The Elder Scrolls Online

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Vitality

Vitality

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So for those of you who asked previously about Grinding mobs Vs. Questing as a viable leveling method. The math to get from level 12 to 13 came out to about 165 mobs of equal level.

10 mobs of equal level is roughly the same reward as a side quest turn in

There are certain hotspots, primarily in "Ruins" type locations. If you have the right build to be able to clear the commonly found 2 and 3 pulls in these ruins, it's an effective quotient value in direct proportion to the pull size you can sustain.

So for 165 mobs required to get from 12-13, I found a spot in Auridon (Aldmeri Dominion) where there were packs of 3 bandits at a ruin, about 12 pulls worth. At 36 mobs per circuit, I would have to complete the circuit roughly 4.5 times to get a level. At an average clear time of 30 seconds per 3pull (Nightblade DoT/HoT spec) it would take me 27 minutes of this circuit (asuming the first pack respawned after the 12th ish pull) to gain a level. On average a quest takes 10-15 minutes to complete resulting in a measily 10-15% xp gain and minimal item reward.

At the end of each ruins circuit my bags (70 slots) would be full of greens whites and glyphs to salvage relevant crafting mats, or vendoring for 15-30g each (items) thats pretty much an average of 900g every 30 mins.

Anyone else have different findings than this?

Vitality
 
Tuco

Tuco

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Gecko_sl said:
Except you really don't. There are public dungeons, elite mobs, anchors, and other things to do. The problem is people are playing it like WOW or GW2<WOW with hearts>, instead of exploring, grouping and just killing stuff.
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Maybe it was just my experience or it changes later but I had a very bad time exploring in TESO. Each obviously sectioned off area was so tightly coupled with whatever quest was built for that area that most of the time those areas were devoid of NPCs if I didn't have that quest. Several times in the game I went to an area, saw jack shit, then looked for the quest NPC for that area, got the quest and then the place came alive.
 
Tuco

Tuco

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Ukerric_sl said:
Crafting = A Tale in the Desert. SWG is barely scratching it.

When A Tale in the Desert tells you there's a "mini game" for Gem cutting, you don't expect to get a block of random faceted junk, 3 different orientation of saws, and "craft what you can".
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Yeah it's a shame that no one has attempted to mimic atitd's crafting system. I love making shit in RL, and I loved making shit in minecraft, but every crafting system in MMOs that follow the EQ/WoW/Skyrim model are boring and I don't get how people (Tarrant I'm calling you out here) like it.

The part of 'crafting' where you say, "Oh I want aCrafted Breastplate. I need to get some money to buy a crafting reagent(ruby) and then go find a named drop off a gypsy in Mistmoore to get it. Time for an adventure." is great. The part where you say, "Oh I want to raise my tradeskills, let me go make 200 fucking iron bracers" sucks.

Really I think the whole idea of a 'skill level' for crafting should be permanently done away with. If anything the only stat based crafting aids you get should be the tools you make/purchase and the player skill should handle everything else. The problem with this, of course, is that game developers have to work much harder making a crafting system, and there's a risk you get a completely unrelated mini-game to craft (See: Fable3 iirc where you had to play DDR to make pies or some shit).
 
Tuco

Tuco

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Vitality_sl said:
Anyone else have different findings than this?
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Good research. I started finding similar things when I got tired of getting broken quests and just started grinding mobs a couple levels lower than me. I'd say my findings that I didn't record were slightly worse than yours but my attempts weren't optimal.

Generally in these games you have different levels of XP gains, in order they are:

1. Newbies running through the game questing (and possibly breaking the quests from user error or game error...)
2. Newbies finding relatively decent grinding spots and hitting them for a few hours until they need to find new ones (Or are using a guide for them). This is more or less the EQ "dungeon squat" model.
3. Veterans running through well known quest routes that minimize run time and maximize the amount of time they're actively killing mobs while still doing all the high value quests in the game. Obviously this is impossible to do your first time.
4. People finding broken spots where weak mobs near-instantly spawn and can be AE'd or destroyed very easily.

Obviously we do #1 while wishing we were doing #3. #2 is often the best XP wise, but often you miss out on extra crap, in this case skyshards if you only hit a few places in each zone rather than explore it fully.
 
Byr

Byr

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Creslin_sl said:
Prolly because MMOs do a poor job of hiding the grind. Skyrim had a grind that lasted a fraction of the time an MMO does, so they could hide it well behind stories. The side quests were truly side quests, you could either do them or not, or do them at your leisure. In an mmo they force you through all that tedium.

For some ungodly reason MMOs feel the need to force you through long chains of boring quests. I honestly don't know why personally, the game would still be good if the story part of the leveling was shorter, WoW stands on endgame alone now, I am not sure why other games don't mimick that.
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id actually like to see a game built around the darkfall system of leveling through achievements and actually build a world for it. Want to grind mobs? sure. explore? sure. dungeon run, speed run dungeons, etc? sure. Have fewer quests that are actually quests, not bear ass collections.
 
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Rescorla_sl

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Xaxius_sl said:
Actually, it's completely possible to have the same progression in TES games in a MMO. Saying otherwise is just another example of giving the developers a pass for being lazy. Using Darkfall, Ultima Online, and (to a degree Guild Wars) as a baseline you could build a MMO based on skills development and acquisition that is level agnostic.
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IMO one of the fundamental basics of a fantasy role playing games going all the way back to Basic D&D in the 1970s is building your character from a noob weakling all the way up to a "hero". Some RPGs used level based systems while some used skill based systems. In the old school pen and paper days, pretty much everything you did was some form of a quest.

Regardless of whether it was a level based or skill based system, you still had to play X number of hours, accumulate Y amount of EXP points, and improve Z number of skills to maximize your character's power.

Whether a MMO is level based or skill based is IMO irrelevant. You are still going to have to play for X number of hours in order to maximize Y and Z. The only thing that is relevant is how you are spending those X number of hours and if you are having fun doing it.

As an old school pen and paper RPGer, quest based leveling has always been the closest to replicatingn the old school pen and paper days. Grinding mobs for levels like in EQ1 comes nowhere close to replicating that experience.
 
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Rescorla_sl

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Xaxius_sl said:
You could have just as easily typed, "Yep, you were right."
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Well obviously I disagree with your opinion. You want a MMO that auto scales the difficulty of content so that you have complete freedom to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to. IMO that works for single player games but not MMOs.

In MMOs, I think it is perfectly fine that content is gated off until you have put in X number of hours to develop your character to the point they are strong enough to do tougher content.
 
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Menion_sl

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Vitality_sl said:
At the end of each ruins circuit my bags (70 slots) would be full of greens whites and glyphs to salvage relevant crafting mats, or vendoring for 15-30g each (items) thats pretty much an average of 900g every 30 mins.

Anyone else have different findings than this?

Vitality
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And all that Cfacting CRAP goes into one bank that is shared amongst all of your characters. So, if you wanted to raise all of the crafting skills up to max on one account good luck storing all of that shit! Time to bring back the WOW bank mules!
 
mkopec

mkopec

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Bottom line is that most people are just sick of questing to advance. nothing really wring with the game, or the quests, again, im just done with the whole thing at this point having payed this type of game for the better part of 10 yrs now.
 
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etchazz

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Rescorla_sl said:
Well obviously I disagree with your opinion. You want a MMO that auto scales the difficulty of content so that you have complete freedom to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to. IMO that works for single player games but not MMOs.

In MMOs, I think it is perfectly fine that content is gated off until you have put in X number of hours to develop your character to the point they are strong enough to do tougher content.
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nothing wrong with gated off content, the point i was trying to make is the whole grab you by the dick and tell you exactly where to go by following the yellow brick road from A to B to C by completing a plethora of mundane quest chains is the wrong way to go about it. in games like EQ, content was blocked simply by levels and gear, where you would literally just get face raped by attempting it if you weren't the right level/gear. but you still had the freedom to go to many different places in the world in order to progress your character. you weren't simply funneled from one quest hub to another. although it wasn't necessarily a sandbox MMO, you still had a choice in where you wanted to go, and what you wanted to do.
 
Vitality

Vitality

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mkopec_sl said:
Bottom line is that most people are just sick of questing to advance. nothing really wring with the game, or the quests, again, im just done with the whole thing at this point having payed this type of game for the better part of 10 yrs now.
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That means you're done with MMO's as a whole then. By not taking the effort to look for better ways to progress and have fun in a game, you've essentially gotten lazy with the genre and have ceased to care all together.

Yeah levels 1-9 kind of suck in this game, but when you hit 10, you make some friends and go do fun stuff. Dungeons are fairly challenging, with threat being ping pong, and only 4 guys etc. Cyrodil, aside from the server instability issues, is actually really fking fun.

I met PRX this weekend and we did a couple days worth of 5-7 man roams. I played a healer/CC'er/stealth mez initiator. Been a few years since I've felt badass in a game like I did then. Especially some of the few chokepoint fights where we were outnumbered and ended up making 20+ dudes eat the dirt behind "Our" rock.

Much fun to be had if you care to have it.

I'm not shilling regarding obvious flaws, UI, Stability, leveling experience.

Vitality
 
Xaxius

Xaxius

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Rescorla_sl said:
Well obviously I disagree with your opinion. You want a MMO that auto scales the difficulty of content so that you have complete freedom to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to. IMO that works for single player games but not MMOs.

In MMOs, I think it is perfectly fine that content is gated off until you have put in X number of hours to develop your character to the point they are strong enough to do tougher content.
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If you can't see the inherent problems with fixed levels being the primary source of progression in a MMO, then I can't help you. It's been covered ad nauseam on this site and the former. I don't have the time nor patience to walk you through it.

Essentially though, the only reason levels are still used today is that developers think we're fucking idiots. True story.
 
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Gecko_sl

shitlord
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mkopec_sl said:
Bottom line is that most people are just sick of questing to advance. nothing really wring with the game, or the quests, again, im just done with the whole thing at this point having payed this type of game for the better part of 10 yrs now.
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Amen.

Even SWTOR with it's companions, storylines, and group and social dungeons often times felt like a chore. This game is a step backwards quest wise, although the options are better.

I hate to admit Ut is right, because he seems so full of shit but the major players in the industry seem to be spinning on the same wheel, and as long as WOW continues to print money for the themepark static game, my guess is that'll continue as the industry seems to be monkey see, monkey do.

What we need is a paradigm shift.
 
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Rescorla_sl

shitlord
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Xaxius_sl said:
If you can't see the inherent problems with fixed levels being the primary source of progression in a MMO, then I can't help you. It's been covered ad nauseam on this site and the former. I don't have the time nor patience to walk you through it.

Essentially though, the only reason levels are still used today is that developers think we're fucking idiots. True story.
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You're missing the point. The fundamental basis for progression in a MMO is time spent playing. Whether the RPG design of the game is level based or skill based is immaterial.
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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Rescorla_sl said:
You're missing the point. The fundamental basis for progression in a MMO is time spent playing. Whether the RPG design of the game is level based or skill based is immaterial.
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And you are missing his point. Time spent playing doesn't need to satisfy a basis for progression.

In fact, it is often a hinderance because of content consumption. I will be surprised if anyone playing this game totals more time in TESO before quitting than they did in Skyrim if they loved that game as much as I did. I know people with more Skyrim play time than most MMORPG's.
 
mkopec

mkopec

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Vitality_sl said:
That means you're done with MMO's as a whole then. By not taking the effort to look for better ways to progress and have fun in a game, you've essentially gotten lazy with the genre and have ceased to care all together.
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I guess so .I mean how many games like this do you need to play for it to get old, man? And make my own fun? Really? I should nto be looking for fun in games. It should be intrinsically fun, and its not. But yeah I guess its not the game its me, really its me. It reinds me of breaking up with a chick... "No baby its not you, its me... Im the one thats fucked up, not you"

The PvP might be the cats ass, but even that, I mean how long will this amuse you?

This genre needs to change badly.
 
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Rescorla_sl

shitlord
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Gecko_sl said:
I hate to admit Ut is right, because he seems so full of shit but the major players in the industry seem to be spinning on the same wheel, and as long as WOW continues to print money for the themepark static game, my guess is that'll continue as the industry seems to be monkey see, monkey do.

What we need is a paradigm shift.
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The consumer is always right. It's all basic Economics 101. A game that is high quality and fun to play has a good chance of being profitable. It's all a moot point if the game isn't profitable.

While I fully agree a paradigm shift in MMO game design would be nice, it seems to me that would require some new technological innovation to be invented and once available, become cost efficient so the game using that new technology will be profitable.

Who knows what that new technology will be but IMO no paradigm shift will occur until it is invented.
 
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