The new CP system. False promises of horizontal progression.

zvavi

During the stream they were all hyped out, telling us how great eso is for having horizontal progression, and how the new system is playing for that horizontal progression. I refrained from posting on the first week of pts, because they might have/should have said something in the pts notes, or a post, towards what will be done with it. but it didn't happen. this post is not to bash their decision, but purely analyze, where does vertical progression truly stop, and where vertical progression begins. for the example i will chose the class that has longest time to grow into their full potential in pve, stam dk dd. For comparison i will use the parse from @kabanidze , from eso logs.

https://www.esologs.com/reports/RWkvqwPQbKaL6t4A#fight=1&type=damage-done&source=1

Slottable passives:
Must have slottable passives:

Deadly aim 50 points: single target buff, strongest cp points allocated on boss fights.
Thaumaturge 50 points: dot buff, very strong, not as strong as deadly aim, but a must have.
Backstabber 50 points: as strong as thaumaturge, backstabber is a must have for many situations, trials, and dungeons. the problem is, it requires you to flank the target, which is not always possible. you will want to have this passive for any fight that lets you have it, and remove it for those that dont.
Fighting finesse, wrathful strikes and biting aura, 2 of them minimum, for 100 points total: strong slottable dmg passives, when u can slot backstabbers you will slot the one which is stronger (probably biting aura for aoe setup, and fighting finesse for everything else), when you cant use backstabber you will slot both of them.
Total points used on slottable blue cp: 250.

Must have passives:
Precision 50 points: crit. speaks for itself.
Tireless discipline 50 points: max stamina = more damage.
Piercing 50 points: while penetration is easily capped right now, with all dds with full points into piercing you can use other buffs in group, freeing a precious support set, not to talk about dungeons where you need all the pen you can get.
Battle mastery 100 points: total of 150% points chance increase of applying status effects of the new stamina status effects, which all, you guessed it, deal damage.
Flawless ritual 100 points: total of 150% points for mag status effects, most stam classes wouldnt benefit from it much. stam dk's on the other hand, already have almost 1% of their damage done as a burning dot, adding 150% chance for it to proc is effectively adding 1%+ of damage. and as we know from min maxing, up till the point where we dont get anything anymore, it is still vertical progression.
Mighty 30 points: 100 weapon damage to physical damage attacks. speaks for itself.
War mage 30 points: "add 100 weapon and spell damage to magical attacks, affects: magic, flame, frost, and shock damage" well. stam dk's have over 10% of their damage made from magical sources. so ye. must have.
Quick recovery 10 points: 1% healing taken, this one is not as important. but sadly, it is a requirement for the next one.
Preparation 50 points: 10% reduced damage taken from pve sources, this one, no matter what they believe or say, is a must have in the harder pve content, because it is huge. it is like "10% more health and 10% more healing taken" together. can save you so many times. making runs much easier, and even ebon less required, can be slotted out for a different support set.
total points used on passive blue cp: 470

Just from looking at this we can conclude that you need at least 2160 cp to reach the full potential of stam dk dd in PvE. that means you have vertical progression until over 2160 cp. and your "horizontal progression" starts only then. As far as I understood they plan on making cp gained 3 times faster (I might be mistaken), which means that those that are at 1200 cp, all the time they spent from 810 to 1200, they still have more than that time, getting to the point where stam dk's finishes their vertical progression.

Worst of all is, that for PvP, you will need all the passives because you are essentially a hybrid that needs everything, without going into the specific points, you need 340 more points just in blue tree (I removed one blue slottable star, rejoice, it is not 390), which means a total of 3120 cp to end their vertical progression in PvP. More than that, It means that in 3600 cp, they will still not have enough cp to optimize one role in PvE and PvP on one character.



Other classes will have it a bit better in PvE, but will still need around 1800 cp for their full potential in pve, and around 2700 for their full potential in pvp. healers in pve are damage hybrids, so they will need additional 200 blue points for heal passives too, which means another 600 cp too.

This is what really waiting for us next patch. not horizontal progression. but this.

tl:dr

New cp is not horizontal progression till 2000~ cp. so get ready to grind.

ssewallb14_ESO

The worst part is I'm not sure zos understands or is willing to acknowledge the system is effectively that vertical. Matt seems to think you don't get stronger after 1200 CP.

redspecter23

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

The worst part is I'm not sure zos understands or is willing to acknowledge the system is effectively that vertical. Matt seems to think you don't get stronger after 1200 CP.

We will hopefully see some acknowledgement during the PTS update next week. I'm positive we'll see some tweaks. I'm also a bit disappointed that they felt the vertical progression soft capped at around 1200cp. That was not my experience at all when I tested it on PTS. Like others have mentioned, it's 2000 - 2500 cp range where you start to see the soft cap, dependent on your spec and pve/pvp and a few other variables. It's definitely not 1200 though.

zvavi

additionally our damage is getting nerfed, i did not cover this in this post, but if this post gets enough attention, i will create a dedicated thread for that too.

Eedat

Yeah the grind is unreal. If it was just a 1200 grind then some non-combat passive after that I might be on board. As it stands they've just kicked 99% into non-competitiveness and tripled the size of the gatekeeper for new players. I really hope they rebalnce this because I am not interested in grinding another 1000+ CP

gresiac

So you guys want instant 3600 cp ? Go play offline game or work your way up

Gythral

gresiac wrote: »

So you guys want instant 3600 cp ? Go play offline game or work your way up

For many they already had - 7 yrs worth for some!!!
To have it thrown to the wolves of churn, it would seem

Grandchamp1989

Honestly reaching 810cp was a grind....

The average person does not have the time to reach 810 cp.. It would take years.

2100 cp? lol forget about it.

ATM PUGs can barely do enough damage to get through base game vet.... And damage will be nerfed.

I don't get it.

End game will be for the people who can play from morning to evening.

LadyDestiny

This is why we need a proper conversion of xp to champion points we already ground out. It's bs that zos isn't doing this.

zvavi

gresiac wrote: »

So you guys want instant 3600 cp ? Go play offline game or work your way up

I mean, if it wasn't obvious from the whole post, we want for the CP to be horizontal from 1200 CP.

Sgrug

I am very happy with the vertical integration. This has been needed for years in ESO.

jle30303

basically what players want is *to be as powerful before the change as after it*.

to have the same capabilities.

not to have to spend another year or two grinding, to still not have the same capabilities (whether that is DPS, or survivability, or PVP ability, or even silly things like movement speed or being able to farm resources in 2 seconds instead of 6).

Why is "you take half the time to farm one resource node" even a thing? Resource node picking should be *instant*. No slow swinging of a pickaxe twice, no kneeling, just go there, click, pick, DONE.

nerfing the whole playerbase is bad, Bad, BAD.

Sergykid

lots of exaggerating and too early for conclusions.
also, what's the difference now between a cp 500 and cp 800 ? not that much, and not decisive. Same will be between cp 1200 and 2000

redspecter23

Sergykid wrote: »

lots of exaggerating and too early for conclusions.
also, what's the difference now between a cp 500 and cp 800 ? not that much, and not decisive. Same will be between cp 1200 and 2000

Your first statement basically contradicts your last one. The people that have tested and seen the numbers with their own eyes are not exaggerating. They are drawing conclusions based on numbers and data that they have seen and used on their own characters. You assuming there is no difference between 1200 and 2000 is exactly what you're saying you don't want to see. Exaggeration and drawing early conclusions, but unfortunately you have made those conclusions based on "feelings" and not actual math, data and logic.

Artanisul

Sergykid wrote: »

lots of exaggerating and too early for conclusions.
also, what's the difference now between a cp 500 and cp 800 ? not that much, and not decisive. Same will be between cp 1200 and 2000

Not a good comparison there. If you really take a hard look at the system on the PTS you'll see there is a huge difference between getting certain 50point items and not having points to pull it off....and then there are the things juuuust beyond those 50 pointers (or 75 or even 100) that you can START putting points in 10 at a time that boost needed/wanted things.

There are some strange road blocks in the system, and an obvious reduction of power level. This was an old fasioned level bump without he need to go farm new gear. At least we have that going for it....lol

WrathOfInnos

I’m concerned that the fix would be to change more passives to slottable, which just means we all get weaker.

IMO some of the stars are just too expensive, like 100 CPs for more status effects (or 200 for hybrids), the benefit per CP spent seems much lower than in the old system. Also there’s too much packed into the blue tree, while red and green are weaker, resulting in a situation where only 1/3 of new CP’s earned feel useful. The system is good overall, just needs some minor adjustments to reduce the grind.

Starlock

I am not allowed to test anything on PTS, so my ability to gauge the new system independently is nonexistent. That said, if some of what I've read/watched about the new system is to be believed, the way the system was described and how it works in practice don't seem to quite match up. There are a few things that, when woven together, seem to be creating this issue:

• Linear Progression. Players can't just take whatever they want within the three trees, they have to take things in a fixed order. While I understand the reasons for this and don't necessarily have a problem with it as a design decision, it grates against the concept of horizontal, open-ended, or freeform progression where player choice is emphasized.
• Passive Bonuses. There are a lot of these. A lot more than it sounded like there would be, meaning more CP directly translates into more power. Further, there is no longer diminishing returns as there is in the current system, making the progression distinctly more vertical than horizontal as well.
• Cost of Bonuses. In the current system, earning 1 CP can always be put somewhere but this new system requires increments of 10-100 to see any benefit. This serves to exacerbate the two things mentioned above,

If one or more of the above shifts, that can result in a more horizontal system as was described, right?

J18696

Starlock wrote: »

I am not allowed to test anything on PTS, so my ability to gauge the new system independently is nonexistent. That said, if some of what I've read/watched about the new system is to be believed, the way the system was described and how it works in practice don't seem to quite match up. There are a few things that, when woven together, seem to be creating this issue:

• Linear Progression. Players can't just take whatever they want within the three trees, they have to take things in a fixed order. While I understand the reasons for this and don't necessarily have a problem with it as a design decision, it grates against the concept of horizontal, open-ended, or freeform progression where player choice is emphasized.
• Passive Bonuses. There are a lot of these. A lot more than it sounded like there would be, meaning more CP directly translates into more power. Further, there is no longer diminishing returns as there is in the current system, making the progression distinctly more vertical than horizontal as well.
• Cost of Bonuses. In the current system, earning 1 CP can always be put somewhere but this new system requires increments of 10-100 to see any benefit. This serves to exacerbate the two things mentioned above,

If one or more of the above shifts, that can result in a more horizontal system as was described, right?

The passive perks are capped at 50 and give like 10% at max and some slotted perks go above 50 cps but majority of them don't have increments you just put say 75 point in to unlock it

eso_lags

Its crazy to me that something that actually has me super excited for the first time in a long time might be the same thing that makes me quit for good after so many years. Solo pvp is hard enough as it it. Solo pvp takes a hit almost every update and almost every time something gets nerfed. If its going to take 2k plus cp to get to a point where I can be as strong as possible then idk what to say, im just not gonna do it. Im not gonna grind out 600 or more CP with the current rates or even with the 6% boost or whatever.

There has to be a better way. If i have to spend a month playing at a disadvantage, doing what i normally do every day while gaining XP, to get to a viable cp rank then thats fine. Ill do it, even if i dont agree with it. But im not going to go spend months of my time grinding everyday just so i can be able to do what I have always done in this game.

This change is already going to hurt certain play styles and classes more than others, even at the max rank, theres no need to expect everyone to grind so much to get to the max rank, or whatever the amount is to get everything useful and make the correct choices for your build. Maybe they reduce the amount of xp you need by a lot more, maybe they give you enlightened a looott more. Idk the answer.

I also heard that cp progression after 1200 will not change, if thats the case then its a big GG. Thanks to everyone who tested and for the information here.

eso_lags

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I’m concerned that the fix would be to change more passives to slottable, which just means we all get weaker.

IMO some of the stars are just too expensive, like 100 CPs for more status effects (or 200 for hybrids), the benefit per CP spent seems much lower than in the old system. Also there’s too much packed into the blue tree, while red and green are weaker, resulting in a situation where only 1/3 of new CP’s earned feel useful. The system is good overall, just needs some minor adjustments to reduce the grind.

I think that would be one of the worst case scenarios.I personally dont think that 4 slots in the blue tree is enough, I think there should be 5. Either that or a couple skills should be moved over to the red tree, or just made passives. But then theres also the problem of everything being too expensive so maybe they just move some things to the red tree, idk.

I get what theyre trying to do but you would think fitness would have some defenses with health. Like crit resistance maybe and some healing, idk. But what i do know is that just because we all get weaker doesnt mean that certain play styles or classes wont get even more weaker than others.

ThorianB

I like horizontal progression in my games but i NEED vertical progression or i get bored and the game gets stagnant to me. I also don't feel the need to grind to get to the end of the game. I like to relax and enjoy the game and enjoy the journey to get to max level rather than turn it into a second job.

I wasn't really hopeful when the replacement for the champion system was the champion system, but it does hold some promise. So i am going to give a good chance and see how good it really is. Plus we are getting companions like 3 months after this drops so that adds a whole new level of play. You might not need to slot X because your companion compensates for what X gives you, for example.

Sahidom

They do have a horizontal tier of star nodes but its not the same as before; its not a bad system where different tiers open up different horizontal plateaus that lead to other tier plateaus. The big difference is you have to progress "upwards" to reach similar node benefits of the current system. Thats not bad but its one way to utilize "node plateaus" to build a horizontal progression allowing you to pick specific star nodes that benefit you more, and so forth into a vertical/horizontal pathing on point allocation.

zvavi

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I’m concerned that the fix would be to change more passives to slottable, which just means we all get weaker.

IMO some of the stars are just too expensive, like 100 CPs for more status effects (or 200 for hybrids), the benefit per CP spent seems much lower than in the old system. Also there’s too much packed into the blue tree, while red and green are weaker, resulting in a situation where only 1/3 of new CP’s earned feel useful. The system is good overall, just needs some minor adjustments to reduce the grind.

Red cp is not any more balanced. Red cp looks very important to tank, so many passives affecting the sustain of tanks, and tanking passives (like movement speed during block) you have:
Tumbling 60: dodge stamina sustain
Tireless guardian 50: block cost.
Defiance 50: reduce cost of break free.
Mystic Tenacity 50: reduce duration of status effects
Savage defense 75: bash cost
Nimble protector 15: block movement speed
Fortification 100: blocked dmg
Heroes vigor 50: max health
Tempered soul 250: res with more resources
Spirit mastery 33: res allies faster

This is just the passives, and we are already looking at 733 red cp, which means 2199 cp. I didn't even include Slottable cp stars.

It doesn't matter how small their impact is, up until 2800 cp, it is still vertical progression.

Sgrug

zvavi wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I’m concerned that the fix would be to change more passives to slottable, which just means we all get weaker.

IMO some of the stars are just too expensive, like 100 CPs for more status effects (or 200 for hybrids), the benefit per CP spent seems much lower than in the old system. Also there’s too much packed into the blue tree, while red and green are weaker, resulting in a situation where only 1/3 of new CP’s earned feel useful. The system is good overall, just needs some minor adjustments to reduce the grind.

Red cp is not any more balanced. Red cp looks very important to tank, so many passives affecting the sustain of tanks, and tanking passives (like movement speed during block) you have:
Tumbling 60: dodge stamina sustain
Tireless guardian 50: block cost.
Defiance 50: reduce cost of break free.
Mystic Tenacity 50: reduce duration of status effects
Savage defense 75: bash cost
Nimble protector 15: block movement speed
Fortification 100: blocked dmg
Heroes vigor 50: max health
Tempered soul 250: res with more resources
Spirit mastery 33: res allies faster

This is just the passives, and we are already looking at 733 red cp, which means 2199 cp. I didn't even include Slottable cp stars.

It doesn't matter how small their impact is, up until 2800 cp, it is still vertical progression.

And that is ok. Why are so many people afraid of vertical progression? It is small enough as to not make a game-changing impact but large enough as to make people feel like they are growing. I am actually very impressed with ZoS on this iteration of CP changes.

WiseSky

So... what you are telling me is that I will have to PUG as a fake Tank everyday till I get a easy Dungeon for Xp... and Insta quit if its a DLC or harder Dungeon till 2200 CP...
Ohh Lordy...
RIP healers and Dps

zvavi

Alright, after so many complaints about the new CP it is time to explain the problem (Vertical progression until very high CP), and talk about the solution.

Before getting to the solution, lets look at the trees:
Green tree:
Passive CP total: 465
Active CP total: 1380
Total CP to max: 1845 Green CP, 5535 CP total.
Blue tree:
Passive CP total: 860
Active CP total: 1150
Total CP to max: 2010 Blue CP, 6030 CP total.
Red tree:
Passive CP total: 953 (wtf number?!?!)
Active CP total: 850
Total CP to max: 1803 Red CP, 5409 CP total (...)

The main offender to the vertical progression, is the Passive CP. In that regard, the Green tree does it best, but it is not the best either, since it got too many active stars, that it becomes a headache to juggle them all.
The Red and Blue trees have better balance of active and passive stars, but their issue is that since all the passive stars are important for combat (PvP said hi :waves:).

Power level aside (can be balanced either) Dev's aim was to make the new CP vertical progression until CP 1200 (assumption by all their "ye vertical progression stops at 1200 cp"), it is time to talk about the solution. :drums: :drums: :drums:

The solution::
Passive CP's are strong, so are actives, as they should be, vertical progression ends when you can slot 4 active skills (5 for Blue tree), and have most of the passive skills.
Here is what should be done with each tree:

Green tree:
Move to passive CP: Soul Reservoir (because it is that bad), Master Gatherer, Treasure Hunter (those 2 actions are too common to make people juggle them) and Rationer (slotting this one in and out every time you eat food.... nehhhh).
Cut and balance CP of all passives until all passives together amount to 300 CP

End result: 300 passive CP, 1100 active CP, total green CP 1400.

Red tree:
This one has a better Balance of active and passive stars but we have one very strong passive star that should be in the active stars, move fortification to active stars, and lower it's cost to 50.
Cut and balance CP of all passives until all passives together amount to 300 CP

End result: 300 passive CP, 900 active CP, total Red CP 1200.

Blue tree:
oooo boy. this one is way way way too pricy. so changes would be:
Reduce cost of all active stars by 20%~(yes it is intended to have cheaper stars in this tree, and yes I am biased for the end game dps, and I know it)
Cut and balance CP of all passives until all passives together amount to 300 CP

End result: 300 passive CP, 900 active CP, total Blue CP 1200.

End end result: vertical progression ends between 1200 to 1500 CP, and horizontal progression until 3600 CP.

Additional QoL changes:
Make the lines between CP more visible, it is impossible to see them.
Pressing +/- in the CP star will automatically fill/empty it to the next stage. No CP can be allocated to a passive you don't have enough CP to unlock.

Future plans:
Consider class specific active CP.

Ty for reading.

tl;dr
The only way to make vertical progression stop earlier is lower the cost of passive stars by a lot.

Kurat

WiseSky wrote: »

So... what you are telling me is that I will have to PUG as a fake Tank everyday till I get a easy Dungeon for Xp... and Insta quit if its a DLC or harder Dungeon till 2200 CP...
Ohh Lordy...
RIP healers and Dps

If you currently cant do dlc dungeons then you're not gonna be able with 2200cp either.
Dungeons are full of cp810 Alikir's dolmen and Skyreach warriors. People think cp will magically make them better players.
The difference between 900 and 3600cp will be only few % of dps as everyone has 4 slots regardless. Few extra passives like 150 max stam/mag are not gonna make much difference. I feel sorry for people who gonna grind mindlessly only to find out later in content that they are being carried by someone with 3 times less cp.

zvavi

Sgrug wrote: »

And that is ok. Why are so many people afraid of vertical progression? It is small enough as to not make a game-changing impact but large enough as to make people feel like they are growing. I am actually very impressed with ZoS on this iteration of CP changes.

Well, 2 problems.
1. As Brian Wheeler said during the stream, ESO is known for Horizontal progression, in various other bethesda streams, they kept mentioning how vertical progression ends in 1200 CP.
2. And I am quoting myself. "It means that in 3600 cp, they will still not have enough cp to optimize one role in PvE and PvP on one character."

1 Talks about how the developers think that the new CP should be. 2 Talks about how CP, that "is all about giving you more choices" don't give you enough choice to even optimize your character for 2 roles, PvE stam dk, and PvP stam dk.

WiseSky

Kurat wrote: »

WiseSky wrote: »

So... what you are telling me is that I will have to PUG as a fake Tank everyday till I get a easy Dungeon for Xp... and Insta quit if its a DLC or harder Dungeon till 2200 CP...
Ohh Lordy...
RIP healers and Dps

If you currently cant do dlc dungeons then you're not gonna be able with 2200cp either.
Dungeons are full of cp810 Alikir's dolmen and Skyreach warriors. People think cp will magically make them better players.
The difference between 900 and 3600cp will be only few % of dps as everyone has 4 slots regardless. Few extra passives like 150 max stam/mag are not gonna make much difference. I feel sorry for people who gonna grind mindlessly only to find out later in content that they are being carried by someone with 3 times less cp.

No my point was that, to take advantage of the first Dungeons daily XP bonus,

I would usually do a Daily dungeon as "Tank" who is actually a crafter with all skills points into crafting except 1 taunt.
doing 1K DPS.

So getting any dungeon that is remotely not FG1, I would somehow sadly always "disconnect"

Leaving the party to have to wait for a tank at the entrance of the Scalecaller Peak... again.


And the reason why I am going the hell is...

I would jump on my next crafter and do the same thing... And boy... get the same dungeon and the same group...

Sadly I always happened to miss click on leave group...

Satan if you reading this please be kind

Kurat

WiseSky wrote: »

Kurat wrote: »

WiseSky wrote: »

So... what you are telling me is that I will have to PUG as a fake Tank everyday till I get a easy Dungeon for Xp... and Insta quit if its a DLC or harder Dungeon till 2200 CP...
Ohh Lordy...
RIP healers and Dps

If you currently cant do dlc dungeons then you're not gonna be able with 2200cp either.
Dungeons are full of cp810 Alikir's dolmen and Skyreach warriors. People think cp will magically make them better players.
The difference between 900 and 3600cp will be only few % of dps as everyone has 4 slots regardless. Few extra passives like 150 max stam/mag are not gonna make much difference. I feel sorry for people who gonna grind mindlessly only to find out later in content that they are being carried by someone with 3 times less cp.

No my point was that, to take advantage of the first Dungeons daily XP bonus,

I would usually do a Daily dungeon as "Tank" who is actually a crafter with all skills points into crafting except 1 taunt.
doing 1K DPS.

So getting any dungeon that is remotely not FG1, I would somehow sadly always "disconnect"

Leaving the party to have to wait for a tank at the entrance of the Scalecaller Peak... again.


And the reason why I am going the hell is...

I would jump on my next crafter and do the same thing... And boy... get the same dungeon and the same group...

Sadly I always happened to miss click on leave group...

Satan if you reading this please be kind

Lmao
Have fun jumping on your next crafters. It's your loss. You know that theres more dlc dungeons than base game ones right? Chances you getting FG1 or similar is quite slim. And while you're jumping there, the rest of the group has already cleared the dungeon. nSCP can be easily soloed, with 3 people it's a breeze. No one is gonna wait for new tank.
Its gonna take you long time to get to 2200 cp this way lol.

lucky_Sage

I got that they wanted a mix between horizontal and vertical so a diagonal progression. Yeah it going to be very broken in update29 because you can’t get good data on pts since no real test get done just a couple in dungeons/trails and some dueling to get there builds down. It has a lot of promise way more the cp 1.0 I am looking forward to cp2.0 looks like it has a lot of potential biggest thing so far is craft trees need more for combat maybe some more utility and the athletic tree needs some needs (hp regen) I’ve heard people are getting 10k+ hp recov.