What is the long-term plan for champion points?

Actually_Goku · January 2019

Hey guys,

I’m just wanting to start a discussion cantered around champion points, and their distribution, effectiveness, and the general longevity of the concept.

Disclaimer: if ZOS has said, or someone has heard what is going to happen, please, by all means, let me know in this thread.

What triggered this discussion for me, was that recently over the holiday season, I have convinced 3 of my IRL friends who played ESO at console launch for a time, to come back to the game. All 3 of them quit around the time we transitioned from veteran ranks to champion points - though it was not because of that, they had simply had enough of the game and were waiting for more content to be added.

Now, they are all MMO players, are open to the grind of games, but as soon I told them the CP cap was now at 810CP, two of them have immediately quit the game on the basis they believe they will never get there, and/or lack the means and desire to get there, despite the initial excitement they had of getting back into the game.

Irrespective of your opinion of the above (I’m fully expecting a few “rEeEeE it’s not that hard to get there” comments) any rational person will recognise that this, being just raising the CP cap by 30 every now and then, at a fundamental level, will hurt the player base as it is not a tenable long-term solution for the long-term health of the game, and eventually it will fail to bring new players in, and, obviously, returning players are less inclined to pick the game back up, once they realise how far behind the 8-ball they have fallen.

Discuss.

Banana · January 2019

840 870 then 900 Easier for them to work out

VaranisArano · January 2019

Champion Points are weird.

You only need CP 160 to wear max level gear and techincally you can do all the content in the game at CP 300, and the vast majority of questing content is balanced for a leveling player with no CP thus making it really easy to "out-level" all the overland quest content with CP.

But it's what we've got.

I believe there was a mention of concerns with CP and powercreep on one of the Class Rep meetings, but nothing more that I can recall. In any case, dealing with champion points would probably require a full gsme revamp a la One Tamriel, and the devs seem to be leaning towards smaller gameplay updates for a bit after the turmoil of Murkmire. I wouldn't expect to see any big CP changes until the next Chapter at the earliest if even then.

Wifeaggro13 · January 2019

Actually_Goku wrote: »

Hey guys,

I’m just wanting to start a discussion cantered around champion points, and their distribution, effectiveness, and the general longevity of the concept.

Disclaimer: if ZOS has said, or someone has heard what is going to happen, please, by all means, let me know in this thread.

What triggered this discussion for me, was that recently over the holiday season, I have convinced 3 of my IRL friends who played ESO at console launch for a time, to come back to the game. All 3 of them quit around the time we transitioned from veteran ranks to champion points - though it was not because of that, they had simply had enough of the game and were waiting for more content to be added.

Now, they are all MMO players, are open to the grind of games, but as soon I told them the CP cap was now at 810CP, two of them have immediately quit the game on the basis they believe they will never get there, and/or lack the means and desire to get there, despite the initial excitement they had of getting back into the game.

Irrespective of your opinion of the above (I’m fully expecting a few “rEeEeE it’s not that hard to get there” comments) any rational person will recognise that this, being just raising the CP cap by 30 every now and then, at a fundamental level, will hurt the player base as it is not a tenable long-term solution for the long-term health of the game, and eventually it will fail to bring new players in, and, obviously, returning players are less inclined to pick the game back up, once they realise how far behind the 8-ball they have fallen.

Discuss.

The problem is it's just not worth it to get there. Your character does not change in any meaningful way. You selected role does not define in any meaningful way. You gain no new abilities . Nothing is really gained other then the power creep.the co system is just a 1 a large 1 inch puddle ,no depths just width

MaleAmazon · January 2019

Well they changed CP before (no more cost reduction), hopefully they can do it again.

As for 'not being able to catch up', well what would be the alternative? That levelling and being a loyal customer should mean nothing, and new players can just jump right in at max level? Anyway getting 160 CP should take you a few weeks tops, what with quick early CP gain and the ocean of XP boosts you swim in for no effort - login reward XP scrolls, events etc.

The one solution I can see, if this is a problem, is adding CP rewards for clearing difficult content. So say vMA gives 300 CP regardless for clearing it, and vFL gives 50. Something like that.

My personal dislike with the CP system is that it punishes not specialising and it punishes more original builds and RP characters; for example with the separation of staves / stamina weapons and magic / physical damage. Ofc it used to be even worse with stamina weapons themselves being divided. So at least it is better now.

But if they rethought and redesigned it in a more revolutionary way like they redesigned the game with One Tamriel (who here remembers 'outlevelling' entire game zones? Yey

), I would be happy. And like someone wished for Carthage to be destroyed, I will forever end rants like this with "And for the love of Talos, give us veteran Overland difficulty!!!".

Shadow-Fighter · January 2019

The plan is to reach 3600

Odovacar · January 2019

To look at all the unusable ones and wait

Also, IMO, I feel too many people put all their energy into reaching current CP cap's. Yes, you want to achieve it for you and for others to see your "on the level", but real players know if you can handle harder content even at lower CP levels. Prime example was last night. I PUG'd VSCP and our tank was around 350ish CP. He performed wonderfully and we only had one hiccup throughout the whole run (AOE caught team off guard on final boss). Once you hit 300 all the rest are gravy anyways, lets just play the game and not be daunted by having to grind just to reach high CP levels. Lastly, I'm not too big of fan of our current champion point system anyways....

Merlin13KAGL · January 2019

Your friends were going to give up no matter what the reason.

At 160, you can wear any gear in the game. You can hit 160 in a week after turning L50 for the first time.

Cap is far from difficult to get, especially with the catch-up mechanic.

At ~400 CP's, you're gaining one CP a day if you simply burn enlightenment. That's 10-20 minutes a day if you do a daily random norm.

Tack onto that the XP scrolls they drop in your lap regularly as log in rewards, the numerous 2x XP events they have regularly. You can hit 500-600 CP's without having 90 days in game play time.

By 500-600, (with 810 cap), you already have the meat of what CP will give you. The rest is just bonus. There is no content you can't do at 500 CP's if you're semi-skilled and familiar with your character.

They add 30 points every three months. Again, those 30 points do almost nothing for a capped character. You might net a 1% gain from base, less than a 1% gain from previous cap.

Even above cap, (like 300 points above cap, or 2.5 years' worth of increases), you gain 1/2 a CP a day if you simply burn enlightenment. This can be split up over multiple days.

So, if you're 2.5 years ahead of the curve and simply do some dailies once every several days, you'll still gain 15 points beyond the 30 point cap increase every single major patch.

Dagoth_Rac · January 2019

Honestly, I think it is more of a semantic issue. If the cap was 81 instead of 810, and max level gear was CP16 instead of CP160, and each star had a max of 10 points instead of 100, and each star gave 10x the bonus as now, and the cap went up by 3 every patch, etc., I think people would be less intimated. I really feel that the problem is mostly that "160" and "810" are bigger numbers than players are used to.

Also, every enemy in game being same level is a blessing and a curse. You do not outlevel content, and it makes it easy to group up with other players, but it is also not immediately clear to new players what is difficult and what is not. You will run into CP160 enemies in overland quests, in public dungeons, in Fungal Grotto, in Maelstrom, in Fang Lair, in Halls of Fabrication, etc. But the difficulty of those CP160 enemies varies drastically. I think that confuses new players.

The underlying CP system itself seems fine to me. But it is not an intuitive system.

Kuramas9tails · January 2019

I would be surprised if there was a plan.

Elwendryll · January 2019

I feel like the CP system severely harms the fun in this game. Because I can go with 15k health as a DD in a regular vet dungeon, and tank the boss, because it can't OS me, and my self healing is enough to stay alive, while low CP can't. Group composition is standardized, tanks are DPS boosters, healers are DPS boosters, and the way to deal with mechanics is to not even let them occur. When they added the I and II version of dungeons (previously normal and veteran), a LOT of people were caught off guard on bosses they used to dislocate on normal, because they had to deal with already existing mechanics that they never encountered, as the boss never lived long enough to proc it.

CP adds: sustain, damage, healing, mitigation.
You can go full offensive, and still survive.

An other thing slightly annoys me, but it's ok. The ultimates, they scale off your max ressources, weapon/spell damage, and crit. But it accounts for a different type of penetration depending on the damage type. So, while I can easily use a magicka hitting ult on a stamina character in a battleground for exemple. It's just not viable in any other context. It just makes BG my default pvp mode, because I have so much more flexibility on my builds.

Also, I never "farmed" CPs, you gain CPs by doing anything and everything, just playing the game is enough.

I'd like the power to be moved from CPs to the classes and races. CPs should be way less impactful on pure "power", and should encourage build diversity, original gameplay, and QoL things, like exp/inspiration bonuses. CP should allow you to define and refine your own playstyle, not remove the crucial choices when making your builds and let you invest all in one aspect.