Veteran may be a bit too harsh

grendel1013ub17_ESO

From personal experience in every MMO that I have played when the getting to level cap is too easy, the game gets boring.

Look at WoW when it first released, once you hit level 20 it took forever to level. Hitting level 30 made me feel like I accomplished something great, hitting level 60 made me feel like a God. I liked the idea of focusing on one character, investing the time into perfecting him, and setting a goal to reach that may take weeks or even a couple months to achieve, it made my achievements worth even more.

Another example was vanilla SWG ( Star Wars Galaxies). In SWG there was the Holo grind to unlock Jedi which took a few months. When I unlocked Jedi it was the single greatest experience of my MMO gaming. Not to sound cliche but I felt like I was on top of the world.

WoW currently and eventually SWG fell into the same trap of accommodating people who wanted a fast track to level cap and all the rewards that comes with it. Now I can level any character to level 90 in just under two weeks, which has killed majority of the hard core community. Majority of the content can be bypassed leaving whole areas completely desolate of any players.

SWG also felt a mass exodus of it's player base when they introduced NGE ( New Game Enhancements). Everything that players have spent months of their time into achieving was just handed to everyone upon character creation, and leveling became mind numbingly easy which alienated majority of it's player base. Long were the days of bustling player made cities that were filled with players buying and selling items in their homes, PvPing against rival guilds and factions,RPing in the Cantinas,or just hanging out. Those player made cities eventually became ghost towns, and there were less and less players to be found.

This is why ESO went with the long grind to Veteran rank 10, to keep players invested in their characters, challenge players, and to get people involved with the story. ESO is not meant to be a race to the top, but a gradual growth with rewards that reflect that. To those people that want a quick level capped character, maybe this is not the MMO for you, maybe MMOs like WoW are more to your liking.

As for players such as myself, I prefer MMOs that are smart, challenging, and take longer to achieve things because it actually feels like I accomplished something worth bragging about in the MMO community. When I see a Ranked 10 character, I know that player earned it and it wasn't just handed to them.

thismudtasteslikechocolaterwb17_ESO

I don't quite get the complaint.

A big part of every Elder Scrolls game is compromise. These games often presented you with choices that locked you out of the results of the other options.

I see nothing in this thread as anything other than further compromise.

If you want to get your veteran ranks as fast as possible, you must do all the quests. If you do not want to do all the quests, you will not get your veteran ranks as fast as possible. This is the game presenting players with a choice - all I see is players complaining that they can't botb level quickly and do it the exact way they want... they seem to not want the game to offer the choice of one or the other, but rather they want the game to offer them up a buffet where they can pick and choose both the content type theh run as well as the results from running it.

As for your "issues" in regards to PvP players and casuals... PvP players enter PvP knowing full well there will be characters that can roll them. This is not something that is a result of the situation being complained about, nor is it unique to this game.

Casuals wanting to play end game? Well, anyone wanting to play end game should first be expected to get to the end of the game... I fail to see the issue. You are esentially complaining that there is too much game pre - end game.

Ohioastro

Veakoth wrote: »

Opinion after opinion all stating i should play the game the way you believe it should be played. Once and for all for the record, I am not complaining, i stated i like the challenge. This post was made to let people know they need to prepare for it.

FYI I rush content so i can enjoy the end game content which is what i enjoy most, then i make a character and enjoy the game, lore and story line which is what i like second most, i am a hardcore gamer people like me exist, get over it.

No. We're saying that you're demanding changes that are actually counterproductive. So you want the game design to permit people to reach the cap in a handful of days...to what end? So that people who don't do this can't compete in PvP? So that you can do (nonexistent at present) raiding?

If you want those games they already exist. Go to one of them, level up to cap in a few days, and let "the real game begin". I think that there is real virtue in having something to do at level cap that takes more than a few hours.

chrisub17_ESO104

I think some people are forgetting that not everyone is here for the PVE. My whole guild is here primarily for the pvp. We have some amount of fun running dungeons on the way up, but story/quests are basically roadblocks in the way to doing what we love to do. V10 is required to even start playing top tier competitive pvp in this game. Our game starts at V10.

Sarius

well even if it takes a long time to level up the VR rank, if i could do this with a group in 4 man dungeons or upgrade my gear to a point in dungeons it would make it alot less of a pain BUT in the first vet dungeon i tried yet (we only killed like 3 bosses in that random group but still) all loot we got was RANK 5 LOOT ?!

cmon i want to do some dungeons and get some loot and exp out of it but all i get is a big hint to get the *** out of here and go quest grind even more

also in most MMOs i really liked to play twinks but i doubt i will ever do this in TESO (all this quest and skillpoint/skyshard grind)

michaelpatrickjonesnub18_ESO

This game isn't built to challenge a power leveler. It's too easy for that. Huge, juicy XP gains. Not a lot of depth. Sometimes I think I'm hallucinating when I see my XP bar...

Did that just...Yes, it did. It just moved three inches.

I have a 95 in Lotro, and that was bloody earned. But the problem with those types of games is they don't appeal to the masses. They are harder to learn, time consuming, and take a lot of dedication.

Most gamers have short attention spans. They want a quick fix. Younger kids have no patience for Lotro.

ESO is an easier game for people to learn and enjoy. A more simplistic MMO, in a beautiful world, with lots of exploration and reading. It's just not built for people with a power leveling mindset. They'll slay this thing in a month. And if they don't like PvP they'll move on to the next game, out of sheer boredom.

delphwind_ESO

Thanks for the info OP, I was really hoping the game would get significantly harder! I am from old school EQ and have been looking forward to open world challenging PvE content for a very long time.

It was also nice to read that people are actually asking for group invites to do quests! I can't wait!

I am sorry this is not your cup of tea. This will likely be the case for all the power levelers, who I have the utmost respect for. I just choose to level slower, find every quest, item, shard, etc as I go.

Dixa

michaelpatrickjonesnub18_ESO wrote: »

This game isn't built to challenge a power leveler. It's too easy for that. Huge, juicy XP gains. Not a lot of depth. Sometimes I think I'm hallucinating when I see my XP bar...

Did that just...Yes, it did. It just moved three inches.

I have a 95 in Lotro, and that was bloody earned. But the problem with those types of games is they don't appeal to the masses. They are harder to learn, time consuming, and take a lot of dedication.

Most gamers have short attention spans. They want a quick fix. Younger kids have no patience for Lotro.

ESO is an easier game for people to learn and enjoy. A more simplistic MMO, in a beautiful world, with lots of exploration and reading. It's just not built for people with a power leveling mindset. They'll slay this thing in a month. And if they don't like PvP they'll move on to the next game, out of sheer boredom.

lotro's problems are cosmetic - animations are still terrible as are character models - and the fact that you can not only solo all the wy to 95 but then do all of the group based content solo including some raids.

Toy

The main problem with VR content is that they are forcing a certain playstyle upon us. It's "go questing or gtfo", while doing quests from 1-50 was not really a requirement. Guess what, there's people that HATE questing, I've not done a single one from 15-46, all I did was slaugthering tons of mobs grinding my way up until the game forced me to continue the main story in order to get to cold harbour.
After finishing all the tedious story quests I thought "...finally I'm free to do as I please again..."...how wrong I was. Now all of a sudden mobs yield 90% less ep per kill, exploring gains you NOTHING, chests gain you NOTHING and worst of all you can't even freely visit the other factions regions because they are locked unless you do...guess what...finish all the main quest hubs in the preceding region. They expect you to quest through them one by one.

Oh and fyi, not everybody has tons of friends to group up with / enjoys doing group content.

Jitterbug

"roll an alt".... worst advise ever...

Veakoth

Thank you Toy, seems people on these forums simply cannot understand this. I doubt any of them are veteran anyway. I give it less than a week before hardcore pvp'ers come to the forums due to veterans dominating them. Also you cannot force people who mainstream pvp to level via quests, a lot of them will simply leave the game instead.

Genev

Veakoth wrote: »

I give it less than a week before hardcore pvp'ers come to the forums due to veterans dominating them.

Rofl, you're kidding right? Hardcore PvPers do what's required to get to endgame for PvP's sake, most of the early 50s and Veterans are hardcore PvPers, the people who came up with the leveling guides are, so other PvPers know how to get to max fastest without having to waste time in the rest of the game.

Veakoth

Thanks for informing me about hardcore pvp, ill remember to pass it on to the 95% of cyrodil that's between lvl10-30. I didn't use a guide to level i figured it out on my own during beta (3 days lvl 43 and then i refined it), also to claim that PvP players are the ones that are the best levelers is naive and wrong.

Genev

In a game which doesn't offer PvP as a viable way to level? They will be amongst the first, just so that they can PvP and don't have to bother with leveling anymore.

In a game which does offer PvP as a viable way to level I assume they, just like any other hardcore group, will be faster than average still.
Because do note that I'm talking about hardcore players, not about the random herpaderp zerg "I spend so much time in PvP" players.

Veakoth

One thing i don't understand is why there is rank 10 veteran Epic PvP gear when they stated they weren't going to have any specific gear for pvp.
It's like zenimax is saying "here you go pvp'ers, rank 10 epic vet gear that costs 650k alliance war points per item, now you can go grind out 2200 quests to rank 10 vet then farm for them".
like wtf?

Dunhilda

GrimSolace wrote: »

Im glad the game is a challenge. 2nd comment i perfect, i could not have said it any better +1!

I think you confuse Challenge to time consuming, and being this is a MMO the more time you spend playing the more money you pay to them for broken quests.

Thybrinena

LonePirate wrote: »

Menacer wrote: »

If the OP's comments are true, then that is just terrible. 425k to VR2, and you are getting 42!?!?!?!?! exp per kill? And 1.5k exp per quest? That will totally ruin(like Stewie says) the experience for EVERYBODY. I don't care if you are a slow leveler or a fast one.

Personally I wish that the VR could be grinded in PvP or through dungeons. That way I can enjoy the content of the other factions with an ALT. Now the only way to level VR is to grind every single quest.

I am level 37 at the moment and I love everything about the game. I really hope that VR does not ruin it for me.

Menacer

Why would you not be able to grind the dungeons in the Veteran ranked zones? You can do so in the 1-50 zones so why would the rules change for Veteran content?

I'm not supporting any claim that this game takes too long to accomplish but I will confirm that grinding in VR areas is as possible as 1-50 content but not half as viable as the mobs give such little XP. Questing is by far the quickest/best way to do it.

Neshira

I was pretty disappointed when finally jump into VR, only to notice that the xp gain was reduced by a ridiculous amount, while the overall amount of exp required to reach VR2 has been increased to three times of what was required to go from 49 to 50. After two and a half days of questing, i finally got VR2. Only to notice, that the xp required to become VR3 has AGAIN been massively increased (almost doubled, in fact).

I reached 50 through questing (mostly, you know, that moment when youre 49 and there is not a single quest left in coldhabor), and i did enjoy it quite a bit. But lets face it, as much as they provided nice stories, in the end quests were quite repetitive. Kill that, gather that etc... (its natural, given the large amount of quests, after all). Right now, i'm really tired of questing, and at the same time the game tells me: hey, gather 6 times as much XP for your level as you had to previously, while we give you 10% of what you got previously.

Cutting XP gain AND increasing the amount of XP required for a level by such huge margins was completely unnecessary and I do feel kind of insulted by this absolutely artifical way to make me waste my time.

LonePirate

Thank you for that information, @Hirion. Can you also confirm that players need to complete certain quests (or a minimum number of quests) before they can move on from one VR zone to another? I am just trying to plot my strategy for tackling VR content given the differences from the 1-50 content.

Genev

@LonePirate‌ You need to have completed the main quest of every zone to be able to move on to the other faction, you will get a tab in your journal/achievements/lore window called "Cadwell's Almanac" which tells you which quests it is you need to have done. You can move freely between zones though once you unlocked the faction.

LonePirate

@Genev Thank you for that information as it helps. I will probably hit level 50 sometime this weekend, depending on how much hunting I do for crafting mats and Daedra/Undead for my FG skill. I will probably have plenty of Rift and Coldharbour quests to complete by then so it might be another week before I venture to Glenumbra. Hopefully the difficulty doesn't scare me away.

Ziiko

Toy wrote: »

Oh and fyi, not everybody has tons of friends to group up with / enjoys doing group content.

With all due respect, then move on. That's the answer. There are way too many gamers now that believe the way things should work is that they buy a game that has a certain idea of what it wants to be and then that by complaining about it they can influence the direction of the game. That's not how it should work.

You bought a toaster. It will not microwave your food. If you want to microwave your food, go buy a microwave, don't petition the toaster maker to add a microwave feature. It knows it wanted to make a microwave.

If the endgame isn't raiding, it's not fair to say "there's no endgame." The endgame is just something other than what you want it to be. If the endgame is more difficult, group quest content, that's the endgame. It's OK not to like it, but then this isn't for you.

LonePirate

Ziiko wrote: »

Toy wrote: »

Oh and fyi, not everybody has tons of friends to group up with / enjoys doing group content.

With all due respect, then move on. That's the answer. There are way too many gamers now that believe the way things should work is that they buy a game that has a certain idea of what it wants to be and then that by complaining about it they can influence the direction of the game. That's not how it should work.

You bought a toaster. It will not microwave your food. If you want to microwave your food, go buy a microwave, don't petition the toaster maker to add a microwave feature. It knows it wanted to make a microwave.

If the endgame isn't raiding, it's not fair to say "there's no endgame." The endgame is just something other than what you want it to be. If the endgame is more difficult, group quest content, that's the endgame. It's OK not to like it, but then this isn't for you.

Raiding is merely one game's end game content that has been co-opted by many other games in lieu of those other games creating new types of end game content.

The major problem with ESO's end game content is the forced grouping of a particular number of people. Why must a raid group be four people? Why not add variables to the code that linearly progress the HP or number of enemy mobs based on the number of people in the group? Content can easily be scaled to support instanced play by a solo person or a group of seven. Why must the raids or trials be tied to groups of four or twelve? This shortcoming is a black eye for the game that proudly says people can play how they want.

ESO should have blazed a new trail by developing end game content that is not tied to a specific number of people, which is far too restrictive, all things considered.

Getorix

I love it and I think it was an awesome idea, I really hope they don't cave into the post WOW generation of the I WANT IT NOW! people.

Level 50 is the end game, veteran levels give you something to do after 50, something to reach for, something no other mmos have anymore.

In the old mmos like EQ1 it took forever to get to 50, and you actually played the mmo pre 50, it wasn't just a solo grind to get to max level. There was a lot to do at the pre 50 levels, if you were 25(?) you hung out in high pass or the fear rot zones and did the cazic thule dungeons. It was part of the experience.

Now days everyone rushes to end level and says now what? In this game you get to 50 and you can do almost all of the content and veteran levels give you more to do. Personally im very happy to see an mmo has finally give us the what back.

For you post wow mmo people or people just new to mmos. Just give it a chance and appreciate that you have something to work towards after 50. Not just mind numbing daily quests and raids once a week.

hwesterbergb14_ESO

From what I understand, you can't get into the adventure zones without being veteran rank 10. So, that barrier really hurts more casual players. The ones who will be in Craglorn when it comes out are the people who quite frankly have nothing to do with their lives but play this game. Does it make them better players or more skillful? No, not really. It just means they don't have jobs or whatever other commitments people have in the real world. And the way they are rewarding people who are 'leaders' in the adventure zones means that they will create a perpetual cycle where the casual players can *never* catch up.

The great thing about those older MMOs that took forever to get to level.... Well, there were raids and good dungeons to do PRE 50. There isn't here. The pre-50 "dungeons" in this game are a joke. I hope the dungeons at 50 are better and we don't have to wait for 50/10 to get into real content.

Axer

Having to all the (VERY SHORT) quests is "grindy"

lol.. Really don't ever even consider playing any korean/chinese mmos then.. They make this games grind look like a complete joke.

And yea, no reason to really even think of ranks as levels. Not like you're super limited and can't do anything fun tell VR10 or something. You have tons of options for content when your 50+.

And no wonder your having a hard time, you obviously zerged to 50 fast as you could, and thus missed a huge chunk of the skillpoints and stronger loot along the way, resulting in a weak character.

Quite sure once im there, the solo content will be a joke to me like the rest of it is. The only challenging stuff is the group content (and only some of it, can solo most of the skulls at lvl once i hit 30, and i'm playing melee - hardest style to solo them as.)

Mie87

Are there more ways to lvl veteran ranks, apart from doing the other alliances' zones?
I was' t planning on doing that tbh as I find it weird to the enemy's zone.
But I was hoping to do the adventure zones :-/

Genev

Mie87 wrote: »

Are there more ways to lvl veteran ranks, apart from doing the other alliances' zones?
I was' t planning on doing that tbh as I find it weird to the enemy's zone.
But I was hoping to do the adventure zones :-/

You get experience from quests in non-veteran zones, but if you havent farmed your way up to 50 you will ahve done all of those. It's also not even remotely enough to get you to VR10, might get you to VR2, but even that I doubt.

You also get experience from AvA, but even with a very good group that will go extremely slow.

LonePirate

@Genev You have been providing a lot of useful information and I want to think you for it. Would you mind answering a couple of additional questions for me?

1. Do the Cyrodiil PVE quests contribute points to the Veteran levels? I assume they do but I have not seen or heard any verification of this.

2. I am currently level 35 with a few Shadowfen quests to complete along with all of Eastmarch, The Rift and Coldharbour. If I grind my way to 50 via mobs, bosses, dark anchors, Cyrodiil quests and the Main Story quests, will I still be able to trigger the mechanism that opens the other alliance zones? I think that should be sufficient but some additional confirmation would be welcomed.

I would like to keep my level ahead of the content so if I can reach VR 2 or even VR 3 before heading to Glenumbra via activities related to 1 and 2 above, then I will enjoy the Veteran content more as it won't be as much of a death sentence for me.

Genev

@LonePirate‌
1. I haven't bothered doing them, but quest handins of any level give Veteran Points.
2. You need to do the zone quest of Coldharbour do be able to do the Main Story quest, but it doesn't matter at which level you actually do this - You get the main story quest once you finish Coldharbour's zone quest. So what you think of doing should work just fine. (src: I only started the Coldharbour zone quest once I hit 50)

VR is more about gear than anything else, and except for AvA you don't get any VR gear outside of the VR zones, so you wouldn't actually be ahead of the content. Maybe through crafting? Dunno, haven't looked into crafting At All.

At VR3 I have parts of the VR1 and VR3 zones and the entire VR2 zone done, most of my VR experience has come from playing the entire game from scratch pretty much, since I farmed my way up starting at lvl 8. That and tons of AvA (except the PvE quests ). I've been getting all the quests, skyshards, etc in every zone, I'm currently working on The Rift. If I would actually have been doing the VR zones more, I'd likely be at least twice as high as I am now.