An idea for gear progression post VR removal

fr33r4ng3r

If I may I'd like to humbly suggest that the solution to linking gear progression with the champion system may be staring us in the face. This is an Elder Scrolls game after all

Please mostly disregard the numbers represented. It's the idea I'm trying to convey. The numbers can be adjusted to whatever makes the most sense.

Instead of trying to describe this in words I applied my mediocre photoshop skills to a few images:



There are CP passives that govern each type of armour and weapon categories which are (almost) a 1:1 match with the character's skill tree



Each piece of armor and weapon in the game should change to have it's requirement map to the relevant character skill. This makes total sense from character progression point of view too. I have a higher heavy armor skill therefor I can equip better heavy armor.



I also thought about an additional skill line passive for each armor type called "veteran" with 4 levels:
For example Heavy Armor Veteran would read

1. Allows the wearer to equip a single piece of Light or Medium Armor at the current Heavy Armor Level (unlocks at 51)
2. Allows the wearer to equip 2 pieces of Light or Medium Armour at the current Heavy Armor Level (unlocks at ?)
3. Allows a Single Light or Medium Armor piece to count as Heavy Armor for equipment bonus passives (unlocks at ?)
4. Allows 2 Light or Medium Armor pieces to count as Heavy Armor for equipment bonus passives (unlocks at ?)

I like the idea that you have to "buy in" to the higher equipment. Making it a choice feel very "Elder Scrolls" when I think about it. It also helps keep the lower level sets more relevant, especially those I've upgraded to legendary, and by extension the content from which those items drop. It also means that I can respec CP and dump points into the relevant CP passive if I want to use the newer higher level gear early and then build up the other CP passives over time, or I can wait until I've unlocked the next level.

What do you guys think?

(PS: I think something like this could work for jewelry too. Perhaps attached to other CP passives...)

wayfarerx

I'm generally against gear gating, but I admit this would be a much better system than just flat CP requirements. I like the fact that you would have to make choices and could "respec" what gear you could use and not just have to grind for it.

TheShadowScout

Last I heard, they are thinking about "flat CP requirements", to ensure that people can still wear all their gear, and then add new gear on top of that. Like, "need 160 c-points to equip current V16 gear", which would leave them tons of c-point gating for future gear expansion...

Personally I'd prefer a different system... if they did it, say, "require 16+ points in -armor type focus- for current V16 gear" I'd be much happier instead...
Armor skill - not so much, because that one is easily at 50 after the mainstory, and i can see why new characters ought to have to work a bit beyond that to get the better gear.
They seem to desire to make it all champion system based, which would be fine with me. But as mentioned, I would much prefer them basing gear to the passives someone actually spends their c-points at, instead to the total c-points earned.

fr33r4ng3r

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Last I heard, they are thinking about "flat CP requirements", to ensure that people can still wear all their gear, and then add new gear on top of that. Like, "need 160 c-points to equip current V16 gear", which would leave them tons of c-point gating for future gear expansion...

Personally I'd prefer a different system... if they did it, say, "require 16+ points in -armor type focus- for current V16 gear" I'd be much happier instead...
Armor skill - not so much, because that one is easily at 50 after the mainstory, and i can see why new characters ought to have to work a bit beyond that to get the better gear.
They seem to desire to make it all champion system based, which would be fine with me. But as mentioned, I would much prefer them basing gear to the passives someone actually spends their c-points at, instead to the total c-points earned.

I agree, I really don't like the flat CP requirement. However, I can see how they would have to link the requirement to CP somehow if they want to gate the new sets. I really worry that the currently proposed system replaces one grind with another. I know that @ZOS_RichLambert has said that nothing is cast in stone, so I wanted to start a constructive dialog around what we think the new system should (could) look like. That said the idea that is most likely to win will be the one that marries awesomeness with development budget.

Alternative Idea:

Perhaps an alternative to my idea would be to simply have certain items require a certain number of points in a specific CP passive (e.g. Requires 20 Light Armor Focus). All items will be level 50 but will require a certain number of points in one or more CP passives. Actually, now that I think about it that's not too bad. I still get the benefit of respeccing to use the new gear and not have to grind up for it.

A bit more about the Original Idea:

What I really liked about my original idea is that it helps smooth the transition between normal ranks and CPs and it also helps with the alt. problem. Here's an example to explain:

1st Character

Levels from 1 - 50 without knowing CPs exist. Reaches level 50 on Light and Medium armor somewhere around level 30, but can't go beyond 50. The level requirement for all equipment is linked to skill level with that equipment, so starting to level heavy armor would require equipping a lvl 6 piece to begin with (even though the character is level 30) and then could equip better armor as the skill will heavy armor improves. This player sees level 51 - 66 items in the guild stores but is unable to equip them and understands why.

2nd Character

(It's unclear, but with flat CP requirements it would seem like I could equip my high ranking gear on my level 3 character. This will probably not be the case - it will probably be level 50 + 160 CP). I like my idea better because the system is less convoluted).

Levels from 1 - 50 with CP. Equips level 20 armor at level 10 because CP spend on Armor Focus has added 10 levels to the Armor Skill (base armor skill is 10 + 10 from CPs). At level 30 reaches a Base Armor Skill rank of 50 + adds an additional 16 points worth of CP into Armor Focus and is now able to equip level 66 armor of that type.

I understand that changing the bases requirement of all items from character level to skill level is probably too much work, but it's so clean and it opens up so many possibilities for additional items or jewelry gated on other skills.

Sausage

I hope there isnt going to be CP-requirements for gears. I suggest simple gear upgrades, one could for example take some old set like Night’s Silence and upgrade it to awesomeness, so they dont need to stress about new sets so much, so basically every single set in the game is good as long you keep upgrading it. Gear-ugprade should be minor advantage and long term progression and CP-system is short term progression, easy, fast and you get power fast, that should be fun to grind after you hit lvl 50.