Summary of the XP problems not being addressed

Zheg · April 2015

To our friends at ZOS, since you post on (sometimes ridiculous) threads, but have refused to weigh in on the following which all deal with various problems tied to XP and the veteran levels, my hope is that if it’s all condensed into one place you’ll be more inclined to finally give us a glimpse into why nothing has been done yet. Personally, I’ve started at least one of those threads, commented across the forums, and provided feedback during our guild sessions with one of the community managers (for which we’re incredibly grateful to be a part of). The communication on this stuff is abysmal, and you’re usually much better at it, so you leave me scratching my head. From what I can gather, here is a summary of the plethora of issues the game is currently grappling with in regards to XP. It should be a safe assumption that the community as a whole is very happy with the 1-50 experience, and less than happy with the v1-v14 experience (though there are subsets that don’t follow that trend).

A supermajority of ZOS’ resources are dedicated to console work, and will be for weeks to come. Veteran ranks will be removed (probably on the timescale of months) eventually, but I would assume ZOS thinks the current problems can be ignored for another few months when vet ranks are gone entirely. Players are unhappy because we still want to level our mains and alts, and we’re stuck with the current situation for the foreseeable future.
ZOS hasn’t said ANYTHING on experience issues in over 2 months, not even acknowledgement/refusal. I wish I was exaggerating here, but I scour the dev tracker and there’s nadda. This ends up leading to speculation/bad info, forum fights, and players being jaded seeing you ignore these topics but replying to threads that are sometimes pointless fluff. Frankly, the nasty atmosphere on the forums that you’re seeing whenever the conversation shifts to XP is because you’ve let this snowball for so long.
Since vet levels are being done away with, right now it just feels like players are wasting their time leveling alts so they can be a spare healer/tank if needed.
Not being at V14 often means you will be tremendously underperforming in pvp, trials, dsa, whatever you consider endgame. You likely aren’t going to waste legendary mats upgrading your gear before v14. You likely aren’t going to waste money buying set pieces until you’re at the highest level available for that set (in many cases that’s v14). Therefore, many players feel obligated to grind through vet levels before they can get to the good stuff, and as is evidenced by the exodus of players the first time around (and now starting the second?), players get bored/burnt out before they ever reach the gooey center.
There is a wide berth between leveling options in terms of effectiveness. Grinding regular mobs takes the cake by far, but has been relegated to a few (increasingly crowded) spots in cadwell gold zones and certain cyrodiil delves. The XP/hour you get from questing is paltry for the effort, and seems to drag on and on. The XP/hour you get during pvp is even worse – and this is AFTER they very slightly buffed the XP about a month ago. The XP/hour you get in vet dungeons has been nerfed across the board from pre-1.6, and the time it takes to complete the dungeons has been increased. Of the four general leveling options (grinding, questing, vet dungeons, pvp – in this order), they’re really nowhere near the same baseline.
The XP you’d get in relation to your vet level progression bar was much better pre-1.6 than post-1.6. Who had the bright idea to make it this way, and if it wasn’t intentional, why has it been left like this for 2+ months?
Doing all dolmens and WB in every silver and gold zone used to award about 3 full vet levels pre-1.6, and awards about 0.5 vet levels post-1.6. There hasn’t been any explanation from ZOS on why this happened, and why it’s been left this way.
Many players can’t understand why ZOS is ok with vet leveling taking longer post-1.6 than pre-1.6, given that you’ve pretty much admitted vet levels were a failure since you’re removing them. You realized there were significant problems with that system, and yet you’re going to make it WORSE in the last 6 or so months of its life? Why?
Dolmens don’t award completion xp (except those in the Rift). This is a known bug by ZOS – I saw Gina’s response in that thread, but it’s been this way for months.
Many quest rewards don’t feel like they were worth the time to actually do the quest.
For people leveling alts, the current vet situation is enough to induce a feeling of rocking themselves in corner while softly crying. Doing all of those quests multiple times, or just flat out grinding mobs for 14 million XP is the antithesis of fun. For people leveling new characters, it’s taking them months to do something post-1.6 that used to take me a ~ week pre-1.6 thanks to craglorn (no exploits).
Craglorn is a hot mess. The zone was structured to take a character from v10 to v14. In my experience, as an estimate, doing all quests and map completion for both lower and upper craglorn would net you maybe a full vet level, not four. You raised the level cap twice, when it was a horrible idea to do so, and now you don’t have dedicated content meant to steer a player through those additional levels. Frankly, once you finish silver and gold, you grind, or you stretch out the time in cyrodiil. You hotnerfed the zone in a weekend, why has it taken 2 months for you to even begin to make fixes to the XP there? The zone is meant for group content, yet a regular mob awards significantly more XP than a difficult group boss. Completing the entire upper craglorn questline, which requires lower to be finished, awards you 5k XP. That’s right, after spending hours doing the quests (not including the time you spend finding other players to group with you), you get the same XP you’d get if you were to go kill 10 regular mobs. If you can’t see a problem here, I have grave concerns on your capacity to manage this game.
For players that have been around for a while, many of us were able to finish the vet grind in a weekend just by killing craglorn bosses (without exploits). Now that timeframe is bloated to many weeks just to have a new character. You can make the argument that players don’t need alts, but to that I’d say alts help keep player interest in the game and helps with re-playability. I’d also say that given all of the racial and meta changes that ZOS has handed down, you frequently hear “just re-roll and stop complaining”. Well, re-rolling no longer takes a week, it takes months.
The problems with vet levels are what caused many players to leave the game the first time around. You garnered a lot of good will after making the game BTP and attracted returning players and new players. Now these players are running into the same (worse, actually) problems with vet leveling that caused the first exodus. ZOS, do you realize how frustrating it is for those of us that love the game and want it to succeed to sit by and watch you repeat the same mistakes over and over?
Some players seem to have wildly varying experiences while completing silver and gold zones. Some claim they are halfway through gold and v12 without any additional grinding. Others claim they are significantly under-leveled at the same point. There may indeed be bugs floating around in terms of XP rewards, or problems that were introduced when you changed the XP system to be 1 million per level, but we can’t make any headway on this because you refuse to even join the conversation. What this turns into is players turning on each other because they know their own experiences, and can’t logically explain why someone else somehow got millions more XP doing the same thing they did.

Zheg · April 2015

To build on this, many of the theories floating around here over the past 2 months revolved around these being purposeful nerfs for the sake of selling the XP pots discovered via data mining. But now that ZOS said they'd only be for 1-50, it would be terrific if we could get some explanations for these nerfs to XP. When the champion system changes were introduced, Maria said that gaining vet levels would be made easier, and this isn't the case for most (all?) of your playerbase. Sure, the actual mobs are easier to fight, but the time it takes to level has expanded for no good reason.

Rook_Master · April 2015

Wow, simply incredible post.

I can't disagree with any single point. Grinding out V14 on an alt is quite simply infuriating at the moment.

It makes me wish my alts had been high enough for Scorpion grind back when that was a thing. Even Shadow, Burials and Upper Crag Grind were less tedious than the current forced grinding of overworld mobs. I think about leveling another alt, but then decide I would rather go bash my head against the wall for a few hours instead.

Vanzen · April 2015

Vet lvl wont go away. The say it will, but it wont. Too complicated gear and attribute wise. And if was meant to be, do you believe it would still be there for console release, to be taken away a few weeks later ?! It would be amateurish to say the least.

hamon · April 2015

i agree with the OP 100%

but i would also like to add that it goes deeper. they introduced the champion system saying 1CP should take about 1 hour of "normal play"

but its clearly not the case. unless your grinding in lost prospect (or the other 2 factions equivalent grind spot) and are lucky enough to be there when their isnt any more than 2 other folk doing the same thing.

so if you can't stand that horrible grinding, and you have no quests left to do it could take 5 or 6 hours play to get one CP.

thats a complete joke imo

Huggernaut · April 2015

Good luck getting anything more than an "atta boy!" or a moderation post out of a community rep. I admire the thought, but these devs despite all of our best efforts simply seem to refuse to come here and actually be a part of this community.

Something I sincerely hope changes sooner rather than later.

Rook_Master · April 2015

Vanzen wrote: »

Vet lvl wont go away. The say it will, but it wont. Too complicated gear and attribute wise. And if was meant to be, do you believe it would still be there for console release, to be taken away a few weeks later ?! It would be amateurish to say the least.

I think the OP's concerns could be addressed without completely getting rid of vet levels.

What most people want is a reasonable way to level up to V14 quickly. Even if the xp needed for each vet level was cut in half, it would go a long way towards cutting down the grind.

Heromofo · April 2015

Huggernaut wrote: »

Good luck getting anything more than an "atta boy!" or a moderation post out of a community rep. I admire the thought, but these devs despite all of our best efforts simply seem to refuse to come here and actually be a part of this community.

Something I sincerely hope changes sooner rather than later.

We can only hope but if they do it better not be a robot chat.

AlnilamE · April 2015

Rook_Master wrote: »

Vanzen wrote: »

Vet lvl wont go away. The say it will, but it wont. Too complicated gear and attribute wise. And if was meant to be, do you believe it would still be there for console release, to be taken away a few weeks later ?! It would be amateurish to say the least.

I think the OP's concerns could be addressed without completely getting rid of vet levels.

What most people want is a reasonable way to level up to V14 quickly. Even if the xp needed for each vet level was cut in half, it would go a long way towards cutting down the grind.

The thing is that "a reasonable way to level up to V14" (which the OP suggests should be doable in a weekend), would also mean a "reasonable way of getting 36.5 Champion points" in that same time frame (assuming 2 CP gained with enlightenment and the rest without).

Now, there are certainly people who are able to level their VRs fairly quickly. I'm not sure how they do it because that's not how I play.

But the XP nerfs were put in place to keep people from getting too far ahead in CP too easily. Yes, it may affect VR progression (though I'm not convinced, since my V4 is still in the first zone of Silver, and my V6 just finished that zone), but that's not the reason they were put in place.

Zheg · April 2015

Rook_Master wrote: »

Vanzen wrote: »

Vet lvl wont go away. The say it will, but it wont. Too complicated gear and attribute wise. And if was meant to be, do you believe it would still be there for console release, to be taken away a few weeks later ?! It would be amateurish to say the least.

I think the OP's concerns could be addressed without completely getting rid of vet levels.

What most people want is a reasonable way to level up to V14 quickly. Even if the xp needed for each vet level was cut in half, it would go a long way towards cutting down the grind.

That idea has been proposed multiple times. I know a lot of the time players think coding in something should be easy, and in reality it's not. I don't think that's the case with this proposal. It should just be one change to the XP needed for vet levels, they don't need to waste time fiddling with the root of the problem - XP rewards, and could put in this band-aid fix while we wait for vet levels to finally be removed.

Another fix (though it wouldn't be as significant) that has been proposed and seems like it would be easy is to have enlightened XP count towards vet XP as well. In fact, I would wager most of the misinformation players toss around on the forums is due to their add-on telling them they're receiving 50k xp for a quest turn-in, and then they go onto the forums and question why people complain about XP. They don't realize it only applies to champion points.

Gina replied to an earlier iteration of the thread list that I posted in a thread about ZOS communication and said she would look into this, but it's been over a week

For me, I can't understand why they aren't treating this as a hot-fix scenario, but have no problems hot-"fixing" grind spots over the past 2 months. Some were blatant exploits, some were semi-exploits, and others were just normal spots - yet they all met the same fate.

What really makes me take a step back is that list of threads. I tried to filter out any that didn't have activity post 1.6, and I definitely missed some. Look at how many threads there are o.O

AlnilamE · April 2015

The thing is that, with the Silver and Gold zones already being so easy, if they cut Vet level XP in half, you will pretty much hit V14 before you finish Silver (which pretty much happened to my main who was V6 when they changed the XP requirement to 1 million - I blame the Craglorn quests and dungeons :-P). So they would have to up the levels of the mobs in the Silver/Gold zones to provide a modicum of challenge to the folks who want to do those quests.

I never experienced the VR zones before the first nerf, but I have friends who still complain about the challenge being gone.

Zheg · April 2015

AlnilamE wrote: »

Rook_Master wrote: »

Vanzen wrote: »

Vet lvl wont go away. The say it will, but it wont. Too complicated gear and attribute wise. And if was meant to be, do you believe it would still be there for console release, to be taken away a few weeks later ?! It would be amateurish to say the least.

I think the OP's concerns could be addressed without completely getting rid of vet levels.

What most people want is a reasonable way to level up to V14 quickly. Even if the xp needed for each vet level was cut in half, it would go a long way towards cutting down the grind.

The thing is that "a reasonable way to level up to V14" (which the OP suggests should be doable in a weekend), would also mean a "reasonable way of getting 36.5 Champion points" in that same time frame (assuming 2 CP gained with enlightenment and the rest without).

Now, there are certainly people who are able to level their VRs fairly quickly. I'm not sure how they do it because that's not how I play.

But the XP nerfs were put in place to keep people from getting too far ahead in CP too easily. Yes, it may affect VR progression (though I'm not convinced, since my V4 is still in the first zone of Silver, and my V6 just finished that zone), but that's not the reason they were put in place.

Wrong. I made no such suggestion. It USED to be that way in craglorn, and myself and other players realize why it couldn't be maintained with the introduction of the champion system. The gripe across the board is that the XP situation is worse than it was at launch (before craglorn). Even a return to just that point would be a significant improvement. To me, it feels like the changes they pushed out for champion point balance were done without taking into consideration the impact they'd have on veteran leveling. As I tried to allude to in point 13, players like yourself keep trying to boil this down to us wanting instant v14 - and that's far from true. What we want is reasonable xp rewards that are more or less in line with eachother based on how you spend you time in the game. Again, I'll point out that doing all dolmen and WB poi completions used to net you about 3 full vet levels, and now it nets you 0.5 vet levels. That has nothing to do with craglorn.

As the cherry on top, the current situation in craglorn truly means you have no viable option to finish off your ~V10 character that did full silver/gold completion other than to go grind mobs. You could pvp, but don't expect to be v14 for another few weeks because of how low the XP is there.

daswahnsinn · April 2015

I have recently started an Alt and had fun, just like the first time I played, going through 1-50. However, once I hit Vr1 I got discouraged to really grind out the rest of the Vr levels by questing and grindings mobs. The XP given from quest was worse then the first time I did Cadwell's Silver/Gold. The mobs gave little to no XP from what I was seeing. I can't speak for the rest of the ESO community but I got 8 CP while going from Vr1 to Vr2. How does that make since when one Vet ranks in 1mil and one CP is 400K. I assuming that there is to different type of XP, one for Rank the other for CP? From the lack of content and the horrible XP gain I have canceled my subscription and have stopped playing for the most part. End game is a joke. Craglorn is the worst, since it's a group zone, no one wants to do DSA or trials all the time. Once you have done them a couple good times, in my opinion they get boring since the rewards are well lackluster at best.

I hope this isn't the best that ZOS/Beth can do since most of us paid monthly since launch and would keep doing it if there was a reason outside of thinking that if we give you all more money we might see something soon. I look at the the promise at launch stating that we would see new content every 4-6 weeks and that really never happened. Now that statement has been redacted and changed to maybe new content once or twice a year. There has been numerous bugs and issues since beta that have not been fix or haven't been properly addressed. It seemed once ESO-TU was mentioned and the crown store was implemented you all stopped caring about the game and wanted to make a mad cash grab before the majority of the player base has lost interest and left for good. This game had great promise to those who have played other TES games but the B2P and constant lack of feedback on real issues has compromised the integrity of the game's future. I don't see why some issues get a ZOS feedback when the thread is fluff and the answers given in that thread are fluff.

The OP of this thread cares about the game and those who make to keep playing it. They have stated multiple points that should not go unanswered and the answer given should be one that is meaningful and shows that this with be properly addressed.

Zheg · April 2015

DeLindsay wrote: »

[...]

I would think that the OP in this thread pretty much proves the mods will indeed allow you to be harsh in your criticism so long as it's constructive and follows the rules. I've never had a problem with moderation (personally) - the only thing that makes me cranky is the no naming and shaming policy for blatant exploiters in pvp. But, I'd like to avoid steering this thread on that tangent.

[Moderator Note: Removed moderated quote]

Haenk · April 2015

I'm afraid to say it, but I have the feeling, ZOS development has come to a full stop.
While console ports might require some work, this is *not* something a level/area/AI/monster/whatever designer has to work on. The engine needs to be ported, that's the task of a programmer. UI changes should not shut down development for 6 months.
Obvious bugs take months to be fixed - how can that be?
Sidenote: I reported two bugs/errors two weeks ago ingame, didn't even get an email nor did they fix it (my account, that is), obviously support is next to non existent, too.
So I don't expect an honest answer, actually I don't expect an answer at all.
Do I sound bitter? Yes. The total lack of communication is frustrating (it wouldn't matter, if things would progress smoothly - but they don't), and my vast experience (25+ years online) with companies refusing customer communication: They are already dead.

Heromofo · April 2015

No moŕe joking as bad lol

AlnilamE · April 2015

Zheg wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

Rook_Master wrote: »

Vanzen wrote: »

Vet lvl wont go away. The say it will, but it wont. Too complicated gear and attribute wise. And if was meant to be, do you believe it would still be there for console release, to be taken away a few weeks later ?! It would be amateurish to say the least.

I think the OP's concerns could be addressed without completely getting rid of vet levels.

What most people want is a reasonable way to level up to V14 quickly. Even if the xp needed for each vet level was cut in half, it would go a long way towards cutting down the grind.

The thing is that "a reasonable way to level up to V14" (which the OP suggests should be doable in a weekend), would also mean a "reasonable way of getting 36.5 Champion points" in that same time frame (assuming 2 CP gained with enlightenment and the rest without).

Now, there are certainly people who are able to level their VRs fairly quickly. I'm not sure how they do it because that's not how I play.

But the XP nerfs were put in place to keep people from getting too far ahead in CP too easily. Yes, it may affect VR progression (though I'm not convinced, since my V4 is still in the first zone of Silver, and my V6 just finished that zone), but that's not the reason they were put in place.

Wrong. I made no such suggestion. It USED to be that way in craglorn, and myself and other players realize why it couldn't be maintained with the introduction of the champion system. The gripe across the board is that the XP situation is worse than it was at launch (before craglorn). Even a return to just that point would be a significant improvement. To me, it feels like the changes they pushed out for champion point balance were done without taking into consideration the impact they'd have on veteran leveling. As I tried to allude to in point 13, players like yourself keep trying to boil this down to us wanting instant v14 - and that's far from true. What we want is reasonable xp rewards that are more or less in line with eachother based on how you spend you time in the game. Again, I'll point out that doing all dolmen and WB poi completions used to net you about 3 full vet levels, and now it nets you 0.5 vet levels. That has nothing to do with craglorn.

As the cherry on top, the current situation in craglorn truly means you have no viable option to finish off your ~V10 character that did full silver/gold completion other than to go grind mobs. You could pvp, but don't expect to be v14 for another few weeks because of how low the XP is there.

OK, so what do you consider a reasonable time frame?

I'm all in favour of having the different play styles yield similar amounts of XP. The thing is that players who want to level fast will always find ways of maximising XP gains one way or another.

So if ZOS decides that doing one Silver/Gold zone will give you 1 VR if you quest through it and kill a reasonable amount of mobs in the process, people will calculate what is faster: Killing just the mobs if you find suitable spots, or doing just the quests and not killing anything and will proceed accordingly.

daswahnsinn wrote: »

I have recently started an Alt and had fun, just like the first time I played, going through 1-50. However, once I hit Vr1 I got discouraged to really grind out the rest of the Vr levels by questing and grindings mobs. The XP given from quest was worse then the first time I did Cadwell's Silver/Gold. The mobs gave little to no XP from what I was seeing. I can't speak for the rest of the ESO community but I got 8 CP while going from Vr1 to Vr2. How does that make since when one Vet ranks in 1mil and one CP is 400K. I assuming that there is to different type of XP, one for Rank the other for CP? From the lack of content and the horrible XP gain I have canceled my subscription and have stopped playing for the most part. End game is a joke. Craglorn is the worst, since it's a group zone, no one wants to do DSA or trials all the time. Once you have done them a couple good times, in my opinion they get boring since the rewards are well lackluster at best.

When you are enlightened, each XP you get will count 4x towards a champion point. So in your case, you were enlightened through most of your V1 to V2 trek.

Craglorn's main quest line is a lot of fun. I wish it was repeatable. I can still help friends with their quests and live vicariously through them, though.

Zheg · April 2015

@AlnilamE , I took my templar alt through all silver and gold zones over the last 2 months and did full map completion for each. I found in a super majority of cases that the XP netted from a single map was far short of 1 vet level - and I did this with the sub bonus and some XP boosts thanks to my pvp home campaign (which obviously fluctuate).

If I had to toss out random numbers, to start off with, maybe doing 75% of the quests and all poi completion per map should give a full vet level. The XP rate that you would get while doing these activities (it should be pretty easy to get a baseline avg, heck, I could suggest an add-on to ZOS) should be within 10-15% of what you would get XP/hr via grinding mobs and/or doing pvp.

Furthermore, there needs to be 4 full vet levels of XP that you can extract from craglorn. There aren't any other zones after gold is done, and if that was structured to take you to v10, and craglorn was meant to finish you off at v14 - you should be able to get enough xp to accomplish this.

As far as enlightened goes, once you get 90 champion points and can unlock the first 30 point rewards, gaining additional champion points falls off in importance thanks to diminishing returns until you get close to the next bonus you're aiming for. I can promise you that people leveling alts through vet levels are NOT watching their champ point meter every 2 minutes, because it's right below the vet level bar and if you stare at that, you will end up needing a padded room

Have to head into work now; I'm hoping that the cogs start spinning at ZOS and something is coming down the pipe to address these problems.

Daveheart · April 2015

This may be too simple and would not work for whatever reason, but what about adjusting the ratio of CPXP to VRXP? Right now, it's 1:1 when not enlightened and 4:1 with enlightenment. What if VRXP across the board were doubled, but the CP/VR ratios were changed to 1:2 without enlightenment or 2:1 with enlightenment. Essentially CP gai would stay about the same but vet XP would double - Veteran ranks would be faster while CP would stay the same speed.

booksmcread · April 2015

There are a lot of quests in the VR areas that give a little over 500xp for completion. That's significantly less than what you get from killing two mobs. So, a 10 minute investment in a quest nets you less xp than the 20 seconds to kill two mobs. This seems very off to me. Further, there area lot of quests in Craglorn that offer 5000xp, which is so little considering this is the vr10-14 zone. If the concern is about people gaining Champion Points too quickly, I don't see how dramatically increasing the xp from these one-time only quests would have that much of an effect. They can only be completed once, not repeated.

Stamden · April 2015

Here's the way I see it.

PvE is fine and all, and the endgame trials and duegons are perfectly fine, but none of that is really unique to ESO. Every MMO out there has similar PvE endgame content, and some are much better.

PvP on the other hand is much better then most MMOs. Cyrodiil AvA is the main selling point for this game. If the rest of the game was taken out and just AvA was left, people would still play it, that's how good it is. I guarantee a lot of the players buying this game now just want to PvP, but they can't because of how long it takes to reach VR14 and be competitive. I've had a few friends try this game and all of them have quit before reaching endgame because the grind is way too long. They all loved to PvP but once they got to VR1 they no longer could.

What this means is that ZoS should really prioritize their time on PvP and find ways for new players to reach viable PvP stage faster.

Faugaun · April 2015

AlnilamE wrote: »

Rook_Master wrote: »

Vanzen wrote: »

Vet lvl wont go away. The say it will, but it wont. Too complicated gear and attribute wise. And if was meant to be, do you believe it would still be there for console release, to be taken away a few weeks later ?! It would be amateurish to say the least.

I think the OP's concerns could be addressed without completely getting rid of vet levels.

What most people want is a reasonable way to level up to V14 quickly. Even if the xp needed for each vet level was cut in half, it would go a long way towards cutting down the grind.

The thing is that "a reasonable way to level up to V14" (which the OP suggests should be doable in a weekend), would also mean a "reasonable way of getting 36.5 Champion points" in that same time frame (assuming 2 CP gained with enlightenment and the rest without).

Now, there are certainly people who are able to level their VRs fairly quickly. I'm not sure how they do it because that's not how I play.

But the XP nerfs were put in place to keep people from getting too far ahead in CP too easily. Yes, it may affect VR progression (though I'm not convinced, since my V4 is still in the first zone of Silver, and my V6 just finished that zone), but that's not the reason they were put in place.

Err ummmm two posts above yours....cut the exp for vet rank ...the exp can stay the same as far as cp is concerned

Daveheart wrote: »

This may be too simple and would not work for whatever reason, but what about adjusting the ratio of CPXP to VRXP? Right now, it's 1:1 when not enlightened and 4:1 with enlightenment. What if VRXP across the board were doubled, but the CP/VR ratios were changed to 1:2 without enlightenment or 2:1 with enlightenment. Essentially CP gai would stay about the same but vet XP would double - Veteran ranks would be faster while CP would stay the same speed.

Or just halve the required exp per vr would more simply accomplish the same thing. If that's the route they wish to go.

KrayzieBone_88 · April 2015

Well FYI they already did create a solution to this leveling process they just haven't released it yet. It's called XP Booster potions. That cuts the vet ranks in half....assuming you will fork over the dough.

Sylvyr · April 2015

Zheg wrote: »

To summarize the wall of text, ZOS, your communication on all of this has been atrocious, and I’m not saying that lightly. This is the reason there are so many threads on the same topic. The main complaint from many players isn’t that they want instant V14, but that they don’t see a valid reason for making the grind take LONGER than it used to when we know ZOS is removing vet levels in a few months. It’s an obvious waste of time at that point, and players realize it.

Superb job on the list. Must have taken a lot of time and effort. But this right here is unfortunately why your efforts will more than likely be meaningless.

Their poor communication and information sharing makes it a pain for everything. They (likely) know about all these issues. They (likely) are spending their time and energy on console release and figuring out ways to make money. There are many issues and many threads and just lots of crickets from official peeps and mainly just arguments between players.

But other than a few posts that go quiet after their initial posting and their lovely and cheerful ESO Live episodes. ESO is like a black box.

But it does look like the waste of time is telling them what to do... They have their own priorities and that's making ESOville.

AlnilamE · April 2015

Neighbor wrote: »

Here's the way I see it.

PvE is fine and all, and the endgame trials and duegons are perfectly fine, but none of that is really unique to ESO. Every MMO out there has similar PvE endgame content, and some are much better.

PvP on the other hand is much better then most MMOs. Cyrodiil AvA is the main selling point for this game. If the rest of the game was taken out and just AvA was left, people would still play it, that's how good it is. I guarantee a lot of the players buying this game now just want to PvP, but they can't because of how long it takes to reach VR14 and be competitive. I've had a few friends try this game and all of them have quit before reaching endgame because the grind is way too long. They all loved to PvP but once they got to VR1 they no longer could.

What this means is that ZoS should really prioritize their time on PvP and find ways for new players to reach viable PvP stage faster.

If that's the case, maybe they should have more capped campaigns like the non-vet one? Have one campaign that caps at V5, one at V10 and then the others are to max?

I know people who went to the non-vet campaign at level 10 and never left Cyrodiil again. If the fact that V14 are so much more powerful in Cyrodiil (which I don't quite believe) is what makes people want to be V14 asap, then segregating the campaigns to give people options in PvP might help, no?

Zakua · April 2015

wow OP nice post!

I just came back to ESO. I left last June IIRC after working my way to VR10 and just didn't want to push any further. I had done the main story, silver and gold completed but I burnt out and moved on.

It was tedious to put it nicely.

I came back about 2 weeks ago and took a stab at leveling up, this time I found a spot, dug in with foods in my backpack and had myself a grind session. I wont lie, I was glad to be done with it when I dinged vr 14 last weekend but man it sure had some fun moments.

Awesome game IMO, always has been and XP being the reason I quit playing the first time is kind of odd I think. Not odd for me but the fact that a beautiful game like this with so much content could drive a player away because of an XP deficit .

vyndral13preub18_ESO · April 2015

Great game, and an awesome post on what is driving me away. For the second time.

I doubt i will give the game a chance to drive me away a third time.

Zhoyzu · April 2015

ZoS gonna lock and close the thread for "trolling and Baiting" because now they've been cornered into responding. I guess they could close it for flaming.....

Truth aint ever pretty ZoS, look at it good and hard.

Yinmaigao · April 2015

AlnilamE wrote: »

But the XP nerfs were put in place to keep people from getting too far ahead in CP too easily. Yes, it may affect VR progression (though I'm not convinced, since my V4 is still in the first zone of Silver, and my V6 just finished that zone), but that's not the reason they were put in place.

I just gotta ask... how the heck are people doing this?? V6 in the first zone? I did EVERY single quest/dolmen/delve (did most, but not all public dungeons) in every Silver/Gold and BARELY hit V11 when I finished Cadwell's Gold.

I didn't skip trash between quest objectives either.

That leaves me at... what do I do now to hit V14? PvP doesn't entice me, and I am in that zone that noone wants to take to vet dungeons. Tried Craglorn, but at 2K xp per "event" it is not worth it compared to grinding.

Saltypretzels · April 2015

My name is saltypretzels and I approve this message.

What the OP describes is me at this moment. I now have a V7, and all I really want to do is get to v14 so I can start having the fun of putting together gear that matters, and being able to run dungeons more consistently, and to have gear that makes me competitive in PVP.

I have been running vet pledges as much as possible because this is fun for me. but it is really hard to get a decent group together in the mid-vet range. Almost everyone is looking for v12+. I have been running these dungeons where possible to learn them, but almost all of the PUG action happens at max level.

I have also done a good amount of PVP, and done all of the PVE in Cyrodil (all delves done, all quest hubs done, all dolmens done). However, until I get to v14 my equipment is always going to be subpar and I just get creamed in any kind of situation against a v14 player. Skill also plays into this because honestly I am not great and I admit this.

I try to spend time doing quests to level in Cadwell's in order to power through this trapped-in-the-mid-veteran-problem, but I can't go more than an hour without getting so bored that I end up quitting and watch Davedevil instead. (I have already leveled 1-50 alts in all three alliances so none of the content is new to me). Compounding this is that quest XP is so variable; it seems to range from 3k to 16k with not much regard for effort. Yesterday I solo'ed the Al'likr Desert public dungeon-- I got a whole 5k for finishing the main quest in there and virtually no XP for the monsters.

In summary, vet dungeon action really only happens a v12-14, PVP is really frustrating without properly gearing yourself and I've done all the PVE content there, and normal questing just has me really bored right now.

I'm reaching burnout and will probably end up leaving the game for several months until I feel the itch again. My philosophy on gaming is that if you aren't having fun, it is time to move on.

I wish the devs would stop keeping us PC players in limbo by pushing these needed changes into the future.

Lifsteinn · April 2015

The one thing they could tell us: Is it a waste or not to level up from vet1 to vet14?