As a casual player, I am worried about the Champion System

spoqster · March 2015

I am a casual but competitive player. It took me roughly six months to reach v14. While playing vet dungeons before, ever since I reached v14, I could finally play the content I enjoy the most: DSA, Trials, vet CoA. Even the vet dungeons are more fun now, since it's easier to find a group and PUGs wipe less at v14 because the probability is higher that everyone knows what they are doing.

Being at v14, I managed to do 2 DSA runs in total (haven't had time to get into vet DSA), three or four trial runs and two runs of CoA. So I really don't very often have the time to sit down for 2 to 4 hours to focus on one piece of great content. But I perform well when I do, and it is a good feeling to be on par with players who play much more, because we have the same power and a similar skill level, albeit others having better gear - but not much.

Originally ZOS stated that it should take 1 hour to get 1 CP. Now rumors are that it will take 4 hours to get one 1 CP, and 1 hour while enlightened. Currently this rate still highly depends on the content you do, but ZOS will normalize that. For now, let's assume that it will take well informed players 2 hours to get 1 CP, without grinding themselves to tears. I get to play 10 hours per week. Let's say a power player plays roughly 10 hours almost every day, so let's use 50 for easier calculation. I mostly play on the weekends, so enlightenment might not do as much for me - but I don't know how long enlightenment lasts yet, feel free to enlighten me (pun intended). Let me assume for now that with my play style I will gain CP at 1 CP/h (twice the normal rate due to enlightenment).

Using the above numbers, I will earn 10 CP per week, while a power player will earn 25. In half a year (roughly 24 weeks), I will have earned 240 CP and a power player will have earned 600 CP.

What is everyone else's take on this? Should I be worried? How big is the difference between 240 and 600 CP?

Syntse · March 2015

spoqster wrote: »

What is everyone else's take on this? Should I be worried? How big is the difference between 240 and 600 CP?

Of course depends on person to person how they see what is big difference and what is not. Think earlier someone wondered difference between 300 and 600 cp and transforming that into numbers really wasn't that much.

pppontus · March 2015

I'm equally worried. Working 9+ hours a day doesn't exactly make me excited to go home and grind CP the rest of my days to stay competetive. I preferred the game without the CS by far, as in the end, as long as you were VR14 and had good gear (which isn't exactly hard to acquire in this game) it was all down to your personal skill. Honestly, the CS needs tuning down by a LOT or need to be changed completely..

I wish the CS was just combat unrelated perks.... bleh. I honestly feel like this system is going to force me to quit the game eventually. I mean either way, if I get many CP = content becomes too easy = no fun. If I get too few CP = won't be competitive or can't copmlete the new content without grinding 200 hours = no fun.

Who could possibly enjoy this system, is my question?

f047ys3v3n · March 2015

You should be worried. Your screwed. This is why MMO's always have level caps. Realistically, level and gear are meaningless in magnitude compared to CP now.

ahstin2001nub18_ESO · March 2015

don't worry about it. if you play 10 hours a day or less, this is a multiplayer game. in a group there will be some with 100 CPs and some with 10. its just like gear. if all you do is solo, so far it seems a fair amount the mobs (including some in craglorn) have been made less powerful, so you don't need 100s of them. in fact, some mobs i was fighting in craglorn, didn't require me to repair my armor, which had been broken completely.

now if you were a PVPer, i would say that might be a different situation. i can see PVPers having issues either now or long term.

cote-bmsb16_ESO · March 2015

My group completed an AA trial run and regular DSA tonight. I was enlightened and earned two CP from it. My guildie wasnt enlightened, he only earned one CP during DSA. It took about two hours to do. As long as you stay enlightened & complete content, you'll be okay. For sure, slower than someone with more time on their hands but you'll be able to complete content with everyone. I see us needing more cp for things like vet dsa, trials on hardmode and Sanctum Ophidia though.

pppontus · March 2015

cote-bmsb16_ESO wrote: »

My group completed an AA trial run and regular DSA tonight. I was enlightened and earned two CP from it. My guildie wasnt enlightened, he only earned one CP during DSA. It took about two hours to do. As long as you stay enlightened & complete content, you'll be okay. For sure, slower than someone with more time on their hands but you'll be able to complete content with everyone. I see us needing more cp for things like vet dsa, trials on hardmode and Sanctum Ophidia though.

The problem is mainly future content and for that matter leaderboards. The only thing that will matter now is having maximum CP. I can already foresee people having to stop raiding in order to not hinder their guilds if they don't have the ability to play 24/7. Not to even mention PVP.. o m g.

spoqster · March 2015

pppontus wrote: »

I'm equally worried. Working 9+ hours a day doesn't exactly make me excited to go home and grind CP the rest of my days to stay competetive. I preferred the game without the CS by far, as in the end, as long as you were VR14 and had good gear (which isn't exactly hard to acquire in this game) it was all down to your personal skill. Honestly, the CS needs tuning down by a LOT or need to be changed completely..

I wish the CS was just combat unrelated perks.... bleh. I honestly feel like this system is going to force me to quit the game eventually. I mean either way, if I get many CP = content becomes too easy = no fun. If I get too few CP = won't be competitive or can't copmlete the new content without grinding 200 hours = no fun.

Who could possibly enjoy this system, is my question?

I completely agree. The CS should award non-combat perks. That will be a fine motivation for playing, next to gear acquisition.

Lied · March 2015

in one of the ESO lives I think they mentioned something about possibly tweaking the cost of the first X amount of CP to make it easier for people to get to a level where the gap matters less. This sounds like a good start, (especially if it's retroactive with your earned CP experience), but steeper DR at higher levels may be required too, IMO--will have to see.

Kronosphere · March 2015

so far from my experience enlightenment give x4 xp to champion points. i turned in vet gold key daily pledge, got 11k xp, but got 44k towards champion point.

Chesimac · March 2015

I honestly despise champion system in general. There is way too much casual/power gamer seperation like you said, a lot of people will leave the game if you don't do something. They either need to make cp gain way faster or reduce the amount of max cp significantly

olsborg · March 2015

It worries me that in 6 months, the hardcore grinder will be miles ahead of me(a casual player) in the champion system.

Tandor · March 2015

I think you'll just need to play with like-minded players, and avoid the elitist players that will set a minimum CP requirement for anyone joining their groups. The chances are it won't make that much of a difference anyway, but the elite among us will imagine that it does.

Gidorick · March 2015

olsborg wrote: »

It worries me that in 6 months, the hardcore grinder will be miles ahead of me(a casual player) in the champion system.

Shouldn't they be tough? More time=more progression.

darthbelanb14_ESO · March 2015

This isn't a system where you have to have it maxed right now. It's a system you invest in to during your normal gameplay. I don't understand why people have to have it right now, or as fast as possible. Just play and enjoy your time.

Maulkin · March 2015

darthbelanb14_ESO wrote: »

This isn't a system where you have to have it maxed right now. It's a system you invest in to during your normal gameplay. I don't understand why people have to have it right now, or as fast as possible. Just play and enjoy your time.

You don't have to. You just have to take it as given that some people will grind CP, whatever their motivation. The fact that it's not for you or that you don't understand why, is irrelevant in the discussion.

The question is, what impact will these guys have on the rest of the population in terms of PvE leaderboards and PvP? Testing on PTS showed big difference between a build with 100 CPs and one with 1k CPs. Big enough that PvE content that was previously challenging became trivial and PvP duel balance got heavily altered.

The question is what will the state of the game be (balance-wise) in 3-4 months when a bunch of people have ground their way to several hundred CPs more than the average player? That is the real question.

Knootewoot · March 2015

darthbelanb14_ESO wrote: »

This isn't a system where you have to have it maxed right now. It's a system you invest in to during your normal gameplay. I don't understand why people have to have it right now, or as fast as possible. Just play and enjoy your time.

I am a long time V14 and i do not have any quests left. I also work 9-10 hours a day and have a wife and kids. I can play 3-4 hours (mostly 2 since i also need sleep)

I earn around 40k because i love to PvP and thats what i do. I don't want to grind a CP because that means that's all i can do at a play-day. And then i would not have fun as i hate grinding.

So in 5 years i (doubt if the game will exist then anymore) would have maybe 180 points maybe while others will have 3600.

I play and i enjoy my time. But i was worried between the CP gap earlier and still am. I doubt new players or players who didn't grind will find it fun while they get facerolled all day in PvP. The later passives are powerfull enough to make you wanna quit.

Ysne58 · March 2015

I think one of the solutions is to allow people to earn cp on any character, not just the vet level ones. Also let inspiration and alliance point gain count toward earning cps.

Knootewoot · March 2015

I call this new system,.... and i dare to say it,.. a close resembly to the:

NGE

Skiserony · March 2015

What I wonder about is, why should someone decide start playing ESO in a few months or years? This is going to be a game where its 'too late' to get into because you'll be too far behind. That's not interesting. I don't see myself buying a game where everyone has few thousand CP and you have none. You'll get crushed in PvP without a chance and your dps wont be high enough to be competitive in PvE. Unless you play for thousands of hours, which even isn't interesting for a grinder.

I like there is something where your character keeps growing, that there is always something to work for. But now it basically comes to the more CP the stronger you are. Not necessarily about skill anymore.

I'm afraid PvP is going to be a joke because of this in a certain amount of time.

Brother_Numsie · March 2015

In PVE I can understand and accept the Champion System, time=reward, sounds fair.

But OP makes a real good point when it comes to PVP, the Champion System is just not going to work out there in Cyrodiil.

Right now it's not a big deal, 3-6 months down the line and we will start to see the difference a year later.... ouch.

Players with real world obligations are going to be at a severe disadvantage, with no way to catch up in a timely manner. It's not going to be a L2P problem. It's not an issue with skill level or knowing when and where to do what, they just wont be able to compete.

Period.

Frustration will set in and with no way to compete with their fellow gamers, who have more time to devote to the game, they will just stop playing.

Let's go back to where I mentioned 3-6 months, what's happening around that time?

The console launch.

Now this normally wouldn't be a problem, lots of new players on a new system, starting around the same time, so same level, right? (Well up until their 3-6 months and then year later problem...)

Wrong.

Remember Zos promised that your characters you were playing on the PC would transfer over, that includes their accumulated CP....

Zos just killed their console PVP before the game has even been released on it.

Ok then we have the Justice System, the other half of it. Things will get real ugly real quick there too and people will just avoid participating in it.

I just have no idea how they are going to fix this without delaying the console launch (and they really need to avoid doing that). They need to rework the Champion System and how it effects the PVP part of the game or we are going to be seeing even less players in game soon.

And that just may kill this game.

pppontus · March 2015

Not everyone wants to spend their time solo questing either, that's not the only PVE in this game. I want to continue playing endgame PVE but put simply.

If I grind CP PVE becomes too easy and boring, if I don't grind I won't have a chance for the leaderboard spots anyway. Basically, I'm screwed.. yay

and don't even get me started on PVP, that is going to break and trust me, it will happen really really soon.

AlnilamE · March 2015

If you are a casual player, you will pretty much spend all your play time Enlightened, so you'll be earning CP at 4x the rate of someone who is playing 24/7.

teladoy · March 2015

don't worry, you will suck in pvp, but your friends around you will do the work while you minor help.

Remember in every faction are addicted +8hours player x day, +4h x day, +2hours x day and then people that play 2 or 3 days in the week a maximum of 2 or 3 hours. So depending to which group you belong that will be your role.

Of course if are not lucky and a chinesse player with +1000 hours and +500 CP gank you will one shot you

Tythimo · March 2015

I am worried about where the champion system will take us, especially in PvP. The way the system is designed, finding the best place to grind exp and doing that over and over, will get you the best results. And with the competitiveness of PvP and the new challenge of PvE, we will need to do a lot of grinding to be competitive and complete the content.

I hate to say this but I actually believe Guild Wars 2 has a much better reward system for end game characters. If we had a daily or weekly achievement list which once completed rewarded Champion Points, it would be far healthier for the game then the daunting grind that currently lies ahead. I also think there should be a weekly maximum of earn-able champion points. But zenimax seems to want to encourage grinding, which will make it very easy for myself and my friends to leave.

nerevarine1138 · March 2015

You guys really need to look at the diminishing returns in the Champion System. Once you've spend a hundred or so points, the difference between you and someone with 200 points is pretty miniscule, especially considering how much time they have to put in to getting those extra points.

McDoogs · March 2015

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

You guys really need to look at the diminishing returns in the Champion System. Once you've spend a hundred or so points, the difference between you and someone with 200 points is pretty miniscule, especially considering how much time they have to put in to getting those extra points.

That is not actually true, the progression is pretty linear.

nerevarine1138 · March 2015

McDoogs wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

You guys really need to look at the diminishing returns in the Champion System. Once you've spend a hundred or so points, the difference between you and someone with 200 points is pretty miniscule, especially considering how much time they have to put in to getting those extra points.

That is not actually true.

Let's take a specific point investment.

A champion skill (after the initial investment) more or less grants a further 0.1% buff to that area. Unless someone loads all 100 of their champion points (taking hundreds of hours, ignoring breaks for real life) into just one of those skills, then you're looking at maybe a 2-3% difference in that one particular area. Well, more like 1%, but I wanted to be kind and give the higher number.

One piece of gear being upgraded makes more of a difference than a dozen Champion Points.

david.haypreub18_ESO · March 2015

I agree that the rate of gaining champion points is ridiculously slow. I doubt we are alone: so far, on the poll I've made in this forum, 76% of respondents feel the rate of gain is too slow. Only 4% think it is too fast.

Robbmrp · March 2015

A group I was with played for about 90 minutes last night.With the enlightenment I had I was able to gain 221K XP. We did the Normal Daily pledge and then went to quest in Craglorn. Hit a delve, completed two quests, killed mob trash for the quests. All in all not bad. I could have probably hit 400k in 2 hr's maybe a little more with enlightenment. The downside is once Enlightenment is gone it could take 4-6 hours to gain one CP depending on what your doing.

IMO End Game Content: PvP, PVE Quests, Dungeons, Delves & Trials should all give more XP when not enlightened. The whole point in getting to V levels is to do the End Game Content. Our XP gain should be greater when doing those things and not killing random trash mobs not tied to a quest. Don't get me wrong, if you want to grind that's fine however, you should get the same XP as you would grinding doing End Game Content. They didn't give us any new content with this patch. The least they should do is give is equal XP for re-doing the same things over and over again.

The XP conversion should be equal for grinding and end game content while enlightened or not. That way everyone can play as they want and earn the same amount of XP doing the things they enjoy.

Skiserony · March 2015

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Let's take a specific point investment.

A champion skill (after the initial investment) more or less grants a further 0.1% buff to that area. Unless someone loads all 100 of their champion points (taking hundreds of hours, ignoring breaks for real life) into just one of those skills, then you're looking at maybe a 2-3% difference in that one particular area. Well, more like 1%, but I wanted to be kind and give the higher number.

One piece of gear being upgraded makes more of a difference than a dozen Champion Points.

Well yeah, this is true on a relative short-term condition. Long-term differences are going to be huge. Remember, using a CP also increases your health, magicka or stamina. Which is why having a 100 more CP is a difference to notice. Especially combined with increase of percentage of resources (racial passives, classes, certain armor sets, ...).