Make Alliance rank and Horse level account wide!

dodgehopper_ESO

People talk about time sinks as an excuse for why it is good to have horse training the way it is in game. I'm not sure about others, but changing between characters is neither a fun time sink nor a very well operating one. It is my view that a game should at its very core be fun. Time sinks are part of the game, and therefore should be made with fun in mind. The Champion System is just such a system, meant to continue to progress your account as you play the game. This is a good manner of time sink. The problem is that the process of logging off and logging in a new character is buggy. Approximately one third of the time I have to force quit the game because I am placed in an eternal load screen, and this is a problem I've dealt with on ESO since Beta Access: It is nothing new. I wish I could just pay all my horse feedings in advance to the npc squire that keeps my horses well groomed and shoed, because I don't want to have to do that. All of that being said though I've managed to wade my way through most of the horse leveling at this point, but lets be clear this is an awful time sink, and doesn't meet the fun test at all. The playing of a game in and of itself is a waste of time, at least make playing the game fun when you are wasting your time. If I had my way I'd like to be able to front load the feeding of my horse and let it slowly improve over time if that's how they do it. Stepping back from this, I do have to say that the final result of a fully leveled horse is nice and noticeable.

In short, I think as a general rule games should like at time sinks ALWAYS with fun in mind. If it wastes my time, but its not very fun then the developers of any game should probably go back to the drawing board (at least if they want to retain players and continue making money).

Jitterbug

Victus wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

Victus wrote: »

I firmly disagree with the riding skill being account wide. It should be based per character. Gives another gold and time sink, as they have to earn it like the rest of the characters.

A 60 day time sink per individual stat... You call that "earning" something?

It's called "Riding Skill". Skill takes time.

Before that it was called "Horse Food" - does food also take time?

Victus

Jitterbug wrote: »

Victus wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

Victus wrote: »

I firmly disagree with the riding skill being account wide. It should be based per character. Gives another gold and time sink, as they have to earn it like the rest of the characters.

A 60 day time sink per individual stat... You call that "earning" something?

It's called "Riding Skill". Skill takes time.

Before that it was called "Horse Food" - does food also take time?

*eyeroll*

I am not trying to convince anyone that my way of thinking is "correct". I am just super okay with the system as it is.

Heruthema

This comes with the 'instant gratification' mentality today. NO to BOTH options.

nastuug

Victus wrote: »

Jitterbug wrote: »

Victus wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

Victus wrote: »

I firmly disagree with the riding skill being account wide. It should be based per character. Gives another gold and time sink, as they have to earn it like the rest of the characters.

A 60 day time sink per individual stat... You call that "earning" something?

It's called "Riding Skill". Skill takes time.

Before that it was called "Horse Food" - does food also take time?

*eyeroll*

I am not trying to convince anyone that my way of thinking is "correct". I am just super okay with the system as it is.

And as many of us have experience with other successful games, we can confirm that the masses are not OK with something that feels tedious. The more it feels like work, the more it will shy away new players. May God help the console players, heh.

Varicite

Victus wrote: »

I firmly disagree with the riding skill being account wide. It should be based per character. Gives another gold and time sink, as they have to earn it like the rest of the characters.

It actually takes them 50 days longer to earn it than the rest of us did now.

Jitterbug

Victus wrote: »

Jitterbug wrote: »

Victus wrote: »

nastuug wrote: »

Victus wrote: »

I firmly disagree with the riding skill being account wide. It should be based per character. Gives another gold and time sink, as they have to earn it like the rest of the characters.

A 60 day time sink per individual stat... You call that "earning" something?

It's called "Riding Skill". Skill takes time.

Before that it was called "Horse Food" - does food also take time?

*eyeroll*

I am not trying to convince anyone that my way of thinking is "correct". I am just super okay with the system as it is.

me too, just thought your argument was really weird

Natjur

Horse rank... I prefer the current way, or we would see L1 alts going insane speeds.
So, I think the current system is fine, but maybe a way to jump start your alts. (like a crown store +10 to a skill food)

Alliance rank is also linked to skill points. So if you have a Rank 50 toon, all you new level 1 alts would start with 49 skills points..... Not sure if that is a good thing.

Varicite

Natjur wrote: »

Horse rank... I prefer the current way, or we would see L1 alts going insane speeds.
So, I think the current system is fine, but maybe a way to jump start your alts. (like a crown store +10 to a skill food)

How about we pay 20k gold for a +50 in one horse stat?

PS) In what way does it hurt anything for lv3 (there are no lv1 alts in this game) players to ride around on a fast horse?

Folkb

Agree with OP

azoriangaming

Horse's no,

I'm not sure about rank i'm torn because my mind is saying no because it's a new toon and unrelated to the character that you've earned the other rank on but my heart as a player of multiple toons is telling me yes i don't want to grind for ages to get that rank to 10 in the skill tree again over and over again.

TheShadowScout

I don't think either of those ought to be account wide.

Riding skill? Why should the lowbie nord I have be an expert rider just because my main dunmer spent a lot of time and gold on training her riding? I am sure I have some ancestory who learned how to ride somewhen in the middle ages, does that mean I can ride? Nope, strangely it doesn't. So why should one character benefit from some skill another character has???

Alliance rank? Why should my lowbie altmer healer get a rank my main dunmer spent time earning? Do any military give out general ranks to the generals cousin? You want a alliance rank, earn it.

Most games I played have -nothing- account wide (except cash store purchases), ESO gives people two benefits of the gaming sort (champoin system and dyes) and suddenly the "gimme" crowd cried for more, More MORE!

...
...that stated...

It -would- be great if the "one skill raise per day" restriction vanished from the riding skill. It had a certain sense when there were 50 days to put into it, but at 180 days... not so much. Especially not over 8 characters. either remove it completely, and let peoples riding abilities be limited only by how much they can spend, or up the limit - three or four per day would be more viable. Even if they raised the price... how about, 250 for the first point per day, 500 for the secoind, 1000 for the third, etc.? Now that could be a viable gold sink...

As for AP... they sometimes -are- a bit hard to earn, especially for those starting their PvPing, since they often find themselves unable to have much success at it - ever tried to go up against a professional PvP-fanatic with a underequipped newcomer? Sometimes you get lucky, but more often you get to respawn. And the AP gains for respawning after some hardcore PKer pwned you are... ah, well... guess you should have killed or captured something to gain your AP...
That situation vexes me somewhat, I am a mediocre PvPer, and usually have to expect cyrodil to be somewhat painful for me, which goes double for any alt I haven't yet PvPed on. And the task of earning up alliance ranks... is quite daunting under such circumstances. It gets better when you have a good guild to tag along with, to have them carry you through all the stuff needed to gain your AP, but... that often means lots of time until such groups get together.
So, I am not saying I want account-wide alliance points/rank... but some changes to make earning alliance rank/points less difficult for those not experts in PvP would be welcome. (I for one would love it if the AP gained for player kills would be divided in an "two thirds for ther killer, one third for the killed" way, so people could earn for effort, and not just for success... same for keep defense, two thiords for the ones who succeed in capture or defense, one third for those who fought and failed... so everyone gains as long as they make some effort...)

Varicite

Well, 6 months minimum per character to max out a horse is a good reason to make it account-wide, imo.

Better hope you're training all 8 of those slots at the same time and not one after the other. That's a 4 year stretch just to train horses.

Probably closer to 2 years for most players, though.

I guess it's great for those who only have 1 character that they play.

Moonshadow66

I wish named Dolmen bosses would be accountwide; I killed so many different ones, but also with different characters. Combined, I might get the achievement someday, too (maybe I would have it already, I'm not sure if I killed ALL of them already).

Moonshadow66

Varicite wrote: »

Well, 6 months minimum per character to max out a horse is a good reason to make it account-wide, imo.

Better hope you're training all 8 of those slots at the same time and not one after the other. That's a 4 year stretch just to train horses.

Probably closer to 2 years for most players, though.

I guess it's great for those who only have 1 character that they play.

Yeah, it's definitely a good idea to do the horse training simultaneously with 8 characters. They don't have to be played right away, just create the characters (if someone doesn't have all 8 yet) and do the training. Saves a lot of time.
But always make sure to choose names for your characters which you want to keep, renaming doesn't work, usually
At least as long it's not accountwide; would be cool if it was.

Tors

In any game I have played where they started to give away exp, reducing the leveling curvem the game has died soon after.

The kids ask for it, they *** and moan, they get it, they get board and leave.

Most of you have no idea why you play these games, the main reason behind you logging in after the first time is that you want you character to get better.

Once he is at top level the games done. Your addiction pales, you go off to a new game or even go outside and see friends you havnt seen in ages.

You want to kill ESO, keep bitching for stuff like this.

golfer.dub17_ESO

Tors wrote: »

In any game I have played where they started to give away exp, reducing the leveling curvem the game has died soon after.

The kids ask for it, they *** and moan, they get it, they get board and leave.

Most of you have no idea why you play these games, the main reason behind you logging in after the first time is that you want you character to get better.

Once he is at top level the games done. Your addiction pales, you go off to a new game or even go outside and see friends you havnt seen in ages

Horse leveling is akin to crop watering or whatever you'd see in a game like Farmville. You log in, pay the fee, then log out and go back to whatever you were doing outside the game. It's not something that keeps people addicted to the game or encourages them to keep playing, it's just something that encourages them to log in once per day for a few minutes.

As much as I hate alliance rank, at least it's an actual goal that you can work towards. Unlike horse leveling, it's something that actually encourages you to play.

C3N50R3D

+1 for alliance rank for alts of the same alliance when the alt reaches vet 1 or even vet 14. Not worth leveling the alt to get those higher level alliance skills under the current system.

Tavore1138

Can I propose a seperate forum where all these whiny threads about ways to avoid actually playing the game can be moved so as to stop cluttering up the rest of the forums?

Can I further suggest that our ever vigilant mods are as quick to close repeat ones like this as they are to close bug report threads?

In case I am not clear... NO, please realise that the game is here to be played and enjoyed not to fast forward to the end and the start moaning about lack of endgame.

newtinmpls

Nope, cause not all of my characters want X kind of horse (skills).

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

please realise that the game is here to be played and enjoyed not to fast forward to the end and the start moaning about lack of endgame.

I second that!

Varicite

newtinmpls wrote: »

Nope, cause not all of my characters want X kind of horse (skills).

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

please realise that the game is here to be played and enjoyed not to fast forward to the end and the start moaning about lack of endgame.

I second that!

There is no X kind of horse anymore. There is just a horse that is maxed out and a horse that is not maxed out.

And it also takes almost 2 months longer to level them than it did in the past. That means it takes exactly 6 months to level a horse from start to max. Per character.

There is absolutely nothing about having a fast horse that is going to make someone start moaning about the lack of endgame.

In what world are you using your horse to beat the fastest Trials times? I have never once heard a single Emperor cite their horse as the reason they were able to wear the crown.

What kind of nonsense is this? <.<

lihentian

agree

newtinmpls

Varicite wrote: »

There is no X kind of horse anymore. There is just a horse that is maxed out and a horse that is not maxed out.

Well, other than you are completely wrong and it's riding lessons (so "characters" and not horses that get "maxed out") I do agree that it's not a good change.

But in my case it's because now I need to buy other "skins" ('cause only one nickname per visual type of horse). And there need to be more of them. Then I explore the different speeds and stuff on different characters.

As for how long it takes - I'm used to those who only enjoy the very end of endgame worrying about that. Bah. I'm here to relax and have fun and my character have different ideas about what to do "first".

Varicite

newtinmpls wrote: »

Varicite wrote: »

There is no X kind of horse anymore. There is just a horse that is maxed out and a horse that is not maxed out.

Well, other than you are completely wrong and it's riding lessons (so "characters" and not horses that get "maxed out") I do agree that it's not a good change.

It was called "Horse Food" before 1.6.

And their respective stats came directly from what you fed them (Apples, Oats, Barley). Every character had the same amount of skill at riding, it was only the horse itself that got stronger.

Forgive me if the past few months has not yet entirely wiped out the image of horses from the past year in my mind.

NewBlacksmurf

I can support account wide horse skills if they consider it horse training and not rider training.
We are all sharing horses so maybe charge a flat cost per character to ride but the mounts should've stayed separated as far as skill but open for use of all characters.

Naivefanboi

think its fine the way it is.

phairdon

Even though I'm not a pvp player in this game, I think account wide alliance rank is good idea. Gw2 eventually introduced account wide ranks in world vs world, it was a blessing not needing to go through all the ranks over & over for all alts. If the ranking system is anything like gw2, where the further you climb up the tree the longer it takes to gain a new rank, gotta be a worthwhile change.

Tavore1138

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

I can support account wide horse skills if they consider it horse training and not rider training.
We are all sharing horses so maybe charge a flat cost per character to ride but the mounts should've stayed separated as far as skill but open for use of all characters.

Can you even begin to imagine the whining if we had to train mounts up the old way now that an account can have all the senches, guars and horses it wants and, no doubt, many more to come as they release into the crown store?

"I spent 3k crowns on this panther senche and I still have to spend months training it up waaaahhh"

Some people will always expect to log into the game and be presented with an 'I won' badge, ZOS should continue to resist them.

Varicite

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

I can support account wide horse skills if they consider it horse training and not rider training.
We are all sharing horses so maybe charge a flat cost per character to ride but the mounts should've stayed separated as far as skill but open for use of all characters.

Can you even begin to imagine the whining if we had to train mounts up the old way now that an account can have all the senches, guars and horses it wants and, no doubt, many more to come as they release into the crown store?

"I spent 3k crowns on this panther senche and I still have to spend months training it up waaaahhh"

Some people will always expect to log into the game and be presented with an 'I won' badge, ZOS should continue to resist them.

It's not.. winning.

You do the work already. You spend 6 months training a mount to max it out, on every single character.

It's not like anybody is asking to just have the training done for free.

Hmm, come to think of it, why is THAT not in the Crown store?

VincentBlanquin

wll, i vote for compromise, that new character should take part of mains exp gained (aliance rank)