Allow us to choose our Arena Weapons.

hexentb16_ESO

Dear ZOS. Please let us choose our arena weapons at the end.

Why?

Arenas are fun exactly once. When you do it the first time or when you finally have a clean run after learning the mechanics because you suck at the game. Just make it a text based choice like how we choose our Prismatic Weapon at the end of the fighter's guild quest line. PLEASE! Or maybe make it so the only arena weapons we get are the ones for the skills we have points in.

"But then people won't ever do arenas after they get the one they want" I hear the change fearing comenters type.

WRONG! There are loads of nice armor sets that we might want that aren't nearly as painful to collect.

Either way, if we actually enjoy the arenas we'll come back to do them over and over again for the achievements. If we don't enjoy them we shouldn't be forced into a super boring grind for something we need that might (but probably won't) drop.

Oh and no. I don't want this for dungeons too. At least dungeons are a little more fun, faster, and its easier to get what we want.

At least let us choose in the solo arenas.

NoSoup

100% agree.

I have run Vet Vateshram that many times now I have collected all the armor sets and have countless amounts of perfected staffs, 2h'ers, duel wield and bows but yet to get a single drop of the S+B.

If the weekly alternated 50/50 with VMA I probably wouldn't care as much but its just sooo boring now having run it so many times......

mobicera

Eso in its current state is one of the least grindy mmorpg I have ever played...
Yes you could get really unlucky in an arena or dungeon or trial for weapons however it's the carrot.
It exists in all mmorpg and honestly the one and done you want will probably never happen.

hexentb16_ESO

mobicera wrote: »

Eso in its current state is one of the least grindy mmorpg I have ever played...
Yes you could get really unlucky in an arena or dungeon or trial for weapons however it's the carrot.
It exists in all mmorpg and honestly the one and done you want will probably never happen.

I've played quite a few MMOs too and in comparison its one of the most grindy MMOs.

White wabbit

Been asked many a time of many years so don’t see being a thing

Lum1on

I don't understand why you keep saying this: "It's silly that the game so drastically encourages a player to change their build because of a single mechanic." This would mean that you need to have a tanky build during the first 3 portals/arenas (whatever they are called), and need to change to a DPS build on the final boss fight. And this is not the case.

You decided, chose, to play this tanky build, and you failed with it at the final boss encounter. If you'd play a "normal" build that can take a few hits, deals damage and so on, you wouldn't have this problem.

And besides, the "play the game how you want" in my ears doesn't sound that you should be able to fill a trial DPS role with tank gear, or be a dedicated trial healer with DPS setup. It's like you can live your life the way you want to, but you can't magically turn into a rabbit, can you? Because you are a human (or robot, who knows, this is internet after all).

Reply to another thread, my bad.

hexentb16_ESO

Lum1on wrote: »

I don't understand why you keep saying this: "It's silly that the game so drastically encourages a player to change their build because of a single mechanic." This would mean that you need to have a tanky build during the first 3 portals/arenas (whatever they are called), and need to change to a DPS build on the final boss fight. And this is not the case.

You decided, chose, to play this tanky build, and you failed with it at the final boss encounter. If you'd play a "normal" build that can take a few hits, deals damage and so on, you wouldn't have this problem.

And besides, the "play the game how you want" in my ears doesn't sound that you should be able to fill a trial DPS role with tank gear, or be a dedicated trial healer with DPS setup. It's like you can live your life the way you want to, but you can't magically turn into a rabbit, can you? Because you are a human (or robot, who knows, this is internet after all).

...what? Did you accidentally reply to the wrong post? Lol

Xerge

No thanks.

Lum1on

hexentb16_ESO wrote: »

...what? Did you accidentally reply to the wrong post? Lol

I did, yes, but don't understand how. I have never opened this thread before this reply.

athena9205

I propose, if the choosing own reward don't work, that the % drop rate for any item not in collection be increased by 1% for every item in collection for that arena/dungeon/trial/zone. So if you get that horrible vate shield drop rate ( i hear its 2% ) and clear everything else out, it should be up 12% for normal. so that would be 14% chance, that's allot better than 2% and not a game breaker.

redspecter23

Not sure about dropping a weapon of choice on the first run, but perhaps some sort of "anti bad RNG" system would be nice. Maybe after 20 runs, you can choose an arena weapon from the full list. If you are capable of running it 20 times, you're capable of running it 500 times. The only things against you at that point are time and your ability to stay sane after so many runs.

Alternatively, perhaps every 10 runs, you are awarded a random arena weapon to add to your stickerbook (from all the ones you currently don't have yet). This leads to a situation where you feel you can eventually finish your collection. With the current system, you get to the point where you only have a 1:70ish chance of getting the non arena weapon you need when you're down to only needing one more. That's insanity.

Xuhora

Farming is a key aspect of the longevity of a MMO. That’s why dailys exist which give you the chance of a stylepage. By your argumentation the dailys should give you the whole stylebook at first completion, because apparently, they are only fun the first time around. This would render the daily quest normal one-time quests.

You see where im going with my argumentation: it would lead to player saying they have nothing to do, nothing to aim for after a very short time. The grinding-aspect of any game is a tricky thing to balance and could lead to the demise of a game if you tip the scale in any of the two directions too hard.
Too much grind: players feeling they can never get what they want and quit out of despair.
not enough grind: players start feeling bored, because they get all the new weapons after 12 runs.

If you would have made the argument that we need a token system, that’s what I could stand behind. Because it acts as a failsafe for bad RNG. If every 10th run would grant you enough tokens to get one specific weapon, that would increase the longevity compared to your proposal tenfold, while countering the bad feeling of having to battle against RNG.

Stahlor

hexentb16_ESO wrote: »

Dear ZOS. Please let us choose our arena weapons at the end.

Tell that people that played the game before "transmutation" and "sticker book". I remember a time, when you had to run Maelstrom 200+ times to get a sharpened inferno staff. A few years later, these people got a punch in their faces, when they finally gave the exact same weapons on normal Maelstrom.

...and new players are asking now to get a weapon by choice for only 1 run, since they feel annoyed to run it more often?

WaywardArgonian

After 20 VVH runs and no inferno staff, the desire for a token system grows stronger by the run.

I get that grinding for gear is part of an MMO, but you are especially gimped in solo arenas due to there only being a single drop, as opposed to the 4 in Dragonstar and Blackrose.

A token system would not have to fully eliminate the grind. It could simply work so that you earn a token after a certain number of completions, after meeting certain conditions, or whatever. Eliminating part of the grind isn't necessarily a bad thing, as at this point I'm not playing the game more; I'm just playing VVH instead of doing other things in the game.

Even if I got a token after 30 runs, it would make me happy, as at least it'd grant me some certainty that I'll get what I need eventually. As it stands now, I could theoretically do 100 more back-to-back Spirit Slayer runs and still get nothing useful.

Weathur

Came here just to see if someone had already said this. Have done this arena probably 30 times and for some reason seem to only be getting maces, no ice staves or 2h's. This arena is ridiculously easy making it extremely boring to re-run. At least vMA was semi-difficult due to one shot mechanics + environmental damage in most of the stages.

There should really be a token system where each run gives one token, and you may purchase a random cache for 1, 5 tokens for a specific weapon class, and 10 for a specific weapon.

SupremeRissole

Xuhora wrote: »

Farming is a key aspect of the longevity of a MMO. That’s why dailys exist which give you the chance of a stylepage. By your argumentation the dailys should give you the whole stylebook at first completion, because apparently, they are only fun the first time around. This would render the daily quest normal one-time quests.

You see where im going with my argumentation: it would lead to player saying they have nothing to do, nothing to aim for after a very short time. The grinding-aspect of any game is a tricky thing to balance and could lead to the demise of a game if you tip the scale in any of the two directions too hard.
Too much grind: players feeling they can never get what they want and quit out of despair.
not enough grind: players start feeling bored, because they get all the new weapons after 12 runs.

If you would have made the argument that we need a token system, that’s what I could stand behind. Because it acts as a failsafe for bad RNG. If every 10th run would grant you enough tokens to get one specific weapon, that would increase the longevity compared to your proposal tenfold, while countering the bad feeling of having to battle against RNG.

100% agree
As has been mentioned in similar threads, when maelstrom was introduced it was much harder, there was no imperfect versions from normal, vet didn't even guarantee a drop, and there wasnt the transmute system.
Now most can agree that's VERY grindy and since then there's been a lot of positive changes to reduce the grind. The grind is a big part of every MMO especially ESO which utilises a horizontal progression model, rather than vertical progression.
At best, I could agree to a system similar to how welkynar motifs are aquired, completes give fragments, once a week you can get a binding to join 'x' amount of fragments together to make a weapon of your choice but without the choice of trait or something along those lines.
I agree its grindy, took over 100 runs to get my first bow in vma, but its made me a better player and made me appreciate the arena and the game more.

Tberg725

Lots of new players don’t even know how good they have it TBH when monster sets came out there was no such thing as transmute crystals and at the end of the dungeon you were running there was no guarantee of a monster helm drop one of my friends tried for the engine guardian helm for almost a year before getting it in the right trait and heavy so they really have cut the grind by ALOT so the arenas not so bad to deal with especially with transmutes just gotta get the wep to drop once and you can put what ever trait you want

Lum1on

Tberg725 wrote: »

Lots of new players don’t even know how good they have it TBH when monster sets came out there was no such thing as transmute crystals and at the end of the dungeon you were running there was no guarantee of a monster helm drop one of my friends tried for the engine guardian helm for almost a year before getting it in the right trait and heavy so they really have cut the grind by ALOT so the arenas not so bad to deal with especially with transmutes just gotta get the wep to drop once and you can put what ever trait you want

Don't forget that sets obtained from instances also weren't tradable. And I don't even want to start speaking about the undaunted chests that you used your keys to get shoulder pieces of monster sets.

That being said, and the fact that I've played few other, more grindy games, I don't think ESO is bad in that sense. But I understand why players want to have the certainty to get what you're looking for after a fixed amount of runs.

Brrrofski

120+ runs in vma and no bow.

Did about 30 on normal when that changed and no bow.

Gave up

How is this an ok system? Why am I running content that I can do on my sleep and still not getting what I need.

I know there should be some grind involved, but that's pretty ridiculous.

Kwoung

I am on board with the token system, you decide what level of randomness you want going in. In games I have played that use this sort of system for even some of their content, I have been really happy to do the grind, knowing there is an end to it in sight. There is a huge difference in knowing you will will have to run it 20 times to get exactly what you want, or doing an infinite grind due to really bad rng. There are 17 different weapon there I think? It should take 17 tokens to buy exactly what you want, because theoretically, you could have one of each at that point.

I still don't have a Maelstrom Resto for my PVP build, but pretty sure I have deleted almost every other weapon 5x over, except for the flame staff, which I got exactly 1 of on my 30ish something try.

Alternatively, it could just check your stickerbook and only drop something you haven't collected yet, which would limit the number of times you had to run it in the worst case... to the number of unique weapons that drop in that arena.

Lum1on

@Kwoung Theoretically speaking, after 12 runs you could have all 13 weapons (including shield). But chances for that to happen because it's all RNG is low. Just adding a token system that allows you to get whatever weapon you want from there (after just a few runs, 17, like you suggested) basically means that content will soon be dead because everybody gets what they want in no time.

I'm not a fan of the token system on this one, but if there ever will be one, I really hope it would be like what they did with the Undaunted keys; You can use one for completely random reward, or you can use X (10+) amount to select one of these choices: 1) one-handed melee (dagger, axe, mace, sword + shield), 2) two-handed melee (battle axe, maul, greatsword or bow), 3) staves (inferno, lightning, ice or restoration staff). All of these would have an equal chance to obtain the weapon you're looking for (25%), but it's not guaranteed, which wouldn't kill the content — at least not that fast.

Septimus_Magna

Brrrofski wrote: »

120+ runs in vma and no bow.

Did about 30 on normal when that changed and no bow.

Gave up

How is this an ok system? Why am I running content that I can do on my sleep and still not getting what I need.

I know there should be some grind involved, but that's pretty ridiculous.

Thats crazy if you think about the fact that you have a 1/6 chance to get a bow which makes it one of the easiest weapon to get. For element or type specific weapons I understand why it takes longer because you have 1/6 x 1/3 = 1/18 chance to get a fire staff for example.

Back in the day I leveled a stam DD because I ran vMA so often without getting a fire staff that I gave up, when the perfected weapons got added I got fire staff on my first normal run..

Lum1on

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Thats crazy if you think about the fact that you have a 1/6 chance to get a bow which makes it one of the easiest weapon to get. For element or type specific weapons I understand why it takes longer because you have 1/6 x 1/3 = 1/18 chance to get a fire staff for example.

Back in the day I leveled a stam DD because I ran vMA so often without getting a fire staff that I gave up, when the perfected weapons got added I got fire staff on my first normal run..

1/6 chance? I tried to group up the weapons in many different ways and couldn't get them in 6 logically assembled groups. And even then, are you sure it even works like that? I mean, I had a break so it might be that this information is revealed, leaked or datamined, and that's why I'm asking.

erio

I agree that most pve content is only fun once, but this is how mmos work. You do stuff until you get what you want, then you do something else.

N_L

This so much, it takes a while to complete arenas and then you get same thing you got many times and never the one I need sigh make some trade system if nothing, it's a pain to run them so many times