F Maelstrom. I'm never goin there again

AzuraKin

DPShiro wrote: »

So much salt and hate from people who can't handle the difficulty.

I have one major complain about VMA and that is the RNG drops at the end, it's stupid to not get the weapon you want after 300++ runs.

But for the actual arena, I love it! The gameplay, mechanics and the constant demand of the player to actually adapt is incredible. Everyone who has completed and mastered it are a much better player afterwards. It forces you to do t depend on others and actually manage you damage, sustain, healing etc on you own. Something that sometimes is needed in Veteran Trials Hard Mode etc

I would never want to play Vet Trials, and especially Hard Mode with someone who can't even complete VMA. That person will only slow the teams down, maybe even cause the team to wipe and would need to be carried.

I really hope we get another arena in the same spirit as VMA, maybe even one that can be 1-2 player (so we still can solo when no other is online).

I also love testing out new and crazy builds in VMA, to see how they handle tough content. And even when I get all the weapons I want from VMA, I will continue to play it, because to me it's fun.

to say someone has to beat vma to do vet trials, is complete idiocy. not everyone has the time to learn vma let alone the desire to do something like that solo. most people who run trials dont do it cause trials are difficult, they do it because its social.

Moltyr

Don't waste your time with VMA. Time to hold ZOS more accountable:

Masel

Dymence wrote: »

acw37162 wrote: »

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Even the very best players who clear his content repeateadly (with exceptions) hate this content.

Two of my guilds have players locked in there chasing gear and even those who beat it finish frustrated annoyed and generally less fun to have in guild chat then. He usually are.

If you guaranteed me everything I could ever want in one clear I wouldn't go there.

It for my money and in only my opinion may be the worst content in the game.

People generally don't hate the content, people hate the RNG behind the loot. The hate is just more prominent in this particular instance because it is harder to complete than most other things in the game.

People who genuinely hate this content for what it is and think it is badly designed fall into 2 branches:

- People who hate solo content;
- People who need a bucket of L2P

This. I hate the rng. Well no, I don't hate the rng, I hate that there is only one viable trait in the game right now. Nerf sharpened or buff at least precise and nirnhoned! Nirnhoned to 25-30% and precise to 12% with a 5% critical damage modifier. That will stop people hating the loot.

visionality

I fully agree with the notion of having an expert challenge for expert players - they need challenges too, after all.

But why hide the strongest weapons of the game at a place that most ppl will never reach? Using VMA-weapons myself, I see exactly how much stronger they make my gameplay. So why empowering the strongest players with BIS weapons that normal players can never achieve? Just to give "the normals" bitterness and a bad feeling?

DannyLV702

Heart Healthy California Walnuts

Satoshii

for real???
.............
am i the only one who wants a Hard mode VMA..?

try different build.. move your CP around.. little bit more regen sometimes make the whole difference..
turn your gear gold.. maybe a bit more health... it takes time to find the sweet spot for you character sometime where everything is well set.. find your weakness and the reason why you die the most and then work around that. OT gave us the opportunity to try hundreds of new builds combination

Rune_Relic

But it is supposed to be hell on earth.
Its a benchmarking tool.

The problem I see is, if you are going to put someone through that kind of hell,
you damn well better make sure they get compensated for it.
Anything less than the ability for the player to actually outright choose their preferred reward is a slap in the face.

Would you still hate VMA then...or would you say...damn it a nightmare...but hell its worth it if you get there.

ethanthefox

I used to kind of hate it tbh but now I have all the weapons I needed. Im now running it to get flawless or beat my top score. Without the awkward Rng it really feel better. Ive even done it all in first person for the lol. When I grind new dps characters now, vma is the first thing im trying it on.

zyk

Dymence wrote: »

People who genuinely hate this content for what it is and think it is badly designed fall into 2 branches:

- People who hate solo content;
- People who need a bucket of L2P

I don't hate solo content, but I think (arguably) BIS slot weapons obtained only through grinding a single player instance in an MMO is pretty dumb. At least with a token system, we would be able to make progress over time and *know* we will eventually get a weapon that fits our intended build and/or playstyle.

I completed it in 2.2 just to do it. I enjoyed it a lot. I did not grind it until this week. I've had some okay drops, but the grind has made me dislike content I once really enjoyed.

Denyiir

I did vma couple days ago and what I learned is, its all about dps. I got to stage 9 with my stamblade in full pvp impen gear without a problem cause I was just killing stuff so fast they couldn't fight back.
Stage 9 is a different story. You need to learn the mechanics of it really good, watch couple videos (I recomend alcast guide, it's REALLY helpful) and probably spend a few hours trying, but it's doable.
My advice is go full offense build (with at least 18-19 k hp buffed though), put spriggan/spinner set plus 2 proc sets (viper with veli is amazing on stam characters) and just melt everything before it kills you

Waseem

most players be like: i hate it and hate doing it, but i have to do it 5 times daily

kylewwefan

Yeah....I'd be happy to beat it once. No idea why so many people I know feel compelled to keep going back in there.

Rune_Relic

Maelstrom is designed for benchmarking solo builds.
At the end of the day, as solo content, it should not be designed for tank, healer or DD.
All specialist role should fail due to lacking in two areas.
You will need to have sufficient self healing, self protection and damage.
[at least in theory]

DSA is designed for benchmarking group builds.
Where tank, healer and DD can excel.

It would be interesting to take 4x VMA builds into DSA though.
Then play tag spreading/combining damage and sharing out the pain.
Must be worth the giggles.

Snit

I know many people who have spent a great deal of time in there, and most have hated the experience. Yet the lure of that perfect weapon keeps them pulling the lever, even if the pellets are poison. That's not healthy for TESO. Long-term, even if they eventually get that sharpened inferno staff or dagger, they like the game less than they used to.

I hope ZOS addresses both the loot RNG and the difficulty. Tokens would help, as would a hard-mode that awards additional tokens, combined with some slight downtweaking of certain stages.

Armitas

Rune_Relic wrote: »

But it is supposed to be hell on earth.
Its a benchmarking tool.

The problem I see is, if you are going to put someone through that kind of hell,
you damn well better make sure they get compensated for it.
Anything less than the ability for the player to actually outright choose their preferred reward is a slap in the face.

Would you still hate VMA then...or would you say...damn it a nightmare...but hell its worth it if you get there.

You're right I wouldn't hate it at all. There is a lot of synthetic challenge to hate when it comes to VMA...poor server performance, poor game mechanics (ex: targeting), and RNG death but all that can be overcome with a good reward at the end. Instead the first reward often comes only after 300 runs which means you waste weeks and months with nothing to show for it. BiS is so exceptionally lopsided that it makes all other chest drops vendor trash.

prettynink

kylewwefan wrote: »

Just f it. Spent 4 hours today trying to pass the 7 round argonian ***. I even ran an Ethernet cable across my house. I can't spend any more time in there. It's not fun. It actually makes me not want to play the game.

Fruit nut. I hate you. Zenimax I hate you. Locking the best stuff behind this poo show is just disrespectful. I go bed now. Cry myself to sleep.

hey @kylewwefan I lmfao when I read your post. Not because your pain of course, but Fruit nut lol really though. I called him just that when I let my guild members know how I felt about him not giving me flawless when I was 15/15 © and we should be allowed to kill him justly

AtraisMachina

DPShiro wrote: »

Humatiel wrote: »

Every thread I see like this reminds me that VMA is still doing its job. Keeping the good from the rest.

Fully agree with this^

you know there's an agree button

AtraisMachina

Dont worry m8 you can beat it! once you do then youll really be pissed off if your in there for weapons!

Artis

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

VMA is designed like a single player trial. I dont like it, I dont get it, I dont run DPS so I dont need to do it and if I did I'd likely run magicka DPS so the benefite would be negledgeable.

Call it what you will, lack of skill, casualism, whatever. But I will allways advocate nerfing VMA and tip my hat to people who've had enough.

PS: The vast majority of this games community isn't up to VMA, true. That's fine. it's why advocating for difficult content outside of raids has allways been a wash. VMA, for what it's worth, has allways provided a valuable service as a nice entry level to trials, but outside of that 'difficult' content isn't needed or wanted by the vast majority. Shadows of the Hist dungeons is a great example. No one runs it anymore. They got their helms, they got their shoulders, now no one runs it because it's not fun. Bottom line, the majority was never going to be able to complete Maelstrom vet. And if content is only geared toward the people who can, this game is actively chasing away buisness.

I've had many many arguements about VMA with others. People who think VMA is great and anyone who hates it is a casual. Fact is, VMA is just poorly designed trash to me. Like most of the content that's come out this year, Shadows of the hist, Maw, all the group and now even serious solo content is hardcore pandering. (To be clear, I am not calling Maw badly designed, it's actually fairly well designed, but it follows the same 'for the hardcore audience' theme as the rest of the content.) And the only one that is consistantly popular is Maw. VMA is almost universally hated, and SOTH has just been *** forgotten, hardly ever mention and hardly ever ran. So what does this tell us?

It tells us the only hard content that's successfull or of any worth to anybody for more than five minutes is Raids. So it needs to be kept to raids. If VMA's weapons were not a thing I'd guarentee you no one would run or even talk about this content exept as a raid-barrier. And that's all it is now anyway.

So what does this tell us? That there's a lot of lazy players who want instant gratification for no effort. Whaaaat? People are lazy? What a twist.

Nah, RoM and CoS are fun. They are just long and people run pledges for the keys and want to get the keys fast and putting no effort/time into it. These dungeons are the best in game. They have fun mechanics that can't be ignored and outdpsed.

If you don't like VMA - just don't run it. Why would you want to nerf it and ruin fun for others? I thought you don't like that it's a solo trial, not the difficulty. Changing difficulty won't make it more fun. Or if you think it will, then go run normal MA and see how fun it is.

Jeremy wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

Just f it. Spent 4 hours today trying to pass the 7 round argonian ***. I even ran an Ethernet cable across my house. I can't spend any more time in there. It's not fun. It actually makes me not want to play the game.

Fruit nut. I hate you. Zenimax I hate you. Locking the best stuff behind this poo show is just disrespectful. I go bed now. Cry myself to sleep.

I agree with you. It saps my will to keep playing the game as well. In fact my playtime has slacked off dramatically since I attempted the veteran arena. The normal version (while frustrating at times) was alright.

It's just over-all very poorly designed content that favors a narrow build set and discourages other builds from playing.

Expecting healers and tanks to pay thousands of gold to rebuild there characters every time they want to attempt veteran Maelstrom or (as one poster actually suggested to me other day) to create an entirely new character whose sole purpose is to run this content is unreasonable and ridiculous.

If they are going to design content that drops gear for healers and tanks then they need to make such content do-able by healers and tanks. Because not all of us play mobile highly-offensive builds.

I'm usually complementary of this game's PvE content. But this one gets very low marks from me. ON a game that supposedly prides itself on character choices and customization - this content is as narrow-minded as it gets.

Healers and tanks are support roles. Who are you supporting in a solo arena? I'm a sorc dps and I have to pay 3000g to rearrange my cp for vma, this isn't an issue for just healers and tanks lol. Guess what? I have another max rank sorc that I levelled up just for pve.

Healers and tanks are not support roles. They are main roles that many players design their characters around.

To suggest that healers and tanks have no place in solo content is one of the more silly things I have ever read on this forum.

This isn't even to address the most obvious contradiction - that the content itself drops gear for both tanks and healers. So to suggest to me that healers and tanks should have no place in content that drops gear for healers and tanks defies simple logic.

If they want to make content just for dps classes - fine make it - but don't try and lure other builds in there by making it drop gear for roles the content supposedly wasn't designed to accommodate.

Lolwut? Don't comment early in the mornings before you fully wake up. Of course they are support roles. The main goal of any encounter is to kill an enemy. Not to heal through his damage for a while. Not to survive his attacks for a while. But to kill him in the end. Tank and healer support their DPS and make it possible, easier and faster.

And no, they are support not as opposed to main. They are support as opposed to damage dealers. Some characters deal damage, others support them. It's a different classification, not main/support applied to the trinity.

Now again, VMA is NOT designed for DPS builds. Pure DPS build CAN NOT complete it. They all need to survive, so they must change their builds accordingly -to have some defense and self-heals. So if DPS can't complete it without changing the build, why do you expect tanks or healers to complete it? They need to change builds too. VMA is for neither of group roles/builds. It's for solo builds.

AlexTech0x

Once you get used to it, it gets better and better. The end chest whoever, is much worse than everything you noted.

Celas_Dranacea

Last night, I finally finished vMA on Dranacea (stamblade). I'd like to add that I completed boss fights on stage 2, 3, 4, 5 6, and 9 as a werewolf.

Now, I feel like I have ascended to another level of werewolf nirvana. I am hardened by hours of practice and training like Uma Thurmond in Kill Bill with that crazy Kung fu master. Except in this case an ancient Daedric force helped me train to be the best stamblade werewolf I could be.

I am happy and the struggle was well worth it. Ever since MA came out I have gone in there every once in awhile, completed one stage of vMA at a time over months. It was manageable that way and fun. It's about the journey, not the destination.

I was rewarded a nirnhoned bow for my efforts - I know it's not BIS but I will take it - I'm not likely to make a habit of farming it as I have other more social things to do with my game time.

That is all.

threefarms

Stormproof ***

Paneross

I've beaten it multiple times and I still haven't gotten a single weap I actually want. It's almost not worth my time.

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO

My suggestion is to never give up.

I was a tank, switched to magica DK (worst class for vMSA). Tried several times and gave up.

Then I watched a bunch of video tutorials, and was forced to switch to stamina DK because it is easier. In addition, had to farm a lot of gold to get the best glyphs, and to upgrade my equipment to yellow.

My first run was completed last week and it took me about 3 months to complete all stages (casual play). Second run was way easier and took about 4 hours, third took 2 hours, but 4th took 3.5 hours as my hand started to hurt a lot

So my advise is watch a lot of tutorials and make sure that your equipment has the best glyphs and is upgraded to the max. In addition make sure that you have the best potions equiped and have enough gold to pay for repairs

Either than that, its just a matter of time of learning all the mechanics for your class.

Chrlynsch

Celas_Dranacea wrote: »

Last night, I finally finished vMA on Dranacea (stamblade). I'd like to add that I completed boss fights on stage 2, 3, 4, 5 6, and 9 as a werewolf.

Now, I feel like I have ascended to another level of werewolf nirvana. I am hardened by hours of practice and training like Uma Thurmond in Kill Bill with that crazy Kung fu master. Except in this case an ancient Daedric force helped me train to be the best stamblade werewolf I could be.

I am happy and the struggle was well worth it. Ever since MA came out I have gone in there every once in awhile, completed one stage of vMA at a time over months. It was manageable that way and fun. It's about the journey, not the destination.

I was rewarded a nirnhoned bow for my efforts - I know it's not BIS but I will take it - I'm not likely to make a habit of farming it as I have other more social things to do with my game time.

That is all.

Do it in one werewolf transformation

Integral1900

Here is a though, how about everyone who says stupid things like l2p and get good or some other utterly hollow tripe has an anvil tied round their legs and pushed off the nearest convinient pier. I'm not a sadist but that was would make me so happy

Finished normal, story was okay as a concept, loot was vendor trash and a dribble of xp, wouldn't do it again. My job entails a lot of frustration and bottled up rage, the last thing I want is for that to follow over into games. I play for fun and stories, couldn't give a toss about difficulty as long as it's not a total cake walk.

Tried vet, gave up at the first round, besides, I don't do any content that t requires maelstrom anyway. Also, bear this in mind, my crafted gear gets me through all the stuff in the game I want to do, even soloed every site in craglorn, which is quite a thing for a muppet like me. When the promised gear cap comes, and rest assured it will, I can just stroll down to the crafting sites and make new stuff, the maelstrom ninjas will have to do the grind... all... over... again............ sound of evil laughter

Celas_Dranacea

Prothwata wrote: »

Celas_Dranacea wrote: »

Last night, I finally finished vMA on Dranacea (stamblade). I'd like to add that I completed boss fights on stage 2, 3, 4, 5 6, and 9 as a werewolf.

Now, I feel like I have ascended to another level of werewolf nirvana. I am hardened by hours of practice and training like Uma Thurmond in Kill Bill with that crazy Kung fu master. Except in this case an ancient Daedric force helped me train to be the best stamblade werewolf I could be.

I am happy and the struggle was well worth it. Ever since MA came out I have gone in there every once in awhile, completed one stage of vMA at a time over months. It was manageable that way and fun. It's about the journey, not the destination.

I was rewarded a nirnhoned bow for my efforts - I know it's not BIS but I will take it - I'm not likely to make a habit of farming it as I have other more social things to do with my game time.

That is all.

Do it in one werewolf transformation

That would be a feat! I imagine you have done a fair amount of vMA werewolfing @Prothwata, as you are a werewolf of some reknown

Celas_Dranacea

Integral1900 wrote: »

Here is a though, how about everyone who says stupid things like l2p and get good or some other utterly hollow tripe has an anvil tied round their legs and pushed off the nearest convinient pier. I'm not a sadist but that was would make me so happy

Finished normal, story was okay as a concept, loot was vendor trash and a dribble of xp, wouldn't do it again. My job entails a lot of frustration and bottled up rage, the last thing I want is for that to follow over into games. I play for fun and stories, couldn't give a toss about difficulty as long as it's not a total cake walk.

Tried vet, gave up at the first round, besides, I don't do any content that t requires maelstrom anyway. Also, bear this in mind, my crafted gear gets me through all the stuff in the game I want to do, even soloed every site in craglorn, which is quite a thing for a muppet like me. When the promised gear cap comes, and rest assured it will, I can just stroll down to the crafting sites and make new stuff, the maelstrom ninjas will have to do the grind... all... over... again............ sound of evil laughter

Definitely don't blame anyone who chooses not to do this content!

Jeremy

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

Just f it. Spent 4 hours today trying to pass the 7 round argonian ***. I even ran an Ethernet cable across my house. I can't spend any more time in there. It's not fun. It actually makes me not want to play the game.

Fruit nut. I hate you. Zenimax I hate you. Locking the best stuff behind this poo show is just disrespectful. I go bed now. Cry myself to sleep.

I agree with you. It saps my will to keep playing the game as well. In fact my playtime has slacked off dramatically since I attempted the veteran arena. The normal version (while frustrating at times) was alright.

It's just over-all very poorly designed content that favors a narrow build set and discourages other builds from playing.

Expecting healers and tanks to pay thousands of gold to rebuild there characters every time they want to attempt veteran Maelstrom or (as one poster actually suggested to me other day) to create an entirely new character whose sole purpose is to run this content is unreasonable and ridiculous.

If they are going to design content that drops gear for healers and tanks then they need to make such content do-able by healers and tanks. Because not all of us play mobile highly-offensive builds.

I'm usually complementary of this game's PvE content. But this one gets very low marks from me. ON a game that supposedly prides itself on character choices and customization - this content is as narrow-minded as it gets.

Healers and tanks are support roles. Who are you supporting in a solo arena? I'm a sorc dps and I have to pay 3000g to rearrange my cp for vma, this isn't an issue for just healers and tanks lol. Guess what? I have another max rank sorc that I levelled up just for pve.

Healers and tanks are not support roles. They are main roles that many players design their characters around.

To suggest that healers and tanks have no place in solo content is one of the more silly things I have ever read on this forum.

This isn't even to address the most obvious contradiction - that the content itself drops gear for both tanks and healers. So to say to me that healers and tanks should have no place in this content just defies simple logic.

Yeah they are support roles, and who said a support role wasn't a main role?. The end goal of all pve is to kill all the mobs and bosses. The DPS are responsible for the killing and healers and tanks facilitate this and try to ensure the DPS can dps as quickly as possible. It's a team effort of course but most of the killing is done by a fraction of the team. Did you expect a solo arena to be completed with your full healer setup on your own? What are you gonna do? Snare them to death with ritual? To complete any content solo you need to be able to damage the mobs cos you're the only one who can.

Describing tanks and healers as support role makes no sense to me.

Support roles are typically roles that specialize at buffing other characters or contributing to the fight in more indirect ways rather what is referred to as the holy trinity of MMORPGs - namely tanking/healing and dps.

There were more common back in the older days of MMORPGs.

I have to go - but if content drops gear for healers and tanks it needs to be designed to accommodate tanks and healers.

Things that need support cannot exist without support. Do not be offended by the term support role. How do you make content that can be completed without killing npcs? Puzzles? Would you like a maze?

I'm not offended by the term. I just don't believe it is accurate.

Support jobs are not tanks and healers. Those are main roles as I said - who specialize in defense and healing magic. Support roles are jobs that specialize in buffing players or de-buffing enemies. I've never heard of anyone who describes tanks and healers as support classes before. That's just odd to me.

Also: I never said VMA should not involve killing NPCS. Do you think healers and tanks don't kill things when they go exploring about Tamriel? Do you think everyone plays DPS-centric classes or builds when they solo on this game? They don't. Healers and tanks solo too. We kill things also. We just do it differently - with our edge being more in defense or healing magic to help us outlast our enemies instead of relying on high damage bursts.

My point is VMA is content that is created exclusively for high offensive builds - yet it drops gear for healers and tanks. That is stupid. I should not have to re-design my entire character and turn him from a healer into a DPSer to get healing gear. And I really don't understand how anyone could argue with such a simple point.

code65536

Jeremy wrote: »

My point is VMA is content that is created exclusively for high offensive builds - yet it drops gear for healers and tanks. That is stupid.

What gear for healers and tanks? Oh, you mean the resto staff that is only good for self-healing solo content and outclassed for healing group content? Or the tank weapon that is so useless that no tank in their right mind would touch it? If you never intend to DPS, then there is no equipment in vMA that is worth getting.

Also, every one of my eight vet characters has done vMA. Including my tanks (yes, I have multiple). And my healer. My healer did it in his healer gear with the Atronach mundus, and my tanks change between DPS and tank with a simple swap of gear.