So it's either we're too high a level or the area is too hard. lol. Got it.

My biggest problem is I'm a bit of a completionist. I don't have to find every single little thing in an area before I move on but every sky shard, every quest, every dungeon? oh yea... I'm compelled to find and complete those. If I just plowed through the story and did a couple side quests (and not ALL the side quests) I wouldn't be having this issue.

Sorta unrelated but I got emperor in Blackwater blade, and crashed right beforehand so didn't get the xp but eh. I knew I was gonna hit v1 and get kicked out soon enough but I mean... If you play the game you can't REALLY prevent leveling out. So you just go to the next zone...

Gidorick wrote: »

I'm actually at the point where my journal has 6 quests for my current zone, all grey, and 2 yellow for the next zone.... so I COULD just move on but... I'm not going to.

I wish they had system where the lower the experience you recieve, the more gold you get, or the better the dropped gear is. Some incentive other than story to go through the missions.

Yeah, don't move on, the quests are fine (read: fun).
Dropped gear is mostly cosmetic to me, at one point, I'm trying to complete a couple of sets I have 3 or 4 parts for right now.
I tend to sell white and 'ornate' stuff, and throw the rest onto the work-benches, which hands-down provides anything I need for crafting.

Sharee wrote: »

I (kinda) solved this by completely skipping one zone

There's an idea.... and leave it for an alt to do. Ill have to think about that one.

MissBizz wrote: »

I also solved this problem so I started skipping dolmens, solo dungeons and world bosses in the last couple zones. I then went back later during VR. Although not as bad I can see I'm ourlevelling the VR content as well. The good news is your quests won't turn grey there

This is probably the best idea, the solo dungeons however has skyshards who is very nice on low level characters.
Come back and solo it for the achivements, as I understand you still get xp for the achievements and quests but not for the kills.

If you're taking your time playing the game, you will probably out level each zone. I recently worked my fourth toon up to VR level, I "power quested" through each zone. I basically did every quest \ dolmen \ boss in each zone, but as quickly as I could. I killed a minimum number of trash mobs, didn't read the dialogue (after the fourth time who needs to), and rushed my character through making each map "all white."

By the second zone, almost every quest I would get was green (meaning I was higher level but not too high level). I focused on completing the lowest level quest I had (rinse, repeat) and managed to avoid having too many gray quests (no xp for completing). The point being, there's an abundance of XP just riding the roller coaster, and at normal levels you will easily out level your zone if you're doing what you do in a typical TES game: wandering around, exploring, checking things out.

It's different at the VR levels, the game feels more open and more explorable there, mostly because advancement once you hit VR is much slower (about 1 level per zone as opposed to 10). But at the regular levels, you can easily out level your current zone.

As far as advice goes - I don't really have any other than "enjoy the game." You can still play the gray quests and keep exploring each zone even if you've out leveled it, you simply don't get xp or drops. If you're looking for a bit more challenge, push one of your toons up to VR level, and then go back and complete the regular level stuff when you feel like doing something relaxing \ mindless \ non-challenging.

Thanks for all the insight everyone!

I think what I'm going to do is not white the maps or and come back as a vet level. This also solves one of my unspoken gripes of there being little to no reason to revisit zones one they are cleared..... If I don't clear them, there's a reason to come back. The completionist in me blinded me to this very simple solution.

This has actually gotten me really excited to play tonight where before it was starting to feel like a drag.

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

Oh Lord. I'm at least 2 levels behind, normally 4 or more. I have no idea how you guys get even with the game.

My new level 20 NB is playing between level 22 and 26 right now. I do tend to wander off the map it's true.

I have been playing since Jan and I have never been even with the game, let alone ahead. Probably a good thing in my case. The NB died a couple of days ago, fell in some lava. Nothing else is killing him.

That is boastful I must admit so I'll go a bit further. He is pampered beyond belief. He gets all new Hunding's Mother every 2 to 4 levels. He gets the best tri pots that can be made. His food is all blue and his gear all Enchanted to a ridiculous level. Who uses Kutas on a level 20 char? I do, I have quite a few. His advantages spring from my maxxed out crafter army which supports my fighters and my son's.

If you do enough quests to get the achievement for quests in an area, then you should be slightly overlevelled, especially in you do the pathfinder and cave delver achievements too.

Kutas are sadly irrelevant to enchants, you get the same strength enchantment from a Ta as from a Kuta. Not actually sure what the aspect runes are meant to do, apart from give your more exp when you deconstruct.

At the risk of stating the obvious, most zones are designed with a specific route in mind. If you're a completionist, following the main storyline in a zone ensures that any other quests you do along the way will be as close as possible to your own level. If you do that, the game becomes rather easy throughout. Not sure if you'll get that much more XP in the end if you do so, or whether it just evens out the XP gain.

Oh and about the NB: I suppose there's the temptation to bypass mobs with stealth. I wonder if that won't cause you to drop behind the XP curve in the long run.

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

He is pampered beyond belief. He gets all new Hunding's Mother every 2 to 4 levels. He gets the best tri pots that can be made. His food is all blue and his gear all Enchanted to a ridiculous level. Who uses Kutas on a level 20 char?

If you have Crafters to support a character, you can easily be 2 to 4 levels below the mobs for the entire game. Even at the VR Ranks, well, maybe 1 to 3 VR levels below.

But, find a grind spot and spend an hour or two catching your character up, that is what I finally did. I was trying to go after every mob everywhere I was going and it just was not working. I finally camped in a public dungeon and just spent two evenings in there (couple hours each one) and got him caught up. I also got about 30K in Gold and a bunch of researchables too.

Gidorick wrote: »

I am a pretty casual player and have not yet reached vet ranks. I have multiple alts, none above level 30. I play 4 nights a week or so and only for a few hours each night. I have found I have a problem.

I keep outleveling the zone I am in! My quests turn grey and I receive no experience for killing the local wildlife. It's a catch 22. I would like to receive experience for these quests and killings but when I DO receive experience it causes me to gain levels and then I'm in the same boat I was in before. I'm already getting too much experience and I out-level quests faster than I complete them so about half of the campaign I'm completing quests beneath me, which kind of takes away some of the fun of questing.

Is there anything I can do to even my game experience out a bit so I'm not always on the precipice of out-leveling what I'm currently doing?

There are a few things that help but wont fix the issue.

Skip dungeons (LFG tool). I only do them once and only the one of my faction, its about 1/2 of a level per dungeon so that you have 1 more level to spend time on so to speak.

Don't kill every mob you see, try to only clear those that protect chests, lore objects or belong to a quest.

Do world bosses and dolmens just once.

With that tactic I am usually on an average level speed so that quests can turn green but most of them are yellow. Greys I had as well though, you cant prevent this from happening I guess


The biggest xp however comes from dungeons and pvp, avoid this as good as you can and you will be able to level slower.

To the OP. I did the same thing all the way up. I wanted to complete everything and outleveled it all after the first zone... Sadly if you are a completionist such as myself which i still have tons of work to do lol, there is no real leveling done. I was VR10 by like the 6th VR zone but that was a long time ago. I still got some quest work to do and im VR14 already but i stopped questing and started grouping for that. I really don't want to run out of stuff to do so i fill my time with groups and go do quests when none are available, although that is getting old fast lol.