Do You Enjoy VMA Gameplay?

GrumpyDuckling

Now that I consider myself relatively seasoned with Veteran Maelstrom Arena (50+ runs, shout out to many of you who have significantly more experience), I'd like to know if any of you enjoy the process of playing it.

To be ultra clear, I am talking about the actual gameplay of the arena itself. Do you have fun playing through the stages?

In my experience the gameplay is not enjoyable. Every run seems to boil down to a spawn-memorizing damage race that significantly pigeon-holes my experience. Compared to other aspects of the game (questing, dungeons, Dragonstar, Cyrodiil), there doesn't seem to be much room for creativity and alternative ways to play. Maybe I'm spoiled by the freedom of questing, the unpredictability of grouping with other players in dungeons and Dragonstar, and the chaos of Cyrodiil.

XGCAlbatr0ss

No it's monotonous and repetitive. I go to the same spots with the same rotations in each and every arena. It's basically muscle memory at this point.

Morgul667

No

I was basically happy the first time i achieved it but then thats it

Messy1

It's BAD

Martol

I think its fun, if you limit yourself to once a week or 2 times a month. Imo its great to run through but not to grind.

Kammakazi

It's fun when you know every single mechanic and spawn. You get to burn things really fast and beat your scores.

It does get boring quickly once you get to this point, but that's why you listen to music or have someone to talk to during the whole thing.

Ep1kMalware

I keep saying i hate it but I always got this itch to domit again.

Yo_Donno

I think the arena itself just needs more mechanics. With the exception of maybe arenas 6 and 7 the whole thing is basically just stack and smack. Would be cool if there were mechanics like the ones in sanctum which require you to dump your magicka or go pick up an orb so you don't get one shotted. Obviously, they would have to be introduced in a way which wouldn't make the arena significantly more difficult.

Baconlad

Yeah. I do not enjoy how hard the mobs hit, and would rather it be less DPS race and more mechanics. Like the giant boss. She and all her adds make it almost impossible for me to complete because im too worried about healing back up and killing the trolls, let alone damaging her!

Also i have simply given up on it. Too difficult to complete, and the weapons, while BIS for many builds are too hard to get your weapon of choice. They should spawn boxes on the ground, one for each weapon type that gives the weapon you want. And make the RNG not so bad by only makin us roll the dice for traits on the weapon of our choice. I will force myself to play it if they do that...as of now ive been stuck on the ice boss for five months and do not care anymore

Ep1kMalware

Yo_Donno wrote: »

I think the arena itself just needs more mechanics. With the exception of maybe arenas 6 and 7 the whole thing is basically just stack and smack. Would be cool if there were mechanics like the ones in sanctum which require you to dump your magicka or go pick up an orb so you don't get one shotted. Obviously, they would have to be introduced in a way which wouldn't make the arena significantly more difficult.

I agree and disagree. Vma feels like a dps race BECAUSE I know the mechanics. If something gets fudged up I know how to back away and wait for my next oppertunity. If I die, I often die knowing I totally deserved it for letting that webspinner cover up the totem. When I first did vma I had to put those mechanics into my muscle memory.

I also have to disagree though. The only change vma needs is a token/exchange system. We're due for another arena and I'm sure zos is cooking something up. Leave vma where it's at and lets learn something new.

cpuScientist

Thoroughly enjoy. It's the only content I can do that doesn't require another person and is still challenging with good rewards. Sure I can go and solo dungeons. But it is inefficient for the rewards. I would love to see more arenas. And some 2 man arenas would be fandamntastic!

redspecter23

No. After the first 50 or so runs, you pretty much know what you're doing for the most part and it's nothing more than a grind against the RNG lottery. Hope you tied a horseshoe around your neck because that's what you're doing from then on. The challenge and sense of accomplishment are completely gone by that point and all you have is a 90% chance of disappointment for 40 min - an hour of your time.

Wing

no.

Netherscorn

Too much incoming damage. It's not reasonable or realistic for normal people...basically just a lottery for overachievers.

NewBlacksmurf

No it's not fun at all
I can't speak for everyone but it seems the purpose for many is to get specific weapons/traits

Aliyavana

The rng makes it boring

Akrimus

Hate. Pure hate.

dpencil

I'm still working toward Flawless Conquerer, so it's still engaging for me. I don't get to run it more than once every couple weeks, if that, so it doesn't get as stale as if I was running it over and over. I'm also not setting myself up for dissapointment from the last chest. If I get something good, hooray, but I'm not going in expecting that.

SienneYviete

I don't play an MMO to grind solo content, vdsa while having mostly terrible drops is a lot more fun imo.

Waffennacht

No

Anhedonie

No. I will stop as soon as I get all needed weapons.

Marktoneth3

worst solo content ever

stage 7 the mechanic is BS...If you are stam build and spore spawn inside dome = gg

SublimeSparo

Nope it's awful, and i still haven't got a sharpened dagger/axe/inferno/lightning/greatsword or bow on NA, and of those i only got the bow on EU. So in hundreds of clears on multiple chars over 2 servers rng is still being a *** to me. Yay

Mayrael

Ive literaly felt a sleep at fourth arena yesterday. Very entertaining...

Joy_Division

No. Every stage has an irritating mechanic.

1. Boss is a nasty surprise of a DPS race for first round.
2. Blades do way too much damage too quickly
3. 90% snare is a terrible mechanic
4. The whole stage is a DPS race
5. high damaging range adds on lethal terrain is not fun
6. Miss more than one webspinner and you can't avoid boss one shot
7. Random poison death plants + "safe" zone should have never made it past design stage
8. Boss is ridiculously easy if DPS character, too hard if not.
9. It's hard and the only way to make it easy is moar DPS.

Mostly though I feel the deaths are RNG and due to environmental factors (not fun) and getting higher scores is not so much about strategies or clever builds, rather it's just memorizing spawns and increasing DPS (not fun either).

Lylith

no.

i still hate it and i don't play it.'

kudos to those of you who do.

Vildebill

Not really. Some rounds I actually enjoy a little like round 6 and 9 (though mechanics can be skipped here as well nowadays), while most of them are plain boring, and round 7 is random lag hell of poison spores. Still don't get how bugged mechanics like that can make it into live release, yet survive for over a year.

FloppyTouch

Nope

Tremors

I used to hate it but the better I get, the more I enjoy it. The part I hate the most is the single player content in an MMO. That is the worst part for me.

ericprydz82ub17_ESO

At this point, the only way I can go in there and run it is if someone is in voice chat with me. If I wanted to play that much single player content, I would be playing a single player game and not an MMO.

I play ESO to play with other people and not to have BiS weapons locked behind boring single player content.

DDemon

No fun at all.

Have been trying to get a sharpened fire staff out of it since it came out, lost count on the number of times I've ran it, and running out of bag space in my bank and 8 chars due to all the other maelstrom weapons I do get. (Mostly stamina based weapons.)

Hoping they eventually add storage space in houses like boxes or something, so I can stash them in there.