Veteran Maelstrom Arena, it doesn't need nerfing - it needs bug fixing

Gelassenheit · November 2015

There are so many bugs in vMA, that it is so difficult to really push yourself harder to complete the content. Before you say "L2P" and "get gud", I've finished it ~15 times, my personal best score is 395766.

To sum up the bugs from just a single run:

Stage 1, round 2 - All waves summoned at once, as opposed to coming in incremental waves.
Stage 3, all rounds - Stranglers pull you, then you instantly rubber band back to the place you were pulled from. Meanwhile, mobs at the place you were pulled decided to do a bunch of AoE's, so you port back into a bunch of AoE's.
Stage 4, round 2 and 3 - Again, all waves summoned at once.
Stage 6, all rounds - Even with 4/5 pillars 'unlocked' (no webs on them), no pillars are lit up. I had to kill the swarm of spiders TWICE because of this, and kit them around a third time.
Stage 6, round 2 - Disconnected from the game, luckily I wasn't kicked out of vMA, so I could resume. The disconnect happens when you ressurect, and are stuck in ghost-form. This sticks around for 2-3 minutes before you finally get kicked from the server (with no error message).
Stage 8, round 3 - The Draemora Catiff upper cut me for 580k - yes, 580,000 damage.
Stage 9, final boss - Again, disconnected in the same way.

Despite all of these instances, I managed to get a score of 380k.

I'd love to be able to push my limits, and get a #1 score, but with all of the bugs going on, it's nearly impossible. It's really a matter of the RNG gods being kind.

Moonshadow66 · November 2015

I agree, it definitely needs a fix first. If it needs a nerf could still be found out afterwards.

I got stuck in Stage 6 (I thought it was 5 first, but it's 6) because of the pillars. I had no chance to get out of the swarms plus there was nothing to go to (pillars were not "up"). I died about 5 times in the last round and gave up for now.

Ezareth · November 2015

Another bug I'd like to add that has happened to me twice and I was it happen to fengrush once is the Spider boss in Round 6 if she is defeated at the time she begins to call down lightning, everything will dissapear, including the red circles indicating the lightning everywhere yet the lightning will still continue to be summoned and will kill you unless you keep running around for awhile after defeating the boss.

Also the Round 7 boss, if you ever interrupt his scream will begin screaming randomly, especially after you kill one of the poison summoner guys for the rest of the battle instead of when one of his two handlers dies.

nordickittyhawk · November 2015

Dont forget round 7 with the sorcs shield you have stand under a bubble and sometime the sorc decides not to do it or way way to late. it should be a instant cast bubble

Gelassenheit · November 2015

Yeah, I didn't add round 7 in there, because it didn't happen to me (this time). It does happen quite often though.

The stomps from the boss that send out the lines usually hit me for 7.5k, sometimes though, they will do over 25k, which is totally fun, right? The other major thing for that boss, as previous posters have mentioned, is when the boss screams, the adds are to throw up a shield - sometimes they simply don't do it, or do it extremely late, and you're forced to eat 3-4 ticks of the scream. Sometimes, the scream even goes for 50k+.

The scream is supposed to kill the venomancers too, because they aren't in the shield. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, you've gotta pray that they don't summon a mushroom on you during the scream.

Ezareth · November 2015

nordickittyhawk wrote: »

Dont forget round 7 with the sorcs shield you have stand under a bubble and sometime the sorc decides not to do it or way way to late. it should be a instant cast bubble

They always bubble if you make sure you dont CC them. Either way you can always interrupt the boss during the first few seconds.

Alcast · November 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

nordickittyhawk wrote: »

Dont forget round 7 with the sorcs shield you have stand under a bubble and sometime the sorc decides not to do it or way way to late. it should be a instant cast bubble

They always bubble if you make sure you dont CC them. Either way you can always interrupt the boss during the first few seconds.

There is not always a bubble in time. Sometimes the mob decides to do a Light attack or a Lightning charge which delays the blue bubble so much that you are dead bc of the scream.

And interuppting the boss will result in oneshots.

Derra · November 2015

The main issue i take in the arena is how long it takes to finish. It´s absolutely horrible to spend more than 80mins in pve. Please let us save progress...

Alcast wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

nordickittyhawk wrote: »

Dont forget round 7 with the sorcs shield you have stand under a bubble and sometime the sorc decides not to do it or way way to late. it should be a instant cast bubble

They always bubble if you make sure you dont CC them. Either way you can always interrupt the boss during the first few seconds.

There is not always a bubble in time. Sometimes the mob decides to do a Light attack or a Lightning charge which delays the blue bubble so much that you are dead bc of the scream.

And interuppting the boss will result in oneshots.

Oneshots? That does not happen with ranged interrupts...

Alcast · November 2015

Derra wrote: »

The main issue i take in the arena is how long it takes to finish. It´s absolutely horrible to spend more than 80mins in pve. Please let us save progress...

Alcast wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

nordickittyhawk wrote: »

Dont forget round 7 with the sorcs shield you have stand under a bubble and sometime the sorc decides not to do it or way way to late. it should be a instant cast bubble

They always bubble if you make sure you dont CC them. Either way you can always interrupt the boss during the first few seconds.

There is not always a bubble in time. Sometimes the mob decides to do a Light attack or a Lightning charge which delays the blue bubble so much that you are dead bc of the scream.

And interuppting the boss will result in oneshots.

Oneshots? That does not happen with ranged interrupts...

Well sadly stamina classes do NOT have the luxury to go ranged

Bow is not an option at all because it got crippled in 1.6

Ishammael · November 2015

Derra wrote: »

The main issue i take in the arena is how long it takes to finish. It´s absolutely horrible to spend more than 80mins in pve. Please let us save progress...

Yeah this.

Gelassenheit · November 2015

Ishammael wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

The main issue i take in the arena is how long it takes to finish. It´s absolutely horrible to spend more than 80mins in pve. Please let us save progress...

Yeah this.

To some I suppose. I prefer PvE over PvP. Spending even 10 minutes in PvP and I'm already bored and sick of it. To each their own.

Nifty2g · November 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

nordickittyhawk wrote: »

Dont forget round 7 with the sorcs shield you have stand under a bubble and sometime the sorc decides not to do it or way way to late. it should be a instant cast bubble

They always bubble if you make sure you dont CC them. Either way you can always interrupt the boss during the first few seconds.

Lol no there isn't, the boss always enrages and hits you twice with scream before the mechanic is ready because they put the shield up too slow. Happens all the time. If you interupt the boss then you have to deal with his enrage timer, anything that hits you will one shot you.
Complete and utterly broken boss round, no idea how that got past PTS let alone let into Live. Is someone really not testing their game or reading the reports?

Regis_Filius · November 2015

Additonaly

At 3th arena:
- charge ability + strangler's pull = stuck in the air

At 6th arena:
- can stuck at obelisk.
- swarm and lightning aoe can drops at the same time, I'm sure these mechanics should be separated. Many times I got swarm, boss aoe, mobs aoe on the obelisk and have a scanty chance to survive.

Mobs:
- nightblade's agony controls trough block, is it a bug or feature? Nightblades have 3 control abilites, dodge and cloak, the most annoying mob.
- healer can heal right after bash. I have to bash him twice or thrice if he use healer's ult.
- range mobs can attack while they are in portal, several times got 2 quick shots for 6,6k each.

AoE you leave two days ago kill you but I guess it is because of lags.

ZOS_Seiffer · November 2015

Hi everyone. The feedback is appreciated. Just to comment on a couple things that were mentioned:

Nifty2g wrote: »

Lol no there isn't, the boss always enrages and hits you twice with scream before the mechanic is ready because they put the shield up too slow.

This was addressed and the fix is live. The moment the shield begins to cast, you will be protected from the scream if standing within the protective radius.

Ezareth wrote: »

Another bug I'd like to add that has happened to me twice and I was it happen to fengrush once is the Spider boss in Round 6 if she is defeated at the time she begins to call down lightning, everything will dissapear, including the red circles indicating the lightning everywhere yet the lightning will still continue to be summoned and will kill you unless you keep running around for awhile after defeating the boss.

We identified the issue with the lightning and the fix will be put in an upcoming patch. You will no longer be hit by the lightning after the boss has been defeated. And as an added side note, since you mentioned @FENGRUSH, the Heated Blades ability (causes your character to miss attacks when hit with the debuff) that the Spiderkith Berserkers use is being removed from Arena 6 (Spiral Shadows).

Regis_Filius wrote: »

At 3th arena:
- charge ability + strangler's pull = stuck in the air

At 6th arena:
- can stuck at obelisk.
- swarm and lightning aoe can drops at the same time, I'm sure these mechanics should be separated. Many times I got swarm, boss aoe, mobs aoe on the obelisk and have a scanty chance to survive.

Mobs:
- nightblade's agony controls trough block, is it a bug or feature? Nightblades have 3 control abilites, dodge and cloak, the most annoying mob.
- healer can heal right after bash. I have to bash him twice or thrice if he use healer's ult.

The Strangler's pull in Arena 3 (Drome of Toxic Shock) is being addressed. We've received lots of feedback on this gameplay and how the pull has been creating some frustration. Expect the changes to take effect in an upcoming patch!

Would you mind elaborating on how the obelisk impacts your gameplay? Is your character getting stuck on the obelisk and unable to move or are you having difficulties moving around the collision on the obelisk?

The spider swarm functions independently from the Champion of Atrocity's Call Lightning ability. This means you can run into situations where the lightning is crashing down and the spider swarm burrows up to attack. In moments like these, remember you don't have to necessarily stand right next to a glowing obelisk. The spider swarm just needs to path through the light of the obelisk in order to be frightened off.

The healer's Rite of Passage ability has a bug where interrupting the ability does not trigger the global cooldown on the monster. This means that after you interrupt the ability, the monster can immediately begin casting another spell. This is not intended and will be fixed in an upcoming patch.

Preyfar · November 2015

Seiffer wrote: »

Would you mind elaborating on how the obelisk impacts your gameplay? Is your character getting stuck on the obelisk and unable to move or are you having difficulties moving around the collision on the obelisk?

You can teleport (using skills like Ambush) onto or next to the obelisk and end up stuck inside the object's geometry, causing you to be unable to move. When this happens, your only choice is to hope to find another target to try to Ambush to get out of it... or to Wayshrine out of the Arena and run back inside.

At least that's been my experience with it.

Ezareth · November 2015

Alcast wrote: »

Well sadly stamina classes do NOT have the luxury to go ranged Bow is not an option at all because it got crippled in 1.6

I kill the boss exclusively with Crushing shock and light/heavy attacks(I use my overload on the adds only). I agree if you're trying to rush through the encounter to get the best time possible closing in to melee the boss is going to give you the quickest kill but it is also the riskiest. Venom Arrow spam on the boss is totally viable as a means to kill him.

Alcast wrote: »

There is not always a bubble in time. Sometimes the mob decides to do a Light attack or a Lightning charge which delays the blue bubble so much that you are dead bc of the scream.

And interrupting the boss will result in oneshots.

I've fought the boss easily 100 times and this has never happened to me. When the adds spawn I immediately close with one since they both attack with light attacks at the same time my reflect will reflect to and stun the add nearest me. I'll burn him down fast and before I land the killing blow I'll check to make sure the other add isn't on top of or close to a mushroom and then kill him. The boss will either immediately begin his scream or he will finish his current attack and then scream. The moment he begins screaming the add will begin casting his shield (and now the protection is fully deployed the moment he begins casting it). The *only* time I've had the adds not cast their shield is if I CC'ed them in some way. Perhaps if one is charging you you are fighting them to close together due to your playstyle or something but the only time the adds lightning charge you is if you're close to them and I thought they only did that post-scream.

Nifty2g wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

nordickittyhawk wrote: »

Dont forget round 7 with the sorcs shield you have stand under a bubble and sometime the sorc decides not to do it or way way to late. it should be a instant cast bubble

They always bubble if you make sure you dont CC them. Either way you can always interrupt the boss during the first few seconds.

Lol no there isn't, the boss always enrages and hits you twice with scream before the mechanic is ready because they put the shield up too slow. Happens all the time. If you interupt the boss then you have to deal with his enrage timer, anything that hits you will one shot you.
Complete and utterly broken boss round, no idea how that got past PTS let alone let into Live. Is someone really not testing their game or reading the reports?

@nifty2g I often just interrupt his scream regardless because the second add is on a Mushroom, I accidentally CC'ed him, or is too far away or on top of the boss and I don't want to risk him hitting me so I just interrupt the scream. The boss actually enrages when you kill his handler(Turns Red). The only way he un-enrages is if he gets off the full scream (Turns green).

I don't really see any major bugs but I admit I still die to this boss every day or so because of the fact there are so many RNG possibilities to account for. For instance the poison add spawned last night and I was in between two mushrooms, there was only a small safe area between them that I could position myself in to avoid the poison, yet as luck had it at that exact time the boss Stomp AoE ripped through that single spot and killed me.

@Seiffer It seems to me that this AoE from the boss and the AoE from those plant mini-boss adds in Stage 8 have AoE that does vastly different damage. Sometimes I'm hit by the Stage 8 Boss AoE and it will take about half of my shield down (~13K damage). Other times it will take my entire shield down and bring me to a sliver of health or flat out 1-shot me through my shields. Same with the Stage 8 mini-boss AoE which does similar damage. It almost seems as if the AoE hits you several times all at once or something. Is this Intended?

Great job on identifying and fixing the Spider boss AoE. Have you identified the cause of having all the of waves in an arena spawning at once? I actually had this happen to me in the third stage of the first Arena last night.

Also is it possible to slightly increase the time between the next wave spawning to give a player a chance to swap out an ability? Right now this is extremely difficult and is often needed for different waves. At very least can you reset all of the timers that act independently in the area? (Examples are the Trolls that break Ice flows, the little robots in Stage 4, and the poison adds in Stage 7. I died last night to stage 7 because the moment a wave spawned the poison add spawned with them I had to scramble to avoid a mushroom. Then an archer began his venomshot at exactly the same time a NB add cast agony on me. By the time I broke free and dodge rolled I was still clipped by the poison and died before I could make it to the cleansing pool. I'd have been able to address the issue faster if the poison add hadn't spawned right at the start etc. It really can screw you over sometimes if you get bad timings on those independent timers.

Nifty2g · November 2015

@Ezareth I know how the mechanic works

I tend not to interrupt because of being a Templar I'd die

EgoRush · November 2015

Yes to Stage 6 with the totems not lighting up despite being devoid of webs. Either it's a visual bug and the web is there or these aren't functioning properly. Playing as a Templar with fantastic mobility means this is never an issue for me (/sarcasm). I'm confident it's not a visual bug as I've sometimes recently cleared webs with a hoarver and still had the totem remain inactive when a swarm comes for me.

Yes to stranglers being a huge issue too. I have to watch for their spawn and nuke them before they start pulling otherwise I get pulled across the map, slingshot back, then get killed by the boss/adds chilling out there waiting for me.

Gelassenheit · November 2015

EgoRush wrote: »

Yes to Stage 6 with the totems not lighting up despite being devoid of webs. Either it's a visual bug and the web is there or these aren't functioning properly. Playing as a Templar with fantastic mobility means this is never an issue for me (/sarcasm). I'm confident it's not a visual bug as I've sometimes recently cleared webs with a hoarver and still had the totem remain inactive when a swarm comes for me.

Yes to stranglers being a huge issue too. I have to watch for their spawn and nuke them before they start pulling otherwise I get pulled across the map, slingshot back, then get killed by the boss/adds chilling out there waiting for me.

This. So many deaths because of this. It's the only reason I die on that stage now. Slingshot OP.

ZOS_Seiffer · November 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

@Seiffer It seems to me that this AoE from the boss and the AoE from those plant mini-boss adds in Stage 8 have AoE that does vastly different damage. Sometimes I'm hit by the Stage 8 Boss AoE and it will take about half of my shield down (~13K damage). Other times it will take my entire shield down and bring me to a sliver of health or flat out 1-shot me through my shields. Same with the Stage 8 mini-boss AoE which does similar damage. It almost seems as if the AoE hits you several times all at once or something. Is this Intended?

When you mention the plant mini-boss adds in Stage 8, do you mean the Lurchers? It's not clear which abilities you are referring to but in most cases an AoE should only hit you once. Unless it is a moving AoE attack which could potentially roll over you multiple times if you move the wrong way. If you clarify which abilities you are curious about we will have a more definitive answer.

Ezareth wrote: »

Great job on identifying and fixing the Spider boss AoE. Have you identified the cause of having all the of waves in an arena spawning at once? I actually had this happen to me in the third stage of the first Arena last night.

No problem! It is a nasty issue that really sucks to die to. And we haven't identified the cause of multiple waves spawning all at the same time. That issue is still being investigated. But we will update you as soon as we have a solution!

Ezareth wrote: »

Also is it possible to slightly increase the time between the next wave spawning to give a player a chance to swap out an ability? Right now this is extremely difficult and is often needed for different waves. At very least can you reset all of the timers that act independently in the area? (Examples are the Trolls that break Ice flows, the little robots in Stage 4, and the poison adds in Stage 7.

We made a conscious decision to always push the action throughout the arena. Part of the challenge is how you choose to deal with each incoming wave, and the order in which you dispatch the current one. If we add time between each wave, the pacing will slow down and players looking to maximize their run times may lose some strategic choices. This change isn't outside the realm of possibility, but currently there are no plans to edit the timing on the incoming waves.

The environmental hazards in each arena are also another way we maintain the action. These include the things you mentioned. The design was meant to provide a momentum to your runs through the arena. For example, the hoarvors in Arena 6 (Spiral Shadows). The hoarvors continue to waddle through the area allowing you the chance to remove webbing from the obelisks independent of the spawning waves. How you choose to interact with the environmental challenges in between rounds/waves has an impact on your continued success. This was one way we could give the arenas life beyond the static boundaries of the round structure.

ZOS_Seiffer · November 2015

EgoRush wrote: »

Yes to Stage 6 with the totems not lighting up despite being devoid of webs. Either it's a visual bug and the web is there or these aren't functioning properly. Playing as a Templar with fantastic mobility means this is never an issue for me (/sarcasm). I'm confident it's not a visual bug as I've sometimes recently cleared webs with a hoarver and still had the totem remain inactive when a swarm comes for me.

We've seen feedback similar to this with the obelisks not lighting up. There could be some misconception on how the obelisks function so this is how they work:

A webbed obelisk can not protect you and will not resonate. An obelisk free of webbing has the ability to resonate. When an obelisk resonates, it will provide 15 seconds of protection. Once an obelisk is done resonating, its energy is exhausted for a short duration and will not be able to resonate for a bit. At any given time, there can be one or two obelisks resonating. If you have two uncovered, one should resonate and just before that one finishes, the other uncovered obelisk should begin resonating. So there is a window where there is an overlap and two obelisks are actively providing protection.

If a webspinner emerges to web up an obelisk, that particular obelisk can not resonate because the webspinner is suppressing its energy. If you want to allow the webspinners targeted obelisk to resonate, you must first defeat the webspinner. So let's say you have two obelisks that are uncovered. One obelisk resonates and before it finishes, the second obelisk has a webspinner emerge to cover it. The resonating obelisk could finish resonating and go dormant for a short duration. And at the same time, that webspinner is suppressing the second obelisk. So in that scenario, you may see two obelisks that are not covered in webs and neither are actively providing a safe area. In this case you would have to dispatch the webspinner to stop the suppression of the second obelisk and once the webspinner dies, the obelisk should immediately begin resonating.

Hopefully that sheds some light on how the obelisks work!

EgoRush wrote: »

Yes to stranglers being a huge issue too. I have to watch for their spawn and nuke them before they start pulling otherwise I get pulled across the map, slingshot back, then get killed by the boss/adds chilling out there waiting for me.

As was mentioned previously, the Stranglers have been addressed internally and a patch is on the way. The Stranglers will no longer grip you, however they will continue to be a threat within the arena.

Alcast · November 2015

@Seiffer What about the bug that drops you out of werewolf in stage 6?

Apparently the minibugs are the cause of this, so as soon as one of the bugs explodes you get transformed back into human form and you cannot swap bars because the "ww ulti" is still "active" although I am in human form.

Ezareth · November 2015

Seiffer wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

@Seiffer It seems to me that this AoE from the boss and the AoE from those plant mini-boss adds in Stage 8 have AoE that does vastly different damage. Sometimes I'm hit by the Stage 8 Boss AoE and it will take about half of my shield down (~13K damage). Other times it will take my entire shield down and bring me to a sliver of health or flat out 1-shot me through my shields. Same with the Stage 8 mini-boss AoE which does similar damage. It almost seems as if the AoE hits you several times all at once or something. Is this Intended?

When you mention the plant mini-boss adds in Stage 8, do you mean the Lurchers? It's not clear which abilities you are referring to but in most cases an AoE should only hit you once. Unless it is a moving AoE attack which could potentially roll over you multiple times if you move the wrong way. If you clarify which abilities you are curious about we will have a more definitive answer.

Ezareth wrote: »

Great job on identifying and fixing the Spider boss AoE. Have you identified the cause of having all the of waves in an arena spawning at once? I actually had this happen to me in the third stage of the first Arena last night.

No problem! It is a nasty issue that really sucks to die to. And we haven't identified the cause of multiple waves spawning all at the same time. That issue is still being investigated. But we will update you as soon as we have a solution!

Ezareth wrote: »

Also is it possible to slightly increase the time between the next wave spawning to give a player a chance to swap out an ability? Right now this is extremely difficult and is often needed for different waves. At very least can you reset all of the timers that act independently in the area? (Examples are the Trolls that break Ice flows, the little robots in Stage 4, and the poison adds in Stage 7.

We made a conscious decision to always push the action throughout the arena. Part of the challenge is how you choose to deal with each incoming wave, and the order in which you dispatch the current one. If we add time between each wave, the pacing will slow down and players looking to maximize their run times may lose some strategic choices. This change isn't outside the realm of possibility, but currently there are no plans to edit the timing on the incoming waves.

The environmental hazards in each arena are also another way we maintain the action. These include the things you mentioned. The design was meant to provide a momentum to your runs through the arena. For example, the hoarvors in Arena 6 (Spiral Shadows). The hoarvors continue to waddle through the area allowing you the chance to remove webbing from the obelisks independent of the spawning waves. How you choose to interact with the environmental challenges in between rounds/waves has an impact on your continued success. This was one way we could give the arenas life beyond the static boundaries of the round structure.

@Seiffer

Yes I'm talking about the Lurchers, sorry I couldn't think of the name of them. The AoE they use shares similarities to the damage done by the Stage 7 boss. If one of the lines of AoE rolls over you, sometimes it does a fair bit of damage and sometimes it just kills you 100% from full health even with a max size shield up (For me this is 26,000 + 16K health = 42K damage). Since the death recap doesn't break down whether you were actually hit by a single attack or multiple hits from the same wave it is hard to determine whether it is just a random inconsistency or a learning opportunity.

What I'm asking I guess if the AoE from these bosses "rolls over" you, should you only be hit by it once or can the same "line" of AoE hit you multiple times? In my experience this seems very inconsistent. Sometimes if I screw up it just hits me and does a lot of damage, othertimes it flat out kills me.

I understand what you were saying about the pacing and those decisions and I find the somewhat hectic pace of each arena to be satisfying. I'm just trying to think of ways to minimalize some of the randomized encounters you experience that are almost always fatal without actually "nerfing" the difficulty of the encounters themselves.

Nifty2g · November 2015

Hey @Seiffer in regards to round 6 mechanics on the obelisk's a suggestion I have if possible, usually a webber can emerge during a swarm and totally remove your active obelisk's this can happen straight after you light them all up and a swarm can happen, this is partly due to bad timing on players end and RNG of the mechanic. My suggestion would be to stop mechanics from clashing and to make it so webbers can't emerge during an active swarm.

Joy_Division · November 2015

Seiffer wrote: »

Hi everyone. The feedback is appreciated. Just to comment on a couple things that were mentioned ...
Would you mind elaborating on how the obelisk impacts your gameplay? Is your character getting stuck on the obelisk and unable to move or are you having difficulties moving around the collision on the obelisk?

Hi @Seiffer

Now that you brought this up, if I said I hated the stage 6 boss, that would be understating my dislike of that fight. I don't mind challenges. I don't mind being tasked to so multiple things at once and having to prioritize them. I do mind unforgiving mechanics and unavoidable RNG death which this particular fight has more of than all the other fights in the arena combined excepting the last boss.

I understand if I make a blunder - an outright L2P issue like not getting out of an obvious red circle or a 3 second uppercut - than I can get one-shotted. Acceptable. If I make a relative modest mistake, I am of the belief things should merely get more difficult and require skillful and precise play and this fight too often fails not make that distinction.

Specifically:

The enrage timer is not a "the fight is going to get a lot harder" mechanism (as was the case with every single boss in Dragonstar Arena), rather it is a you are insta-dying.
If you unintentionally kill a horvor away from an obolisk, you are pretty much forced to go through that awful interactive mechanic that leaves your character defenseless and just takes too long with the cumulative time it takes the game to interact with the grenade, aim it, and go through the synergy motion to throw it. By that time an high-damaging AOE is bound to form under your feet. (It's a lot like the lava in the final boss phase which STUNS you when you take the portal up to the top that I hate hate hate). I do not think ground AOEs that track the player are a good combination with stuff we have to interact with because we lose control of our characters. You pretty much are forced to go through this because of the enrage insta-die ... you have a margin of error of about 1 missed webspinner/horvor.
When the spider swarm is out and the lighted obelisk just happens to be where the boss is, you are going to eat a 20k+ AOE.
This seem to happen a lot to me: When the boss releases herself from the stun, a spider swarm immediately appears and there is no lighted safe zone because all the obelisks but 1 are webbed. Death by RNG.
In general I do not think the idea of "safe zones" or areas where you have to be (such as the defenseless interaction with the grenade) combined with instant high damage ground AOE is a good mixture.

All of the above mechanics happen while you are eating 7K spits that cannot be kited or avoided unless you are a dragonknight who constantly flaps (which is not necessary a more efficient form of damage mitigation than a 20K sorcerer hardened ward). A *lot* of unavoidable damage that you just have to eat.

That's just how you die ... you still have to actually complete the fight which is has a very steep curve between a mistake - not a blunder - quickly spirals to inevitable death.

The webspinners have an insane spawn rate. I began to count and sometimes one spawns 5 seconds after I killed one. You miss 1, you *might* be able to overcome it if you do everything else correctly. You miss two, the fight is over. You lose. Too bad.
High mobility is required for the fight, that it is not optional (already biased against templars and DKs), and yet has 2 super-snare mechanics. If you missed a horvor/webspinner and the mini-spider is out, the mini-spider has to wait ... which means you are now immobile ... which means you are getting a spider spawn or huge ground AoEs (all the time eating 7K damage ticks from the boss)
If there is AOE on the boss and a horvor happens to be in it or go through it, you are going to have to go through those awful mechanics, eat the ground AoE and the 20K+ storm PBAOE the boss puts out. you have to do this because of the insta-die mechanic.
The grenades deteriorate way too fast in a fight that demands you do a lot of things at the same time.

I don't like this fight because one rather moderate mistake such as hitting a horvor with a residual AoE outside an obelisk potentially means you have to risk a wipe to make good one that mistake. Two moderate mistakes, let's say you decide not to risk the grenade because the boss is standing on it and now a spiderspawn swarms so you got to go to the side opposite where a webspinner is and you can't kill it means just wipe. Nothing you can do. No overcoming it. The enrage timer will kill you no matter how well you play the rest of the way. It's too unforgiving.

*****

A lot of people claim this arena is too hard. I disagree. Strongly. I have done every fight and I will tell you the only ones that I feel require me to play to up to my potential is the 3rd wave in Ice Stage (just the sheer number of adds and damage you have to eat), the 4th wave in the Spider Stage (4 mini-bosses are a handful), and waves 2-5 in the final stage (that's legit hard). All the other fights, even the bosses (excepting the last one, perhaps the ice boss until you get used to it), are eminently and consistently doable once you are aware of the mechanics / threats and have a build and routine you are comfortable with.

I think many people believe it is too hard because there are too many unforgiving mechanics. The Spider boss epitomizes this theme. You basically decided to make the bosses in stage 1, 4, and 8 DPS races where failure means you just lose because overwhelmed by adds. Not sure requiring a high DPS content in a SOLO instance is particularly fair. High DPS is already a significant advantage in that there is less time a player exposes themselves to danger. But now a "tank" oriented character not only exposes themselves to the same perils as the DPS, but is faced by a horde of high damaging adds that even their builds cannot mitigate. I tried to take out the 3rd set of adds in round 4 boss (the spider, sphere, and battlemage), it is *exceedingly* difficult to do so while dodging/eating all the AoE flying around and even if you do, the amount of "safe" time to DPS the boss is going to be very little, which means more adds. But the fight is a cakewalk for someone who can DPS it down in 90 seconds. Disparity is too wide. Failure to maintain a high DPS is too unforgiving.

*****

While I am at it, I'd like to point out the unforgiving and just frustrating mechanics is the final boss round.

I *hate* it when you use the portal to go up to the top, your character is defensless and in the area where a stunning lava flow that does 10k+ damage hit you. You arrive at the top stunned (which takes forever to break). Really, really, really dislike this. More of the "you have to be here + high damaging AoE" combination.
I really think the daedroth and clannfear on the bottom should not track you at the top and arrive the instant you jump/get knock off and proceed with their combined 14K damage. It's hard enough taking them both out and dealing with the healer add on their own, having them immediately pounce on us in a weakened state is, again, too unforgiving. One time while I was stunned in the lava, the clannfear ran up to me and hit me with a 15K tail swipe. There was no defense against that.
The wildfire DoT the daedroth cannot be purged/cleansed and persists indefinitely against you if you use the portal before to go to the top before you kill the daedroth. Is this intended?
The healer add sometimes snares you for upwards of 30+ seconds. Is this intended? Is this a bug? (I have a recording).

Ezareth · November 2015

Seiffer wrote: »

EgoRush wrote: »

Yes to Stage 6 with the totems not lighting up despite being devoid of webs. Either it's a visual bug and the web is there or these aren't functioning properly. Playing as a Templar with fantastic mobility means this is never an issue for me (/sarcasm). I'm confident it's not a visual bug as I've sometimes recently cleared webs with a hoarver and still had the totem remain inactive when a swarm comes for me.

We've seen feedback similar to this with the obelisks not lighting up. There could be some misconception on how the obelisks function so this is how they work:

A webbed obelisk can not protect you and will not resonate. An obelisk free of webbing has the ability to resonate. When an obelisk resonates, it will provide 15 seconds of protection. Once an obelisk is done resonating, its energy is exhausted for a short duration and will not be able to resonate for a bit. At any given time, there can be one or two obelisks resonating. If you have two uncovered, one should resonate and just before that one finishes, the other uncovered obelisk should begin resonating. So there is a window where there is an overlap and two obelisks are actively providing protection.

If a webspinner emerges to web up an obelisk, that particular obelisk can not resonate because the webspinner is suppressing its energy. If you want to allow the webspinners targeted obelisk to resonate, you must first defeat the webspinner. So let's say you have two obelisks that are uncovered. One obelisk resonates and before it finishes, the second obelisk has a webspinner emerge to cover it. The resonating obelisk could finish resonating and go dormant for a short duration. And at the same time, that webspinner is suppressing the second obelisk. So in that scenario, you may see two obelisks that are not covered in webs and neither are actively providing a safe area. In this case you would have to dispatch the webspinner to stop the suppression of the second obelisk and once the webspinner dies, the obelisk should immediately begin resonating.

Hopefully that sheds some light on how the obelisks work!

EgoRush wrote: »

Yes to stranglers being a huge issue too. I have to watch for their spawn and nuke them before they start pulling otherwise I get pulled across the map, slingshot back, then get killed by the boss/adds chilling out there waiting for me.

As was mentioned previously, the Stranglers have been addressed internally and a patch is on the way. The Stranglers will no longer grip you, however they will continue to be a threat within the arena.

@Seiffer

You can see the issue people are bringing up in my video here begining at @1:05

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDbc4jKFyBU

There are 2 unwebbed obelisks. One is fading and then a webspinner spawns and begins wrapping up the other obelisk as the swarm spawns. I immediately kill the webspinner yet when he dies there is still no golden obelisk anywhere despite 2 being free and unwebbed. I kite the swarm around for a couple of seconds using Ball of Lightning and then the original Obelisk that had faded lights up again and I disperse the swarm with that obelisk.

I think if a Webspinner is supressing an obelisk before it is supposed to activate that even when it is killed that obelisk will no activate at all.

Nifty2g · November 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

Seiffer wrote: »

EgoRush wrote: »

Yes to Stage 6 with the totems not lighting up despite being devoid of webs. Either it's a visual bug and the web is there or these aren't functioning properly. Playing as a Templar with fantastic mobility means this is never an issue for me (/sarcasm). I'm confident it's not a visual bug as I've sometimes recently cleared webs with a hoarver and still had the totem remain inactive when a swarm comes for me.

We've seen feedback similar to this with the obelisks not lighting up. There could be some misconception on how the obelisks function so this is how they work:

A webbed obelisk can not protect you and will not resonate. An obelisk free of webbing has the ability to resonate. When an obelisk resonates, it will provide 15 seconds of protection. Once an obelisk is done resonating, its energy is exhausted for a short duration and will not be able to resonate for a bit. At any given time, there can be one or two obelisks resonating. If you have two uncovered, one should resonate and just before that one finishes, the other uncovered obelisk should begin resonating. So there is a window where there is an overlap and two obelisks are actively providing protection.

If a webspinner emerges to web up an obelisk, that particular obelisk can not resonate because the webspinner is suppressing its energy. If you want to allow the webspinners targeted obelisk to resonate, you must first defeat the webspinner. So let's say you have two obelisks that are uncovered. One obelisk resonates and before it finishes, the second obelisk has a webspinner emerge to cover it. The resonating obelisk could finish resonating and go dormant for a short duration. And at the same time, that webspinner is suppressing the second obelisk. So in that scenario, you may see two obelisks that are not covered in webs and neither are actively providing a safe area. In this case you would have to dispatch the webspinner to stop the suppression of the second obelisk and once the webspinner dies, the obelisk should immediately begin resonating.

Hopefully that sheds some light on how the obelisks work!

EgoRush wrote: »

Yes to stranglers being a huge issue too. I have to watch for their spawn and nuke them before they start pulling otherwise I get pulled across the map, slingshot back, then get killed by the boss/adds chilling out there waiting for me.

As was mentioned previously, the Stranglers have been addressed internally and a patch is on the way. The Stranglers will no longer grip you, however they will continue to be a threat within the arena.

@Seiffer

You can see the issue people are bringing up in my video here begining at @1:05
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDbc4jKFyBU

There are 2 unwebbed obelisks. One is fading and then a webspinner spawns and begins wrapping up the other obelisk as the swarm spawns. I immediately kill the webspinner yet when he dies there is still no golden obelisk anywhere despite 2 being free and unwebbed. I kite the swarm around for a couple of seconds using Ball of Lightning and then the original Obelisk that had faded lights up again and I disperse the swarm with that obelisk.

I think if a Webspinner is supressing an obelisk before it is supposed to activate that even when it is killed that obelisk will no activate at all.

I think to avoid that we should make it so webspinners cant spawn during a swarm to avoid this mechanic clashing

Bfish22090 · November 2015

I dislike that if you log out for 15 minutes or take a bio break and come back, you have to start from the beginning

Nifty2g · November 2015

Bfish22090 wrote: »

I dislike that if you log out for 15 minutes or take a bio break and come back, you have to start from the beginning

Please don't change that lol
I liked their reasoning for it when they chatted about it on eso live

ZOS_Seiffer · November 2015

Alcast wrote: »

@Seiffer What about the bug that drops you out of werewolf in stage 6?

Apparently the minibugs are the cause of this, so as soon as one of the bugs explodes you get transformed back into human form and you cannot swap bars because the "ww ulti" is still "active" although I am in human form.

Thank you for pointing this one out @Alcast. A fix for this issue will be included in an upcoming patch!

The actual bug is the synergy for the Venom Grenades removes your werewolf form when you get in range of a Venom Grenade. This is definitely not intended behavior. When the fix goes live, you will retain your werewolf form and be able to toss the grenade using werewolf based animations.

And in the process of fixing this issue, we are also fixing the Flesh Grenades in Imperial City Prison. Those grenades suffer from the same exact problem. Much appreciated for pointing this out and taking the time to post @Alcast!

And thank you @Joy_Division for your detailed post. As a team we are actively collecting data (like the things mentioned in your post) and watching as many streams as we can to see how we can improve the experience.

SoulScream · November 2015

It could also use non random rewards. I haven't been interested enough in it to put in the time, gold cost, etc etc, to get a drop with a crap trait I don't want. I don't like repeating the same content over and over either. Though I did enjoy playing it once.