Veteran Maelstrom Arena Weapons in DB

Artis · May 2016

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

1. Judging by completion rates of the arena and by further analyzing the general RNG of the game we are a definite majority.

2. You are correct, I misstated its more like 5-10% then.

3. I honestly dont care wither weapons are BoP or not, im fine wither way...i would like a guarantee one afterr a certain requirement has been met (tokens or score or w/e)

4. Not my thing

5. No other competitive choices unfortunately...I wish there were though, but everything else is a huge loss. I wish there were unique combinations of gear you could make. there are some promising things in store in the next update but we need more diversity.

6.

7. But not every player, since some have gotten lucky and gotten the weapons of their choice...I still need mine..

9. Again not for or against BoP I personally would benefit from BoP removal so I am biased towards it...

10. But if they made ice or lightning viable I wouldnt complain as much. As it stands, for a magicka DPS the only thing you want out of there is a Sharpened (or for some precise) Fire Inferno staff. That is 1 or at best 2 options out of how many total weapon and trait combinations? The chance to acquire the weapon of your choice is astronomical for a magicka user.
At least for a stam user you can benefit from 2h/DW and Bow with either one of the traits (precise/sharpened) They ahve more options for gratification...we do not...I have 4 Lightning staves in both traits...decon material as of right now...that is bad design...

11. Gear should be guaranteed but behind a very tall wall of achievement, hard work and dedication....

1. But we don't know completion rates. And we don't if everyone who didn't complete wants it to be easy to get weapons.
2. Even then. 10% is not much. If we take 45000dps, then 90% of it is 40500 =40.5k. In very rough experiments (remember labs in school?) +/-10% error is acceptable. Actually percent error up to 20% is kinda ok. It's not a nuclear reactor.
3. and 9. So you don't care about what's better for the game. You just want the loot for yourself.
7. Yeah and many players still need theirs. Overall everyone is in the same condition and has the same odds of getting weapons.
10. How come they can benefit for 2h/dw equally? Pretty sure one option is better than the other. If you mention 2h/dw than mages can benefit from precise or sharpened inferno.
11. Yes, but not 100% of the gear. And well any weapon is guaranteed if you do the hard work and are dedicated. Probability of getting it is not 0% => you will for sure loot it at some point.

luen79rwb17_ESO · May 2016

I just hope ZOS gets some good feedback out of all of this discussion and come up with an innovative way to change current lootable.

hedna123b14_ESO · May 2016

Artis wrote: »

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

1. Judging by completion rates of the arena and by further analyzing the general RNG of the game we are a definite majority.

2. You are correct, I misstated its more like 5-10% then.

3. I honestly dont care wither weapons are BoP or not, im fine wither way...i would like a guarantee one afterr a certain requirement has been met (tokens or score or w/e)

4. Not my thing

5. No other competitive choices unfortunately...I wish there were though, but everything else is a huge loss. I wish there were unique combinations of gear you could make. there are some promising things in store in the next update but we need more diversity.

6.

7. But not every player, since some have gotten lucky and gotten the weapons of their choice...I still need mine..

9. Again not for or against BoP I personally would benefit from BoP removal so I am biased towards it...

10. But if they made ice or lightning viable I wouldnt complain as much. As it stands, for a magicka DPS the only thing you want out of there is a Sharpened (or for some precise) Fire Inferno staff. That is 1 or at best 2 options out of how many total weapon and trait combinations? The chance to acquire the weapon of your choice is astronomical for a magicka user.
At least for a stam user you can benefit from 2h/DW and Bow with either one of the traits (precise/sharpened) They ahve more options for gratification...we do not...I have 4 Lightning staves in both traits...decon material as of right now...that is bad design...

11. Gear should be guaranteed but behind a very tall wall of achievement, hard work and dedication....

1. But we don't know completion rates. And we don't if everyone who didn't complete wants it to be easy to get weapons.
2. Even then. 10% is not much. If we take 45000dps, then 90% of it is 40500 =40.5k. In very rough experiments (remember labs in school?) +/-10% error is acceptable. Actually percent error up to 20% is kinda ok. It's not a nuclear reactor.
3. and 9. So you don't care about what's better for the game. You just want the loot for yourself.
7. Yeah and many players still need theirs. Overall everyone is in the same condition and has the same odds of getting weapons.
10. How come they can benefit for 2h/dw equally? Pretty sure one option is better than the other. If you mention 2h/dw than mages can benefit from precise or sharpened inferno.
11. Yes, but not 100% of the gear. And well any weapon is guaranteed if you do the hard work and are dedicated. Probability of getting it is not 0% => you will for sure loot it at some point.

1. a small percentage of the population has completed it...it is known
2. For anyone that calls himself a dps that is good 10% is huge...i doubt anyone would agree with you...
3. I dont think it would ruin the game, since noone in this game shows off their gear, everyone shows off their DPS...a bad player with good gear will still do bad DPS.
7. Everyone does have the same odds including players that have beaten it 500 times and got nothing and ones that took 9 hours to beat it and never went in again and got theirs on first try. It doesnt reward skill. Arent you against giving away this gear to those that havent earned it? So you are telling me that the guy that took 9 hrs and did it once and got his weapon EARNED it, but the guy that has it on farm with 500+ runs and didnt get his DIDNT EARN it? That makes no sense...
10. If you read the very comment you quoted I state that precise may benefit some staff users depending on build. For stam users DW and 2H is both useful. Traditionally DW is used in PvE and 2H is used for PvP while bow benefits both. So yes 2H is beneficial for stam users. The only thing you may argue for a magicka user is an Ice Staff since it slows targets, but tbh the benefits and the damage gain on a fire staff is so substantial I hardly have heard anyone use ice staves, while wrecking blow builds prowl Cyrodil everywhere... as I said the options for magicka and stam are unbalanced.
11. But thats the thing Artis it is NOT guaranteed. With RNG there is a chance that a player will NEVER get the item he seeks. I agree that this chance is small, but there is still this chance. This is unacceptable because it works specifically against merit. No matter how hard you work, how many times you farm it, how many flawless runs you have, how far up you are on the leaderrboard, with the current system there is STILL a chance that you will not get the item you are working for. That my friend is crap and has no place in a very well designed game.

Why do we keep coming back if we dont like the RNG so much? becuase we hope that by complaining over and over again we can get through to the devs to create a system which actually rewards merit....at present time it does not. A better example of this is that all the dropped sets in the arena are BoP....wtf is that? So i spend a crazy amount of potions and get top score but I cant sell the gear that drops there which would reward my efforts? Why? The DSA was amazing in that respect. you could farm it, sell the gear and make money off of your time and efforts. With vMA it is literally a sinkhole for money. Do you believe this is good design choice? Do you believe it is justified?

Artis · May 2016

1. How small? I don't think we agree on what is significant and what's not percentage-wise.
2. It is not negligible, but it's not huge as I demonstrated with numbers. Good or even elite DPS is not one number, it's a range. And that range is comparable to your 10%.
3. It's not about distinguishing good and bad players. It's about players getting exactly what they want fast. That decreases the replayability of the content and can lead to bad consequences. Like when they added motifs to Wrothgar dailies and forced completionists to farm it. I was already sick having to do 30 of each daily type just to get the achievements so I could move on, but no, now I am forced again. Wouldn't like them to realize that no one is running dungeons and come up with a crappy idea like with wrothgar dailies. Also, it maintains economics. People run vMA, they need pots, they need food, some need soulgems.
4. No one EARNS anything. It's a game. All who completed DESERVE it, but will they get it? That's where factors that don't depend on them come into play.
5. Gotcha. I thought you were talking about PvE only since you said PvP is not your thing. Well, so you know - ice builds can be met in PvP. Did you see that video with ice-staff nb 1vX? I also encountered ice staves quite a few times lately (been playing in cyro-ic this week). I myself want to try an ice staff in pvp, but I've never looted in vMA. Still not complaining though.
6. Oh I see your point now. It's very pessimistic and in practice what you described will never happen with high enough number of attempts(guess I could show you the math if you don't believe me?). But yes,technically there's a very small chance it could be the case. Well, I agree it might be frustrating for those outliers who might never get their weapons. But in the big picture - does it matter? I mean, if it's better for everyone that weps are rare (my core assumption or one of), then it's sad that a few (literally) people won't get their effort rewarded. But the needs of many outweigh the needs of few. It's the price we pay to Arenjesus, the 17th prince (or a servant of Sheogorath, I haven't decided yet. I mean you can say Arencheesus, that sounds sheogorathsy).
7. Absolutely agree. There should be something that we could sell. Guess their intent was to make all those items rare-ish, so that only people who played vma a lot could use them. You know, so you can distinguish them from others. Like that set that spawns an ice pillar - that's very noticeable (and what I"d try with an ice staff haha). But in general yeah, I don't believe everything BOP is justified and agree with you. They could at least give us a chance to loot any of 3 wrothgar motif chapters if they don't want to make gear BoE.

Destruent · May 2016

Artis wrote: »

2. It is not negligible, but it's not huge as I demonstrated with numbers. Good or even elite DPS is not one number, it's a range. And that range is comparable to your 10%.

It is...just think about a raid with 10 DPS/1 heal/1 tank and compare one raid with maelstromeweapons and one without. The maelstromeweapons will you give you basically one more DPS, just because you have them. And a 5k (even a 3k) Difference is definitely noticeable.

hedna123b14_ESO · May 2016

Artis wrote: »

1. How small? I don't think we agree on what is significant and what's not percentage-wise.
2. It is not negligible, but it's not huge as I demonstrated with numbers. Good or even elite DPS is not one number, it's a range. And that range is comparable to your 10%.
3. It's not about distinguishing good and bad players. It's about players getting exactly what they want fast. That decreases the replayability of the content and can lead to bad consequences. Like when they added motifs to Wrothgar dailies and forced completionists to farm it. I was already sick having to do 30 of each daily type just to get the achievements so I could move on, but no, now I am forced again. Wouldn't like them to realize that no one is running dungeons and come up with a crappy idea like with wrothgar dailies. Also, it maintains economics. People run vMA, they need pots, they need food, some need soulgems.
4. No one EARNS anything. It's a game. All who completed DESERVE it, but will they get it? That's where factors that don't depend on them come into play.
5. Gotcha. I thought you were talking about PvE only since you said PvP is not your thing. Well, so you know - ice builds can be met in PvP. Did you see that video with ice-staff nb 1vX? I also encountered ice staves quite a few times lately (been playing in cyro-ic this week). I myself want to try an ice staff in pvp, but I've never looted in vMA. Still not complaining though.
6. Oh I see your point now. It's very pessimistic and in practice what you described will never happen with high enough number of attempts(guess I could show you the math if you don't believe me?). But yes,technically there's a very small chance it could be the case. Well, I agree it might be frustrating for those outliers who might never get their weapons. But in the big picture - does it matter? I mean, if it's better for everyone that weps are rare (my core assumption or one of), then it's sad that a few (literally) people won't get their effort rewarded. But the needs of many outweigh the needs of few. It's the price we pay to Arenjesus, the 17th prince (or a servant of Sheogorath, I haven't decided yet. I mean you can say Arencheesus, that sounds sheogorathsy).
7. Absolutely agree. There should be something that we could sell. Guess their intent was to make all those items rare-ish, so that only people who played vma a lot could use them. You know, so you can distinguish them from others. Like that set that spawns an ice pillar - that's very noticeable (and what I"d try with an ice staff haha). But in general yeah, I don't believe everything BOP is justified and agree with you. They could at least give us a chance to loot any of 3 wrothgar motif chapters if they don't want to make gear BoE.

1. Small as in less than 10% of total player base. Of those 10% 1% farm it.
2. 10% is huge.
3. No one said you should get what you want fast, but there should be a guarantee of a reward. Current system prohibits that and includes a way for players to get precisely what you are against - instant gratification. At this point you are starting to counter your own points within the same post...
4. Your assessment is correct, but we are debating whether this is a good thing, and you seem to be the only onelemental vocally for this system (at least on this thread)
5. Like I said there are a few that use em, but very few.
6. Dude I feel like I'm hitting a wall with you...NO ONE SAID THEY SHOULD BE EASY TO GET put em behind 100 tokens and make each token drop per a vMA run...at least then there is a guarantee, that after a long long haul I will get my item. I don't care what kind of loops there are (within reason), but there has to be a guarantee.

Artis · May 2016

Brah.... come on..

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

1. Small as in less than 10% of total player base. Of those 10% 1% farm it.
2. 10% is huge.

Read it carefully a couple of times. Don't you see it? 10% is not huge, you yourself say that 10% of playerbase is small.

3. No one said you should get what you want fast, but there should be a guarantee of a reward. Current system prohibits that and includes a way for players to get precisely what you are against - instant gratification. At this point you are starting to counter your own points within the same post...

3. But even life doesn't work this way. There's always a small possibility that you want get something. Nothing is guaranteed. No, you can't say that just a few players can't get weps - hence, system might not provide gratification at all, and then move on the opposite side of the bell curve and say that those few who get weps fast - so system gives instant gratification. Do you understand that both cases are outliers?

4. There was somebody else who agreed with me above. Well I think it's not a bad thing, maybe I'm just used to having some RNG in MMOs. In my opinion there should be some items that can be bought for tokens, but not all of them. Think of WoW after BC, I guess?

5. Ok won't argue with that. Definitely not the majority. But I guess, enough of them for me to encounter, which is something significant. It's not like I saw every player in cyro, but I did meet icemages and more than once.

6. I already said that, say, tokens per weekly or 400 or 500k+ score would be a compromise. Did you forget about that? But yes, I just still don't see why there should be a guarantee to get absolutely every item in game? For some of them - yes. Maybe even for most of them, but not for all of them. And you do understand that if you add such system for master weapons, then players will be guaranteed to get them, but not guaranteed to get other items. Which technically would mean weps will be easier to get/more common than some sets, like monster sets for example. I understand that you want a staff for yourself and you already have whichever monster set you wanted. But think about logic of this and how it will look in the game. You can't add tokens just for 1 item (intended to be the most rare).

hedna123b14_ESO · May 2016

Artis wrote: »

Brah.... come on..

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

1. Small as in less than 10% of total player base. Of those 10% 1% farm it.
2. 10% is huge.

Read it carefully a couple of times. Don't you see it? 10% is not huge, you yourself say that 10% of playerbase is small.

3. No one said you should get what you want fast, but there should be a guarantee of a reward. Current system prohibits that and includes a way for players to get precisely what you are against - instant gratification. At this point you are starting to counter your own points within the same post...

3. But even life doesn't work this way. There's always a small possibility that you want get something. Nothing is guaranteed. No, you can't say that just a few players can't get weps - hence, system might not provide gratification at all, and then move on the opposite side of the bell curve and say that those few who get weps fast - so system gives instant gratification. Do you understand that both cases are outliers?

4. There was somebody else who agreed with me above. Well I think it's not a bad thing, maybe I'm just used to having some RNG in MMOs. In my opinion there should be some items that can be bought for tokens, but not all of them. Think of WoW after BC, I guess?

5. Ok won't argue with that. Definitely not the majority. But I guess, enough of them for me to encounter, which is something significant. It's not like I saw every player in cyro, but I did meet icemages and more than once.

6. I already said that, say, tokens per weekly or 400 or 500k+ score would be a compromise. Did you forget about that? But yes, I just still don't see why there should be a guarantee to get absolutely every item in game? For some of them - yes. Maybe even for most of them, but not for all of them. And you do understand that if you add such system for master weapons, then players will be guaranteed to get them, but not guaranteed to get other items. Which technically would mean weps will be easier to get/more common than some sets, like monster sets for example. I understand that you want a staff for yourself and you already have whichever monster set you wanted. But think about logic of this and how it will look in the game. You can't add tokens just for 1 item (intended to be the most rare).

....Really?
1. The fact that only 10% of the population completed arena is really small. Saying that 10% as a number can be considered in the same way under different circumstances makes no sense. If you eat a sandwich and not finish 10% of it you would think die (10% is insignificant). On the other hand if you are treating cancer you have a specific dose of chemo you need. If you only do 90% of the dose it won't be effective and cancer will spread. Same 10% but a huge difference in significance. For DPS trying to grew to #1 spot in anything even 1% is significant...if you disagree you must not want to be high up there. Nothing wrong with it, but then you shouldn't care who gets staves and whether they are Bob or not.
2. Do you understand that a the only of every game is to be successful. That means having longevity so players keep enjoying the game and developers make $$$. Currently this game has a lazy system that no one except for you seems to like, or if they do its because they got their weapons. Game started out with 720,000 subscribers. Not sure what we are down to, but we lost a lot. I want this game to last and thus I want the look acquisition system to work in a way that challenges players, but doesn't discourage them. Currently this is not the case.
3. WoW had a great system. You had tokens for gear and other gear looted for raids. I would be for this in this game. However we don't have lockouts, so with guaranteed drops everyone would get everything fast. Solution is to give tokens for dailies or weeklies and then you can buy the gear you need if rng sucked for you. Make gear cost a lot of tokens and it wills till be hard to get. I'm just confused by wherected you see the downside in that.
4. Wow had a guaramte for every item in the game that impacted performance. They did have items that were rear but those were not gear, but quality of life items...that's the big difference.

Artis · May 2016

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

1. The fact that only 10% of the population completed arena is really small. Saying that 10% as a number can be considered in the same way under different circumstances makes no sense. If you eat a sandwich and not finish 10% of it you would think die (10% is insignificant). On the other hand if you are treating cancer you have a specific dose of chemo you need. If you only do 90% of the dose it won't be effective and cancer will spread. Same 10% but a huge difference in significance. For DPS trying to grew to #1 spot in anything even 1% is significant...if you disagree you must not want to be high up there. Nothing wrong with it, but then you shouldn't care who gets staves and whether they are Bob or not.
2. Do you understand that a the only of every game is to be successful. That means having longevity so players keep enjoying the game and developers make $$$. Currently this game has a lazy system that no one except for you seems to like, or if they do its because they got their weapons. Game started out with 720,000 subscribers. Not sure what we are down to, but we lost a lot. I want this game to last and thus I want the look acquisition system to work in a way that challenges players, but doesn't discourage them. Currently this is not the case.
3. WoW had a great system. You had tokens for gear and other gear looted for raids. I would be for this in this game. However we don't have lockouts, so with guaranteed drops everyone would get everything fast. Solution is to give tokens for dailies or weeklies and then you can buy the gear you need if rng sucked for you. Make gear cost a lot of tokens and it wills till be hard to get. I'm just confused by wherected you see the downside in that.
4. Wow had a guaramte for every item in the game that impacted performance. They did have items that were rear but those were not gear, but quality of life items...that's the big difference.

1. Yes really. So you agree that 10% is small. 10% is a dimensionless number. If it's small - it's small no matter what you apply it to. Canser-sandwich analogy is not right. If you only eat sandwiches and it is assumed that to survive you need all of them, then if you keep eating 90% you still die. Man, seriously, percentage is simply a ratio. It works the same everywhere. Trying to get to #1 spot and not getting there is not equivalent to dying too. Just stop. Math is math, don't add emotions there, please.
2. I do. Therefore keeping players there longer is a good move. So RNG ftw. Not sure where you got 720k number. If it's not official it's irrelevant. But I disagree that we lost players overall. We did lose some players that played back in 2014 and 2015, but overall the game seems more populated after B2P conversion.
3. Good. So if you agree that wow had good system - you should remember, that token-gear was a little worse than whichever gear you looted from bosses. The purpose of token-gear was to be on par with the current end-game content, but still whoever got sets had better numbers. In later addons they added iLvL (item level) which was lower for token-gear as opposed to gear you get from dungeons. And you were never guaranteed to get that gear technically and couldn't buy it for tokens. Yes a boss did drop something from his loot table. But mind you - that game had 7day cooldowns on all raid. So a raid could only loot a boss once a week. In ESO they can do it as many times as they want. So obviously the system that granted some set piece every time wouldn't work and would make all the content very short-lived. The could crank up drop rates here and there though, I guess. Just so that statistically you still get at least one piece per group per boss a week. Which is probably the case already. The problem though is that you still can get reinforced scathing and such. But overall the system fits the game. They just need to remove undesireable traits.
4. Really? Legendary weapons were quality of life items? Please. Or simply epics from bosses? They were actual items that impacted performance and the loot tables for each boss had a few of them. Technically it was possible some raids/players would NEVER see some items. It's just math. What was guaranteed is that every boss drops 1 item for 10 players and 2 items for 25 players. Are you sure it's not the case for eso? That we get 1 item per 10 players a week (so 0.1 items/week)? Which means that every player gets 1 set item in 10 weeks. I am pretty sure if you farm anything for 10 weeks you get at least one item from the loot table. I mean, I can confirm. Never have I ever went for 10 weeks without getting 1 item from any boss. But yeah some traits are not desireable.

hedna123b14_ESO · May 2016

Artis wrote: »

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

1. The fact that only 10% of the population completed arena is really small. Saying that 10% as a number can be considered in the same way under different circumstances makes no sense. If you eat a sandwich and not finish 10% of it you would think die (10% is insignificant). On the other hand if you are treating cancer you have a specific dose of chemo you need. If you only do 90% of the dose it won't be effective and cancer will spread. Same 10% but a huge difference in significance. For DPS trying to grew to #1 spot in anything even 1% is significant...if you disagree you must not want to be high up there. Nothing wrong with it, but then you shouldn't care who gets staves and whether they are Bob or not.
2. Do you understand that a the only of every game is to be successful. That means having longevity so players keep enjoying the game and developers make $$$. Currently this game has a lazy system that no one except for you seems to like, or if they do its because they got their weapons. Game started out with 720,000 subscribers. Not sure what we are down to, but we lost a lot. I want this game to last and thus I want the look acquisition system to work in a way that challenges players, but doesn't discourage them. Currently this is not the case.
3. WoW had a great system. You had tokens for gear and other gear looted for raids. I would be for this in this game. However we don't have lockouts, so with guaranteed drops everyone would get everything fast. Solution is to give tokens for dailies or weeklies and then you can buy the gear you need if rng sucked for you. Make gear cost a lot of tokens and it wills till be hard to get. I'm just confused by wherected you see the downside in that.
4. Wow had a guaramte for every item in the game that impacted performance. They did have items that were rear but those were not gear, but quality of life items...that's the big difference.

1. Yes really. So you agree that 10% is small. 10% is a dimensionless number. If it's small - it's small no matter what you apply it to. Canser-sandwich analogy is not right. If you only eat sandwiches and it is assumed that to survive you need all of them, then if you keep eating 90% you still die. Man, seriously, percentage is simply a ratio. It works the same everywhere. Trying to get to #1 spot and not getting there is not equivalent to dying too. Just stop. Math is math, don't add emotions there, please.
2. I do. Therefore keeping players there longer is a good move. So RNG ftw. Not sure where you got 720k number. If it's not official it's irrelevant. But I disagree that we lost players overall. We did lose some players that played back in 2014 and 2015, but overall the game seems more populated after B2P conversion.
3. Good. So if you agree that wow had good system - you should remember, that token-gear was a little worse than whichever gear you looted from bosses. The purpose of token-gear was to be on par with the current end-game content, but still whoever got sets had better numbers. In later addons they added iLvL (item level) which was lower for token-gear as opposed to gear you get from dungeons. And you were never guaranteed to get that gear technically and couldn't buy it for tokens. Yes a boss did drop something from his loot table. But mind you - that game had 7day cooldowns on all raid. So a raid could only loot a boss once a week. In ESO they can do it as many times as they want. So obviously the system that granted some set piece every time wouldn't work and would make all the content very short-lived. The could crank up drop rates here and there though, I guess. Just so that statistically you still get at least one piece per group per boss a week. Which is probably the case already. The problem though is that you still can get reinforced scathing and such. But overall the system fits the game. They just need to remove undesireable traits.
4. Really? Legendary weapons were quality of life items? Please. Or simply epics from bosses? They were actual items that impacted performance and the loot tables for each boss had a few of them. Technically it was possible some raids/players would NEVER see some items. It's just math. What was guaranteed is that every boss drops 1 item for 10 players and 2 items for 25 players. Are you sure it's not the case for eso? That we get 1 item per 10 players a week (so 0.1 items/week)? Which means that every player gets 1 set item in 10 weeks. I am pretty sure if you farm anything for 10 weeks you get at least one item from the loot table. I mean, I can confirm. Never have I ever went for 10 weeks without getting 1 item from any boss. But yeah some traits are not desireable.

I finally understand...you are just trolling me...that was a good one man!

LegendaryArcher · May 2016

I'm getting all your arguments. Also, thank you for the very detailed discussion. Without addressing absolutely everything, I'm just gonna add this:

Yes, we need rare items in the game. Yes, making them obtainable only via skill + luck + extremely undesirable content (solo) combination is an option. For me personally, I want my efforts to be rewarded. I never played WoW and I'm never going to, maybe even for the same design decisions people mentioned here.

I want to play games where my effort will be rewarded. Preferably, the best weapons should be locked behind very tough group content that is extremely hard to complete. vMoL would be a good example. At the same time, I don't want to get screwed by the game I'm playing. I ran vMA somewhere between 100 and 200 times. Yet, I was never able to loot any of the 4 weapons I wanted, and that includes the leaderboard loot. Knowing at least 5 people in game that have run it hundreds of times without getting their desired weapon, I don't see myself as an exception, and I find it unacceptable.
Luck or not, a game that is nice to 100 others and screws me, and only me, will not get supported financially by me. This is just a natural response. As a result, I unsubscribed and will never spend money on ESO again, unless something changes. I'm enjoying Black Desert for now (still running vMA once in a while). They also have rare weapons. Some of them I will never have because I know for myself that I will never be able to put in the (organizational and time) effort necessary to get them. Some of them are reserved only for the best of the best raid/guild leaders, etc. But I'm ok with it. Because I know that if I really wanted them, I'd have to compete with other people and not RNG. I like the ESO universe better than the one in Black Desert, but I still prefer to support a game that doesn't screw me. As is stands now, if there isn't a change in DB that removes that chance of me never getting the weapon I desire, while it being the best-in-slot weapon, with all the effort I've already put in, I will never purchase the DLC, in other words, I will quit ESO for good.

hedna123b14_ESO · May 2016

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

I'm getting all your arguments. Also, thank you for the very detailed discussion. Without addressing absolutely everything, I'm just gonna add this:

Yes, we need rare items in the game. Yes, making them obtainable only via skill + luck + extremely undesirable content (solo) combination is an option. For me personally, I want my efforts to be rewarded. I never played WoW and I'm never going to, maybe even for the same design decisions people mentioned here.

I want to play games where my effort will be rewarded. Preferably, the best weapons should be locked behind very tough group content that is extremely hard to complete. vMoL would be a good example. At the same time, I don't want to get screwed by the game I'm playing. I ran vMA somewhere between 100 and 200 times. Yet, I was never able to loot any of the 4 weapons I wanted, and that includes the leaderboard loot. Knowing at least 5 people in game that have run it hundreds of times without getting their desired weapon, I don't see myself as an exception, and I find it unacceptable.
Luck or not, a game that is nice to 100 others and screws me, and only me, will not get supported financially by me. This is just a natural response. As a result, I unsubscribed and will never spend money on ESO again, unless something changes. I'm enjoying Black Desert for now (still running vMA once in a while). They also have rare weapons. Some of them I will never have because I know for myself that I will never be able to put in the (organizational and time) effort necessary to get them. Some of them are reserved only for the best of the best raid/guild leaders, etc. But I'm ok with it. Because I know that if I really wanted them, I'd have to compete with other people and not RNG. I like the ESO universe better than the one in Black Desert, but I still prefer to support a game that doesn't screw me. As is stands now, if there isn't a change in DB that removes that chance of me never getting the weapon I desire, while it being the best-in-slot weapon, with all the effort I've already put in, I will never purchase the DLC, in other words, I will quit ESO for good.

Perfectly put

code65536 · May 2016

LegendaryArcher wrote: »

I'm getting all your arguments. Also, thank you for the very detailed discussion. Without addressing absolutely everything, I'm just gonna add this:

Yes, we need rare items in the game. Yes, making them obtainable only via skill + luck + extremely undesirable content (solo) combination is an option. For me personally, I want my efforts to be rewarded. I never played WoW and I'm never going to, maybe even for the same design decisions people mentioned here.

I want to play games where my effort will be rewarded. Preferably, the best weapons should be locked behind very tough group content that is extremely hard to complete. vMoL would be a good example. At the same time, I don't want to get screwed by the game I'm playing. I ran vMA somewhere between 100 and 200 times. Yet, I was never able to loot any of the 4 weapons I wanted, and that includes the leaderboard loot. Knowing at least 5 people in game that have run it hundreds of times without getting their desired weapon, I don't see myself as an exception, and I find it unacceptable.
Luck or not, a game that is nice to 100 others and screws me, and only me, will not get supported financially by me. This is just a natural response. As a result, I unsubscribed and will never spend money on ESO again, unless something changes. I'm enjoying Black Desert for now (still running vMA once in a while). They also have rare weapons. Some of them I will never have because I know for myself that I will never be able to put in the (organizational and time) effort necessary to get them. Some of them are reserved only for the best of the best raid/guild leaders, etc. But I'm ok with it. Because I know that if I really wanted them, I'd have to compete with other people and not RNG. I like the ESO universe better than the one in Black Desert, but I still prefer to support a game that doesn't screw me. As is stands now, if there isn't a change in DB that removes that chance of me never getting the weapon I desire, while it being the best-in-slot weapon, with all the effort I've already put in, I will never purchase the DLC, in other words, I will quit ESO for good.

@ZOS_Finn @ZOS_RichLambert The post above should cause you some alarm regarding the loot system because I know for a fact that his frustrations are shared by many.

My best in-game friend quit around the time of the Thieves Guild PTS because, in his words, "Unless the next DLC fixes the RNG loot problem, I'm done." TG did almost nothing to address his frustrations, and he left the game and is now happily playing another MMO where the loot system doesn't screw players like this.

And he's not the only one; a month or two before him, someone who I would play with on a daily basis left for the same reason. The list of people on my contacts list who no longer log on is growing, and I know that a number of those people left because of this loot system. Instead of extending the life of the content, your RNG loot system has caused people to either not bother with the content (I don't even touch the Wrothgar dailies, and I've personally stopped running vICP because of this--these days I go in only if someone asks me to) or not bother with the game as a whole.

A game stops being fun when it feels like the player's biggest opponent is RNG, not actual enemies, mechanics, or other players.

WE *NEED* A TOKEN SYSTEM. We need an escape hatch that lets us get, after a deterministic number of runs, the item of our choice. You can keep the RNG and still reward people for luck. But put in a system that says, "Oh, you've run this 50 times now and still haven't gotten it? Here, let me help."

This should be one of your highest priorities. You introduced a token system in vWGT/vICP, but all it does is grant players another roll of the RNG dice, which completely misses the point. I don't even look forward to completing a vault key for vWGT/vICP because again and again and again, I just get vault loot that I decon--I honestly don't remember the last time I actually got an item from the vICP/vWGT vaults that I kept--must've been at least over a dozen vaults ago.

You introduced another form of RNG relief with the Golden vendor in TG. But it's riddled with problems. It means that people who have never set foot in a dungeon can now get that dungeon's headpiece. It doesn't address any of the other key areas of loot frustration: Briarheart, Trinimac, vICP, vWGT, and vMA. People don't have a choice of trait. People don't have a choice of item--with heads and shoulders of 10 sets, it means that people will again battle RNG for that 5% chance that this week, it's the item that they want. (At least with this kind of RNG, people are being rewarded or screwed collectively instead of individually. Is that supposed to be an improvement?)

And in the next update, you're introducing even more relief by increasing the drop rates in vMA, in vWGT/vICP, and in the Undaunted chests. Yet at the same time, you're expanding the loot table with a slate of undesirable traits. (e.g., Prosperous) But most importantly, even if the drop rate increase is high enough to offset the loot table dilution, all that it does is reduce the number of people who get seriously screwed. There will still be players who, after hundreds of runs, don't get what they need. You need to increase drop rates dramatically for it to make a difference in those edge cases, but doing so would ruin the general case. This is why increased drop rates is just a sloppy bandaid fix.

Please, stop these halfway fixes and give us a token system. Don't waste your time with tokens that only grant us more RNG rolls, with the Golden vendor, or even with increasing drop rates. Spend that effort in giving us a real solution, and please do this before I lose even more people on my contacts list.

Decado · May 2016

good luck guys! he clearly has no intention of listening to any reasonable arguments, hes happy therefore no changes are needed!

Artis · May 2016

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

I finally understand...you are just trolling me...that was a good one man!

Lol see you in vICP

But I am serious though. Was just giving people another perspective for the sake of argument. That math got you lol, can't argue what we have is better than 1 item per boss per character a week lol

I have nothing against the token-system, but it needs to be planned carefully. Mind you - in WoW there are cooldowns on all dungeons. There are no cooldowns in ESO. You aren't limited to run icp/wgt once a day and trials/vma once a week. Trials are also way shorter and have fewer bosses than wow's raids. All these factors must be taken into account. BTW,would be nice to have a wow-like raid dungeon - I mean long and with long, saturated with different mechanics fights. vMOL is a good step in that direction or so it seems.

So yeah, token system would be okay. But I don't understand why do you think you should be guaranteed EVERY SINGLE ITEM in end-game? Why can't you accept that there is a couple of items that are just not guaranteed. Weapons were never intended to be something you count on and can farm.

Also... so guys, if you're gonna quit, can I have your stuff?
p.s.

Decado wrote: »

good luck guys! he clearly has no intention of listening to any reasonable arguments, hes happy therefore no changes are needed!

No, you got it wrong. People who don't listen to reasonable arguments, logic, and math, actually want changes for some reason. As for me - I just don't care what a certain player (including me) wants. Things should be done for the best of the game in long term.

Destruent wrote: »

Difference is definitely noticeable.

It is, it's not negligible. But it's definitely not huge.

code65536 · May 2016

Artis wrote: »

Things should be done for the best of the game in long term.

I agree. And to start, we should stop driving players away in frustration and stop making them feel like they are running content in vain. Frankly, if this notion of "rarity" that you hold comes at the cost of this kind of frustration, then, no, it's not best for the game long term--it's a disease that eats away at it, and it perplexes me to no end why you fail to recognize this.

hedna123b14_ESO · May 2016

code65536 wrote: »

Artis wrote: »

Things should be done for the best of the game in long term.

I agree. And to start, we should stop driving players away in frustration and stop making them feel like they are running content in vain. Frankly, if this notion of "rarity" that you hold comes at the cost of this kind of frustration, then, no, it's not best for the game long term--it's a disease that eats away at it, and it perplexes me to no end why you fail to recognize this.

Code I am convinced he is trolling. He has to be, no one is this crazy...

hedna123b14_ESO · May 2016

Artis wrote: »

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

I finally understand...you are just trolling me...that was a good one man!

Lol see you in vICP But I am serious though. Was just giving people another perspective for the sake of argument. That math got you lol, can't argue what we have is better than 1 item per boss per character a week lol

I have nothing against the token-system, but it needs to be planned carefully. Mind you - in WoW there are cooldowns on all dungeons. There are no cooldowns in ESO. You aren't limited to run icp/wgt once a day and trials/vma once a week. Trials are also way shorter and have fewer bosses than wow's raids. All these factors must be taken into account. BTW,would be nice to have a wow-like raid dungeon - I mean long and with long, saturated with different mechanics fights. vMOL is a good step in that direction or so it seems.

So yeah, token system would be okay. But I don't understand why do you think you should be guaranteed EVERY SINGLE ITEM in end-game? Why can't you accept that there is a couple of items that are just not guaranteed. Weapons were never intended to be something you count on and can farm.

Also... so guys, if you're gonna quit, can I have your stuff?
p.s.

Decado wrote: »

good luck guys! he clearly has no intention of listening to any reasonable arguments, hes happy therefore no changes are needed!

No, you got it wrong. People who don't listen to reasonable arguments, logic, and math, actually want changes for some reason. As for me - I just don't care what a certain player (including me) wants. Things should be done for the best of the game in long term.

Destruent wrote: »

Difference is definitely noticeable.

It is, it's not negligible. But it's definitely not huge.

Lol still trolling? Here is a tribute for you

https://youtu.be/2Z4m4lnjxkY

hedna123b14_ESO · May 2016

Attackopsn wrote: »

VMA is art. Sorrrrrry all, little off topic, just going to agree with artis in the spirit of letting one of the above posters know that there are people who like to run VMA and have all the weapons. You just won't find many of them on these forums where the majority of people come here to complain.

Just to clarify by the way, are you for the RNG system in its current state or you are simply one of the people that likes to run the arena. Because I get that there ARE people that love it (I don't understand how, but I know there are people like this), but prior to Artis I have never met an individual who was approving of the way the RNG works in this game and thinks it is a fair distribution system for gear.

Artis · May 2016

code65536 wrote: »

Artis wrote: »

Things should be done for the best of the game in long term.

I agree. And to start, we should stop driving players away in frustration and stop making them feel like they are running content in vain. Frankly, if this notion of "rarity" that you hold comes at the cost of this kind of frustration, then, no, it's not best for the game long term--it's a disease that eats away at it, and it perplexes me to no end why you fail to recognize this.

Mmm you and Nos are frustrated. Maybe a few more high-end players. To be honest, I am sure that there's more players leaving because there's nothing else for them to do (no loot to farm) than players who leave because they didn't get the loot they want.

So far I think it's best to keep them rare, but if numbers (I don't have them and neither do you) prove that frustration due to not getting loot is more significant of a factor, then I totally agree with you that every piece of loot should be guaranteed. I still personally disagree, but if it's better for the game and if it means there will be more good players like you to play with, then I have to sacrifice.

Just understand, I don't for you or Nos personally to not have weapons. I am also sure he'll get his inferno before DB. I am just giving you another perspective based on, among other things, the assumption that master weapons are supposed to be very rare. In accordance to what I recall zos saying when they first introduced them with vDSA. And by the way, I dont' remember, were people complaining about the same thing back then?

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

Code I am convinced he is trolling. He has to be, no one is this crazy...

Well now this is just rude. You all already teamed up against me, might as well keep arguing instead of insulting? I haven't insulted anyone here as long as I remember and don't say what they are saying is so dumb/crazy that it must be trolling. Besides, for you it must look that you're winning the debate, since you all agree with each other, so no need in personal attacks.

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

but prior to Artis I have never met an individual who was approving of the way the RNG works in this game and thinks it is a fair distribution system for gear.

To clarify - I am just giving you a perspective. It's not wow with dungeon cooldowns. It's not wow where you get 1 item for the entire group to share. The same token system as they had there won't work as good here, unless, I guess items will be VERY expensive and then people will complain that they need to cost less tokens....

Yes it is fair, because everyone is in the same conditions. No, it's probably not the best one because I can understand why it can be annoying.

Let's try to be constructive about tokens. In my opinion:

1) if you want to grant tokens for every completion, then how many times should a person complete to get an item of his choice? Mind you, it has to be rare as intended. So.. 100 times? And in that case you won't have the skill rewarded.
2) One of the option if you want the skill to be rewarded is give tokens for the weekly. But in this case it is possible that a person will never see a token even though he puts a lot of effort. If you wanted to reward effort spent which is essentially time spent, then it's not the way to go.
3) I think it would be nice to get higher drop rate (like the one they introduce for everyone in DB though) for completing vMA with a good score. So even if you don't make it to top-100 of the week, you can still get it. Say, 400k+ grants you a token or a weapon. Or a no-death run.
4) Might just make it so that we get a token after we decon a weapon.

5) The best solution, though, would be to finally let crafters change the traits. That would give us more options for a character customization and would negate the negative effect of having bad traits in the loot tables. Of course, such a procedure should be reasonably difficult. This would solve the problem not only with master weapons but also with undaunted sets and things like Footman's set pieces with exploration trait..

These are some possible options I see. How do you think it should be implemented?

hedna123b14_ESO · May 2016

Artis wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Artis wrote: »

Things should be done for the best of the game in long term.

I agree. And to start, we should stop driving players away in frustration and stop making them feel like they are running content in vain. Frankly, if this notion of "rarity" that you hold comes at the cost of this kind of frustration, then, no, it's not best for the game long term--it's a disease that eats away at it, and it perplexes me to no end why you fail to recognize this.

Mmm you and Nos are frustrated. Maybe a few more high-end players. To be honest, I am sure that there's more players leaving because there's nothing else for them to do (no loot to farm) than players who leave because they didn't get the loot they want.

So far I think it's best to keep them rare, but if numbers (I don't have them and neither do you) prove that frustration due to not getting loot is more significant of a factor, then I totally agree with you that every piece of loot should be guaranteed. I still personally disagree, but if it's better for the game and if it means there will be more good players like you to play with, then I have to sacrifice.

Just understand, I don't for you or Nos personally to not have weapons. I am also sure he'll get his inferno before DB. I am just giving you another perspective based on, among other things, the assumption that master weapons are supposed to be very rare. In accordance to what I recall zos saying when they first introduced them with vDSA. And by the way, I dont' remember, were people complaining about the same thing back then?

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

Code I am convinced he is trolling. He has to be, no one is this crazy...

Well now this is just rude. You all already teamed up against me, might as well keep arguing instead of insulting? I haven't insulted anyone here as long as I remember and don't say what they are saying is so dumb/crazy that it must be trolling. Besides, for you it must look that you're winning the debate, since you all agree with each other, so no need in personal attacks.

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

but prior to Artis I have never met an individual who was approving of the way the RNG works in this game and thinks it is a fair distribution system for gear.

To clarify - I am just giving you a perspective. It's not wow with dungeon cooldowns. It's not wow where you get 1 item for the entire group to share. The same token system as they had there won't work as good here, unless, I guess items will be VERY expensive and then people will complain that they need to cost less tokens....

Yes it is fair, because everyone is in the same conditions. No, it's probably not the best one because I can understand why it can be annoying.

Let's try to be constructive about tokens. In my opinion:

1) if you want to grant tokens for every completion, then how many times should a person complete to get an item of his choice? Mind you, it has to be rare as intended. So.. 100 times? And in that case you won't have the skill rewarded.
2) One of the option if you want the skill to be rewarded is give tokens for the weekly. But in this case it is possible that a person will never see a token even though he puts a lot of effort. If you wanted to reward effort spent which is essentially time spent, then it's not the way to go.
3) I think it would be nice to get higher drop rate (like the one they introduce for everyone in DB though) for completing vMA with a good score. So even if you don't make it to top-100 of the week, you can still get it. Say, 400k+ grants you a token or a weapon. Or a no-death run.
4) Might just make it so that we get a token after we decon a weapon.

5) The best solution, though, would be to finally let crafters change the traits. That would give us more options for a character customization and would negate the negative effect of having bad traits in the loot tables. Of course, such a procedure should be reasonably difficult. This would solve the problem not only with master weapons but also with undaunted sets and things like Footman's set pieces with exploration trait..

These are some possible options I see. How do you think it should be implemented?

I didn't mean to insult you man, I honestly have no idea if you're just messing with me at this point. I understand that you are presenting a different viewpoint, but I cannot understand the logic in your argument.

The reason I say that only you have this opinion is because I have polled at least 100 different people from high end guilds, from average players, from PvP players, and from beginners and literally not a single one liked the current system. Everyone puts up with it...

You say it is fair cause we are all in the same boat, but that's like saying that if we are all getting a beating once a week that somehow makes it fair, since all of us are getting beat. No it doesn't and it is NOT ok.

To your comments about tokens.
1. The way RNG works now is you don't need to be on leaderboard to get the item you want, you just need persistence and chance. So if giving a weapon of your choice every 25-50 runs or giving it every 4 weeks (1 token a week), I think it would be fair.
2. Deconing for tokens would be nice.
3. Reforging traits would be amazing, but would make weapons more accessible and really reduce runs. I think tokens for weeklies or tokens per runs would be best. And let's do this across the board.

Artis · May 2016

Yeah I was thinking about something to be implemented across the board. Reforging traits wouldn't be that bad depending on the drop rate. Effectively it would be very similar to tokens from deconstruction.
Anyways, the are already buffing the drop rates, so I guess they will want to see how that works out and if players will complain less after that.

Decado · May 2016

Slightly off topic but I believe the ability for crafters to change traits would be fantastic and save a lot of people hassle, I mean look at this patch they are overhauling the traits making some peoples V16 legendary gear useless and considering the 150 mats and 8 gold tempers buy into it (1 out of lucky) makes it painful when such an overhaul Happens, it would also make all these defending staff or my complete full set of reinforced moondancer actually worth something, since most of the sets are bound immediately it gives a use to these less than desirable drops which are normally slated for deconstruction immediately and Artis gave a prime example of ZoS trolling us with exploration on (the then) BiS max level tanking gear (and pre CP so didn't even earn XP anyway)

hedna123b14_ESO · May 2016

Artis wrote: »

Yeah I was thinking about something to be implemented across the board. Reforging traits wouldn't be that bad depending on the drop rate. Effectively it would be very similar to tokens from deconstruction.
Anyways, the are already buffing the drop rates, so I guess they will want to see how that works out and if players will complain less after that.

Decado wrote: »

Slightly off topic but I believe the ability for crafters to change traits would be fantastic and save a lot of people hassle, I mean look at this patch they are overhauling the traits making some peoples V16 legendary gear useless and considering the 150 mats and 8 gold tempers buy into it (1 out of lucky) makes it painful when such an overhaul Happens, it would also make all these defending staff or my complete full set of reinforced moondancer actually worth something, since most of the sets are bound immediately it gives a use to these less than desirable drops which are normally slated for deconstruction immediately and Artis gave a prime example of ZoS trolling us with exploration on (the then) BiS max level tanking gear (and pre CP so didn't even earn XP anyway)

Let's me clarify. I personally would love reforging. I do think though that tokens would be better, since reforming would I think make it way to easy to obtain the items you want. But if we get it I'll be happy.

InfaM · May 2016

There's a lot of good alternative to the current rng system on that topic , if ZOS are really reading the feedback they'll realise that any given alternative for vma weapons farming is still better than what is actually on live and on pts.

Lava_Croft · May 2016

And while ZOS is at it changing the vMA loot, also make these BiS weapons available to people who play only PvP, just like PvP gear can be obtained while only playing PvE.

Artis · May 2016

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

Artis wrote: »

Yeah I was thinking about something to be implemented across the board. Reforging traits wouldn't be that bad depending on the drop rate. Effectively it would be very similar to tokens from deconstruction.
Anyways, the are already buffing the drop rates, so I guess they will want to see how that works out and if players will complain less after that.

Decado wrote: »

Slightly off topic but I believe the ability for crafters to change traits would be fantastic and save a lot of people hassle, I mean look at this patch they are overhauling the traits making some peoples V16 legendary gear useless and considering the 150 mats and 8 gold tempers buy into it (1 out of lucky) makes it painful when such an overhaul Happens, it would also make all these defending staff or my complete full set of reinforced moondancer actually worth something, since most of the sets are bound immediately it gives a use to these less than desirable drops which are normally slated for deconstruction immediately and Artis gave a prime example of ZoS trolling us with exploration on (the then) BiS max level tanking gear (and pre CP so didn't even earn XP anyway)

Let's me clarify. I personally would love reforging. I do think though that tokens would be better, since reforming would I think make it way to easy to obtain the items you want. But if we get it I'll be happy.

Agree, that might make it too easy.

Haha but you know we could combine both. To reforge you would need special mats (tokens pretty much) which you get after deconstructing those items (with undesireable traits), but yeah now that I"m thinking about it that would require so many types of tokens. Oh hey, maybe one type but different items would require different amount to reflect their rareness. Say, 100 for master weapons, 30 for footman etc.

Or maybe just tokens + reforging for some gear, but not all of it. Idk just a thought. I mean yeah, like Decado said, they now rebalance the traits. I am still waiting for free race change after they removed softcaps though, so probably reforging won't happen

KenaPKK · May 2016

Oh yay....more RNG....just what I've always wanted....*cringes*

@ZOS_Finn

Decado · May 2016

When talking about RNG and how it effects people's amount played etc (ZoS idea to keep people running the content) I have a saying I pour to use alot

I gear to play not play to gear,

Simply put once my character is fully geared I turn run and play the content I want and have fun doing it,

I still run pledges even though I don't need keys, I still run the old trials and teach people them, I know me running AA for the 7000th time earns me absolutely nothing but I still enjoy it, I enjoy teaching the newer guys who've never run the content and I get satisfaction from the pleasure it gives then to experience a new part of the game, most people don't stop running content because they are fully geared, they just do the things they enjoy, be in PvE or PvP ot anything in between

Btw 10% of the population is tiny an extra 10% DPS is huge as someone mentioned if all the DPS do an extra 10% that's almost a whole persons DPS on top

willymchilybily · May 2016

code65536 wrote: »

rokrdt05 wrote: »

dagonbeer wrote: »

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

We increased the set item drops in Maelstrom Arena to remove the chance of completing an arena and not getting a set piece. That was the take away from this change.

The Final Arena loot chest will drop a Weapon 50% of the time and a piece of Jewelry 50% of the time.

The Leaderboard reward will be a weapon 100% of the time AND a piece of Jewelry 50% of the time.

Hope that clears things up!

Not what most people are looking for. No one enters vMA hoping for jewelry after the investment of an hour and a half (what I'd assume to be average) If you're introducing more traits, that's even less of a chance of getting what you want. Guarantee a weapon drop at the end and 90% of complaints will go away.

I assume you have stats for the number of players actually wearing Para Bellum/Glory/Succession?

Actually, the only reason I've been running VMA is to try and get Succession jewelry, the weapons are an after thought. Certain sets in there allow for build diversity that is pretty unique to the meta.

Succession? Hmm. As a replacement for 3p Willpower + 2p Monster for a DK or sorc? Essentially, you'll be trading away 3p Willpower's 1400 mag + 186 SD for 4p Succession's 1934 mag + 129 SD, which is a roughly equal tradeoff. And trading away the DPS from the 2p Monster set for Succession's 5p bonus which is effectively around 493/3=164 SD.

As virtually all DK damage is fire, you'll basically get 1/3 uptime on the 493 SD. Same for the sorc's single-element damage. And for Force Pulse, you'll get full 100% uptime, but only on 1/3 of its components. So unless you do something crazy like bar-swap to another elemental staff every 4 seconds, 5p Succession's effective SD is just 164 SD.

But you'll lose the bonus entirely for non-elemental damage (proxdet on a DK, though I don't know how useful det will be post-DB, and frags, curse, proxdet on the sorc), so 164 SD is more of an upper limit, and it should be less than that.

I don't think that 164 effective SD would be competitive against Skoria/Nerien'eth. Hence why Succession is, IMHO, a junk set.

Winterborn, however, is actually a pretty good set even in PvE. The Winterborn crystals do AoE damage, and their proc damage is comparable to Skoria/Nerien'eth proc damage. The proc chance is pretty high--8% on ice damage of any sort (vs. 10% for Nerien'eth non-DoT damage and 6% Skoria DoT damage)--and I do see those crystals popping up a lot whenever I lay down a Blockade. So Winterborn is a pretty nice alternative to Willpower+Monster. I just can't say the same about Succession.

I believe targeted dots (ones you can only cast with a target preset) particularly single target dots. Remain at the potency they had when you cast them. This is the premise of the maelstrom daggers buff also. So if a DK cast engulfing flames always in that 4 second window, then continues their DPS rotation, they would probably be getting slightly better than described benefit from using succession, depending what quantity of their DPS was from that one skill.

but that said you could do the same proccing kena with destro staff. and applying the skill...so shrug. excited by this though

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

We increased the set item drops in Maelstrom Arena to remove the chance of completing an arena and not getting a set piece. That was the take away from this change.

The Final Arena loot chest will drop a Weapon 50% of the time and a piece of Jewelry 50% of the time.

The Leaderboard reward will be a weapon 100% of the time AND a piece of Jewelry 50% of the time.

Hope that clears things up!