Is it time for a CP level squish?

GuardianStriker · November 2023

Honestly, I think ESO could benefit with a level squish update that World of Warcraft did recently. They made the max level which I believe was 210 and reduced it to 70, while changing around the skills and spells to accommodate the change, so it's less convoluted.

A bit of an example of what I'm talking about. Take Boundless Vitality from the Warfare sign. Each CP point increases it by 1 stage, and gives 28 HP as a result. At maximum, which is 50 stages, the total comes up to 1,400 HP, which is pretty measly. So why not lower the maximum to 10 instead, and make each stage give 140 HP? Much less time wasted from your life grinding for CPs, with the same amount of benefit.

In my opinion, ESO could benefit from taking this bit of knowledge from WoW. The fact that the maximum CP level is 3,600, is very convoluted and ridiculous enough as it is, and should be made less so. A rather simple quality of life update they could push out. They'd only have to change the values of most of the CPs to accommodate the reduced cost and level cap. That's it. Not to mention, you could only slot four CP perks of each of the three categories anyway, meaning you still have to specialize, and spend your CPs wisely.

What you guys think?

Nebs · November 2023

No

Well max level for getting 4 stars slotted is only 320? 360? Somewhere around there, and gear maxes out at 160.

I like that I can continue enjoying the satisfaction of gaining levels and accumulating xp without feeling like I have to grind to reach the level of power that other people have access to.

Instead, those wildly high levels of 3600 just grant flexibility. Frankly, I absolutely love the way ESO's endgame functions. It provides the continual satisfaction of gaining progress without denying you power other people have.

GuardianStriker · November 2023

Nebs wrote: »

Well max level for getting 4 stars slotted is only 320? 360? Somewhere around there, and gear maxes out at 160.

I like that I can continue enjoying the satisfaction of gaining levels and accumulating xp without feeling like I have to grind to reach the level of power that other people have access to.

Instead, those wildly high levels of 3600 just grant flexibility. Frankly, I absolutely love the way ESO's endgame functions. It provides the continual satisfaction of gaining progress without denying you power other people have.

There's other ways of feeling the continual satisfaction of gaining progress though, such as completing the achievements. Which I'm sure the handful of CP 3600s are trying to do right now if they haven't achieved all of them. There's more to this game than just levels, if you observe, rather than look.

Mr_Madness · November 2023

No

I just enjoy the extra CP to use for other skills so I can freely switch without having to pay a gold fee every time

tsaescishoeshiner · November 2023

No

CP is nothing like level. Past 1400, you get no benefits except minor convenience. Past 1400, you don't need to keep gaining CP to do any content. You can probably do Godslayer even without 1400.

You don't need 3600 CP for anything. Nothing. It's not a game where max level has been increasing over time—they actually reworked CP specifically so that that didn't happen lol. Non-issue.

DocFrost72 · November 2023

No

I respect the viewpoint of squishing, but it's not particularly needed. The main issue is that anything over a certain threshold of CP is functionally inert.

If we condensed the points to say, 300 instead of 3600? Anything past maybe 200 would be "dead levels" unless you wanted to have a bunch of slottables to switch between.

I'd like to see another total system overhaul but I wager I'm in the minority there.

SilverIce58 · November 2023

No

GuardianStriker wrote: »

Nebs wrote: »

Well max level for getting 4 stars slotted is only 320? 360? Somewhere around there, and gear maxes out at 160.

I like that I can continue enjoying the satisfaction of gaining levels and accumulating xp without feeling like I have to grind to reach the level of power that other people have access to.

Instead, those wildly high levels of 3600 just grant flexibility. Frankly, I absolutely love the way ESO's endgame functions. It provides the continual satisfaction of gaining progress without denying you power other people have.

There's other ways of feeling the continual satisfaction of gaining progress though, such as completing the achievements. Which I'm sure the handful of CP 3600s are trying to do right now if they haven't achieved all of them. There's more to this game than just levels, if you observe, rather than look.

If there's more to the game than just levels, then why should anyone care about CP? The same argument could be made for CP.

Soarora · November 2023

No

The cap used to be lower and then they increased it and re-balanced how much exp it takes to level. Doesn't make sense to then undo the cap raising and further decrease the cap to below what it was before.

DreamyLu · November 2023

No

I enjoy as it is. I would very much prefer that it doesn't change.

For me there were 3 steps, with the 3rd one that keeps going on:
1. I did care pushing my CPs until I reached the max for armor.
2. From 160 on, I invested little effort, just enough to keep it progressing and max the bonuses I wanted.
3. Since then, I let it go on its own. I check once in a while and enjoy dispatching points into "side" bonuses.
I'm happy to know that it can keep going for another long while this way, thanks to the far cap.

valenwood_vegan · November 2023

No

I think the horse already left the barn on this - as mentioned, CP was reworked and the cap was raised not that long ago. CP beyond a certain level doesn't really matter except for convenience or a personal feeling of accomplishment I suppose? The time required to get to this critical point was already significantly reduced. Makes no sense to me to now change it again. This game will soon be ten years old and imo the focus should be more on meaningful additions to the game rather than reworking the same old systems over and over again with no clear benefit.

GuardianStriker · November 2023

SilverIce58 wrote: »

GuardianStriker wrote: »

Nebs wrote: »

Well max level for getting 4 stars slotted is only 320? 360? Somewhere around there, and gear maxes out at 160.

I like that I can continue enjoying the satisfaction of gaining levels and accumulating xp without feeling like I have to grind to reach the level of power that other people have access to.

Instead, those wildly high levels of 3600 just grant flexibility. Frankly, I absolutely love the way ESO's endgame functions. It provides the continual satisfaction of gaining progress without denying you power other people have.

There's other ways of feeling the continual satisfaction of gaining progress though, such as completing the achievements. Which I'm sure the handful of CP 3600s are trying to do right now if they haven't achieved all of them. There's more to this game than just levels, if you observe, rather than look.

If there's more to the game than just levels, then why should anyone care about CP? The same argument could be made for CP.

No, not really. You're missing the point entirely. You need CP to even be useful in most dungeons. Mainly the trials. The point being is that after a certain threshold, you don't really need the extra levels.

DocFrost72 wrote: »

I respect the viewpoint of squishing, but it's not particularly needed. The main issue is that anything over a certain threshold of CP is functionally inert.

If we condensed the points to say, 300 instead of 3600? Anything past maybe 200 would be "dead levels" unless you wanted to have a bunch of slottables to switch between.

I'd like to see another total system overhaul but I wager I'm in the minority there.

DocFrost here has the right idea on the point I was making. If you're able to be more than decent when you reach CP 1400, then what's the point of the extra 1800? It's just unneeded baggage. Even if they make it to where the XP needed to reach the next CP rank higher, it still wouldn't matter. You're getting the same results.

GuardianStriker · November 2023

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

I think the horse already left the barn on this - as mentioned, CP was reworked and the cap was raised not that long ago. CP beyond a certain level doesn't really matter except for convenience or a personal feeling of accomplishment I suppose? Makes no sense to me to now change it again. This game will soon be ten years old and imo the focus should be more on meaningful additions to the game rather than reworking the same old systems over and over again with no clear benefit.

Fair enough. But it still urks me that there is so much, yet also unneeded. Why go even past CP 1400? In fact with your argument in mind, they could've made meaningful additions to the game much earlier instead of just raising the cap, but they didn't.

Also personal feeling of accomplishment? I mean...yaaaay, I won a medal...made out of plastic and cardboard. Woohoo I guess? I assume you're being sarcastic with that.

valenwood_vegan · November 2023

No

I mean I do get your point too, OP. And honestly, if it was just that the numbers got squished and nothing really changed on my end... I suppose I wouldn't really care very much.

Maybe my resistance is just that I remember how sweeping and disruptive it was when CP was reworked and the cap was changed... had to spend a significant amount of time on every single character redoing CP / reworking builds to match the new system... which was then tweaked and changed again shortly after (to reduce that critical point where CP stops mattering). It was frankly exhausting, and likely contributed to some of the change fatigue that people have reported feeling over the last couple of years.

It sort of becomes a catch 22 for me - if the system itself isn't really being reworked and it's just the numbers being changed, I'm not sure what that really accomplishes. If the system is being reworked, then that's a significant project involving many balancing decisions, which would probably take ZoS a year or more to even implement, and lots of disruption for players again. So that's where I'm coming from.

And my feeling of accomplishment comment... not sarcastic! I don't know why some people bother getting to 3600, but it's not for me to judge. My impression is that some people like having that continuing indicator of "progress" that they get from CP, even if it doesn't matter on a practical level. I just ignore it and focus on doing things in the game that I personally find fun. In the end, it's a video game, nothing any of us are doing actually matters, as one day the server will be shut off and it will all be gone.

EdjeSwift · November 2023

No

Remember, the CP cap was raised before the armoury system, so people who wanted to hot swap specs had to spend 3,000 to switch their CP around when the cap was lower. I just ran the math, and even now there isn't enough CP available to get every perk in each tree, so they could theoretically bump the CP cap even higher if they wanted, but that's silliness.

Now as to why you need more than 1600 CP? Flexibility. Sure I have 2 armoury slots, but I run 2 specs on most of my characters, one smashy and one healy/tanky. Even at 1800+ CP, I still have points I can spend to make my life easier, do I NEED all these points? No. But are they convenient to have when they add in new content and suddenly I need Slippery or Strategic Reserve for my DPS build to help get through content? Hell yes. Sure, I can spend 3k gold or save an empty armoury slot, but I like the convenience of hot swapping CP skills when I need to.

Lystrad · November 2023

No

GuardianStriker wrote: »

Fair enough. But it still urks me that there is so much, yet also unneeded. Why go even past CP 1400? In fact with your argument in mind, they could've made meaningful additions to the game much earlier instead of just raising the cap, but they didn't.

Also personal feeling of accomplishment? I mean...yaaaay, I won a medal...made out of plastic and cardboard. Woohoo I guess? I assume you're being sarcastic with that.

Some people don't like challenging content or hunting for achievements, they just like the satisfaction of watching the number get bigger even if the reward tied to that is more versatility over time rather than raw power now. Just think about how many people push for level cap increases in other games even though their relative power compared to each other and the content they're doing stays exactly the same. Alot of those players just want to see a static number get bigger and once you're max level and fully kitted out CP level is the only static number that really keeps getting bigger.

To go back to your wow example it is also important to remember that while yes, wow has done a squish twice (first time was an item level squish, second time the hard level squish) both times they did it there was a very large, very vocal portion of the player base who hated it and made it very clear that even though mechanically nothing was different, they did the same relative damage/healing they always had if not more, it felt like the developers had taken their progression away from them. I was personally pro level squish but I knew alot of people who weren't at the time.

Players do not like seeing their numbers get smaller, even if that number was arbitrary to begin with.

IZZEFlameLash · November 2023

No

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

I think the horse already left the barn on this - as mentioned, CP was reworked and the cap was raised not that long ago. CP beyond a certain level doesn't really matter except for convenience or a personal feeling of accomplishment I suppose? The time required to get to this critical point was already significantly reduced. Makes no sense to me to now change it again. This game will soon be ten years old and imo the focus should be more on meaningful additions to the game rather than reworking the same old systems over and over again with no clear benefit.

This, horse left the barn looooong time ago. Also, with 4 slottable limits per line, there's no real game changing benefits to be gained for reaching 3600. Not like you gain stats like the old times.

LunaFlora · November 2023

No

this is eso, not wow.
and i highly doubt cp would be reduced instead of increased

Danikat · November 2023

I'm indifferent, the number doesn't matter to me, what's important is how long it takes to get a complete build and as noted that's much lower than the maximum CP. So changing how many CP are required to max something out is irrelevant to me unless it also changes how long that takes.

It's like any type of video game 'score'. It doesn't really matter if something gives you 1 point or 10 points or 1000 points, what's important is knowing what 'good' looks like in this context - what the important milestones are and what it takes to reach that.

If ZOS want to rebalance the time required to get CP (again) then yes that could be an interesting conversation to have, but if it's just changing what numbers are used to track progress then it's irrelevant.

(Also I realise replying to say I'm indifferent may seem redundant, but all the replies so far have been people voting no and I wanted to record that it's not that everyone else hasn't seen this topic or is afraid to answer or whatever.)

emilyhyoyeon · November 2023

The only CP change I'm confident that I'd want to see is fixing the awkwardness of CP 1-160.

derkaiserliche · November 2023

No

No i would prefer the opposite - a 3600cp player should stronger than a 1400cp player because of the cp system.

Leveling past 1400cp is practically meaning less, except to save on some little fees or flexibility.

Even if its just 50 life / 10 weapon dmg or anything stats wise, but people would get motivated to level more and play more as a result i bet.

ghastley · November 2023

The current numbers permit a “level up” notification at a rate that maintains player satisfaction, while not devolving into a seniority system. A new player can get to a competent level quickly enough that they don’t get discouraged, and the long-term inmates still see progress.

Changing the exchange rate for XP doesn’t affect what it purchases, but lowering the numbers will always look like a bad deal.

rpa · November 2023

No

In my experience, CP overhaul will be announced a week after I hit the max. And I'm nowhere near.

Gray_howling_parrot · November 2023

Yes

While I wouldn’t mind a slight squish, I do like the feeling of constant progression. What I’d rather see is the following:

- Incentive and reward for hitting milestones (1500, 2000, 2500, 3000, 3600) such as titles (sweatlord for 3600 🤣), a mount at 3600, a skin at 2000, stuff like that
- I’d also like to see the green tree not be slottables considering they’re all just QOL things. It’d be nice to be earning these passives over time rather than having to switch between them
- I’d also like to just have max gear level be right when you hit 50. I think the CP gear in between CP 10 and CP 159 is silly. Get to champion ranks and have that be max level for gear. Never been able to explain clearly why ZOS chose to do this to friends when they pick up the game and I’ve been here since veteran ranks lol

I REALLY enjoy CP though and it allows quite a bit of customization - just needs more fun stuff added to it in my opinion to make it exciting when you hit milestones. I just hit 2000 CP and was SO hyped BUT - it was a personal goal and nothing more. Rewarding people putting time into your game will always be a good thing!

Four_Fingers · November 2023

No

If anything, it is time to add another star slot to each section.
Way too many wasted CP not even usable.
Also enlightenment needs an increase.

AzuraFan · November 2023

No

As others have said, the issue with CP is that many points can't be used because of the limited room on the champion bar. There's just nothing to spend them on.

SeaGtGruff · November 2023

No

CP (Champion Points) is an expansion of the old VR (Veteran Rank) system, which I never got to experience. As I understand it, VR 16 was the highest level, and all of the VR levels got multiplied by 10, such that VR 1 => CP 10, up to VR 16 => CP 160. So one could say that it used to be squished before ZOS decided it would be better to expand it. Therefore it seems unlikely that they would decide to squish it down again.

TaSheen · November 2023

No

DreamyLu wrote: »

I enjoy as it is. I would very much prefer that it doesn't change.

For me there were 3 steps, with the 3rd one that keeps going on:
1. I did care pushing my CPs until I reached the max for armor.
2. From 160 on, I invested little effort, just enough to keep it progressing and max the bonuses I wanted.
3. Since then, I let it go on its own. I check once in a while and enjoy dispatching points into "side" bonuses.
I'm happy to know that it can keep going for another long while this way, thanks to the far cap.

Pretty much this. As for OP's statement about achievements.... I have ZERO use for achievements, so no, that's not anything that would keep me playing this game.

Tandor · November 2023

No

I hate level squishing in games, almost as much as I hate "that game's got it so this game should have it". It's not needed in ESO.

Sarannah · November 2023

No

I'm actually hoping they will soon release CP 3.0 which takes us FAR beyond the current maximum of 3600. Maybe a 50k CP max.

CP's aren't that important, once a player has like 800 CP, which can be easily reached, they can already have most of the important CP's. All CP's do is basically show other players how long and how often you've played the game.

Amottica · November 2023

No

The premise for the change, that 3600 CP is a very high number, is not a solid premise. We do not have to be anywhere near max CP to get the maximum benefit for our role. The only real benefit for being max CP is for playing all three roles with the same character.

Further, Zenimax already reworked CP and in doing so made it significantly easier to gain CP than it was before. That puts them light years ahead of the dinosaur we call WoW.

It is not surprising the vote shows very little support for such a change.

Treeshka · November 2023

People have spent tons of hours or tons of gold to grind experience points of Champion Points.

In this game you can not do this sort of squish. It will outrage many many players even though theoretically does not steal any power from players.

In my opinion they should remove cap and let players grind as many points as possible.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Is it time for a CP level squish?

Is it time for a CP level squish? 237 votes