This week in The Elder Scrolls Online (TESO), Update 6 and the new Champion System are coming. Details can be found in a video.
Just a few more sleeps, and the biggest update in the not-so-quiet history of The Elder Scrolls Online is upon us. The goal has been set to finally get the MMORPG to where the fans deserve and want it after a rather mixed start 11 months ago.
Endgame has been the weak point of TESO from the beginning, but it will now be improved
From the start, the endgame has been a thorn in the side of the developers and players: Not only did the strange “Oh, you are done and the great hero? Then play through the story of the other two factions as well!” turn out to be a weak point, but also the character’s progression beyond level 50 caused … what is the opposite of excitement? Ah yes, disappointment.
Hardly a review of TESO did not criticize the serious weaknesses in the endgame, which mutated into a barren grindfest after level 50, where the character hardly became any stronger and nothing exciting happened.
In the summer, a large meeting was organized, the Guild Summit. As was later reported, a large hall was filled with developers and the most dedicated fans of TESO from North America and Europe. Creative Director Paul Sagte asked the question: “Who among you is satisfied with the endgame system?” And two people raised their hands … both developers. The rest of the people in the hall, die-hard, passionate fans of the game, kept their hands down. That was a clear sign.
Good things take time
Clearly, improvements were needed, but as is usual in MMO development, this took a long time. The first time one heard of a “Champion System” was 7 months ago in July 2014, and it is only going live this week.
With Update 6, the endgame progression is finally set to be revised. The whole situation is complicated by the fact that while the new Champion System is coming, remnants of the old Veteran System will still remain. This will likely be the status quo for a while: Time is short, and now the transition to Buy2Play is coming, the consoles will then take the bulk of the attention.
This hybrid system has some special rules. The allocation of points in the individual areas is not that simple. We have prepared this in writing before, and now our friends at ProNDC have a video straight from the test server, which hopefully makes it clearer:
