For me it just gets too frustrating, so it's not fun. I am choosing not to complete it.

Anyone who is on TeamSpeak with me while I attempt vMA can attest to the bounty of foul language the arena elicits.

It's frustrating. It makes me want to punch a hole in my desk (oh, and you can hear the sound of that pounding). And I really, really hate certain parts of it (I cannot express in words how much I hate the stranglers).

But I still come back to it despite all that.

Haven't tried it. I am 90 % sure I am not able to do it.

I'm not sure if like msa. In general I play eso instead of a single player rpg because you can group with other players. So I'd much prefer to see competitive group content instead of msa. (Or at least have trials scaled to v16).
But if I have to choose between msa and no challenging content, I'd choose msa even though it can be frustrating due to bugged mechanics.

Overall yes. It's a challenging piece of content.

There are some wrinkles to iron out though: bugs on some stages and no progress saving.

It's a mix. It's fun because it's something new and different and is actually challenging. But it's really frustrating because of bugs, bad arena designs/mechanics, and the nature of the RNG grind.

Just did not care for it.

There was no in-between option so I chose other.

I like Maelstrom Arena because it's challenging but I hate it because it's unforgiving. All it takes is one mistake, one misclick, going left when you should've gone right to kill you and that's frustrating beyond relief.

to long, doesnt save progress

iliatha wrote: »

GaldorP wrote: »

The difficulty is not based around the character (class, build, quality and type of gear).

how should that even be possible ? and for what ? Just make sure that your character is ready and go.

An example would be a different arena for each class. Grading monster difficulty based on character stats would be another. Of course, that would require a lot of work. I was just arguing why this kind of challenge is lot less fun to me than very challenging single-player games I've played on consoles. In those games the challenge could be designed exactly around what's possible to do with the main character. In ESO, there's just too many variables and the balancing of classes and builds is not good enough to have the same super-hard challenge for everyone, in my opinion.

iliatha wrote: »

GaldorP wrote: »

The difficulty is often unfair: Situations occur where you can't do anything to survive. You die because you had bad luck.

Dont know about that, im dying because of "bad luck" like once per run ? Other death are just my fault. In stage 3 im kind of on your side but most of the times i have no problems with beeing pulled and 2-shotted while in air ^^

I can give a few of examples here: Stranglers in stage 3 are one, of course. Others have mentioned that bad luck with webspinner respawn can lead to no pillar glowing in stage 6. In stage 7, poison bombs can spawn right next to you when the boss is screaming (arguably this could be avoided if you kite the 2 mages until you kill the argonian priest to make sure it can't happen, but then again the mages will charge into you for 15k dmg that can't be avoided, after a while). In stage 8, with bad luck, 2 of the dremora with the channeling fire attack can spawn in one wave and start that attack at the same time. In stage 4, the sentries can always spawn on the exact opposite site of you. It's not always an automatic loss, but bad luck can make it a lot harder. I think it would be better the have fewer "random" events.

iliatha wrote: »

GaldorP wrote: »

Constantly having to outheal x damage or having to kill an enemy within x seconds is not difficult, it's just annoying and a check if you have the right build/setup.

What else should they do ? You have to survive in different arenas a ton of trash mobs and bosses, all by yourself. I feel like its challenging atm..

Mechanics that require player skill and reaction but do not require you to have x dps or y hps.

iliatha wrote: »

GaldorP wrote: »

No way to save progress means, for many players, that they have to play for several hours without any break of more than 15 minutes. Not everyone can do that. I can't think of a good reason why one should not be able to save progress in the veteran version of the arena. It's possible in the normal version so the reason can't be technical limitations.

Perhaps they didnt do it because its the "veteran mode" :P Dont know, but cant see the real problem. Lets say you are able to play for 2 hrs and theres no way to save progress. Of course you will nor clear it in 2 hrs in your first try. But you will get better in each stage that you played before. In the end it will be easy to clear within that time, no real need to save progress.

Only thing it would be good for is to complete arena in "1st try" with 200 pkts. Get loot and what ? Next run that takes you a week ? Cant getting better if you dont practice the stages. Saving progress would hinder yourself and take away the best part of arena. Just my opinion, i know many ppl are asking for save-***.

I see no argument against a save progress feature for veteran mode here except that you think it's not needed. Many people have asked for this feature on the forums so I would assume it serves a purpose.

iliatha wrote: »

GaldorP wrote: »

Every attempt makes the average player lose a lot of resources (gold, soulgems, and expensive potions) with a very low chance to get something they want. A token system with less RNG for rewards would have been so much better.

Yea since undaunted daylies ppl are asking for token system. I dont know anyone who doesnt want it. Still we dont have it, what does that tell us ? :P

Blue bags in Cyrodiil and Tel'Var Stone bags in the Imperial City go in the right direction, in my opinion.

Im choosing not to complete it cause it takes to much time to learn because there is no save feature like in normal mode.

My main complaint is one I haven't seen elsewhere:

Why are the mobs allowed to bypass so many PLAYER mechanics? Is there any instance in VMA where Purge actually DOES something... you know, like PURGE a negative effect???

It simply takes too long for my taste and the requirement to run it in one go makes me not run it at all.