Hullo. I've had these ideas on my mind for some time now, and I thought I might share them. (TL;DR: Look for the bold sections.)

So Veteran Ranks. People either hate 'em or like them so-so. Cadwell's Silver and Gold seem to be well-appreciated across the board, but not VR. People also seem to be sick of leveling alts and are turning to grinding more and more as an alternative to questing. I figure that this is directly due to the fact that even in the 50+ gameplay, the world is still an incredibly linear themepark.

The Elder Scrolls series has always been defined by its expansive, living, breathing, open world. Quests have you traveling all over a particular province, experiencing all sorts of content as you go along. And these quests remain relevant and enjoyable regardless of what level you are. Even quests that are not scaled to the player still remain relevant and compelling.

ESO on the other hand follows the traditional themepark MMO format where entire zones are a particular level, and players essentially have to quest in a linear fashion. Sure, you could quest in a higher level zone, but you'd get crushed quickly. And you could quest in a lower-level zone, but there's no incentive nor challenge to doing so. Now, I'm pretty sure people would understand if the home-faction zones have to be this way, as it does serve as a guide for players getting into the game. But this is why people were so excited for the 50+ game experience: Once you hit 50, the rest of the world and content opens up to you. It's an opportunity.
However, it did not ultimately feel like an opportunity. It was merely another linear level grind through the same old zones in the same old way. Perhaps with a little more leeway for the order you do the quests in, but you still essentially have to exhaust all the quests. Not only that, but to even get to the Cadwell's Gold faction areas, you have to beat the main story of Silver. Thus the logical approach is to just do them linearly anyway. And you have to do all of this just to start doing end-game content on a character.
What should have been an opportunity is instead a chore.

Not only is all this an issue, but once you actually are at end-game, v14 or the like, all the world's zones essentially have very little left in them. Unless you've done a ton of grinding, you've probably exhausted all the content in the zones, and there's no longer any guides, drive or motivation to experience this beautiful world. Even if you have leveled via grinding, the world's quests will only last so long. The only motivators left are in pledges and trials. Great content to be sure, but players want more from the world. This is less difficult to achieve than it may appear.

Lastly, another huge issue regards progression in general, both current and future. I'm sure we all know about power creep. The more content gets added to the game, the higher all the stats have to be, the more ridiculous and unbalanced all the numbers become. I've heard rumors about how they plan to solve this, and I am intrigued. I will expand upon these ideas

I have some ideas on how to remedy this, and these ideas would work best in unison. My solutions are as follows:

• Remove Veteran Ranks: This is already confirmed, and I'm glad to hear it. It was just another obstacle in the way of opening the game up to the player.
• Make 50+ Zones a Flat Level of Difficulty & Unite Silver and Gold: When a player hits 50, the whole world should open up as an opportunity and not as a chore. Remove the requirement of finishing all of Silver to get to Gold zones. And don't be afraid to make some of the scaling of particular enemies really difficult! This will make 50+ content feel much more like an Elder Scrolls game.
• Flatten Out the Scaling a Bit: I love the way PvP works, where a player's level will make a difference, but lower-level players aren't completely useless, and there's still a reason for lower and higher level players to work together. If this were also the case in PvE, my other suggestions could be made a lot more fun and enjoyable for lower and higher level players alike.
• More Alternative Quests and More Dailies in the World: Crafting Writs are a brilliant step in the right direction, but there could be so much more. Just add more quests to existing zones so players don't always have to do the same content to get through leveling, as well as daily quests that open up as you quest. If these are made relevant to even higher-level players, the world would always feel like it's got something to do. This could even extend to the Fighter's Guild and Mage's Guild, where you have to take on contracts that send you out into the world.
• Add Dynamic Events to Zones: This one is a bit more tough, but the effects on the experience could be wonderful. Dolmens are a start, but even those are lacking. They're essentially just a bunch of mobs standing around waiting to be slain. How about putting some enemies right in the community's face? Add some daedra, bandits, cultists, Imperial invaders and such that actually storm a town or even a major city every now and then, and give the players more purpose out in the world. Anyone who has played through one of WoW's big pre-Expansion city assaults will know what I'm talking about.
• Seasonal Progression: This is the one that I've heard might happen with gear. Basically in most MMOs, every time an expansion comes along there's more content and more opportunities to become more powerful. Over time though, merely adding more and more to player power will inevitably lead to horrible balance issues. This is known as Power Creep, and it's the bane of sustainability. Instead of merely going straight up, seasonal gear progression would allow a player to gear up for an expansion, gain power and achieve greatness, and then the power of that gear would get knocked down a couple of tiers to make room for the next expansion. Imagine equipment tiers being something like.... [Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum]. Iron gear would be your basic blues/greens that you're wearing when you hit level 50. Bronze would be the crafted purples that people tend to get when they hit end-game level, and Silver might be legendary crafted gear. Players would use their Bronze and Silver tier gear to progress towards Gold tier, then try for Platinum which is the best in the game. Then when the next expansion rolls around, all that Gold and Platinum gear is flattened back down to Silver level and the cycle starts again.

What do you all think about these ideas? Would you like to see them implemented, or would you like to see other things done instead? I'm interested to hear the community's thoughts