Update 26 Combat Preview

Suddwrath

SaltySudd wrote: »

It simply doesn't make sense. Especially in this case as an explanation for this decision should have been ready, and forcing the community to wait until Monday to read it in the patch notes (if it's even there) is a poor choice.

I'll save you the effort: A reasoning was not provided in the PTS patch notes.

Elsonso

SaltySudd wrote: »

SaltySudd wrote: »

It simply doesn't make sense. Especially in this case as an explanation for this decision should have been ready, and forcing the community to wait until Monday to read it in the patch notes (if it's even there) is a poor choice.

I'll save you the effort: A reasoning was not provided in the PTS patch notes.

They are going to do the "radio silence" thing. Stubborn to the end.

Darktrox

Any answer about this huge issue? we have hear nothing.. @ZOS_BrianWheeler

BennyButton

@ZOS_BrianWheeler it's been over 72 hours with no response. I think it's time for you to stop hiding behind this disastrous decision.

WeerW3ir

BennyButton wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler it's been over 72 hours with no response. I think it's time for you to stop hiding behind this disastrous decision.

He is learned from the best.

Nord_Raseri

@ZOS_BrianWheeler with your cheeky "bad news and run"

Sanctum74

BennyButton wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler it's been over 72 hours with no response. I think it's time for you to stop hiding behind this disastrous decision.

In his defense he was probably hoping the patch notes would be enough to make us uninstall so he won’t have to deal with us.

goldbond2000

Is now a bad time to mention that the perfected asylum staff only applies the status' every 3rd cast on PTS? How about that elf bane does not extend the duration of a Zaan's proc?

LadyLethalla

It's probably already been said, but NMA should have a lesser version of the VMA weapons. Not the same as, with just some purple and gold mats required to equal our efforts at getting said weapons in VMA.

NOT happy. And I can't see myself going through VMA again.

silvereyes

code65536 wrote: »

Players think that ZOS is buffing an existing reward, but not buffing it retroactively.

Yes, this exactly! As usual, @code65536 absolutely nails it.

It's hard to express just how disappointing this whole update is for me right now.

I was really hoping the patch notes would provide some context for all of this that eased the pain. Alas, all I saw was:
blah blah blah ... they don't really get why Skyrim was fun
blah blah blah ... more new "performance improvements" that will probably break the game worse.
blah blah blah ... more nerfs that nobody asked for
blah blah blah ... nothing about fixing all the crap they broke last year
blah blah blah ... nothing about fixing the nearly unusable guild and trading tools
blah blah blah ... nothing about why I shouldn't be completely infuriated that my vMA weapons that represent so much invested RNG frustration and time are suddenly being replaced with the equivalent of nMA drops

xaraan

You know, we all talk about toxicity and the only toxicity I've encountered on this has been from the people for it.

Heck, even on Xy's stream, all I did was disagree with him, said nothing rude, just a basic statement of how I felt and I had my messages deleted by a mod and timed out so I could not respond while he went on a rant for five minutes to his fans to make his point and sell the change.

Despite the fact everything he said was just argument of: you didn't earn a vMA weapon, you earned a vMA weapon last month, so it doesn't count as a vMA weapon anymore.

I bring it up b/c 1. just seems like it's ok to be toxic to attack end-game players. and 2. there is a false popularity in certain arguments created by people that have a voice in the community like a streamer. I hope players don't think b/c they see one guy with a camera and mic saying something that his fans echo, they suddenly ignore the overwhelming number of voices that stand in opposition to the statement.

Wonks

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Correct your mistake.

Asmoxian

One compromise could be to issue an upgrade token at the end of vMA that allows the upgrade of one Maelstrom weapon you've previously received. You could choose the upgrade token or a new random weapon in the final chest. This way those of us with dozens of weapons we've already transmuted and upgraded to gold will not have done so in vain. 1 run through vMA per upgrade is better than hundreds of runs to hopefully get the items you wanted again.

silvereyes

Asmoxian wrote: »

One compromise could be to issue an upgrade token at the end of vMA that allows the upgrade of one Maelstrom weapon you've previously received.

While I appreciate the desire for this to be a negotiation, it really isn't one. The devs already have a much more technically simple solution available that requires only manipulating the set information for the existing arena weapons to be the perfected versions, and altering a handful of loot tables for the various normal and vet arenas.

The reason the devs haven't exercised that option is because they philosophically disagree that the newer, more powerful weapons should be given to anyone without new grind of equal or longer length than the current one.

From a programming perspective, any compromise measures involving tokens or NPCs are orders of magnitude more difficult to achieve (new currency, new art, new VO in several languages, new dialog trees in several languages, logic for how the exchanges are to work, possibly new addon APIs, etc.), and there is 0 chance they are even feasible to complete this late in the development cycle. If they are going to invest the work for such a system, they will make it a new QoL feature for the entire arena, not a solution for a one-time itemization problem that will never happen again.

I would welcome such a feature with open arms, even if it meant I had to re-grind everything, since the main thing that I dread is the horrible RNG. Unfortunately, it's just not going to happen this update.

Katahdin

Lime923 wrote: »

Are we going to get an update to this, or are they just hoping we go away and forget about it?

The devs cant wrap their head around why we are so upset about it.
They think we should just be happy happy that we are getting perfected versions of VMA and VDSA weapons
And we should be thrilled to go back and spend 100s of hours farming them again and again and again.
Instead of doing the things we farmed them in the first place to do.

We know they have been reading the feedback, but they just...dont.....get....it
So no, we wont get an update, unless by some miracle they become enlightened as to why it is wrong to not upgrade our current weapons.
However, unfortunately they wont and it most likely wont change.

Etrella

Finally figured out why there has been no response.

They knew once we saw what a worthless bonus the staff would have, we would probably calm down, but NO
This was ALL just about rewarding lazy new players. Shame

Creeper

I'm really upset about this changes and I'm not a very good player by any means.

When I ran Veteran Maelstrom Arena for the first time I died more than 250+ times just to complete a single run, I'm not exaggerating. I almost cried and ran out of gold trying to repair my gears and buying soul gems and potions but it was clearly my fault that I did not wanted to read a guide and wanted to learn the mechanics by myself. I still struggled after mostly on Stage 5 (Rink of the Frozen Blood), Stage 6 (Spiral Shadows), Stage 7 (Vault of Umbrage), Stage 8 (Igneous Cistern) and Stage 9 (Theater of Despair). Now I know that not everyone has a patience like me but I practiced and played a lot and got better and finally earned "The Flawless Conqueror" Title.I had to farm a lot to get the bows and staffs for my characters which were not easy because there was no Transmutation back then.

People who complain that maelstrom arena is too hard are those who are not even willing to spend time to learn and want the loot without putting any effort, those who wants the weapon instantly when someone mentions the weapon, believe me I have been there. I had to spend many weeks and months of farming to get the weapons for all my characters because there's too much RNG with the loot and the traits of the weapons and till today I still don't have the perfect traits but now with transmutation it has made so much easier for everyone so they don't have to farm so much anymore to get the perfect traits.

I'm just an average player who is not very good and not very bad, I struggle to get more than 20 to 25k dps on my magicka and stamina characters on a 3 Million Target Skeleton. I can only get above 30k dps on my stamina templar and magicka warden which is nowhere close to the DPS requirements for Trials Guild / Group that ask for 45K+ dps. so I have never been able to join a Trials group for Hard Mode to farm the Perfected sets even though I wanted them very bad.

So please either update our existing weapons to perfected or remove the perfected version entirely and keep the weapons as it is. I already really dislike then existing Perfected and Imperfect version system on Armor/ Weapon sets. If you want to reward the End Game Veteran Players just give them a Title, Skins, Polymorphs, Achievements, Non-Combat Pets, Costumes, Rare Golden Motifs or Sytle Pages, Golden Food and Crafting Recipe and many more on Hard Mode that are worth farming for but please stop separating Armor / Weapon sets to Perfected and Imperfect, because of this Casuals and Veterans players keeps complaining in the forum and are not in the same page. sorry for my bad English.

Giljabrar

28 pages of responses, 72 hours later....silence.

Letho2469

Woeler wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Giljabrar wrote: »

28 pages of responses, 72 hours later....silence.

When have they ever responded to feedback?

We're going to be lucky if they make a SINGLE post during this entire PTS cycle.

Haven't had a reply to your dumb insults when you were proven wrong either.

I don't know where that is targeted at, but I hope you don't defend ZoS's attitude towards loyal players and the game itself during the last months? All we get is lag and desync with them either a) not giving a damn or b) not being able to fix it and then such bold stretching of old content that is perceived to be a kick in the face by most endgame players. No, i most certainly hope you don't oO

mauerzahnb16_ESO

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

Why make people do boring, grindy content again? It is fun to complete Veteran Arenas for a couple times, it's great that they are hard to do for beginners - and they do get a so much easier once you completed them several times - but they do also get that much more boring to grind - AGAIN and again...

having completed the veteran version of the arenas should of course reward you with the veteran (perfect) version, no matter WHEN you did it.

Or are they changing the veteran mode to be much more difficult? I'd at least get the changes then...

quite disapointing if it stays that way.

Letho2469

Oooops, I browsed the thread for your name and didn't find anything - probably a typing error, my bad :O

Ravex007

Well finally i had to go through what I really didn't want to. I had a reimbursement on my preorder of the next chapter.

Brian if this what you wanted from your vet players then you got it sir. My eso plus will also deactivate from next month. I guess pvp is your only concern.

Goodluck to all my co pve vet players. It's a sad day for me.

(Update) I've also stopped my plus membership and thankfully with an explanation from my part I've also had a reimbursement on that. I know my 100$ all together won't make a difference on this situation but I've done all i could from my part to protest this injustice. I will revert back everything if Mr. Brian changes his mind or give us a justifiable explanation. To be continued...

jecks33

Any news from Mr.W?

wlkanos

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

I came to check if I should get Greymoor but instead I canceled my eso+

Great job @ZOS_BrianWheeler

It took me 3 months to get my vMA inferno, one of those months was double drop, I'm not doing that again, and I'm not going to sit here and watch my effort and time becomes as equivalent to running nMA.

Whoever tries to make the argument "you didn't get vMA weapons, you got vMA weapons last month, etc." is stupid. This is an illogical comparison that'll only maybe work if vMA content was updated, and nMA became as difficult is vMA, but it's not the cae, it's exactly the same arena.

One fair and logical solution that'll probably satisfy everyone is of three steps:
1- Give nMA weaker weapons than the current vMA weapons but stronger than the current nMA drops
2- Keep current vMA weapons the same
3- Design a hardmode vMA to obtain perfected weapons.

Doing so you'll A- Give new players a reason and reward for doing nMA, B- vet players won't be angry and insulted because you've wasted their time and efforts, C- Vet players will have a reason to go back to the same old repetitive boring now vanilla of an arena content you call vMA, Or the the other I didn't do.

But knowing ZOS and you, @ZOS_BrianWheeler, you probably won't even respond.

Letho2469

The changes to the maelstrom staves are absolutely irrelevant since the perfected versions only add spell penetration. you need the spell pen on the front bar though while you carry maelstrom weapons on the backbar (another indicator for at least the item designers dont even know their own game or mechanics; dot-snapshoting has been taken out, just in case somebody should feel encourged to mention it here).

The true slap in the face is the pain of getting a group for arenas. Especially the much needed and yet rare tanks will have no motivation to help ppl out on this matter. You are the last person to get your drop in your group? Well, a pitty, the rest of your farming group who already got what they needed, mysteriously and suddenly have some RL stuff and work to do...

John_Falstaff

Letho2469 wrote: »

Especially the much needed and yet rare tanks will have no motivation to help ppl out on this matter. You are the last person to get your drop in your group? Well, a pitty, the rest of your farming group who already got what they needed, mysteriously and suddenly have some RL stuff and work to do...

Well, as a PvE tank main, I'll say that ZOS luckily have encouraged me to play more by buffing all monster sets I use in the new update.

Oh wait...

silvereyes

Letho2469 wrote: »

The changes to the maelstrom staves are absolutely irrelevant

I certainly won't be re-grinding them, but that also completely misses the point.

My vMA weapons hold a special place in my heart. They represent a challenge overcome, a painful experience that I got through by gearing up, training, studying, lots of build-tweaking, many runs until it became fluid and then many many battles with the RNG gods.

The devs' decision to not grant vet-level rewards for vet-level performance makes the entire effort seem worthless: something I could have just avoided and then coasted through after the update with a crafted set, no training, and a spam ability. It's not really about the gear per-se. It's about the time, training and treasure I invested to earn that gear.

Granting free upgrades would cost the devs nothing, save them a PR fire storm, and help perpetuate the sunk-cost fantasy in their player base that keeps people playing. The fact that the dev team intentionally chose to go down this path of sadness despite the storm they knew it would kick up, and then the rumor about an alleged comment from Rich that essentially told people to stop acting so entitled, just feels super bad and disrespectful.

* Edit: clarified that the alleged comment attributed to Rich is just a rumor.

SirMewser

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

Your current veteran and subscribed player will not be manually upgraded to further ESO+ subscriptions.

I subbed to farm it back in 2015 for hours.
You took away stat bonuses.
You bring perfected versions.
I will not spend hours of another sub in 2020 because you want to homogenizing our earnings with a mode we did not run it on. You can put back what you took or credit your loyalty players instead.

Letho2469

silvereyes wrote: »

[...] and then the comment from Rich that essentially told people to stop acting so entitled, just feels super bad and disrespectful.

Where did he say that?

Elsonso

Letho2469 wrote: »

silvereyes wrote: »

[...] and then the comment from Rich that essentially told people to stop acting so entitled, just feels super bad and disrespectful.

Where did he say that?

I am actually curious about that, too. All I have seen is a screen cap with the name blocked out that claims to be from Lambert.