Official Feedback Thread for Veteran Rank Removal

tinythinker · April 2016

Enodoc wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

Why is everyone still thinking removing VR was all about people being the same and progress being non-linear?

Because they never said it wouldn't be. Everyone had their own issues with VR - levelling speed, gear triviality, player separation, linearity - ZOS only said "We're removing VR" and "things are still being discussed", so everyone was reasonably within their right to assume that this would address their specific problem with VR.

Except that they have said, in fact, why they were removing them on various ocassions, which were:
- To deal with the leveling grind to VR16, for mains and the extra grind for alts
- To give a sense of faster progression, as CRs are earned faster than VRs
- To introduce a bit of horizontal breadth into the vertical progression

These reasons have come up on the forums, ESO Live, and that middle one on the splash page for DB. In any case, just because people decided to imbue the Champion System with whatever they wanted from the game does't validate those wishes or bind ZOS to them. There was never anything to indicate that vertical progression was being diminished or extinguished.

Enodoc wrote: »

Consider for a minute that they did exactly what they said they would do - remove VRs and measure progression with CPs.

Which fully makes my point. CRs replaced VRs as vertical progression. It didn't introduce a new era of non-linearity. You gain CPs, you get more powerful, however you choose to spend them. Choosing to spend CPs on one tree or another gives a horizontal dimension, but no matter how you allocate them just using them increases your stats. That's still vertical. It's that way pre-DB, will be that way post-DB.

Enodoc wrote: »

Consider CPs are exactly as they are now on Live:
CPs are gained faster, and are account-wide => addresses the levelling speed issue

Your power is tied to your CPs, but your gear is not => addresses the gear triviality issue

CPs are not visible on your character => addresses the player separation issue

No content is labelled with a CP value, even though it is designed around how many you have => addresses the linearity issue

This is what removal of VRs should have achieved.

Except your "should have" was wishful thinking that ignored what ZOS has said and done for over a year. Specifically...

CPs are gained faster, and are account-wide => addresses the levelling speed issue

Sure, and ZOS said this was the big, big point of CP, a sense of faster progression/less feeling like a grind. It's a neat trick. One that people warned about when everyone was first celebrating the removal of VR. That it would just be a gentler, less stressful, more scenic grind that didn't have the same huge slope it did with the original version of VRs. Which is still nice, by the way.

Your power is tied to your CPs, but your gear is not => addresses the gear triviality issue

It has been known for many months that gear would be tied to CP. Rich said it himself live on the official stream, and this was after hints and suggestions waaaaaay before that that in fact this would be the case. The reason CP don't affect gear pre-DB is that it is tied to VR. That isn't some promise that gear wouldn't be tied to CR, and in fact the speculation was *how* it would be so tethered to CR not whether. This isn't a sudden revelation. They said that a big issue with getting rid of VRs was having to re-sink everything to CRs. And that interview with Rich actually had him say that VR16 gear would become CR160 gear. How is this a surprise now?

CPs are not visible on your character => addresses the player separation issue

Just like the answer right above: pre-DB stats, gear, and challenge level were based on VRs, not CRs, so, of course they weren't visible. But VRs were. Why? Because it is how the game synchs difficulty/gates challenges. So now that we will be using CRs as the synch/gating for recommended or required levels of challenge, they show up on PCs and NPCs. CRs are the replacement model for vertical progression, just like we've been told that they would be all long.

No content is labelled with a CP value, even though it is designed around how many you have => addresses the linearity issue

The answer just above explains this. Did you think all challenges would be equalized and that the difficulty for the whole game would be one flat standard? That was never remotely hinted at, and in fact it was the opposite. There was plenty of evidence vertical progression would remain, that areas and events of greater and lesser challenge would persist, and so one. Unless someone thought it was all going to be flattened, and that CRs would be totally horizontal, that means some areas and instances are going to be harder and others easier, and this disparity means players need some way of gauging difficulty and whether they can even access the content.

ZOS has said all along that players like to feel that they are becoming more powerful, and they wouldn't be making content like veteran MoL and MA if they wanted content that was easily done by players of all levels of skill, experience, and degree of vertical progression. The fact that the game has gotten much easier overall, and that getting to CR160 is far, far simpler and faster than getting to VR16, shows that accessibility to more content is something ZOS is pushing. But with the basic game model/design philosophy they have, vertical progression, however easy or fast it becomes, isn't going away.

That isn't to say that relatively high degree of non-linearity, less disparity between the highest/lowest progression characters, and an increased focus on horizontal progression couldn't be fun or popular. One realm-vs-realm PvP-centric game with a successful Kickstarter and an early beta testing period opening up soon is in fact pursuing such a model. But unless there is a massive shake-up and fundamental restructuring at ZOS, I wouldn't hold my breath for such a model to come to ESO.

Enodoc · April 2016

driosketch wrote: »

estera wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Veteran Rank Removal
Monsters will now scale up faster in difficulty through veteran zones.

Experience gain rules will continue to function as they did for Veteran Ranks:
Mobs 40 Champion Points below your level will grant 75% of their normal XP.

Mobs 50 or more Champion Points below your level will grant 30% of their normal XP.

Does 160 CP cap applied when experience gain is calculated?
Or CP210+ players will only get 30% XP from CP160 mobs?

From a quick test, with 400 CP, 140 rank mobs are giving me the same xp as vr14 give my character on live. Also how many CP I spend, did not effect the xp gain.

@driosketch That's a "bug" (one that I really hope they don't fix):

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

KNOWN ISSUES
Combat & Gameplay
Veteran Rank Removal
You will still be receiving the full XP amount when killing monsters 40 or more Champion Points below your level, rather than at a reduced rate. This is not intended, and will be fixed in a future patch.

Morimizo · April 2016

ADarklore wrote: »

Rex-Umbra wrote: »

I was so excited for VR removal but these changes are not at all what I imagined. I assumed you would be making every zone in the game to be like the new zones with maybe them only scaling up to CP 140 gear.

This was never stated and has been a huge assumption by many players... in fact, they have stated a few times they have no intention of going back and updating older content. This means that only newer content is 'scaled', however, with VR removed, it also means that the necessity to grind through Cadwell's with alts is removed. If you still want to quest in older zones, you can, but you aren't going to be rewarded with much in way of XP for enemy kills... but you'll still receive full XP from turning in quests. People seem to think that XP is all about 'kills'... if you want to grind XP then go to a battle-leveled scaled zone and kill for full XP... otherwise, quest for the XP you get when turning in quests.

But this is such a complete waste of content; not many will want to visit Cadwell's areas because not only will they get no XP, you also don't get ANY loot when you outlevel the content. Also, the original intention of challenge, say in a public dungeon, is almost completely gone because you've outleveled it so much. You're not getting the intended flavor of the quests or delves. It's such an incredibly watered-down version of what Vet areas were just after game launch!!

I fully endorse scaling Cadwell's and Craglorn to revitalize this content to give a tremendous amount of variety. Add daily delve/WB quests too.

It won't happen because they want to sell DLCs, which is where the scaling, challenge, loot, XP, etc. are going to be for anyone with CP 50 or more.

Very disappointing, particularly for alts play.

ContraTempo · April 2016

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

I don't like the idea of gear being attached to CPs. Just let endgame gear be endgame gear. The CP system augments your stats anyway.

No one wants to go through another level cap raise like the V14 to V16 raise. All new materials, regrinding all the monster helm sets, all the "endgame content" that was now out of date and stayed underleveled for 3 DLC cycles.

Elite gear vendor took 3 DLC cycles to update. Sanctum just got updated now. AA, Hel-ra, and DSA still aren't dropping endgame gear.

I would hate to see the CP cap raised again in the next DLC and then everyone has to regrind everything again with a whole new tier of super limited materials only available in the new DLC.
suddenly maelstrom becomes out of date like DSA for 3 more DLC cycles.

all the Tel Var gear in Imperial City is outdated

"No ETA" when asked when these things will get updated.

Not again. Not ever.

I wonder if it would work to make that gear upgradable. It would be a new mechanic for the game but if you could reforge it to the higher level (with appropriate additions) that would keep it from becoming junk.

Enodoc · April 2016

tinythinker wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

Consider for a minute that they did exactly what they said they would do - remove VRs and measure progression with CPs.

Which fully makes my point. CRs replaced VRs as vertical progression. It didn't introduce a new era of non-linearity. You gain CPs, you get more powerful, however you choose to spend them.

I wrote that badly. The intended message that I was trying to put out is that ZOS have not done exactly what they said they would do, as they have fiddled with the CP system that was supposed to replace VRs by making it not so very different from what VRs were beforehand, meaning it is no longer the same system that was to replace VRs. When the Champion System came out, they said (to the effect of) "this is the system that will replace VRs when VRs are removed". A system that was all about passives, not about power. What we have now on PTS is not that system, but some hybrid build somewhere between the two. The statement should be read "Consider for a minute what the situation would be if they did exactly what they said they would do, and not what they have actually done".

CPs are gained faster, and are account-wide => addresses the levelling speed issue

Sure, and ZOS said this was the big, big point of CP, a sense of faster progression/less feeling like a grind. It's a neat trick. One that people warned about when everyone was first celebrating the removal of VR. That it would just be a gentler, less stressful, more scenic grind that didn't have the same huge slope it did with the original version of VRs. Which is still nice, by the way.

Yeah they definitely did this one.

Your power is tied to your CPs, but your gear is not => addresses the gear triviality issue

It has been known for many months that gear would be tied to CP. Rich said it himself live on the official stream, and this was after hints and suggestions waaaaaay before that that in fact this would be the case. The reason CP don't affect gear pre-DB is that it is tied to VR. That isn't some promise that gear wouldn't be tied to CR, and in fact the speculation was *how* it would be so tethered to CR not whether. This isn't a sudden revelation. They said that a big issue with getting rid of VRs was having to re-sink everything to CRs. And that interview with Rich actually had him say that VR16 gear would become CR160 gear. How is this a surprise now?

That's true, I'd already written this one off, but the point is still valid - the gear progression-triviality-redundancy that VRs caused has not been removed with their removal.

CPs are not visible on your character => addresses the player separation issue

Just like the answer right above: pre-DB stats, gear, and challenge level were based on VRs, not CRs, so, of course they weren't visible. But VRs were. Why? Because it is how the game synchs difficulty/gates challenges. So now that we will be using CRs as the synch/gating for recommended or required levels of challenge, they show up on PCs and NPCs. CRs are the replacement model for vertical progression, just like we've been told that they would be all long.

No content is labelled with a CP value, even though it is designed around how many you have => addresses the linearity issue

The answer just above explains this. Did you think all challenges would be equalized and that the difficulty for the whole game would be one flat standard? That was never remotely hinted at, and in fact it was the opposite. There was plenty of evidence vertical progression would remain, that areas and events of greater and lesser challenge would persist, and so one. Unless someone thought it was all going to be flattened, and that CRs would be totally horizontal, that means some areas and instances are going to be harder and others easier, and this disparity means players need some way of gauging difficulty and whether they can even access the content.

Specifically the bold stuff. Yes, yes I really did, as if you are going to "remove" something that all of that is based on, it is reasonable to assume that what you are left with is what you would have without what you're removing. VRs are layers on top of Level 50. Remove the VRs, you remove the layers, and everything becomes Level 50.

Stuff can still be more difficult, but why should certain content that people want to do (group content - Craglorn, Dungeons; PvP content - Cyrodiil) be more difficult than other content (solo content - Cadwell), meaning you have to do stuff you don't want to do (Cadwell) to be able to do the stuff you do (dungeons, PvP)? Why should one endgame "solo" zone set (Cadwell's Gold) be more difficult than the other (Cadwell's Silver)? Players may want to be able to choose what order to do things in rather than be told you have to do one before the other.

The lowest entity of each (Lower Craglorn, first tier Dungeons, Cyrodiil, Silver Zone 1, Gold Zone 1) should be equal in difficulty to each other, with the highest entity of each (Upper Craglorn, vWGT/vICP, Silver Zone 5, Gold Zone 5) being harder. Progression should be within content types, not between them, and you should be able to tell which content is harder without an ugly number hanging over its head simply based on the order you come to it within each content type (all of these are already ordered by difficulty in their respective UI lists). Or just by trying it out.

I've said this before, but none of the issues that people had with VRs would have existed if they hadn't increased the VR max from 10.

driosketch · April 2016

Enodoc wrote: »

driosketch wrote: »

estera wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Veteran Rank Removal
Monsters will now scale up faster in difficulty through veteran zones.

Experience gain rules will continue to function as they did for Veteran Ranks:
Mobs 40 Champion Points below your level will grant 75% of their normal XP.

Mobs 50 or more Champion Points below your level will grant 30% of their normal XP.

Does 160 CP cap applied when experience gain is calculated?
Or CP210+ players will only get 30% XP from CP160 mobs?

From a quick test, with 400 CP, 140 rank mobs are giving me the same xp as vr14 give my character on live. Also how many CP I spend, did not effect the xp gain.

@driosketch That's a "bug" (one that I really hope they don't fix):

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

KNOWN ISSUES
Combat & Gameplay
Veteran Rank Removal
You will still be receiving the full XP amount when killing monsters 40 or more Champion Points below your level, rather than at a reduced rate. This is not intended, and will be fixed in a future patch.

I sort of figured, but was hoping that wasn't the case. I at least have quests to fall back on for earning XP.

Dagoth_Rac · April 2016

Enodoc wrote: »

driosketch wrote: »

estera wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Veteran Rank Removal
Monsters will now scale up faster in difficulty through veteran zones.

Experience gain rules will continue to function as they did for Veteran Ranks:
Mobs 40 Champion Points below your level will grant 75% of their normal XP.

Mobs 50 or more Champion Points below your level will grant 30% of their normal XP.

Does 160 CP cap applied when experience gain is calculated?
Or CP210+ players will only get 30% XP from CP160 mobs?

From a quick test, with 400 CP, 140 rank mobs are giving me the same xp as vr14 give my character on live. Also how many CP I spend, did not effect the xp gain.

@driosketch That's a "bug" (one that I really hope they don't fix):

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

KNOWN ISSUES
Combat & Gameplay
Veteran Rank Removal
You will still be receiving the full XP amount when killing monsters 40 or more Champion Points below your level, rather than at a reduced rate. This is not intended, and will be fixed in a future patch.

I am thinking/hoping that the "bug" is people with 100 CP gaining full XP from 10 CP mobs, or people with 500 CP gaining full XP from 40 CP mobs. Otherwise, no one will gain full XP anywhere once even a single character hits 200 CP, which happens quite fast with the catch-up mechanic. Even the scaled mobs in Wrothgar still only have 160 CP.

In other words, I am expecting logic to be:

if Your Level = 50
then do:
    if min(Your CP, 160) >= (Mob CP + 50)
    then XP_Multiplier = 0.30.
    else if min(Your CP, 160) >= (Mob CP + 40)
    then XP_Multiplier = 0.75.
    else XP_Multiplier = 1.00.
end.

Anything else would be brutal. It would take forever to hit CP cap for new players because they would be getting such meager XP beyond 210 CP.

tinythinker · April 2016

Enodoc wrote: »

The lowest entity of each (Lower Craglorn, first tier Dungeons, Cyrodiil, Silver Zone 1, Gold Zone 1) should be equal in difficulty to each other, with the highest entity of each (Upper Craglorn, vWGT/vICP, Silver Zone 5, Gold Zone 5) being harder. Progression should be within content types, not between them, and you should be able to tell which content is harder without an ugly number hanging over its head simply based on the order you come to it within each content type (all of these are already ordered by difficulty in their respective UI lists). Or just by trying it out.

It's a fine idea to consider, but that is still vertical progression of challenge and difficulty, and hence having CR on the mobs still makes sense as not everyone wants to try it out and die or have the challenge difference be so small as not to matter. This gives them more of a choice of what/when to engage.

In any case that is not the same as having everything post-50 being scaled to the same degree of danger, health, damage done/mitigated, etc, or truly flattened, hence gear would scale with CR to match the challenges. But, if you want something for gear more like what you had hoped for, I've got you covered with something to lobby for

CR 1-160 item, has base stats and set bonuses that go up from CR1 to CR160, but anyone at level 50 can equip it.
CR 160-320 item, same deal but must be CR160 to equip.
CR 320-480 item, same deal.

Like the CR system itself, the set values would creep up slowly, but with a decent difference (but not insanely OP) between the start and end of the range.

In other words, for the CR1-160 items, as you gain CRs, the gear gets better. Eventually when the gear cap goes over 160 you would have the new range, 160-320. This gives more value to getting additional CPs to raise your CR, yet again, the difference between the lowest and highest CR for the same piece of gear would be substantial but not obscene.

Benefactor · April 2016

*All of my gear seems to equip just fine with the new CP system no problems encountered.

*It was easy enough to figure out what gear I could and could not equip.

*The difficulty of monsters was just as easy as telling what VR the monster used to be.

*The difficulty wasn't very noticeable even without using any CP all monsters seemed to be easy enough except in group content and VMA.

Other feedback:
*I have to say that It doesn't feel like much of a difference from VR.

*One thing I find is that the large numbers are visibly displeasing when viewing other players.

*Last but not least I think that there should be a limit of how much CP can be shown as the character's level. It could be discouraging for a new player to get to CP endgame and see people running around with over 1000 CP and realizeing it will take a long time for them to get there. It's also can be confusing as to what the cap is for CP at the current time. Might I also suggest that you cap the CP shown to other players to the maximum gear rating at the current time to minimize elitist communities who would be overly picky about who they group with and further separate the community.

Ilsabet · April 2016

There's been discussion here about how exp scaling will work at higher CP levels, but what about drops?

My understanding of the current situation in vet levels is that, for the purposes of loot drops if not exp, all vet-level characters and mobs are considered level 50, meaning that any vet-level character can get drops from any mobs in Silver and Gold zones (as well as Coldharbour mobs down to level 45). This makes it possible to farm for things like monster trophies at any vet level in any location in Silver and Gold zones.

Is this still possible with the new CP-based system? 'Cause it'll suck pretty hard if vet-level characters no longer have two alliances worth of mobs to farm for those elusive trophies.

Opux · April 2016

I've had time to think more on this, so I want to give a more detailed response. The issue people have with this can be boiled down to one sentence: We were told Veteran Ranks were going to be removed, but all that happened was they were renamed.

You could have made Veteran Ranks account wide, made enlightenment apply to all experience, and accomplished the exact same thing with far less work. Don't get me wrong, I love this feature in particular, but it isn't what we were told was going to happen. You're going to get a short term public relations win for saying you've removed Veteran Ranks, and a month after this feature launches and players realize what has happened, you're going to be in the exact same situation you are today, with all of the exact same user complaints - and it's going to be 10x worse when you raise the gear cap and the reality of the situation truly sets in. As an aside, there are a few really obtuse design decisions made for the sole purpose of making Champion Ranks feel like Veteran Ranks - why is the level range [10, 10, 160] so significant to skills costs and gear? Why does it arbitrarily stop at 160, when you can advance way past that point? This may be obvious to current players, but to new players there is a huge clarity issue here.

A poster above believes that it's the users fault for assuming removing Veteran Ranks would result in a change from vertical to horizontal progression, because the developers hinted at what the system was going to be. I believe that is short sighted, for two reasons:

First of all, not everyone watches the live streams, or follows developer activity religiously. Some users, like myself, have put the game (and my associated subscription) on hold in anticipation for the removal of Veteran Ranks.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, users associated the removal of Veteran Ranks to the removal of the gear treadmill because that is what they wanted.

Furthermore, the current implementation is only creating more developer work in the future, because every time you raise the level cap you need to go back and scale up old content - both dungeons/trials and gear sets. For some content this can be trivially handled by an algorithm, but if that's the case then why even bother scaling up in the first place if the experience is the same. This is also destructive to old content - who actually does anything in Craglorn anymore, besides farm nirn? New players entering the game will never be able to experience it because of population issues, and so for practical purposes it is gone forever.

The way you add new content without destroying old content is with horizontal progression. New content gives new challenges to conquer, with rewards that can range from new item set effects to new looks to new titles. The important part is the situations the players are put in should be challenging because they are novel, not because all the numbers are higher. This makes the entire game world feel alive, because you can still go back to an old location and experience the content as it originally was, at the original difficulty - this is important: see the whole debacle around private vanilla servers in World of Warcraft! New players can enter the game and experience the content they are interested in, instead of being forced to grind up alone to whatever arbitrary piece of content is in style at the time, which is a huge barrier to entry. The rewards from the old content are still impactful and meaningful; attracting long time players who have yet to beat it, or still enjoy it years later. Each new expansion enriches the game world, instead of taking away from it. For example, you've already got a ton of useless crafting materials acting as filler - why not do something interesting with them instead? Add material bonuses to armor that give different effects, for example, and place the materials in such a way as to encourage players to explore all parts of the world.

Removing this aspect of vertical progression doesn't remove vertical progression entirely, as there would still be vertical progression in the game, in two ways from two sources:

Champion Points give power from experience - although I personally believe the tree should be more... inspired. Just adding stats is boring and unmemorable.
Upgrading a piece of gear gives power from gold.

There is no need to double down on vertical progression by making players hop on the treadmill every time the level cap is raised. Players should only participate in this because they want to, not because they need to. Wanting to change your playstyle, try out a new niche build that requires a certain item set, or try out a new look gives players a reason to stick around and do content. The important point is that users do it because they decided to, not because the developers made the decision for them. The gear treadmill is an antiquated part of game design, and we should leave it in the annals of history.

Enodoc · April 2016

tinythinker wrote: »

But, if you want something for gear more like what you had hoped for, I've got you covered with something to lobby for

CR 1-160 item, has base stats and set bonuses that go up from CR1 to CR160, but anyone at level 50 can equip it.
CR 160-320 item, same deal but must be CR160 to equip.
CR 320-480 item, same deal.

Like the CR system itself, the set values would creep up slowly, but with a decent difference (but not insanely OP) between the start and end of the range.

In other words, for the CR1-160 items, as you gain CRs, the gear gets better. Eventually when the gear cap goes over 160 you would have the new range, 160-320. This gives more value to getting additional CPs to raise your CR, yet again, the difference between the lowest and highest CR for the same piece of gear would be substantial but not obscene.

Yeah I think I remember seeing that before. That definitely would help with the gear grind issue.

Ilsabet wrote: »

There's been discussion here about how exp scaling will work at higher CP levels, but what about drops?

My understanding of the current situation in vet levels is that, for the purposes of loot drops if not exp, all vet-level characters and mobs are considered level 50, meaning that any vet-level character can get drops from any mobs in Silver and Gold zones (as well as Coldharbour mobs down to level 45). This makes it possible to farm for things like monster trophies at any vet level in any location in Silver and Gold zones.

Is this still possible with the new CP-based system? 'Cause it'll suck pretty hard if vet-level characters no longer have two alliances worth of mobs to farm for those elusive trophies.

@Ilsabet I'm assuming that won't change. Mobs are still Level 50, just now showing a CP level instead of a VR level.

Opux wrote: »

[snip]

You summed that up very nicely, and probably in a better way than I did! I'm glad I'm not the only one that doesn't think this addressed the complaints about VRs.

ADarklore · April 2016

I honestly think the ONLY reason they switched from VR to CP is solely because of the desire to make the game easier to level alts... period. It would not have been so easy to make VR account-wide because they would still be dealing with TWO types of leveling... VR and CP... now they will only have one type, CP. So people won't be leveling for both VR and CP to gain progress, it will solely be left to CP now.

Further, for those who expected older content to suddenly scale, I doubt it is as easy as you think, if it were, they would have 'battle-leveled' all zones including starter zones by now. My guess is that it would take a huge amount of time because quite possibly the entire underlying code would have to be re-written. I further speculate that because ZOS doesn't have as 'huge' of a development team now as they did back when the game was being created, they have one team working on upcoming DLC and another working on the next 'future' DLC... same as DCUO does. When one DLC finishes, they leap-frog, and that team begins working on the next future DLC. If ZOS were to suddenly shift those devs to working on older content, they would be losing out on revenue... and depending on how much time this would take, they could be losing three to six months or more of revenue while existing players would not see any new content for six months or longer. I doubt players would be happy about that.

Let's also remember what happened over at DCUO when they tried to go back and scale older content, it failed miserably and they ended up switching it back to the way it was originally... so no, it is NOT as easy to 'update' older content as people like to believe it is.

So I think ZOS is trying to get the monkey off their back as far as the game being alt-unfriendly, but at the same time, maintaining resources to providing future content instead of spinning their wheels and losing money by focusing on older content. Especially when you consider that, in another year from now, when even more DLCs are available, people are not even going to give Cadwell's Silver and Gold a second thought. Craglorn on the other hand...

Garwulf · April 2016

Must say it is very entertaining reading these posts. It goes to show us all that listening to the 'squeaky wheels' leads to no end of entertainment on the forums but not from a game point of view. ESO was more entertaining on release, even,with the bots ,than it it now after it has been 'Care Beared' to death.

The Champion system is turning out to be a total waste of time. More confusing than the original VR system and not adding one iota of extra real game enjoyment. In reality the real problem with this game was the original concept of Cadwells Silver and Gold. A simple rehash of the original game to level 50. Game over.

After the original game was complete, Silver and Gold should have been optional whilst additional content should have been immediately available similar to Wrothgar/Orsinium . A champion system to fine tune your fully leveled character would then have been appropriate whilst allowing any level 50 character to wear any equiptment available irrespective of Champion points.

I seriously wonder if anyone at ZoS has ever played this game.

MartinDeShade · April 2016

I think it is a complete waste of time, to change from vr to cp. Worse for when they do raise the level cap it would be meaningless because just about everybody will be well over it.

What they should have done is let anybody with a vr16 able to jump any of their alts from 50 straight to vr16. Then you could raise the vr max level to vr18 and people would have something to work towards.

If you must get rid of vr then get rid of vr, but instead just rename them 51-66. That is it.

W0lf_z13 · April 2016

I fully agree with everyone who is saying that zones should be like wrothgar where they scale, I personally have only 323ish CP's .... so now once DB goes live my xp will be cut short because of the fact i have over the 160 CP's .... But... on the other hand... I guess this is their way of balancing out the "Leveling" making it take even longer to get CP's

Epona222 · April 2016

Dark Seducer, Golden Saint, and Mannimarco costumes are not currently being awarded retrospectively in cases where an account had no characters at old VR2/6/10 but have over the required number of Champion Points for those costumes (which is entirely possible given how quickly CP are awarded at first, especially if someone has multiple characters who were at VR1 and pottering through the last part of Coldharbour or the Silver starter islands/first zone).

Runs · April 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Do you have any other general feedback?

The way your team has removed VR levels completely screws over someone who is a completionist.

Before(as it still is on live) I could take my fresh VR1 alt to Cadwell's Silver and Gold zones and earn proper exp/CP while I complete said map.

Now I take a fresh level 50 alt to Cadwell's Silver or Gold zones and I am penalized CP exp because of how many CP he has. So it becomes a waste of time to complete the map.

I don't understand why you couldn't have made the Cadwell zones just like all the DLC zones are... Scaled... so even at end level champion points you get normal cp exp. This also would have been a good way to remove the linear feel of those zones so we could complete them in any order without being penalized.

I feel the way it has been changed as if it really hasn't been changed at all... It's still the same, just alts are the immediately made the same level as our main once they hit 50 now.

Epona222 · April 2016

Runs wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Do you have any other general feedback?

The way your team has removed VR levels completely screws over someone who is a completionist.

Before(as it still is on live) I could take my fresh VR1 alt to Cadwell's Silver and Gold zones and earn proper exp/CP while I complete said map.

Now I take a fresh level 50 alt to Cadwell's Silver or Gold zones and I am penalized CP exp because of how many CP he has. So it becomes a waste of time to complete the map.

I don't understand why you couldn't have made the Cadwell zones just like all the DLC zones are... Scaled... so even at end level champion points you get normal cp exp. This also would have been a good way to remove the linear feel of those zones so we could complete them in any order without being penalized.

I feel the way it has been changed as if it really hasn't been changed at all... It's still the same, just alts are the immediately made the same level as our main once they hit 50 now.

This is my main concern with it also. It's going to widen the gap in earned CP between people who grind and people who play a lot of alts doing Silver/Gold, which is something I thought they were trying to avoid.

Silver/Gold zones will be as dead as Craglorn after this goes live, unless they are all changed to scaled zones (which would be a wonderful solution for all players, helping to give a variety of grind spots so that no one area becomes clogged with people, and giving an incentive to do questing in those zones for people who like to quest).

Runs · April 2016

It also is going to create a bigger cap between people who only have the base game, and people who have the DLC's. Once one character is over CP for all the zones, all the characters will be. This was probably intended.

VaxtinTheWolf · April 2016

Runs wrote: »

It also is going to create a bigger cap between people who only have the base game, and people who have the DLC's. Once one character is over CP for all the zones, all the characters will be. This was probably intended.

I know that I havent gotten ESO+ in a long time, and haven't gotten any DLC. I was waiting untl I got my 3 main chars to VR16 and clear of cadwells gold before getting anything. And then saving part of my 6k crowns for that sexy shadow-senche mount I saw and am still waiting for.

RogueShade · April 2016

The only question I have is what happens with the attribute and skill points my nonVR16 vet characters would have earned when they auto-max out? Gaining extras at 5 and 10 levels is great unless I'm already past it. I currently have a VR1 and VR5 (soon another) that it seems are going to be shorted ~15 skill and attribute points each.

VaxtinTheWolf · April 2016

RogueShade wrote: »

The only question I have is what happens with the attribute and skill points my nonVR16 vet characters would have earned when they auto-max out? Gaining extras at 5 and 10 levels is great unless I'm already past it. I currently have a VR1 and VR5 (soon another) that it seems are going to be shorted ~15 skill and attribute points each.

I've been saying it in several threads. currently on the PTS, you have to refund your attributes and such at a shrine to gain the 'missing' points after the changes.

Mix · April 2016

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

I just want to know the difference in stats between CP10 and CP160 gear. The exact differences for regeneration, power and Crit bonuses. Also the armour values.

Can someone pipe in from ZOS @ZOS_GinaBruno? I can't test as I have no old gear and on a template.

Well I can give you some from crafting some items.

For Gold Jerkin of Julianos (LA):

Spell Critical: CP 10 = 512 and CP 160 = 688 (total Spell Critical gain = 176)
Armor: CP 10 = 1044 and CP 160 = 1396 (total Armor gain = 352)

For Gold Jack of Torug's Pact (MA):

Spell Damage: CP 10 = 96 and CP 160 = 129 (total Spell Damage gain = 33)
Armor: CP 10 = 1556 and CP 160 = 2084 (total Armor gain = 528)

For Gold Cuirass of the Seducer (HA):

Magicka Recovery: CP 10 = 96 and CP 160 = 129 (total Magicka Recovery gain = 33)
Armor: CP 10 = 2068 and CP 160 = 2772 (total Armor gain = 704)

For gold 1 Handed Sword:

Damage: CP 10 = 906 and CP 160 = 1335 (total Damage gain = 429)

Dixa · April 2016

tinythinker wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

The lowest entity of each (Lower Craglorn, first tier Dungeons, Cyrodiil, Silver Zone 1, Gold Zone 1) should be equal in difficulty to each other, with the highest entity of each (Upper Craglorn, vWGT/vICP, Silver Zone 5, Gold Zone 5) being harder. Progression should be within content types, not between them, and you should be able to tell which content is harder without an ugly number hanging over its head simply based on the order you come to it within each content type (all of these are already ordered by difficulty in their respective UI lists). Or just by trying it out.

It's a fine idea to consider, but that is still vertical progression of challenge and difficulty, and hence having CR on the mobs still makes sense as not everyone wants to try it out and die or have the challenge difference be so small as not to matter. This gives them more of a choice of what/when to engage.

In any case that is not the same as having everything post-50 being scaled to the same degree of danger, health, damage done/mitigated, etc, or truly flattened, hence gear would scale with CR to match the challenges. But, if you want something for gear more like what you had hoped for, I've got you covered with something to lobby for

CR 1-160 item, has base stats and set bonuses that go up from CR1 to CR160, but anyone at level 50 can equip it.
CR 160-320 item, same deal but must be CR160 to equip.
CR 320-480 item, same deal.

Like the CR system itself, the set values would creep up slowly, but with a decent difference (but not insanely OP) between the start and end of the range.

In other words, for the CR1-160 items, as you gain CRs, the gear gets better. Eventually when the gear cap goes over 160 you would have the new range, 160-320. This gives more value to getting additional CPs to raise your CR, yet again, the difference between the lowest and highest CR for the same piece of gear would be substantial but not obscene.

160 cr points on top of 50 levels is a korean-esque grind. Many posting here now may not realize this because they already ahve that many or more and wont' ahve to do it on their alts, but it IS a lot of "leveling" before you can participate, and I don't think it's going to speed the road from 1-endgame raiding/dungeons as much as the gaming press and many others seem to think.

Mix · April 2016

Now for my observations:

This isn't a direct "re-naming" of veteran ranks. The XP needed to gain 10 CP is a lot less than that needed to gain a Veteran level.

Gear caps at 160CP required. They did do a conversion of veteran rank to CP number for convenience but a NEW player will have access to 160 CP gear in a lot shorter time.

People saying you don't gain more character power with CP are totally wrong. You do gain more health, stam, magicka in addition to the bonuses of the stars you choose (and the passive stars as you unlock them, some of which are incredibly powerful).

Having CP tags on mobs is pretty moot, it is just telling you the strength of the mob vs. your character.

CP and XP gain: my character has 452 CP

CP 160 = 683 xp (Mob HP = 40k (a Wrothgar Bear))
CP 40 = 683 xp (Mob HP = 22.2k (Glenumbra Werewolf))

Vs. Live

v16 Wrothgar Bear = 683 xp
v1 Glenumbra Werewolf (only have 20k hp) = 204 xp

So, at the moment either the PTS has XP working incorrectly (it doesn't match what was communicated in the patch notes for CP differences) or ZoS has miscommunicated their intent in the patch notes and all previous vet zone mobs will give the same xp (different mob types still give different amounts of xp of course).

Now, apparently a Brand New player, upon reaching Level 50 will get 10 CP. So I took my 'less than optimized' (as her gear is CP10 requirement) level 50 Bank character who is a Templar, only spec'd 10 CP for her and went to Auridon which is CP 160 zone. I found the mobs pretty challenging given her noobish setup. 1v1 I could solo a 26k hp mob with healing myself. Two of them did too much dps for me to heal and dps them. So I think a brand new player wouldn't really have the option to go to a CP 160 non-scaled zone by themselves and would have to head to the CP 40 zones. Which still makes it pretty linear in the Your Alliance, Silver, then Gold progression. Gold Zones are CP 160 so you could just go to whichever area you want at that point. So I added CP until I was 160 CP and then attacked the same mobs. Even in my CP10 crappy gear they were easy to defeat, no heals needed.

Brand New Players won't have as much flexibility in choosing where to go next when they reach level 50 but between CP and crafting new gear they can probably go to 160 (non-scaling) areas long before they have 160 CP themselves.

Veteran Zone Re-Level and Conversion to CP zones: The crafting mats are not relevant for the zones they are found in anymore. My character has max crafts and max skill points put in them. The disparity starts in Coldharbor where the most common Leather dropping mobs drop Thick Leather (36-44) while the nodes are all level 46-50 (ebony, yew, ebonthread). Silver alliance zones (Stros M'kai, Betnikh, Glenumbra, and Stormhaven) which start at CP 40 level and go to CP 70 level the leather scraps obtained match that of the mob levels killed (except CP150/160) but the nodes are for the 10 CP-30CP gear. While this makes sense for the two starter islands and Glenumbra where the New CP10 Player will head, after that the nodes need to change with the zone level.

For instance:
Zones:Zone Level: Node Crafting Level
Stros M'kai, Betnikh, Glenumbra: CP 40: 10CP-30CP (calcinium, birch, kreshweed)
Stormhaven: CP 70:40-60CP (galatite, ash, ironweed) CURRENTLY ON PTS as 10CP-30CP (calcinium, birch, kreshweed)
Rivenspire: CP 100: 70-80 CP (quicksilver, Mahogany, silverweave) CURRENTLY ON PTS as 40-60CP (galatite, ash, ironweed)
Alik'r Desert: CP 130: 90-140 CP (voidstone, nightwood, voidcloth) CURRENTLY ON PTS as 40-60CP (galatite, ash, ironweed)
Bangkoria: CP 150: 90-140 CP (voidstone, nightwood, voidcloth) CURRENTLY ON PTS as 40-60CP (galatite, ash, ironweed)

Khenarthi's Roost: 160 CP (rubedite, ruby ash, ancestor silk, rubedo leather)
CURRENTLY ON PTS as 70-80 CP (quicksilver, Mahogany, silverweave, shadowhide)
Auridon: 160 CP (rubedite, ruby ash, ancestor silk, rubedo leather)
CURRENTLY ON PTS as 70-80 CP (quicksilver, Mahogany, silverweave, shadowhide)
Grahtwood: 160 CP (rubedite, ruby ash, ancestor silk, rubedo leather)
CURRENTLY ON PTS as 70-80 CP (quicksilver, Mahogany, silverweave, shadowhide)
Greenshade: 160 CP (rubedite, ruby ash, ancestor silk, rubedo leather)
CURRENTLY ON PTS as 90-140 CP (voidstone, nightwood, voidcloth, shadowhide)
Malabal Tor: 160 CP (rubedite, ruby ash, ancestor silk, rubedo leather)
CURRENTLY ON PTS as 90-140 CP (voidstone, nightwood, voidcloth, shadowhide)
Reaper's March: 160 CP (rubedite, ruby ash, ancestor silk, rubedo leather)
CURRENTLY ON PTS as 90-140 CP (voidstone, nightwood, voidcloth, shadowhide)

Craglorn: 110CP+130CP: is currently 90-140 CP (voidstone, nightwood, voidcloth, shadowhide), no change needed.

So Zos needs to either change the nodes to match the levels (as above) OR tweak the material levels OR both. Bottom line though is that if you have CP150 and CP160 zones you need to have the mats accessible in those zones to craft that level of gear. Alternatively you could cap the zones at CP140 and then require players to visit DLC scaling zones or Cyrodiil to obtain their CP150/160 mats.

Opux · April 2016

Mix wrote: »

This isn't a direct "re-naming" of veteran ranks. The XP needed to gain 10 CP is a lot less than that needed to gain a Veteran level.

Formula for CP XP cost: f(x) = ((x / (501 ^ 0.95)) + 0.08) * 400000 XP
Integral of f(x) over 1 -> 160: 19,032,600 XP

Right now it's 850,000 XP per VR, with 16 VRs is: 13,600,000 XP

Conclusion: It takes more total XP to hit CP 160 than VR 16, but this XP is modified by enlightenment. If you took longer than ~3days to gain a VR before, it will be slightly faster now, otherwise it will be slower.

Ayantir · April 2016

the top left UI is bad.

You still show the 50th level, even it's totally unuseful.

Are good exemple of a better thing

Don't look at the tooltip, but the number displayed, and the text above the bar..

MissBizz · April 2016

Question: How do people receive their costumes for certain VR ranks? Skill and attribute points were explained, but not when the costumes would now be acquired.

Ra'Shtar · April 2016

I still don't get why people don't understand that your level is 160 NOT 517 (in my case) so if you kill something CR 150 you don't really loose experience, it really is not that hard to understand its not science its just simple concept.