At the end of December Zenimax announced what players are going to receive when the champion system is released, 30 champion points. If you had at least one character veteran rank 1 or higher you’d receive 30 champion points when 1.6 goes live. It doesn’t matter if you’ve spent the last 9 months playing the same veteran 14 character, or even had eight veteran rank 14 characters, you’d still receive 30 champion points. As you can see there is a major flaw in this, putting players who’ve progressed further through the game on the same level as someone who is only veteran rank 1 isn’t a fair system. It makes those level capped players feel like their time spent is ultimately being erased.
Players took to the forums and expressed themselves, some more elegantly than others. However, the outcry was so massive, within two weeks Zenimax revised their plans and have released a completely new retroactive algorithm that will benefit those who’ve dedicated more time to the game.
When the champion system rolls out you’ll have the opportunity to receive a total of 70 champion points right out of the gate. Allowing those who’ve invested more into the game to continue to be slighter further than those who have not.
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As we all know, ESO isn’t a typical hardcore game. It is more casual oriented, which isn’t a bad thing. However, when they revised the system they had to ensure that the algorithm also encompassed the casual player and not just the hardcore. To do this Zenimax has devised a system that utilizes the XP earned as a way to gauge how many points you’ll receive. There is some confusion among the player base about how exactly they’ll receive the 70 points, so I’m going to attempt to explain it in a way everyone understands.
Understanding Retroactive Points
Disclaimer: The numbers used here are STRICTLY for when the system launches and used to calculate how many champion points you will receive. They in no way indicate how long it will take to earn a champion point once you’ve been retroactively rewarded.
If you are currently veteran rank 1, you will NOT receive five. Veteran Rank 1 is not an increase in level, it is simply level 50 being renamed. Each veteran rank requires 1,000,000 XP to be earned, for every 200,000 XP earned you’ll receive one champion point. For every Veteran Rank earned you’ll receive five champion points total. For example, if you’re VR3 and have 675,298 XP you’ll receive 13 champion points. Ten points for earning VR2 and VR3, and three additional points for earning over 600,000XP towards VR4.
One thing to note is this new change is account wide, it takes into account all your veteran rank characters. Even though you might not have a VR14 character you’ll still have the opportunity to receive a total of 70 points. You could have a VR8, VR5, VR3, which would reward your account with a total of 65 points, not including the additional points received for the XP earned towards the next rank on all those characters.
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Some people are still upset, exclaiming that 70 points isn’t enough as they have multiple VR14 characters. While I do agree that if you have multiple VR14, and if the champion system was released when the game launched, those players will have earned well over the 70 point cap. However, this new system wasn’t released at launch and even though you won’t be receiving a plethora of champion points for all your work, you’ll still be receiving enough points to keep those characters at the top of the progression system.
If we take a look at the game as it stands right now, if you are VR14 and have completed all the trials and dungeons, received all the gear you possibly can, that character is at the top of the progression ladder along with many other people. No matter how many characters you do that with, each and every character is still at the same point in the progression ladder as everyone else. Would it be fair for Zenimax to reward that person with more champion points, allowing them to progress further into new “content” strictly due to the fact that they have multiple characters at the top?
Let’s put that into World of Warcraft terminology, as that seems to be easier for people to understand. If I completed the newest raiding content with eight different characters on the same account, does that mean I should be able to skip bosses in the next raid due to the amount of time I’ve invested?
We need to remember that the champion points are account wide, so if I earn 70 points when patch 1.6 goes live, all my veteran rank characters will have the ability to use those points. Even as I progress through the game and earn more and more points they are placed into an account wide pool, which all my current and future veteran rank characters will have access to.
When 1.6 launches, 70 points will be the equivalent to being VR14. So when they remove the Veteran Ranks, once you’ve earned 70 champion points it would be as if you’ve earned VR14. If they were to reward players with more than the 70 point cap based on multiple VR characters, players would be drastically surpassing the level cap. Making them far more powerful than those who only play one character. I primarily play one character, I do have alts, but I focus mostly on one. Due to this, should I be thrown below someone else’s character in terms of power strictly because they have more than one character?
I hope you all agree and see that it wouldn’t be fair for Zenimax to do a massive retroactive reward into this new content. It would throw the balance of character power completely off and putting some players so far ahead that they would be uncatchable for some time.
