Remove all Level indicators in game from players.

Bonzodog01

I know this isn't the first time this has been suggested, but with all the problems in PuGs and GF, the time to do this is now.

Peoples nameplates should only have just their names on them, and nothing else. No level indicators, no CP, nothing.

Levels and CP shouldn't even be visible in GF, or the in group listings. For that matter, player level should not be publicly visible at all in any way shape or form, not even in Guild Rosters.

This would instantaneously change the basis for groups and the like. You really would have to hope the people you are pugging with have enough skill to do the job. There would be no way of assessing them before you do anything, unless you asked them personally. And even then, they could simply lie, and you would have no means of real validation.

This needs to happen. It would completely level the playing field, and give everyone a fair and equal shot.

Aliyavana

No, I understand some low cps I've grouped with have performed better than many of the high for i have grouped with but they are a minority. People would find other reasons to kick you for like being a non templar healer or a non min/maxed race.

GabiAlex

This will not stop the drama "OMG I was grouped with pugs QQ!!!111!!!1!" but why not, you get scaled anyway.

STEVIL

Sounds like a great wsy to dradtically refuce participation in pug gf play.

First when those who want to pair with even moderately skilled drop it cuz partners are anonymous, then later ehen more moderates quit over multiple fails with far fewer skilled players to move to non-pug grouping.

Mojmir

No, it's needs to be known who your running with.what next,no bars or names? Maybe you'll want to be invisible too.

Gilvoth

i support this idea to remove people's ability to see our CP level.

Judas Helviaryn

I think it'd be neat to only see people as people, and not as arbitrary numbers plastered on their foreheads, for a game like TES. It probably won't happen, and I'm sure there are some good reasons not to, but it's food for thought.

Albino_Dunmer

I'd argue against that.

I'm for more visibility lol. Such as seeing CP level for alts below lvl 50.

Low level high CP alt character "duelists" must be annoying and frustrating for newer players. I know it was for me when I started a month and a half ago. Especially for newer players who don't even know about CP.

That being said, CP visibility would also allow your low lvl alts to not be auto-kicked when starting a dungeon. I'd bet people would give a high CP lowbie more of a shot from the get go. Chances are, they are geared more appropriately and have a better build. Considering most players running dungeons aren't newer players, it'd help most people run the game with less frustration. For brand new players, they'd be just as discriminated against as they are now, but they really have better options than dungeons. They won't really even get loot that'll be worth their time since they'll swap it out in a couple levels anyways. World bosses, public dungeons, dolmens and delves are all better sources for loot and XP. With the exception of the daily dungeon. A lot of the problem there is that some non-vet dungeons are still hard as balls for low level players regardless. Maybe remove the harder ones from the non-vet random queue to make leveling more accessible.

That's the best I can think of at any rate. Duels certainly are not fun though when someone who looks like your level trashes you in a couple bursts. No level or CP visibility would cause distrust and more frustration than it'd solve imo.

susmitds

My first vCoS No-death run and speedrun had a CP 170 healer and a CP 210 DPS after my guildies who had the achievement already didn't take it seriously.
And, most vet dungeons are mostly soloable with a few anti-solo mechanics. It is pretty easy to carry even a bad group.
Hiding CP ain't the answer. Educating the player base the game mechanics is the answer.

NewBlacksmurf

Yep similar tone to this thread:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/309749/if-zos-removed-visible-character-levels-and-cp-in-dungeons-youd-resolve-some-issues-activity#latest

Wing

its already annoying dealing with vet duelists disguised as low level players, level 10's in disguises with fully crafted gears and over 500 cp.

I in fact would like more transparity, show level and CP as two different numbers, so we can see low level CP score.

alephthiago

No, thank you.
You would need to be very lucky to end up in a group with the 5% low cp good players.

Surgee

Judas Helviaryn wrote: »

I think it'd be neat to only see people as people, and not as arbitrary numbers plastered on their foreheads, for a game like TES. It probably won't happen, and I'm sure there are some good reasons not to, but it's food for thought.

It was like that on consoles. That's why I switched from pc. No damage numbers, no text chat just voice chat No name plate unless you actually talk to someone and ask for his name or form a group. Just a normal elder scrolls game with online option. But then all the math geeks started to complain to add all of it...and here we are. Thankfully we don't have addons.. That's just an overkill.

Reykice

Bonzodog01 wrote: »

I know this isn't the first time this has been suggested, but with all the problems in PuGs and GF, the time to do this is now.

Peoples nameplates should only have just their names on them, and nothing else. No level indicators, no CP, nothing.

Levels and CP shouldn't even be visible in GF, or the in group listings. For that matter, player level should not be publicly visible at all in any way shape or form, not even in Guild Rosters.

This would instantaneously change the basis for groups and the like. You really would have to hope the people you are pugging with have enough skill to do the job. There would be no way of assessing them before you do anything, unless you asked them personally. And even then, they could simply lie, and you would have no means of real validation.

This needs to happen. It would completely level the playing field, and give everyone a fair and equal shot.

Nothing would change. If i see 15k hp on a dps in vets its clear. Also you can ask them to link gear. Or achievements...

People would find a way to verify it.

Also if you get vote-kicked 3 out of 4 people voted for it. As in the majority.

Bobby_V_Rockit

Sounds like something a Synth would say...

TheShadowScout

Bonzodog01 wrote: »

Peoples nameplates should only have just their names on them, and nothing else. No level indicators, no CP, nothing.

I would support that.
Well, name and title. For those who like titles. Which many roleplayrs do (and often wish we had more titles just for roleplay)

Oh, people would still be kicked if they didn't measure up to expectations. But they'd only be judged by their effect, not some number next to their name...

starkerealm

Mojmir wrote: »

No, it's needs to be known who your running with.what next,no bars or names? Maybe you'll want to be invisible too.

Oh, but, I already am invisible... when I want to be.

EvilCroc

It will be more toxic than current situation. All PUGs will start from endless skill proof requests, rage quits, flaming, begging, elitism and all this stuff. When I level my alts I prefer to be kicked from group silently over than proving something to somebody. If you don't think a 10lvl 561CP sorcerer is able to show enough dps for normal WGT - I can find more interesting things to do than proving you are wrong.

WhiteMage

It's time for another pug-life story...

Not too long ago I took a look at my mDK and decided it needed its BSW ring upgraded from blue to purple, so I went to pug vCoA2, because I also do not have the perfect skoria helmet after all these attempts. Two birds with one stone and all that. My mDK, queued as a DPS, is geared for PvP in the sense that I will never run out of magicka but still do decent damage, and most of it is AoE. I get grouped with a healer who turns out to be stellar, a hopelessly lost vampire tank (because fire), and a clueless DPS sporting a 2h, all low CP. Everything falls apart at Urata the Legion because I can't keep up the dps to kill 8 adds in that short interval, so the boss heals up a lot, all while huge chaos ensues and we miraculously do not wipe (until I die. I am tanking all the adds with my dps here) because the healer is beyond competent despite his CP. We give up after 3 wipes, but after the second one, the dps made a comment that sounded like he was daring someone to say it was his fault because of his low cp. In truth, it certainly was, but I bit my tongue because I wasn't carrying as hard as I could have if I was on my magplar. So I switch to my magplar, and pug with a new group!

This time we get a 300-ish CP tank, a sub 160 dps, (me as the healer) and a max CP dps in a dromathra skin! OMG a pug happy ending waiting to happen! Marching along, me ahead of everyone else cuz I can, I burn some mobs, albeit not as quickly as I would have hoped. I'm the healer and already doing most of the dps here, what more do you want from me? The 670-something CP NB dps hangs back a bit, and as we push through a few more groups of mobs, it becomes clear to me he is evaluating our dps without him, which I already knew wasn't that stellar, cuz it was basically all mine. My heart sinks when he drops group.

That right there was a cold betrayal. A max CP player leaving another max CP player to fend for himself in pugs? How could you! All it takes is two players to carry the group and the whole thing is a breeze but he leaves me to do this all by myself. I'm infuriated by this, and I let the clueless pugs, who are asking why he left, know exactly what he was doing and why he left. Roll the dice on another group member, surprise! Sub-160. It's going to be a long dungeon. We push on, the first dps we had turning out to be the one who doesn't stand in stupid, but it's not obvious till that fire drake boss. We kill Urata without a wipe but she did heal a few times, all me because it's common knowledge that pugs can't AoE. The tank is good, very reliable.

But, ofc, neither the dps nor the tank have ever done this dungeon before, so amidst the infinite add spawn part, someone aggros the bone colossus (good thing) and faces it towards me (bad thing). I get 1-shot, *** hits the fan aggro-wise when the tank died while I revive. The two dps are running around like headless chicken spamming their sorc shields to try to stay alive, but in circles around the bone colossus. I get up and proceed to kill the remaining adds they're running from, all the while watching the bone colossus spin around. The sorc runs past me as he begins that frontal AoE. I think I'm safe, till the sorc pivots and runs past me again. Pow! 1-shot again. As I revive I resolve to have a word with him about that. Tank is back up by now and he gets things under control because I killed all but 1 remaining add before I died. Tank faces the right direction (away from me) and we kill it.

Fire Maw Daedroth guy goes about how you expect, but no wipes, but a lot of headless chickens as I kill all the adds and heal everyone. The 2 DD's dps is low enough that I wasn't overwhelmed. Good thing? Bad thing?

Moving on, I take them up the first shortcut thru the lava, but one dps took 3 minutes to get up the ledge, and the tank went and aggroed everything anyway, on purpose. Maybe to kill time, idk. Then we get to the drake boss. 2 wipes on this boss, and the guy who can't jump on a ledge also can't move out of raining fire, nor does he know that he NEEDS to rez the healer when I do something stupid that gets me killed (but can you blame me?)! Gotta hard cast those frags for optimum dps, after all.

Next shortcut, well, the tank hates shortcuts or something, because he charges into the next group of adds despite my advance warning. We let him die and he catches on. Then we get to the lightning rods. OH how I hate these! Long time to kill JUST to get to a boss that your group will wipe on BECAUSE you took a long time to get there. One wipe, one clutch kill by me with everyone else dead and 20 atros coming for me. I rant about the atros, we move on to the next one. 3 wipes, and by now I'm getting sloppy with rage. Even more clutch kill with me really working the limits of an unoptimised build. 3 hour mark.

Enter skoria, and I lose hope when I can only get him to 86% before the first platform collapses. Two more attempts confirms this. Anyone who has been here knows if you can't drop 20% per platform, you're not finishing skoria, so I halfheartedly but convincingly continue till the inevitable happens: someone quits and I get a replacement. That truly was the only outcome here, I could only wait till someone had it. Surprisingly, the tank was the one that quit, and I really feel for the day he must have had. But now we can win. I grab a core DPSer from my trials guild for this boss, equip a shield, and tank/heal/dps the boss while the guildie goes to town. By the second platform, both the pugs are dead from standing in the lava, and the guildie and I kill the boss on the third platform.

That's all it took. If that one guy had stayed, we would have made it through without a hitch. But no. I had a bad day because NEVER PUG vCoA2! EVER! and the poor pug tank had a worse day (there needs to be a tank-appreciation day) because he didn't even want to be there and he didn't have anything to show for it (not that I did. Crap loot) and the sub-160 guys got a skoria hat, for all the good it did.



If we remove visible levels, what the max CP guy did may become the norm for this behavior. I personally don't care either way. Just... Never pug skoria. Don't. Just don't.

dday3six

You know another option would be to make dungeons a relevant part of story and character progression by allowing access based on level and character progress. While at the same time giving incentives for veterans players to re-run dungeons via the group finder to keep the pool of players running them consistent.

Vaoh

Not sure

I don't really like this idea. I feel it would cause a lot of issues, especially with tougher dungeons.

Many more group disbands/vote kicks would happen for sure.

FloppyTouch

Mojmir wrote: »

No, it's needs to be known who your running with.what next,no bars or names? Maybe you'll want to be invisible too.

9/10 times players are invisible or in the ground when I load into the dungeons anyways so they already got that part down...

Daemons_Bane

How about setting level/cp level as an option where you'd have to click/mouse over to see it? That could maybe please both parties

EvilCroc

Replace models of other 3 players in a group with NPC. Hide real players names. Don't show their abilities effects. Make group dungeon play feel like solo playing!

Bobby_V_Rockit

WhiteMage wrote: »

It's time for any other pug-life story...

Not too long ago I took a look at my mDK and decided it needed its BSW ring upgraded from blue to purple, so I went to pug vCoA2, because I also do not have the perfect skoria helmet after all these attempts. Two birds with one stone and all that. My mDK, queued as a DPS, is geared for PvP in the sense that I will never run out of magicka but still do decent damage, and most of it is AoE. I get grouped with a healer who turns out to be stellar, a hopelessly lost vampire tank (because fire), and a clueless DPS sporting a 2h, all low CP. Everything falls apart at Urata the Legion because I can't keep up the dps to kill 8 adds in that short interval, so the boss heals up a lot, all while huge chaos ensues and we miraculously do not wipe (until I die. I am tanking all the adds with my dps here) because the healer is beyond competent despite his CP. We give up after 3 wipes, but after the second one, the dps made a comment that sounded like he was daring someone to say it was his fault because of his low cp. In truth, it certainly was, but I bit my tongue because I wasn't carrying as hard as I could have if I was on my magplar. So I switch to my magplar, and pug with a new group!

This time we get a 300-ish CP tank, a sub 160 dps, (me as the healer) and a max CP dps in a dromathra skin! OMG a pug happy ending waiting to happen! Marching along, me ahead of everyone else cuz I can, I burn some mobs, albeit not as quickly as I would have hoped. I'm the healer and already doing most of the dps here, what more do you want from me? The 670-something CP NB dps hangs back a bit, and as we push through a few more groups of mobs, it becomes clear to me he is evaluating our dps without him, which I already knew wasn't that stellar, cuz it was basically all mine. My heart sinks when he drops group.

That right there was a cold betrayal. A max CP player leaving another max CP player to fend for himself in pugs? How could you! All it takes is two players to carry the group and the whole thing is a breeze but he leaves me to do this all by myself. I'm infuriated by this, and I let the clueless pugs, who are asking why he left, know exactly what he was doing and why he left. Roll the dice on another group member, surprise! Sub-160. It's going to be a long dungeon. We push on, the first dps we had turning out to be the one who doesn't stand in stupid, but it's not obvious till that fire drake boss. We kill Urata without a wipe but she did heal a few times, all me because it's common knowledge that pugs can't AoE. The tank is good, very reliable.

But, ofc, neither the dps nor the tank have ever done this dungeon before, so amidst the infinite add spawn part, someone aggros the bone colossus (good thing) and faces it towards me (bad thing). I get 1-shot, *** hits the fan aggro-wise when the tank died while I revive. The two dps are running around like headless chicken spamming their sorc shields to try to stay alive, but in circles around the bone colossus. I get up and proceed to kill the remaining adds they're running from, all the while watching the bone colossus spin around. The sorc runs past me as he begins that frontal AoE. I think I'm safe, till the sorc pivots and runs past me again. Pow! 1-shot again. As I revive I resolve to have a word with him about that. Tank is back up by now and he gets things under control because I killed all but 1 remaining add before I died. Tank faces the right direction (away from me) and we kill it.

Fire Maw Daedroth guy goes about how you expect, but no wipes, but a lot of headless chickens as I kill all the adds and heal everyone. The 2 DD's dps is low enough that I wasn't overwhelmed. Good thing? Bad thing?

Moving on, I take them up the first shortcut thru the lava, but one dps took 3 minutes to get up the ledge, and the tank went and aggroed everything anyway, on purpose. Maybe to kill time, idk. Then we get to the drake boss. 2 wipes on this boss, and the guy who can't jump on a ledge also can't move out of raining fire, nor does he know that he NEEDS to rez the healer when I do something stupid that gets me killed (but can you blame me?)! Gotta hard cast those frags for optimum dps, after all.

Next shortcut, well, the tank hates shortcuts or something, because he charges into the next group of adds despite my advance warning. We let him die and he catches on. Then we get to the lightning rods. OH how I hate these! Long time to kill JUST to get to a boss that your group will wipe on BECAUSE you took a long time to get there. One wipe, one clutch kill by me with everyone else dead and 20 atros coming for me. I rant about the atros, we move on to the next one. 3 wipes, and by now I'm getting sloppy with rage. Even more clutch kill with me really working the limits of an unoptimised build. 3 hour mark.

Enter skoria, and I lose hope when I can only get him to 86% before the first platform collapses. Two more attempts confirms this. Anyone who has been here knows if you can't drop 20% per platform, you're not finishing skoria, so I halfheartedly but convincingly continue till the inevitable happens: someone quits and I get a replacement. That truly was the only outcome here, I could only wait till someone had it. Surprisingly, the tank was the one that quit, and I really feel for the day he must have had. But now we can win. I grab a core DPSer from my trials guild for this boss, equip a shield, and tank/heal/dps the boss while the guildie goes to town. By the second platform, both the pugs are dead from standing in the lava, and the guildie and I kill the boss on the third platform.

That's all it took. If that one guy had stayed, we would have made it through without a hitch. But no. I had a bad day because NEVER PUG vCoA2! EVER! and the poor pug tank had a worse day (there needs to be a tank-appreciation day) because he didn't even want to be there and he didn't have anything to show for it (not that I did. Crap loot) and the sub-160 guys got a skoria hat, for all the good it did.



If we remove visible levels, what the max CP guy did may become the norm for this behavior. I personally don't care either way. Just... Never pug skoria. Don't. Just don't.

I only ever pug, and have the deadlands adept title from vCOA pugs...

Draxys

lol

Danikat

People who want to find a way to instantly exclude 'inferior' players from their groups will always find something.

For example Guild Wars 2 really went out of their way to make a level playing field. It's very easy to reach the maximum level (and the new progression mechanic - masteries - is highly situational so it doesn't affect most group content), best in slot equipment is also easy to get and most content is balanced around people using lower tiers. You can reskin all your gear so there's no way to tell what level or stats someone is using by looking at them. There are no DPS meters (or add-ons), no gear check, nothing like that. In theory it should be impossible for anyone to make a snap judgement about another players experience or ability by looking at them and even if you could see what skills they're using, their equipment etc. there's very little to tell between an experienced player and one who copied a build from a website yesterday and is trying it out for the first time ever.

So what do they do? They kick people who don't have enough achievement points.

Even the people who do this acknowledge that there is absolutely no connection between how many achievement points you have and your ability to run a dungeon. The easiest way to get high AP is actually to do daily achievements, which in that game are things like 'gather ore from map X' or 'kill this world boss' and other AP mainly come from doing the story, collecting skins and items, and completing open-world maps. You could be very close to the top of the AP leaderboard without ever having entered a dungeon. (Not at the top because dungeons do give some AP, but close.)

But that's all they have to distinguish an 'experienced' player from an inexperienced one, so that's what they use.

Humatiel

If levels are removed it would just cause issues for everyone. For me personally I would then immediately assume everyone had good solid mechanical knowledge and were decent at there class (20k+/spell power cure etc etc). I'll give it exactly two wipes on anything be it boss or mobs and I'm gone.

new is new, I dont judge but I dont stay either. I do the dailies on a lot of toons and knowing that I cannot afford to, It's in everyone's best interest that players looking for a quick grind be able to assess the situation quickly so it doesn't waste anyone's time.

Tan9oSuccka

I use the first trash pull as an indicator. Good DPS disintegrates trash.

amasuriel

Humatiel wrote: »

If levels are removed it would just cause issues for everyone. For me personally I would then immediately assume everyone had good solid mechanical knowledge and were decent at there class (20k+/spell power cure etc etc). I'll give it exactly two wipes on anything be it boss or mobs and I'm gone.

new is new, I dont judge but I dont stay either. I do the dailies on a lot of toons and knowing that I cannot afford to, It's in everyone's best interest that players looking for a quick grind be able to assess the situation quickly so it doesn't waste anyone's time.

I have started doing something similar. If I get a random vet DLC or a couple of the hard II dungeons like Darkshade II and I see <160 I will politely explain that I was looking for a quick run, and wish the group finder had random without DLC and leave.

Other vets I don't say anything, I just wait until the first boss. If we do okay, and its a dungeon with no hard DPS checks, or my DPS is enough to carry I will continue. If not I politely explain that I have done this dungeon many times and have addons showing group DPS, and we just don't do enough to complete and leave.

Normal I will do with anyone provided they are responsive in chat. If they are willing to listen / discuss what to do then I'm at the point where I can solo any normal pretty much, so worse case is it takes some extra time.

To the OPs point, if I didn't see the CP my behavior would not largely change. I would just wait for the first boss in all vet cases, but what else would you have people do?

I don't feel great about it either, but many of these dungeons have flat DPS checks. You can either pump out the damage or you lose. On vet, usually 1 DPS that is good isn't enough, and neither my tank nor my healer do more than 8k, so if I'm in as my tank or healer no amount of patience or skill will allow a group with bad DPS to complete vCoA II or vDarkshade II.

Even on normal I would hardly call it fun sometimes (for anyone). Last run of Darkshade normal I did on my tank (real tank, so 8k DPS best case), healer couldn't heal through poison, and the 2 DPS did ~10-12 k together. So fight took about 30 minutes, every poison phase the 3 would die, I would kills the adds, rez everyone, DPS boss. Poison would come, 3 die, rinse, repeat. I know they completed it eventually, but you cannot tell me that basically watching me solo the boss very very slowly basically like a twitch stream was very fun for them either.

Danksta

Then people would just ask you to link achievements or they'd kick you.