Maelstrom Arena PTS Challenge

ZOS_GinaBruno · October 2015

Starting today, October 12, we’d like to invite you to participate in our Maelstrom Arena Challenge on the PTS!

You will be challenged with appearing on one of the class leaderboards for Veteran Maelstrom Arena. Whoever is at the top of the leaderboards for their class will win an Orsinium-themed prize pack! We will also be choosing 2 runners up at random from each class leaderboard (also from Veteran Maelstrom Arena) to win a smaller prize pack, so you have a chance to win no matter where you place – but you still have to complete all arenas!

Dates
We’ll have two separate contest periods so everyone has a chance to use their copied characters from the PC/Mac Live megaservers:

Monday, October 12, 2015 at 10:00AM EDT through Sunday, October 18, 2015 at 11:59PM EDT
Monday, October 19, 2015 at 10:00AM EDT through Sunday, October 25, 2015 at 11:59PM EDT

Prizes
We’ll have 24 total winners – 12 for each contest period – who will be awarded with the following items:

Top player for each class during each period (8 total)
- 3000 crowns to purchase the new Orsinium DLC game pack
- One Cave Bear mount
8 Runners up for each class during each period (16 total)
- 750 crowns to spend in the Crown Store

For more information, please read the official contest rules.

Ruben · October 2015

Nice! Are the damage and skill cost bugs fixed?

Elijah_Crow · October 2015

Ruben wrote: »

Nice! Are the damage and skill cost bugs fixed?

I've held off testing this in Veteran Mode for exactly this reason. Let's hope this is included in PTS patch notes today. Great contest!

anitajoneb17_ESO · October 2015

Great ! :-)

Do I translate correctly that EU chars will be copied next monday and available then till live launch ?

Dymence · October 2015

Out of curiousity, would you be able to win two times in the given contest periods?

I'm from EU, but from practicing the veteran arena my template is already vr16, meaning it qualifies for the leaderboards.

Would it then be possible to be the winner in both contest periods - the first week with a template, and the second week with a copied character?

EDIT: To make it even better, if you have multiple copied VR16 characters from different classes, would you be able to win in each class leaderboard, making you qualify for 4 prizes?

asneakybanana · October 2015

Awesome. Wonder how much more toned down the dungeon will be if there since in a week in not sure if anybody has even made it to the final stage let alone gotten close to killing the final boss.

Daveheart · October 2015

asneakybanana wrote: »

Awesome. Wonder how much more toned down the dungeon will be if there since in a week in not sure if anybody has even made it to the final stage let alone gotten close to killing the final boss.

It's certainly a poor evaluation if the game-wide battlespirit and cost reduction bugs aren't patched.

Zyle · October 2015

Ruben wrote: »

Nice! Are the damage and skill cost bugs fixed?

Nope, but let's have a contest!

Fecius · October 2015

Sweet. Waiting for my EU copy. Sad that we can do nothing to make ping at least 2 times better.

Earendal · October 2015

I watched sneaky bang his head against the vet maelstrom wall for a majority of the night last night. Going to be tough to complete with the bugs currently in place. There was even a dev/ZoS employee in the twitch chat for a good while who seemed to think the sigils would be enough to overcome the bugs. I, however, remain skeptical.

Fat_Cat45 · October 2015

Earendal wrote: »

I watched sneaky bang his head against the vet maelstrom wall for a majority of the night last night. Going to be tough to complete with the bugs currently in place. There was even a dev/ZoS employee in the twitch chat for a good while who seemed to think the sigils would be enough to overcome the bugs. I, however, remain skeptical.

A patch for PTS is currently underway, so I would assume it includes the resource and damage bug fixes

asneakybanana · October 2015

Earendal wrote: »

I watched sneaky bang his head against the vet maelstrom wall for a majority of the night last night. Going to be tough to complete with the bugs currently in place. There was even a dev/ZoS employee in the twitch chat for a good while who seemed to think the sigils would be enough to overcome the bugs. I, however, remain skeptical.

Think I was in there for like 10 hours yesterday. Got frustrated but in the end had a blast playing something that was actually difficult. As for the sigil they do he'll but they're not a get out of jail free card or a last second save my ass cardcard. They're best used strategically. Probably the hardest round for me was stage 6 round 4 and I don't think it would have been possible for me to beat that without sigils. That said, I didn't use a single sigil up until stage 6 round 3. Not because I didn't need them I'm sure they would have helped a ton but you never knew when you were going to need it and usually by the time you did you were dead.

Dymence · October 2015

asneakybanana wrote: »

Awesome. Wonder how much more toned down the dungeon will be if there since in a week in not sure if anybody has even made it to the final stage let alone gotten close to killing the final boss.

I've been to the final stage, but getting close to killing the last boss? No way

That boss is the new definition of hard. You can't even begin to imagine how brutal it is. We'll see how it is with the fixed damage bug. Spent 1 hour trying on it and never dropped him lower than 70% of his hp.

All in all that run where I got to the final boss I spent about 9 hours in the arena.

Gilliamtherogue · October 2015

Battle spirit issues are still present, meaning your abilities are still costing way more than should be, as well as mobs taking 50% less damage. Why hold a competition if you haven't fixed the #1 reason no one has completed vMaelstrom yet?

PBpsy · October 2015

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

Battle spirit issues are still present, meaning your abilities are still costing way more than should be, as well as mobs taking 50% less damage. Why hold a competition if you haven't fixed the #1 reason no one has completed vMaelstrom yet?

ZOS is doing it the right way.

asneakybanana · October 2015

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

Battle spirit issues are still present, meaning your abilities are still costing way more than should be, as well as mobs taking 50% less damage. Why hold a competition if you haven't fixed the #1 reason no one has completed vMaelstrom yet?

Because they enjoy laughing at people dying over and over. Plus it's an achievement to kill this thing while it's still stupid.

Gilliamtherogue · October 2015

asneakybanana wrote: »

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

Battle spirit issues are still present, meaning your abilities are still costing way more than should be, as well as mobs taking 50% less damage. Why hold a competition if you haven't fixed the #1 reason no one has completed vMaelstrom yet?

Because they enjoy laughing at people dying over and over. Plus it's an achievement to kill this thing while it's still stupid.

Except that only builds with shield spamming access will be able to complete it at all this current state. This isn't a "be the best at your class" kinda thing, this is a "play whats blatantly toxic and makes our game a joke" kinda thing. I've gotten to stage 6 boss round before it becomes too much, I just don't have enough durability access as a stam build. All I have is Rally/Vigor for on demand heals, but a HoT isn't going to save me when I'm getting hit by 4+ mobs all dealing 8k with a basic light attack. Whoever thought removing stamina regen while blocking for non tanks and then released this content, was a healthy idea, needs to see a doctor and find out what healthy means.

xMovingTarget · October 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Starting today, October 12, we’d like to invite you to participate in our Maelstrom Arena Challenge on the PTS!

You will be challenged with appearing on one of the class leaderboards for Veteran Maelstrom Arena. Whoever is at the top of the leaderboards for their class will win an Orsinium-themed prize pack! We will also be choosing 2 runners up at random from each class leaderboard (also from Veteran Maelstrom Arena) to win a smaller prize pack, so you have a chance to win no matter where you place – but you still have to complete all arenas!

Dates
We’ll have two separate contest periods so everyone has a chance to use their copied characters from the PC/Mac Live megaservers:
Monday, October 12, 2015 at 10:00AM EDT through Sunday, October 18, 2015 at 11:59PM EDT

Monday, October 19, 2015 at 10:00AM EDT through Sunday, October 25, 2015 at 11:59PM EDT

Prizes
We’ll have 24 total winners – 12 for each contest period – who will be awarded with the following items:
Top player for each class during each period (8 total)
3000 crowns to purchase the new Orsinium DLC game pack

One Cave Bear mount

8 Runners up for each class during each period (16 total)
750 crowns to spend in the Crown Store

For more information, please read the official contest rules.

As soon is you put the mob mitigation back to normal I am up for it. Unless you put it in there intentionally for this event.

Birdovic · October 2015

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

Battle spirit issues are still present, meaning your abilities are still costing way more than should be, as well as mobs taking 50% less damage. Why hold a competition if you haven't fixed the #1 reason no one has completed vMaelstrom yet?

Because they enjoy laughing at people dying over and over. Plus it's an achievement to kill this thing while it's still stupid.

Except that only builds with shield spamming access will be able to complete it at all this current state. This isn't a "be the best at your class" kinda thing, this is a "play whats blatantly toxic and makes our game a joke" kinda thing. I've gotten to stage 6 boss round before it becomes too much, I just don't have enough durability access as a stam build. All I have is Rally/Vigor for on demand heals, but a HoT isn't going to save me when I'm getting hit by 4+ mobs all dealing 8k with a basic light attack. Whoever thought removing stamina regen while blocking for non tanks and then released this content, was a healthy idea, needs to see a doctor and find out what healthy means.

The 4 mobs hitting with 8k each is a mechanic of stage6, you can avoid those

Elijah_Crow · October 2015

Elijah_Crow wrote: »

Ruben wrote: »

Nice! Are the damage and skill cost bugs fixed?

I've held off testing this in Veteran Mode for exactly this reason. Let's hope this is included in PTS patch notes today. Great contest!

I appreciate the idea of the event, but since mobs currently have 50% more mitigation than they should, ability costs are through the roof, and per today's patch notes this will not be fixed until v2.2.2: I'll wait.

Gilliamtherogue · October 2015

andypappb16_ESO wrote: »

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

Battle spirit issues are still present, meaning your abilities are still costing way more than should be, as well as mobs taking 50% less damage. Why hold a competition if you haven't fixed the #1 reason no one has completed vMaelstrom yet?

Because they enjoy laughing at people dying over and over. Plus it's an achievement to kill this thing while it's still stupid.

Except that only builds with shield spamming access will be able to complete it at all this current state. This isn't a "be the best at your class" kinda thing, this is a "play whats blatantly toxic and makes our game a joke" kinda thing. I've gotten to stage 6 boss round before it becomes too much, I just don't have enough durability access as a stam build. All I have is Rally/Vigor for on demand heals, but a HoT isn't going to save me when I'm getting hit by 4+ mobs all dealing 8k with a basic light attack. Whoever thought removing stamina regen while blocking for non tanks and then released this content, was a healthy idea, needs to see a doctor and find out what healthy means.

The 4 mobs hitting with 8k each is a mechanic of stage6, you can avoid those

Was referring to the entirety of Maelstrom Arena. I have to play perfectly just to clear trash, which will be totally fine when I'm doing the actual damage my build is capable of, but with these bugs that's kinda silly. My build is built upon risk reward which is how I play; high damage low survivability. Obviously I change up some abilities/armor depending on the circumstances for Maelstrom, but overall 50% less damage while still taking 8k auto attacks from everything is too much to deal with. Not to mention as a stam build I have to block and roll attacks while still trying to do damage, which with vet characters not benifiting from cost reduction on PTS atm... Yeah, not gunna get far. I don't have freelo damage shields to carry me. </3

Vyle_Byte · October 2015

Unbelievable. WTH are you guys thinking sitting in that office?! Why oh WHY would you start a friggin contest like this when you know damn well NA PTS is screwed up with damage mitigation and cost. Why dont you just say, hey NA, screw you EU wins.

FFS. Again, you do something cool just to botch it.

ZOS_GinaBruno · October 2015

Hey guys, just wanted to let you all know that we're currently discussing options (we promise the intent wasn't to troll everyone). What if we pushed out the contest by a week, so the dates would be Oct 19-Nov 1? While only EU characters will be copied, you'll still be able to use VR16 templates. Thoughts?

evedgebah · October 2015

Gear matters a LOT for high-end content like this. We need maxed skills, and maxed trait research! Full Undaunted sets, full imperial city sets, and maxed out research (not just maxed skill) for crafting, so we can create the new sets. We'd also need 1,000 of each crafting material (including nirnhoned) to make sure we can make the armor we need if we want to.

Maxed crafting would also allow us to test the new crafted sets to make sure they work!

redspecter23 · October 2015

Fix the bugs, get all characters copied, then run a test. Why test under circumstances that (hopefully) would never happen on live? Anything else is basically just trolling.

ZOS_GinaBruno · October 2015

Unfortunately we are not able to have NA and EU characters copied at the same time due to technical limitations - this has always been the case.

Valen_Byte · October 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, just wanted to let you all know that we're currently discussing options (we promise the intent wasn't to troll everyone). What if we pushed out the contest by a week, so the dates would be Oct 19-Nov 1? While only EU characters will be copied, you'll still be able to use VR16 templates. Thoughts?

Only way this would work is if you changed the gear on the temps. Having a v16 temp is great, but not with v14 gear.

Gear is everything in the end game...you know that.

As is, I dont think pushing the contest back is going to make NA people happy because it wont be there characters.

Just hold off on the contest until it all goes live and is in proper working order.

Honestly I would have thought that the damage mit. and cost would have peen top priority this patch. We cant test anything properly let alone participate in an event like this.

Gilliamtherogue · October 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, just wanted to let you all know that we're currently discussing options (we promise the intent wasn't to troll everyone). What if we pushed out the contest by a week, so the dates would be Oct 19-Nov 1? While only EU characters will be copied, you'll still be able to use VR16 templates. Thoughts?

Being stuck with templates kind of kills a lot of incentive to go in and try. I guess its the most "balanced" way to hold the competition as everyone would have access to the same things, but at the same time it kind of kills the whole uniqueness and effort we've put into our live characters. Honestly there isn't an good solution to this problem except to hold this competition when the PTS goes live and everyone has equal access and their bearings on their characters. Not to mention it'll give you guys more time to stomp on these pesky bugs and potential exploits out there.

Paulington · October 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Unfortunately we are not able to have NA and EU characters copied at the same time due to technical limitations - this has always been the case.

Would it not be possible to just have two PTS servers, one NA and one EU? That's a better system than having this "half-on, half-off" situation we get each time. Especially as the lag us EU players get on PTS makes it almost unplayable at times.

Vyle_Byte · October 2015

If you aren't going to wait until it goes live to do the contest (which imo that's the fairest and makes most sense) then the only way it could be truly fair on the PTS is if you make everyone use the templates. Just my opinion.

asneakybanana · October 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, just wanted to let you all know that we're currently discussing options (we promise the intent wasn't to troll everyone). What if we pushed out the contest by a week, so the dates would be Oct 19-Nov 1? While only EU characters will be copied, you'll still be able to use VR16 templates. Thoughts?

fine by me if you give us templates that have maxed out crafting and all traits as well as 2k of each crafting mat and access to all v16 undaunted sets and all the v16 sets from IC. Also give us capped champion points like most of our competitors will have. Also access to v15 blue food not just the crown store garbage.