All those Maelstrom weapons out there

MaxTM · April 2016

I really hope they never nerf vMSA. It's hard and draining and the issue is in the reward, not in the difficulty. So should we lower the difficulty to the level of rewards? A pretty bad idea in my opinion.
The solution I play in my head with is quite simple: Raise the chance for a weapon drop by a few % and weapons/shields when deconstructed will give you a token/special item which can be taken to a certain merchant where you can buy the weapon you want for e.g. 25 of these.

Duiwel · April 2016

paul_j wrote: »

Good thing I'm not stamina or vampire. Whew

I laughed way more than I should have

Bofrari · April 2016

I must just be lucky I've got every weapon you can get out of there 3 times over and all in good traits sharpened precise fire staff ice staff lighting staff two handed maul axe sword one handed daggers axes ect shield and so on

Vangy · April 2016

I think people be too keen on completing stuff they dont enjoy... Take me for example.

I have done vMSA a grand total of 2 times. One on sorc... And spent like 1 month to get it on DK.
1. Got crap loot
2. Dont enjoy it one bit. I didnt play ESO to play single player RPG on hell mode
3. Not going to complete it again.
4. Dont care about maelstrom weapons enough to go through hell week after week.
5. Still pull 25k dps on stam DK and 30k++ on mag sorc during overload. Enough for any other PVE content.
6. Still rake in crap tons of AP without playing lame cheese VD builds or gank builds

People be too obsessed with maelstrom weapons. The real question you need to be asking yourself is, do you enjoy doing ridiculously hard content solo. If the answer is yes, then vMSA will be just your cup of tea. If no, then just dont do it. malestrom weapons arent essential. Yeah thyre awesome but not mandatory for anything in this game.

Ill leave ya'll with a funny thought;

If you're unsure whether you like doing hard content you can ask yourself this; How do you feel about sitting all the way down on a huge pineapple while getting a cucumber shoved down your throat? If you think this is something you would enjoy, vMSA is for you! If not... Just avoid it like I do lol. You will be totally fine with just crafted weapons as long as you play your toon well

DRXHarbinger · April 2016

Destruent wrote: »

Edziu wrote: »

DSA bow with passive is also very good and with bonus to skill, poison arrow...is much much better tham maelstrom because in fight you always keeping this dot under 50% enemy health with finisher morph skill :P much better than bonus to increase weapo dmg only from bombard...good on trash in pve, not much on bosses like poison injection :d

DSA-Bow is only better in highly mobile fights. As long as you can keep up arrow barrage/scorched earth on the boss the enchantement is extremely strong. It adds around 2k+ DPS in Singletarget fights...

Not to necro. But VMA bow. I cast it in pvp and stand in it against stam players. Works quite well and certainly puts it to use.

Edziu · April 2016

Vangy wrote: »

I think people be too keen on completing stuff they dont enjoy... Take me for example.

I have done vMSA a grand total of 2 times. One on sorc... And spent like 1 month to get it on DK.
1. Got crap loot
2. Dont enjoy it one bit. I didnt play ESO to play single player RPG on hell mode
3. Not going to complete it again.
4. Dont care about maelstrom weapons enough to go through hell week after week.
5. Still pull 25k dps on stam DK and 30k++ on mag sorc during overload. Enough for any other PVE content.
6. Still rake in crap tons of AP without playing lame cheese VD builds or gank builds

People be too obsessed with maelstrom weapons. The real question you need to be asking yourself is, do you enjoy doing ridiculously hard content solo. If the answer is yes, then vMSA will be just your cup of tea. If no, then just dont do it. malestrom weapons arent essential. Yeah thyre awesome but not mandatory for anything in this game.

Ill leave ya'll with a funny thought;

If your unsure whether you like doing hard content you can ask yourself this; How do you feel about sitting all the way down on a huge pineapple while getting a cucumber shoved down your throat? If you think this is something you would enjoy, vMSA is for you! If not... Just avoid it like I do lol. You will be totally fine with just crafted weapons as long as you play your toon well

ye...on this hard solo content I getting only rage

so I pissed on it...after patch changed on magica build..stil dont done it agai.why? because playing on magica ist that good for me like stamina so also I pissed on it and gtfo, I waitint now to remove vet ranks to equip my few vDSA master weapons. from Vmaels also I want few weapons....but not that much to again get rage on this while playing on my favorite build, stamina :P ths arena is dead content for me until they balance this crap te be also easy like on magica build

Pallio · April 2016

For me vma weapons look really good, just have not tortured myself into getting them yet. It may be possible for most builds/classes, but is by no means fun. Just banging head against the wall, dieing over and over to tweak gear and have a perfect reaction time to mechanics, possible sure, just not any fun.

LegendaryArcher · April 2016

A few facts for you:

- The chance to get a random Maelstrom weapon from vMA is somewhere around 10%. This has been proven by many people who ran it 200+ times (and still didn't get their weapons). For me, I haven't seen a single weapon drop in 20+ runs.

- Back when vMA just came out, it used to be possible to get Maelstrom weapons from being placed on the leaderboard. Nowadays, it is not, unless you have a very vMA-specific build, best-in-slot gear and Maelstrom weapons. Most of the players on the leaderboard are mundus stone cheaters. If you run it without dying and without taking a single buff sigil, you will not make it to the weekly leaderboard.

- There are many advertisements in illegal game trading forums, stating, "Will run Maelstrom weekly for you with mundus cheat, 475k+ score guaranteed! 20$" Try to compete with that.

This is some really poor design on ZOS's part.

Valrien · April 2016

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

A few facts for you:

- The chance to get a random Maelstrom weapon from vMA is somewhere around 10%. This has been proven by many people who ran it 200+ times (and still didn't get their weapons). For me, I haven't seen a single weapon drop in 20+ runs.

- Back when vMA just came out, it used to be possible to get Maelstrom weapons from being placed on the leaderboard. Nowadays, it is not, unless you have a very vMA-specific build, best-in-slot gear and Maelstrom weapons. Most of the players on the leaderboard are mundus stone cheaters. If you run it without dying and without taking a single buff sigil, you will not make it to the weekly leaderboard.

- There are many advertisements in illegal game trading forums, stating, "Will run Maelstrom weekly for you with mundus cheat, 475k+ score guaranteed! 20$" Try to compete with that.

This is some really poor design on ZOS's part.

@LegendaryArcher in all of your posts you call people who make leaderboard cheaters. Since you've completed it and made leaderboard, you basically admit to exploiting.

ub17_ESO · April 2016

Dubhliam wrote: »

Where did you find the statistic that only 5% finish vMA?

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/256181/have-you-finished-veteran-maelstrom-arena/p1

I think we need take into account that a small percentage of the player base frequents the forums and I think it's reasonable to suggest that the average joe forum is a better more avid player than average joe.

That poll beautifully shows that 31% of players that visit the forums and took part in that poll have triumphed over the challenge of vMA.

I'm sure the fine folks at ZOS have the actual metrics. I would be curious to know...

LegendaryArcher · April 2016

Valrien wrote: »

@LegendaryArcher in all of your posts you call people who make leaderboard cheaters. Since you've completed it and made leaderboard, you basically admit to exploiting.

I am not calling all of them cheaters. But fact is, the maximum score of a "perfect run" (no deaths, no sigils), without Maelstrom weapons, is at 460k (for Magicka Nightblade). The only way to push this number is to either have a Maelstrom destro staff with WoE or have multiple mundus stones (cheating). 460k is also about the cutoff value for the leaderboard.

I know 4 cheaters personally that are in the top 15. I know at least 5 people that each have multiple chars, that let a cheater run vMA for them to get each char on the leaderboard each week. That's already 100% 17 spots that I personally know of that are not even cheaters, but have cheater friends run vMA for them for free. Add the cheaters' chars (not sure how many) to those 17 and you have quite a few cheaters I know of. Keep in mind, the leaderboard spots are limited!

Now, I know there's a market for vMA, where people pay others to complete vMA for them. Apparently people are willing to pay 20$ per leaderboard spot for a char. With the spots limited to 100, there's a good chance the few fair players that already have a Maelstrom weapon and are fairly getting on the leaderboard represent a minority. With a quite huge (elitist) PvP scene in ESO, where people are usually P2W and buy loads and loads of gold from gold sellers to have the best equipment, I doubt they're not purchasing tons of vMA runs from "vMA Leaderboard Sellers" to also get the best weapons possible.

I hope I cleared this up a little bit.

As of today, I am not able to make it to the leaderboard since I don't have a Maelstrom weapon, which is required to push the cut-off score.

Destruent · April 2016

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

I am not calling all of them cheaters. But fact is, the maximum score of a "perfect run" (no deaths, no sigils), without Maelstrom weapons, is at 460k (for Magicka Nightblade). The only way to push this number is to either have a Maelstrom destro staff with WoE or have multiple mundus stones (cheating). 460k is also about the cutoff value for the leaderboard.

Where is this number from?

LegendaryArcher · April 2016

Destruent wrote: »

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

I am not calling all of them cheaters. But fact is, the maximum score of a "perfect run" (no deaths, no sigils), without Maelstrom weapons, is at 460k (for Magicka Nightblade). The only way to push this number is to either have a Maelstrom destro staff with WoE or have multiple mundus stones (cheating). 460k is also about the cutoff value for the leaderboard.

Where is this number from?

In what context?

Perfect run -> experience
Cutoff value for leaderboards -> well, it's been like that for LB closing for the past few weeks now (Nightblade)

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO · April 2016

I dont want the difficulty of vMSA dropped but I would like the loot to match the difficulty. Right now its just not worth it for me to bother doing it. The chances of getting a weapon I can actually use are so minimal that I dont see the point of running it at all. The difficulty again is fine they just need to make the rewards match.

Destruent · April 2016

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

Destruent wrote: »

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

I am not calling all of them cheaters. But fact is, the maximum score of a "perfect run" (no deaths, no sigils), without Maelstrom weapons, is at 460k (for Magicka Nightblade). The only way to push this number is to either have a Maelstrom destro staff with WoE or have multiple mundus stones (cheating). 460k is also about the cutoff value for the leaderboard.

Where is this number from?

In what context?

Perfect run -> experience
Cutoff value for leaderboards -> well, it's been like that for LB closing for the past few weeks now (Nightblade)

You said, the maximum possible without maelstromeweapons is 460k for magicka-NB. Where is this 460k from? How do you know it's not possible to get even higher without maelstrome inferno?

reften · April 2016

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

I agree about rng, its very demotivating.
.

no doubt. I try to stay away from trying to get anything via RNG as much as possible by purchasing gold mats and having most of my equipment crafted....using ancient elf.

Only thing I've ever received from the RNG gods is purple motifs. Eveyrhting else I've purchased or just do without and don[t even try to acquire.

Autolycus · April 2016

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

A few facts for you:

- The chance to get a random Maelstrom weapon from vMA is somewhere around 10%. This has been proven by many people who ran it 200+ times (and still didn't get their weapons). For me, I haven't seen a single weapon drop in 20+ runs.

- Back when vMA just came out, it used to be possible to get Maelstrom weapons from being placed on the leaderboard. Nowadays, it is not, unless you have a very vMA-specific build, best-in-slot gear and Maelstrom weapons. Most of the players on the leaderboard are mundus stone cheaters. If you run it without dying and without taking a single buff sigil, you will not make it to the weekly leaderboard.

- There are many advertisements in illegal game trading forums, stating, "Will run Maelstrom weekly for you with mundus cheat, 475k+ score guaranteed! 20$" Try to compete with that.

This is some really poor design on ZOS's part.

That's a pretty bold statement, and it's also false. You should be careful of accusations you make like this, unless you have evidence that incriminates most people on the leaderboards? Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but did they not wipe the leaderboards after the mundus hotfix anyway? Regardless, I'm not a cheater, so don't be hatin'.

luen79rwb17_ESO · April 2016

I'm ok with the dificulty, not with the alleged terrible RNG on the other hand.

They should work on fixing the effort->reward ratio. Not everybody can make it to the leaderboards.

I for example, managed to complete it recently only thanks to the save progress feature.

AOECAPS · April 2016

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

Valrien wrote: »

@LegendaryArcher in all of your posts you call people who make leaderboard cheaters. Since you've completed it and made leaderboard, you basically admit to exploiting.

I am not calling all of them cheaters. But fact is, the maximum score of a "perfect run" (no deaths, no sigils), without Maelstrom weapons, is at 460k (for Magicka Nightblade). The only way to push this number is to either have a Maelstrom destro staff with WoE or have multiple mundus stones (cheating). 460k is also about the cutoff value for the leaderboard.

I know 4 cheaters personally that are in the top 15. I know at least 5 people that each have multiple chars, that let a cheater run vMA for them to get each char on the leaderboard each week. That's already 100% 17 spots that I personally know of that are not even cheaters, but have cheater friends run vMA for them for free. Add the cheaters' chars (not sure how many) to those 17 and you have quite a few cheaters I know of. Keep in mind, the leaderboard spots are limited!

Now, I know there's a market for vMA, where people pay others to complete vMA for them. Apparently people are willing to pay 20$ per leaderboard spot for a char. With the spots limited to 100, there's a good chance the few fair players that already have a Maelstrom weapon and are fairly getting on the leaderboard represent a minority. With a quite huge (elitist) PvP scene in ESO, where people are usually P2W and buy loads and loads of gold from gold sellers to have the best equipment, I doubt they're not purchasing tons of vMA runs from "vMA Leaderboard Sellers" to also get the best weapons possible.

I hope I cleared this up a little bit.

As of today, I am not able to make it to the leaderboard since I don't have a Maelstrom weapon, which is required to push the cut-off score.

Well I'm glad as a stamplar and one of the very few to have beat maelstrom on us Ps4 that I'm considered a cheater lol because some one thinks people are exploting mundus stone glitches. Hell each time I run it on my magicka NB my score keeps getting better from knowing the content I would have scored over 400k last run if I wouldn't have messed around with a new setup on the first 3 rounds and cost myself time and a couple of really dumb deaths.

LadyNalcarya · April 2016

Autolycus wrote: »

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

A few facts for you:

- The chance to get a random Maelstrom weapon from vMA is somewhere around 10%. This has been proven by many people who ran it 200+ times (and still didn't get their weapons). For me, I haven't seen a single weapon drop in 20+ runs.

- Back when vMA just came out, it used to be possible to get Maelstrom weapons from being placed on the leaderboard. Nowadays, it is not, unless you have a very vMA-specific build, best-in-slot gear and Maelstrom weapons. Most of the players on the leaderboard are mundus stone cheaters. If you run it without dying and without taking a single buff sigil, you will not make it to the weekly leaderboard.

- There are many advertisements in illegal game trading forums, stating, "Will run Maelstrom weekly for you with mundus cheat, 475k+ score guaranteed! 20$" Try to compete with that.

This is some really poor design on ZOS's part.

That's a pretty bold statement, and it's also false. You should be careful of accusations you make like this, unless you have evidence that incriminates most people on the leaderboards? Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but did they not wipe the leaderboards after the mundus hotfix anyway? Regardless, I'm not a cheater, so don't be hatin'.

This.
I was getting scores above 460k, as well as Flawless title, with a normal Torugs staff. I've never used that over 9000 munduses bug, and I could've gotten higher scores if I had more motivation and lower ping.
460k is around 1:15-1:20 run, which is easy to get if you know what you're doing without any kind of cheats.

magictucktuck · April 2016

One way to save money is just use the trash pots I used regular v15 magicia or stamina pots

Resipsa131 · April 2016

Dubhliam wrote: »

Where did you find the statistic that only 5% finish vMA?

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/256181/have-you-finished-veteran-maelstrom-arena/p1

Forum users most likely represent the upper end of the player base. In ME3 multiplayer only 2% of the playerbase had soloed gold missions and less than .05 percent had soled Platinum yet everyone on the forums had all completed Plat Solo runs and we debated how to get the most out of each class.

LadyNalcarya · April 2016

Resipsa131 wrote: »

Dubhliam wrote: »

Where did you find the statistic that only 5% finish vMA?

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/256181/have-you-finished-veteran-maelstrom-arena/p1

Forum users most likely represent the upper end of the player base. In ME3 multiplayer only 2% of the playerbase had soloed gold missions and less than .05 percent had soled Platinum yet everyone on the forums had all completed Plat Solo runs and we debated how to get the most out of each class.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Not all players are dedicated, not all dedicated players are competionists. Many people skip optional challenges and stuff...

Rataroto · April 2016

The dificulty is not the issue guys, the issues are both: stamina deficiency on shields/heals (this needs to be adresses with game balance, that we all know its not that great) and the direct link for DEFICULTY-REWARD, that means that for a place as hard as vMael the rewards should be more frequent if not taken as a choice of the player for completing it, DOESNT mean need to be nerfed in dificulty, means we need buffs on the RNG and a better loot system

Oreyn_Bearclaw · April 2016

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

A few facts for you:

- The chance to get a random Maelstrom weapon from vMA is somewhere around 10%. This has been proven by many people who ran it 200+ times (and still didn't get their weapons). For me, I haven't seen a single weapon drop in 20+ runs.

- Back when vMA just came out, it used to be possible to get Maelstrom weapons from being placed on the leaderboard. Nowadays, it is not, unless you have a very vMA-specific build, best-in-slot gear and Maelstrom weapons. Most of the players on the leaderboard are mundus stone cheaters. If you run it without dying and without taking a single buff sigil, you will not make it to the weekly leaderboard.

- There are many advertisements in illegal game trading forums, stating, "Will run Maelstrom weekly for you with mundus cheat, 475k+ score guaranteed! 20$" Try to compete with that.

This is some really poor design on ZOS's part.

There is a lot of misinformation (to put it nicely) in this post. First, you can get a 460K with 8-10 deaths and about an hour and 20 minutes on a clear using less than 5 sigils. I know this because I just checked some screenshots of a few old runs. Happy to post if you dont believe me. I usually grab exactly 3 sigils in this place to make my life a bit easier, sometimes a few more, sometimes I dont use any. A few sigils just dont effect your score that much as it is mostly based on time. Before they updated the scoring, it took close to a perfect run to get a score that high, but that was a while ago, and the boards have been wiped since.

The run I am describing is what I would assume most experienced players are capable of running on average. Not perfect by any means, but generally not dying more than once or maybe twice at any one spot. 460K on a sorc puts you in the top half of the leaderboard with ease, which is arguably the most competitive class. You do not need to cheat or use a VMA staff to get a score of this magnitude. Also the multiple mundus buff has been fixed, so....

For the record, I do believe there are some black market clears going on (I have been ask before in Zone), but I think you are over stating the issue. I know most of the EP characters that consistently place ahead of me on the boards, and I dont think any of them are cheating. To say you need to cheat or use VMA weapons to get a score like this is simply not true, and frankly, statements like this make it hard to take anything you say seriously.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · April 2016

To actually address the OP, you are not wrong about the RNG. Like pretty much the rest of the game, the loot system in VMA is absolutely horrendous. To make matters worse, the weapons for the most part are BIS, and it's solo content in an MMO that most people have little interest in doing once they get the clear and the title, so it becomes a really bad grind for weapons. Anyone thinking a Maelstrom staff isnt that big a deal hasnt played with one. It was easily a 4-5K DPS increase on my DK. I am about to the point to give up on my quest for the sharpened inferno (i have a precise). Each week it gets a little harder to get up the motivation to get a spot on the boards (3 of my last 4 rewards have been sword and board).

If it were up to me, round 8 would always drop a piece of jewelry, round 9 would always drop a weapon, and they would get defending out of the loot table on everything but the sword and board. But alas, it is not...

As for class imbalance, well I think that is unavoidable. Sure I think stam got the shaft in this patch, and I applaud anyone who runs this on stam toon, but a range class with a passive heal (magic NB and Sorc) are always going to solo better no matter how you design the mechanics. It doesnt make sense in my mind to design all classes the same way, otherwise what is the point of classes. VMA is going to be harder on a melee character, just like DPSing in general is harder in Melee.

Edziu · April 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

As for class imbalance, well I think that is unavoidable. Sure I think stam got the shaft in this patch, and I applaud anyone who runs this on stam toon, but a range class with a passive heal (magic NB and Sorc) are always going to solo better no matter how you design the mechanics. It doesnt make sense in my mind to design all classes the same way, otherwise what is the point of classes. VMA is going to be harder on a melee character, just like DPSing in general is harder in Melee.

give shieldbreaker to rangers and detection pots/option for mages maybe xD
but nvm, nobody use cloak here

LegendaryArcher · April 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

There is a lot of misinformation (to put it nicely) in this post. First, you can get a 460K with 8-10 deaths and about an hour and 20 minutes on a clear using less than 5 sigils. I know this because I just checked some screenshots of a few old runs.

My fastest and best run was 1 hour 12 minutes. I died once. No sigils used. My score was 462820.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

460K on a sorc puts you in the top half of the leaderboard with ease, which is arguably the most competitive class.

With my score 462820 I didn't make the leaderboard closing. I was on first place for a whole day. Then more people ran it. The cheaters running other people's chars for real money usually do it on weekends. By Monday (leaderboard closing), I was below top 100 with my score and did not get a reward. The lowest score was 464k, so yes, I was pretty close.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

You do not need to cheat or use a VMA staff to get a score of this magnitude. Also the multiple mundus buff has been fixed, so....

I know you in game (even though I'm in another faction). I know you're not a cheater and I have lots of respect for your skills. Regarding the mundus stones, only the new character exploit got fixed (where you could pick up all mundus stones with a new char and keep them). The exploit with CE and TBS is still working and I've been reporting it for quite some time now. Admittedly, it requires third-party software to use it, which makes it less popular to "fair" players (most people believe it's not an exploit if it's purely in game).

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

For the record, I do believe there are some black market clears going on (I have been ask before in Zone), but I think you are over stating the issue. I know most of the EP characters that consistently place ahead of me on the boards, and I dont think any of them are cheating.

I can't speak for EP. I can only speak for DC. I know people that use additional mundus stones and I can't blame them. It makes it much easier to compete with those that (professionally) put dozens of other people's characters on the leaderboard with cheats for real money.

Joy_Division · April 2016

You do not need to spend thousands of gold on respects and tripots every time you do vMA if you are just looking for a complete. This sort of fine tuning is for people who want the absolute maximum score.

LadyNalcarya · April 2016

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

There is a lot of misinformation (to put it nicely) in this post. First, you can get a 460K with 8-10 deaths and about an hour and 20 minutes on a clear using less than 5 sigils. I know this because I just checked some screenshots of a few old runs.

My fastest and best run was 1 hour 12 minutes. I died once. No sigils used. My score was 462820.

I dont believe it, sorry. In vMA I'm crashing like crazy (which means lost time + death if happened in combat), and if the lag is too severe, I use shield sigils. But even with all these sloppy runs Im getting 480-490k, which is enough for weekly.
This is my last weekly result. Was a very bad run with 3 crashes to login menu, 5 deaths and some sigils here and there.

(And yeah, before anyone says its a *** score: I know it is.

I just dont care enough to get a good score with a stable 300-400 ping and crashes. I dont enjoy vMA anyway)

With my score 462820 I didn't make the leaderboard closing. I was on first place for a whole day. Then more people ran it. The cheaters running other people's chars for real money usually do it on weekends. By Monday (leaderboard closing), I was below top 100 with my score and did not get a reward. The lowest score was 464k, so yes, I was pretty close.

Just stop accusing people, please. A lot of people do vMA on the weekend so there's a lot of scores appearing.
If you see someone selling runs, report them.

I know you in game (even though I'm in another faction). I know you're not a cheater and I have lots of respect for your skills. Regarding the mundus stones, only the new character exploit got fixed (where you could pick up all mundus stones with a new char and keep them). The exploit with CE and TBS is still working and I've been reporting it for quite some time now. Admittedly, it requires third-party software to use it, which makes it less popular to "fair" players (most people believe it's not an exploit if it's purely in game).

Report the cheaters then. You can also make a thread about the exploit (without revealing the details), so maybe it catches Zos' attention.

I can't speak for EP. I can only speak for DC. I know people that use additional mundus stones and I can't blame them. It makes it much easier to compete with those that (professionally) put dozens of other people's characters on the leaderboard with cheats for real money.

Lol. So you "can understand" one kind of cheaters and blame the other? Maybe those who buy runs do that because they cant compete with cheaters

In any case, if using external software is actually that rampant, you should make a topic about the issue, preferably with proofs. It is a TOS violation, so anyone who uses cheat engines and other stuff like this deserves to be banned.