Possible gear cap increase coming our way. Yes, prediction.

Sylvermynx

Silaf wrote: »

I may be the only one here... still as a crafter selling materials i'm all in favor of this much needed change.
I wonder how much i will be able to sell dreugh wax for

Nothing, to me. I've got gazoolas of all gold mats thankfully.

FangOfTheTwoMoons

This shouldn't even be considered.

It's too late to increase gear cap. People have invested thousands of hours into their characters. The sticker book wouldn't alleviate the pain of having to re-farm/re-craft all your gear, not everyone has all the pieces to sets to make them cost 25 transmutes. Then you'll have to pay even higher prices to gold out the gear cause demand will be so high, mat prices will just increase more.

Vertical progression is fine. We don't have to deal with the "carrot on a stick," approach to progression, which is by far the most boring type of progression.

You can't combat power creep and make players feel stronger simultaneously.

Most players haven't even pushed their skills to the highest they can be. If they wanna feel some type of progression they should learn the mechanics of the game better first.

StamPlar_1976

As someone who quit the game for various reasons, but still lurks the forums hoping for changes that would bring me back. I can say that without a doubt that a gear level increase being implemented would make me never look in ESO's direction again. And I'm pretty sure that I am not alone in that regard.

AyaDark

idk wrote: »

BTW, I just saw that the new sticker book collection for crafting drop gear will allow us to craft most sets at any level. Only specific gear is locked at CP160

starkerealm wrote: »

idk wrote: »

witchdoctor wrote: »

Yeah, I don't see how a gear level increase accomplishes anything in ESO.

Everything is CP 160. What possible purpose, besides pissing people off, does CP 180 gear serve?

We know ZOS is not going to start making CP 180 zones.

So, they are going to what, make the world CP 180? In which case, nothing has changed.

@witchdoctor

To answer your question, what possible purpose has there been for raising the gear cap the three previous times?

I will tell you. The first two times were because Zos added trials and an arena that was set two levels higher than the previous level. The third time was because Zos just wanted to add some more crafting matts.

In reality, no game has any real justification for raising the gear cap. They just make an excuse to do it.

So, there's a phrase that I've had multiple dev team members tell me, when talking the early years, "It's a different game now."

Back in 2014 and 2015, itemization was built around a more traditional gear treadmill. Rich (I think) actually called it, "gear chase," when they were announcing Imperial City.

So, the original goal (which we saw with Craglorn) was that ESO would raise the level cap with each new content drop, so players would always have something to level up to. It also meant there was always new, better, gear to be grinding towards.

With IC they showed their long term plan for that system, where odd Vet Rank gear would be easy to obtain, but even tier gear would be much more difficult. (IE: Getting V15 gear was trivial, but you had to grind a lot to get V16.)

There was even a new Boreal tier planned for Wrothgar, (which, probably, would have been v17 and v18) though that was scrapped fairly early on in the DLC's development.

The idea was that every three months, a new content drop would hit, the gear and vet rank cap would go up, and players could quickly leapfrog past the previous tier entirely, but would need to grind constantly to get to the current top gear, and it would be outdated in a few months anyway.

(I assume) this is part of why crafting 160 gear costs so many more materials than crafting 150. You were supposed to work very hard for that extra level of gear.

It wasn't until Thieves Guild that ZOS started walking that design back, and made 160 reliably drop. It wasn't until Dark Brotherhood that vet ranks went away entirely, shifting to Champion Points across the board. And, it wasn't until One Tamriel that you could get whatever you wanted in 160, (and could go wherever you wanted at endgame, instead of being restricted to DLC zones if you wanted endgame materials.)

In that sense, the rolling gear cap increases were part of a different era in the game. One where our gear was supposed to be something we'd constantly grind for.

In some ways, you could already see that plan fracturing as early as Wrothgar, because, while the IC sets weren't competitive for PvE content, the decision not to increase the level cap to V18 was the first sign that the gear treadmiill was being retired.

The thing is, IC was a bridge too far. The gear grind was punitive (in comparison to how easy it had been to obtain V14 gear), v16 gear only caught up to where v14 gear had been before the patch (when the cap went into effect, it just pushed everything down, instead of increasing player power. Something which had not been true with the V12 and V14 cap increases.) The new material tiers were effectively gated by PvP, and as the first new content in almost a year, many PvE players (on PC) felt abandoned by ZOS, and gated off from recovering their lost stats.

So, IC was a major stumble, and feedback from it set a lot of rules for the game going forward.

First off their "traditional gear treadmill" was far from traditional. I have never played a game that required everyone to farm new gear every few months. Remember, the first level increase was less than two months after the game released. A large majority of players had not even reached the first gear cap making raising it absurd.

Second, as I stated in the beginning, Zos has said they will raise the gear cap again when they feel the time is right. This was in the past year and all well after what you are mentioning. As such it seems what the dev's shared about their early "vision" is not relevant to Gina's comment made about the time Zos was starting their revamp of the combat system.

I do agree IC was a major stumble. We loudly criticized the pointless gear increases that occurred during the first year of the game and it seemed they heard us. The IC gear cap increase seemed to be made with an even more trivial justification making me question if the dev team has had some sort of actual vision when considering major changes to the game.

If it will level all my gold gear UP do not care.

If it will not - give me my money back !

A lot of people collect gold sets, rings and etc.

If no compensation for them, what is the reason to play this for them ?

So i think it will not happen.

Or a lot of people will just delete the game.

Joosef_Kivikilpi

Sarannah wrote: »

Gear cap increase is the worst mistake MMO's can make, same with level cap increases. Those things make an MMO a treadwheel, and that is not something I would want to play. There is a reason why we all play ESO, and not WoW! Not to mention, alts would be completely worthless, until they are leveled/geared again and again and again with every new DLC/expansion.

Last year I was playing a game which I totally loved, and had played for 6 years non-stop. When they changed the endgame into a treadwheel, I left without a hesitation. Even after spending 1000's of dollars. In fact, I did quit ESO for many years when they messed up going buy-to-play.

You can't change core systems in a game without making most players go to another game, which does those systems better. This is why they should be really careful about changing CP. And instead of changing CP, they should just expand it with a non-gameplay bonus system(so keep 810 as it is now).

Never mess with a game's core, unless you want your players gone.

Well said. Gave so many hours to Destiny 1, year 1... then "sunsetting" occurred, throwing away all the hours I invested in the game to obtain gear that I fell in love with and had for specific purposes. Quit playing after year 1 with a bad taste in my mouth. Very disappointed in that developer direction. Came back to Destiny 2 two years ago with wife. They didn't have gear sunsetting, so you could keep "infusing" your gear that you liked to your current "light" level. I was a fan. I could keep the gear I worked for and for quests that took HOURS, possibly even days, of gameplay to obtain. Then they just came up with the brilliant idea of "sunsetting" to come back in Destiny 2 last October? Where am I at now? Back from my break and back in Tamriel, especially with the set collection. Absolute genius upgrade.

The excuses/reasons developers use for "sunsetting" or "raising gear cap" is pathetic. It's a weak lie they tell consumers and try selling it as "good for the game" when actually, it's just a cover for lack of content and giving a stupid reason to stay playing the game instead of actually "ENJOYING" the game. ESO has been different (I took a long break of 5-6 months after receiving nerf hammer after nerf hammer to us Nightblades, making the class feel like you have to invest so much effort with little reward to no reward in pvp/pve), in the fact that I know I could jump back in and have my gear, not worry about "oh no, I have to regrind gear because gear cap raised" (looking at you World of Warcraft). Guess what- ESO has tons of content to do. There's enough things you can worry about, and not having to worry about gear cap raising has been such a relief. ESO isn't another job I have to come home to do for some enjoyment. It's a place I enjoy going to when I have free time, exploring, dungeoning, collecting gear now (thanks to set collection, my goodness- best update in the game as a theory crafter rocking my Frozen Watcher + Icy Furnace + Grothdarr DPS Tank in dungeons), ganking punks in Cyrodiil, and generally just having a good time doing whatever I feel up to. When playing ESO, I never feel like my time is wasted now with the structure they have going on. Antiquities, exploring, gathering materials, questing, gaining motivation to still do 150 Murkmire Prepper Prologue quests lolz. There's a ton to do, and the atmosphere allows you to do just you and what you want, and then when you're good, you can go help a friend do the same.

In short, the bull crap reasons of "gear cap raising" and "sunsetting" are just lies covering up the lack of content a game has to keep players around.

You have a ton in your game to do, ESO. Sure, you've been through your rough patches, but as long as you are real and honest, don't disrespect and throw your playerbase's time investment away like so many other companies do, and keep bringing great content and upgrades to the game, we'll have your back.

red_emu

To be fair, if they do that i hope they give vet players 100k transmute crystals to copy their gear with sticker book. There is no way on earth I would be willing to grind all the gear again after 1300 CPs worth of gameplay.

I'm sure ZOS will do it when completely not appropriate (as a distraction from the state of PvP and to get everyone back to grinding PvE content)

Some hardcore players would probably not mind getting all the gear again but I feel for vast majority it would be a very easy uninstall.

KovalskyNestor

Please don't. No one wants to grind gear again or spend transmutation crystals. Not to mention how expensive mats are right now.

Goregrinder

One of the main things I love about ESO compared to all other fantasy MMORPG's that currently exist on planet Earth in 2021, is it's horizontal gear progression system. Emphasis is taken away from the gear itself, since new gear is usually just a side-grade, and that emphasis is put back into the hands of the players themselves and how they mechanically pilot their character compared to other other humans pilot their characters.

If ZOS switches ESO to a vertical gear progression system, they'd be no different than other MMORPG's at this point, and would definitely steer me away from continuing putting $$ in ZOS's pockets. It wouldn't be a special game at that point, your honda civic would be just like every other honda civic on the free way.

QuebraRegra

garbage.. there is no need to increase the gear cap, other than for ZOS to profit.

starkerealm

QuebraRegra wrote: »

garbage.. there is no need to increase the gear cap, other than for ZOS to profit.

There's no profit for ZOS there. All it does is alienate players. ZOS already uses sidegrades to incentivize playing new content, so, the idea of higher level gear pushing you towards new content doesn't work. Especially since drop level is based on the player.

Additionally, players wouldn't be leveling up to use new gear, because the people this would target are probably at or above the spending cap already.

Sgrug

KovalskyNestor wrote: »

Please don't. No one wants to grind gear again or spend transmutation crystals. Not to mention how expensive mats are right now.

If you do not want to spend them then why bother earning them? Also every-time they introduce new proc gear you end up grinding gear again. So that dog don't hunt.

gronoxvx

Why necro such an absurd thread?

Uvi_AUT

I would quit if they raised the Gearcap. Not having to constantly refarm like in WoW is the thing I like the most about ESO.

Oh, and the Transmutationsystem is pretty much useless. [Snip].

[Edited for bashing]

starkerealm

Uvi_AUT wrote: »

Oh, and the Transmutationsystem is pretty much useless. [Snip].
[Edited for bashing]

Howso?

There's, like, three different transmutation systems...

The Outfit system (Transmog), which lets you establish a fixed appearance for your character that you can tweak. Now, I understand, if you're looking at rare motifs, the system can be overly expensive, but I'll take it. It's better than having to pay to change the actual items and then have to cough up gold or look like a murder hobo every time I find a new piece of gear.

There's the trait change (transmutation) system, which costs crystals (which, in turn require you to run some form of group content.) So, the gate there is that you're engaging in content where that level of build tuning will become useful.

Finally, there's the new reconstruction system, which runs off those same crystals, but allows you to remake any item you've previously obtained at a sliding cost of crystals based on how much of that set you've collected.

The big hickup with Transmute and Reconstruction (aside from obtaining the crystals themselves, if you're not into group content), is that they require a transmutation station. These are pretty expensive. You can get them if you engage heavily with the daily writs, though I understand if that's really not your thing. You can buy them with gold, but that will be quite expensive, as I mentioned. You can join a guild that has one readily available (there are a lot of these guilds.) Or you can head to Clockwork City and use the station which is open to the public (though this requires you either own the CWC DLC or have ESO+.)

There's another issue where you need to be researching crafting traits for Transmutation and Reconstruction, while you need motifs for the outfit system. So, these are a little deeper than they look at first. Still...

As these things go, the systems are fairly simple, and move the game away from endless grind for the sake of grind, while subtly encouraging you to move into content you haven't tackled before. (Unless you're queuing for one of the 42 dungeons at random.)

Lord Xanhorn

There's plenty of people who would come back if there was something to do to progress their character besides champion point grind. There's a reason WoW is still bigger and better than ESO in its 16th year and that is because constantly resetting the progress to 0 gives people something to do while they enjoy the new content. If you are competitive at all, ESO just doesn't have much to offer except old stale PVP that hasn't evolved in 7 years.

Ace_SiN

Lord Xanhorn wrote: »

There's plenty of people who would come back if there was something to do to progress their character besides champion point grind. There's a reason WoW is still bigger and better than ESO in its 16th year and that is because constantly resetting the progress to 0 gives people something to do while they enjoy the new content. If you are competitive at all, ESO just doesn't have much to offer except old stale PVP that hasn't evolved in 7 years.

As someone that has never missed a WoW expansion, I strongly disagree. Not once did I or my guild community ever go back to WoW because they reset progress. If anything, it has stopped us from joining the game because a reset was several months away. We typically go back because it's the new shiny release during a dull period in MMOs so we check the new features and class changes. However, in recent expansions, we never stay longer than a couple of months because WoW is still as stale as ever no matter how many expansions/resets occur. Surely we're not the only ones as the population clearly dies off around the time we feel it's time to drop the game. Blizzard themselves have recently mentioned this "honeymoon" phase as well.

On the other hand, I always come back to ESO because my progress is not wiped away. I can just load it up and have fun without being forced to grind out skill lines or new gear sets just to have fun. The PvP in ESO is amazing. The unfixed lag/desync is not.

Sangwyne

Lord Xanhorn wrote: »

There's plenty of people who would come back if there was something to do to progress their character besides champion point grind. There's a reason WoW is still bigger and better than ESO in its 16th year and that is because constantly resetting the progress to 0 gives people something to do while they enjoy the new content. If you are competitive at all, ESO just doesn't have much to offer except old stale PVP that hasn't evolved in 7 years.

Do you play a Necromancer by any chance? The original thread was completely off the mark, ZOS has not mentioned any plans to increase the gear cap and it would quite likely be a complete disaster for them if they were to do so. And WOW is a completely different game than it used to be after Blizzard was acquired by Activision and turned to the dark side. The only people who still play that game are slaves to nostalgia, continuing to hope that the next update will suddenly make everything better and being let down every time. I'd rather not see ESO follow their example by upping the item levels on horseshoe gem sockets or whatever each update just to keep players mindlessly grinding things that don't matter.

EnerG

I agree 100% that this is the time to change how gear works, I'd rather deal with relearning everything at once than a little all the time

HOWEVER I think a gear max lv increase is the wrong way. I would prefer them set all gear to a max of 50 with no cp requirements, and then do major (and I mean major) pass over of all sets. Not just to buff the base stats but also bringing older sets in line with the current "meta" of the game. Example would be to buff say... Eternal Hunt. Keep the roll dodge effect and increase the damage but then change the stam recovery effects to max stamina to reduce the the sets sustain. If the damage on this set is comparable to the average damage of newer sets it would bring the set into the modern eso so-to-speak.

Tl;dr I agree that stats on armor should be reworked/buffed for cp 2.0. But I do not beleive that raising lv cap is smart nor necissary to increase the stats.

stefj68

i went to the trasnmute station on a level 10, in hope of reconstructing a monster set, and my surprise i could, but it was level 50 with 10cp ... not level 10

so i didnt do it lol

Lord_Eomer

RPG progression system is dead if there is no growth or progression been involved, evey patching adding ton of sets have no value to me.

CP revamp system and lifting cap has given a new goal for me to come back and play ESO..

And gear cap increase is not a big issue as long u can craft/generate from prints those sets for higher levels.

virtus753

Sangwyne wrote: »

The original thread was completely off the mark, ZOS has not mentioned any plans to increase the gear cap and it would quite likely be a complete disaster for them if they were.

Indeed:

"The cap on gear has been at 160 forever, and we don’t foresee that changing anytime soon either."

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/563606/cp-2-0-faq/p1

Silaf

They nerfed pvp ranks by adding the war torte recipes and new it's easier o get them.
They nerfed cp exp by making it easier to get them.
Furnishing plans... new cp perk to double drop them.
Crafting resources... 2 now cp to double drop rate.
Gold... new cp to drop more gold.

Gear cp 160... i somewhat feel incoming changes...

If you are a new player welcome... Old player that invested a lot of time in this game zos care little about it. After all vertical progression is something evil that has to be removed.