Cadwell Silver/Gold

Crimsonorion · June 2023

Saw this mentioned in the overland difficulty thread and didn't wanna hijack it with this post
****This is not an overland difficulty discussion mods****

Saw a couple post in the Overland Difficulty discussion thread that mentioned an interview with a Dev where he talks about game difficulty and says "We had it with Cadwell Silver/Gold but people hated ot and didn't wanna do it so we put our difficulty focus on wb etc" (Paraphrased)

Am I understanding that the post MQ Cadwell Silver/Gold was supposed to be harder? When I beat the MQ during ESOs launch year I just assumed it was a way for your character to experience the other alliance stories without making a new toon, I didn't notice an increase in difficulty? Or am I just not remembering correctly.

By "more difficult" did they simply mean the old CP levels? If I remember Silver was...what CP 1 to 6 and Gold was CP 6 to....12? Is that what the Dev was implying by it being more difficult?

And did people really not like it?

***Again this is not a discussion about current overland difficulty, just a long time player not remembering the launch of the game that well haha***

Braffin · June 2023

Yeah, Cadwells Silver and Gold were at least meant to be considerably harder than your own alliance before they got nerfed during the transistion of the old "veteran ranks" into CP 1.0. They tried to enforce grouping as far as I remember.

Didn't work out tho, as people discovered LA weaving approximately at the same time

TaSheen · June 2023

Crimsonorion wrote: »

Saw this mentioned in the overland difficulty thread and didn't wanna hijack it with this post
****This is not an overland difficulty discussion mods****

Saw a couple post in the Overland Difficulty discussion thread that mentioned an interview with a Dev where he talks about game difficulty and says "We had it with Cadwell Silver/Gold but people hated ot and didn't wanna do it so we put our difficulty focus on wb etc" (Paraphrased)

Am I understanding that the post MQ Cadwell Silver/Gold was supposed to be harder? When I beat the MQ during ESOs launch year I just assumed it was a way for your character to experience the other alliance stories without making a new toon, I didn't notice an increase in difficulty? Or am I just not remembering correctly.

By "more difficult" did they simply mean the old CP levels? If I remember Silver was...what CP 1 to 6 and Gold was CP 6 to....12? Is that what the Dev was implying by it being more difficult?

And did people really not like it?

***Again this is not a discussion about current overland difficulty, just a long time player not remembering the launch of the game that well haha***

I didn't play the early years of this game. That's the caveat.

As far as Cadwell.... I've done the whole thing on one main (DC) and no it wasn't hard - but then I have another max level character same account but AD. And another one same account EP (before I changed her over to AD - I just don't LIKE EP period). So..... doing Cadwell on my DC main on that account wasn't a big deal. Tedious, but not difficult. And that's the only one I've done Cadwell Silver and Gold on, and I won't be doing it on anyone else over three accunts of characters.

It wasn't fun. It wasn't interesting. I don't do stuff that's not fun and interesting, more than once.

freespirit · June 2023

Iirc correctly they were were called Veteran Ranks and like you I do not remember silver and gold suddenly being harder content than I was used to.

What I do remember is before One Tamriel straying into an area you were under levelled for could cause some nasty surprises! Case in point got seriously beaten up by the first strangler I came across after accidently straying into a higher levelled zone!

The only zone I remember being a shock was Craglorn when it first released BUT that was released as a "group content" zone back then.

EramTheLiar · June 2023

So back in the early days of the game you didn't have CP ranks. When you hit level 50, you started earning "Veteran" ranks and I think those went up to 12. Cadwell's Silver was (I think) V1-6, and Gold was (again, I think) V7-12.

Silver and Gold versions of the Covenant, Alliance, and Pact zones were instanced so that only people doing gold and silver were in them, and all the creatures were scaled for those veteran ranks, and they were... much harder fights. The classic story is you breeze through the molag bal fight at level 50, hit v1 and immediately get killed by mudcrabs.

By and large people really did hate the instanced zones, but not necessarily because of the difficulty of the fights. It was because they were instanced and you never ran into anyone else there. It made grouping kind of a hassle if I remember correctly but the main thing I remember from that time is I quit playing a sorcerer and switched to templar because templar builds could handle the veteran rank content a lot easier than sorcs could.

(This was pre stamina morphs of spells, and pre pet buff, when sorcerers were mocked for playing sorcerers. It was a different time.)

Ragnork · June 2023

Early days each zone had a max level. As a player you hit level 50 +/- as you went to cold harbour. You could not visit other faction zones. Caldwell silver let you play with a different perspective in another factions zones, as a veteran. Instanced. So yellow could not see blue. It was empty, dull, boring.

ADarklore · June 2023

Thus, One Tamriel was created and all zones were made to SCALE to the players, thereby nobody was left out and nobody was in a separate zone from everyone else. As ZOS stated, it was the best decision they've ever made and it brought in a LOT of new players and brought back players who started but hated the separation, along with getting changing the more traditional MMO aspects of the game- like the group zone, Craglorn, and making it soloable.

Rich stated in an interview that they realized that, after about a year or so after launch, that nobody was happy. Not the Elder Scrolls franchise players, nor the MMO-centric players. So they decided to focus on attracting the audience that the franchise was meant for, those that wanted "Skyrim with friends". Thus they moved away from the more group-oriented MMO-esque design and more towards a casual, quest-oriented game.

I_killed_Vivec · June 2023

I appreciate that I might be in a minority, but I loved it!

Yes, the story line was that you got to experience the other faction's quests, but the main point was that the content was cleverly reused in a way that provided continuous progression (allegedly because ZoS had no more content and didn't know what else to do with a ton of players who had completed the main questline). Each zone had a VR rating, starting from VR1 when you entered the first Silver zone. This had the effect of bringing you into a zone under-levelled, as you progressed through the zone it became easier, then you moved onto the next zone and it was hard again.

It was not really any more empty than the main quest in your starter faction - you'd be with the same people as they made their progression.

Obviously none of us have the figures, so we have to believe ZoS when they say that it was unpopular because it was too hard. But if you want questing with a real challenge (look at all the requests for harder overland now) , and a real sense of progression, then it was just the thing. Also at that time when you reached VR1 you could go into what is now Lower Craglorn... where "death by wasp" was a real thing, and welvas came in packs of 6.

But because it was too hard, because people gave up on Silver/Gold, because people wanted to mix with people playing in other factions, ZoS brought in 1T. Everything now scaled to you, there was no sense of difficulty, no challenge, no progression. They could have left Craglorn as it was (it was always the case that anyone could go there regardless of faction), but no, that was nerfed too.

So we got 1T. And - contrary to the OP saying this post isn't about harder overland - as a direct consequence of "dumbing down" content for 1T we now have a lot of people clamouring for harder overland, just because they want more of a challenge.

Precisely the challenge that Cadwell's gave.

ADarklore · June 2023

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

I appreciate that I might be in a minority, but I loved it!

Yes, the story line was that you got to experience the other faction's quests, but the main point was that the content was cleverly reused in a way that provided continuous progression (allegedly because ZoS had no more content and didn't know what else to do with a ton of players who had completed the main questline). Each zone had a VR rating, starting from VR1 when you entered the first Silver zone. This had the effect of bringing you into a zone under-levelled, as you progressed through the zone it became easier, then you moved onto the next zone and it was hard again.

It was not really any more empty than the main quest in your starter faction - you'd be with the same people as they made their progression.

Obviously none of us have the figures, so we have to believe ZoS when they say that it was unpopular because it was too hard. But if you want questing with a real challenge (look at all the requests for harder overland now) , and a real sense of progression, then it was just the thing. Also at that time when you reached VR1 you could go into what is now Lower Craglorn... where "death by wasp" was a real thing, and welvas came in packs of 6.

But because it was too hard, because people gave up on Silver/Gold, because people wanted to mix with people playing in other factions, ZoS brought in 1T. Everything now scaled to you, there was no sense of difficulty, no challenge, no progression. They could have left Craglorn as it was (it was always the case that anyone could go there regardless of faction), but no, that was nerfed too.

So we got 1T. And - contrary to the OP saying this post isn't about harder overland - as a direct consequence of "dumbing down" content for 1T we now have a lot of people clamouring for harder overland, just because they want more of a challenge.

Precisely the challenge that Cadwell's gave.

Here was the problem... as more content was added, people began AVOIDING doing Cadwell's. Sure it was easier in the beginning because there was no other means of progression and nothing else to do, so yes, in the beginning the Cadwell zones had people in it. I came to the game a year after launch, and when I reached Cadwell's, there was hardly any people in the zone... and it just got worse over time.

I_killed_Vivec · June 2023

ADarklore wrote: »

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

I appreciate that I might be in a minority, but I loved it!

Yes, the story line was that you got to experience the other faction's quests, but the main point was that the content was cleverly reused in a way that provided continuous progression (allegedly because ZoS had no more content and didn't know what else to do with a ton of players who had completed the main questline). Each zone had a VR rating, starting from VR1 when you entered the first Silver zone. This had the effect of bringing you into a zone under-levelled, as you progressed through the zone it became easier, then you moved onto the next zone and it was hard again.

It was not really any more empty than the main quest in your starter faction - you'd be with the same people as they made their progression.

Obviously none of us have the figures, so we have to believe ZoS when they say that it was unpopular because it was too hard. But if you want questing with a real challenge (look at all the requests for harder overland now) , and a real sense of progression, then it was just the thing. Also at that time when you reached VR1 you could go into what is now Lower Craglorn... where "death by wasp" was a real thing, and welvas came in packs of 6.

But because it was too hard, because people gave up on Silver/Gold, because people wanted to mix with people playing in other factions, ZoS brought in 1T. Everything now scaled to you, there was no sense of difficulty, no challenge, no progression. They could have left Craglorn as it was (it was always the case that anyone could go there regardless of faction), but no, that was nerfed too.

So we got 1T. And - contrary to the OP saying this post isn't about harder overland - as a direct consequence of "dumbing down" content for 1T we now have a lot of people clamouring for harder overland, just because they want more of a challenge.

Precisely the challenge that Cadwell's gave.

Here was the problem... as more content was added, people began AVOIDING doing Cadwell's. Sure it was easier in the beginning because there was no other means of progression and nothing else to do, so yes, in the beginning the Cadwell zones had people in it. I came to the game a year after launch, and when I reached Cadwell's, there was hardly any people in the zone... and it just got worse over time.

A year after launch there was still no other option but to start the main quest line, but now people avoid the main quest completely, starting in Morrowind, or Summerset, or any of the later chapters. So it has become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Are zones any busier now people can spread out wherever they want? On another thread people are complaining they can't find people to team up on Necrom's WBs.

EramTheLiar · June 2023

Yes the zones are a LOT busier now. Finding random people to do content with you is a very different problem than not being able to run content with your friends because you or they have leveled out of it. Wander into any of the original zones doing gold or silver today and it's night and day from the VL DAYS.

Now having said that, while I think one tamriel was absolutely the right call to make I do believe if there were a way to preserve that while still adding difficulty to some of the encounters, that would be even better. I don't know how practical that is.

Soraka · June 2023

Ragnork wrote: »

Early days each zone had a max level. As a player you hit level 50 +/- as you went to cold harbour. You could not visit other faction zones. Caldwell silver let you play with a different perspective in another factions zones, as a veteran. Instanced. So yellow could not see blue. It was empty, dull, boring.

This is what happened when my husband and I played release. We hit vet levels and everything got tedious and grindy** and we quit pretty soon after. I came back a few years ago, but he never did.

tenryuta · June 2023

so back in our(pre-tam one) day, you should hit 50 at the end of your alliance story, cadwell silver kicks in, you now have vet ranks to level through the other 2, oh joy, 12-14(?) ranks and gear levels to attain, was a smidge harder... but i didnt go past the first silver zone, leveling multiple classes, going to another game here and there, came back after vets were wiped for cp and you could go anywhere(also yay vvardenfell and tg/db).

ZOS_Hadeostry · June 2023

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic, as it deals with quests.

Thank you for your understanding