Why are we racing?

Sophocles1

When I first started I quested, pugged, wandered, lived the life. Then once I got near cp160 I got caught in the mindset, I think the community mindset, where I needed to rush all my characters to 160 as fast as possible. I began grinding only, ignoring quests, hoarding equipment, speed running dungeons, skipping through voice-acting dialogues. What’s is the psychology behind this?

Mayrael

Well I did the Caldwell's Gold quest three times (when vet zones were the case), then I got bored with with all that repeatable stuff. Now it's the amount of content needed to do, to stay competitive combined with lack of time to play I miss the times when I had the patience to listen to all dialogues in every side quest

Runefang

I want to do vhof, vmol, vas and vcr. The hardest content in the game.

You stop and smell the roses along the way, I personally find that boring. I want to face the monsters at the end.

FloppyTouch

To play with the big boys. If ur just questing and rping I guess lvl does not matter at all but if you want to do end game trials or cp pvp ur going to want to be max cp or close to it.

Plenty of time to smell the roses after ur max lvl.

Thogard

I did cadwells gold and all the DLC quests too. And the crafting stuff too. And the guild stuff too.

I loved it. Was a ton of fun. A lot of great stories to experience.

But... once was enough for me, and all characters other than my main or skyreach babies lol.

adeptusminor

Runefang wrote: »

I want to do vhof, vmol, vas and vcr. The hardest content in the game.

You stop and smell the roses along the way, I personally find that boring. I want to face the monsters at the end.

Same. I really only enjoy endgame vet trials and DLC dungeons and the rest of the game is more or less a grindy distraction for me.

Elsonso

Sophocles1 wrote: »

When I first started I quested, pugged, wandered, lived the life. Then once I got near cp160 I got caught in the mindset, I think the community mindset, where I needed to rush all my characters to 160 as fast as possible. I began grinding only, ignoring quests, hoarding equipment, speed running dungeons, skipping through voice-acting dialogues. What’s is the psychology behind this?

Thinking that the end-game is the game leads to this. How you get there is at least as important as where you are going.

Judas Helviaryn

https://youtu.be/G7fpM_PyUNE

zaria

Thogard wrote: »

I did cadwells gold and all the DLC quests too. And the crafting stuff too. And the guild stuff too.

I loved it. Was a ton of fun. A lot of great stories to experience.

But... once was enough for me, and all characters other than my main or skyreach babies lol.

This, has done pretty much all the quests in the game, however then you have 8 characters. But yes take it slow on the first.
However do various stuff, quests dungeons, try out pvp while at low level. Join some nice guilds.

Never grinded outside a few settings like wanting to take an character from 35 to 50 wile bonus xp last and all the random normals at Christmas to push from cp670 to cp690

BRogueNZ

Once thoroughly was enough for me, leveling is not so bad, but I can't find the motivation to do the world tour for mages or skyshards. I liked it all the first time but not enough to do it all repetitively.

Asardes

I usually take my time when I do a quest first time, but for the subsequent characters is just a race for skill points. Also getting them to 50 is of the essence for me since they can equip CP160 gear (of which I have hundreds of pieces stored up) and they can do crafting writs for maximum reward. Yes, replicating the same thing over and over again is quite boring, but it's pretty much essential if you want to play at the top level.

Zacuel

I may make an alt for rose smelling. A char I'll play only every so often where I don't skip anything. Make it some sort of unique build that I think sounds cool rather than meta.

But mostly the issue is just time. With work and life I try to get the most of my ESO time. Crafting, dungeon, and other repeatable dailies. After all that it's about time to log anyway.

Beamer_Miasma

We are taking it easy. I'm never in a hurry to get to the point where every game that doesn't have a subscription model has a Game Over screen. One of my more recent characters is an Agronian called Takes-Her-Time.

kylewwefan

I used to frown on grinders. My first character took me 9 months to reach Vet 16. I read and listened to every dialogue, looted everything in sight, then continued on to Cadwells Silver and Gold.

There are some amazingly good quests along the way.

After finishing Cadwells, and going back again to become Hero of Tamriel...the achievement with 50 Quests in every zone. By this time, I couldn’t take it anymore. Speeding through dialogue, moving on to next quest. Finishing up zone by zone.

Mages guild 10.

Cyrodil. When caltrops used to be a 30 meter that lasted 30 seconds. Vigor. Proxy Det. This stuff took weeks to unlock. Now you can do it in a few hours. If you hurry.

Gearing out a toon and making it good. Not worth the time at low level. To me anyways.

nnargun

I don't enjoy playing without a challenge. That's not playing for me. Questing is like reading a not very good comic book with some mindless button smashing in between.

Balticthunder

I bet it is all about loot and showing off (thats why so many players buy titles un skins).
When you look at all this end game rush, you see that for all those people RPG elements of the game dont matter - they want to play same Counter Strike or Battlefields only with swords and magic. If one day all the story and game world would be taken out, no big deal as long as you still have epic loot, titles and something to show off to aim for.

xxthir13enxx

https://youtu.be/Qy01R9CEFFs

nnargun

Balticthunder wrote: »

I bet it is all about loot and showing off (thats why so many players buy titles un skins).
When you look at all this end game rush, you see that for all those people RPG elements of the game dont matter - they want to play same Counter Strike or Battlefields only with swords and magic. If one day all the story and game world would be taken out, no big deal as long as you still have epic loot, titles and something to show off to aim for.

It's about competition and getting rewarded for hard work. It's about challenging yourself and growing at your tasks. It's about the incredible joy that you feel after achieving something really difficult. Something not everybody can do. In the end it's about feeling superior over others and over who you were before. People who buy titles and skins are not sportsmen.

edit: Oh wait, that wasn't a reply to my post or was it? Whatever.

Balticthunder

Hard work....when people live in peace and prosperity for long time, they start to think that achieving something by playing games is" hard work" lol.

Mureel

Balticthunder wrote: »

Hard work....when people live in peace and prosperity for long time, they start to think that achieving something by playing games is" hard work" lol.

Agree. I play end game, and I still disdain when people describe gaming as 'hard work.'

I understand what they mean, but most people who call that hard work probably don't have to actually work hard.

Rohamad_Ali

Balticthunder wrote: »

Hard work....when people live in peace and prosperity for long time, they start to think that achieving something by playing games is" hard work" lol.

This is truth . So much so . But it is good to live in peace and prosperity even if what was hard work is forgotten . Always work smarter not harder my papa would say . He would approve the 3 man sky reach grind .

Kagukan

To each their own. I personally like to take my time and read/listen to all the quest dialogue. This is one of the reasons I mostly solo. I can progress at my own pace.

tyggerbob

For me, the storylines and dialog from the quests never get old. Listening to Lyris and Tharn banter back and always makes me chuckle, and Raz's sarcastic wisdom is entertaining no matter how many times I've hear it. And the stories for the smaller quests are always interesting and sometimes downright heart breaking.I also find that the quests are a good source of leveling and skill points, for the first while, and then as I get into the last 10-15 levels, that's when I start to grind stuff like ogres, Skyreach, etc.

So I guess it's a mix for me. Yes. I want to get to 50/160 relatively quickly so I can standardize my gear, but I do enjoy the ride there as well. I have 9 50/160 characters on my account right now and I don't regret any of the time I spent getting them there.
TB

FakeFox

There is no point to doing the same quest more then once, that's the point.

neverwalk

Soon as i show up in dungeon, i open social>group and look at everyones levels and decide the pace of THIS GROUP. if i see 3 level 20 something players i decide this group is going to be a slow dance=means they will loot making it a slow run.

randomkeyhits

I race / not race.

When I create a character, whatever exp scrolls I'm stuck with get consumed, some quickie dolmens and get it to level 50.

Then it gets banked. Used in daily writs and the horse training and research.

When I do get back to it to actually play with it then its in a relaxed manner but all drops are cp160. This means if I get an interesting named item, Naryu's second best bow or whatever then its something I may actually want to keep rather than a level 20 thing.

So race for initial prep but then slow down and enjoy the journey.

DenMoria

Mayrael wrote: »

Well I did the Caldwell's Gold quest three times (when vet zones were the case), then I got bored with with all that repeatable stuff. Now it's the amount of content needed to do, to stay competitive combined with lack of time to play I miss the times when I had the patience to listen to all dialogues in every side quest

"to stay competitive"? With whom? It's a video game. Who cares.

Ydrisselle

FakeFox wrote: »

There is no point to doing the same quest more then once, that's the point.

There is, since some of them has more than one endings.

BretonMage

I got this as well. I started off my character just wandering around, questing and taking my time. But then I noticed that I would match my pace to the people around me (even though I solo), and I too would rush. It annoys me a little and now I have to make a conscious decision to slow down.
The CP160 grind for me was for a completely different reason, I just got sick of constantly outlevelling my gear and having to farm for new materials.

Sophocles1

I deliberately spent several hours fishing like a Zen meditation practice to remind myself it is the journey and not the endpoint.

Leogon

Because everything in this game is a grind. I don't know about you but I surely don't want to finish leveling my alts in 2025. There's already enough grinding and farming as it is with gear, crafting, mounts, etc. I'm not gonna waste time when I'm leveling alts and their trees.