No Meaningful (Gear) Progression

mikeabboudb14_ESO · May 2019

no please sounds like someone misses world of Warcraft.

abigfishy · May 2019

Worst idea ever. The reason I am playing ESO is because the gear doesn't become totally worthless every three months and you can do things besides a pointless never ending gear grind. Would it be considered rude to call the OP a moron?

Skwor · May 2019

therift wrote: »

Skwor wrote: »

Wing wrote: »

horizontal progression is the ideal kind of progression, it introduces new things while respecting the effort and investment of the player up until that point.

or would you rather the 9ish expansion sets be the end all be all because of a few arbitrary number increase and EVERY other of the hundreds of sets in game be worthless? if it makes it better we can add prefix's like "mythic" or "platinum" that way you REALLY know all your other gear is crap.

if you want everything you worked for over the past years made worthless every couple months, there are a couple MMO's I can point you towards.

Horizontal progression is garbage. It leaves players feeling like they never get more powerful and if you think that is ideal you are not paying attention. Lack of vertical progression kills MMOs due to boredom. To much kills due to turning away new players. ESO is starting to reach the boredom threshold that is why posts like this are popping up.

This is the result of stopping CP raises, weak system or not it was way better than nothing which is what we have now. Most MMO players play to gain power, period!

We had vertical gear progression and it sucked. ZoS wisely tossed that obsolete concept in the trash bin.

Gear will only carry you so far. If you want to 'feel more powerful', that's on you to improve your skills.

You are the second or third person who read my post which clearly links CP to vertical progression then went on to say gear progression like I somehow said gear was vertical. Please show me where I said that?!

.. Gear progression in this game is horizontal, it does not change EVER, they just add new sets, CP is vertical, albeit a small amount but every CP added at least a little upward growth.

Seems to me some of the problem on these forums are some posters do not even know the difference between the two. Thus leaving them arguing points that have no relevance or make little sense.

spekdah · May 2019

Going to agree that you have to be careful what you define as progression vs the hamster wheel.

The original EQ pioneered vertical gear progression with it early expansions. You needed to faction grind, get initial raid gear, then repeat this over and over to get into the next content, which was balanced around you having recent sets..... no thanks.

Like others, I would like to see what happens to replacing CP.

As for gear, I wish they would reword seme old sets. Maybe introduce some 7 or 10 set bonuses. In a way which makes decisions hard for you, part of the fun and challenge is working that out.

Could add more traits, or even more glyphs as well.

So better options, a wide range of choices is what I prefer.

sharquez · May 2019

It's not a problem. It's retaining the value of the time you put in to the game.

Salvas_Aren · May 2019

Last time one asked for new gear levels he turned out to be a crafter to hire who wanted to earn easy gold.

I'm not keen on the idea to feed a crafting troll by throwing 100s of pieces away. Neither do I need further nerfs to skills and perks because of more gear related power creep.

mongoLC · May 2019

Yes the 160 armor is old they need to raise it to cp 1000 and unlock cp let us use all we have!

rfennell_ESO · May 2019

Wing wrote: »

horizontal progression is the ideal kind of progression, it introduces new things while respecting the effort and investment of the player up until that point.

or would you rather the 9ish expansion sets be the end all be all because of a few arbitrary number increase and EVERY other of the hundreds of sets in game be worthless? if it makes it better we can add prefix's like "mythic" or "platinum" that way you REALLY know all your other gear is crap.

if you want everything you worked for over the past years made worthless every couple months, there are a couple MMO's I can point you towards.

It's a fair point, but "horizontal" progress and zero progress are pretty close.

Personally I liked the change from vertical to horizontal (vr10->vr12->vr14->level50/CP 160). Ultimately, it does fall flat though, which certainly beats constantly having to pump it up (and discard gear obtained previously). Point being, that without some sort of actual vertical progression it gets old; it doesn't have to be the gear grind to be vertical of course... they did attempt to use the CP system to achieve it. But... unless I'm mistaken, the CP system is paused. You can only get away with no progression in a vertical sense for so long.

Unfortunately for ESO they really have to reinvent the wheel at this point. They went down the path of no leveling and have now capped their alternate advancement (CP) system. They really need to replace the entire CP system with something that is innovative and allows for some tailoring of a character that isn't grindy or pointless. To me (and many) the entire CP cap was a joke... I was beyond the current cap before they even decided to put a cap on it. The fact that I would have been better off with no cap at all was more interesting than the cap. Not that it mattered much, I only really pvped and only pvped in No CP (even though I was well over the cap from it's onset)... shows how much I liked the CP system.

Linaleah · May 2019

the fact that i don't have to regrind gear unless I'm trying to minmax to the skin of my teeth is one of my favorite things about ESO. endless gear grind is..... I guess some people like it, but i am so... thankful that is NOT something that ESO requires for most of its players.

Ysbriel · May 2019

That is actually great, no need to continuously grind for more gear or continuous gear improvement and all that BS you find in other MMOs. A simple 160cp cap and level up your characters CP.

Opalblade · May 2019

I'd prefer the time I spent getting my gear to actually mean something. Progression means nothing if everything you progress towards gets tossed in the trash every few months. It's the reason I quit WoW years ago, and if that kind of "progression" comes here, it'll be the reason I quit ESO.

Kel · May 2019

Of the many things keeping me coming back to ESO, one of the top on the list is knowing in this new expansion, all the gear I worked hard to get isn't going to be automatically replaced by a quest green drop. Nothing ( arguably ) is obsolete. Gear has a sort of permanence after 160. I like that far better then knowing putting in all those raid hours to get gear will be undone by quests. What's the point?

The last thing ESO needs is a gear treadmill.

efster · May 2019

No, thanks. If I wanted to play WoW, I'd play WoW.

mague · May 2019

Izariel wrote: »

Something that really bothers me about this game is that there is very little meaningful progression past CP 160. The gear you get when you are 160 could very well be the same gear you are using at 660 months later.

This is a problem. All we have is horizontal progression, but little to no vertical progression. Another problem is legendary gear doesn’t feel legendary for the most part. I could upgrade one of my items and make it yellow and give it a bit more base stats but that is all it does. I don’t know that I have ever had a yellow item drop for me (not even sure they do).

Is there anything being done on the gear front to bring back a sense of progression or do I look forward to using my same gear months from now?

There is golden PvE, golden solo and golden PvP gear. Plus there is testing different builds. This is enough progression. Progression also is power creep.

Darkenarlol · May 2019

if you really enjoy farming your gear for six month

just to find that it gonna become outdated in 2 weeks after

you gathered your all your fancy set pieces - go play wow

or something like that where you don't play with farmed gear -

you just farm it to farm new gear... to farm new gear

i want to PLAY in gear i've farmed and i'm happy that i still have

some use of my 3+ years old julianos

btw just imagining refarm vma/vdsa/monster sets...actually EVERITHING

for my 15 characters AGAIN...no thank you

idk · May 2019

efster wrote: »

No, thanks. If I wanted to play WoW, I'd play WoW.

Exactly, but even WoW does not have meaningful gear progression, lol.

lassitershawn · May 2019

I mean there are an insane amount of useful sets to grind that are BiS for different content, even within a single role...

For mag DD in PvE alone you might want:
Mother's Sorrow, Burning Spellweave, Spell Strategist, Siroria, Asylum Inferno, Maelstrom Inferno, Maelstrom Lightning, Spinner, Scathing Mage, False God's Devotion, Master Architect, Zaan, Grothdaar, Ilambris, Slimecraw, Maw, Iceheart

Stam DD:
Relequen, Lokkestiiz, Advancing Yokeda, Tzogvin, TFSnake, NMG, vMA Bow, vMA DW, Automaton, War Machine, Velidreth, Stormfist, Kragh

Tank:
Ebon, Torug, Alkosh, Worm, Hircine, PA, Yolnahkriin, Morag Tong, Dragon, Stonekeeper, Engine Guardian, Bloodspawn, Chudan, Plague, Lord Warden

Healer:
Ebon, Torug, Olorime, Jorvuld, Worm, Hircine, Sanctuary, IA, Bogdan, Sentinel, Symphony

This isn't even close to an exhaustive list and playing multiple roles would be borderline impossible if gear levels increased.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO · May 2019

Izariel wrote: »

Is there anything being done on the gear front to bring back a sense of progression or do I look forward to using my same gear months from now?

I will respond as many wanted but nobody did.

Go back to WoW.
ESO is fine as it is.

FierceSam · May 2019

T

Izariel wrote: »

Something that really bothers me about this game is that there is very little meaningful progression past CP 160. The gear you get when you are 160 could very well be the same gear you are using at 660 months later.

Anyone who measures ‘progression’ in terms of gear simply isn’t playing the game right. It’s almost as absurd a metric to use as CP.

My characters (and my game) have progressed massively since getting to CP 160. I’m doing content that is significant more challenging, interesting and fun - all of which seems pretty meaningful to me.

And one of the fantastic things is that I DON’T have to spend all my time grinding to upgrade the same gear over and over. Instead I can experiment with the enormous variety of sets that are out there, safe in the knowledge that any gear I do get will still be gear capped in the future. It’s one of the single best pieces of game design in ESO.

I can’t think of anything less interesting or enjoyable than having to go farming for Ebon/Alkosh/Zaan etc every 30 or so CP simply to ‘feel the progression’ when there are new lands to explore around every corner.

Mayrael · May 2019

Simple answer: no. You want vertical progression? Tie it to CP this way or another, tie it to something that doesn't require to regrind everything every update.

Chadak · May 2019

Skwor wrote: »

Wing wrote: »

horizontal progression is the ideal kind of progression, it introduces new things while respecting the effort and investment of the player up until that point.

or would you rather the 9ish expansion sets be the end all be all because of a few arbitrary number increase and EVERY other of the hundreds of sets in game be worthless? if it makes it better we can add prefix's like "mythic" or "platinum" that way you REALLY know all your other gear is crap.

if you want everything you worked for over the past years made worthless every couple months, there are a couple MMO's I can point you towards.

Horizontal progression is garbage. It leaves players feeling like they never get more powerful and if you think that is ideal you are not paying attention. Lack of vertical progression kills MMOs due to boredom. To much kills due to turning away new players. ESO is starting to reach the boredom threshold that is why posts like this are popping up.

This is the result of stopping CP raises, weak system or not it was way better than nothing which is what we have now. Most MMO players play to gain power, period!

Must be why ESO is so unplayed and on its death bed.

...oh wait.

https://altarofgaming.com/all-mmos-sorted-by-population-2018/

Why exactly should ZOS change the recipe when they're already winning pretty big with this one?

Think they should aspire to Wildstar levels of success perhaps?

ralphylauren · May 2019

THEDKEXPERIENCE wrote: »

Here is what I will support even though I’m positive I’m in the minority. If they were to make another gear level it should only be CP level 800+ and it should cost about 1000 ingots for each piece.

And even then the reward for an all golded out set should maybe be 2 to 5% over an all golded out set of CP160 gear.

If it’s going to be done it should be done to a ridiculous extent where obtaining it is painfully arduous.

What?! It’s like some of you players forget some of us do have rl’s. No thank you

randomkeyhits · May 2019

You do realise that vertical gear progression is fake anyway?

Oh look, I do 10% more damage than I did with the previous update, I need that because bosses are now 10% stronger too.

So at the start of a release you are weak and pushing through the content you end up where you were before the release dropped but with bigger numbers and no actual difference.

Plus it makes all old content 100% irrelevant which I personally hate in the vertical progression system. There are dungeons that I enjoy running simply because I find them fun and being able to totally roflstomp them because of "progression" would be no fun.

JumpmanLane · May 2019

Gear progression in this game exists due to the like clockwork quarterly nerfs. I hit cp 160 a year ago. No way I could run the same build much less the same gear now.

Yes, I’m min-maxed to the hilt, and I pride myself on being able to expect to ghost most fools I catch slipping.

bmnoble · May 2019

One of the main reasons I stopped playing SWTOR was the release of new end game gear with each expansion. Finally had my end game 248 set on my main, and 246 crafted sets which is basically one step down on my alts.

Then they brought in new sets and had no desire to upgrade to the latest and greatest again.

Just crafting end game gear over their can cost hundreds of millions of in game currency to get the mats required.

Or do the hardest group content in the game and rely on RNG to get the pieces you want, while I would like to do the second option my connection is terrible to their servers kept getting kicked to log in screen in solo play, would not deprive a group of a player due to connection issues.

Not to mention I would have to learn the individual crafts, specific gear blueprints on each of my crafting characters, which required either skipping all the story content before it on that character to get said blueprints or taking all those characters through all the old content.

I will go back for the story content but not putting any effort into gearing again and once I finish the story on my main I will leave again.

I really like that ESO made a point of setting a gear cap and sticking with it. That and I can craft everything on one character instead of needing a stable of alts to do so.

IzzyStardust · May 2019

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

ESO is a casual MMO.

You get to endgame, leave for a few months (obligations or just burnout), and you've got new content to try out without having had to regrind your stuff for another couple days (or weeks) of time investment.

It's nice, but like you say, not a good grind for hardcore gamers.

I suppose if you want to be pointed towards the real Endgame, that would be Housing/Fashion, or PvP Set Theory-crafting.

If you think HARDCORE should = grinding, then LOL.

Come in HM VMOL/CR/AS and then say that.

I'd rather be raiding.

In this game, you have be a good player. It's not about your gear being better, it's about YOU being better. If you say otherwise then show me your parse.

Go spend weeks/your paycheck for a belt to you can hit 3% harder if that somewhere else, please

dodgehopper_ESO · May 2019

ChefZero wrote: »

The reason why I love PvP, no need for vertical progression. It's all about people and their imagination.

Gear progression is a scam.

Skwor · May 2019

Chadak wrote: »

Skwor wrote: »

Wing wrote: »

horizontal progression is the ideal kind of progression, it introduces new things while respecting the effort and investment of the player up until that point.

or would you rather the 9ish expansion sets be the end all be all because of a few arbitrary number increase and EVERY other of the hundreds of sets in game be worthless? if it makes it better we can add prefix's like "mythic" or "platinum" that way you REALLY know all your other gear is crap.

if you want everything you worked for over the past years made worthless every couple months, there are a couple MMO's I can point you towards.

Horizontal progression is garbage. It leaves players feeling like they never get more powerful and if you think that is ideal you are not paying attention. Lack of vertical progression kills MMOs due to boredom. To much kills due to turning away new players. ESO is starting to reach the boredom threshold that is why posts like this are popping up.

This is the result of stopping CP raises, weak system or not it was way better than nothing which is what we have now. Most MMO players play to gain power, period!

Must be why ESO is so unplayed and on its death bed.

...oh wait.

https://altarofgaming.com/all-mmos-sorted-by-population-2018/

Why exactly should ZOS change the recipe when they're already winning pretty big with this one?

Think they should aspire to Wildstar levels of success perhaps?

Stupid strawman argument. I said neither. Keep in mind ESO had CP raises the whole time it grew until just recently.

Try actually thinking it through before you put words in other people's mouth and create logically fallacious arguments.

HowlKimchi · May 2019

Horizontal Progression is great for PvP. If vertical gear progression is implemented, no way am I making new gear every time the armor level is raised.

I love making a ton of different builds that highlight different strengths of classes.

Loves_guars · May 2019

Oh god please no. The main reason I hate other MMOs is this dumb perpetual grind for new meaningless gear every year (or less time).