http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/821/feature/8004/Elder-Scrolls-Online-Diving-Deep-into-the-Progression-of-ESO.html

Mostly the same stuff as the video but not totally.

The biggest thing that sticks out is their explanation of crafting, which isn't in the video:

Bolded part was a kick in the teeth to me. I was hoping you would be able to level up solely via crafting and mat gathering.

Well you will kinda gain exp from material gathering. I mean, resource nodes are likely gonna be guarded by random mobs that you will have to kill and you get exp from that. And just exploring to find resource nodes you get exp for that too.

The crafting itself really shouldnt give you leveling exp anyway. Cant really think of a game atm that lets you level up by just crafting....

I see what you mean. It actually sounds like they overcomplicated the system and randomly applied different names for some things, but not others.

So you have character level, which increases with experience.

Weapon, Armor and Class skills, also have levels, which increase with experience. And the individual abilities also have levels that are different from the skill tree levels (which are different from the character level) and they note that having skills slotted gives you extra experience in those abilities, and it doesn't matter if you actually use them or not, just that they're slotted. Which means farming trash mobs until you get your abilities up to morph level, at least. Fun.

And crafting abiltiies also have levels, but those are gained through experience points called inspiration, and guild abilities gain experience points called reputation.

And you also have ranks, which they also use as a synonym for level elsewhere in the article, but they actually mean pvp ranks, which also give you skill points like levels do.

Finally skills, abilities, Feats and Spells are used almost interchangeably, except feats and spells use different pools. And passives can eat multiple skill points to power up, but presumably increase by whatever tree they are on since they can't be slotted. (And so can't have their own levels, either, unlike active abilities. Presumably).

But I guess all you get for crafting is the ability to craft more. Unless they don't know or are leaving bits out, which may or may not comfort you.

But at least the system overall is clear, yeah?

I love the system overall actually, its specifically the crafting thing that bothers me.

Gaining experience through crafting helps break up the monotony of questing and killing. It gives you an alternative way to advance your character. I loved how in GW2 you could get to level 80 doing NOTHING except crafting. You didn't have to harm a soul, as long as you could buy the materials or get someone else to bring them to you.

Discovering recipes and making things gave you experience that actually counted towards your level.

I could also do this in Elder Scrolls games. Who didn't level up in Skyrim by creating hundreds or thousands of iron daggers?

Really is a shame. Hopefully it can be changed.

Pretty easily, I would think. Crafting success = crafting xp + character xp. Balancing the rate of progression is more difficult, but just doing it? Should be simple, since the successes are already being tracked to give you craft xp.

Bolded part is my emphasis. Which is why they aren't having crafting attribute to character level. If they balance with no crafting then crafters will overlevel content too quick. If they take crafting into consideration than non-crafters will constantly be underleveled. They would almost need an alternative source of xp for non-crafters which crafters do not have access to, in order for xp to be given for crafting (at least any significant amount).

this sounds like good news to me. i never liked the idea of gaining levels by crafting alone

I'm not sure I agree with that. Your scenario assumes the crafter does as much combat and as many quests as the non-crafter. It seems you should have a choice about how you level your character. And if you do both, if you choose to partake of more of the game than someone who specializes in either just (or primarily) combat or questing, you should be rewarded accordingly.

The whole point of character level - going all the way back to D&D - is to measure relative combat ability. If you're not engaging in combat, then why should you gain levels?

Because Elder Scrolls?

I agree with this. I wouldn't mind leveling with crafting. BUUUT....then some people are going to feel they have to craft in addition to combat and questing to level as best as possible, because MMOers seem to like to be the best and do things the fastest way possible. So then these people whine on forums that they have to do crafting to level up.

I do think the rate of progression is important though. If crafting screws that up, it might not be such a good thing to have that contribute to character level. When player levels and quest levels don't line up right, it's much less fun.

Usually in the Elder Scrolls, if you just maxed out all the crafting skills (all three of them) you wouldn't get anywhere near max level.

Crafting should no doubt be a slower way to level. I've got no problem with that. Honestly they wouldn't even have to do it like GW2 where you could gain all 80 levels via crafting.

But nothing!??!

Come one. They could easily cap the experience gain per profession so that it equaled, say, 5 levels. If there are 5 professions, that means that maxing out all crafting professions would only get you to level 25. That's half way to level cap. And not many people are going to max every profession.

You didn't specify maximizing. Your question implied that combat should be the only means by which your character level should increase.

OMG; sky is falling? Is ESO getting under your skin? I just watched the newest video and why people are so angry on YouTube.

Then ... how is it different from the previous system, except it now shows next to the other skill lines?

Might actually be worse than before if you have to invest skillpoints into the crafting skill lines, which you have to acquire by leveling, i.e. combat.

I question your assumption. It isn't always about murder-death-kill. And even if it was, appealing to the some of the really terrible design decisions of various editions of D&D as a justification for Only Combat Matters is a really terrible idea. Though even in D&D, there was XP gain for other things in various editions, including lock picking, 'class appropriate activities' (2nd edition, there was a chart, by class), quests, and even hauling home sacks of loot (1st edition).

And as Nordjitsu rightly points out, previous elder scrolls games let you gain levels from craft skills, and that is actually directly relevant.

Problem is though, if skill points are applied to crafting skills too, then you have a situation where it could go the other way. Even if, as you say, players could only get to level 25 through crafting, then they could potentially jump into Cyrodiil with all kinds of fancy skill toys bought with those 24 skill points that they've never used. Though, of course, they wouldn't be able to get much, as none of the skill trees would have been levelled, so they'd have nothing but starter skills available.

I do see the appeal of what you're saying, and this thread was worth creating. I guess I just see the sense of requiring everyone to be at least capable in combat before they start crafting it up. How many times did you blitz crafting, only to walk out the door and get slaughtered because you were underskilled for your level? I know that happened to me in Whiterun one time. Stupid convenient mod that let me have enchanting gear in Breezehome. Ran between there and Avenicci's for hours, then stepped out the gates and got very squished by the local fauna.

And this right here is why I think its balanced.

Happened to me several times in Skyrim. And this is another way the problem balances itself.

Players who level only via crafting would be gimped in combat because their skill trees wouldn't be leveled.

Curse me trying to argue impartially...

As with many potential pitfalls (respecs, quest choices etc), this comes back to the issue of how much hand-holding is okay. You just know that they'd have waves of QQing because people craft-levelled themselves into a corner, but how much do you limit it for those of us that actually plan ahead and (try to) make educated decisions. In this case, I feel that, since the gimping you mentioned would be a retroactive punishment, not a proactive one, it would not dissuade people and thus balance it out, it would just annoy them once it had happened. Even if you locked crafting for however many levels, that would only delay the problem, and people would just get more annoyed at the extra restriction. Annoyed people don't stay with the game.

I'd love to just leave it to the community to figure out the best balance for themselves, but the customer base being what it is, I'm struggling to think of a better solution than to do as they've done, and just keep crafting XP separate.

Actually, you know what? I'm being stupid. I've mocked others enough for thinking of ESO like it was a single-player game...

ESO has no scaling. Thus, If someone squats their backside down and crafts out the yin-yang before questing, they would be *over*

levelled for the content. That said, if they'd spent all their skill-points on crafting, it'd probably be a lot longer before they could get any more for combat. Maybe it would be an idea to lock crafting until level 10, then once they're deemed ready to enter Cyroddy goodness, let them level either way.

I dunno. I can't brain today, so that probably made no sense. Going back to work now.

Well I don't think the gimp would be nearly as bad in an MMO as it was in Skyrim. The only way it would really affect you is by limiting how high up your skill tree you could go. You could still get the level 1 skills for each tree and you'd still be plenty effective with those, as well as you base attack. Heck, the bonus of better (crafted) gear might mean this isn't even a problem.

Guild Wars 2 allowed you to level all the way to 80 via crafting (though doing so was time consuming and much harder than leveling the normal way) and they didn't have any of these problems.

The reason is that leveling still increases your health, magicka, stamina, and attack points.

I'd prefer for leveling via crafting to be limited more than in GW2 though. If the XP gain was such that a profession could gain you 5 levels, and 25 levels was the max you could gain simply via crafting, I doubt many people would elect to level only via that means.

But what this comes down to for me is a question of player freedom versus player restrictions. TES games are about player freedom. If I want to level via crafting, ignore all the quests you made, and limit my skill progression, then I should be able to. Todd Howard once said that TES games were about letting players make as many choices as possible, even bad ones.

Hmm, this looks interesting. If I'm reading it correctly, it looks like we'll have some really great options to customize our characters and "learn by doing". That all looks good to me.

I personally would prefer my characters to not get character levels (clvl) from crafting, but I can see the OP's point. I thought it was pretty cool that LOTRO implemented a system to earn clvls through crafting as it gave just enough to help make going through the early zones (again ad nauseum) a little faster. Gaining clvls via crafting in single player TES games was a great help at times as well. I think that worked well only because TES games are single player though and there's no need to balance game mechanics around anyone else.

What I'm hoping this recent disclosure means is that a player will be able to skill up crafting independently of clvl. I personally love to make a stable of crafters to support my main. If I can have alts who can make potent items without having to spend many hours questing to get the points needed to make the stuff I'll be one happy camper.

As far as the idea of people being over geared for their ability (in-game skills or actual player ability) goes, I think there's some merit but that it's not a completely valid argument. Because PVP is designed to scale up players to a certain level it seems to me that spending the time building up a set of awesome gear and then going to Cyrodil to practice/learn how to PVP seems a completely valid way to play. Likewise for PVE. Because we don't have specifically defined roles and set abilities at a given level as in previous MMOs I don't see there being a massive gimp factor. Also, because active combat skills will level up independently of use spending some time doing quests out in the landscape should help characters' combat abilities/skills catch up fairly quickly.

Overall it seems like Zenimax has put a lot of thought into balancing skill/ability/character level progression required for MMOs while still retaining the essence of skill/ability progression of the single player TES games. I'm really looking forward to seeing this in action.