The grind for the vMA sharpened inferno staff is taking up ALL of my ingame time

SublimeSparo

The Maelstrom Arena

Test your might against the fiercest enemies imaginable as you, and you alone, fight for your life. Earn prestige with leaderboard rankings and be rewarded with some of the most powerful weapons in all of Tamriel! The Maelstrom Arena features nine combat rings and two different difficulty levels. Do you have what it takes to journey into the Maelstrom?

As advertised by ZoS-
Can you point out where it says some people will get *** over and not be rewarded with powerful weapons no matter how many times you complete it? Or even where it says they are intended to be rare/unobtainable? I don't see it myself, in fact it actually says that these powerful weapons can be earned-
earn
verb
past tense: earned; past participle: earned
1.
obtain (money) in return for labour or services.

2.
gain deservedly in return for one's behaviour or achievements.
"through the years she has earned affection and esteem"
synonyms: deserve, merit, warrant, justify, be entitled to, be worthy of, be deserving of, have a right to; More
gain, win, attain, achieve, secure, establish, obtain, procure, get, acquire, come to have, find;
informalclinch, bag, net, land
"he has earned their trust over the years"

DRXHarbinger

Artis wrote: »

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

Artis wrote: »

That's right, I must be a problem. Yeah, I don't care about my drops. I'll get what I need at some point just like everyone else.

You keep trying to kill the game's economy. It's like you refuse to see the bigger picture, a crybaby just wants to have everything. This entitled generation of kids makes me facepalm.

You're really just a troll and probably not worth it but I'd like to point out that a token system for vMA/vDSA would pretty much have zero impact on the game's economy. You show little to no understanding of the game's economy so please don't accuse anyone of trying to kill it. And ah yes this darn generation of kids who think that working at something and putting in effort to accomplish a task should be rewarded rather than dumb luck, what a buncha entitled brats.

Of course it would impact the economy. Weps would be guaranteed = people would quit running vma sooner = demand on potions decreases, etc.

No, I'm not a troll and understand more than you think, if you think that is. Exactly, they think putting an effort gives them a result. No, that's not how it works. Awww you tried, here's a participation trophy for you.

No, the problem is, that they know the rules, but they will cry and whine if they can't win following the rules. because the rules have to be changed so that they could win. Because they are so special and if they can't win, then the rules are bad.

Get over it. You aren't entitled to weapons just because you ran arena N times. It's a fantasy world, not your job. There are millions of others like you, and the point is not to give them all weapons. Then why not just mail them?

But yeah, keep on going, your echo chamber will support you. YOu can't get the item you want? Must be something wrong with the rules you knew in advance, they have to change. Who cares that there should be some rare gear? No, you want it now and deserve it, cause you're so special. Somebody sees deeper than you and disagrees with you? No, must be a troll, there's no chance he's smarter or more educated than you. It just can't be.

Lol...people buy pots to run vma hundreds of times...that's your argument...got news for you.....99.99% of players that smash this probably don't even use potions..I used 3 this morning.....let alone the players can make thier own (99% of the player base at cp cap) someone get this guy a lol face meme.

Molec

@ Artis

"Economy" - I don't know about anybody else but I stopped wasting money crafting Spell Power Potions for vMA a long time ago and reverted to using trash magika pots as it costs thousands to craft a stack, not to mention that serious players in Cyro and Veteran Trials consume crafted pots like addicts. It would be like the economy before DB when there was a much higher chance to score a usable vMA weapon, in fact I'd go as far as saying back then pots were more expensive!

"Entitled" - People are allowed to address the issue since DB of running hundreds of runs and not receiving at least one of each usable weapon. If there was no room for discussion then there would be zero changes across the board. This isn't an issue of "I WAS STEALTH-GANKED BY NB 100k INCAP STRIKE,EURMAGURRD! NERF SPELL DAMAGE!!!!!!!" This is a genuine issue regarding ungodly amounts of time wasted in a single player instance when we have friends to play with and guilds to manage. If you are happy with it then that's perfectly fine however there's a large portion of the community who does not agree with the current loot system. It's an opinion which we're all ironically ENTITLED to.

"They know the rules" - Nobody explained the "rules", the "rules" are educated guesses from the community based on a volume of runs and the rewards received.

The logic behind these arguments are baffling as it would have ZERO impact on your game and they make little sense. If you look back to the time when the vMA loot was more rewarding you would see that there was a different reward system in place and compared to the current system the rewards were better with no adverse side effects.

Also that joke about the undaunted had me in tears!

Artis wrote: »

Also, RNG is consistent with the lore. Just go to HRC and see for yourself.
"You have come farther than those feeble Undaunted. But you will fall just the same."
So people who have all the undaunted shoulders - multiple bis pieces too, the infinite amount of all possible trait and type combos - wipe on the first trash pack in HRC. Because on the second pack you already "have come farther" than them.

Which shows that RNG and luck, getting loot in MMO is not just about being more skilled or getting carried by a more skilled group. The game itself warns about it. And HRC was released back in 2014.

^^ This is pure ESO comedy rhetoric ^^

Farorin

Just wait guys, all your dreams will come true, you will finally get the item you have been grinding for, a huge weight will be lifted from your shoulders....


And then..... The item level cap is increased, making your hours and hours and hours of work, all for naught.


Maybe ZOS are super villains?

Decado

Artis wrote: »

a crybaby just wants to have everything. This entitled generation of kids makes me facepalm.

I'm probably one of the people who complain about maelstrom and the RNG in there The most, now I honestly have no idea how many runs I've actually done in here but I've heard people
Estimate around 1000, now if it is 1000 or not is not the issue (although The fact people estimate anywhere near that says enough IMO)

Does that still make me an entitled cry baby for believing I should have the weapon by now?

Artis wrote: »

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

Artis wrote: »

That's right, I must be a problem. Yeah, I don't care about my drops. I'll get what I need at some point just like everyone else.

You keep trying to kill the game's economy. It's like you refuse to see the bigger picture, a crybaby just wants to have everything. This entitled generation of kids makes me facepalm.

You're really just a troll and probably not worth it but I'd like to point out that a token system for vMA/vDSA would pretty much have zero impact on the game's economy. You show little to no understanding of the game's economy so please don't accuse anyone of trying to kill it. And ah yes this darn generation of kids who think that working at something and putting in effort to accomplish a task should be rewarded rather than dumb luck, what a buncha entitled brats.

Of course it would impact the economy. Weps would be guaranteed = people would quit running vma sooner = demand on potions decreases, etc.
.

Hahaha do you seriously believe That? Let's ignore for the moment the he fact that potion prices have literally plummeted and stick with that they cost a fair amount (since they did for most the time maelstrom has been out)

When I used to run maelstrom I barely ever touched potions I no longer needed to and if I did it was a basic magicka pot that drops from bosses which I have literally 1000s of so it costs me nothing to run maelstrom however if I was raiding I would be taking a spell power pot the second I was off cool down, while progressing vMoL HM I went through 100s of those a night,

And chances are it I'm not raiding Then I'm on PvP where I have tri stat potions equipped and use them when I need to so infact maelstrom actually decreases my need for potions

For the vast majority of people maelstrom is laughably easy at this stage and takes 0 effort

DRXHarbinger

Lol today's drop.

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/DR X Harbinger/screenshot/5435192

Artemiisia

all they really need to do is make a token system vendor for vMal

Meaning everytime you complete it, you will get a token

After you have collected 100 tokens, you can buy the weapon you want from the vendor

Molec

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Lol today's drop.

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/DR X Harbinger/screenshot/5435192

Wow good going DRX! Congrats

Aeladiir

Artis wrote: »

Meld777 wrote: »

@Artis I did it here:

My bad, it's hard to see, the format isnt' very good for math on these forums. Ok then, the drop rate of a certain item decreased about 2 times, which your math demonstrated. However the drop to get An item increased. Which is fine. I still don't see why everyone is supposed to have 1 certain item. You do get something you can use almost every time now, you just choose not to use it.

I mean, it's an MMO and you knew the rules in advance. Maybe they should remove leaderboards to stop your complains and people will run sites like wowprogress to track the first kill etc which are done in setups far from bis. And you won't feel that grinding something will improve your result, because it won't if someone completes faster than you.

Idk, that seems like a solution to this problem.

Meld777 wrote: »

Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 100 chests now: 1-(1-0.006)^100 ~ 45%
Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 100 chests before DB: 1-(1-0.01)^100 ~ 64%

Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 200 chests now: 1-(1-0.006)^200 ~ 69%
Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 200 chests before DB: 1-(1-0.01)^200 ~ 87%

Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 500 chests now: 1-(1-0.006)^500 ~ 95% (as before, 5% = 1 out of 20 will NOT get it)
Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 500 chests before DB: 1-(1-0.01)^500 ~ 99.4 % chance ("more than 99 out of 100 will have it" -> let's scale it: 6 out of 1000 people won't have it; that's you @Decado )

As you can see the progression looks good, so keep running it. The curve is steeper now, so running more times looks better than it used to be

The thing is, that whining on forums takes time , time people could use to clear vma and get their weapons.

This guy just said that 500 runs of vMA - in order to get the weapon you want - is actually passable and more or less okay. He just said that. In case you thought you misread: This guy just said that 500 runs of vMA - in order to get the weapon you want - is actually passable. I kid you not, folks, he said it.

Also, in case you thought you misread the paragraph above, I will repeat it again: This guy just said that 500 runs of vMA - in order to get the weapon you want - is actually passable. Oh, and he also said that while you were complaining, you could've finished an entire run of vMA. How about that.

jakeedmundson

Aeladiir wrote: »

Artis wrote: »

Meld777 wrote: »

@Artis I did it here:

My bad, it's hard to see, the format isnt' very good for math on these forums. Ok then, the drop rate of a certain item decreased about 2 times, which your math demonstrated. However the drop to get An item increased. Which is fine. I still don't see why everyone is supposed to have 1 certain item. You do get something you can use almost every time now, you just choose not to use it.

I mean, it's an MMO and you knew the rules in advance. Maybe they should remove leaderboards to stop your complains and people will run sites like wowprogress to track the first kill etc which are done in setups far from bis. And you won't feel that grinding something will improve your result, because it won't if someone completes faster than you.

Idk, that seems like a solution to this problem.

Meld777 wrote: »

Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 100 chests now: 1-(1-0.006)^100 ~ 45%
Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 100 chests before DB: 1-(1-0.01)^100 ~ 64%

Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 200 chests now: 1-(1-0.006)^200 ~ 69%
Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 200 chests before DB: 1-(1-0.01)^200 ~ 87%

Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 500 chests now: 1-(1-0.006)^500 ~ 95% (as before, 5% = 1 out of 20 will NOT get it)
Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 500 chests before DB: 1-(1-0.01)^500 ~ 99.4 % chance ("more than 99 out of 100 will have it" -> let's scale it: 6 out of 1000 people won't have it; that's you @Decado )

As you can see the progression looks good, so keep running it. The curve is steeper now, so running more times looks better than it used to be

The thing is, that whining on forums takes time , time people could use to clear vma and get their weapons.

This guy just said that 500 runs of vMA - in order to get the weapon you want - is actually passable and more or less okay. He just said that. In case you thought you misread: This guy just said that 500 runs of vMA - in order to get the weapon you want - is actually passable. I kid you not, folks, he said it.

Also, in case you thought you misread the paragraph above, I will repeat it again: This guy just said that 500 runs of vMA - in order to get the weapon you want - is actually passable. Oh, and he also said that while you were complaining, you could've finished an entire run of vMA. How about that.

Not to mention that any statistical analysis done (with or without actually knowing the true drop rates) doesn't mean squat...
The only thing that we KNOW... is your chances don't improve with any amount of runs...

I would really like ZOS to let us know if the estimate below holds any merit.
"Chance to get a Sharpened Inferno in 100 chests now: 1-(1-0.006)^100 ~ 45%"
I truly doubt that many vma players have a sharpened inferno staff after 100 runs. (i was actually hunting a sharpened lightning staff but the chance would be the same)
Although i DO understand the mathematical concept... the value that is learned from this is negligible...There is no REAL method to say after "x" runs you will have "y" item... and that's stupid imo.
There should be some kind of safety built in... nobody should be doing 100 + runs to find ONE item in this place. Not everyone wants to play for leaderboards and not everyone finds 100+ runs fun.

(insert token system idea here)

DRXHarbinger

Zos did say a while back they were working "a way to get the items you want easier" think this was back when the new monster sets dropped and everyone thought 100 keys would land 100 divines shoulders of illambris and grothdarr. PVP carebears won with ap bags now (reking our pve economy by splurging millions to get sharp mothers sorrow swords and elegant weapons, just by spamming mutagen and reparing walls) so who knows if it'll change. (I doubt it will just saying is all)

Blackfyre20

Artis wrote: »

[SNIP]

@Artis I'm not here to debate with you [SNIP], but most of your comparisons don't make sense.

First, an economics lesson. I said that a token system would have pretty much zero impact on the economy, not zero. Sure there might be a marginal decrease in demand for potions. Demand for overland and crafted set weapons might also marginally decrease. Both would have negligible effects on the economy. As pointed out, the majority of players probably run vMA without relying on spell/weapon power pots. I am in that category as I'd rather not spend money on pots when it is not much more difficult to complete the arena without them. Those who do rely on said pots are going for leaderboard scores and probably not farming weapons, so their demand for pots would remain.

A token system is in no way at all whatsoever analogous to participation trophies. You need to complete the content first. Currently it's similar to if you're a player on a championship team and in your contract it says that if you win a championship you get a random bonus between $1 and $1 million. Doesn't matter how much you contributed, you have an equal shot at ending up on either end of the bonus spectrum. A token system would be analogous to your contract saying if you play X minutes and win you get a big bonus. The participation trophy version is if you step into vMA you get a vMA weapon even though you couldn't complete it.

There are millions of others like me? You think millions of people have completed vMA and would invest the time to do it 20 more times? You can just walk back that comment, I won't say anything.

I never complained about getting screwed by the current state of RNG, so no, i am not crying about the rules that I knew in advance. I have only run the arena about 20-25ish times, and did so more for the flawless title than with the intent to farm for that elusive sharpened 2h because I know the RNG is horrible. Regarding the person who made this thread I would agree with you and tell him/her that if you know the odds and decide to waste hundreds of hours in the arena anyway that is your problem and you can't complain about the results. It's gambling, similar to crown crates but with a time investment rather than money. My problem is not that I have gotten screwed by the current "rules" as you call them and deserve special treatment. My problem is with the rules themselves actually giving some people special treatment over others. It sounds like that is where we disagree and that's fine, you have your opinion and I have mine. If you think this is because you "think deeper" and are smarter/more educated, that is comical.

RNG can be fun if implemented properly, but this game is just full of poorly implemented RNG, as it is a make or break mechanic and unfortunately necessary for many builds. You want to make gear rare? Put it behind some truly difficult content, not behind a massive blind RNG system. I don't mind having some RNG included but the challenge should be learning to complete content, not spending hundreds of hours mindlessly doing it over and over.

edited to remove flaming/baiting

JKith

The comment about changing the RNG in vMA to something reasonable would decrease the demand of potions which will in turn effect the economy in a negative way is just preposterous, comical to think about, illogical and completely bogus.

Most people don't use crafted pots for vMA, they either use the cheapy cheap ones or rely on skills.

The biggest change to the economy, if I were to speculate, would be, instead of gold going to the merchant for repairing gear, (which is the only gold I spend on vMA) it will go to guild stores,.. probably a small boost to the economy in a positive way. Then more people available for group content.

And @Blackfyre20 excellent points and nice post.

montiferus

code65536 wrote: »

raidentenshu_ESO wrote: »

Says the person who has characters who heavily relies on vMA weapons

vMA weapons will not make or break your build.

Are you referring to Magicka builds? If so then this is true. If you are referring to stamina well then you couldn't be more wrong.

What they need to do is either remove the useless traits entirely or modify them so they have value in the game (this would be preferred). That would open open up more build diversity.

JKith

montiferus wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

raidentenshu_ESO wrote: »

Says the person who has characters who heavily relies on vMA weapons

vMA weapons will not make or break your build.

Are you referring to Magicka builds? If so then this is true. If you are referring to stamina well then you couldn't be more wrong.

What they need to do is either remove the useless traits entirely or modify them so they have value in the game (this would be preferred). That would open open up more build diversity.

Maelstrom weapons will make or break a stamina build.

I just got a Maelstrom bow and it increased the damage done of Arrow Barrage literally by 100%. It was doing on average 22k damage per cast, now with the Maelstrom bow, its doing 43k damaged per cast (testing on same enemy average out of ten casts)

Artis

SublimeSparo wrote: »

The Maelstrom Arena

Test your might against the fiercest enemies imaginable as you, and you alone, fight for your life. Earn prestige with leaderboard rankings and be rewarded with some of the most powerful weapons in all of Tamriel! The Maelstrom Arena features nine combat rings and two different difficulty levels. Do you have what it takes to journey into the Maelstrom?

As advertised by ZoS-
Can you point out where it says some people will get *** over and not be rewarded with powerful weapons no matter how many times you complete it? Or even where it says they are intended to be rare/unobtainable? I don't see it myself, in fact it actually says that these powerful weapons can be earned-
earn
verb
past tense: earned; past participle: earned
1.
obtain (money) in return for labour or services.

2.
gain deservedly in return for one's behaviour or achievements.
"through the years she has earned affection and esteem"
synonyms: deserve, merit, warrant, justify, be entitled to, be worthy of, be deserving of, have a right to; More
gain, win, attain, achieve, secure, establish, obtain, procure, get, acquire, come to have, find;
informalclinch, bag, net, land
"he has earned their trust over the years"

And you are getting rewarded with some of them, just like advertised. You're not promised and not entitled to get any single type+trait combo that you might want.

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Lol...people buy pots to run vma hundreds of times...that's your argument...got news for you.....99.99% of players that smash this probably don't even use potions..I used 3 this morning.....let alone the players can make thier own (99% of the player base at cp cap) someone get this guy a lol face meme.

You're right, what was I thinking. If you aren't using potions it definitely means that most likely 99.99% of players who clear it don't use them too. With at least 2 digits after decimal point precision. Probably even 99.999%.

Molec wrote: »

@ Artis

"Economy" - I don't know about anybody else but I stopped wasting money crafting Spell Power Potions for vMA a long time ago and reverted to using trash magika pots as it costs thousands to craft a stack, not to mention that serious players in Cyro and Veteran Trials consume crafted pots like addicts. It would be like the economy before DB when there was a much higher chance to score a usable vMA weapon, in fact I'd go as far as saying back then pots were more expensive!

Oh you did? That's nice, and then?

Molec wrote: »

"Entitled" - People are allowed to address the issue since DB of running hundreds of runs and not receiving at least one of each usable weapon. If there was no room for discussion then there would be zero changes across the board. This isn't an issue of "I WAS STEALTH-GANKED BY NB 100k INCAP STRIKE,EURMAGURRD! NERF SPELL DAMAGE!!!!!!!" This is a genuine issue regarding ungodly amounts of time wasted in a single player instance when we have friends to play with and guilds to manage. If you are happy with it then that's perfectly fine however there's a large portion of the community who does not agree with the current loot system. It's an opinion which we're all ironically ENTITLED to.

Sure thing. And no one says otherwise. You are allowed to say where you think the issues are (not address the issue, because there's no issue in the general sense - just something you and some others don't like). But other people are allowed to disagree and remind that just handing out weapons without changing anything else won't end well.

Molec wrote: »

"They know the rules" - Nobody explained the "rules", the "rules" are educated guesses from the community based on a volume of runs and the rewards received.

No, the rules were taught to you all the way since you created the first character. The loot is RNG. You knew that. You had no reason not to expect that the odds to get a specific trait and type won't be low.

Molec wrote: »

The logic behind these arguments are baffling as it would have ZERO impact on your game and they make little sense. If you look back to the time when the vMA loot was more rewarding you would see that there was a different reward system in place and compared to the current system the rewards were better with no adverse side effects.

It actually would impact my game. To name a few consequences: as I said, the market would change, the diversity would go away, all builds would be the same, it would another layer to standard expectations (like when they kick low cp from dungeons these days or demanding certain numbers to get into trial groups/guilds, these numbers would increase and they will demand more, because the curve will shift to the right). Can you guarantee none of these things would happen?

Molec wrote: »

^^ This is pure ESO comedy rhetoric ^^

Nah, that's the lore. Undaunted can't get past the first trash pack. Yet you work to get loot from them. Wish we knew were they get it so we could contact the supplier directly and not do the pledges.

Decado wrote: »

Does that still make me an entitled cry baby for believing I should have the weapon by now?

In my vision - yes, kinda. Why do you think you should have some certain weapon at all? You probably have other weapons to use. But you just want one. That's the root of all your problems and frustrations. That's what buddhism teaches us - desires are the root of all suffering.

Decado wrote: »

You're really just a troll and probably not worth it but I'd like to point out that a token system for vMA/vDSA would pretty much have zero impact on the game's economy. You show little to no understanding of the game's economy so please don't accuse anyone of trying to kill it. And ah yes this darn generation of kids who think that working at something and putting in effort to accomplish a task should be rewarded rather than dumb luck, what a buncha entitled brats.

Of course it would impact the economy. Weps would be guaranteed = people would quit running vma sooner = demand on potions decreases, etc.
. [/quote]
lol for sure. I must be dumb and have no understanding of things if you think otherwise. There's no way you're wrong.
and yeah, a bunch of brats for sure. Working and putting effort doesn't guarantee a result. It's the result that matters, not the effort put.

And yeah for sure you are not supposed to grind and put work to farm master weapons. Maybe other gear, but those were made intentionally rare and painful to get. How is this a bad thing to have 1 item that's hard to get? You have other 10 slots that you can fill easily. Like really, when I make an alt, it's fully geared almost instantly after reaching lvl 50. But no, that's not enough. You want every slot to be accessible, so that gear has no meaning and provides no differentiation and everyone wears the same thing, so basically a MOBA but we get to keep the characters between the sessions. None of you bothered to explain how it's better on a large scale.

Decado wrote: »

Hahaha do you seriously believe That? Let's ignore for the moment the he fact that potion prices have literally plummeted and stick with that they cost a fair amount (since they did for most the time maelstrom has been out)

They didn't change much, I pay the same amount for spell pots as I used to and it's the cheapest I can find. And I like buying a lot and in advance so I check almost every single guild store for them and message some sellers to buy directly from them. If the cost drops the price of mats and demand drops again that wont' be great. As a seller, I'd rather sell something more profitable then, which means as a buyer I could start having troubles finding stuff (which sometimes I have already, a lot of people list pots for much higher prices than I can buy them for). [/quote]

Decado wrote: »

When I used to run maelstrom I barely ever touched potions I no longer needed to and if I did it was a basic magicka pot that drops from bosses which I have literally 1000s of so it costs me nothing to run maelstrom however if I was raiding I would be taking a spell power pot the second I was off cool down, while progressing vMoL HM I went through 100s of those a night,

And chances are it I'm not raiding Then I'm on PvP where I have tri stat potions equipped and use them when I need to so infact maelstrom actually decreases my need for potions

It's very nice to hear your personal experience. I'm sure, now it's clear that it must be the same for everyone.

Decado wrote: »

For the vast majority of people maelstrom is laughably easy at this stage and takes 0 effort

I suggest you search the definition of "vast majority", it doesn't mean what you think it means.

Aeladiir wrote: »

This guy just said that 500 runs of vMA - in order to get the weapon you want - is actually passable and more or less okay. He just said that. In case you thought you misread: This guy just said that 500 runs of vMA - in order to get the weapon you want - is actually passable. I kid you not, folks, he said it.

Also, in case you thought you misread the paragraph above, I will repeat it again: This guy just said that 500 runs of vMA - in order to get the weapon you want - is actually passable. Oh, and he also said that while you were complaining, you could've finished an entire run of vMA. How about that.

Good. So if he got in 500 runs , good for him. If not, he needs to keep running. Not sure what was the point of your comment except for attention-searching and intending to get agrees from the whiners party.

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

@Artis I'm not here to debate with you about who has the bigger e-peen, but most of your comparisons don't make sense.

First, an economics lesson. I said that a token system would have pretty much zero impact on the economy, not zero. Sure there might be a marginal decrease in demand for potions. Demand for overland and crafted set weapons might also marginally decrease. Both would have negligible effects on the economy. As pointed out, the majority of players probably run vMA without relying on spell/weapon power pots. I am in that category as I'd rather not spend money on pots when it is not much more difficult to complete the arena without them. Those who do rely on said pots are going for leaderboard scores and probably not farming weapons, so their demand for pots would remain.

Good point about leaderboards and farms. I can't imagine why wouldn't anyone use crafted pots there just cause why not, it makes it better and easier than without them, plus why not try to improve your score every time you go in.

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

A token system is in no way at all whatsoever analogous to participation trophies. You need to complete the content first. Currently it's similar to if you're a player on a championship team and in your contract it says that if you win a championship you get a random bonus between $1 and $1 million. Doesn't matter how much you contributed, you have an equal shot at ending up on either end of the bonus spectrum. A token system would be analogous to your contract saying if you play X minutes and win you get a big bonus. The participation trophy version is if you step into vMA you get a vMA weapon even though you couldn't complete it.

Yes it is, the clear doesn't mean you've done any work there. You played and had fun or otherwise why'd you go there. Oh yeah, great analogy with the random bonus. So what would I do as a player? Sing a contract if I agree or not sign it and go do something else if I don't. When you enter vMA you sign the agreement. You know in advance, that if you go you get a random bonus between $1 and a million, and you choose to go. No, completion doesn't imply THE vma weapon of your choice. You DO get A vma weapon for completion + the title and achievement for the first completion. So the rewards are there.

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

There are millions of others like me? You think millions of people have completed vMA and would invest the time to do it 20 more times? You can just walk back that comment, I won't say anything.

No, I didn't mean millions in vma specifically. I meant millions wanting access and guarantees to get whatever they want right now. At some point they'll get to arena. And yeah. As @Decado said (see above) - "For the vast majority of people maelstrom is laughably easy at this stage and takes 0 effort". So yeah, why wouldn't millions complete it?

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

I never complained about getting screwed by the current state of RNG, so no, i am not crying about the rules that I knew in advance. I have only run the arena about 20-25ish times, and did so more for the flawless title than with the intent to farm for that elusive sharpened 2h because I know the RNG is horrible. Regarding the person who made this thread I would agree with you and tell him/her that if you know the odds and decide to waste hundreds of hours in the arena anyway that is your problem and you can't complain about the results. It's gambling, similar to crown crates but with a time investment rather than money. My problem is not that I have gotten screwed by the current "rules" as you call them and deserve special treatment. My problem is with the rules themselves actually giving some people special treatment over others. It sounds like that is where we disagree and that's fine, you have your opinion and I have mine. If you think this is because you "think deeper" and are smarter/more educated, that is comical.

Exactly, it's gambling just like crates. How did those requests not to implement them work out so far? Everything in this paragraph is true. Except for the last part. First, there's no special treatment to anyone in this system. Everyone has the same chances of winning before playing. Some win, others don't. That's not special treatment. It's like saying any game has special treatment to the teams/players that end up winning. And the fact that I'm trying to explain it here might mean that maybe I'm a little more educated in some fields. It's funny how you can't accept the possibility of that.

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

RNG can be fun if implemented properly, but this game is just full of poorly implemented RNG, as it is a make or break mechanic and unfortunately necessary for many builds. You want to make gear rare? Put it behind some truly difficult content, not behind a massive blind RNG system. I don't mind having some RNG included but the challenge should be learning to complete content, not spending hundreds of hours mindlessly doing it over and over.

Yeah RNG here doesn't work good. And I'm not even talking about vma. I tested it for a week or two farming some public dungeon for something.

However, you should understand that your idea put gear behind truly difficult content is like 10 years old. No one will do it. They tried it. People will cry and whine even louder that people in this thread that "wtf the game should cater to casuals, not just top 5% skilled players", "I pay and I want that sword", "Why do I pay for content I can't complete" etc etc. It already happened even in this game. Have you played since release? Didn't you see what they did to quests and pve overall? then to cadwell's gold and silver? then all dungeons? Then all dungeons again + icp and wgt? How people were complaining about vma difficulty?

So no, gating gear behind something only few percent can clear is not a good strategy for devs. They should do content for everyone, it has to be reasonably hard, but not to hard. It has to be cleared if the reasonable of effort/time was put. But some gear still should be rare and this game has no dungeon cooldowns. So what will you do except for RNG? Loot tables with low drop rates? We had it in dungeons in 1T, people were whining a lot more than now, so it was changed to every boss dropping something.

montiferus wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

raidentenshu_ESO wrote: »

Says the person who has characters who heavily relies on vMA weapons

vMA weapons will not make or break your build.

Are you referring to Magicka builds? If so then this is true. If you are referring to stamina well then you couldn't be more wrong.

What they need to do is either remove the useless traits entirely or modify them so they have value in the game (this would be preferred). That would open open up more build diversity.

JKith wrote: »

Maelstrom weapons will make or break a stamina build.

I just got a Maelstrom bow and it increased the damage done of Arrow Barrage literally by 100%. It was doing on average 22k damage per cast, now with the Maelstrom bow, its doing 43k damaged per cast (testing on same enemy average out of ten casts)

No one forces you to play a stamina build.

DRXHarbinger

Wow someone is very very lonely. Do you feel better now after?

I'm sure I speak for everyone else in this thread.

Tldr you've bored us all to near death now. No one agrees with you.

Buffler

why do you all keep feeding the troll?

Vanzen

I nver done vMA and I dont regret it ...

Simple solution tough would be to never get the same item twice ...

People will always know they are making progress toward their goal.

Molec

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Wow someone is very very lonely. Do you feel better now after?

I'm sure I speak for everyone else in this thread.

Tldr you've bored us all to near death now. No one agrees with you.

I think there is a much deeper issue at play with that one...

Artis

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Wow someone is very very lonely. Do you feel better now after?

I'm sure I speak for everyone else in this thread.

Tldr you've bored us all to near death now. No one agrees with you.

Of course you don't, cause you're whiners. Other people do, which I know from conversations with them, guild chats and discord, they just don't post on forums much, but somebody has to.

Molec wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Wow someone is very very lonely. Do you feel better now after?

I'm sure I speak for everyone else in this thread.

Tldr you've bored us all to near death now. No one agrees with you.

I think there is a much deeper issue at play with that one...

For sure, if someone disagrees with you, they have issues.

MakoFore

i want to play the game- PLAY the game. not grind the game- not farm the game...

and right now- i m farming i would say 80 percent of my time in maelstrom. i have even levelled 2 more characters so i can get more on the leaderboard and triple my chances of getting my drop. this is not fun anymore.
to all those that say u dont need this and that weapon- sure ur right- but i want it- I've always wanted it. the same way people covet shoes or bags- i ve coveted a sharp 2hand great sword since i got the game. now its been 200 runs- and not single sharp melee. still going though- but i just wish zos would acknowledge this stuff so we can get to grinding with a purpose or move on.

i dont think it would be abad system to implement a token or RNG that improves after ur loot is tallied. the people that are affected by it all want it and those that dont aren't doing vma- so what s the big deal.

Artis

So play the game, no one forces you to farm. You can't farm the unfarmable. Vma weps were never meant to be counted on. If vma isn't fun, then don't run it and run dungeons or trials, or try pvp.

Listen to this advice here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3626459/#Comment_3626459.

Decado

Yes you can complete all the content in the game without a sharp fire staff I did Vet MoL HM with a defending fire staff but that doesn't mean most people won't be turned down over someone with the staff, most guilds will always choose the one with the BiS gear over the one with the defending staff unless they can prove otherwise and it's not easy to compete with someone with that advantage a sharpened staff probably adds 2K DPS just for that

Artis

Decado wrote: »

Yes you can complete all the content in the game without a sharp fire staff I did Vet MoL HM with a defending fire staff but that doesn't mean most people won't be turned down over someone with the staff, most guilds will always choose the one with the BiS gear over the one with the defending staff unless they can prove otherwise and it's not easy to compete with someone with that advantage a sharpened staff probably adds 2K DPS just for that

That is EXACTLY one of the problems I highlight. And the point is, that now vma weapons are reasonably rare. If you introduce the token system without changing anything else, they will become a new standard, a must have gear that you can just solo grind for. There will be no excuse not to have them, guilds will ALWAYS be able to find somebody with those weapons and will tell others to go farm them and come back with them (which they can't really do now, cause well you know why out of all people).

Blackfyre20

Artis wrote: »

Yes it is, the clear doesn't mean you've done any work there. You played and had fun or otherwise why'd you go there. Oh yeah, great analogy with the random bonus. So what would I do as a player? Sing a contract if I agree or not sign it and go do something else if I don't. When you enter vMA you sign the agreement. You know in advance, that if you go you get a random bonus between $1 and a million, and you choose to go. No, completion doesn't imply THE vma weapon of your choice. You DO get A vma weapon for completion + the title and achievement for the first completion. So the rewards are there.

This is really the only part worth addressing because it seems that you actually don't understand this or are ignoring it. VMA DOES take work to complete first of all. Yes, after you do it a few times it because relatively easy. Show me anyone who did it in a couple hours on their first try though and I will be very surprised (and skeptical). Threads pop up every day here on the forums asking for VMA help because it is very difficult to complete the first time, especially without watching any videos of others. Also, I am very aware of the loot tables and the "contract" you sign when you step in VMA. You must have skipped over the part where I said I haven't run it with the intent of farming weapons and am not QQing over my bad RNG. I'm saying the RNG system in place sucks and should be changed. Just like I wouldn't agree to my hypothetical contract I proposed with the random bonus. The title is a reward, this is true, and makes the arena worth running. The flawless title for me also made the arena worth running multiple times. The random weapon IMO is not a reward that makes the arena worth running however, as the vast majority of them are totally worthless with how traits work currently.

@Artis We just fundamentally disagree on RNG. Correct me if I am wrong but in your opinion, it sounds like you think items should be kept rare due to huge loot tables and random chance. I simply disagree.

I'm not opposed to having rare items in the game but if so they should be gated behind difficult content and should be earned rather than given to a select few via what pretty much equates to a lottery. You can talk about past patterns of games, including this one, all you want. I'm just saying I disagree with that system as do many in the ESO community. We can debate this forever and won't get anywhere because you accept assumptions that I do not and vise versa.

Artis wrote: »

And the fact that I'm trying to explain it here might mean that maybe I'm a little more educated in some fields. It's funny how you can't accept the possibility of that.

Never said anything about that not being a possibility. There are a lot of people out there more educated than I am and you may very well be one of them. That said, I highly doubt that is the case and doubt even more that it is relevant at all whatsoever to who has a better perspective on this video game loot RNG issue.

Blackfyre20

Buffler wrote: »

why do you all keep feeding the troll?

Fair point, last post

Artis

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

This is really the only part worth addressing because it seems that you actually don't understand this or are ignoring it. VMA DOES take work to complete first of all. Yes, after you do it a few times it because relatively easy. Show me anyone who did it in a couple hours on their first try though and I will be very surprised (and skeptical). Threads pop up every day here on the forums asking for VMA help because it is very difficult to complete the first time, especially without watching any videos of others.

And you do get rewarded for the first clear. You get a title and achievement for that. And after the last update - a weapon too.
And you know about it in advance, so doesn't look like you're aware of the "contract".

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

Also, I am very aware of the loot tables and the "contract" you sign when you step in VMA. You must have skipped over the part where I said I haven't run it with the intent of farming weapons and am not QQing over my bad RNG. I'm saying the RNG system in place sucks and should be changed. Just like I wouldn't agree to my hypothetical contract I proposed with the random bonus. The title is a reward, this is true, and makes the arena worth running. The flawless title for me also made the arena worth running multiple times. The random weapon IMO is not a reward that makes the arena worth running however, as the vast majority of them are totally worthless with how traits work currently.

RNG sucks everywhere in this game, not just in VMA. But with this game design, it's the only way of keeping things rare/controlling the rate at which players get them. I agree with the rest. Yes, titles. Rerun for that. After that - do not run it multiple times if random weapon is not a reward for you, it's very simple. I'd run it multiple times because the content itself is a reward for me - it's challenging and therefore fun. If you don't want to farm weapons - don't. If someone wants specific traits, they will run vma multiple times - IF it's worth running for them knowing the drop rate. Other than that - no one is forcing anyone.

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

@Artis We just fundamentally disagree on RNG. Correct me if I am wrong but in your opinion, it sounds like you think items should be kept rare due to huge loot tables and random chance. I simply disagree.

No, I am saying that SOME items should be kept rare due to that. And that's only because we have no cooldowns. If you'd rather have a limit on how many rewards per week you can get - ask for that. I'd rather have RNG but no dungeon cooldowns so I can run it as many times a week as I want.

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

I'm not opposed to having rare items in the game but if so they should be gated behind difficult content and should be earned rather than given to a select few via what pretty much equates to a lottery. You can talk about past patterns of games, including this one, all you want. I'm just saying I disagree with that system as do many in the ESO community. We can debate this forever and won't get anywhere because you accept assumptions that I do not and vise versa.

Yeah, and once you complete that content - you get a good reward. It sounds good on paper, and I wouldn't mind that too. I would enjoy such system myself. However, it's unrealistic. If you want to keep that loot rare, you'll need to scale that content so that, say, only 5% players (or rather 5% end-game players/trialists) can complete it at all. But in that case, how will you justify it to the other 95%? Why are they paying for the content that they can't and aren't supposed to to complete? Like, they paid for the game, bought crowns, etc and that money was used to pay salary to people who made content only for 5% players. Don't you remember all those nerf threads about vicp, vwgt and vma? Don't you understand that ZOS must cater to the paying customers, and not to just a few players? Don't you understand that simply gating behind difficult content is worse than gating behind reasonably difficult content + rng, because that way more players have a shot?

Look at it that way. Statistically, giving 100% chance to 5% and giving 5% chance to 100% both result in only 5% players getting weapons (per unit time and blahblah). Why are you saying that former is better than the latter? Why is giving it to a few better than giving a shot to everyone? And mind you, I myself would benefit more from the latter, because I don't mind investing time and learning difficult content, I'm enjoying it, in fact. Progressing in vma and finally completing it was very rewarding and fun for me. But what is better for the whole game and the whole population of the game? And what's fair, considering that your top 5% are not necessarily the ones that pay most of the money zos makes.

And continuing this approach, what most people asking for is to simply making weapons less rare, not to gate it behind difficult content. They don't ask to make vma more difficult, they ask to guarantee weapons. So in the end, instead of 5% it will be 100% of people who clear vma who will get perfect sharpened weapons. So if you support that - that means you are opposed to having rare items, because that's exactly what they want - for them not to be rare. Do you not see this?

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

Never said anything about that not being a possibility. There are a lot of people out there more educated than I am and you may very well be one of them. That said, I highly doubt that is the case and doubt even more that it is relevant at all whatsoever to who has a better perspective on this video game loot RNG issue.

Don't doubt, it is the case here. Loot or not - RNG is a mathematical concept, and here I know some. That's irrelevant either way, the point is that you definitely shouldn't insult people before you know for sure they don't have a degree. Either way, see paragraphs above. That's where the discussion at.

Beware13

Not having a VMA sharp. inferno staff does suck (in some ways) but I'm still able to play the game and make builds without this staff although it would be nice to finally have it. I also have completed every trial besides, vMoL HM, without this staff so doing other content without it is completely doable. I just have to adjust what I'm doing around not having it which really is not that bad.

As frustrating as it is, I'm gonna keep the grind up because I know I'll be so happy when I finally get it (maybe tomorrow or in 5 years)

Oh and to add salt to the wound. Thank you Rich

PurifedBladez

I hate VMA took like a month of my efforts a couple months ago trying to get my drops. They never came and let's just say I stopped running it. One of my buddies got just about everything you could ask for in about 10 runs or less. Complete bs.