Round 7 Maelstrom Arena Needs Priority Fixing

Nifty2g

I'll start off by saying majority of Maelstrom Arena can be worked around and you can know where you went wrong to better your chances and work towards a build in maximizing what you need to do to fix your mistakes, the mechanics allows this for every class to do, majority of the damage is manageable and can be worked around after a bit of time in there, it's challenging yes and provides obvious player progression towards it - if you are competing for a top score that is.

Now, I'm going to base this thread around Round 7 Vault of Umbrage. I'm going to say it how it is, this Round is poorly designed, very poorly and needs immediate fixing than anything else inside, this is not how you build competitive content relying on RNG to either make or break your run. Furthermore this is not ping friendly and by that I mean you realise Oceanic Players are around, when Poison spawns under you, there is no immediate way around it for players with high ping. This is a progression built arena, you do not add seemingly unavoidable mechanics there is no way to change your build around this.

How To Fix
Simply reduce the AoE radius or give players more reaction time, making the poison AoE slowly spread out and then explode.

The Poison damage over time effect you seems to be hitting you twice as it impacts you, quite similar to how Dawnbreaker of Smiting was the initial hit and the first tick are hitting at the same time, this has been reported many times.

Currently VenomCallers are spawning inbetween waves making it quite difficult to swap abilities for the boss.

Known Bugs
I'm not sure if this is intended but it feels like it isn't, when you kill a shielder the boss will enrage and if you are close he will hit you with an enraged wrecking bite attack, why does the boss enrage instead of going into his mechanic and making only his Scream hit for an enraged amount of damage, and make unable to be interrupted, for an example I will leave an image.



Please pass this on @Seiffer @Wrobel I among others are personally tired of working around this Round, it's absurd how it is, nothing should be based around this much RNG in competitive play. There is no need to dumb it down and nerf the damage of anything, just fix the amount of RNG based it is.

Alcast

Stage 7 is basically the only stage I keep dieing because of random stuff or broken mechanics...

Nifty2g

Alcast wrote: »

Stage 7 is basically the only stage I keep dieing because of random stuff or broken mechanics...

Lets not forget the enrage mechanic on the poison too...
And yeah whenever I get to Round 7 it's basically over for me. Irritating

Tacadrie

Stage 7 make me crazy with the instant flower explosion ...

Stage 6 is random (or buged) with the no lightening pillar during spider wave...

swaggasm

Alcast wrote: »

Stage 7 is basically the only stage I keep dieing because of random stuff or broken mechanics...

Tacadrie wrote: »

Stage 7 make me crazy with the instant flower explosion ...

Stage 6 is random (or buged) with the no lightening pillar during spider wave...

Yup and yup

Geemarc

I'd be happy if they just let us continue where we stopped. I spent 6 hours yesterday and got to the final boss, by that time I was so tired I just wanted to go to bed. I spent an hour trying the last boss got him to ~20% a couple of times but in the end had to give up.

Trying to learn and work through this takes ages, why do we need to do it in one sitting? Just let us log out and come back later..

Dymence

I don't know about the enraged bite thing, that's probably a bug I've never experienced, but the flowers are really no big deal if you just have awareness of your surroundings..

I've expiremented with this stage several times where I've just let the poison flower summoner live while finishing rounds, and the flowers never hit me. Just look around you.

Nifty2g

Dymence wrote: »

I don't know about the enraged bite thing, that's probably a bug I've never experienced, but the flowers are really no big deal if you just have awareness of your surroundings..

I've expiremented with this stage several times where I've just let the poison flower summoner live while finishing rounds, and the flowers never hit me. Just look around you.

Again, this is not Oceanic Friendly to be specific for the NA server, playing with 300+ ping doesn't give you enough time to move out with the current timers.

I'm not even asking for a damage nerf, just give it a little reduced timing for players with high ping, it's annoying having to ruin a run this far in unless of course I get good RNG and nothing spawns under me

EgoRush

I've had those poison flowers spawn underneath me while I was in the protective bubble of one of the mage adds while the boss did his roar. It was either die to the poison flower or run out and die immediately to the boss. The fact that level of RNG exists where it's impossible to avoid such a situation makes this round sloppy.

Even telegraphing the poison sooner or delaying the explosion won't help if you're trapped in a small protective spot with nowhere to run to. Perhaps the poison DoT damage can be reduced during these enraged times to prevent OHKOs and give us time to survive the roar phase and run for the purge area?

Paulington

EgoRush wrote: »

I've had those poison flowers spawn underneath me while I was in the protective bubble of one of the mage adds while the boss did his roar. It was either die to the poison flower or run out and die immediately to the boss. The fact that level of RNG exists where it's impossible to avoid such a situation makes this round sloppy.

Even telegraphing the poison sooner or delaying the explosion won't help if you're trapped in a small protective spot with nowhere to run to. Perhaps the poison DoT damage can be reduced during these enraged times to prevent OHKOs and give us time to survive the roar phase and run for the purge area?

I can +1 this, it's very frustrating.

Possibly make it such that the scream pops all the flowers and "resets" the arena for a short time and make the bubble protect you from the poison @ZOS_Finn?

Nifty2g

Ill just tag ZOS if you guys can pass this on to the dungeon team for review and possible changes
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert

Xantaria

The argonian spellcasters in the boss round also have a teleport attack where they teleport to you and then charge an explosion around them. That one goes off instantly before it even reaches its max radius knocking you to the ground and hitting you for 3/4 of your health while the boss is on you aswell. RIP.

Personofsecrets

Sounds like a nice challenge.

Kas

the same is true if the boss does a stomp and you kill an add whiel the weaves are spreading out. the enrage will make the ground-waves much stronger post-cast.

that being said, my workaround is to qucikly move to the add further away directly when it spawns and kill it asap. this should mean there is a distance bewteen me and the boss and has the nice extra effect of a good cahnce of being in meele range of the boss when moving to the remaining add

killing an add close to the boss, is just liek praying to rngesus for a chance of survival

Teiji

It's funny because you can stay on the East section of Stage 7 and completely ignore the poison mechanic, it's just really awkward how inconsistent Stage 7 is; it's like the developers working on this were working an extra three hours to finish it, unpaid too; I say this because you can either play around silly and nonsense RNG, or you can stay on the East side of the stage and have a much, much easier time. Kiting the boss from W to E after you murder casters is cool too as when they spawn again you're in a much safer area and can nuke them from a better position only having to avoid the boss' attacks.

Nifty2g

Teiji wrote: »

It's funny because you can stay on the East section of Stage 7 and completely ignore the poison mechanic, it's just really awkward how inconsistent Stage 7 is; it's like the developers working on this were working an extra three hours to finish it, unpaid too; I say this because you can either play around silly and nonsense RNG, or you can stay on the East side of the stage and have a much, much easier time. Kiting the boss from W to E after you murder casters is cool too as when they spawn again you're in a much safer area and can nuke them from a better position only having to avoid the boss' attacks.

I didn't know this but then again we shouldn't have to work around a mechanic like this

Teiji

Nifty2g wrote: »

Teiji wrote: »

It's funny because you can stay on the East section of Stage 7 and completely ignore the poison mechanic, it's just really awkward how inconsistent Stage 7 is; it's like the developers working on this were working an extra three hours to finish it, unpaid too; I say this because you can either play around silly and nonsense RNG, or you can stay on the East side of the stage and have a much, much easier time. Kiting the boss from W to E after you murder casters is cool too as when they spawn again you're in a much safer area and can nuke them from a better position only having to avoid the boss' attacks.

I didn't know this but then again we shouldn't have to work around a mechanic like this

@Nifty2g, yourself and everyone else here posting supports and have been supporters of this game for many, many months, years even; likely many of us have been part TESO [yes TESO not TESU: TU] communities before the game even released to help direct our enthusiasm and vibes.

That paragraph typed up for context; ever since the game has released we have been working around mechanics; it's a natural adaption and the only logical thing to do so we don't risk getting stressed out over something which at the very least is just a videogame and several bunches of pixels.

We had to play around the Sharpened bug for months, had to play around class bugs, gameplay bugs, being stuck in combat for 10 minutes bug, Mundus bugs, CP passive bugs, bugs of bugs and so on; the point and what I'm getting at is we don't have to work around mechanics like this, I agree as we're not forced to login, but if I have the option to intentionally make my time easier and less troublesome due to errors in coding I'm definitely going to do so, this has always been playing around bugs and broken mechanics.

Nifty2g

Teiji wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Teiji wrote: »

It's funny because you can stay on the East section of Stage 7 and completely ignore the poison mechanic, it's just really awkward how inconsistent Stage 7 is; it's like the developers working on this were working an extra three hours to finish it, unpaid too; I say this because you can either play around silly and nonsense RNG, or you can stay on the East side of the stage and have a much, much easier time. Kiting the boss from W to E after you murder casters is cool too as when they spawn again you're in a much safer area and can nuke them from a better position only having to avoid the boss' attacks.

I didn't know this but then again we shouldn't have to work around a mechanic like this

@Nifty2g, yourself and everyone else here posting supports and have been supporters of this game for many, many months, years even; likely many of us have been part TESO [yes TESO not TESU: TU] communities before the game even released to help direct our enthusiasm and vibes.

That paragraph typed up for context; ever since the game has released we have been working around mechanics; it's a natural adaption and the only logical thing to do so we don't risk getting stressed out over something which at the very least is just a videogame and several bunches of pixels.

We had to play around the Sharpened bug for months, had to play around class bugs, gameplay bugs, being stuck in combat for 10 minutes bug, Mundus bugs, CP passive bugs, bugs of bugs and so on; the point and what I'm getting at is we don't have to work around mechanics like this, I agree as we're not forced to login, but if I have the option to intentionally make my time easier and less troublesome due to errors in coding I'm definitely going to do so, this has always been playing around bugs and broken mechanics.

Oh I mean I'm probably going to do it, but I also hope they fix it up so I don't have to do it lol

Overbowed

I have to agree that there should be a little less rng in round 7. This is the round that usually makes or breaks the run.

Dymence wrote: »

I don't know about the enraged bite thing, that's probably a bug I've never experienced, but the flowers are really no big deal if you just have awareness of your surroundings..

I've expiremented with this stage several times where I've just let the poison flower summoner live while finishing rounds, and the flowers never hit me. Just look around you.

This is true to a point, but sometimes you are put into no win scenarios based on where the flowers spawn and the bosses position. Which is based on rng. There is also zero forgiveness for error that can be really tough for some of the curveballs zenimax throws your way like ping and fps issues.

Paulington

Overbowed wrote: »

I have to agree that there should be a little less rng in round 7. This is the round that usually makes or breaks the run.

Dymence wrote: »

I don't know about the enraged bite thing, that's probably a bug I've never experienced, but the flowers are really no big deal if you just have awareness of your surroundings..

I've expiremented with this stage several times where I've just let the poison flower summoner live while finishing rounds, and the flowers never hit me. Just look around you.

This is true to a point, but sometimes you are put into no win scenarios based on where the flowers spawn and the bosses position. Which is based on rng. There is also zero forgiveness for error that can be really tough for some of the curveballs zenimax throws your way like ping and fps issues.

Yep, had this happen to me today too. Every now and again I will enter an arena and boom my FPS plummets by 50-80% and will not change until I /reloadui. It causes really juddery graphics and makes playing damn near impossible and it's killed me each time it happens.

Not to mention the 500 ping spikes that happen for no reason (unrelated to my connection) and it makes for a bit of a pain! .

Alcast

Ok I will sum up the bugs I have on stage 7:

Boss Stage:
Mages > when they charge their AoE attack and port to you it explodes already halfway although they are still charging up the attack.
Enrage/scream > When you kill one of the mages WHILE the boss started doing an aoe stomp/single target attack you will get hit by enrage damage which means you are literally dead unless you do not have some fancy 20k shields.
Bleed attack of boss: sometimes I cannot break free and then will get hit by it and get the bleed which deals insane dmg.

I guess thats it, overall the stage is just ridiculous melee unfriendly overall.

Ted_Mosby_Architect

I'm waiting for a certain AD sorc to come into this thread like every other one and say that it's working as intended lol.

Nifty2g

Ted_Mosby_Architect wrote: »

I'm waiting for a certain AD sorc to come into this thread like every other one and say that it's working as intended lol.

I love how sorcerers are doing that lol

TotterTates

I literally have zero problems with stage 7 other than dancing around wastes a lot time.

Personofsecrets

Enjoy the difficulty before it gets nerfed... again...

Nifty2g

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Enjoy the difficulty before it gets nerfed... again...

Dude what are you even on about, post something constructive

Nifty2g

Well I tried kiting the boss from east to west and works extremely well @Teiji

Teiji

Nifty2g wrote: »

Well I tried kiting the boss from east to west and works extremely well @Teiji

Glad to see it's working out for you too.

When I was learning VMA I had most problems with final stage -> spider stage -> argonian stage; thinking back I actually used to rate the argonian stage over the spider stage in terms of irritation, that was until I went out of my way to stick to the west side of the map.

Nifty2g

Im going to have to agree for Round 6 it's quite easy, just leave 1 totem unwebbed all the way till the boss round, the pin her at around 70% then just burn her down

Stage 7 though, still horrible but much more manageable, however I still want fixes for it

Alcast

I tried that east and west thingy, but didnt really work out that well and it costs a lot of time

Nifty2g

@alcast i guess it would with stamina, i just kited him back and forth using dark flare, was about a minute and a half fight. then again this arena isn't melee friendly for the most part