Why not keep Vet Ranks and just add Champion System on top?

ClanofThir

OK- probably a stupid question. Let me preface this by saying that my highest level character is level 39. I am not familiar with the grind that people have discussed with respect to VR levels.

That being said, many people have spent an inordinate amount of time leveling their chars through that system. Zenimax has also spent a ton of development time in providing equipment, quests and facilities to accommodate the VRs. Why waste the time to throw that all away? Instead, why not just layer the Champion System on top and use the extra development time to fix bugs and address concerns?

I'm honestly curious, but await the flames...

ers101284b14_ESO

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/144639/why-do-people-want-veteran-ranks-removed

Kilandros

Short Reason: VR is and always has been wildly unpopular.

Long Reason: VR is and always has been wildly unpopular because it was a thinly veiled bandaid for the lack of end-game progression players bemoaned during the beta. VR further demonstrated the developers lack of creativity when it dropped, for example, an AD player in the EP zone as an EP player forced to complete all of the quests like a normal EP player. Immersion wise the system was laughable and regrettable.

Rosveen

When you're dragging your third character through veteran ranks, you will understand.

Bouvin

Kilandros wrote: »

Short Reason: VR is and always has been wildly unpopular.

Long Reason: VR is and always has been wildly unpopular because it was a thinly veiled bandaid for the lack of end-game progression players bemoaned during the beta. VR further demonstrated the developers lack of creativity when it dropped, for example, an AD player in the EP zone as an EP player forced to complete all of the quests like a normal EP player. Immersion wise the system was laughable and regrettable.

Then they should get rid of Caldwell's Silver & Gold as well and force you to roll an alt if you want to player the other faction.

This is actually how I thought it was going to be. I actually looked forward to rolling faction alts.. but that's ruined now because I've already experience each zone several times on different characters...

Kilandros

Bouvin wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

Short Reason: VR is and always has been wildly unpopular.

Long Reason: VR is and always has been wildly unpopular because it was a thinly veiled bandaid for the lack of end-game progression players bemoaned during the beta. VR further demonstrated the developers lack of creativity when it dropped, for example, an AD player in the EP zone as an EP player forced to complete all of the quests like a normal EP player. Immersion wise the system was laughable and regrettable.

Then they should get rid of Caldwell's Silver & Gold as well and force you to roll an alt if you want to player the other faction.

This is actually how I thought it was going to be. I actually looked forward to rolling faction alts.. but that's ruined now because I've already experience each zone several times on different characters...

Or just come up with a more creative way to have players experience the other zones other than "Lol ur EP now enjoy till ur DC lol"

OrangeTheCat

Kilandros wrote: »

Bouvin wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

Short Reason: VR is and always has been wildly unpopular.

Long Reason: VR is and always has been wildly unpopular because it was a thinly veiled bandaid for the lack of end-game progression players bemoaned during the beta. VR further demonstrated the developers lack of creativity when it dropped, for example, an AD player in the EP zone as an EP player forced to complete all of the quests like a normal EP player. Immersion wise the system was laughable and regrettable.

Then they should get rid of Caldwell's Silver & Gold as well and force you to roll an alt if you want to player the other faction.

This is actually how I thought it was going to be. I actually looked forward to rolling faction alts.. but that's ruined now because I've already experience each zone several times on different characters...

Or just come up with a more creative way to have players experience the other zones other than "Lol ur EP now enjoy till ur DC lol"

Such as: you are AD and are told by the queen to go spy on the EP. She hands you a disguise. If you don't wear the disguise while in EP-land every EP military type will try and kill you. She also hands you a bunch of quests to do while there; you can still do the EP side quests if you want but the main quests cannot be done.

firstdecan

Agree with everything posted so far.

Basically VR, especially with multiple toons, is just a long tedious grind to get your character to max level in order to be competitive in PvP \ Trials \ End game content. There was a lot of backlash against it, mostly by people who enjoy video games but don't make it their only social outlet, because many people simply want to be competitive in PvP or Trials and team up with their friends. The "play through the story level grind" is a horrible experience for anyone who wants to play a game with their friends, as you essentially have to progress in lock step with each other to progress through the storylines. The story lines are also designed for the single player experience, so playing them with friends can be mind numbingly simple. Most people do the storyline grind solo, occasionally teaming up with pugs where necessary. (I'm not saying this is bad, I wouldn't change it, but it doesn't offer the opportunities for teamwork that many people want).

Zeni's response has been to make the grind worse by offering an even longer and more convoluted post levelling system, and they have been marketing it in such a way as to make it seem like new players will be able to advance quickly in it while players who play a lot will still be able to reap benefits from playing. These two goals are contradictory to each other, and their claims to the contrary are an insult to anyone who thinks through the ramifications.

The appropriate response would have been to offer alternative content for levelling, and a system that scales players to each other's levels for group content (similar to what they already do in Cyrodiil). They never did this, and have "nerfed" any content (the grind spots) that allowed people the opportunity for unstructured PvE with their friends.

Zeni has not spent that much time to provide equipment \ quests \ and facilities for VR as you claim. They simply recycled already created content. I personally like that they did that (it was a response to players who wanted to play the other factions with the same character), but I don't like that it is the only viable method of progression. The storylines get boring after a while. Some are good, but when you're forced through it you won't enjoy it. Craglorn is a great example, instead of offering it as an alternative to "the story line grind," they simply increased the max VR level when it was released. Players were forced through additional content to get to max level and the social experience that an MMORPG should be.

When Zeni was originally marketing this game, the intention was to have "something for everyone" in the game. The execution on that has been lacking, with the current trend towards forcing players into more content they do not enjoy in order to remain competitive in the content they do enjoy. The champion system will do nothing to fix this. I enjoy the game well enough, but I think better improvements could be made for the amount of re-development they are doing (although I am glad that they are actively working on improving the game).

UrQuan

Kilandros wrote: »

VR further demonstrated the developers lack of creativity when it dropped, for example, an AD player in the EP zone as an EP player forced to complete all of the quests like a normal EP player. Immersion wise the system was laughable and regrettable.

To be fair to ZOS, this decision was made as a direct result of players complaining pre-launch that they didn't want to miss out on all of the EP content just because they chose AD, and such.

Having said that, I think this complaint was made by people who thought that once you picked your alliance you couldn't have alts in the other alliances, and it wasn't really a good idea for ZOS to listen to the people making the complaint (just like I don't think it was a good idea for them to listen to the people who complained pre-launch about having to start on the starter islands).

Kilandros

UrQuan wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

VR further demonstrated the developers lack of creativity when it dropped, for example, an AD player in the EP zone as an EP player forced to complete all of the quests like a normal EP player. Immersion wise the system was laughable and regrettable.

To be fair to ZOS, this decision was made as a direct result of players complaining pre-launch that they didn't want to miss out on all of the EP content just because they chose AD, and such.

Having said that, I think this complaint was made by people who thought that once you picked your alliance you couldn't have alts in the other alliances, and it wasn't really a good idea for ZOS to listen to the people making the complaint (just like I don't think it was a good idea for them to listen to the people who complained pre-launch about having to start on the starter islands).

It was absolutely a response to that. But it was *** poor implementation is my point. So that's why no one is said to see a broken system go.

XEVENEX

Keep them, lower the EXP requirements to 50-100k each and drop the veteran rank name. Just call them normal levels. All of the existing vr14 gear remains and ZOS can spend more time on more important things.

UrQuan

Kilandros wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

VR further demonstrated the developers lack of creativity when it dropped, for example, an AD player in the EP zone as an EP player forced to complete all of the quests like a normal EP player. Immersion wise the system was laughable and regrettable.

To be fair to ZOS, this decision was made as a direct result of players complaining pre-launch that they didn't want to miss out on all of the EP content just because they chose AD, and such.

Having said that, I think this complaint was made by people who thought that once you picked your alliance you couldn't have alts in the other alliances, and it wasn't really a good idea for ZOS to listen to the people making the complaint (just like I don't think it was a good idea for them to listen to the people who complained pre-launch about having to start on the starter islands).

It was absolutely a response to that. But it was *** poor implementation is my point. So that's why no one is said to see a broken system go.

I don'd disagree with that. Once they made the decision to listen to the people who wanted all of the quests from all of the factions, though, they weren't left with a lot of possibilities for how to implement it. The decision itself was a bad one, based on listening to people who didn't have a full understanding of the mechanics of how the game would be launched.

The way I would have preferred it to be implemented is more along the lines of what @OrangeTheCat describes above, and I would have been fine with it taking them some time to design "spy" quests to be done in the different enemy territories.

LonePirate

Rosveen wrote: »

When you're dragging your third character through veteran ranks, you will understand.

That is such a ridiculous and lazy reason, though. Why change something that is not broken?

Instead of advocating for the removal of veteran ranks, why not ask for an option that grants a player the ability to create VR14 or VR10 characters as soon as they reach VR14 or complete Cadwell's Gold? The PTS templates already do this and they could easily be implemented on the live server.

AlnilamE

Personally, I like being able to experience the content of the other alliances as a vet level character. I know I don't *have* to do it, so I do it when I feel like it.

Kilandros

UrQuan wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

VR further demonstrated the developers lack of creativity when it dropped, for example, an AD player in the EP zone as an EP player forced to complete all of the quests like a normal EP player. Immersion wise the system was laughable and regrettable.

To be fair to ZOS, this decision was made as a direct result of players complaining pre-launch that they didn't want to miss out on all of the EP content just because they chose AD, and such.

Having said that, I think this complaint was made by people who thought that once you picked your alliance you couldn't have alts in the other alliances, and it wasn't really a good idea for ZOS to listen to the people making the complaint (just like I don't think it was a good idea for them to listen to the people who complained pre-launch about having to start on the starter islands).

It was absolutely a response to that. But it was *** poor implementation is my point. So that's why no one is said to see a broken system go.

I don'd disagree with that. Once they made the decision to listen to the people who wanted all of the quests from all of the factions, though, they weren't left with a lot of possibilities for how to implement it. The decision itself was a bad one, based on listening to people who didn't have a full understanding of the mechanics of how the game would be launched.

The way I would have preferred it to be implemented is more along the lines of what @OrangeTheCat describes above, and I would have been fine with it taking them some time to design "spy" quests to be done in the different enemy territories.

Yeah, OrangeTheCat had a great idea. Sadly, some games are plagued by Developers who don't listen at all, others by Developers who listen too much. The system was directly caused by the Developers panicking after unhappy Beta testers demanded a quick and ill-conceived solution. The Devs should have waited and given us a better system to experience the other factions (like, wouldn't experiencing the other factions go absolutely hand-in-hand with the Justice System?? Come on, that's basically built to be awesome--you show up in the other faction and the guards are already on edge when you're around. One slip up and that's it. Anyway, I digress). But they didn't wait, and we got a terrible system. I'm just happy to see part of that system (VR) die.

Divinius

I really like the idea that you can run the other two alliances' quests with one character. I like that this is an option, and wouldn't want to see it removed.

That said, the major flaw with the implementation is that they made the questing in these other zones essentially forced on any player that wanted to gain VR levels.

By removing the VR levels, and putting everyone at level 50, all the current endgame content will be available at level 50, and the people that have no interest in running through Cadwell's Silver and Gold can easily avoid it.

LonePirate

Divinius wrote: »

By removing the VR levels, and putting everyone at level 50, all the current endgame content will be available at level 50, and the people that have no interest in running through Cadwell's Silver and Gold can easily avoid it.

Removing the veteran ranks because you want to run trials or be max level in PVP immediately after defeating Molag Ball is a separate issue from being bored by levelling a third character through VR zone questing.

Both issues are similar in that they are being pushed by people who are too lazy to push towards the current max level and want everything handed to them immediately.

AlnilamE

Divinius wrote: »

I really like the idea that you can run the other two alliances' quests with one character. I like that this is an option, and wouldn't want to see it removed.

That said, the major flaw with the implementation is that they made the questing in these other zones essentially forced on any player that wanted to gain VR levels.

By removing the VR levels, and putting everyone at level 50, all the current endgame content will be available at level 50, and the people that have no interest in running through Cadwell's Silver and Gold can easily avoid it.

I never felt I was forced to go to Caldwell's silver to level. I ran through Glenumbra, then more or less focused on the main quest line only in order to join my friends who were doing activities in the Gold zones (Public dungeons and world bosses mostly).

Most of my levelling through the VR was done by either running around with my guild and/or doing the Craglorn quests/delves or doing the PvE in Cyrodiil. I still have to finish all the non-main quests in Alik'r and Bangkorai, and I have not touched AD other than do a run of the dolmens to get the achievement.

I'll get to those quests eventually. Right now, my alt just beat Molag Bal, so she gets to run around Craglorn.

Now mind you, I wasn't in a hurry to get to V14. I was just doing stuff that I enjoyed. Including fishing, which gives you no XP.

TheShadowScout

Personally I won't be sad to see the veteran ranks go.

Not quite sure how it will work out in practice, of course... time will tell.

But in general, I just love the idea of a "shared pool - individual distribution" advancement system. And of course, they can always up the level cap again when they feel the need to, in addition to the champion system...

But as I understand it, the champion system will allow people more freedom post 50. They can do all the silver/gold on all their alts. Or just do it on their main, and let the others do something else, since every mob will be level 50, they won't just hit a wall of difficulty if they choose not to go for cadwells silver but instead hop into Cyrodil for lots of PvP, or run through craglorn with their friends...

Maximis_ESO

Remove it, worst thing ever. Champ system with tiered gear is the way to go. Only expand levels with expansion.

UrQuan

Kilandros wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

VR further demonstrated the developers lack of creativity when it dropped, for example, an AD player in the EP zone as an EP player forced to complete all of the quests like a normal EP player. Immersion wise the system was laughable and regrettable.

To be fair to ZOS, this decision was made as a direct result of players complaining pre-launch that they didn't want to miss out on all of the EP content just because they chose AD, and such.

Having said that, I think this complaint was made by people who thought that once you picked your alliance you couldn't have alts in the other alliances, and it wasn't really a good idea for ZOS to listen to the people making the complaint (just like I don't think it was a good idea for them to listen to the people who complained pre-launch about having to start on the starter islands).

It was absolutely a response to that. But it was *** poor implementation is my point. So that's why no one is said to see a broken system go.

I don'd disagree with that. Once they made the decision to listen to the people who wanted all of the quests from all of the factions, though, they weren't left with a lot of possibilities for how to implement it. The decision itself was a bad one, based on listening to people who didn't have a full understanding of the mechanics of how the game would be launched.

The way I would have preferred it to be implemented is more along the lines of what @OrangeTheCat describes above, and I would have been fine with it taking them some time to design "spy" quests to be done in the different enemy territories.

Yeah, OrangeTheCat had a great idea. Sadly, some games are plagued by Developers who don't listen at all, others by Developers who listen too much. The system was directly caused by the Developers panicking after unhappy Beta testers demanded a quick and ill-conceived solution. The Devs should have waited and given us a better system to experience the other factions (like, wouldn't experiencing the other factions go absolutely hand-in-hand with the Justice System?? Come on, that's basically built to be awesome--you show up in the other faction and the guards are already on edge when you're around. One slip up and that's it. Anyway, I digress). But they didn't wait, and we got a terrible system. I'm just happy to see part of that system (VR) die.

Agreed on all points.

Now having said that, despite the fact that I have alts in all factions doing all of the quests for their own factions, I'm still enjoying doing the Cadwell's quests on my VR characters, and when VR goes away I'll continue to do those quests. It would be better if it was done differently with a setup where you're a spy/infiltrator with your own quests for your own faction, though.

TheBull

Because 1,000,000 per level is just stupid.

Mettaricana

Rosveen wrote: »

When you're dragging your third character through veteran ranks, you will understand.

third try dragging just a first you'll understand why... lol

Arato

the VR system was so lazily done that my friends lost interest in the game right after hitting VR1. They realized their other faction alts were now useless and just stopped playing and unsubbed.

LonePirate

TheBull wrote: »

Because 1,000,000 per level is just stupid.

Then ask for the XP requirement to be reduced to 250,000 or something along those lines? Moving to 0 is an extreme and radical solution to a game feature that is currently working .

k9mouse

I like the fact I can play with content with one char. To me, it makes feel more like an TES game that way. I would like to keep that aspect of the game -- silver and gold. I have played the faction stories many times already and my view have not changed yet.

TheShadowScout

I too enjoy the silver/gold feature to have one character see it all.
...although I kinda wish I had been aware of it back when I made my characters, I might have done a few things differently... eh, happy enough as it it, for the most part.

And that content will remain, its just that from soon on, you will not get veteran ranks for each character, but collect champoin points for all, no matter what you do... playing through silver&gold with yet another alt will just get you a heap of ChP. So will PvP. So will Craglorn. So will... whatever else you may want to do.

I am rather likely to play all my alts through all or it again, in time. Others may choose different. Each as they wish.

jpatek0501ub17_ESO

I like the VR levels and silver/gold quests, could be a little better yes. The time and effort it takes from 1-vr14 is a good progression base. 1-50 is stupid easy. Adding some variety to get there wouldnt make it so harsh to some or forced to long quest line.

From what Im seeing I can park my vr14 get my 7 alts vr1 then soon as 1.6 hits start CP farming then 1.7 hits, I have 8 level 50's with "xxxx cp".

Mobs are easy nuff, lets kill all leveling and start with 200 skill pts/ 200CP with only one OP class/race/faction to choose from. Bleh screw skill pts all skills maxed with a free morph. Feeding horse takes soooo long nerf it! I shouldn't have to do stuff to get stuff that takes too much time and im almost out.

Cody

Because vet ranks are a long boring grind that makes it impossible to do end game content if you are not VR10+

gunplummer

Originally when they talked about the 50, +, ++ levels i figured we would be able to keep gaining levels, attributes and skill points until i hit vr and saw the bazillion points between vr levels. Then after leveling my 1st character to vr14 they decide to reduce the xp between levels. Nice! Thanks for nothing.

I was also pretty excited when i saw the achievement for finishing 1500 quests until i realized it was just 500 quests done 3x's. Again Nice, oh and thanks for nothing!

So you will have to excuse me if i don't hold my breath until 1.6 actually hits the live server before i do anything other then play alts, research, and check mail.

As far as getting rid of vr levels i spent a lot of time and effort on my 1st vr14 so 70cp doesn't seem like a nice consolation prize, but i do like the idea of more passives if and i do mean if they actually make my character stronger.

It really is mind-boggling how character development and progression just feels so whimsical by ZoS. They did such a great job on the visuals, but the characters feel like they were added at T-minus 30 minutes to launch. "Oh snip we forgot to add the fricking characters" "Meh, we'll worry about it later they probably won't notice with the amazing backgrounds anyway" "Just give them all a mudcrab"

Sorry, it's just is really hard to see where this is all going.