In The Elder Scrolls Online, Update 6 introduces a shift to the Champion System. The complex system was presented on Friday evening during ESO Live. Fans are mainly discussing that every player, regardless of their veteran rank, will start with 30 Champion Points. This makes more advanced veterans feel disadvantaged.
The changes in TESO are progressing. In Update 6, the next (but not the last) part of the Champion System will be introduced, and it has a lot to offer. On Friday evening, Zenimax presented a wealth of information during the hours-long stream show ESO Live 8 about how the system will work in detail and how players can further develop their characters.
The amount of information is currently overwhelming; one will probably have to wait for Update 6 on the test server to get a better picture.
Champion System is an alternative progression in Endgame
The Champion System is a form of “alternative progression in Endgame,” where champions accumulate “points for their account,” which any character on the account can then use for minor bonuses. If an account has 30 Champion Points, any hero on that account can also spend 30 points, regardless of the other heroes.
The points are to be earned through “normal” gameplay of heroes who have reached the endgame. Heroes will be able to earn approximately 1 Champion Point per hour. A total of 3600 Champion Points should be possible to earn. That is a huge amount of time that players can spend with the Champion System.
For “round” points invested in a specific skill tree (in TESO, they are oriented around constellations), players receive special passive bonuses.
Other games in the past have also tried similar systems to keep leveling attractive beyond the maximum level. From a design perspective, it’s about making it “endless,” but without completely compromising balance. It’s about “diminishing returns,” where each point invested becomes less “valuable” than the one before, and so on. Really dry, complicated stuff.
Hardcore players feel disadvantaged
The point at which the discussion is currently hanging is another: How much of an advantage will players who have already invested a lot of time in their veterans have when starting the new system? Fans expected that players who have played a lot, perhaps even with several heroes at max level, would receive a significant advantage. However, this does not seem to be the case.
Players who already have a veteran will start with 30 Champion Points. No further differentiation will be made here. This means that regardless of whether a player has a character at veteran rank 1 or has several characters at higher veteran ranks: Players will start with 30 Champion Points.
Accordingly, hardcore players who have already invested a lot of time in their characters are currently annoyed. They even feel disadvantaged because they can no longer complete quests and level up as “easily” as players who have just freshly reached level 50 and still have all veteran areas ahead of them.
Champion System is a kind of reset
Zenimax has decided to take this step because they see the Champion Points as a kind of “reset.” And here, veterans should not have too much of an advantage. Additionally, they have adjusted the EXP gain in dungeons and other areas so that players can also earn Champion Points without quests.
With Update 6, veteran ranks will also initially remain. So hardcore players still have an advantage from that. A change will then occur later. Originally, it was planned that the Champion System would replace the veteran system. Now it seems to run parallel for the time being.
Mein MMO says: This is really a complex system, the effects of which are hard to foresee “dryly.” At the moment, there is a lot of excitement about it, understandable since players are losing their “advantage.” How everything will really turn out can only be said in the new year, when Update 6 comes to the test server.
