Veteran Ranks & Champion Points

Ampnode

*DISCLAIMER*: This is not about removing Veteran Ranks or Champion Points, but how I feel about how they are too reliant on the same method of progression :*DISCLAIMER*

Hello, fellow ESO players. I'd like to touch up on a certain topic that I've been trying to discuss with other players, but fails to amaze me how I get absolutely no reasonable replies about it. Topic of the matter is: Veteran/CP Grind and why they intertwine with each other too heavily. First, let's start with how I feel with each grind.

Veteran Rank Grind

Now, I've never had a problem with VR grind. It's something that we all had/have to do if you want to actually enjoy the endgame portion of ESO. Even though it's pretty slow at some times, still something you have to do because of how it's designed. Lately, I HAVE had a problem with it and we'll touch up on that later.

Champion Point Grind

Never liked it. Never have, never will. It's endless. Literally. Not too long ago, I remember now many people actually grinding CP. After asking them about this to verify, mostly all the people asked have said they don't really "grind" CP, but get them as they go on about their daily activities on ESO. Grinding a new character, dungeons, dailies, trials, PvP, etc. We'll get to why I hate CP grind even more in a few.

Grind Locations

There are few of them for each faction. The spots I choose are heavy in mobs and are almost never taken. Actually, I should say, "were almost never taken." Now they're all taken. But wait... who is taking these spots all of a sudden? Bunch of damn v16s that's who. After talking with the many taking these spots, they all just come up with the unreasonable reply of, "sorry grinding CP before the update." Asking them to leave politely doesn't help, so I just leave and go on my other 2 characters for some PvP/duels and go back to these spots every hour or so to see if they've been let up. That's hardly EVER what I hope.

Why I Think They Intertwine With Each Other Too Heavily

I think this one is very obvious here, everyone. They require the same method of "grind" to achieve what you want. I said 'require', right? In my opinion, it is required. You can say do quests, dungeons, dailies, trials, etc. just like all the others like to tell me, but why SHOULD I have to? Let's be honest here. Doing ANY of the above gives little to NO experience. Not even CLOSE to the amount that grinding gives. Take my v16 NB, for example. Did every quest, did the dailies, did dungeons/trials with some buds, the works. How LONG did it take me to get to that v14 mark? Couple months. Achieved the last 2 veteran levels through PvP. What about my other v16 character? I did that character through endless grind hours a day. Achieved it in 5-6 days. Which do you think I and others are going to prefer? The one that takes a WEEK instead of the one that takes a MONTH(or two). I've done the PvE content. Did Cadwell's Silver/Gold 4 times now. Even after completing Silver/Gold, the 2 characters I'm trying to level up are only v4 and v6, but now I CAN'T level them up. I refuse to take another 2 months to level up just one of those characters by casually doing quests, dungeons, trials, etc. That's complete bs. It's boring after the 3rd/4th time doing it and you all know this.

Why's leveling up those 2 characters such a problem now? Like I said before, really. Every spot is, majority of the time, taken by a bunch of v16s(occasionally v15s), or few others trying leveling up like I am. They're just sitting their grinding up CP! Something that's ENDLESS to do! Think about it, because this is BEFORE the CP catch system is about to launch. What'll be like then? Let me give a nice little prediction... Obviously 3-4 times worse than it has been the past 2 weeks. Where will that leave the people who are new or want to create a new character? Sitting there doing the dang PvE content for weeks, which most of us have already done 2-3 times before.

To Sum It Up

This is complete and utter crap(sorry for my explicit language). I'm tired of playing my silly NB/DK all the time now. NB just isn't my style of play anymore(also becomes ridiculously easy) and my DK is only fun when it comes to duels nowadays(think we all know why, but not complaining). Want to try out a sorc or temp, but am restricted from being able to do so because of how ZoS has put in two grinds that "require" the same method of progression. I'd give suggestions on how to fix this, but I don't think I really can. You have - A) Veteran Ranks are the levels your character needs to be able to enjoy the endgame content; and B ) Champion Points are the points where you can endlessly build your character. It's tough to remove either or because how fundamentally important they've become now. I know that they're removing Veteran Ranks, but after the amount of time I've been waiting for this, it seems like it'll be a while before it happens. I can, however, propose one suggestion for the Veteran Ranks. Since they're removing VR and are probably going to set the cap to 50, I think it should be level 80 or 85 instead. This will make doing the quests, dungeons, trails, dailies, etc. ACTUALLY a method of progressing and leveling up. Champion Points? There's not much I can really suggest here because it's already too late to turn back.

This is my first rant, so go easy on me Any non-flamey feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading my large diary post.

F7sus4

You don't need to grind XP to get to VR16, but you need to grind to be 600+ CP now.

Volkodav

I enjoyed reading your post,actually.Well written and not really ranty.Stated nicely. I put my Vets away because when they do remove the Vet ranks,I wont have too much to be annoyed about.Why work to gain levels until after the change I thought.So,my two Vets have gone on leave for the duration.They'll be back on base when time comes. :}

Kuroinu

Specifically on Grind Locations

I've said it a few times before that in terms of Grinding locations they should make it so that doing Group Dungeons is the best form of Exp. I think this might be coming true after the Grouping Tool gets more improvements.

I'm also curious about if they'd ever add solo Dungeons. I'm surprised they didn't add one with Orsinium(Maelstrom arena isn't quite what I'm talking about, but close), a Dungeon in the style of Group Dungeons but for a single player. The short time I played Aion, I remember they had several solo dungeons with unique items that had worth.

Anyway, my point is in my first sentence. If players really want to grind, they can do so in the open world while also queuing for various Dungeons to get better exp. This is what I want this game to achieve, people that want to do Dungeons and even Trials for more than just loot.

lolo_01b16_ESO

Ampnode wrote: »

the 2 characters I'm trying to level up are only v4 and v6, but now I CAN'T level them up.

Why's leveling up those 2 characters such a problem now? Like I said before, really. Every spot is, majority of the time, taken by a bunch of v16s(occasionally v15s), or few others trying leveling up like I am. They're just sitting their grinding up CP!

As v16 you get very little xp for killing mobs below v10. So unless you are grinding in Cyrodiil, other players who grind at the same spot are most likely leveling their character and not grinding cp.

Ampnode

lolo_01b16_ESO wrote: »

Ampnode wrote: »

the 2 characters I'm trying to level up are only v4 and v6, but now I CAN'T level them up.

Why's leveling up those 2 characters such a problem now? Like I said before, really. Every spot is, majority of the time, taken by a bunch of v16s(occasionally v15s), or few others trying leveling up like I am. They're just sitting their grinding up CP!

As v16 you get very little xp for killing mobs below v10. So unless you are grinding in Cyrodiil, other players who grind at the same spot are most likely leveling their character and not grinding cp.

My point exactly. The spots are so flooded that people are now resorting to just leveling up on low level mobs. This is only going to get worse once the catch up mechanic comes on Monday. I'm not one for staying up until 6-7 AM just to get a chance at leveling my last 2 characters. This I should NOT have to do, and the fact that I can't do it anyway.