Maelstrom arena - New "medium" difficulty?

BlanketFort

It works fine as it is

Don’t be disheartened, keep trying. I was frustrated by vMA, too, and seemed I would never get out of Stage 5. And then I gave it a long break. Came back and breezed through stages 5-7. Got stuck again, took a short break, and finished through. And/Or, use the sigils, they can make quite the difference for a first clear.

I used to call for nerfs to it in my head, thought it was impossible, thought „I’m bloody good enough!“, turns out I wasn’t... vMA can destroy your ego. Following a logical kill order and being quick on your feet will get you through it, don’t even need to memorise spawn points.

It can be daunting, but it is fine as it is. I’d advice taking a break every now and then, banging your head against the arena walls doesn’t bring much in terms of progress, I find. Once you finish it, the next runs magically become much easier, and you’ll wonder why you ever thought you needed a medium difficulty to practice on. Hang in there! If I can do it, you can do it! I believe in you!

code65536

It works fine as it is

Meld777 wrote: »

If anything, there should be a harder difficulty. With the (now frontloaded!) 690 CP and the ridiculous power creep since it came out, vMA is a joke.

Mechanics are too complex? Really? Well, tell me, what mechanics are there on Arena 8 boss? Because people probably haven't encountered them since like 2 years. They just kill the stones and burst boss. Even mediocre DPS is enough to do that. Back when it came out, 20k was the absolute maximum DPS you could have with perfect rotation and maxed FotM gear. Now add survivability to it and you have people with 10 - 12k DPS still doing flawless. Oh yeah, and weapon ultimates (like destro ulti) didn't exist ofc.

There is absolutely nothing hard about vMA nowadays. It's almost the same as Vet Spindle II. Any naked pug does the hard mode automatically by light attacking through it. People don't even know what the "hard mode" is anymore due to power creep. If you can't complete vMA with random gear, you probably don't know your class and need to L2P hard. You would probably not finish any DLC vet either or get carried without knowing it (install Combat Metrics to see how much % of group DPS you actually do).

Yes, there has been power creep. More CP, destro ults, Harness that can protect against physical damage, etc. But the hardest part about doing vMA even during the original patch wasn't doing damage--the hardest part was being familiar with the arena. Knowing what to expect and when. Knowing what you should prioritize. Knowing the best times to drop that ult.

And that part of the learning process is still the same. You've cleared vMA literally many hundreds of times farming for your fire staff. It might do you well to venture out of your bubble sometimes--vMA is still pretty difficult for first-timers despite that power creep because power is only a part of the equation, and they still have to pay their dues to gain the kind of familiarity that is needed to make vMA easy.

I did vMA recently on a bank mule with around 200 CP. And it was "easy". Surely you can't chalk that up to power creep.

In any case, in response to the OP, a medium difficulty won't help. For example, I might drop a destro during a particularly difficult trash spawn and know that I'll have my ult up again by the time the boss spawns. I know this from experience. Now, let's say we reduce enemy health for a medium difficulty. They die faster, I don't have as much time to generate ult, and then I no longer have an ult available for the boss spawn. And then I'd need to readjust my strategy and find ways to either handle that trash spawn without an ult or handle the boss without an ult.

Another important part of learning vMA is learning the limits of your character. Can you kill an enemy before that enemy kills you? Or do you have to stop midway and shield or heal? If you need to stop to put up a shield, that'll slow you down. It could mean that your original target is still alive when another enemy starts attacking, and then you're forced into a defensive footing as a result and change how you handle that particular set of spawns. These nitty-gritty details of how you handle things in vMA are what you gain from learning the arena. And so much of it will become irrelevant with different enemy health/damage levels.

So, again, the only way to learn vMA is to do vMA. Anything you learn from "medium MA" will be of limited use in vet.

supaskrub

It works fine as it is

You will struggle to complete vMA on any class until you understand and learn the mechanics, spawns and priority targets, Once you have a grasp of those then you will progress and within a successful 20 runs you may even come back here and ask for a difficulty level that exceeds veteran as it becomes easier every time you complete it. Its more about experience of the arena and taking your experience of your chosen class to the next level. Most people who finish vMA for the first few times become more knowledgeable of how to get the best out of their chosen class in extreme situations (because thats what vMA is when first starting out.. extreme)

EC_Rob

It works fine as it is

Honestly, it really isnt that hard. First few times its tricky but once u know the tactics its easy enough.

Chilly-McFreeze

Other (What?)

Isn't this a problem of the whole game? That normal is so easy that you experience nothing of the mechanics and you're running into a brick wall once you try vet. With overland content being even soo much easier that you won't see/ have to use the simplest of mechanics.

I'm all for more choices.

Group content in Normal, Medium (NPCS with high resistance, and only a bit higher damage than before, so you can work through some mechanics), Veteran, Vet HM and even something beyound that.

Overland concent in normal (as it is now) and veteran (with more than just more resistance and damage) for the experienced players who'd like to enjoy the storylines.

E: I, personally, wouldn't even need better rewards for medium dungeons or vet overland.

LadyLethalla

Other (What?)

I want an Oceanic server so that I can try to finish VMA without lag. Or at least, with less lag. I'm already cursed with potato internet as it is, but the distance to either choice of server just increases it. Not easy to learn mechanics with this added to it.

VaranisArano

It works fine as it is

For me, Normal Maelstrom was all about "how does this level work?" because you can survive making mistakes.

Vet Maelstron is more "This is how this level works and you must respect that". So in that sense, its closer to tanking a vet dungeon for the first time. In both of them, I have a learning curve where I'm figuring out - okay, on normal difficulty that boss mechanic hits that hard, but on vet I need to do this so it doesn't kill me - but it comes does more to learning the proper reactions to spawns and mechanics on vet now than it the sheer spike in difficulty.

Dragonnord

It works fine as it is

Maesltrom Arena is supposed to be a real challenge, just like it is now.

So, the arena is fine (despite the lag in several stages), and are the players the ones that need to improve their skills to complete it.
 

pshift

I made the mistake of never trying it in normal, and so my first experience with it has been as vet, and I have not yet made it through. I actually agree with the L2P crowd on this though - the point of vMA is that it's supposed to be the most difficult solo content in the game.

I disagree that you need any particular setup to make it through, my experience so far has been that the mobs themselves are not that strong, but each stage is highly mechanical. I think that's as it should be.

I would like to see the ability to select an easier mode so I can practice it and learn the mechanics better, since I didn't get to when I was pre-CP. The caveat should be that the high end weapons should only drop from hard mode.

Merlin13KAGL

DanielWinterborn wrote: »

I for one was never able to finish vMA even thought my gear and play level should allow me to do it. (Also magicka warden is not ideal for PvE as we all know...) The problem that I'm having is that the "normal" instance is too easy, it's more like "very easy" mode. I come out of it thinking "I should take vet on no problem!" but in reality things are so much more difficult.

You just described the entirety of the game. Normal is far too easy with scaling with a drastic spike when you roll over to Vet anything.

Another issue that I have with vma is that you are required to use a certain approach to complete it, you can't just muscle through it even if you have the power to do it. Without the Aoe everyone else uses it's almost impossible to complete it.

Can you expand on the second part? What AoE are you missing, & what do you mean by muscle your way through?

Stuff either dies, or it doesn't. You either die, or you don't. If you're not after leaderboard, but just after a clear, the method is not nearly as important (nor strict) as the result.

vMA is somewhere between an excercise in determination and masochism, at least at first. Bugginess aside, you can surmount it once you figure out how to approach some things (for your build/playstyle). It's a question of whether or not it's worth the frustration for each indivudual.

pshift

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Isn't this a problem of the whole game? That normal is so easy that you experience nothing of the mechanics and you're running into a brick wall once you try vet. With overland content being even soo much easier that you won't see/ have to use the simplest of mechanics.

This ^^

I'm still a relative noob, and the core issue I have is that at CP250, I don't fit in anywhere. I can plow through the normal overland content fairly easily, but when I join a vet dungeon I am embarrassingly underpowered. There's a huge difference between CP690 and CP250. I think a low-vet and high-vet tiering would be great.

VaranisArano

It works fine as it is

pshift wrote: »

I made the mistake of never trying it in normal, and so my first experience with it has been as vet, and I have not yet made it through. I actually agree with the L2P crowd on this though - the point of vMA is that it's supposed to be the most difficult solo content in the game.

I disagree that you need any particular setup to make it through, my experience so far has been that the mobs themselves are not that strong, but each stage is highly mechanical. I think that's as it should be.

I would like to see the ability to select an easier mode so I can practice it and learn the mechanics better, since I didn't get to when I was pre-CP. The caveat should be that the high end weapons should only drop from hard mode.

If you leave the arena and swap to Normal Difficulty, it will save your quest progress for Vet MA and let you run Normal MA at the same time, as long as you have the VMA quest.

Anhedonie

Medium difficulty should be added

Tbh I just want an arena for 2 people. Doing it solo gets stale and sometimes I fall asleep during battle.

vanwilder

It works fine as it is

Took me six months to complete my first vma. I wont forget how Voriak Solkyn kill me over and over for 8 hrs and that alone almost make me give up. Once u completed it gets easier and easier. Vma is easy but hard on first timer

vanwilder

It works fine as it is

http://www.latenighteso.com/the-guide-to-veteran-maelstorm-arena/

INHUMANENATION

It works fine as it is

DanielWinterborn wrote: »

I for one was never able to finish vMA even thought my gear and play level should allow me to do it.

Time + effort = Results. If as you say your gear and skill level is adequate all thats left is experience in the content. You can do it buddy!

dsalter

Medium difficulty should be added

no score board and only epic and i'm fine with it

INHUMANENATION

It works fine as it is

Milvan wrote: »

Maelstrom arena is actually very easy.

The problem is that overland content and normal dungeons are braindead easy, so when people enter maelstrom and they realize that they actually need to burst and avoid mechanics they freak out.

The community has decreed long ago bursting thru mechanics is required but it isn't. More flawless conquerors got it thru sigils and sets these days than thru expert gameplay. Also after removing the difficulty of content like icp and now they let two ppl burn the portals in the inhibitor I totally agree the dungeons and even hardmodes have been scaled back so that vma seems impossible for new players by comparison.

Olupajmibanan

It works fine as it is

I am sorry to point it out directly, but magicka Warden is actually one of the easiest setups for VMA to be completed with.

Don't waste time crying on forums, rather try it again and again until you beat it. Don't give up, you'll defeat it.

Deloth_Vyrr

I am still fairly new to the game compared to many (only been playing since Morrowind - CP 350) and did my first vMA clear at around CP 200. It was long and brutal. Struggled even on arena 3 for a couple hours, got to 5 and hand to take a break, 5-8 took a day a piece to clear and 9 stretched out a couple days. As long as you keep your quest active you can always pick up on the arena where you left off. Only the waves within that arena reset.

Now I can clear the entire thing in sub 1-hour at mid 300 CP. Still don't have flawless yet (13/15 vitality is my best run to date) but I'll get it one of these days. So stick with it. Once you clear it the first time you'd be surprised how much easier the 2nd run is, and each run beyond that gets even easier.

Now I sorta wish there was a harder mode, or at least a Hard Mode activation for Arena 9 like V dungeons/trials get with some additional rewards, like Perfect Maelstrom Weapons.

pshift

If you leave the arena and swap to Normal Difficulty, it will save your quest progress for Vet MA and let you run Normal MA at the same time, as long as you have the VMA quest.

I don't recall it ever asking me... how do you swap difficulty?

HorizonPK

It works fine as it is

Ima just leave this here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVFYPJW-aa8

Jarryzzt

If my suspicion proves correct that in 1-2-3 years they will rebalance the entire content - to account for the fact that the CP cap will be pushing towards 1000 by that point, if nothing else - then at some point we might get a sort of a "medium" mode. For everything, not just vMA. At least, that's one possible approach (another would be to just keep things as is and layer super-duper-hard content on top of it).

For the time being, however, to me vMA is sort of like veteran dungeons in terms of difference vs. normal. You don't have to run them to do pretty well in the game; but if you do, things become several times more difficult (e.g. boss HP quadruples, more or less), and either you are prepared to spend hours dealing with that (until they feel as "easy" as normal), or you're not.

---

To the person trying to do it as MagDen. One, there is a guide thread on here, somewhere, by a person named Joy, that goes into great detail regarding how to do it with magicka characters (including every spawn, tactics, et cetera). In short, her (?) approach is a) resto staff on one of the bars; b) 100% uptime on resto skill line shield (with the "double heal" morph); c) using DoTs like Elemental Blockade for the bulk of the damage while spending the time dodging and healing. MagDen has a couple of DoTs to go with EB and a metric ton of healing abilities, so that's one approach.

Two, there is no real reason to do it but for the weapons and the achievements. And...well, purple Para Bellum set items, I suppose, everyone is just beside themselves looking for those. To me, it's a conscious choice, either you are signing up for the 10-20+ hour ride up the learning curve, or you're not because you're doing other things in the game. It's like the Master Angler achievement - it's there if you want it, but you have to want it. If you do not, then no point in forcing yourself to go through with it, IMO.

Aisle9

It works fine as it is

DanielWinterborn wrote: »

I for one was never able to finish vMA even thought my gear and play level should allow me to do it. (Also magicka warden is not ideal for PvE as we all know...) The problem that I'm having is that the "normal" instance is too easy, it's more like "very easy" mode. I come out of it thinking "I should take vet on no problem!" but in reality things are so much more difficult. Another issue that I have with vma is that you are required to use a certain approach to complete it, you can't just muscle through it even if you have the power to do it. Without the Aoe everyone else uses it's almost impossible to complete it. The enemies hit way to hard and the mechanics are way to complex to actually have fun while doing it, it's more like a job that you HAVE to do if you want the item but it sucks all the fun out of it. There's no "personal touch" to it, you have to do it like this or you don't do it at all. And for a game that brags "be all do all" it's just mindless repeat of the same things in the same order all the time for hours.

I'm not saying it should be nerfed or anything but I do believe there should be another difficulty level, something like normal-medium-hard to use as a learning curve. The normal instance is too easy to really show the need to learn the mechanics and the veteran mode is too hard to keep grinding at it until you get it right, and what for? At the end of 6 hours you get something that you might never use, if you could chose your reward then maybe you would be more motivated to fight through it, you do it once for this build and again in two months for another build, it's not nice but you might do it knowing you get exactly the weapon you need...

Bottom line is, do you think there should there be a medium difficulty level added?

While I agree that the learning curve is steep, adding an intermediate difficulty is probably not the answer.

Sadly the whole game is in a state of not knowing exactly what it wants to be, with content so trivial it's appealing to a toddler, and instances where every single hit is a one-shot mechanic (hyperbole). The point is, a medium difficulty won't help much, the core mechanics are the same, just adds do less damage and bosses have less hit points (I think, I'm pretty sure, actually, I did nMA, like, 2 times, I'm fairly sure they are). Point is, a medium difficulty has nothing more to offer, as when you get to the vet you'll have to rely on the same instruments: knowledge of the spawns, reliable self sustain, decent burst damage.

VMA, like most endgame PvE, heavily relies on you knowing the stages and how the various mechanics work. Knowing when a miniboss spawn, or at what percentage of the boss' health the adds will spawn, or what happens during a particular mechanic, will ultimately give that edge you need.

I can tell you a couple things:
1) vMA weapons won't give you the edge you need to finish it.
2) You don't necessarily need AoE (my vMA farming build is 100% single target).
3) You can't use the same build/approach for group content.
4) You can definitely add personal touch, but that really only comes once you mastered it.
5) Using sigils during the fight will help immensely, when your objective is not score, but just completion.
6) If you get hit, you will get hit for a lot (in my experience, 60% to 80% of your total hit points) so using damage shields and having a very powerful burst heals helps you.
7) Once you manage to complete it the first time, it's like pullups, you'll know you can do it, you'll be able to do it reliably.
8) Completing vMA, like most endgame content, relies on practice and understanding of the mechanics (like what happens if you use crushing shock when the Argonian Behemot is screaming), so going at it over and over is actually beneficial to your chances of completing it consistently.
9) Know when to take breaks. If you go at it over and over you'll get tired and do stupid mistakes.

Problem is, in a lower difficulty, if the bone colossus spawns in stage 9, you'll kill it. In a mid-tier difficulty may be much more difficult, but it's only in the highest difficulty that you will rather restart the round than deal with it.

I can tell you from personal experience in games with middle-tier difficulties, that it won't help one bit to the highest difficulty. You will need to change your approach, and learn by practicing it. It's frustrating, but practice is what gets you through it.

As for classes, I main magblade, I farm vMA with my magblade, it's very powerful, has a lot of damage, has a lot of healing and has access to damage shields. People used to say magsorc was the easiest one, I've done it with my magsorc, I'm still farming with my magblade. Stamsorc heavily relies on you keeping hurricane and surge up, but if you do, can give you a very powerful healing over time, I still prefer my magblade. I recently discovered the joys of the stamDKs, one of the few classes with access to major mending, and I'll probably give it a go next, to get the title on my tank.

The point I'm trying to make is that you will find it much easier with a class and build you're comfortable with, that you know better than others, rather than going with what people tell you to use. Using a class and build you know by heart will ultimately help you the most.

That is unless your build is rubbish, in that case go with more experienced people's advice.

Hope this helps.
Have a nice day.

Joy_Division

Other (What?)

There is a medium level difficulty: use Power Sigils every round.

That's why ZoS put them in there.

Inexperienced Players: normal mode

Medium Players: Vet mode + Sigils (+ accompany scoring penalty)

Experienced Players: Vet mode + Sigils.

WhoSlappedThePie

@ OP , what would be the point in medium? It's meant to be the toughest solo player content so it has normal and veteran.

If you have a medium then what sense of achievement would you get from that? You'd just be beating something thats tuned down a little bit from the hardest difficulty and still feel like you are no closer to beat the *actual* toughest difficulty?

Would you also want a little medium reward too like a blue quality-maelstrom weapon with a quarter of the trait on it?

Just learn the mechanics. Change your build and spend some time really focusing and getting through it.

Beardimus

It works fine as it is

Not needed. Whilst it feels impossible its not. Ask on here, look at guides. If you feel its impossible you just need to adapt something. Build it most likely you have missed a mechanic

Sigtric

It works fine as it is

I'm a little conflicted on the 'fine as it is answer' because of the nasty memory leak/whatever that causes lost FPS and lag the longer you're inside the arena.. but that's not the scope of this discussion so I'll stop there.

It's all about learning the dance. VMA is not hard when you learn the steps and do them at the right time. Each death is a lesson.

Mureel

Jarryzzt wrote: »

If my suspicion proves correct that in 1-2-3 years they will rebalance the entire content - to account for the fact that the CP cap will be pushing towards 1000 by that point, if nothing else - then at some point we might get a sort of a "medium" mode. For everything, not just vMA. At least, that's one possible approach (another would be to just keep things as is and layer super-duper-hard content on top of it).

For the time being, however, to me vMA is sort of like veteran dungeons in terms of difference vs. normal. You don't have to run them to do pretty well in the game; but if you do, things become several times more difficult (e.g. boss HP quadruples, more or less), and either you are prepared to spend hours dealing with that (until they feel as "easy" as normal), or you're not.

---

To the person trying to do it as MagDen. One, there is a guide thread on here, somewhere, by a person named Joy, that goes into great detail regarding how to do it with magicka characters (including every spawn, tactics, et cetera). In short, her (?) approach is a) resto staff on one of the bars; b) 100% uptime on resto skill line shield (with the "double heal" morph); c) using DoTs like Elemental Blockade for the bulk of the damage while spending the time dodging and healing. MagDen has a couple of DoTs to go with EB and a metric ton of healing abilities, so that's one approach.

Two, there is no real reason to do it but for the weapons and the achievements. And...well, purple Para Bellum set items, I suppose, everyone is just beside themselves looking for those. To me, it's a conscious choice, either you are signing up for the 10-20+ hour ride up the learning curve, or you're not because you're doing other things in the game. It's like the Master Angler achievement - it's there if you want it, but you have to want it. If you do not, then no point in forcing yourself to go through with it, IMO.

The name is @Joy_Division and I have had a pretend in forum crush on him or her or whatever, for years as another person who is an awesome healer with good insights who is also very cool! Plus who doesn't like Joy Division? Evil people. That's who.

Draxys

I don't care tbh, but you have a point about the gap between normal and veteran. It's pretty extreme. I think it is probably like that because of power creep, which isn't a good reason but necessary in the current state of the game. Low CP players probably feel like normal mode is actually normal, but max CP players on vet mode still have a hard time with certain moments (ice rink >:( )