Hey, we can't all be at our computers whenever a live-stream is on. That's why nice people like Shawn Brunelle capture important streams like ESO Live, ZeniMax's regular livestream of what's coming up in ESO.
This ESO Live Livestream breaks down the new Champion System that will be coming to the game soon in the 1.6 update, a signficant update the team teases as "almost like ESO 2.0."
If watching a two hour video is too much, other nice people at
Tamriel Foundry have a transcript of the whole thing prepared. Here's how ZeniMax developer Maria Aliprando describes the genesis of the Champion System.
"One of the things where we were not as satisfied as we wanted to be with the higher-end game was Veteran Ranks. While they did give progression, they didn’t provide the sort of open character development that we wanted to have in ESO. We recently allowed Veteran Ranks to give skill points and attribute points as a temporary fix for this, and we also recently converted Veteran Ranks to level using normal Experience Points, but these were both temporary fixes. What the Champion System is is a major character progression system for your character where you spend Champion Points to advance your character by unlocking passives that increase your Critical Chance, Armor, or other attributes. Once you have unlocked enough Passives you gain access to unique passives deeper in the trees.
Before, it was really easy to hit the soft caps on your Attributes, but now with soft caps removed, you’ll need to use the Champion System as a way to increase your attributes further. We analyzed where every possible source of attribute gain came from, points, levels, Mundus Stones, equipment, foods, etc.. Now, if you want to reach the highest possible level of an attribute for your character you need to work really hard to reach that level," Aliprando said.
The Champion system is an account-wide system, so if you earn a point for it with one character you can spend them on all of your characters using the new Champion constellation system. Yes, even the low-level ones, although the effectiveness of Champion passives is based on your stats so they won't make them overpowered. If you have veteran rank character you'll have 30 points to play with when the the system launches.
Aliprando also made it clear that although the Champion System is intended to replace Veteran Ranks, they won't be removed right way. ZeniMax wants to make sure everything is working correctly first.
