Loc2262 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Loc2262 wrote: »

Actually, yeah if the total amount of XP required from level 1 to 50 has been increased from 2.3m to 2.8m, I don't really see how "the total time to level from 1 to 50 should generally remain unchanged".

Can someone enlighten me?

It depends on whether and how the XP for individual quests and encounters has been changed. You may well be able to gain the new amount of XP required in exactly the same amount of playtime, just with a slight rebalancing as between lower and higher levels.

Yeah that's certainly possible. Might have been a good idea, especially to quell conspiracy theories , to put those figures in the patch notes too. Oftentimes the lack of transparency on ZOS' part can be somewhat frustrating.

XP for quests was changed. OP conveniently forgot the final part of that patch note:

Additionally, all quests now provide more experience to help even the leveling time between those that complete quests versus simply killing monsters.

If you consider how much XP from quests was also increased, ZOS' statement about total time remaining unchanged is about right.

XP from quest turn in also scales with level: if you turn the quest in at a higher level you get more XP for completion. If you really want to be OCD about maximizing XP gain, hang on to those completed quests, wait a few levels and turn them in.

Regardless, as someone who levels and discards a lot of alts, I know for a fact that the end result of increased XP gain from all sources (it wasn't just quests it was also +XP from mob kills in delves, public dungeons and 4-man) and the increased requirements for leveling at the higher levels is a net gain for us. Alts just plain level faster now than before Morrowind. I have no graphs to show that but I know it for fact through first hand game play experience.

Leveling to max vet level that first year? Now THAT was a grind.

UnseenTruth wrote: »

Iselin wrote: »

Alts just plain level faster now than before Morrowind. I have no graphs to show that but I know it for fact through first hand game play experience.

Enslaved wrote: »

I claim tame has changed. I leveled 3 wardens since Morrowind went live. I did it on same grinding spots using same methods I used on most of my 11 other chars. It took more time.

agreed with 2nd quote
from my own experience too

I level by questing and 4-man randoms, not grinding, and I know it's faster for me than it used to be.

CalydorEstalon wrote: »

What lies are you uncovering? Your graph shows exactly what the patch notes said. Level 1-20 is a little faster, 21-50 a litlte slower.

Is it the part where total time taken won't change much? Do you have any data for whether experience gains got overhauled as well?

Total time taken is longer. Pre-Morrowind it took me about three "zones" (four including the starter zone) to get to about level 40+ and go to Coldharbor. On my current post-morrowind character I've done all three alliance starter zones and also four main zones and I'm still under level 40.

The worst part of the game has always been that level 30-40 stretch where leveling seems to take forever and they've made it worse.

The increase from 3 to 4 zones to get to level 50 makes the 27% longer time sound legit from my perspective.

I can only think they want to get casual players to buy the game then give up when it takes so long to level?

Enslaved wrote: »

lnsane wrote: »

The experience needed to level from 1 to 50 has been adjusted.

Correct, it's been adjusted from ~2.3 to ~2.8 million apparently.

Earlier levels now require less experience to obtain, while later levels will require more.

Also correct. As your graph shows, 1-19 seem to need less XP, and 20+ needs more.

I don't see the lie here, but that may just be my interpretation of ZOS' statement vs. your graph..

The total time to level from 1 to 50 should generally remain unchanged

You missed this part. 2.8M is about 20% more XP than 2.3M. So, it is not unchanged but you need more than 20% more to get to lvl 50.

If XP gain rates were flat, regardless of level, then that would be accurate. However, XP gained scales with your level. Meaning lower levels contribute less XP to the player, than higher level ones.

For example...

If you have a game where a level one character needs 1k xp to advance to level 2, and a level two character needs 3k (total). And they fight at level enemies who award 10xp each. They'll need to kill 100 of them. At level 2, they earn 20xp per kill, and thus need to kill another 100.

Now, if you change the progression so they only need 100xp to advance to level 2, but need 3.6k (total) (so a 20% increase) to advance to level 3, they could advance to level 2 in just 10 kills. They'd then need 175 kills to advance to level 3.

Now, that's a 20% increase to the total number of kills needed, but, the actual number of kills drops from 200 to 185, so you would actually level about 7.5% faster.

Somewhat obviously, these aren't ESO's numbers. But, because you get to the higher levels faster, you will gain more XP on a character than you would have under the original level progression. I'm not sure, but I suspect it is, significantly more than 20% additional XP.

starkerealm wrote: »

Remember, one of the elements that snuck in with One Tamriel and Morrowind was to push players away from grinding and towards questing. Not sure about the numbers overall, but it wouldn't surprise me if using the exact same method as before would be slower.

Combine this with things like changes to kill credit on Dolmens, and it's not hard to see where you could have taken it in the teeth for going back and trying to do the same thing again.

I'm not going to say you're wrong. I don't have any idea of the intent behind any changes made. But I can say this. I don't think Dolmens were nerfed much at all. When I was leveling my latest character I went from 42-45 in under an hour doing Dolmens so I could run some pledges with friends when they logged in later that day.

Afterwards I sketched out 47-50 in under 2 hours. So if its been changed, it wasn't in a way that was by any means substantial. And I still believe its been buffed since I first played the game. I'm pretty sure someone else could have done what I did a little quicker, I wasn't hitting all dolmens that were up during that time as they popped since I was eating and doing other things during that time.

Does this mean zos is part of the illuminati?

I for one welcome our reptilian overlords.

Enslaved wrote: »

I leveled just one of 14 characters via questing. It was my main and it took me days. Never wanted to re live that experience again, so all other characters were leveled by grinding mobs.

Most of my characters were leveled solo, in same exact place - Vivec's Antlers in Stonefalls. I used all training gear and sharpened weapons, and regular ambrosia. Almost all my leveling was done in dead hours on PC EU, when there are next to no players on this area. Classes I leveled here - all but magicka Nightblade (I leveled them in prison and one in Craglorn). When you do level that many chars, you do notice if something took more or less time. And leveling post Morrowind chars ( 3x Warden, 2 stam one mag) took me more time. So, it is either that OP's statement is correct or Warden sux *** compared to all other classes, and that is simply not the case. I don't say leveling 1-50 now takes 2x more time than before, but it does take more time.

@Enslaved, I think kill XP was slightly decreased, while quest XP was slightly increased. That said... when I switch from my warden to another class, there's a noticeable increase in lethality. I don't know if that's just the Warden really is trash, or if I'm simply that much more familiar with Sorcs and NBs. (Though, in fairness, I'm not much more familiar with DKs, and am hilariously more lethal on those than with my Wardens, so there might be something to that Warden Dumpster Fire theory.)