I Passionately HATE the Experience Design of ESO

Brizz

I love this game. So much so that I've made a ton of different characters. I have no desire to do all the quests again so I decide (Like TONS of others) that I'm just going to grind my way up. I am aware that having a group of two in a group raises your experience a bit, but the multitude of players outside of the group still makes this a hair pulling issue.

Why does the experience have to be so completely destroyed by other players? If they do just a little damage to the mobs you are grinding they cut your exp by 1/4. If they do more damage, then you get less then half. THIS MAKES ME RESENT AND HATE ANY OTHER PLAYER THAT IS NEAR ME. And I'm POSITIVE that they hate me even more, especially judging by the whispers.

Not only does this deteriorate the leveling experience, but it rewards bad manners and AoE Leechers, and now with free to play THEY ARE EVERYWHERE; EVERY GOOD GRIND SPOT

Don't you want a socially healthy game? Aren't you aware that the veteran grind is the worst part of ESO? WHY MAKE IT WORSE? Why not give full experience if you do at least 1/4 of the mobs health in damage? REWARD players for working together.

The biggest argument against this is that players will take advantage of it and level too fast. What is the problem with that? Players will have a good time leveling characters quickly (through the horrible VR grind) and maybe even make new friends along the way. Sounds HORRIBLE...

drschplatt

There have been several times when I was doing landscape mob grinding and another player showed up in the same area. We happily grouped together and then had a grand old time chatting while we ground exp. We played the way we wanted to play in a way that was fun. Then, a third person showed up and even though it's a bit of an exp hit, we grouped with that person too and continued to chat, shoot the breeze and grind. Then a fourth or fifth showed up and sadly it just ruined the whole idea because it was no longer worth anyone's time to grind with such a large group. So, our fun, social gaming process broke up and we went our separate ways. It's a shame i a MMO that something like this has to happen.

Daenerys

I really wish we could easily group up, like in Rift for example. You can just hit 'join public group' and poof! happily kill things together. I wonder how many of the so called leechers are just used to other MMOs that allow, no encourage grouping and don't even realize they are leeching

Brizz

Is there an official take on this?

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

It seems that Zenimax is completely Anti-Grind based upon all the nerfs to popular spots.

kijima

One can only hope that ZOS have read all the threads about life after 1-50 leveling and how batcrap boring it is. Here's hoping that the DLC that comes out with being an ESO+ member has some shiny new grind areas.

To me, it's clear that people want to level up alts. To do this, many have accepted that you have to grind to do this. The alternatives are ugly too, I for one don't believe on free auto VR14 toons, or to pay for them in the crown store. And as the storyline once completed ins't something you want to revisit again, then grind we must.

Yet ZOS are killing off grinding areas... Whoever's idea it is at Zenimax for this to happen, well you need to listen to your player base.

The way I see it, if ZOS keep on killing off grinding areas then they 100% wont have a problem, infact they wont have any problems as they wont have a player base to cause problems.

The only good I can see coming out of this situation we are in right now is introducing areas in the DLC to ESO+ members that can be grinded. (even then Brizz is right about XP leechers which would continue)

For me, I'd like to see craglorn re-instated to it's original grindyness. Such a beautiful place, and it must have taken quite a while to build, I feel sorry for the guys that put craglorn together only to see it abandoned... it's empty as there is no reason what-so-ever to go there.

MercyKilling

drschplatt wrote: »

There have been several times when I was doing landscape mob grinding and another player showed up in the same area. We happily grouped together and then had a grand old time chatting while we ground exp. We played the way we wanted to play in a way that was fun. Then, a third person showed up and even though it's a bit of an exp hit, we grouped with that person too and continued to chat, shoot the breeze and grind. Then a fourth or fifth showed up and sadly it just ruined the whole idea because it was no longer worth anyone's time to grind with such a large group. So, our fun, social gaming process broke up and we went our separate ways. It's a shame i a MMO that something like this has to happen.

I remember my first MMO. Max team size was 8. I still have fond memories of broadcasting "Lvl 25 NRG/KIN corruptor LFT" and having people actually FIGHT over who got me on their team, despite the fact that I did a LOT of knockback.
I remember that game had a bonus to XP proportionate to the size of the team you were on upon mission completion. And, as I recall...that game also had a bonus to XP earned while inside an actual mission instead of "street sweeping".

Some(well okay...MOST) of the design decisions the developers made in this game mystify me to this day...when far better systems were in place almost a decade ago...and those systems are still better than what we have in this game.

leshpar

Daenerys wrote: »

I really wish we could easily group up, like in Rift for example. You can just hit 'join public group' and poof! happily kill things together. I wonder how many of the so called leechers are just used to other MMOs that allow, no encourage grouping and don't even realize they are leeching

I am against anything that removes any part of the social aspect of this MMO. I've played MMOs that have convenience features like what you describe (and a lot more) and it completely removes the human element.

You should have to talk to someone to group with them. Its already really easy, just hit "invite to group" not hard.

Brizz

leshpar wrote: »

Daenerys wrote: »

I really wish we could easily group up, like in Rift for example. You can just hit 'join public group' and poof! happily kill things together. I wonder how many of the so called leechers are just used to other MMOs that allow, no encourage grouping and don't even realize they are leeching

I am against anything that removes any part of the social aspect of this MMO. I've played MMOs that have convenience features like what you describe (and a lot more) and it completely removes the human element.

You should have to talk to someone to group with them. Its already really easy, just hit "invite to group" not hard.

So you would rather have a "human element" of resentment and hate then be able to level quickly? Completely disagree. If a player was killing things with another player for a while, they would end up socializing in one way or another unless they were extremely introvert, which is their decision.

And even if they chose to not socialize, I would rather have a neutral interaction then a horribly negative one.

Audigy

Brizz wrote: »

I love this game. So much so that I've made a ton of different characters. I have no desire to do all the quests again so I decide (Like TONS of others) that I'm just going to grind my way up. I am aware that having a group of two in a group raises your experience a bit, but the multitude of players outside of the group still makes this a hair pulling issue.

Why does the experience have to be so completely destroyed by other players? If they do just a little damage to the mobs you are grinding they cut your exp by 1/4. If they do more damage, then you get less then half. THIS MAKES ME RESENT AND HATE ANY OTHER PLAYER THAT IS NEAR ME. And I'm POSITIVE that they hate me even more, especially judging by the whispers.

Not only does this deteriorate the leveling experience, but it rewards bad manners and AoE Leechers, and now with free to play THEY ARE EVERYWHERE; EVERY GOOD GRIND SPOT

Don't you want a socially healthy game? Aren't you aware that the veteran grind is the worst part of ESO? WHY MAKE IT WORSE? Why not give full experience if you do at least 1/4 of the mobs health in damage? REWARD players for working together.

The biggest argument against this is that players will take advantage of it and level too fast. What is the problem with that? Players will have a good time leveling characters quickly (through the horrible VR grind) and maybe even make new friends along the way. Sounds HORRIBLE...

So a socially healthy game for you is a game where only the person who tags a mob gets credit for it? Oh boy, you sure never played WOW, else you wouldn't think like that.
The ESO system is awesome as it allows people to play together at all times. The tag system that you want destroys that feeling and causes a lot of hate and anger.

Nobody likes to wait for a mob to spawn and then being stolen by another player who just had a better tag mechanism for their class.

firstdecan

"Grinding" has been a topic of discussion since release. I think the first player to reach max level got there within 2 or 3 days of pre-release, even before the regular release of the game (don't quote me on that, and please correct me if I'm mistaken).

Regardless of how long it took, for a very long time it was pretty easy to grind your way to max level. Many, MANY players took advantage of this, and there were complaints in the forums by a subset of the user population who shouldn't care, but were vocal anyway. ZoS caved in to the chatter, and nerfed any grind spot they could. Some were exploits that were ruining other player's experience, but there were some that took place in instanced dungeons, and as such were not affecting anyone else. ZoS basically caved to the people who thought that playing their quest lines over and over was the only way the game should be played, and that what little end game content exists should only be accessible after putting months into the game playing content you may not enjoy.

Given the direction ZoS has taken, it's no surprise that they make grinding in general, and grinding in groups, difficult and unenjoyable. Most of the grouping in this game is unenjoyable, there's only content for single players, groups of four, and groups of 12. There's nothing in between for different sized groups which may correspond to groups of friends that just want to play together. Outside of the roller coaster group content, grouping is actively discouraged by the XP penalties you mentioned.

ZoS is really moving away from making a fun game. They only want you 'riding the rollercoaster' which means most of what will be rewarding for your character is playing the single player quest lines over and over. They're interesting enough the first time, but after several iterations of running places and pressing 'e' it's a little boring. It's really just crappy game design which only appeals to people who are extremely obsessive and borderline mentally ill. I can only tolerate this game for two or three hours a week now, it's gotten so repetitive, boring, anti-social and unrewarding that the only reason I still play is because it's free.

stojekarcub18_ESO

I recently returned to this game. I made a new character and got flat-lined pretty quick trying to grind through the quests again. I found the non-vet PVP campaign to be a pleasant fix for this. Everyone is fairly balanced(I thought), and the levels fly by. When I was in the mood to go back and do some questing, I always found myself outleveling the mobs to the point that I got no xp other than completing quests and such. I'm not a big fan of pvp, but I did enjoy the non-vet. Once you do hit vet, though, it's right back to the old standard. I'm experimenting with different things to see if I can lvl at a decent rate through vet now. We'll see what happens.

Brizz

Audigy wrote: »

Brizz wrote: »

I love this game. So much so that I've made a ton of different characters. I have no desire to do all the quests again so I decide (Like TONS of others) that I'm just going to grind my way up. I am aware that having a group of two in a group raises your experience a bit, but the multitude of players outside of the group still makes this a hair pulling issue.

Why does the experience have to be so completely destroyed by other players? If they do just a little damage to the mobs you are grinding they cut your exp by 1/4. If they do more damage, then you get less then half. THIS MAKES ME RESENT AND HATE ANY OTHER PLAYER THAT IS NEAR ME. And I'm POSITIVE that they hate me even more, especially judging by the whispers.

Not only does this deteriorate the leveling experience, but it rewards bad manners and AoE Leechers, and now with free to play THEY ARE EVERYWHERE; EVERY GOOD GRIND SPOT

Don't you want a socially healthy game? Aren't you aware that the veteran grind is the worst part of ESO? WHY MAKE IT WORSE? Why not give full experience if you do at least 1/4 of the mobs health in damage? REWARD players for working together.

The biggest argument against this is that players will take advantage of it and level too fast. What is the problem with that? Players will have a good time leveling characters quickly (through the horrible VR grind) and maybe even make new friends along the way. Sounds HORRIBLE...

So a socially healthy game for you is a game where only the person who tags a mob gets credit for it? Oh boy, you sure never played WOW, else you wouldn't think like that.
The ESO system is awesome as it allows people to play together at all times. The tag system that you want destroys that feeling and causes a lot of hate and anger.

Nobody likes to wait for a mob to spawn and then being stolen by another player who just had a better tag mechanism for their class.

I don't want a tag system... read the post before you flame it. I'm suggesting that a player should get full experience if they do at least 1/4 of the mobs health in damage. It's more forgiving. ZOS could take it a step further and allow for a bit MORE experience when the mob is teamed up against... that would be amazing.

TomasZee

I would go even further and say much of the game is designed in such a way as to make people hate other players. For example the fact that loot from chests and resource nodes can only be taken by one person. This makes me actively avoid places with more people or cooperating with them as then I have to freaking fight over every resource node and chest. In dungeons you have people running ahead and not helping others just to check whether there is no chest they can get. This design is so stupid I have no words. It is definitely anti social and makes people aviod others and makes me hate the sight of another player in my vicinity.

Faulgor

It's really strange, because before release, they said what made ESO special is that everyone gets the full reward for killing mobs - exactly because they want to encourage social interaction.

Why did this not work out?

zeitzbachrwb17_ESO

Openworld grind has always been like that in every MMO. We resent any that is not beneficial to our grind.

One thing ESO did really great about it though is making Anchro spawn scale with that so with a good team, anchor grind exp is really good.

But outside that, the whole point of partying in MMO has always been for something too hard to do alone (like in Ragnarok) or just raid/dungeon in general.

Flameheart

I would lie, if I would call the VR experience system great at moment, but I understand the developer argument behind that.

Spent time in a MMO is 1) cash and 2) time for additional developement and bugfixing and on another side they are quite proud (correctly I may add) on their quests and storyline.

On the other side the power increase of your character from VR1 to VR14 is pretty huge, so you should invest some time for that. It shouldn't be a short time job to get a char from VR1 to VR 14.

If there are alternate, more motivating methods to implement a VR1 to VR14 lvl increase, no idea. Abolishing the VR system won't change that much, call it VR14 or lvl 64 or anything else, in truth it will stay the same.

I am just leveling my second twink (lvl 49 at moment). At moment I enjoy it to do the same story and quests again. I even do it for the same faction/alliance as I did it with my my first toon. I feel not bored yet. This might change at VR10 or maybe if doing that for the third or fourth twink (I already have created and brought to lvl 10 in my char menu and log in on a daily base for riding skills and crafting).

...and - mark that in bold - I enjoy it to be able to increase the power of my character mostly WITHOUT any major group content, gear and tier bottlenecks...because this might be the alternative some people here secretly want, when they reject the current system.

If I ever will be exhausted and bored from leveling I will compare that experience by leveling my Paladin in Everquest around 2000. I will get a cup of coffee and think, go on, this is child's play.

Revising the exp gain for people who wanne grind would be my first choice too, but don't touch the entire system. Maybe a VR rank integration into the normal lvl system (1-50 will become 1-65 or similar, would be just a cosmetical change) would benefit. One "special system" (Champion points system) should be enough.

Don't understand me wrong, I want grind spots too, but not just for VR1-VR14 leveling, I want it for leveling morphs and other skills, because after silver and gold, this was it concerning quest exp and I guess, I am not the only one who recognized after silver and gold while leveling the first char, that some morph decisions or even whole skill bar decisions weren't the best ones...

Hlaadriel

I checked using FTC addon which shows the xp gain. I don't really know what this is about. But I do get the same xp per kill whether I am alone or 20 players around grinding the same spot... granted when I grind i aggro and aoe down so, might be that you try to single target all the mob?

BuggeX

drschplatt wrote: »

There have been several times when I was doing landscape mob grinding and another player showed up in the same area. We happily grouped together and then had a grand old time chatting while we ground exp. We played the way we wanted to play in a way that was fun. Then, a third person showed up and even though it's a bit of an exp hit, we grouped with that person too and continued to chat, shoot the breeze and grind. Then a fourth or fifth showed up and sadly it just ruined the whole idea because it was no longer worth anyone's time to grind with such a large group. So, our fun, social gaming process broke up and we went our separate ways. It's a shame i a MMO that something like this has to happen.

Yes and if the EXP revard is based on dmg done, the fourth+ Player doesnt get invitet and it stay the same. This isnt a game isuess, the game revard everyone. ist just the ppl who ruin it. but in both case somebody get a Punch in the face, no matter how you do it.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

leshpar wrote: »

Daenerys wrote: »

I really wish we could easily group up, like in Rift for example. You can just hit 'join public group' and poof! happily kill things together. I wonder how many of the so called leechers are just used to other MMOs that allow, no encourage grouping and don't even realize they are leeching

I am against anything that removes any part of the social aspect of this MMO. I've played MMOs that have convenience features like what you describe (and a lot more) and it completely removes the human element.

You should have to talk to someone to group with them. Its already really easy, just hit "invite to group" not hard.

The Rift system actually promotes socialisation.

You group up with ni problems, no questions about how well geared you are, or if you have the optimum build for your class and get on with the quests / grind.

Because there's none of the gear / build elitism up-front players tend to get on with two things questing and socialising. I kept in touch with around 50% of the players I "joined public group" with, and next time we were in the same area we'd group up for quests or rifts or whatever.

Make it easier to socialise and people will socialise.

All The Best

EQBallzz

I guess you didn't get the memo? They don't want you to grind at all. Period. So why would they give you more XP for tagging a mob? They have nerfed every grind spot in the game so be thankful they haven't implemented even worse mechanics like diminishing XP on mob kills. Sorry but I guess you should get back to questing through Glenumbra on your 4th alt.

NewBlacksmurf

Hmmm I like how exp works in this vs. other MMO games.
You have to cut down the exp if you group more people as it's easier.

I guess they could change the difficulty back to what it was thus slowing down your kills and forcing people to co-op

Careful what you complain about

Faulgor

zeitzbachrwb17_ESO wrote: »

But outside that, the whole point of partying in MMO has always been for something too hard to do alone (like in Ragnarok) or just raid/dungeon in general.

One level 5x Hunter, two Thieves with Stone Fling, and we went to Payon Forest trying to kill Eddga. And we did. And it was awesome. No stupid level difference penalties, no content gates, just finding your own challenges in an open world and bringing friends along if it gets too tough.

I miss something like that in ESO.

In fact, I miss a lot of things from Ragnarok. The question when getting ready to do something was always "can I/we do it?". Will we need a healer? Extra potions? Is our damage enough? Is my shield good enough? How long will we need until we get what we want? Do I have to go somewhere else to farm new equipment before I can take on that new area? ESO is just facerolling through any location no matter your build and never go there again.

Sorrry for rambling.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

You have to cut down the exp if you group more people as it's easier.

That happens automatically as the Mob is worth x XP and that is divided among the group.

All The Best

Enemy-of-Coldharbour

The world is NOT yours (MMOG). Deal with it.

Athas24

firstdecan wrote: »

They only want you 'riding the rollercoaster' which means most of what will be rewarding for your character is playing the single player quest lines over and over. They're interesting enough the first time, but after several iterations of running places and pressing 'e' it's a little boring. It's really just crappy game design which only appeals to people who are extremely obsessive and borderline mentally ill.

Ahh I hate grinding mobs and prefer questing. I think I better check myself in with the local "shrink." I happen to love the design and questing from spot to spot. Doesn't mean I don't think there could/should be opportunities for grind spots that don't interfere with quest-lines for those other borderline mentally ill folks out there (the opposite of those with a similar illness to mine lol)who enjoy the grinding of mobs.

P3ZZL3

..... or an opportunity for it to say "oh, congrats, you've already got 4 v14's - here, fast track to V1 and get 50 Skill points.

Rook_Master

I hear you OP. It's ridiculous that any more than TWO people at a grind spot is a crowd.

Remember the 12-man grind groups in Craglorn? I'd take that any day over this mess we have now, as much as I love getting hate PMs for 'leeching'.

WTB Scorpion, Shadow, Anom, Tower, Burial Grind PST

Yinmaigao

Back to the "leeching" argument...

I leveled as a tank, and didn't realize such a thing existed. I saw a sorc running around, grabbing a group of adds and aoe them down as I was doing a quest in the area, a few minutes later, he died pulling a big group. I rezzed him and got a PM of "thanks". He continued to pull huge groups and this time I "helped him out" by throwing some AoEs on the group to burn them down. I got more xp in that one clump than I got in the last 2 quests I did combined, and thought this was amazing!

A few seconds later, I got another PM from him saying "f**k off, find your own grind spot".

For new players, when you kill something, see xp, and glowy bodies, you think you are doing something good. The mechanics behind this, combined with the painful vet leveling makes me dislike seeing other players anywhere near where I am doing anything.

Davadin

grinding is a hot potato since the term "MMO" is coined. can't make everyone happy.

but here's my idea from long past: if u have 1 max-level character, everytime u create new toon, they will get a token/item/1-time scroll/thingamajicbob that enables them to level 10~20% faster.

2 char max level? your thingamajic becomes a 20~30% faster XP item!
(but if u got 1 max, 1 half-way that gets the 10% item, if u level a 3rd guy to max, then ur 4th gets the 20% item, but ur 2nd guy STILL have 10%. they're stuck with that.)

and so on......

i say that'll make most people happy. tweaked the numbers of course, those r just mechanic examples.

AlnilamE

The thing is, total XP per mob goes up when more players are attacking it, but it is divided, so the number per player starts going down.

I think the problem is not the way XP works, but that the mobs are too easy to kill. If they were hard and having 4 players instead of 3 made it faster to kill them, people would not be complaining about the XP.

I think they really over-nerfed the vet zones way back when.

Brizz

Yinmaigao wrote: »

Back to the "leeching" argument...

I leveled as a tank, and didn't realize such a thing existed. I saw a sorc running around, grabbing a group of adds and aoe them down as I was doing a quest in the area, a few minutes later, he died pulling a big group. I rezzed him and got a PM of "thanks". He continued to pull huge groups and this time I "helped him out" by throwing some AoEs on the group to burn them down. I got more xp in that one clump than I got in the last 2 quests I did combined, and thought this was amazing!

A few seconds later, I got another PM from him saying "f**k off, find your own grind spot".

For new players, when you kill something, see xp, and glowy bodies, you think you are doing something good. The mechanics behind this, combined with the painful vet leveling makes me dislike seeing other players anywhere near where I am doing anything.

THIS THIS THIS. The experience system in ESO should reward both of you for working together to encourage socializing, not discourage it.

EQBallzz wrote: »

I guess you didn't get the memo? They don't want you to grind at all. Period. So why would they give you more XP for tagging a mob? They have nerfed every grind spot in the game so be thankful they haven't implemented even worse mechanics like diminishing XP on mob kills. Sorry but I guess you should get back to questing through Glenumbra on your 4th alt.

They have nerfed quite a few spots yes, but most of these were bugged spawns and overtuned mobs that made the experience grind too fast. Have you seen any official response on this from Zenimax? I would love to see what they have to say.... @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno

cgipervert wrote: »

The world is NOT yours (MMOG). Deal with it.

Yes it is. It is all of ours. Make your voice heard.