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Veteran Maelstrom Arena killed my dog and stole my wife
jrgray93
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Having been doing VMSA a LOT for a couple of months now, I figured I'd share some thoughts on various aspects of the experience. For context, I am not among the best of the best players in this content. My top score is 545.6k on my magicka templar and I have flawless conqueror, but I am close to the peak of what I can do with my skills as a player and my build, which is rather defensive. In other words, I won't be getting 570k+ any time soon, but I'd like to think I'm good enough at it to offer educated opinions.
The first thing I want to discuss is difficulty. I do not believe much (if anything) in this game adequately prepares players for veteran Maelstrom Arena. The skill floor is absurdly high in comparison to other content. I thought I was good at this game but then I did VMSA. I burned through normal without breaking a sweat, just to learn what it was all about before moving on to veteran. Before my first veteran completion, I died no less than... 50 times? I don't remember exactly. I didn't know the mechanics, my build was bad, and I generally had a bad time. That was the problem: I had a bad time. I was frustrated and thought it was a waste of effort. I even considered never touching the content again, which got me started thinking I should just play a different game. That's not a good thing.
My first time completing it actually gave me exactly the weapon I wanted, and this was before 100% drop chance for weapons. I was extremely lucky. I then set my sights on a no-death run, for whatever reason.
Eventually, I practiced more and more, learning most of the spawns and memorizing the mechanics. I refined my build until I found out exactly how much of everything I needed, where to get my buffs (potions!), and which spells I'd need. Then one day, maybe a few weeks after my first completion, I achieved the impossible and got Flawless Conqueror. I vowed never to return to this hellish place.
So a couple of days later, I was running it again. I guess I decided I wanted to git gud and get on the leaderboard or something. I don't know. Just one more run...
The tldr of it is that the normal mode does not prepare you for just how difficult veteran is and I wouldn't be surprised if most players gave up on the content too quickly because of that, and perhaps it didn't do their interest in the game any favors. I am not suggesting it be made easier. What I am suggesting is that normal mode be made harder. If normal isn't so simple you can finish it with one skill, perhaps more players could work on the mechanics there and have that skillset transfer to veteran when they are ready. As it stands, normal is a joke.
Moving on to thoughts on specific arenas...
The first four arenas work well. They're a nice warmup for seasoned players and a huge wake-up call for those new to the arena. The difficulty progression here is great. It feels as if it ramps up appropriately.
Once you hit the Rink of Frozen Blood, things change. I absolutely hate this arena. I do not like the way it is designed. I feel the sheer difficulty of this arena far surpasses that of any other. The damage you have to take is comparable to that of Igneous Cistern but your movement limitations and all of the CC you're subjected to make it far harder. This arena boils down to killing quickly for me, much more so than others, because you die too quickly if you don't thin out enemy numbers. It wouldn't be so bad if they would come out of the water, letting me use Sweep on them to get some health back. As for the boss, I find her more stressful than fun. She'd be too easy without the adds but I just find it frustrating to deal with her, the adds, and the trolls at once.
After the Rink is my favorite arena; Spiral Shadows. Spiral Shadows is mostly about creative mechanics and that's why it is my favorite arena. You don't necessarily have to brute-force your way through it but it punishes you for ignoring its mechanics and rewards you for following them. I'd call it relatively easy, but it's nice to have a step back after the last one.
Next up is Vault of Umbrage, and this one is stupid. I hate it. Maybe more than Rink, but not because it is difficult. I hate Vault of Umbrage because the design choices here baffle me. This arena far too often RNGs you to death. The poison and snipes are usually easy enough to avoid if you pay attention to your surroundings and the Wamasu isn't so bad once you figure out to avoid the circles and then nuke him. Sometimes the poison catches me off guard but 99% of the time it can be avoided by being aware. The problem here is the boss wave. The boss isn't that difficult on paper, but the adds can sometimes happen to be standing on a poison pod. As soon as the boss starts shouting, you have to run into the lightning shield, just to be hit by poison. Now you're dead if you leave and dead if you stay. This is not fun. This is not challenging. This is inept design. The lightning shield should cleanse the poison. Poison would still be a threat for most of the fight but you would no longer lose that perfect run to RNG.
Igneous Cistern is next and it's very straight forward but also challenging. Stuff here hits hard. It feels like Rink of Frozen Blood in that regard, but it emphasizes target prioritization to reduce incoming damage over mad flailing to kill as many as possible in as short a period of time. This is why I like this one more, despite usually having more trouble with it. I still hate the Flame Knight for having too much burst damage but Empowering Sweep saves the day here.
The last arena is mostly just an annoyance. The waves just drag on and on and it feels like it will never end. The Ash Titan can be tough if you don't avoid the fire wall or don't burn him quick when the adds spawn, but the worst is when he gets to 0 health and decides not to die. I think he is an appropriately difficult boss, otherwise. The final boss is easy enough once you figure out his rotation. I still struggle against him on bad days but that's all on me. He doesn't do cheap shots and it is all on the player to beat him or not. I like the design here.
So overall, I'd say VMSA is very frustrating for new players and still very challenging for those who have been there a while. But is it rewarding for your trouble? Absolutely. But is it appropriately rewarding for the difficulty? Absolutely not.
Don't get me wrong; the Maelstrom weapons are amazing. Most of them, anyway. But even with 100% drop chance, I find I may never get some of the ones I want (looking at you, defending Resto staff). Then you have the matter of the other sets VMSA gives you. Most of them are utterly useless. In fact, I'd say all of them are niche at best. But that's a problem for me because I want Permafrost for my health recovery troll build on an alt.
If my math is correct, there are 54 possible item drops, excluding weapons from the last chest. That isn't accounting for traits. That gives you 8 chances at an item you want over the course of a run. Right now, I want two permafrost rings and one necklace in healthy. Assuming I've accounted for all of the items and possible traits, I'm estimating a 1-in-246 chance of getting the items I want. I need three of them. So if the math holds up, I need to run VMSA approximately 93 times to be statistically likely to obtain the items I want. At my average speed, that's 77.5 hours of VMSA. I'd use over 6000 potions in that time, costing me 1,500 lady's smock and corn flower, or something to the tune of 250-300 thousand gold of materials. My reward? Three mediocre, niche pieces of jewelry and 93 maelstrom weapons, of which probably 85 or so would be useless to me. In fact, I'd bet half of the ended up infused.
This system is horrible. Everyone hates it. It has no redeeming qualities. It's RNG again. Nobody likes a purely RNG-based system. This is 2016, not 2004. These sets aren't even worth this hell. Pretty much every set coming in One Tamriel is vastly superior for anything but the most niche of builds (my troll build). Please fix it.
My suggestion? A currency system. Ramp up the difficulty of normal mode and grant "maelstrom tokens" and / or "veteran maelstrom tokens" at the end of each arena. Remove the chests from each wave. Especially remove them in veteran, where most players looking for a leaderboard position ignore them anyway. Each arena in normal mode should grant a single normal token when finished, a bonus three for finishing all nine, and maybe give a single veteran token, assuming the difficulty has been sufficiently increased. For veteran mode, each arena should grant a normal and veteran token.
To put that in easier terms, the total reward for a full run on both difficulty settings:
Normal: 12 normal tokens and 1 veteran token
Veteran: 12 normal tokens and 12 veteran tokens
Put a vendor in the sandy area with the quest giver outside and have him sell satchels that are specific to sets, sort of how imperial city sets work. Just as a suggestion:
Normal token vendor (3 tokens each):
Random Superior Hunt Set Item
Random Superior Glory Set Item
Random Superior Permafrost Set Item
Random Superior Winterborn Set Item
Random Superior Succession Set Item
Random Superior Para Bellum Set Item
Random jewelry of any set
Random shield of any set
The veteran vendor would be the same but 3 veteran tokens each and epic quality items. Maybe even yellow quality, to give any reason whatsoever to pick this over the next vendor.
Maelstrom Weapon vendor (10 veteran tokens):
Random Maelstrom 1H (all one-handed axes, maces, swords, and daggers, excluding shields)
Random Maelstrom 2H melee (all two-handed axes, swords, mauls, and bow)
Random Maelstrom 2H staff (all flame, frost, shock, and restoration staves)
The goal of this vendor is to grant the weapons somewhat more focused on what type you want but to retain a bit of RNG to make you work for the perfect weapon and trait.
Anyway, that's just a suggestion. I just think there needs to be some system in place to narrow down the chances of getting what you want, especially when it comes to the armor sets that are arguably mediocre, yet one of the hardest sets to obtain consistently. Or maybe just make them all BoE and call it a day.
Edited by jrgray93 on September 7, 2016 1:34AM The first thing I want to discuss is difficulty. I do not believe much (if anything) in this game adequately prepares players for veteran Maelstrom Arena. The skill floor is absurdly high in comparison to other content. I thought I was good at this game but then I did VMSA. I burned through normal without breaking a sweat, just to learn what it was all about before moving on to veteran. Before my first veteran completion, I died no less than... 50 times? I don't remember exactly. I didn't know the mechanics, my build was bad, and I generally had a bad time. That was the problem: I had a bad time. I was frustrated and thought it was a waste of effort. I even considered never touching the content again, which got me started thinking I should just play a different game. That's not a good thing.
My first time completing it actually gave me exactly the weapon I wanted, and this was before 100% drop chance for weapons. I was extremely lucky. I then set my sights on a no-death run, for whatever reason.
Eventually, I practiced more and more, learning most of the spawns and memorizing the mechanics. I refined my build until I found out exactly how much of everything I needed, where to get my buffs (potions!), and which spells I'd need. Then one day, maybe a few weeks after my first completion, I achieved the impossible and got Flawless Conqueror. I vowed never to return to this hellish place.
So a couple of days later, I was running it again. I guess I decided I wanted to git gud and get on the leaderboard or something. I don't know. Just one more run...
The tldr of it is that the normal mode does not prepare you for just how difficult veteran is and I wouldn't be surprised if most players gave up on the content too quickly because of that, and perhaps it didn't do their interest in the game any favors. I am not suggesting it be made easier. What I am suggesting is that normal mode be made harder. If normal isn't so simple you can finish it with one skill, perhaps more players could work on the mechanics there and have that skillset transfer to veteran when they are ready. As it stands, normal is a joke.
Moving on to thoughts on specific arenas...
The first four arenas work well. They're a nice warmup for seasoned players and a huge wake-up call for those new to the arena. The difficulty progression here is great. It feels as if it ramps up appropriately.
Once you hit the Rink of Frozen Blood, things change. I absolutely hate this arena. I do not like the way it is designed. I feel the sheer difficulty of this arena far surpasses that of any other. The damage you have to take is comparable to that of Igneous Cistern but your movement limitations and all of the CC you're subjected to make it far harder. This arena boils down to killing quickly for me, much more so than others, because you die too quickly if you don't thin out enemy numbers. It wouldn't be so bad if they would come out of the water, letting me use Sweep on them to get some health back. As for the boss, I find her more stressful than fun. She'd be too easy without the adds but I just find it frustrating to deal with her, the adds, and the trolls at once.
After the Rink is my favorite arena; Spiral Shadows. Spiral Shadows is mostly about creative mechanics and that's why it is my favorite arena. You don't necessarily have to brute-force your way through it but it punishes you for ignoring its mechanics and rewards you for following them. I'd call it relatively easy, but it's nice to have a step back after the last one.
Next up is Vault of Umbrage, and this one is stupid. I hate it. Maybe more than Rink, but not because it is difficult. I hate Vault of Umbrage because the design choices here baffle me. This arena far too often RNGs you to death. The poison and snipes are usually easy enough to avoid if you pay attention to your surroundings and the Wamasu isn't so bad once you figure out to avoid the circles and then nuke him. Sometimes the poison catches me off guard but 99% of the time it can be avoided by being aware. The problem here is the boss wave. The boss isn't that difficult on paper, but the adds can sometimes happen to be standing on a poison pod. As soon as the boss starts shouting, you have to run into the lightning shield, just to be hit by poison. Now you're dead if you leave and dead if you stay. This is not fun. This is not challenging. This is inept design. The lightning shield should cleanse the poison. Poison would still be a threat for most of the fight but you would no longer lose that perfect run to RNG.
Igneous Cistern is next and it's very straight forward but also challenging. Stuff here hits hard. It feels like Rink of Frozen Blood in that regard, but it emphasizes target prioritization to reduce incoming damage over mad flailing to kill as many as possible in as short a period of time. This is why I like this one more, despite usually having more trouble with it. I still hate the Flame Knight for having too much burst damage but Empowering Sweep saves the day here.
The last arena is mostly just an annoyance. The waves just drag on and on and it feels like it will never end. The Ash Titan can be tough if you don't avoid the fire wall or don't burn him quick when the adds spawn, but the worst is when he gets to 0 health and decides not to die. I think he is an appropriately difficult boss, otherwise. The final boss is easy enough once you figure out his rotation. I still struggle against him on bad days but that's all on me. He doesn't do cheap shots and it is all on the player to beat him or not. I like the design here.
So overall, I'd say VMSA is very frustrating for new players and still very challenging for those who have been there a while. But is it rewarding for your trouble? Absolutely. But is it appropriately rewarding for the difficulty? Absolutely not.
Don't get me wrong; the Maelstrom weapons are amazing. Most of them, anyway. But even with 100% drop chance, I find I may never get some of the ones I want (looking at you, defending Resto staff). Then you have the matter of the other sets VMSA gives you. Most of them are utterly useless. In fact, I'd say all of them are niche at best. But that's a problem for me because I want Permafrost for my health recovery troll build on an alt.
If my math is correct, there are 54 possible item drops, excluding weapons from the last chest. That isn't accounting for traits. That gives you 8 chances at an item you want over the course of a run. Right now, I want two permafrost rings and one necklace in healthy. Assuming I've accounted for all of the items and possible traits, I'm estimating a 1-in-246 chance of getting the items I want. I need three of them. So if the math holds up, I need to run VMSA approximately 93 times to be statistically likely to obtain the items I want. At my average speed, that's 77.5 hours of VMSA. I'd use over 6000 potions in that time, costing me 1,500 lady's smock and corn flower, or something to the tune of 250-300 thousand gold of materials. My reward? Three mediocre, niche pieces of jewelry and 93 maelstrom weapons, of which probably 85 or so would be useless to me. In fact, I'd bet half of the ended up infused.
This system is horrible. Everyone hates it. It has no redeeming qualities. It's RNG again. Nobody likes a purely RNG-based system. This is 2016, not 2004. These sets aren't even worth this hell. Pretty much every set coming in One Tamriel is vastly superior for anything but the most niche of builds (my troll build). Please fix it.
My suggestion? A currency system. Ramp up the difficulty of normal mode and grant "maelstrom tokens" and / or "veteran maelstrom tokens" at the end of each arena. Remove the chests from each wave. Especially remove them in veteran, where most players looking for a leaderboard position ignore them anyway. Each arena in normal mode should grant a single normal token when finished, a bonus three for finishing all nine, and maybe give a single veteran token, assuming the difficulty has been sufficiently increased. For veteran mode, each arena should grant a normal and veteran token.
To put that in easier terms, the total reward for a full run on both difficulty settings:
Normal: 12 normal tokens and 1 veteran token
Veteran: 12 normal tokens and 12 veteran tokens
Put a vendor in the sandy area with the quest giver outside and have him sell satchels that are specific to sets, sort of how imperial city sets work. Just as a suggestion:
Normal token vendor (3 tokens each):
Random Superior Hunt Set Item
Random Superior Glory Set Item
Random Superior Permafrost Set Item
Random Superior Winterborn Set Item
Random Superior Succession Set Item
Random Superior Para Bellum Set Item
Random jewelry of any set
Random shield of any set
The veteran vendor would be the same but 3 veteran tokens each and epic quality items. Maybe even yellow quality, to give any reason whatsoever to pick this over the next vendor.
Maelstrom Weapon vendor (10 veteran tokens):
Random Maelstrom 1H (all one-handed axes, maces, swords, and daggers, excluding shields)
Random Maelstrom 2H melee (all two-handed axes, swords, mauls, and bow)
Random Maelstrom 2H staff (all flame, frost, shock, and restoration staves)
The goal of this vendor is to grant the weapons somewhat more focused on what type you want but to retain a bit of RNG to make you work for the perfect weapon and trait.
Anyway, that's just a suggestion. I just think there needs to be some system in place to narrow down the chances of getting what you want, especially when it comes to the armor sets that are arguably mediocre, yet one of the hardest sets to obtain consistently. Or maybe just make them all BoE and call it a day.
EP: Slania Isara : Harambe Was an Inside Job
47
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jakeedmundson✭✭✭✭✭This seems to be the general idea that many people want... myself included.
but i'm pretty certain the devs have established mindless, constant item grinding as their main end game material.
I've hardly even had the chance to play the material i WANT to play yet because i can't get the set pieces from the material i don't want to play. (ophidian jewelry, monster shoulders, mal/master weapons, etc.)
It's the same story in any trial... you want this one neck piece? sharpened sword? run it 174 times and maybe you can find one
OR a group member could trade it to you for 250k gold... even though they would never use it anyway. Great system. CP690
Lv 50 Dunmer DragonKnight Tank/Dps
Lv 50 Altmer Sorcerer Dps
Lv 50 Breton Templar Healer/Dps
Lv 50 Altmer Nightblade Dps
Lv 50 Redguard Sorcerer Dps
PS4 - DC
vSOHM - vAAHM - vHRC - vMA Flawless
My version of a Heavy Attack Sorc build
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/294724/magicka-sorc-heavy-attack-build-homestead-ready/p1?new=13 -
Oreyn_Bearclaw✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Summary of Arena: Just about right.
Summary of Loot system and Proposal: Works for me. Anything is better than the complete BS system we have right now. I got real excited about grinding this place when the changed the drop rate to 100%. I have already stopped. It's worse than it ever was. Nothing about it is encouraging me to run content. This is far and away the worst thing about ESO right now.
It is kind of like if my boss came into my office and said she would pay me with lottery tickets instead of dollar bills, no thanks.6 -
Mutagem✭✭✭Came here expecting to read about losing wife and video game drama. Didn't see any of the sort 2/10Mutagem - AD Stamina Nightblade - Prefect
Mutagentleman - AD Magicka Templar - Palatine
Mutageneticist - AD Magicka Sorcerer - Corporal4 -
Vorcil✭✭✭✭I finished the first arenas on vet, got so angry at zero reward to my effort that I just quit.
Just guessing that it would take between 1-2 hours to learn each vet arena and finish it, assuming your build is capable of finishing the arena1 -
Travestynox✭✭✭No to token system. An absolute definitive no. There should be no guaranteed rewards anywhere, but the chance to get what we want should indeed be improved, and not just in VMA, throughout the game.
Farming BIS is bad for the game.0 -
jrgray93✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Travestynox wrote: »No to token system. An absolute definitive no. There should be no guaranteed rewards anywhere, but the chance to get what we want should indeed be improved, and not just in VMA, throughout the game.
Farming BIS is bad for the game.
It was just a suggestion. The primary point to take from it is that the current system sucks.
I'd also like to point out that the system I suggested retains RNG but just lessens the impact of it.
Thanks for the other replies. Some nice stuff. Also, I was never married. Just thought it would be a nice title. You're welcome to steal Jill.Edited by jrgray93 on September 6, 2016 11:51PMEP: Slania Isara : Harambe Was an Inside Job0 -
redspecter23✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭A token system is a nice suggestion but it is a band aid solution. The core issue is that we have "bad" traits. If all traits were useful every reward could potentially be good, but just in a different way. The constant pushing by ZoS to make sharpened far and away the best trait in nearly every situation is the problem that should be the main concern. I should want precise, nirnhoned, infused, charged, etc. just as much as I want sharpened, but perhaps on slightly different builds. This trait imbalance fuels the bad RNG discussions and leads to frustration in not finding what you want when in theory, any of these traits could be good if ZoS sat down and balanced them with even modest amount of effort involved.
What if some mobs/bosses had extremely low resistances? Sharpened loses some appeal and precise becomes a more valid option.
What if some mobs have both low resistance and have some form of critical resistance. Nirnhoned becomes a better choice.
What if we had a build that could rely heavily on enchantments through sets, abilities and cp that all further that theme? Infused becomes a more valid choice.
The decision to just give all mobs huge resistances as their mode of defense is driving us all to sharpened when we could have a world of other choices. ZoS needs to give more than 5 seconds of thought into their damage/defense system and we could have many more viable options available.3 -
Travestynox✭✭✭It was just a suggestion. The primary point to take from it is that the current system sucks.
Agreed. But it sucks across the board. Meaning everyone from wb-farmers to trialers suffers from it. You're no different from them, and likewise. IMO everyone should have a better chance to get the gear/whatever they're after.
#worldbossfarmerslivesmatters and so on.
Bad traits is the core. Traits irrelevant to endgame should be removed from CP160.
0 -
Rataroto✭✭✭✭Having been doing VMSA a LOT for a couple of months now, I figured I'd share some thoughts on various aspects of the experience. For context, I am not among the best of the best players in this content. My top score is 545.6k on my magicka templar and I have flawless conqueror, but I am close to the peak of what I can do with my skills as a player and my build, which is rather defensive. In other words, I won't be getting 570k+ any time soon, but I'd like to think I'm good enough at it to offer educated opinions.
The first thing I want to discuss is difficulty. I do not believe much (if anything) in this game adequately prepares players for veteran Maelstrom Arena. The skill floor is absurdly high in comparison to other content. I thought I was good at this game but then I did VMSA. I burned through normal without breaking a sweat, just to learn what it was all about before moving on to veteran. Before my first veteran completion, I died no less than... 50 times? I don't remember exactly. I didn't know the mechanics, my build was bad, and I generally had a bad time. That was the problem: I had a bad time. I was frustrated and thought it was a waste of effort. I even considered never touching the content again, which got me started thinking I should just play a different game. That's not a good thing.
My first time completing it actually gave me exactly the weapon I wanted, and this was before 100% drop chance for weapons. I was extremely lucky. I then set my sights on a no-death run, for whatever reason.
Eventually, I practiced more and more, learning most of the spawns and memorizing the mechanics. I refined my build until I found out exactly how much of everything I needed, where to get my buffs (potions!), and which spells I'd need. Then one day, maybe a few weeks after my first completion, I achieved the impossible and got Flawless Conqueror. I vowed never to return to this hellish place.
So a couple of days later, I was running it again. I guess I decided I wanted to git gud and get on the leaderboard or something. I don't know. Just one more run...
The tldr of it is that the normal mode does not prepare you for just how difficult veteran is and I wouldn't be surprised if most players gave up on the content too quickly because of that, and perhaps it didn't do their interest in the game any favors. I am not suggesting it be made easier. What I am suggesting is that normal mode be made harder. If normal isn't so simple you can finish it with one skill, perhaps more players could work on the mechanics there and have that skillset transfer to veteran when they are ready. As it stands, normal is a joke.
Moving on to thoughts on specific arenas...
The first four arenas work well. They're a nice warmup for seasoned players and a huge wake-up call for those new to the arena. The difficulty progression here is great. It feels as if it ramps up appropriately.
Once you hit the Rink of Frozen Blood, things change. I absolutely hate this arena. I do not like the way it is designed. I feel the sheer difficulty of this arena far surpasses that of any other. The damage you have to take is comparable to that of Igneous Cistern but your movement limitations and all of the CC you're subjected to make it far harder. This arena boils down to killing quickly for me, much more so than others, because you die too quickly if you don't thin out enemy numbers. It wouldn't be so bad if they would come out of the water, letting me use Sweep on them to get some health back. As for the boss, I find her more stressful than fun. She'd be too easy without the adds but I just find it frustrating to deal with her, the adds, and the trolls at once.
After the Rink is my favorite arena; Spiral Shadows. Spiral Shadows is mostly about creative mechanics and that's why it is my favorite arena. You don't necessarily have to brute-force your way through it but it punishes you for ignoring its mechanics and rewards you for following them. I'd call it relatively easy, but it's nice to have a step back after the last one.
Next up is Vault of Umbrage, and this one is stupid. I hate it. Maybe more than Rink, but not because it is difficult. I hate Vault of Umbrage because the design choices here baffle me. This arena far too often RNGs you to death. The poison and snipes are usually easy enough to avoid if you pay attention to your surroundings and the Wamasu isn't so bad once you figure out to avoid the circles and then nuke him. Sometimes the poison catches me off guard but 99% of the time it can be avoided by being aware. The problem here is the boss wave. The boss isn't that difficult on paper, but the adds can sometimes happen to be standing on a poison pod. As soon as the boss starts shouting, you have to run into the lightning shield, just to be hit by poison. Now you're dead if you leave and dead if you stay. This is not fun. This is not challenging. This is inept design. The lightning shield should cleanse the poison. Poison would still be a threat for most of the fight but you would no longer lose that perfect run to RNG.
Igneous Cistern is next and it's very straight forward but also challenging. Stuff here hits hard. It feels like Rink of Frozen Blood in that regard, but it emphasizes target prioritization to reduce incoming damage over mad flailing to kill as many as possible in as short a period of time. This is why I like this one more, despite usually having more trouble with it. I still hate the Flame Knight for having too much burst damage but Empowering Sweep saves the day here.
The last arena is mostly just an annoyance. The waves just drag on and on and it feels like it will never end. The Ash Titan can be tough if you don't avoid the fire wall or don't burn him quick when the adds spawn, but the worst is when he gets to 0 health and decides not to die. I think he is an appropriately difficult boss, otherwise. The final boss is easy enough once you figure out his rotation. I still struggle against him on bad days but that's all on me. He doesn't do cheap shots and it is all on the player to beat him or not. I like the design here.
So overall, I'd say VMSA is very frustrating for new players and still very challenging for those who have been there a while. But is it rewarding for your trouble? Absolutely. But is it appropriately rewarding for the difficulty? Absolutely not.
Don't get me wrong; the Maelstrom weapons are amazing. Most of them, anyway. But even with 100% drop chance, I find I may never get some of the ones I want (looking at you, defending Resto staff). Then you have the matter of the other sets VMSA gives you. Most of them are utterly useless. In fact, I'd say all of them are niche at best. But that's a problem for me because I want Permafrost for my health recovery troll build on an alt.
If my math is correct, there are 54 possible item drops, excluding weapons from the last chest. That isn't accounting for traits. That gives you 8 chances at an item you want over the course of a run. Right now, I want two permafrost rings and one necklace in healthy. Assuming I've accounted for all of the items and possible traits, I'm estimating a 1-in-246 chance of getting the items I want. I need three of them. So if the math holds up, I need to run VMSA approximately 93 times to be statistically likely to obtain the items I want. At my average speed, that's 77.5 hours of VMSA. I'd use over 6000 potions in that time, costing me 1,500 lady's smock and corn flower, or something to the tune of 250-300 thousand gold of materials. My reward? Three mediocre, niche pieces of jewelry and 93 maelstrom weapons, of which probably 85 or so would be useless to me. In fact, I'd bet half of the ended up infused.
This system is horrible. Everyone hates it. It has no redeeming qualities. It's RNG again. Nobody likes a purely RNG-based system. This is 2016, not 2004. These sets aren't even worth this hell. Pretty much every set coming in One Tamriel is vastly superior for anything but the most niche of builds (my troll build). Please fix it.
My suggestion? A currency system. Ramp up the difficulty of normal mode and grant "maelstrom tokens" and / or "veteran maelstrom tokens" at the end of each arena. Remove the chests from each wave. Especially remove them in veteran, where most players looking for a leaderboard position ignore them anyway. Each arena in normal mode should grant a single normal token when finished, a bonus three for finishing all nine, and maybe give a single veteran token, assuming the difficulty has been sufficiently increased. For veteran mode, each arena should grant a normal and veteran token.
To put that in easier terms, the total reward for a full run on both difficulty settings:
Normal: 12 normal tokens and 1 veteran token
Veteran: 12 normal tokens and 12 veteran tokens
Put a vendor in the sandy area with the quest giver outside and have him sell satchels that are specific to sets, sort of how imperial city sets work. Just as a suggestion:
Normal token vendor (3 tokens each):
Random Superior Hunt Set Item
Random Superior Glory Set Item
Random Superior Permafrost Set Item
Random Superior Winterborn Set Item
Random Superior Succession Set Item
Random Superior Para Bellum Set Item
Random jewelry of any set
Random shield of any set
The veteran vendor would be the same but 3 veteran tokens each and epic quality items. Maybe even yellow quality, to give any reason whatsoever to pick this over the next vendor.
Maelstrom Weapon vendor (10 veteran tokens):
Random Maelstrom 1H (all one-handed axes, maces, swords, and daggers, excluding shields)
Random Maelstrom 2H melee (all two-handed axes, swords, and mauls)
Random Maelstrom 2H staff (all flame, frost, shock, and restoration staves)
The goal of this vendor is to grant the weapons somewhat more focused on what type you want but to retain a bit of RNG to make you work for the perfect weapon and trait.
Anyway, that's just a suggestion. I just think there needs to be some system in place to narrow down the chances of getting what you want, especially when it comes to the armor sets that are arguably mediocre, yet one of the hardest sets to obtain consistently. Or maybe just make them all BoE and call it a day.
Its all pretty fair, but where's the bow? i have a sharpened one but still ;u;0 -
jrgray93✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Oops! I forgot the bow. Bows removed from game apparently.EP: Slania Isara : Harambe Was an Inside Job0 -
Wrecking_Blow_Spam✭✭✭✭✭
✭Travestynox wrote: »No to token system. An absolute definitive no. There should be no guaranteed rewards anywhere, but the chance to get what we want should indeed be improved, and not just in VMA, throughout the game.
Farming BIS is bad for the game.
So shut down the golden vendor too?Xbox one EU
8 Flawless conquerors on all class specs (4 stam, 4 magicka)
Doesn't stand in red3 -
Travestynox✭✭✭Wrecking_Blow_Spam wrote: »Travestynox wrote: »No to token system. An absolute definitive no. There should be no guaranteed rewards anywhere, but the chance to get what we want should indeed be improved, and not just in VMA, throughout the game.
Farming BIS is bad for the game.
So shut down the golden vendor too?
Absolutely.0 -
Doctordarkspawn✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I dont roll stam toons for two reasons.
Maelstrom weapons being needed for optimization, and the hell that entails, and vigor.
That should tell you a few things.0 -
disintegr8✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭They need to stop useless reward drops from all max level gear rewards. Nobody at CP cap needs training or prosperous traits on gear that is bind on pickup. With the changes to gear being BOP and the fact that you cannot even give the gear away makes me think the drops should also take into account your class and role.
I do not know if I will ever do VMSA as I am in the game for fun, not torture. Only ran normal MSA for the first time last weekend - after 12 months in the game. At least I completed that one.Australian on PS4 NA server.
Everyone's entitled to an opinion.1 -
Ch4mpTW✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭disintegr8 wrote: »They need to stop useless reward drops from all max level gear rewards. Nobody at CP cap needs training or prosperous traits on gear that is bind on pickup. With the changes to gear being BOP and the fact that you cannot even give the gear away makes me think the drops should also take into account your class and role.
I do not know if I will ever do VMSA as I am in the game for fun, not torture. Only ran normal MSA for the first time last weekend - after 12 months in the game. At least I completed that one.
I salute you for your decision. You've saved yourself tons of: Anger, disappointment, grief, gold, potions, and overall negativity. Much respect to you for your decision.
1 -
Qbiken✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I´m generally against the token system but if it were to be implied I think tokens onyl should drop in veteran mode. All these people who wants msa weapons in normal (but cp150) etc is just cancer. And even if a token system where implimented it would require you to run vmsa a lot of times before even getting enough tokens to open a "loot-box", and then people would cry that the token system is trash....0 -
Mush55✭✭✭✭To the op I agree , but you have one thing going in your favour you can complete it. Been stuck on round 5 for 2 days and can't see me doing it any time soon, I thought I was a good player as I have completed all other content. Mind bugs lag and bad rng don't help.
Yes the rewards need to suit the effort and not spew out utter crap0 -
Trublz✭✭✭/sign
Even tho I can't get past stage 5
This isn't very encouraging
I had 245 CP actually, I had forgot to put 21 points..![:\](https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/resources/emoji/confused.png ":\")
CP531 Air-eez Redguard DK DPS
CP531 Hayd-eez Imperial DK Tank
CP531 SomethinFishy Khajit NB DPS
CP531 Heracl-eez Orc Sorc DPS
CP531 Anark-eez Dark Elf DK DPS
CP531 Herm-eez Breton Temp DPS0 -
Neophyte✭✭✭Maelstrom arena made me quit PvE. Fed up doing this solo content {which I hate) to get a weapon that will help me pull the numbers I need for GROUP trials. I only farm crafting materials in pve. Don't even do the undaunted quests anymore.0 -
Destyran✭✭✭✭✭@ZOS_RichLambert please actually read this everything is true and the current system is turning players away from the game. They either cant do it or can do it with ease and quit because they cant get the weapon. Please reconsider this whole system. Pretty please.2 -
Kaozu✭✭
I was stuck there too, I just left it and retried 2 days later.. And I finishied it entirely in 3 hours.. (from arena 5 to last one).
It's very challeging, and I like it.. But the Drop system should be revised surely. Such a Hard content like that should be rewarding since first moment, not depending on luck..0
