Veteran Level Concepts don't add up.

dmanlongb14_ESO

Matt Firor (Head Director) was asked about Veteran leveling and incentives for rolling a alternate character in ESO, he said:

"We thought it much better to allow players to experience all content with one character than force them to roll alts. This way, you can keep making your character better (by acquiring more skill points) as you go through Veteran Ranks and can take those new skills to Veteran Dungeons, PvP, and future high-level content. We could have made it so you had to start a new character to play each alliance, but wanted to allow players to keep exploring with their current character."

So according to the director - Veteran content is a substitute for Alts. That fine, but Craiglorn is for VR10 characters.

Basically , we are being forced to level a character to max level and then level 2 other characters to max level before we can do end game content.

I really enjoyed leveling to 50. I am VR4 now and this never ending questing is burning me out. I have been playing a couple of hours every night and find it quite worrisome that when end game content is finally released, I will not even be able to experience it, even though i have 6 days played so far.

Also, I really would like to try a different class, but no way in hell am I going to go through all that again.

Memnock

I have to agree with this. I have VR4 Sorc and i am starting to feel the pain of doing quests for the enemy factions. With each VR it gets progressively harder to reach the next rank , which is normal , but it just leaves me without any enthusiasm with regards to trying any new class.

I was thinking , okay , after i hit VR10 with my sorc , ill play a NB because i like the concept of the class , but after the amount of time i've spent just leveling up to VR4 and knowing what's ahead of me ?! NO WAY am I leveling another character.

I mean , i could go through the hole process again but i would have to experiance something new. As it stands now , after i hit max VR , i already went through the entire game content , which gets progressively slower , the higher you get and you end up doing all the factions quests and the character story with 1 toon , which leaves nothing to experiance with another class , other than the way you engage in combat and that gets old pretty freaking fast.

I mean , if they wanted us to experiment the other factions quests and stuff , a better way to do it , is to have us pose as a spy for our faction and find ways to ruin or weaken the other alliances to help keep our loyalty to our own faction and maybe keep our interest with some new elements from the character story , after the Coldharbour thing is over.

Sendarya

I remember mini-dings in EQ. Sometimes it would take over a month to get one level at higher levels.

I don't understand people who think you should be at max level in an MMO in one or even two months. MMO's are meant to be played long term.

I might agree that vet ranks are a cheap way to extend the leveling process, but I disagree that the leveling process is too long or hard. I'm tired of everyone "finishing" an MMo in a month, then just raiding til they are bored and the next mmo comes along, usually only another month or 2.

Xithian

Memnock wrote: »

I mean , if they wanted us to experiment the other factions quests and stuff , a better way to do it , is to have us pose as a spy for our faction and find ways to ruin or weaken the other alliances to help keep our loyalty to our own faction and maybe keep our interest with some new elements from the character story , after the Coldharbour thing is over.

That would have been pretty cool. I frequently find myself looking for the "I KEEL YOU" quest chat option. The entire PvE story, including the Vet areas, seems to be centered around the idea that all of the factions need to work together. While this is all fine and dandy for the storyline, it falls apart rather quickly if you ever delve into PvP. The entire point of the PvP side of the game is factions fighting for the crown. Outside of that zone we can't even come into contact with players from other factions, so it's kinda hard to hold hands and chant mantras anyway.

OmniDo

Memnock wrote: »

I was thinking , okay , after i hit VR10 with my sorc , ill play a NB because i like the concept of the class , but after the amount of time I've spent just leveling up to VR4 and knowing what's ahead of me ?! NO WAY am I leveling another character.

I agree with this.
Its a pity too, because ColdHarbour, for all its rather minuscule square footage, was actually the zone I most enjoyed.
I am VR4 too, and I have 29 days played (dont ask...I spend way too much time afk...) and from all the zone's Ive experienced thus far, Coldharbour was the best.
A pity it ended so quickly, as I could easily see them expanding the content there by orders of magnitude.
Another disappointment is that while I enjoy the Sorc Class from playing it to level 8, I have no patience for investing another 100+hrs into a character who will only do the same content yet again, and there is no viable alternative yet in place which would permit reaching level cap (VR10) without questing.
Sure 1-50 can be easily reached through mob/zone grinding (provided youre not competing with bots) but that only introduces you to the VR levels, and Im not about to repeat all that content which Ive already invested weeks into, twice.

fyendiarb16_ESO

I suddenly feel like a total noob again that has lived under a rock for ages. I have yet to get a character to veteran level (highest is 31 now) so have not experienced any of it myself.

Does what you and Matt Firor apparently are saying mean that once you are done with all quests of your own faction you get to do the same low level quests I have done on my alts in other factions all over again, but made harder? How does that make sense?

With this and the multi-faction guilds I am starting to see less and less value in the faction choice outside of Cyrodiil.

Guppet

fyendiarb16_ESO wrote: »

I suddenly feel like a total noob again that has lived under a rock for ages. I have yet to get a character to veteran level (highest is 31 now) so have not experienced any of it myself.

Does what you and Matt Firor apparently are saying mean that once you are done with all quests of your own faction you get to do the same low level quests I have done on my alts in other factions all over again, but made harder? How does that make sense?

With this and the multi-faction guilds I am starting to see less and less value in the faction choice outside of Cyrodiil.

Faction choice does not matter at all outside if PVP. Well actually you won't be able to group up in pve with people of othet factions.

VR levels are effectively levels 51-150, where you will be playing the factions you did not choose, to help those factions.

The questing experience is still enjoyable. But, it can feel rather like a massive grind.

The best way to think of it is the levelng process in this game is three times that in other games. So if leveling is what you enjoy in MMO's that's not really a bad thing.

fyendiarb16_ESO

@Guppet‌

Thanks for the clarification, until now I was under the impression that once you reach veteran ranks and entered the zones of the other factions, you would still be doing quests of your own faction. Kinda like undercover spy work or aiding the fight against those factions. Probably very naive of me to think that, but I wish my naive thinking had been correct.

Ah well, luckily I love questing.

Still a very cheap way to rehash old content and make having alts all the more painful... and I am quite the alt-oholic.

ZakyUchiha

I completely agree with this. I don't feel like I want to level another character, because in the back of my head, I can just hear that whisper, saying that I will have to go through every zone again.

Most_Awesome

This is my problem too, I made a DC NightBlade and got him to 44. Then my mate finally got the game but made a sorc in AD so I rolled a DK and got him to 40, but I missed my NB so made another and got to lv27. My mate has now quit so I went back to my DC NB I'm now vet1 and doing AD quests a 3 rd time FML!!! I'm sticking with this one now friends be damned if I'm doing all this again.

hamon

ye they utterly killed altaholics fun. i,m an altaholic... i had initially planned to level a few chars to 50 then decide which char and toon i enjoyed most and take him to vet mode... but this was taken away by the fact that only my first toon had i invested the extra time in to really get the extra stuff done , like lore books and levelling up extra weapon types and guild skills vampirism.. to have to do all that again while playing the entire games content with another char is too much to face.

I think this decision will backfire , cos you are now getting altaholics put off from playing alts. and possible having instead to stick to a class they dont really feel satisfied with cos the amount of work in getting an alt to vet 10 is too severe. this ultimately for some will shorten how long they reamin subscribing to the game.

Turial

dmanlongb14_ESO wrote: »

Also, I really would like to try a different class, but no way in hell am I going to go through all that again.

That is your choice then really isn't it?

OmniDo

Turial wrote: »

dmanlongb14_ESO wrote: »

Also, I really would like to try a different class, but no way in hell am I going to go through all that again.

That is your choice then really isn't it?

Yes. It is his choice, and my choice, and many others choices, just like its our "Choice" to vote, strike, quit, join the service, or break the law.

I suspect many will "Choose" to cancel their sub's and move to a different game that offers more desirable "choices", too.
If ZOS is content with the loss of revenue and criticism, then they can also "Choose" not to do anything about it.

smokes

i can only hope that VR levelling xp requirements are nerfed once craglorn is launched.

having the option to play through all 3 faction storylines on 1 character is great. but should not be a requirement to reach level cap - i'd like to have something solo left to do outside of organised group content once i hit max level.

but if i have to complete every questhub, every dolmen and every delve in order to reach VR10, i will not only burn myself out on that content, but get incredibly bored of it. the replay value goes down.

i like questing, but not that much.

would seriously love to see some dev feedback on VR ranks/levelling. i'm a fairly hardcore player, i took 3 weeks off work to level to 50 and enjoy the story on the way. but now in VR content, i find myself skipping dialogue and story a lot, stealthing past as many mobs as possible and having to weapon swap when handing in quests to level alternative skillines i may want to respec into.

on top of that, the loot drops from delves and dolmens is incredibly dissapointing and no longer farmable thanks to the bots, leaving gear upgrades and crafting a much more grindy exercise than i believe was intended and repair costs are crippling my bank balance.

i see a lot of players from a lot of other mmo's playing ESO and everybody seems to have their own ideas about the state of the game and the direction in which it is headed, depending on where they've come from.

i'd like to see it from the mouths of the developers: please address the current state of the game and inform us of yuour priority in fixing these games systems.

dmanlongb14_ESO

Sendarya wrote: »

I remember mini-dings in EQ. Sometimes it would take over a month to get one level at higher levels.

I don't understand people who think you should be at max level in an MMO in one or even two months. MMO's are meant to be played long term.

I might agree that vet ranks are a cheap way to extend the leveling process, but I disagree that the leveling process is too long or hard. I'm tired of everyone "finishing" an MMo in a month, then just raiding til they are bored and the next mmo comes along, usually only another month or 2.

I always see this type of argument about the old day. I am an old gamer - 40 years old and have been playing MMO's a really long time. I remember these types of games, but times have changed, and gamers have changed.

Back in the day, gamers had limited options and MMORPGs were for the hardcore gamer only crowd. The majority of people today just do not have the time to make a video game a second job, myself included.

The problem with your EQ comparison is that "back in the day", a non maxed character still had value. This is not the case now. a Sub VR10 level character cannot do end game content. You are being forced to reach max level before you can achieve anything. Even professions are worthless until max level because you replace your gear every VR level.

If trials started at VR1, and as you progressed the trials got easier, then that would be an efficient system.

So, I stand by original statement that this game forces us to level 3 characters before we can do end game content.

Jaxom

I think it would be great if Craglorn scaled to the VR Rank of the party leader. If your party leader is VR 5, great, all the mobs are VR 5 and drop VR5 gear. That would give people the option to do Craglorn once you complete your faction. You can still have the unique purple drops be VR 10 so you have a reason to continue to level up but not completely cut off. Doing VR 10+ content as a VR1 is just not going to be possible. I don't know of a group who would accept them into their party unless it was a guild alt or something like that.

Getorix

I hate alts and only played them for something to do between raiding, if ESO can give me a reason to keep playing my main and I don't have to roll an alt because my main has no room for improvement then im all for it. Eq1 was able to do that for me for like 5 years, I only played my main because I always had something for him to do. Daoc did it too with its pvp, I always had something to do on my scout.

Bhakura

smokes wrote: »

stealthing past as many mobs as possible

and repair costs are crippling my bank balance.

O really, how on earth could that even be remotely possible ... when you skip as much fights as you can ...
Strange, so strange.

My money is going down because everything is to bloody expensive! hey look, a bunch of mobs that hold loots and cash and stuff, no ty, leave em be otherwise i cant complain on the forums that stuff is too expensive, my wallet might get to thick and then they wont nerf expenses because i prefer a mind boggling boring easy game you can play with your eyes closed.
Kill stuff, loot stuff, sell stuff, pfft, you ARE mad, look how expensive everything is!

thats you, and heres me, a run along the shores of stross mkai ... making 6k of mudcrabs without selling anything to players, all shopfood. MUDCRABS for crying out loud, so with repairs off that run i actually made 8k.
I find "repairs are to expensive, horses are to expensive, everything is bloody expensive" posts ... hilarious.

smokes wrote: »

i'm a fairly hardcore player

sure sound like it

tawok

Man, when you put it that way, it's a real bummer. I could've sworn I read somewhere that all "end game" was going to be designed around level 50 (VR1) and that anything past that would be strictly optional. Not that VR1-10 being mandatory is strictly a bad thing, but without an alternative (PVP)(Dungeon Farm) to complete, makes it pretty rough.

Moonchilde

What if an epic level quest was added which resulted in you earning a special respec token (only once per character) that allowed you to change your class, and return to life in a weakened state (say lvl 20)? This might be something like a reincarnation while in the same body, perhaps at the end of some valiant self-sacrifice.

Diabolik101

I have played most mmo's since eq1 & I am really trying to give the game a fair chance, but I have to admit, this grind is brutal. Its not so much the amount of exp between levels, but the manor in which your forced to do boring repetitive quests. I will do my best to finish the next 6 VR levels. Im just not sure if I have it in me, the dungeons are TERRIBLE , theres really no incentive to group & Im really curious what raids are going to be like, I think thats going to be my deciding factor on keep paying & playing or pulling the plug on my end.

liquid_wolf

Veteran Content and Leveling will be adjusted in this 1.1 patch.

They want to give people access to craglorn, so the xp/quest/VR Rewards will be adjusted.

I'm not saying they are going to make it incredibly easy... but I'm very confident they will be making it much more doable.

Aaron0505

As a PC mmo player, this was my primary concern going into this game. Console bias is evident in design (bulky ui, single character focus) and poses a real problem for the bulk of the PC gamers they are trying to bring to this game. Had hoped for a balanced approach, but like op, was really disappointed upon hitting veteran levels and realizing that re-playability was going to be painful and redundant (exacerbated by the similarity in viable builds across classes).

dmanlongb14_ESO

I wrote up reasons why the Veteran Content is a poor design choice in another thread, but I will repost it here as I feel it has merit in here as well.

1. Questing is about story. I don't want to give spoilers, but at the end of 50,you finish the game and it's very epic. V1 - V10 = No main characters, no Main quests, No Factions - The entire V1 - V10 content is side quests, public dungeons, dark anchors an the other stuff. There is absolutly no epic moments besides the little area quests. It is truly a story without a antagonist.


2. Segway from 1. There is no protagonist. The most important part of the story is missing - You. Hard to again explain without spoilers, but you are not you. You are a ghost experiencing someones vision. To add fuel to the fire - IT'S THE OTHER FACTIONS STORY - Yes, your sworn enemy. How would Star Wars feel if you destroyed the Death Star as Luke Skywalker and then all of a sudden, you are replaying the entire story as a faceless Stormtrooper killing Luke's parents on Tatooine?


3. VR is lonely right now. Why, well because it takes forever to level. I started at 5 day early access. I play every night for a few hours, but I am not hardcore. The VR levels are not filled with people like the lower levels. I have to wait in public dungeons for help and stand at dark anchors spamming LFM for 10 minutes sometimes to get enough to do it. I sat at a world boss last night for a long while and gave up because I could not find people to do it. This will change when groups catch up, but right now, VR is not very populated and I did not rush at all. I crafted and explored and completed each map. All the rushers are at Vr10 now.

4. There are no alternatives to leveling. PvP Xp is way too low at the moment and Dungeons are challenging - so wipes will surely happen. This costs gold and does not reward enough xp to make it worth it to do, besides one time. Gear is replaced every level, so there is basically no reason to do anything besides quest or grind.

5. Lower levels are worthless. Vr10 is the only level that matters. All endgame content is for max VR. So, the only incentive is to rush to VR. MMORPGs are about building your character. If your character simply gets stronger by leveling, then the best thing to do is level. Even crafting is only important at max level. The lowest level hard mode dungeon drops VR5 loot. This totally invalidates all lower VR levels.


I should add, that I do really like this game a lot and it does some amazing stuff. There is a lot to build on and I think the developers created an amazing game. I do recommend it. The veteran levels suck, plain and simple. They need to change them and its not enjoyable. When I hit 50, I went "Wow, what a great ending and what a great game!".. Veteran Content makes me say "I think Im gonna watch some TV". It's just not fun.

Nox_Aeterna

I said this on multiple threads already , this game lacks many paths to lvl which many other MMOs offer , if i get tired of my templar , i would rather quit this game any time , than lvl an alt.

dmanlongb14_ESO wrote: »

1. Questing is about story. I don't want to give spoilers, but at the end of 50,you finish the game and it's very epic. V1 - V10 = No main characters, no Main quests, No Factions - The entire V1 - V10 content is side quests, public dungeons, dark anchors an the other stuff. There is absolutly no epic moments besides the little area quests. It is truly a story without a antagonist.


2. Segway from 1. There is no protagonist. The most important part of the story is missing - You. Hard to again explain without spoilers, but you are not you. You are a ghost experiencing someones vision. To add fuel to the fire - IT'S THE OTHER FACTIONS STORY - Yes, your sworn enemy. How would Star Wars feel if you destroyed the Death Star as Luke Skywalker and then all of a sudden, you are replaying the entire story as a faceless Stormtrooper killing Luke's parents on Tatooine?

These two claims totally deppends on what you consider the "main quest" , you will receive ALL of that factions quests , only thing that you will not see is the harbour/coldharbour/fighters/mages guild quests again, which are the same for everyone.

So you will become a hero to any faction you play in but you wont have the whole thing about defeating molag bal again.

To be honest , i picked AD because i wanted to play that factions story, the whole thing with molag bal was just a side mission to me.

phatmhat

Yeh, they're basically making it so that the only way you can enjoy the continuing grand story, is to either continue questing, which you may not want to do; PVP, which you may not want to do; or grind, which you may not want to do. But you MUST pick any or all three of those in order to play the big story.

Yep - they're putting a price on the expansion - time and money and effort into something you may not don't want to do. So if you're really wanting to play the new story - you're going to have to pay. If that price is too high for you, you just quit.

Not to hijack this thread, but I play mainly to PVP. In order to be competitive, you have to be top level. It really helps. And what does it take? Everything I just listed above. And I don't know if I'm willing to pay that price just so battles are balanced. (Please don't tell me VR2 vs VR10 is balanced.)

So I'm working my butt off doing all three of those above listed things - things I don't so much enjoy doing - just so I can enjoy the kind of PVP I signed up and paid and worked and spent time on, hoping to enjoy. I paid the price.

And by the time I get to VR10 - I'll then have to level to VR12.

This is not looking like something I want to do.

spinedoc

With their mindset about not having to play alts, then why do we have classes? They should have just opened all skills up with no classes, so we wouldn't feel like we were missing anything. I play alts so I can experience that class, but I wouldn't mind just having one character at all that I could concentrate on 100% of the time.

The whole VR thing is horrible IMO.

hamon

spinedoc wrote: »

With their mindset about not having to play alts, then why do we have classes? They should have just opened all skills up with no classes, so we wouldn't feel like we were missing anything. I play alts so I can experience that class, but I wouldn't mind just having one character at all that I could concentrate on 100% of the time.

The whole VR thing is horrible IMO.

this is the real mistake they made . the number one factor in folk being altaholics is to play other classes. having other factions and fresh zones etc. to use that other class is just more incentive.... however removing all the other reasons by making you take your main through every zone/story/faction the game has to offer to cap him at max, and make the process overly arduous with low xp and grindy high hp mobs to kill , will put off lots of altaholics and turn folk away from the game when they feel their main class isnt all they hoped it would be.

where as if the incentive was there to try another class and take him to level cap failry easily they would remain and pay a sub much longer.

other MMO's like lotro got this and allowed you to make a second char at lvl 50 provided you already had one at 50 .. they recognised that altaholics will sustain an MMO when hardcores who only play one char have long since left.

stimpy986b14_ESO

I'm just going to call it out here like it is. VR levels as a means to experience all content without rolling alts is a complete load of bull.

What they are is a means to extend gameplay without costing ZOS time or money.

If this were not true, then the new expansion content would start at VR1 instead of VR10

Instead, you absolutely MUST 100% complete the game (IE every side quest, dark anchor, world boss etc on each map) just to access new content on one character.

Furthermore, if VR levels was a way to experience all content without rolling alts, then all class skill lines would be opened up after hitting VR1 as well.

Zepheric

I am just going to say this again and I know I say it a lot, but if you are just grinding out quest after quest you are leveling incorrectly as a veteran, if you are not a completionist or wanting gear rewards.

To level efficiently in each zone you must
1. Defeat all world bosses
2. Clear all public and solo dungeons
3. Destroy all Dolmens
4. Complete your cadwells almanac
5. Move to next zone
6. Repeat

This will take you a majority of the way through the Early vet levels to approx VR8 or VR9

Then you may complete 4 man dungeons or do some minor questing to hit VR 10 or you may go to Craglorn as a VR 9

Stop making this more complicated than it is, the leveling system isn't flawed your view of how it should be working and is working is wrong.

Nox_Aeterna

Zepheric wrote: »

I am just going to say this again and I know I say it a lot, but if you are just grinding out quest after quest you are leveling incorrectly as a veteran, if you are not a completionist or wanting gear rewards.

To level efficiently in each zone you must
1. Defeat all world bosses
2. Clear all public and solo dungeons
3. Destroy all Dolmens
4. Complete your cadwells almanac
5. Move to next zone
6. Repeat

This will take you a majority of the way through the Early vet levels to approx VR8 or VR9

Then you may complete 4 man dungeons or do some minor questing to hit VR 10 or you may go to Craglorn as a VR 9

Stop making this more complicated than it is, the leveling system isn't flawed your view of how it should be working and is working is wrong.

Im a VR9 player , and honestly , my experience is TOTALLY different.

I complete enough quests/zone to get the achiv , i do all anchors/wb and i do all the public dungeons be it solo or group.

And more often than not , i still dont have enough exp at end to get to next vet lvl.

So if you are doing this jumping most quests , you must really have a secret there.