release when they hardly gave a whole level (did not do the group quests and dungeons).
If i´d play another character the different advancement would be to use different class skills on 100% of the same content i´ve already played. I would rather quit this game than consider this an option. In my opinion it is literally that bad.

If eso would offer choices in the quest content you do to achieve v14 for lets say atleast 3 playthroughs (without repeating anything but the mainquest) i would not be arguing in this thread. But it does not.

xherics

My point was, that some players like the questing, some not; and made an examples for this. If ZOS would never say, that "play as you want" this topic would never existed.

Using an existing game mechanic (Rkundzelft grind) is not an exploit.

For me an exploit is such a thing, what is based on in-game bug and people use the bug to obtain advantages; but Rkundzelft is definitely not a bug, just a game provided mechanic.