Gear after Champion System

badmojo · December 2014

It's my understanding that the champion system is going to replace the veteran ranks 1 to 14, so I'm wondering what will happen to the gear we currently have that are for specific veteran ranks. Will everything default to veteran? Meaning current v12 or v1 gear will be the same stats after the patch?

dharbert · December 2014

Come on people, do a search before posting.

This question has been posted a hundred times. No one knows how it is going to work, and Zenimax isn't saying either. Everything is just speculation at this point.

firstdecan · December 2014

dharbert wrote: »

Come on people, do a search before posting.

This question has been posted a hundred times. No one knows how it is going to work, and Zenimax isn't saying either. Everything is just speculation at this point.

Essentially this, although I like that new threads show up on the topic. It lets the PR team know that it isn't casual curiosity by a minority of people. The more the question shows up, the more they know their players would like an answer.

Out of pure speculation, I only see two things they can do:

1 - Keep equipment as it is, and incorporate using better equipment into the Champion system. You would have to invest champion points into using equipment rated at certain levels (whatever they would rename equipment ranks to in order to accommodate this). If they were to do this, it's possible people may not be able to use their current gear after the champion system is introduced.

2 - Scale everything back down to level 50. If they were to do this, half of the crafting levels obtained would be for naught, and there's a good probability they would have to rework the crafting system with the Champion system.

Again, this is SPECULATION on my part, nothing more. There may be other possibilities open, maybe there will be more post 50 equipment levels opened with the champion system, although I doubt it. Those two possibilities are simply what I see as the only logical options, I'd be interested in other SPECULATION about other possibilities.

OrphanHelgen · December 2014

firstdecan wrote: »

dharbert wrote: »

Come on people, do a search before posting.

This question has been posted a hundred times. No one knows how it is going to work, and Zenimax isn't saying either. Everything is just speculation at this point.

Essentially this, although I like that new threads show up on the topic. It lets the PR team know that it isn't casual curiosity by a minority of people. The more the question shows up, the more they know their players would like an answer

I am so agree to your answer here.

Soulshine · December 2014

they did discuss the introduction of season gear post the roll out of the champion system after final phase, but there has been no further commenting on it, for I should think obvious reasons. As for what we have earned to date, it is a total crapshoot what we will end up with, given the track record on everything else. All I can hope for is that they don't make what we have earned from trials and dungeon drops to date totally meaningless... but it would not surprise me to see that happen.

Sublime · December 2014

I speculate all current veteran gear will be scaled to level 50. They are probably going to implement new seasoned gear each update. I.e. for the first update they will implement season 1 gear, season 2 gear for the second update and so on. Once season 2 gear is droppable the older seasons will be significantly easier to obtain in order to reduce the player gap and item chase. It will still be there but it won't be insurmountable.

DeLindsay · December 2014

badmojo wrote: »

It's my understanding that the champion system is going to replace the veteran ranks 1 to 14, so I'm wondering what will happen to the gear we currently have that are for specific veteran ranks. Will everything default to veteran? Meaning current v12 or v1 gear will be the same stats after the patch?

When the Champion System first roles out in January the current Veteran Ranks will remain intact. Some time later ZoS will remove VR from the game entirely, but they haven't made any indication how long it will take AFTER the Champ System is out. Paul Sage said that this system is a MAJOR overhaul of the game and cannot just be tossed out without care, which is why it's taking them so long to drop it.

My guess is that once they remove VR, all current VR1-14 gear will just be Veteran. There might even be a difference between Level 50 and VR gear, the latter possibly being a little stronger at a cost of more materials than the former, but this is pure speculation.

jeevin · December 2014

Will it make three tiers of materials essentially obsolete? What will happen to VR zones? How pissed off are players going to be if the changes have even the smallest negative impact on their accounts? Stay tuned. It'll be another three months, at least, after January's patch until we find out the answers to these questions.

DeLindsay · December 2014

jeevin wrote: »

Will it make three tiers of materials essentially obsolete? What will happen to VR zones? How pissed off are players going to be if the changes have even the smallest negative impact on their accounts? Stay tuned. It'll be another three months, at least, after January's patch until we find out the answers to these questions.

Tiered materials will just be readjusted just like they did when they went from VR10 to VR14.
VR Zones will still exist as they do now, just enemies will likely all be just Level 50 with no *1, 2, 3... 13, etc besides their nameplate.
Yes, players will nerd rage all over the forums, FB, Reddit if anything changes their game in any way, this happens in every MMO.
The 3 months comment is likely spot on.

Enodoc · December 2014

I'm thinking they will start with three seasons of gear in place straight off, Season 1 being the previous V1-5 gear, Season 2 being V6-10, and Season 3 being V11-14.

I'm hoping that the difference between them is not so great though, so that they can reduce all VR Zones to Level 50 so that Cadwell's Silver and Gold can be done in either order, and can be concurrent with Craglorn and the lower Vet Dungeons and Trials.

kijima · December 2014

The Elephant in the room is, will VR14 Legendary gear be equal to VR1 gear, after the new system is implemented.

If so, it's going to frustrate many, many people.

Sublime · December 2014

kijima wrote: »

The Elephant in the room is, will VR14 Legendary gear be equal to VR1 gear, after the new system is implemented.

If so, it's going to frustrate many, many people.

If yes, I'm gonna start farming warlock rings in V1 zones.

(I completely agree on what you are saying)

Firellight · December 2014

Imho, I'd rather everything be scaled to VR1 gear. I've seen stuff like this in MMOs, where higher tier equipment is introduced. The results will likely end up in a stat gap between low and high level players, making PvP unplayable, and PvE a place where only the funded get into groups, and the unfunded are left out. It's an incredibly poorly designed system, and should not happen in an Elder Scrolls game. I'd rather equipment stop at level 50.

You can use steel instead of iron, but good luck replacing the steel.

Sublime · December 2014

Firellight wrote: »

Imho, I'd rather everything be scaled to VR1 gear. I've seen stuff like this in MMOs, where higher tier equipment is introduced. The results will likely end up in a stat gap between low and high level players, making PvP unplayable, and PvE a place where only the funded get into groups, and the unfunded are left out. It's an incredibly poorly designed system, and should not happen in an Elder Scrolls game. I'd rather equipment stop at level 50.

You can use steel instead of iron, but good luck replacing the steel.

They are planning to continuously introduce new gear. They will however also implement means to aquire the new gear as time goes on.

An example:

Update 1.7 introduces season 2 gear and update 1.8 introduces season 3 gear. The season 3 gear is obviously stronger than the season 2 gear (pure speculation)

Now with patch 1.8 they will not only introduce the 3rd season but also increasee the droprate of the 2nd season to make it easier available. With 1.9 and the 4th season, season 2 gear will be buyable from vendors, and so on.

What does this mean? Well there will still be a player gap, but there will never be a Situation where a player can win a fight by raw gearpower and it will be very easy to obtain gear that allows you to have an Impact. If you want high end gear you will however still have to work for it, since the best current gear will always be hard to obtain.

Hope this removes your concerns.

Tavore1138 · December 2014

That implies constant power creep which would suck over a long period. Hopefully new gear will focus on interesting new effects that offer utility in certain situations not just constant upping if numbers.

Sublime · December 2014

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

That implies constant power creep which would suck over a long period. Hopefully new gear will focus on interesting new effects that offer utility in certain situations not just constant upping if numbers.

Considering the amount of utility in the undaunted sets the second option is quite likely.

I don't get why it would suck if you could simply buy the gear for a bit of gold from a vendor.

jeevin · December 2014

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

That implies constant power creep which would suck over a long period. Hopefully new gear will focus on interesting new effects that offer utility in certain situations not just constant upping if numbers.

Exactly. Gear treadmills are not the answer for Eso. There are far more polished mmos out there already that utilize the gear treadmill and most likely to a far superior standard than Zeni is capable of delivering. I like the idea of offering new gear that offers different utility(lock picking for J/S anyone?). But chasing higher stats on new gear is no better than the VR crud we already have.

Enodoc · December 2014

jeevin wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

That implies constant power creep which would suck over a long period. Hopefully new gear will focus on interesting new effects that offer utility in certain situations not just constant upping if numbers.

Exactly. Gear treadmills are not the answer for Eso. There are far more polished mmos out there already that utilize the gear treadmill and most likely to a far superior standard than Zeni is capable of delivering. I like the idea of offering new gear that offers different utility(lock picking for J/S anyone?). But chasing higher stats on new gear is no better than the VR crud we already have.

Agreed. If they're trying to do away with vertical progression in Veteran content and move towards horizontal, adding new gear just with higher stats is a step back in the wrong direction.

Tavore1138 · December 2014

Sublime wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

That implies constant power creep which would suck over a long period. Hopefully new gear will focus on interesting new effects that offer utility in certain situations not just constant upping if numbers.

Considering the amount of utility in the undaunted sets the second option is quite likely.

I don't get why it would suck if you could simply buy the gear for a bit of gold from a vendor.

For me although I like dropped sets part of the fun has been the crafting aspect of set creation.

Power creep would lead to a number of options:

1 they simply up the stats of existing crafted sets meaning no need to craft.
2 each 'season' or two you have to recreate a full set with the same basic function but with the new raised stats meaning much grinding for no interesting gain.
3 Dropped sets become ever more creative and varied and powerful but because it is much easier to add drops versus adding new areas with new crafting stations crafted gear becomes increasingly obsolete.

There are ways to avoid this but so far little of interest has been added for crafting against dozens of new dropped sets.

So power creep without solving these issues makes crafting obsolete.

Kolache · December 2014

Since they're going to periodically refresh it with seasons, IMO it would make most sense to scale all previous gear back to a similar level to avoid further stat inflation. I mean I totally get why it would be super annoying to trivialize prior acquisitions/accomplishment, but that's what happens with seasonal gear anyway.

Even though I hate gear refreshing, I guess I'd rather a system that more effectively manages power discrepancies so they have a better shot at balancing PvE/PvP and keeping a larger number of players in the same league to play with eachother.

TehMagnus · December 2014

Sublime wrote: »

I speculate all current veteran gear will be scaled to level 50. They are probably going to implement new seasoned gear each update. I.e. for the first update they will implement season 1 gear, season 2 gear for the second update and so on. Once season 2 gear is droppable the older seasons will be significantly easier to obtain in order to reduce the player gap and item chase. It will still be there but it won't be insurmountable.

Wrong.

First of all, VR and Champion system will coexist at the beginning.

This means that you will still be VR14 and have your VR14 gear but at the same time will be able to spend points on the Champion System.

If they ever decide to get rid of "Veteran Ranks" it will most likely not be right away and will prolly be just the name that will change. In the end, you'll still have 64 levels (or more if they keep adding) and the gear that goes with it.

What they could do (an I hope not because horizontal progression sucks b@llz) is stop increasing the level cap at some point and implementing the seasonal gear they spoke of months ago and haven't given an update about since.

Sublime · December 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

Sublime wrote: »

I speculate all current veteran gear will be scaled to level 50. They are probably going to implement new seasoned gear each update. I.e. for the first update they will implement season 1 gear, season 2 gear for the second update and so on. Once season 2 gear is droppable the older seasons will be significantly easier to obtain in order to reduce the player gap and item chase. It will still be there but it won't be insurmountable.

Wrong.

First of all, VR and Champion system will coexist at the beginning.

This means that you will still be VR14 and have your VR14 gear but at the same time will be able to spend points on the Champion System.

If they ever decide to get rid of "Veteran Ranks" it will most likely not be right away and will prolly be just the name that will change. In the end, you'll still have 64 levels (or more if they keep adding) and the gear that goes with it.

What they could do (an I hope not because horizontal progression sucks b@llz) is stop increasing the level cap at some point and implementing the seasonal gear they spoke of months ago and haven't given an update about since.

Veteran ranks are being removed in the 4th stage of the implementation of the Champion System.

Kolache · December 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

If they ever decide to get rid of "Veteran Ranks" it will most likely not be right away and will prolly be just the name that will change. In the end, you'll still have 64 levels (or more if they keep adding) and the gear that goes with it.

What they could do (an I hope not because horizontal progression sucks b@llz) is stop increasing the level cap at some point and implementing the seasonal gear they spoke of months ago and haven't given an update about since.

Is this really an "if" at this point? There have been longer discussions about it already, like: http://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/2bl4oc/will_the_champoin_system_replace_the_veteran_ranks/

If they remove veteran ranks and have seasonal gear where you can easily get the previous season's gear, then I'd see it more like 3 tiers of power:
level 1-49
fresh level 50 (or level 50 that hasn't refreshed gear)
bleeding edge gear 50

If they just wanted more linear progression they'd just keep adding veteran ranks. IMO, this looks like an attempt at unending-yet-controlled linear progression with vast horizontal progression. Personally, I think it sounds pretty cool.

Faulgor · December 2014

firstdecan wrote: »

2 - Scale everything back down to level 50. If they were to do this, half of the crafting levels obtained would be for naught, and there's a good probability they would have to rework the crafting system with the Champion system.

I'd prefer this option.

- Crafting ingredients after level 50 never made sense with the lore
- It streamlines everything into the new champion system
- Max level is max level
- The game really opens up with level 50 because you don't have to jump through more rank-hoops to access content
- The vertical progression after level 50 is one of the reasons we are getting rid of the veteran system in the first place. Tiered gear after level 50 would defeat that purpose.

The only other sensible option would be the conversion of vet ranks into levels, with level 64 as the new max. But I'd prefer keeping it at 50.

zaria · December 2014

jeevin wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

That implies constant power creep which would suck over a long period. Hopefully new gear will focus on interesting new effects that offer utility in certain situations not just constant upping if numbers.

Exactly. Gear treadmills are not the answer for Eso. There are far more polished mmos out there already that utilize the gear treadmill and most likely to a far superior standard than Zeni is capable of delivering. I like the idea of offering new gear that offers different utility(lock picking for J/S anyone?). But chasing higher stats on new gear is no better than the VR crud we already have.

We already have an treadmill with the sets.
I assume the new items will be in new materials, not just new sets, yes we will get new sets too.

One idea is that breaking down the items add materials who can be used for crafting but you can only get it by breaking down making the material pretty rare.

TehMagnus · December 2014

Sublime wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

Sublime wrote: »

I speculate all current veteran gear will be scaled to level 50. They are probably going to implement new seasoned gear each update. I.e. for the first update they will implement season 1 gear, season 2 gear for the second update and so on. Once season 2 gear is droppable the older seasons will be significantly easier to obtain in order to reduce the player gap and item chase. It will still be there but it won't be insurmountable.

Wrong.

First of all, VR and Champion system will coexist at the beginning.

This means that you will still be VR14 and have your VR14 gear but at the same time will be able to spend points on the Champion System.

If they ever decide to get rid of "Veteran Ranks" it will most likely not be right away and will prolly be just the name that will change. In the end, you'll still have 64 levels (or more if they keep adding) and the gear that goes with it.

What they could do (an I hope not because horizontal progression sucks b@llz) is stop increasing the level cap at some point and implementing the seasonal gear they spoke of months ago and haven't given an update about since.

Veteran ranks are being removed in the 4th stage of the implementation of the Champion System.

The name is being removed

. They didn't say anything about the effective VR levels being removed

Just look at the latest change they implemented for VR levels. If I remember well, the amount of XP needed to earn a VR level has been brought down to the same amount for all the ranks

does this remind you something Barry? Yes it does, other Barry, the amount of exp needed to get a new Champion level will also be the same.

So Champion Level 14, VR 14 same [snip] different name. Advancement will not be calculated by levels but by how many Champion Points you have.

Sublime · December 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

Sublime wrote: »

magnusnet wrote: »

Sublime wrote: »

I speculate all current veteran gear will be scaled to level 50. They are probably going to implement new seasoned gear each update. I.e. for the first update they will implement season 1 gear, season 2 gear for the second update and so on. Once season 2 gear is droppable the older seasons will be significantly easier to obtain in order to reduce the player gap and item chase. It will still be there but it won't be insurmountable.

Wrong.

First of all, VR and Champion system will coexist at the beginning.

This means that you will still be VR14 and have your VR14 gear but at the same time will be able to spend points on the Champion System.

If they ever decide to get rid of "Veteran Ranks" it will most likely not be right away and will prolly be just the name that will change. In the end, you'll still have 64 levels (or more if they keep adding) and the gear that goes with it.

What they could do (an I hope not because horizontal progression sucks b@llz) is stop increasing the level cap at some point and implementing the seasonal gear they spoke of months ago and haven't given an update about since.

Veteran ranks are being removed in the 4th stage of the implementation of the Champion System.

The name is being removed . They didn't say anything about the effective VR levels being removed

Now I have to watch the whole video about the CS again.

reften · December 2014

dharbert wrote: »

Come on people, do a search before posting.

This question has been posted a hundred times. No one knows how it is going to work, and Zenimax isn't saying either. Everything is just speculation at this point.

oh lighten up. some people don't spend their entire day on the forums reading every post, How about you post a link to the most recent info...geez, will another thread will kill you?

dharbert · December 2014

oren74 wrote: »

dharbert wrote: »

Come on people, do a search before posting.

This question has been posted a hundred times. No one knows how it is going to work, and Zenimax isn't saying either. Everything is just speculation at this point.

oh lighten up. some people don't spend their entire day on the forums reading every post, How about you post a link to the most recent info...geez, will another thread will kill you?

You missed my point entirely. THERE IS NO INFO. No one knows for sure how it's going to work.

TehMagnus · December 2014

oren74 wrote: »

dharbert wrote: »

Come on people, do a search before posting.

This question has been posted a hundred times. No one knows how it is going to work, and Zenimax isn't saying either. Everything is just speculation at this point.

oh lighten up. some people don't spend their entire day on the forums reading every post, How about you post a link to the most recent info...geez, will another thread will kill you?

Will it kill you to search before asking? There's a new thread poping up each week about this when you have a search button on the top right corner of the page (oddly, it's just above the New Thread button *hint*) in which you can input "Champion System" and find the information you're looking for instead of starting yet another thread where people will express the same points they did in those other posts without any new meaningful information being included since: Nobody knows.

Enodoc · December 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

Just look at the latest change they implemented for VR levels. If I remember well, the amount of XP needed to earn a VR level has been brought down to the same amount for all the ranks

It was ostensibly the same anyway. I can't remember the exact numbers, so let's say it took X VPs to get from VR1 to VR2, and one of the quest VP rewards was Y at VR1. It took 2X VPs to get from VR2 to VR3, 3X VPs to go from 3 to 4, etc. At VR2 you got 2Y VP from quests, and 3Y VP at VR3. The ratio was the same, so that hasn't actually changed at all.

Faulgor wrote: »

The only other sensible option would be the conversion of vet ranks into levels, with level 64 as the new max. But I'd prefer keeping it at 50.

magnusnet wrote: »

The name is being removed . They didn't say anything about the effective VR levels being removed [...] So Champion Level 14, VR 14 same [snip] different name. Advancement will not be calculated by levels but by how many Champion Points you have.

Grouped these quotes together since they are equivalent.
To me, that totally defeats the point of the entire thing, and there would be no point in removing Vet Ranks if that is all they are going to do to them. if they are going to keep the vertical progression that they inferred they wanted to get rid of.
[Edit: Changed last sentence]