In pretty much every other MMO, developers realize the importance of reward and the PSYCHOLOGY OF HOPE. Perhaps they call it something different in the industry but basically, it is the idea that at any given point, regardless of your play style, there is a CHANCE for you to catch up at another play style, if you begin to apply yourself to it.
For example in ANY other MMO, you might be into PVP, RP, farming, questing, addon development, whatever. You may be months behind the raid or competitive PVP "scene", but in any other MMO that is OK because
IF you decide to START applying yourself and dedicate a REASONABLE amount of time at it, there is a perception and fact that you can catch up.
A person with no raid gear can join a guild and get reasonably geared within a month or so, non-arena players can run battlegrounds for a few weeks and get geared enough to compete for "real" gear, etc.
This creates an atmosphere of diversity, where you don't perceive you are being punished for pretty much everything other than one mindless grind play style, which is what ESO was billed on.
Yet ESO's counter-intuitive grind does the exact opposite. It absolutely KILLS diversity of play style!
In ESO unless you mindlessly grind 24/7 you will NEVER catch up
because everything is behind a LINEAR TIME WALL. This means that if you enjoy RP, exploration, questing, PVP, or pretty much any sane behavior other than mindlessly grinding, and you later decide to apply yourself to some serious "end-game", there is absolutely no hope you will catch up in a reasonable time because the time it takes to catch up is linear, meaning you can't just join a good group and get geared, you MUST mindlessly grind grind grind.
There is NO chance (for a non-grinder) to be competitive in PVP against players who already have 700+ CP that can:
- Roll-dodge literally forever thanks to maxed Tumbler trait.
- Have impenetrable damage bubbles thanks to maxed Bastion trait.
- Wrecking Blow for 30k (more than my HP) thanks to maxed Mighty trait.
- Etc., etc., etc.
I have never seen a system that is so unfriendly to diversity of playstyle as ESO CP.
As an addon developer, I often I am wasting my time as all I get for my efforts to improve the lives of other gamers is months behind because I didn't spend that time grinding in cracked troll cave. In other games I at least felt like I had the luxury of devoting time to addon development without destroying my chance to be competitive in PVP or end-game.
This is total BS.
There needs to be some catch-up method for CP (no, giving the grinders XP potions does NOT solve anything), and a tiered limit to CP gain in a given expansion to slow down the no-lifers constantly chasing an unfair advantage in the name of "progress". ZOS needs to realize these are a MINORITY of players (most have classes, jobs, etc. and can't grind 24/7), bite the bullet and stop catering to them at the expense of your larger audience.
TELL ZOS!
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