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[Column] Elder Scrolls Online: The Champion System Changes Everything, Leaves Questions
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The Elder Scrolls Online team has been active with reveals in recent weeks, due to how much will be changing in update 6, which itself is just the beginning for subsequent phases of changes, additions, and overhauls. So it’s not surprising that the year closes out with (finally!) details about the Champion system. While no one will get a taste of the actual update until it hits the PTS after the new year, there’s already much feedback and discussion to tide us all over until January and beyond. With all of the changes over the past six months or so and the scope of what’s to come, even Zenimax’ Eric Wroebel called this similar to an ESO 2.0. For many, it’s all a mark of the game’s improvements and the studio’s commitment to its community. Yet there are still a few elements of the update that leave unanswered questions.
Read more of Christina Gonzalez's Elder Scrolls Online: The Champion System Changes Everything, Leaves Questions.
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It all sounds good on paper, I cant wait to see how it starts playing out. I know its also meant to add longevity giving players literally hundreds of possible points to earn in the Champion system, so it will be interesting to see if players find that enough motivation.
The one thing Im confused about in the article is how you can say PVP players are sidelined? There have been huge changes to PVP just recently, with the removal of Forward Camps, and changing oil pots to only work above ground, and now with the change to the AOE caps. It seems to me that PVP has gotten plenty of attention lately, and its about time PVE got something. The Champion system benefits both playstyles equally, as well as the soft cap removal. The only change thats purely PVE right now is the Justice System, but everyone knows that will have a PVP element as well, and the PVP element will most likely be the star of that system once it goes live.
FYI Forward Camps should be back with 1.6. With some heavy modifications of course.
Yep, i just hope they are something really special. Not something taken for granted as they were.
I'm going to say this is the best subscription MMO on the market, right now and especially with this addition. The reason I say that is, WoD has it's problems. Once you get to 100, that's all she wrote.
Garrison has a ipad or android game at the end, economy is broken - along with professions, and from what I read people with alts hate on average micromanaging a garrison for every alt and that kills enjoyment for leveling them. Each Garrison adds to another gold sink per character and time you HAVE to invest. It's not optional unlike the farm.
Even if Blizzard believed these were an issue? You have any idea how long it would take them to fix it? Some stuff? Several months. Other stuff? Maybe not until a whole new expansion.
ESO is making a concentrated effort to not only listen to it's players, but also put things in motion as fast as possible. Making the whole game better. That means the potential for this game is amazing, as the community will shape it. You have to respect that, even if you do not play this game.
With Blizzard? They move too slow and I get this feeling, they think they are incredibly smart and think they know better than anyone regarding their game. I honestly believe they think that the stuff players want is not good for the game overall. I feel they ignore most feedback for this reason, until it's too late. Like the beta testers worried about professions and economy.
Enter gold selling.
I too have grown very tired of WoD. As I described to a guildie, WoD boils down to garrison maitenance while waiting for raid nights with the guild. And with the announced future plans with Garrisons still being in the forefront I feel that 6.1 will just be the same. There is nothing to do in the world of Draenor and am finding that I am looking at other MMOs to fill the void while waiting for EQN. Someplace where crafting isn't dull or gutted which WoD did to WoW.
Which is why I'll be taking a look at ESO.
I can understand why Eric Wroebel would label it as 2.0 but I think this is just the start of the console hype. Maybe after the CS and Justice system - which are planned for the console launch but not today. Zenimax will absolutely want to differentiate the console launch from the PC launch though.
As far as the content goes - is it enough? We - rightly - ask the question about WoW; we - rightly - ask the question about the cost of DLC. So: is the extra content worth the $115 that people who have been subscribed since launch will havepaid - nearly twice the $6 box price. The game hasn't trebled inn size though ....
I've been playing ESO on and off since 9 months pre-launch (every beta event) and the pvp, graphics, and combat are what keep me satisfied atm. I still think it's the best rvr (similar not as good) type of pvp like Daoc out there and the combat is one of the best action style combat of all mmo's.
Regarding update 6 I'm hugely excited for 90% of the changes as the game has gotten very stale for someone who spends 99% of their time in Cyrodiil. Infinite endgame progression, like realm ranks in Daoc, is the very best form of endgame any mmo has ever come up with imo. Yet, not nearly enough games have either tried it or done it right.
What I'm not looking forward to is the ultimate change which definitely favors a less talented player being more on-par with more experienced/better players, not to mention the way ulti will be gained will force players to change how they play (the whole having to light attack every couple seconds).
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
On the Pvp side they lost a lot of guilds due to a combination of balance issues and the pve veteran grind. I loved the 1-50 content and the solo boss fights, the challenge was a nice change.
For those of us who primarily want to pvp, having to spend most of our time in a pve grind just to remain competitive was a breaking point. I thought GW2 handled this a lot better. In GW2 the leveling was easy, and a full set of exotic gear was also fairly easy to get. Those that went for the very high end gear only gained a slight advantage, which could easily be overcome through skill in wvw.
Once I hit VR6 I unsubbed. The veteran grind was just not fun, and having to spend a large amount of time not having fun to remain competitive in pvp, just wasn't worth it to me.
So they consider this ESO 2.0?
Remove the pseudo tab target system that is ruining the action based combat in ESO. If Square Enix could overhaul their entire FF mmo, Zenimax is more than capable of removing a single crap feature from their own mmo, then call it 2.0
It's point and shoot. You can pick one person out of a crowd. You can body block incoming attacks. Probably the tightest non-fps aiming out there. What do you want planetside 2 and full physics?
If you are trying to tab something in ESO, you are kinda doing it wrong.
edit- I read the article twice OP. What were the questions?
^^^^What he said, The only time I tab target is for /pet attack.....
As player that have been play ESO since beta to now i can tell you all that ESO is not same game that got release back in april 4, 2014 so much have change in the game and as many say ZoS is really listen to the player which make me feel that ZoS is take ESO really serious and honest it feel like ZoS is show reast of mmo community that you can have successful mmorpg and still listen to your customer.
Champion System is something that i think will be start off next big thing when come to mmo genres for basic CS will do is more or less remove lvl from the game which i think is good thing and that will make all player the same only thing that is different where you spend your point and that is something that it will make add new content and expansion easy for you wont get uber number on raid boss HP so you need nerf everything down like blizzard have done.
And for those of you who is think of try out ESO or think of come back to you i have only thing to say why not i think if you really love mmorpg or rpg i think you will love ESO for to me it feel like ESO is atm only true mmorpg out on market for to me that have been active mmo player since glory day off EverQuest back 1999 i can say that it feel like ESO is go back to how mmorpg once was not all this crap with microtransfer like most mmo have today and even WoW have now which is to my mindblowing how a subscribe fee mmo can be so focus on microtransfer like Blizzard are.
Next big thing? Champion system is just an AA system. Worse, it's going to be an extremely grindy AA system. The number of points you can get is very high which means they are very small increments in power, which means extreme grind. It's going to be far worse then the veteran system in that regard.
As a game dev myself, my bet is that internally the champion system is just based on new skill lines that have their own points, and level up much slower. It means they can reuse much of their existing code. They slap a different ui on it, give it a fancy name, and bingo most players think it's some completely new system when it just a tweaked/rebranded version of what they already have that scales a bit differently.
Which btw is a very common practice because from a development standpoint it makes a lot of sense.
AA systems are inherently evil to some degree as they can greatly increase power inflation relative to content. This is especially true if the cap is very high. This is one reason why EQ2 has only 280 AA points, while EQ had something like 11,000. My suspicion is that ESO has graduated the power curve from day one to guard against that somewhat, but that has it's own drawbacks, like not actually feeling more powerful when gaining points because each point is such a tiny increase. One thing is for sure that with an AA system, it will take less then a year before much of the 1-50 content is trivialized, which is not a good thing for ESO given that 1-50 is arguably the best part of the game.
But the biggest blunder of all is not planning for some type of AA system from the start. That's like mmo game design 101. You can't just use content as your only progression, because players will always burn through it at a much faster rate then you can create it. Additionally they thought they could force people to group while leveling through veteran content, which was an even dumber mistake.
And the CS does not bode well for rvr. Power inflation kills pvp faster then it kills pve. Prepare to see a lot less people in rvr once the core of power gamers zoom to max AA points and dominate everything. Exactly what happened to pvp in wow. GW2 pvp has done so well because it's pvp system has very little power inflation, a lesson ESO should have learned.
Hi. I played 6 weeks of WoD, maxed my garrison, and now unless I am raiding I have no reason to log in to WoW. So I took a leap of faith and re subbed to ESO after talking to a few ppl on FB about the changes and state of the game. I have been back in ESO 2-3 weeks now and I can honestly say I am having tons of fun. Almost all bugs have been fixed, game is still beautiful, community is maybe the best I have seen ever(IMO) and they continue week after week to do the little tweaks and balances to classes and gameplay to keep making it better. From a customer perspective, I have not seen a dev that listens to playerbase feedback better than ESO. I think that this game has an amaizing upside and years and years of longevity and growth if they keep doing things just like they are. Of course this is all just my personal opinion.
FYI, I left after 4-5 post launch due to the game just being awful, so i actually experainced the bad of ESO also, but hey, everyone deserves second chances. Except bioware.
I miss the massive in MMO.
It is not staves and skirts anymore bro that is what alot of us are trying to tell you. I play a Dragon Knight 2hand sword/full stamina build dps. Basically I run around like Conan yellling Crom, and bash crap in the head. Bow/stam builds are sick right now as well as Nightblade Duel wielders. Do not bash something friend if you do not have acurate Info on what it actually is.
I miss the massive in MMO.
is the same people who play or have played WoW/WoD.