Vet ranks: a terrible idea

Attorneyatlawl · April 2014

terroristKMKZ wrote: »

Craglorn will be coming out soon, and I have a vet rank 1 templar. Don't get me wrong I love the PVP but it hardly awards any vet XP, it would take years to get up to vet rank 10 playing PVP. And I refuse to grind low-level quests in other zones just so I can play the new zone.

I have guildmates who leveled their veteran levels to 10 weeks ago already through PVP exclusively. It's good vet XP if you are doing a lot well, just like it's good AP if you're doing a lot (I've been vr10 for a long time now, but I made around 600k vet xp in 2 hours one night running with a zergbusting crew for example that was doing great).

I also recommend doing some of the POI's (anchors/world bosses) to help level yourself faster.

Personally I'd like to see a Realm Rank passive/active system to extend the alliance ranks with customization and rewards that you can carry with your character instead of being tied to your gear, and some veteran passives to give the new vet levels meaning other than "unlocks nicer gear"

.

Right now though once you're Vet 1 you can access the vast majority of the good gear in the game to wear, since only a handful of good drop sets require higher and Covenant gear can be had in any vet rank. The power curve is relatively low from VR1 to VR10 due to itemization right now, with many of the best ones requiring you to wear VR1 gear even as a VR10 (Sanctuary, Warlock, Furnace, Nightshade, etc.) and the rare exception (rare instanced dungeon drop Worm Cult) requiring higher. Add in crafting allowing set bonuses on anything you can craft at any level and it's really not as big a run-up as people act like.

Thrawniel · April 2014

I like idea of Vet ranks, what i do not like, is that story for other factions you have to play in vet ranks is exactly the same as if you rolled toon in that faction.

I understand that making unique VR zones of similar scope for each factions might have been too hard and too expensive. But was it too hard to add some flavor text about being a spy under deep cover, with some of your faction NPCs popping here and there asking for status report, or something similar to give RPer reason to play through the other faction storylines? Or make some alternative outcomes, when you can sabotage war efforts of opposing factions? Or just make pve version of Cyrodiil where all three factions coexist and run pve quests for benefit of your alliance?

I have alts in all factions, and my AD toon has zero reasons to help EP or DC faction. Same with other characters. And alternative for VR leveling simply does not exist now. So I guess I'll never get past VR1 on any character because of it.

And no, I did not know about it till I encountered it myself, I avoided all story spoilers. And it was a great frustration. What was the point of even making player choose a faction to begin with, if your alliance of choice does not really matter in story at all and alliance division exist solely for purpose of pvp?

Oh well, I still have 2 more month of sub, enough time to finish alts. Hope by that time they will add some viable alternative to get veteran ranks that do not break your character.

dgroutb16_ESO · April 2014

My main concern at the moment is difficulty change fro 49 to VR1

I went from being happy to leap into battle with my 2 summoned pets and my light armor against 3 trash opponents with 99% surety I would be ok at lvl 48-49 in coldharbour.

Without changing my tactics and with the same gear starting at VR1 I cant take 2 trash mobs without a 50% chance of death per fight... its seriously slowed me down as I plow through the AD quests. The mobs have been slaughtering me and my pets DPS have dropped through the floor... im half way through the AD starter zone and my XP bar barely moves

.

from memory I need 450,000 xp to go from VR 1 to VR2... I'm getting about 2000 max per quest and that's including the xp I get from necessary kills during the quest.... plus I'm not getting any discovery XP etc, so I really think I will have to do 90% + of the quests in the 2 remaining factions to reach VR10.

It took me best part of a month to hit 50.. So that's going to be 2-3 months for me to VR10... and its going to be a long hard slog... I'm actually hoping that this new Veteran content doesn't get released until the bulk of players can take advantage of it, nothing worse than not

But generally I do like the concept of VR questing through the other zones... its a new way of doing things. Im sure that alternate paths to levelling will be added over time, every mmo I've played started out with 1 or 2 ways and then added in extra levelling content as time goes on.

Baraz · April 2014

I also do not intend to grind for vet ranks. I'll do some quests for fun, dungeons, PvP, play new characters/alliances and will purposefully ignore my ranks past level 50.

codyyoungnub18_ESO · April 2014

I love it, get to see all the content on one character. I bought the game for the content after all.

michaelpatrickjonesnub18_ESO · April 2014

Can't compare this game to Lotro because PC MMO's are like encyclopedia Britannica's compared to console games.

Saying that, they can still learn a lot from Lord of the Rings. Lotro has implemented a solid foundation. With a successful, proven structure.

Vet ranks aren't even necessary. They were just the wrench that was tossed into the fray. Hindering the game more than helping it.

thegamekittenub17_ESO · April 2014

Reading these post just makes me wanna unsub right now. Doing 90% of other factions content on my main, spoils it for the alts. I am already fed up with the repeated quests with different name person you are helping. Meaning..Oh go save this person (apply many names you are doing this for through 38 levels), I am special help me get my special title (again add a different NPC name with each same thing quest given), and I lost this go find it quests.

The quest are so repeating I just click through them, because it is just like the quests I've already done over and over just different NPCs. Gold sinks out the bottom, but there isn't that much gold to begotten without not doing this or that. Quest rewards are just LMFAO annoying.

Now I have to repeat this in another faction with the exact same outcome? Kinda makes me miss collect 20 paws from wolves and it takes 150 wolves to get that. Instead of listening to the boring quests and some where you make choices it doesn't even matter what choice you make in the end. So, not Elder Scrolls.

And I loved this game at first, not even 3 months and I am bored and annoyed by this game.

On a humor note, where are those nifty cloth dresses that NPCs wear and my character gets these ugly dirt color things? Makes the character look like a peasant not a hero..lol

Odwome · April 2014

dragnar12 wrote: »

sorry we rushed the game out
cus we wanted your money
we knew that the new mmo,s releasing soon ( name,s here )
would take eway money from our game
ty for your money
we did not have end game content
so we just made other factions the end game ( smart right ? )
any way ty for your money TY TY TY TY TY

Seriously, they rushed it out way too hard. No endgame content, PvP gets stale since there's no real reward for holding all the other teams' keeps, and all these bugs and other problems.... Great economic decision by them, they made millions. But they could have waited to release the game for maybe another 6 months or so, with all the fixes in place and real endgame content. That would have probably guaranteed some pretty long memberships.

Sanspoof · April 2014

Altoholism is the only thing that keeps me subbed in an mmo, and this feature kills all will to level an alt.
It would've been fine if vet levels were optional, keep playing your character if you want, get some gold or vanity rewards in the process, but a character shouldn't be half-leveled or not viable for end-game if we didn't run it through every zone of every faction this game has. As it stands, vet levels is one of the worst methods I've seen to artificially extend gameplay.

MCNerdFlail · April 2014

ShintaiDK wrote: »

Quite happy with VR ranks myself. On the other hand I am already VR10.

Well at least some are enjoying their content but did you play through their content as intended? As in play through quests and not form groups for aoe exp grinds?

Yet, personally I am not a fan of vr ranks extending end game against better game design with the money they had... while locking classes affecting the fresh story that could have been for an alt. And if a majority feel the same way as I do it means the game is very niche and certainly not for me or others with similars points of view. The question of course is if it's too niche and affects retention for an mmo and growth. And I think it is using common sense, but somehow eso suits thought their game design was great by mostly offering a tread mill for their players.

Personally I'm done with eso. I'm sure they can't change/(add to )their game enough at this point as well. It's a shame IMO that so much money went into an mmo to mostly be a ( simple) single player game with an over sized Pvp instance of phasing attack keeps or defend.

Also I got stuck in the colored room. I think I would hate the game instead of just looking at it as an average single player game with some coop and pvp. I really do not like dealing with trash mobs most of the time, doing exp grinds for lack of quests (47-50), and doing content for the sake extending play time such as vr content in other faction zones, or expected to do raids repeatedly. So my experience is better than others I think that I got the best part out of eso but still found it average.

SunfireKnight86 · May 2014

All we have for future plans is at best a vague, "We will add thieves guild and assassins soon! Many new areas in the future!" Not good enough for me to keep paying a sub in the intervening months until something changes. I'm with @MCNerdFlail. Maybe Craiglorn will be a game changer, but I doubt it.