When I started the game I leveled mainly trough questing. It was before one Tamriel, and the zones didn't scale, they had a fixed level. About half way trough the zone I would hit zone level+5 and stopped getting XP from quests and killing mobs. Also items weren't scaled to your level, they weren't part of sets, basically they were just uniquely named trash.

By the time they got rid of vet levels I had managed to finish Tamriel Hero, Coldharbour and base game dungeons on my first character, and had also leveled 3 more, by doing all zones of their alliance; they hit 50 just as they finished the last zone and received that quest to go into Coldharbour but didn't get any further. I didn't insist on those 3 characters back then because zones weren't fully scaled till One Tamriel - Cadwell's Silver & Gold were CP10-100, Craglorn was CP110-140, but after that I continued, and got other zones cleared as well.

Post One Tamriel I changed my approach: I level characters fast, without investing in passives, in Maelstrom Arena. By the time they hit 50 they have 2 weapon skills at 50, 1 armor skill at 50 (the others in their 30s as well), all class skills at 50, and Fighter's Guild at about 6.5 since half the arenas are Daedra/Undead. That phase takes usually 5-6 hours in total during double XP event with 50% and sometimes 100% scrolls - got lots of those saved from the daily rewards. Once they're 50 I get them CP160 gear setups with gear I had saved in advance: stamina characters are Hunding (or NMG if they don't have fracture)+VO+Monster w Maelstrom bow back bar, magicka ones are a bit more diverse, but also Maelstrom staff back bar and monster set.

At this point I save 20-24 points to fill all skill bars with the essential morphed skills, and the rest go into crafting. Then I start doing the zones, even with no passives allocated killing mobs and speed running trough them for skill points is very fast. I don't stop until I've gotten all of those from all base game zones and DLCs up till Summerset, then start doing pledges and PvP. I end up with 375-376 skill points (post Morrowind characters have one extra from the DLC tuturial), that allow me to do multiple builds, and also have crafting hirelings, research acceleration passives (temporary, till they get that done and reallocate them) and few points in reserve for further development, in case a new skill gets added in the game - learned that lesson 2 years ago, when Summerset came out.

Right now I'm almost done training my 12th character, with 6 more held in reserve for crafting writs and storage - the latter will most likely never get played because they're identical to one of the former, apart from race so they're not worth the effort.

Asardes wrote: »

IMO XP from quests is too much. Many people hit 50, then hit high CP from just doing quests, and then they think they're good, go in vet DLC dungeons and get rekt.

And having low CP due to lower XP would help?

Quests do nothing to help you learn to play the game anyway since they're way too easy. You can only learn by doing.

While I sympathise with the predicament, I cannot agree that questing xp needs increased.

For the first year or two of my ESO life, I exclusively played story quests and progressed through each zone in turn with my few characters. I rarely if ever did a dungeon, and I rarely if ever did dolmens or world bosses. I was all about the story arcs and quests.

Levelling in this fashion, takes AGES. But that was my thing, just as it is the original posters thing, and that is up to the individual.

Now, I level a character 0 - 50 (810 CP) inside a week of play with a few 2 or 3 hours each evening. I started a new character last Friday I think and its level 29 today (3 days game play). I do this via dailly quests, which are delvs and world bosses, and via the dailly random dungeon reward. Story progression is a thing of the past, apart from the last few DLCs, Ive done it all and have no intention of doing it again just to level a character, those days are past. Later, with a new character, I often progress the 3 main story arcs, but not during my levelling process really.

So ESO provides YOU with the option, go slow, pogress through the story and related zone quests, or speed up with dailly quest rewards, delvs, world bosses and of course dungeons.

The quest-grind hase always been slow but at release u did need all 3 factions + coldharbour to reach max lvl, VR10 Then they added 2 vr lvl then r more so at the end u needed like 6million xp for one vr lvl and u got so little xp form all source that it tok forever without grind. I have personal lvl up in total maybe 30 max lvl characters by doing only quest but after a 1.5year break i dont bother and just grind by writs or dungeons and buying skill lines im missing out like psjik or mageguild. just wish they did cost less then 3000 crowns each...

At the moment I am levelling a 4th character and got lvl20 just by discovering stuff and farming skyshards.

I have no troubles with XP gain. Although the last 10 or so levels before 50 always seem to be a bit slow. Not sure itf it's just a matter of perception or things actually slow down a bit.