vet Maelstrom-Arena... satisfying?

Nazruk

hey folks,

usually i dont write in forums and especially not with complaints.
and i'm not a native english-speaker, so please excuse my grammar.
this time i just have to point something out which really bothers me (and i think many other players aswell).

first off, i love the game as such. i loved all elderscrolls games and i think you guys are great in designing a fascinating, intoxicating and immersive world.
from the first hour in this game it was noticeable that a lot of love and effort getting into details. which makes playing the game really satisfying.

i couldnt get rid of the feeling tho, that since IC something in there has changed, something is noticeable different. i been thinking a lot about what it could be and after a while i think i found out what bothers me at the moment.
it's the feeling, that you changed your policy. a feeling that you changed the path your walking on together with us players. the feeling, you badly want to keep people busy with farming/grinding as long as possible. tell me if i'm wrong, but i don't think it has always been like that.

i've been farming WGT and IP with my friends for 2 months (no joke, nearly every day several hours) because it was challenging and fun..first.
after we realised, that the dropchance of the sets we like to farm there combined with the random-traits and the fact they're bound, we started to question what we're actually doing there. it felt stupid somehow. like if somebody wants to keep you away from your coins you actually "working" and spending a lot of time for.

after the two months and the announcement of orsinium some of us had the sets and traits they wanted to, others didnt even see some items or got 3 pieces in "well-fitted".
this weird feeling of beeing in some sort of a "job creation scheme" (sorry, had to directly translate it from german) continues now in Orsinium....

since day one i'm running maelstrom veteran. it's hard, unforgiving and challenging. it's supposed to be like that and i really like that.
there are several things i really dislike about it tho. i'll just list em

- itemization : the sets dropping in there. they're not horrible, but i dont know anybody who is "happy" about looting anything in there except of the Master Weapons. they might have some usage in pvp or some special encounters, but they don't contribute to actually improving/mastering the content which is....the Arena and PvP (which is probably at it's worst performance at the moment aswell). everything is BoP, i mean not that somebody would actually buy these things for a lot of money, but that would at least be one way of getting the costs these runs create. another thing i realized when i actually was having a look at all the gear i've been looting in vetMA. i've been keeping 36 of the items i found in there and checked theyre traits. 3 divines, 8 reinforced, 4 infused and 21 of em are well-fitted! i've been talking to other players and asked them about they're feeling. and they confirmed the impression, that well-fitted is the most common trait you seem to get in vetMA.
intended?
i hope it's not, but still it underlines the general impression i have about the policy ZOS is walking with now. and that's not only unsatisfying as a player, it's even kinda imoral and doesnt really suit a game, which actually wants to be somehow a more "mature and adult" game then others games are and where you can actually expect such policy.

- droprates[/i: i did around 15-20 runs so far and i found 1 (one) single Masterweapon in the chest. i know, its a random chance like everything. but combined with the impression i was explaining before, it leads to a weird, unsatisfying gameplay.
and the weekly-rewards. wow. shouldnt it be rewarding if somebody is able to run and finish the hardest content in the game right now with a good score? getting the same stuff u get while running the first boss but in improved quality is everything else then satisfying, really. bump the chances of Masterweapons or Jewelry in there or bring something Unique or at least something useful as weekly-rewards. This is really horrible.

- gold sink: you need potions in there, and you most likely will die a lot. it takes a lot of time to complete and getting used to mechanics aswell. if your not rich already, you might only be able to run it every 2 or 3 days (depends on how much time you have to play) because you have to farm gold during the runs. intended?

- random factors: several glitches and mechanics are just really horrible. the stranglers, which pull you and (seems if you're to far away from them) teleport you back to where you've been before ...and maybe a snake is giving you a warm welcome with a heavyattack and a poison+lightningcloud happens to appear beneath your feet.
the poison on stage 7 is something similar. it's spawns randomly and it happened 5 times to me already, that i just got agonized by a berserker (instantly broke it) and simultaniously poison spawned beneath my feet. of course, i could slot some interrupt for this case, but is it intended to be like that? and for some reason it's not possible to avoid agony with a rolldodge, you'll still get the CC.
one last annoying thing is that if you slack with the DPS on last boss or fall down from the upper circle, you have to handly another daedroths. if u decide to only kill the clannfear near the portal and leave the daedroths, because it's kinda hard to handly both of em, you will most likely die upstairs. you know why? because if you get the burning breath debuff , kill clannfear and go upstairs you'll keep burning upstairs until you come down again.
intended?

Does anybody else have similar feelings? Or is it just my destructive-thinking which leads me to conclusion like that?

Regards,
Nazruk

Samphaa

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, I don't like the whole bind on pick-up thing, I get that ZOS is trying to keep us in the game for along as possible, but there's a very thin line between keep players happy with steady progression and putting items in that will take months to aquire, that leads to grinding, which eventually leads to boredom, which in turn leads to trying something else (a different game).

jd_newell_ESO

The points you bring up are valid, and are the reasons many people I know have either moved on from this game or are giving it a break for awhile.

Personally I am giving it a break because of all the points you have listed. In particular the prevalence of " well fitted" on sets. I don't mind a chance of it rolling with well fitted on it, but when the chance is > 50% you will get well fitted on a drop then that's just a way to keep people grinding. Which in itself is just a mask for lack of content.

Overall I think this is a good game and have enjoyed playing it, but with the holidays coming up and the plethora of good games being released I just cant see myself grinding in ESO for yet another piece of " well fitted" gear.

nosrevelk

That blows... they can release 1 DLC per month and that won't be enough.

A mmo with a broken grind won't be able to keep it up with the amount of players leaving.

Leon119

Still waiting for zos to change well fitted to cost reduction for all

silky_soft

Leon119 wrote: »

Still waiting for zos to change well fitted to cost reduction for all

Yea for sure, more like this.

Well fitted should be movement speed boost.
Sturdy should be cc immunity time increase or less time in cc.
Exploration should be cost reduction.
Training should be all xp. Not just for that skill line.

TiberX

I hate it!!!
I have been there only once and on my first attempt finished 5 stages but it took me 2 1/2 hrs

I wont go back there because i wont do a dungeon for hours and hours , i get bored.

I don't see why cant we save progress on a solo content. I understand that u cant save SO or DSA because it involves other people but this is like any dungeon where u can quest. It would help people learn it in different way that grinding it for hours to get back where u left it. If u save it u could get the lower possible score and that's it, would not affect leaderboard people.

Almost forgot to mention that currently there are about a 100 people doing it only on all their chars, same who always say LTP. i know how to play but read above pls.

PS : i am not asking for a nerf

willymchilybily

With an MMO there always a balance between reward and time spent, the devs have to reach a balance. You cant give stuff away, but you want people to want to play the content and enjoy it, but not getting loot can actually diminish some of the enjoyment coming from that sense of achievement. people want their achievements recognized through a reward system that adds to that sense of achievement, but not so grindy its seems insurmountable, or so quick/easy the achievement is diminished. From the comments ive seen so far it seems ZOS missed the mark. difficulty vs reward is not aligned with the player's expectations

if the consensus is well fitted drop chance on gear is far higher than the other drop chances then i can see where you are coming from. The gear is already BOP, so there is also now a chance of getting repeats of items and not fulfilling a set this actually adds 30% - 50% more grind on its own depending how fussy you are over which pieces you want to use in your set.

I believe i read there are 6 sets that drop from the content. Add the rarity of jewlery and master weapons, and the chance i suppose of not getting set pieces in the chests at all? and yeah it is completely understandable why it no longer feels "satisfying".

very rough estimate of how long it would currently take to grind a set is below:

if you always got a set piece and there are 10 chests per complete run? and it looks like from the info from OP 1/10 chance of getting a trait you want on gear. With 6 sets to get, Then a quick estimate comes to 1/6 chance per run to get the set piece with the trait you want on it.

But when you factor in repeating runs and repeating of items. 10 items with armor + jewlery and assume you don't care which you get to complete the set

chance to get 1st set item = 0.167 = 6 runs
chance to get 2nd set item = 0.15 = 6.67 runs
chance to get 3rd set item = 0.13 = 7.7 runs
chance to get 4th set item = 0.117 = 8.6 runs
chance to get 5th set item = 0.10 = 10 runs

it is 39 runs average or 390 chests, assuming chest drops a set piece every time and jewlery drops at same rate as armor, which id imagine both these assumptions are false. And if you don't include jewlery or wanting jewelry as your set 6 + 7 + 8.4 + 10.5 +14 = 45.9 (46) runs.

then just divide this by how often chests give set pieces , 1 in 2? 1 in 3? it is easily getting on for 90+ runs. and That's the median. some people will fall outside this on either side. That's a lot of grinding with average luck.

Alcast

BoP is stupid.
Very unbalanced
Clearly favours Ranged Magicka users
Bugs and broken game mechanics make it very hard to go in there.
Bugs...
More Bugs...
And again more bugs...

Once you get what you need there is NO point to go in there again because you cannot sell anything.

Nazruk

willymchilybily wrote: »

With an MMO there always a balance between reward and time spent, the devs have to reach a balance. You cant give stuff away, but you want people to want to play the content and enjoy it, but not getting loot can actually diminish some of the enjoyment coming from that sense of achievement. people want their achievements recognized through a reward system that adds to that sense of achievement, but not so grindy its seems insurmountable, or so quick/easy the achievement is diminished. From the comments ive seen so far it seems ZOS missed the mark. difficulty vs reward is not aligned with the player's expectations

if the consensus is well fitted drop chance on gear is far higher than the other drop chances then i can see where you are coming from. The gear is already BOP, so there is also now a chance of getting repeats of items and not fulfilling a set this actually adds 30% - 50% more grind on its own depending how fussy you are over which pieces you want to use in your set.

I believe i read there are 6 sets that drop from the content. Add the rarity of jewlery and master weapons, and the chance i suppose of not getting set pieces in the chests at all? and yeah it is completely understandable why it no longer feels "satisfying".

yes mate, you pretty much hit the nail.
it's not like i don't enjoy farming the content and giving a lot of work/time and money/gold into the progression, it just seems the relations between effort and reward are off.
and together with changes to only BoP-items, getting nothing to sell in there and stuff the missing usefulness of the dropping sets in there makes the whole Arena kinda dienscouraging.

Nifty2g

Alcast wrote: »

BoP is stupid.
Very unbalanced
Clearly favours Ranged Magicka users
Bugs and broken game mechanics make it very hard to go in there.
Bugs...
More Bugs...
And again more bugs...

Once you get what you need there is NO point to go in there again because you cannot sell anything.

To be fair the master weapons could be a bit ... better as well lol, giving a buff to a skill of your choice or that the vast majority use. or they could buff class skills

danno8

This is why I am currently only using crafted sets/builds, even if they are not the absolute best.

danno8

willymchilybily wrote: »

With an MMO there always a balance between reward and time spent, the devs have to reach a balance. You cant give stuff away, but you want people to want to play the content and enjoy it, but not getting loot can actually diminish some of the enjoyment coming from that sense of achievement. people want their achievements recognized through a reward system that adds to that sense of achievement, but not so grindy its seems insurmountable, or so quick/easy the achievement is diminished. From the comments ive seen so far it seems ZOS missed the mark. difficulty vs reward is not aligned with the player's expectations

if the consensus is well fitted drop chance on gear is far higher than the other drop chances then i can see where you are coming from. The gear is already BOP, so there is also now a chance of getting repeats of items and not fulfilling a set this actually adds 30% - 50% more grind on its own depending how fussy you are over which pieces you want to use in your set.

I believe i read there are 6 sets that drop from the content. Add the rarity of jewlery and master weapons, and the chance i suppose of not getting set pieces in the chests at all? and yeah it is completely understandable why it no longer feels "satisfying".

very rough estimate of how long it would currently take to grind a set is below:

if you always got a set piece and there are 10 chests per complete run? and it looks like from the info from OP 1/10 chance of getting a trait you want on gear. With 6 sets to get, Then a quick estimate comes to 1/6 chance per run to get the set piece with the trait you want on it.

But when you factor in repeating runs and repeating of items. 10 items with armor + jewlery and assume you don't care which you get to complete the set

chance to get 1st set item = 0.167 = 6 runs
chance to get 2nd set item = 0.15 = 6.67 runs
chance to get 3rd set item = 0.13 = 7.7 runs
chance to get 4th set item = 0.117 = 8.6 runs
chance to get 5th set item = 0.10 = 10 runs

it is 39 runs average or 390 chests, assuming chest drops a set piece every time and jewlery drops at same rate as armor, which id imagine both these assumptions are false. And if you don't include jewlery or wanting jewelry as your set 6 + 7 + 8.4 + 10.5 +14 = 45.9 (46) runs.

then just divide this by how often chests give set pieces , 1 in 2? 1 in 3? it is easily getting on for 90+ runs. and That's the median. some people will fall outside this on either side. That's a lot of grinding with average luck.

There is one problem with your math. It does not consider the fact that you can get duplicates. Factor in duplicates and the number of runs required increases exponentially (I am not sure how to run that math). Normally not a problem if you can sell duplicates and buy the pieces you want, but....

edit: actually maybe you did, upon reading your post through a second time. Still 90 runs as an "average" to get 5 set pieces is a bit ridiculous.

Stikato

Agree 100% with OP

Nikkiy

OP nailed it!!

Springt-Über-Zwerge

I just canceled my sup because of this, the current cyrodiil situation and the again bugged Templar charge.
I see no reason to waste money on a game where the developers give 0 feedback, the support is horrible and the game itself is full of serious bugs which are not fixed for months

Olysja

done exactly 8 runs atm. completed all sets with usefull pve traits, dropped 6 masterweapons (2resto,1destro,2knives,1axe). As Templar magicka i already dropped all i had to inside it with 15h of gameplay. Arena is rly nice, i like the boss phases etc, BUT..
1)sets are horrible, winterborn one is OP if you know how to spam ice speels, but i don't rly like any.some Maelstrom weapons are nice but i wish you luck (a thing i had haha) dropping them with perfect traits.
2)stages drops are ***. each run costs 1h+ of addiction and ofc potions, not so many if you know how to play but still you have to bring some, and the reward it's just your name on Leaderboard ->(a leaderboard fuckedup by exploiters). Adding some gold or some BOE items would be nice.
3)some stages are bugged like hell:
-Stage 3 hooks. said all already.
-Stage 7 sometimes boss goes enrage 1 second before casts its AOE and he oneshots autohitting or casting to you, sometimes he goes enrage casting AOE and the left mage continues auto attacking you without casts its shield or it casts it after 3-4secs when it's already too late.., and you are forced to interrupt the AOE causing him to stay enraged for the next 30+secs.
-Stage 9 is bugged half of the time... sometimes boss is permainvulnerable and you have to wipe and start again, sometimes it doesn't go to the upper level and you have to go up alone killing crystals while he still spamming spells from ground floor, sometimes ground spell circles are not visible from upperside.

i mean, Arena is nice, but you had to fix some *** things before putting it live.

Timeetyo

As a console player in right there with you on wgt and icp grind. I went from a static group grinding several hours a night to us suddenly realizing that it just wasn't worth it as the RNG is horrible. Now until arena drops 3/4 from my group have moved on to other games as they tired of the grind. Here are some of my observations:

1. Zos is making everything bop because they are afraid if they don't nobody will sub or buy the expansion. No other reason. Sadly this choice is driving away players as they can't stand the RNG grind. Zos needs to have content that they are confident we want to pay for not try and force us by placing good great there.
2. Bop only removes all incentive to run content that you don't need an item from. If there is nothing I need why bother going repeatedly?
3. RNG drops can be good as they keep you going to get that next winning drop. ..but horrible in that you have no control and there is nothing to improve your chances on the next run.


Imo there are 2 things they can do to alleviate this. 1 is make most items Boe. This gives a way for anyone to get the items and also gives anyone a reason to re run content as they can trade the drops they don't need. Alternately they can put in a proper token system. I thought they were doing this with wgt and icp but instead they just added another way to fail and get frustrated at the RNG system. I would rather pay 1500 tokens to pick the one item and trait I want then have 10 chances at opening that stupid chest.

Joy_Division

100% agree.

Alcast

I would like to compete on the leaderboards as stamina class, but how am I supposed to if I die a lot from bugs + magicka/stamina imbalance in arena where ranged is 100% favoured over melee. (and no BOW is NOT an option as it got crippled in 1.6)

Springt-Über-Zwerge

Alcast wrote: »

I would like to compete on the leaderboards as stamina class, but how am I supposed to if I die a lot from bugs + magicka/stamina imbalance in arena where ranged is 100% favoured over melee. (and no BOW is NOT an option as it got crippled in 1.6)

Not only stamina users have that problem also melee magicka like Templars and Dks have huge issues in there although its still doable imo

andy_s

Nazruk wrote: »

i couldnt get rid of the feeling tho, that since IC something in there has changed, something is noticeable different

I'll tell you what has changed. ZOS don't respect players who dedicate much time to the game anymore. You don't need unique BoP items like new dungeon sets and master weapons. You just need gold to buy v16 jewelry and crafted sets, and you'll be always fine. Itemization was always a problem of this game, but now it's just hopeless. And I'm not gonna even mention exponentially increasing bugs.

And don't worry about maelstrom arena bugs (stranglers' bug exists since day one of DSA) and imbalance, everything will be "auto" fixed soon simply by nerfing mobs damage like twice

Ahzek

@Alcast I still got a 410k score on my last stam sorc run. That one was with only 5 deaths (1 of which was lag and 3 of which were stage 7 ***). I think I'll keep my place on the weekly leaderboards for a while, even though there really isnt much i want from there since I got all stam weapons with pretty good traits already.

Alcast

Ahzek wrote: »

@Alcast I still got a 410k score on my last stam sorc run. That one was with only 5 deaths (1 of which was lag and 3 of which were stage 7 ***). I think I'll keep my place on the weekly leaderboards for a while, even though there really isnt much i want from there since I got all stam weapons with pretty good traits already.

Sorc and NB is easy to get 400k+. Try with Templar or dk :P

Oreyn_Bearclaw

I agree with most of this. Maelstrom needs some work for sure (not a nerf). I was having serious issues last night on Boss 7. I either kill him on the first or second try or it takes an hour. I was repeatedly being killed by poison inside a shield that would spawn after I was in there. I can't imagine that is intended. My options are: stand in shield and die or leave shield to bash boss and most likely die because you have maybe 1-1.5 seconds to get to him and interrupt him. The shields should protect from poison as well, or at the very least, new poison should not spawn during the shield phase. Sure I could slot a ranged interrupt for this fight, but that causes boss to enrage. The mechanics are designed (I think) to make you use the shields. If you commit to the mechanics, you should not be penalized by RNG.

Overall, stage 7 has way to much RNG. The expanding red circle from the Mushrooms or whatever they are should give you a reasonable amount of time to avoid them, which they often do not, and if you are hit, you should have enough time to get to the green circle (think BC last boss) before getting a one shot. Again, you often do not even if you sprint to get there. The circles should expand, be static for a second and then apply the poison, allowing an alert player to avoid them. That is how red works in 99% of this game. Also, Purge should get rid of poison.

The stage 3 strangler issue was already addressed, annoying but not game breaking if you stay on top of them. I usually only die in this stage due to the boss swatting me one too many times. My other issue is that I generally experience really bad FPS drops in stage 6 and stage 9. It's not my rig (980TI, 16 gigs memory) or internet. I normally sit very stable at 60FPS through 95% of this game. If there is too much going on for the game to handle, then something needs to change here. When my FPS causes my DPS to fall by 50%, there isn't much I can do about it.

As for BoP and drop chance, this is what might cause me to eventually say goodbye to ESO. I LOVE this game. It is my first MMO, but I have been an ES junkie since 2003. I am no stranger to VWGT or VICP. I have opened half a dozen vaults or so in each and I still do not have one usable piece of scathing, overwhelming, or spell power cure. They are either head/shoulders (so many duplicates) or the traits are TERRIBLE. I still can't put a full set together of any of them even with bad traits.

The biggest thing I have noticed since IC is how streamlined every build has become. You are stam? 3 agility, 5 hundings, 3-4 nightmothers. You are magic? 3 willpower, 5 julianos/TBS, 2 torugs, 1 kena. Yes that is a little over simplified, but I essentially use the exact same gear on 3 of my end-game toons. The only things I change are weapon type and Monster sets here and there. There is only one type of dropped item I want to complete my builds (maelstrom weapon, duh), and they are behind a huge grind/RNG/gold sink barrier that I might never get.

I am not sure I will ever be able to get VMSA on a 90 minute farm, but even if I did, that is still a lot of SOLO time in an MMO to commit to a getting a, RNG weapon that is certainly best in slot and game changing. As it sits, 90+% of player base will not be able to get these weapons. Maybe thats good maybe not, IDK, but its certainly true.

Sallington

I didn't stop trying because it was too hard. I stopped trying because it's hard for all the wrong reasons, and is a waste of time since you end up losing money by trying to complete it. And then when you do complete it, you end up getting a defensive resto staff or some BS.

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO

I've been playing video games for a good 20 years now. I remember a time when game developers produced games that were actually fun and interesting. There were no carrots or hoops to jump through. No paywalls, no pay to win, etc. When you played it was solely on the merit of the game. There were no incentives or dirty candy offered up by the developers to encourage you to play more. You brought your own incentives and played for the enjoyment of it.

Somewhere along the line, and I would argue that it stemmed from allowing the bean counters and statisticians a disproportionate amount of control in the development process, they lost their way. Game developers began churning out a product more akin to a mouse wheel. The goal being to produce a product where people are reduced to mice and encouraged to run the wheel for a little bit of cheese which of course they will never actually acquire. The moment the mouse gets the cheese, it stops, hence the rise of the infinitely boring grind.

Personofsecrets

Nifty2g wrote: »

Alcast wrote: »

BoP is stupid.
Very unbalanced
Clearly favours Ranged Magicka users
Bugs and broken game mechanics make it very hard to go in there.
Bugs...
More Bugs...
And again more bugs...

Once you get what you need there is NO point to go in there again because you cannot sell anything.

To be fair the master weapons could be a bit ... better as well lol, giving a buff to a skill of your choice or that the vast majority use. or they could buff class skills

dont even get me started about the tanking set...

we got a heavy attack altering weapon... that is all... @ZOS_RichLambert , come on.

DDemon

I stopped due to figuring out the mechanics and actually running the arena took way too much time, every time I would reach a stage (In my case, the stage 6 boss) I would run out of time to play. I know a lot of people are used to spent hours on end playing a game, but I can't and don't want to do that, even on weekends I play for several minutes and walk away to do other things.

When Mealstrom came out it took me 3 hours to reach stage 6,and I spent another 6 on there trying to beat it, I have no idea what I am doing wrong there, as something keeps killing me in 1 hit for 80k. Either way, it's hard for me to figure out when, by the time I reach that stage, I'd have totally lost my motivation of completing it due to the amount of time spent completing the previous stages. I do believe that some sort of progress saving mechanic would help me a great deal.

As for the bind on pickup items, I totally get the problem people have with it, there is really no way to make gold by selling any of these items pieces. If they were bind on equip, we'd be able to sell the pieces, and make some gold running the arena, and the obnoxiously high rate of Well-fitted items wouldn't be that much of a problem, as you would be able to trade with other people, or buy.

Nazruk

that's just another thing to mention, ye.

while melee-masterweapons might be really good (1H for PvE/PvP and 2H for PvP) the Casterstaves "only" give you that extra 189spelldmg. and you will lose 10(?)% spellpenetration since it's only sharpened and not nirnhoned.
so the difference doesnt seem to be as huge as the effort of time, money and sweat you have to put into it.

Nikkiy

Nazruk wrote: »

that's just another thing to mention, ye.

while melee-masterweapons might be really good (1H for PvE/PvP and 2H for PvP) the Casterstaves "only" give you that extra 189spelldmg. and you will lose 10(?)% spellpenetration since it's only sharpened and not nirnhoned.
so the difference doesnt seem to be as huge as the effort of time, money and sweat you have to put into it.

We´re still gonna farm that staff!!
But atleast to me it feel`s more like a chore...
Maybe it gets better with each run