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VR progression and immersion
d_20
Member RarePosts: 1,878
The yellow parts are my TLDR version.
I hit VR 1 a couple of days ago. That experience in itself was okay. There were some annoying things along the way mostly dealing with bugs. I can overlook bugs and bots at this point, because up to now I have still had a lot of fun. The game is new and ZOS is new at mmorpgs. You can agree with me on that or not. I understand if you think I'm being too patient. But I like the Elder Scrolls and the artstyle of this game a lot, so that keeps me around, so far.
(Bugs: Some things that were bugged, I could just drop. Thankfully, I only dropped a few quests. I can be patient with technical errors, especially in a games first month. There is a serious bug in "The Final Assault" which made me have to go find a youtube video with a workaround to get through the quest. This should not still be in the game as it will block progression if you are not patient enough to find a workaround. I wonder if that will cause some people to unsub.)
VR Grind? No, this is really a secondary issue. It's the breaking of immersion that's a problem. I wouldn't care if there were 200 levels and it took a year to reach max as long as they game had a well thought out and meaningful flow of progression.
Sadly, I have not found this to be the case with VR progression. The story itself is okay. Some of the stories are great. Most are "okay." I find there is way too much sacrifice -- the kind where someone has to die. It might be you or you might have to choose someone. This happens way to much -- it comes to the point where you can see it coming and I found myself thinking, "Okay, here is another sacrifice. I'm going to have to choose." It happens so much that it's meaningless and it becomes cliche. Why are the story writers so obsessed with sacrifice?
After slaying the God of Schemes, through Cadwell's magical sliver (spelt silver in my quest log) I get to be a schmo in an opposing faction. I rolled Aldmeri Dominion (because of my guild), but now I get to fight as a member of the Pact. I get to see what d-bags the Covenant are so far. Why should I care? The Pact and Covenant are my enemies as a Dominion member.
Running through the stories of the other factions seems tacked on and it totally breaks immersion for me, and connection to my character. It can take away from faction pride and investment in one's character.
Now, I actually feel like a soulless vestige. I'm just some dude running through the quest lines of some other faction I didn't even sign on with. Why should I care? But I must do this to progress (unless skipping all this content and just doing AvA is a feasible option for leveling VRs). And the leveling seems so slow now. VR 1-5 is now like another 50 levels. VR 6-10 must be another 50 levels in yet the third faction. Why didn't they just have 150 levels? Or something else more reasonably paced? It seems awkward and tacked on however they decided to do this. It doesn't seem well conceived.
Also, there's the "faction pride." This is not peace and conflict studies. This is not a course in mediation. Why should we give a rat's ass about the other faction's point of view in a pvp game? If they wanted to make this game deeper and more metaphysical (changing souls into another body to experience living as a person in the other faction) they missed the mark here. Again, it just seems tacked on. My wife said, "Well if you think about it from a Buddhist perspective," and then started laughing. It's not that kind of game!
Imagine (please forgive me for referring to WoW) rolling Horde and leveling up to max level and then some Cadwell comes along and says, "Ooops, you're not really max level. Now you need to start over on the Alliance side and play through all of their quests."
There will be people who say, "You knew this was in game a long time ago, so you shouldn't complain about it now." This is true. But I didn't think "playing through the other factions' zones" -- that's how I understood it -- would be so poorly implemented (just tacked on).
Bottom line: There are a lot of things I like about ESO, but my will to play has been sapped by the AR progression scheme. It just makes the experience seem "meh" to me now -- leveling is just a chore to get through now instead of being immersive. The whole "Cadwell's Silver" scheme is not even plausible within the context of this game world. It shouldn't be this way in a story driven questing game that (oddly enough) is meant to result in 3-way realm v realm pvp as "endgame."
Will I sub for another month? I'm leaning toward yes. But beyond that, I'm not sure.
I like to roll alts to play different character builds, and this also seriously reduces long-term replayability for me.
Has anyone leveled to VR 10 just by pvping and skipping the other factions' quests?
Comments
Very well written and well thought out post. The VR grind was clearly an easy way for the developers to artificially drag out the leveling process and I think this will come back to bite Zenimax very soon.
i was saying this also when i hit vr1 and started the grind till i reached vr4 (10 days played time in game) and i could not take it anymore the insane boring grind and so i quit the game. I am glad i did, because i was just becoming a quest grind zombie..
I have posted at the official forums about the grind and at this forums and i can tell u players will flame u about it and say to u that this game is then not for u because quest grinding is so much fun ofc ><..
Further on u are right and i can truly say that it was a bad design decision from zanimax to make this such extreme grind and boring with no variation at all. Go do dungeon's people will say, go do pvp.. well all that won;t help and will be much much slower. Imo dungeons are only worth it the first time for the quest XP.
And those players that are VR10 MOST of them abused the bugged game mechanics, because who can blame them when zanimax is ok with that all. Players have been VR10 within the first week of the release how come i wonder....
And very very few players have actually reached it buy just doing the quest grind and having NO LIFE, else it is impossible to reach VR 10 within the first 3-4 weeks (for normal players that have RL), u must play like 15h a day to come close to that, if u play the honest way*, to reach it within that time period. But as i said many players just abused the game mechanics because it was kinda given to them by zanimax, and it just happened that those players where actively looking for the SHORT CUT and found it.
Now u know how they reached VR10 that fast it is having no life or abusing some game mechanics to reach vr10. Everyone that tells u it can be done a normal way within the given time example above, but then just playing like 3-6H a day is a F lier.
Check the AMA on reddit they did today. It might make you feel better. It made me feel better about the exact same issue. In fact I made a thread about it on another forum.
They want people to have options and they are buffing vet XP in other areas. As soon as next patch, 1-2 weeks.
http://dulfy.net/2014/05/01/eso-may-1-reddit-ama-transcript/
I got tired of the quest grind before I hit the level cap. It would have been more enjoyable if they didn't mandate completion of every single quest in the game just to get enough experience to proceed to the next zone without grinding on mobs.
For me, the lack of freedom is what broke immersion in ESO and made the game less enjoyable. Other Elder Scrolls games didn't have classes. Other Elder Scrolls games didn't force you to do every quest. Other Elder Scrolls games didn't require you to be a certain level just to do other quests in the game. The result is that it isn't a true Elder Scrolls game. It is just a theme park MMO with the Elder Scrolls lore and setting.
"Imagine (please forgive me for referring to WoW) rolling Horde and leveling up to max level and then some Cadwell comes along and says, "Ooops, you're not really max level. Now you need to start over on the Alliance side and play through all of their quests."
Excellent +1000
You're just ranting right now about how some people took advantage of an exploit to reach VR10. It seems to me that if you're a fan of the game, then you need to trust Zenimax to bring justice to those people. Meanwhile, you should focus on yourself and your own enjoyment. I don't know why you need to rush to max level.
Before you say you're not rushing to max level, let me put things in perspective for you. MMORPG's used to take months to years to reach max level. When you realize that MMORPG's are meant to be played for years, you stop feeling the need to reach VR10 ASAP, which means you don't feel like you need to quest everyday. You can PvP if that's your thing, or you could do whatever else there is to do while you have some free time. Only do some quests when you're in the mood to do them.
My point is, if you're having fun doing whatever you're doing, then "when" you reach max level doesn't matter anymore, because the purpose of games is to have fun.
Let me put it to you another way. DAOC was my first MMORPG and I started playing that in 2002. It took me until 2005 to get my first lvl 50. That's not to say I was in the game every day, because back then I had military deployments, but anyways. I would try out and play many different classes, find groups and grind dungeons and mob camps in the world. I would play through the battlegrounds for a while, and continue my Epic quest lines. In other words, because I had fun just playing the game, I didn't care about reaching max level, because everything I could do at max level I could do at any level. I could PvP, do some public dungeons, quest, and explore the world at anytime. Most of the time though, I'd be grinding for hours with a group...laughing, talking, and having great times.
Let me put it this way this is not 1999 - 2004 anymore, a old XP grind model won't work anymore in 2014 or even way before that .. It is only for the very very extreme hardcore players. And as company u can not afford doing such insane decisions if u would like that many players experience your game and ENJOY it, what is the most important thing.
I can handle some grind but not at the scale within this game it is just to much and 90% will say this to u also..
It's not u, it's you. People will never take you (not u) seriously if you (not u) cannot spell correctly, not to mention the fact your entire argument is based on the assumption you (not u) know how other people feel about the game mechanics, you (not u) do not.
I'm not speaking for myself, since I quit for other reasons, but it's probably too little too late.
Like almost every MMO developer since the genre has become saturated, Zenimax only gets one chance with most people.
Their goal: To prove to the masses that their game was worth playing, worth the box price, and worth the subscription fee. Naturally, they wanted to retain as many players as possible after the first month.
Since Zenimax wants to retain their players, hense their business model, they should of aimed for a polished release. Instead of learning from the many companies that failed in this genre, Zenimax released their game too early. There were serious bugs, dupes, and design flaws that beta testers repeatedly reported and Zenimax ignored.
So here we are. Zenimax has been playing "catch up" since headstart and the end of the first month is upon us. Will they succeed in retaining their customers or will they learn the hard way? I think the latter.
You missed the point.
My post isn't about the method used to reach max level. You're so focused on getting max level asap that you missed my point entirely in my post. My point is that once you STOP trying to reach max level, and instead just participate in the game activities that bring you enjoyment, then you'll be much happier. If you don't enjoy doing any of the games activities, then this game isn't meant for you, just as it isn't meant for me.
I ask you this, why are you playing ESO? Quests? PvP? Dungeons? Adventure Zones?
Thanks for posting this link. I feel better because other people have pointed out the exact same issues to them, so I know they are aware of it. For example:
26. matt_riddle – Endgame
I’m level 33 and I don’t look forward to level 50 because I don’t want to do the other factions quests. It feels like it invalidates the entire reason to choose a faction if I have to do the story for all of them anyways. It’d be like telling WoW’s Horde players that they have to start and finish all the Alliance quests to get to max level. Also it means that any alts I make will have to play through the same quests twice or even three times. Please tell me you are coming out with alternative ways to level past level 50.
Agreed. I don't mind grind as long as they are meaningful. Who knows eventually they may be and when that happens I'll gladly give the game a shot. I said it in beta and I'll say it again. ESO has promise but I for one am glad that I am not partaking in the game currently because of the issues it has. I still feel whole heartedly the game will eventually go F2P and that will be the opportune time for me to give it a shot. I suggest if your having fun now, stick with it. It'll only get better IMO.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
In much the same way that Diablo 3 does their paragon system. I like it.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
VRs should have been "legacy" account bound levels. So it wouldnt matter with which cahracters in which alliance you got them, but any level 50 automatically gets promoted to your VR level whatever it is.
To clarify:
When you reach lvl50 with your first character you unlock VRs. Then any xp you make with any character also counts towards your VR xp, so you could continue on that same character or make new one in different alliance, it wouldnt matter. Somewhat like SWTOR.
I like this idea much better than the current implementation.
We get EIGHT character slots. I can't imagine going through all the factions that many times. There's no way. Did they give so many character slots just so we could have a lot of bank mules?