On day one level cap was higher than the genre's leading MMO after 10 years of expansions.

Thunder · July 2015

You are so worried about keeping me busy so that I won't get bored and leave that you can't see that the grind is pushing me away. It's like some reviewer must have said something about a previous installment of the Elder Scrolls franchise being too short, "Might want to wait for this one to hit the bargain bin fellas, I knocked it out in a weekend." So now Bethesda is all self conscious about it and goes out of their way to make sure their games are as long as possible. It's a real turn off to me. You don't have to assign me busy work, I'm resourceful, I'll find a way to keep myself busy. I'd actually prefer an MMORPG that didn't require grinding 2 hours a day, 7 days a week just to keep up.

It's one of the major reasons I dropped my subscription after only a month. There's the no auction house, limited bag space, and frustrating difficult grouping with friends, but at the end of the day what it came down to is the colossal grind to cap. I actually enjoyed the fact that it took my first character about a month to hit VR1. However, when I realized what Veteran Ranks actually were and how they worked I couldn't possibly imagine how such an insane system actually made it in to the genre's most modern game, from a company claiming they were out to break molds. I dropped my sub immediately, and did even bother playing out the time I had left.

Now that there's no sub, I bought a copy for my brother to give us something to kick around at while we talk on Skype. Playing with him has actually gotten me playing some of my alts when he's not on. Yet it's extremely frustrating knowing they are worthless pack mules because the level cap is so high and there's so much grinding to do even at cap that there's probably no way I can keep up with one character, let alone several alts. It's really sad because the heart of ESO was supposed to be "play how you want" and you get all these character slots to try out different builds, but even if you played more hours a week than a full time job you'd have a heck of a time keeping up with a stable of alts.

I hear they are removing VR levels, and that's great, but I doubt that means level cap will be level 50. As it stands, VR 14 is is like level 200 in WoW. The quests are exactly the same as WoW, except a bit longer winded if you don't click through, and the time it takes to level is right on par with WoW. However, WoW, on its 5th expansion 10 years after launch caps at level 100. They even offer a service to start at level 90. If ESO isn't going to do something to address this insanely high level cap, then they should at least offer a similar service. How many times are we expected to grind through the same 3 faction zones over and over and over and over and over again?

I want to be excited about Imperial City, but I find it more frustrating that anything else because the game is such a monumental time suck already.

Ease up will ya?

My vote would be remove Vet levels altogether and don't replace them with anything at all. If you take your time, follow the quests, explore the delves, do some crafting, and hit a few dungeons then it'll take you about a month to level to 50. That's a more than reasonable amount of time to get to end game. Now if that's already your plan, then great, I'm glad I put my foot in my mouth. Yet the description of IC talks about grinding out 23 sets of VR16 gear... yikes... that doesn't sound like level cap is getting any closer to character creation any time soon.

bertenburnyb16_ESO · July 2015

in the mean time they are decreasing it by adding more xp to stuff and having the amount of XP needed to VR up lowered, originally higher VR lvls were alot more than 1mill (about 4mill or something) next patch it will be only 850K per VR lvl

Thunder · July 2015

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

in the mean time they are decreasing it by adding more xp to stuff and having the amount of XP needed to VR up lowered, originally higher VR lvls were alot more than 1mill (about 4mill or something) next patch it will be only 850K per VR lvl

Less required XP makes even less sense and shows that it's clearly just busy work to keep players in the hamster wheel. If you require players to travel to opposing faction zones to quest then it doesn't make sense to require less XP to level than is provided by those quests.

I'm all for less grind, but less XP is an admission it's just busy work, so if you are going to lower it, why not just drop it altogether?

G0ku · July 2015

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

in the mean time they are decreasing it by adding more xp to stuff and having the amount of XP needed to VR up lowered, originally higher VR lvls were alot more than 1mill (about 4mill or something) next patch it will be only 850K per VR lvl

Back then quest XP, XP for dolmen and world bosses were much bigger. The difficulty was what slowed people down, not the XP. If you, when starting Cadwells Silver, grouped up a farming raid and did all dolmens, worldbosses and public dungeons at start you already had advanced to VR4. Then you just needed to finish the quest of Cadwells to arrive in Cadwells gold with VR5,5.

Either if you like the grind or not you got to give it to the op: the rise in levels in this game is just too fast...

Merlin13KAGL · July 2015

Thunder wrote: »

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

in the mean time they are decreasing it by adding more xp to stuff and having the amount of XP needed to VR up lowered, originally higher VR lvls were alot more than 1mill (about 4mill or something) next patch it will be only 850K per VR lvl

Less required XP makes even less sense and shows that it's clearly just busy work to keep players in the hamster wheel. If you require players to travel to opposing faction zones to quest then it doesn't make sense to require less XP to level than is provided by those quests.

I'm all for less grind, but less XP is an admission it's just busy work, so if you are going to lower it, why not just drop it altogether?

It's not even that.

It will be easier to get VR16 then than it is to get VR14 now.

13 million XP's required to VR14 now.
15% decrease after patch -> 12.75 million XP's to VR16 then.

That is not counting the XP increase on half a dozen things, nor Ambrosia/XP scrolls.

Level wise, it's not harder, it's easier. It's simply different because of the gear and content.

Reeko · July 2015

This is an mmo. By nature it should take you awhile to get to max level. Back in WoW vanilla when the level cap was 60 it took me months to get there! But i did not complain. I knew that was just how the game worked. If it was so quick and easy to get to max vet rank do you really think as many people would be still playing? I know people on PS4 who got to vet 14 within the first week of launch and now they don't play anymore because they felt that there was not much left to do.

My advice? Take your time and stop complaining.

Funkopotamus · July 2015

Thunder wrote: »

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

in the mean time they are decreasing it by adding more xp to stuff and having the amount of XP needed to VR up lowered, originally higher VR lvls were alot more than 1mill (about 4mill or something) next patch it will be only 850K per VR lvl

I'm all for less grind, but less XP is an admission it's just busy work, so if you are going to lower it, why not just drop it altogether?

They cant turn back now man..
They are in deep man they are in to deep. It would take a complete overhaul of the end game system to fix now. And To be perfectly honest this game will never last longer than a year maybe 2 tops. Reason being the that MMO's survive by the inflow of new players being = to or greater than the outflow of lost players.
With this system that basically leaves NO hope for a new player to ever reach a level of CP points to be competitive in this game there will NOT be many "New Players" that knowingly will buy this game.

I know it sucks because the ground work for this game is amazing, but the way the end game is thrown together shows so many flaws and problems that I do not see how ZOS can pull out now..
I know this console release was a hail mary it seems, and I just hope they made enough money to make the changes this game desperately must have to survive.

Funny thing is ESO announced a firm Console release two weeks after Never Winter went console beta so it almost feels like the people holding the money pushed ZOS out the door on this one.

Fat_Cat45 · July 2015

The comparison to WoW is an exaggeration. They have gone from 60 to 100 from expansions. That's 2/3 increase, meaning ESO has to reach veteran rank 50 (10 + 60(2/3)).

Comparing it to WoW the ESO level cap increases are like going 60 to 64, then 64 to 68. So stop spewing false comparisons

Merlin13KAGL · July 2015

Not to mention WoW historically offered a max level character (based on the previous max level, at least) for purchase when the new content came out.

ESO hasn't gone there (yet).

notimetocare · July 2015

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Not to mention WoW historically offered a max level character (based on the previous max level, at least) for purchase when the new content came out.

ESO hasn't gone there (yet).

They only did that for lvl 90... and one other time for DK which started at 55 but required oyu to already be there.

Robbmrp · July 2015

There's no reason that @ZOS couldn't do the same and allow us to purchase a higher level alt with 1/2 to 3/4 of the skill points. Say if you have a V14 already, you can purchase one at V10. That gives you only 6 levels to actually quest out on your new character. Your going to need that time anyway to get used to them, learn their skills and play with builds.

The character would start out where ever your main V14 left off. If you had done Silver and Gold, then they would show that as well. My wife and I were right around V10 when we completed those anyway. If you haven't done Silver and Gold, sorry but your not getting a freebie on passing those. If you want access, go do the work.

This is something they could actually sell in the Crown Store. People WOULD buy this. Hell, I'd even buy one if not a couple.....

Funkopotamus · July 2015

Robbmrp wrote: »

There's no reason that @ZOS couldn't do the same and allow us to purchase a higher level alt with 1/2 to 3/4 of the skill points. Say if you have a V14 already, you can purchase one at V10. That gives you only 6 levels to actually quest out on your new character. Your going to need that time anyway to get used to them, learn their skills and play with builds.

The character would start out where ever your main V14 left off. If you had done Silver and Gold, then they would show that as well. My wife and I were right around V10 when we completed those anyway. If you haven't done Silver and Gold, sorry but your not getting a freebie on passing those. If you want access, go do the work.

This is something they could actually sell in the Crown Store. People WOULD buy this. Hell, I'd even buy one if not a couple.....

I may not agree with the CP system, but I will tell you now.. They day ZOS allows players to purchase max lvl toons I am out and taking the door of the hinges as I leave.
^^Bolded....

Cherryblossom · July 2015

Reeko wrote: »

This is an mmo. By nature it should take you awhile to get to max level. Back in WoW vanilla when the level cap was 60 it took me months to get there! But i did not complain. I knew that was just how the game worked. If it was so quick and easy to get to max vet rank do you really think as many people would be still playing? I know people on PS4 who got to vet 14 within the first week of launch and now they don't play anymore because they felt that there was not much left to do.

My advice? Take your time and stop complaining.

Had the game on PC since launch, not got one VET14! Would of been happy with a 2 months to get VET14...

The game has a lazy design with Cadwells Silver and Gold. They knew they had a lack of end game content so made a bad decision.

MCMancub · July 2015

Cherryblossom wrote: »

Reeko wrote: »

This is an mmo. By nature it should take you awhile to get to max level. Back in WoW vanilla when the level cap was 60 it took me months to get there! But i did not complain. I knew that was just how the game worked. If it was so quick and easy to get to max vet rank do you really think as many people would be still playing? I know people on PS4 who got to vet 14 within the first week of launch and now they don't play anymore because they felt that there was not much left to do.

My advice? Take your time and stop complaining.

Had the game on PC since launch, not got one VET14! Would of been happy with a 2 months to get VET14...

The game has a lazy design with Cadwells Silver and Gold. They knew they had a lack of end game content so made a bad decision.

Then I would probably argue that you're just bad. I did everything while leveling up and took my time and it took me 200 hours. If each play session is only 2-3 hours long, then you could have easily been vet 14 even if you didn't start until it was rebranded as ESO:TU.

I_killed_Vivec · July 2015

I dunno.

People complain about the amount of time it takes to get to "end game"... and then complain there's nothing to do!

RazzPitazz · July 2015

Thunder wrote: »

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

in the mean time they are decreasing it by adding more xp to stuff and having the amount of XP needed to VR up lowered, originally higher VR lvls were alot more than 1mill (about 4mill or something) next patch it will be only 850K per VR lvl

Less required XP makes even less sense and shows that it's clearly just busy work to keep players in the hamster wheel. If you require players to travel to opposing faction zones to quest then it doesn't make sense to require less XP to level than is provided by those quests.

I'm all for less grind, but less XP is an admission it's just busy work, so if you are going to lower it, why not just drop it altogether?

I understand where your coming from on this, and ZOS pretty much admitted that the VR ranks are busy work until the long term removal is complete. I wish I could have an answer for you but something tells me it's not as simple as it seems. Probably because the person who designed and coded VR levels initially no longer works there. Speculation of course.

VoidBlue · July 2015

i like the grind, its the best part of a MMO/RPG.

nothing more fun than working towrds a goal. 3600CP

Athas24 · July 2015

Game's not hard and there really isn't any "GRIND" like some people are saying. Here's an example of what grinding is like:
Go play something like (game name omitted because it's irrelevant to the pt) and go all over the place doing stupid quests for nobodies for a piece of a blade that makes you rinse/repeat that 3-4 more times to get all the pieces. Then you complete the pieces and to put it together you need to achieve X level in crafting to then go craft a bunch of hq items to make something to bind it all. Then after that you need to go beat some high level raid boss for a material that he drops for you to then go do another quest to set it all up to complete the item. Then you find out thats not even the best item it's a step towards it... get ready to do that all over again at a higher tier! yay! That...is grinding.
This game is basically .. run through the limited content we have and if you do you'll hit max level once its all done. That's not grinding it's just limited in the amount of content available in the game. IC is coming soon and will provide more content but honestly the game needs like 10 more DLC's like IC to have a good amount of varied content. All that said the point is it's not grinding...it's just limited content.

RazzPitazz · July 2015

Athas24 wrote: »

Game's not hard and there really isn't any "GRIND" like some people are saying. Here's an example of what grinding is like:
Go play something like (game name omitted because it's irrelevant to the pt) and go all over the place doing stupid quests for nobodies for a piece of a blade that makes you rinse/repeat that 3-4 more times to get all the pieces. Then you complete the pieces and to put it together you need to achieve X level in crafting to then go craft a bunch of hq items to make something to bind it all. Then after that you need to go beat some high level raid boss for a material that he drops for you to then go do another quest to set it all up to complete the item. Then you find out thats not even the best item it's a step towards it... get ready to do that all over again at a higher tier! yay! That...is grinding.
This game is basically .. run through the limited content we have and if you do you'll hit max level once its all done. That's not grinding it's just limited in the amount of content available in the game. IC is coming soon and will provide more content but honestly the game needs like 10 more DLC's like IC to have a good amount of varied content. All that said the point is it's not grinding...it's just limited content.

Pretty certain you just described the process from scratch for creating a legendary dwemer frame item with nirncrux.

Mighty_oakk · July 2015

Filthy casual

Athas24 · July 2015

RazzPitazz wrote: »

Athas24 wrote: »

Game's not hard and there really isn't any "GRIND" like some people are saying. Here's an example of what grinding is like:
Go play something like (game name omitted because it's irrelevant to the pt) and go all over the place doing stupid quests for nobodies for a piece of a blade that makes you rinse/repeat that 3-4 more times to get all the pieces. Then you complete the pieces and to put it together you need to achieve X level in crafting to then go craft a bunch of hq items to make something to bind it all. Then after that you need to go beat some high level raid boss for a material that he drops for you to then go do another quest to set it all up to complete the item. Then you find out thats not even the best item it's a step towards it... get ready to do that all over again at a higher tier! yay! That...is grinding.
This game is basically .. run through the limited content we have and if you do you'll hit max level once its all done. That's not grinding it's just limited in the amount of content available in the game. IC is coming soon and will provide more content but honestly the game needs like 10 more DLC's like IC to have a good amount of varied content. All that said the point is it's not grinding...it's just limited content.

Pretty certain you just described the process from scratch for creating a legendary dwemer frame item with nirncrux.

It's not that bad for nirncrux. you can buy it all if you wanted even. Can't in the game I mentioned. I mean dwemer frames are a pain to harvest the mats yourself and so is nirncrux but it's not THAT aggressive haha.

Merlin13KAGL · July 2015

RazzPitazz wrote: »

Thunder wrote: »

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

in the mean time they are decreasing it by adding more xp to stuff and having the amount of XP needed to VR up lowered, originally higher VR lvls were alot more than 1mill (about 4mill or something) next patch it will be only 850K per VR lvl

Less required XP makes even less sense and shows that it's clearly just busy work to keep players in the hamster wheel. If you require players to travel to opposing faction zones to quest then it doesn't make sense to require less XP to level than is provided by those quests.

I'm all for less grind, but less XP is an admission it's just busy work, so if you are going to lower it, why not just drop it altogether?

I understand where your coming from on this, and ZOS pretty much admitted that the VR ranks are busy work until the long term removal is complete. I wish I could have an answer for you but something tells me it's not as simple as it seems. Probably because the person who designed and coded VR levels initially no longer works there. Speculation of course.

In this thread there are people posting 2 milllion XP/hour.

So, the increase will keep them busy...for an hour.

There were max level characters 2 days after early access release. There was an Emp in under 24 hours, if I recall correctly.

VR16 is simply another 'title' with some more gear options and a way to make it look as if it's something new when (if) you go to IC.

"Casuals" could easily have at least one VR14 by now. The same casual will have max level (again) in ~3 weeks, if all in the world they are doing is preventing their enlightenment from overflowing...

It's like the cat food that technically didn't go up in price, just down in size. It's all hocus pocus to make it look like more than what it is, in the grand scheme of things.

Thunder · July 2015

I may not agree with the CP system, but I will tell you now.. They day ZOS allows players to purchase max lvl toons I am out and taking the door of the hinges as I leave.
^^Bolded....

Bah. That's old school non-sense. Grumpy old man walking 2 miles to school in waist deep snow both ways thinking.

The idea that you have to earn level cap through questing is ridiculous, and the notion that face rolling quests solo somehow prepares you for end game cooperative role based play is laughable. Questing is nothing but busy work, if you like it great, if you love it, more power to ya, but for most people it's like washing the car when what you really want to be doing is going out driving around.

I'd be 110% all for a purchasable level capped toon, but that's not really what this thread is about, not really. It's about the fact that every single alt you make currently has to grind through the quests of all 3 factions to get to cap. The first character it's not such a big deal, even though level cap being so far from creation seems ridiculous to me. However, each subsequent character the grind gets more boring and more monotonous. Why subject players to mind numbing hell every time they want to make an alt?

VoidBlue · July 2015

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

It's like the cat food that technically didn't go up in price, just down in size.

i think you mean its like McDonalds that technically did go up in price and down in size :O

Thunder · July 2015

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

So, the increase will keep them busy...for an hour.

There were max level characters 2 days after early access release.

That pale skinned basement dwellers can grind 24 hours a day and cap a toon in a seemingly short time has absolutely no impact on anything I've said. None what so ever. I have no interest in exploiting loopholes to grind mobs en masse for hours on end, nor do I have the time even if I were so inclined.

Thunder · July 2015

Athas24 wrote: »

Game's not hard and there really isn't any "GRIND" like some people are saying. Here's an example of what grinding is like:]

A repetitive monotonous task is a definition of grind. When each alt has to repeat the monotonous questing in all three factions to get to cap, that meets the definition.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

At this point I just want to acknowledge that I don't care what you like to do with your time. If you love questing, great! Cap a toon, delete it and start all over again, again and again, all day long, every day of your life for all I care.

Personally, I can barely stand questing to cap one time. The quests are so lame, boring, stupid, monotonous, and derivative. I've done all the quests a hundred times before in dozens of other MMO's. There's not a single new or interesting aspect to leveling in ESO, in fact I'd say most MMO's are much better when it comes to leveling.

I don't understand why some people are so wrapped up in what other people like to do, or rather what other people don't like to do. I hate questing, what's it to you? Why do you care so much?

Merlin13KAGL · July 2015

VoidBlue wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

It's like the cat food that technically didn't go up in price, just down in size.

i think you mean its like McDonalds that technically did go up in price and down in size :O

@VoidBlue
*Mmmmmm...really tiny breakfast sandwiches...*

(I think they're both made from the same base ingredients, though the cat food is probably healthier.)

Thunder wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

So, the increase will keep them busy...for an hour.

There were max level characters 2 days after early access release.

That pale skinned basement dwellers can grind 24 hours a day and cap a toon in a seemingly short time has absolutely no impact on anything I've said. None what so ever. I have no interest in exploiting loopholes to grind mobs en masse for hours on end, nor do I have the time even if I were so inclined.

@Thunder which is why the 3 weeks for casuals part is included in there (VR14-VR16). I've a recent L38 templar with <50 hours, probably 15 of which involved just standing around. (And this is doing almost none of the side quests.)

Your comparison to WoW is so invalid, there are too many reasons to even begin to list. You're mixing gear acquisition with level cap, and the two are not one and the same.

VR14 has never been hard or time consuming to achieve. VR16, XP for XP, will take even less after the update. *That's measured from character creation, btw.

Regarding your stable of alts, I've a fellow guildy and friend that has two accounts and plenty of VR characters, so with your vast WoW experience, I'm not sure what you're doing wrong, but I'm pretty sure you are (or perhaps aren't) doing it.

Merlin13KAGL · July 2015

Looking back, you come across that you don't want to grind mobs. You state you care barely stand to questing to cap...

What, exactly is it you do want to do to get to max level? (And why do you feel you need to be there if you can't stand everything along the way?)

Azurulia · July 2015

Thunder wrote: »

I'd actually prefer an MMORPG that didn't require grinding 2 hours a day, 7 days a week just to keep up.

I laugh at this sentence and pretty much just stopped reading. I've seen these types of posts to not need to read the rest.

It sounds to me that you aren't the kind of player that the general MMORPG "Genre" caters to, so you opinion doesn't really carry a ton of weight. Most of the "Core" players will play anywhere between 2-6 hours 3-7 days a week. The hardcore players much more than that.

I grew up on Everquest, this game is nothing compared to that "grind"

I recommend you stick to single player games and try not to drag everything down for the rest of us.

Pman85 · July 2015

Hey OP, lets go play some Korean MMOs and we can then talk about grinding.

Zhoyzu · July 2015

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Thunder wrote: »

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

in the mean time they are decreasing it by adding more xp to stuff and having the amount of XP needed to VR up lowered, originally higher VR lvls were alot more than 1mill (about 4mill or something) next patch it will be only 850K per VR lvl

Less required XP makes even less sense and shows that it's clearly just busy work to keep players in the hamster wheel. If you require players to travel to opposing faction zones to quest then it doesn't make sense to require less XP to level than is provided by those quests.

I'm all for less grind, but less XP is an admission it's just busy work, so if you are going to lower it, why not just drop it altogether?

It's not even that.

It will be easier to get VR16 then than it is to get VR14 now.

13 million XP's required to VR14 now.
15% decrease after patch -> 12.75 million XP's to VR16 then.

That is not counting the XP increase on half a dozen things, nor Ambrosia/XP scrolls.

Level wise, it's not harder, it's easier. It's simply different because of the gear and content.

this gives a glimmer of hope. ill withhold judgement until then. It doesnt make grinding anymore acceptable however. And it better track xp so my characters xp determines my level as opposed to my level determining my XP