DarkWombat wrote: »

Why is this? Why does Zenimax not want all the stories and content, voice acting etc to be the slowest way to level in the game?

Isn't the point to enjoy the story rather than powergame ? As it is now if you go through the main quest, guild and regions you come out level 50 and some CP. That to me sounds like the balance is right - if you just quest you end up ready for end game.

Questing also gives you skill points, which the wacky races dolmen run does not.

Secondly there are players who enjoy grinding things. It's a valid play style too, so the Alik'r dolmen run would simply get replaced with the next best grind if they changed it - and actually it wouldn't go away because the badly out of kilter jewellery mats mean that people also run it to grind purple jewellery to deconstruct for materials.

Actually, I've found questing to be a pretty good way to level up-- not rapid leveling, mind you, and I'm talking about doing all the content in a zone (zone questline, miscellaneous quests, delves, dungeons, public dungeon, dolmens, and world bosses) before moving on to the next zone.

I created a new Nord character for Greymoor and, upon finishing the tutorial, immediately went to Davon's Watch in Stonefalls, talked to the lady, met her mysterious benefactor, got killed and sent to Coldharbour, escaped, and started playing through the EP zones. By the time I got to Shadowfen I was Level 50.

Yes, it does take a little while to go through each zone and complete its content; but it's also a great way to play the game "in proper order" so everything makes the most sense-- and it's fun. Personally, I'd rather level up that way than by doing endless runs through Skywatch, doing dolmen runs, etc.

The only time I care about my level is when I make a new character and I want to unlock my backbar at level 15. I can hit that in an hour of running wayshrine to wayshrine in a couple of zones, with later on give me the advantage of a fully unlocked map. It's probably not super exciting, but it works.

Past that, it's the lore I care about. Hitting CP160 is honestly the only other true milestone, since that's when armor sets max so you can fully build up your sets. All the extra CP isn't needed, it's just nice to unlock fun passives that honestly feel like candy sprinkles on a cupcake. You don't need the sprinkles to enjoy the cupcake, they just make it a little better.

Besides, unless you're trying to hard-max or super-gear for endgame content, the CP doesn't really matter all that much when you're rescuing someone's lost kid or picking flowers all day.

DarkWombat wrote: »

Yes but I think it would be nice if questing got a small bump in experience for those who enjoy the quests AND also don't want to take forever to level up.

I know this is not a popular opinion, but it's been 6 years and there are still spots where you can easily round up a bunch of mobs nonstop and grind away. It's just a playground for bots really. And those Dolmen runs too. Why not bump the quest exp up and discourage Dolmen runs by changing the timing on when they go off or move the Wayshrines a bit?

Maybe it's just too late now..

Even the best quests lose appeal upon repetition. A typical side quest has you arriving at a new small town, figuring out what's wrong, and solving the problem. That's not so much fun on the repeats when you already know exactly what the problem is.

And that's in the DC, where the side quests are good. In the AD a typical side quest has you arriving at a new small town, where there's a very obvious daedra incursion, and your job is to kill daedra. That's a lot like killing deadra at a dolmen, except less smoky.

Housing is slower