Flawless feels great, RNG does not

DocFrost72 · July 2017

Finally got around to getting flawless, and on my stamplar no less. The sheer amount of anxiety as I had to go down and deal with Daedroth AND clanfear and saw my health drop to 5%... the experience was amazing.

Then I got a powered fire staff from the chest.

MFW: latest?cb=20160125052450

I'm still ecstatic, but it might be time to start discussing a token system for if and when you do it, ZOS. For those of you who play the arena, or even plan to farm it one day but cannot seem to break through right now, what is your ideal token system?

Mine involves breaking down maelstrom weapons. You need 100 tokens to get an exact weapon. A normal clear gives you one token. A vet clear gives you ten tokens. Flawless clear is fifteen tokens. If you deconstruct a maelstrom weapon, you get 10 tokens (five for axe and dagger, cause you get two.) This means that you either get what you want, or the fact that you didn't accelerates your grind. And of course, an actual end in sight.

What's your ideal system?

MakeMeUhSamich · July 2017

I would love that!

Kihamai · July 2017

I feel you. I recently got flawless as well without use of sigils and was congratulated with a 2-handed powered maul.

I do like the idea you lined out though. I'd love for my runs without sigil use to mean more than just a higher score on the leaderboards. I'd like them to take sigil use and final scoring into effect when giving out the tokens as well. Not sure how that'd work but it's an idea.

DocFrost72 · July 2017

Calysis wrote: »

I feel you. I recently got flawless as well without use of sigils and was congratulated with a 2-handed powered maul.

I do like the idea you lined out though. I'd love for my runs without sigil use to mean more than just a higher score on the leaderboards. I'd like them to take sigil use and final scoring into effect when giving out the tokens as well. Not sure how that'd work but it's an idea.

Yuuuuck xD

And I hadn't even considered how score would work. Maybe each 100k, rounded down, is another token? That further rewards skillful play as, like you said, your efforts to push yourself should feel rewarded. Another great idea!

And as I sat at work thinking, I thought about this more. This could apply to monster helms, and shoulders, and DSA too...

mvffins · July 2017

This is not an rng problem, it's a not every trait/weapon is equal problem.

Make2k15 · July 2017

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Mine involves breaking down maelstrom weapons. You need 100 tokens to get an exact weapon. A normal clear gives you one token. A vet clear gives you ten tokens. Flawless clear is fifteen tokens. If you deconstruct a maelstrom weapon, you get 10 tokens (five for axe and dagger, cause you get two.) This means that you either get what you want, or the fact that you didn't accelerates your grind. And of course, an actual end in sight.

What's your ideal system?

Here is my idea for Maelstrom Glyph:
-Add Maelstrom Glyph (/Maelstrom Glyph fragment) to the game which can be used to enchant your weapon of choise and has weapon type specific enchantment effect.
-Deconstructing Maelstrom weapon have a change to yield Maelstrom Glyph fragments.
-Deconstructing Maelstrom weapon yield chances: 95% chance to yield at least one Maelstrom Glyph fragment. 25% chance to yield 2 Maelstrom Glyph fragments. 15% chance to yield 3 Maelstrom Glyph fragments.

100 Maelstrom Glyph fragments can be combined to Maelstrom Glyph in inventory with the help of some restorative stuff which can be bought from Maelstrom merchant (in same manner as imperial motif fragments can be combined to imperial motif pieces using Merethic Restorative Resin).

Possible additional perk would be to allow enchanting set weapons with Maelstrom glyphs. So in future when new sets come there would still be incentives to run Maelstrom arena.

Probabilities for maelstrom glyph yields ofc. debatable. With these values you would get your Maelstrom Glyph of choise guaranteed with something like in 60-90 maelstrom runs.

DocFrost72 · July 2017

mvffins wrote: »

This is not an rng problem, it's a not every trait/weapon is equal problem.

Specific weapons having specific desired traits is normal. A sharpened resto or sword/mace, for example, is not ideal because those weapons aren't for damage. My ideal master's or maelstrom resto staff, for example, is infused or powered. One trait that shouldn't ever, EVER drop is training though, for sure.

NukeAllTheThings · July 2017

I like all the ideas presented here. Not just because anything is better than the trash system we have now, but because it would make completing the arena feel rewarding. Once you are through a couple of times it loses its sense of accomplishment. Once you go flawless there is nothing left but reward. When you are a mag character and you get 90% bow, 2H, 1H/S & DW drops after 40 runs then it is just a kick in the crotch

WreckfulAbandon · July 2017

I would like an end in sight that isn't me feeling like Charlie winning the Golden Ticket. FFS ZOS.

SoLooney · July 2017

A token system is needed yes, but it should be difficult nonetheless.
Normal maelstrom giving out tokens is a not a good idea, then anyone can get maelstrom weapons, no thank you, work for it in veteran like everyone else.

You should have the option to exchange a small amount of tokens to say try your luck in a random weapon with a random trait or with a ton of tokens for an exact weapon with specific trait.

Also, still salty that nirnhoned is in the loot table for vma weps

DeHei · July 2017

They just should add a Tokensystem to the actually. You get a token with every succesful run and with making materials from useless items. For me you can buy your items like Weapons in right traits with 10 token for example

MLGProPlayer · July 2017

Is there any drawback to a token system? I can't think of a single one. Yet ZOS seems to hate the idea.

You can make the prices of items ridiculously high to encourage people to replay the same *** over and over again, but you at least remove the frustration of RNG.

dpencil1 · July 2017

There have been token system request threads created consistently for the past year at least. Never a word from ZOS other than they recognize RNG is a "pain point."

I've been making a concerted effort of inching toward Flawless for about a month and finally got there a couple days ago. Junk reward. BUT, on my next run I finally got the sharp lightning staff I was waiting for (have 2 sharp fire, and all stam weps). So I think I'm finally done with the Maelstrom grind, unless I want diplicates. It's actually a little bittersweet. I do really enjoy vMA, even after hundreds of runs.

Cybercore_Death · July 2017

It really is needed and not just for vMA either. The amount of runs I've done on CoA1/2 to try and get the 1 BSW piece I'm missing is ridiculous. Literally just 1 piece needed and now I'm lucky if I get 1 BSW drop per run, let alone the piece needed with the right trait.

The problem you have is ZoS makes too much money and keeps players coming back for the wrong reasons and while ever that's happening you'll never see any truly beneficial changes.

Sensei_Brew · July 2017

Honestly completing vma flawlessly is just as much rng as the final prize

ChunkyCat · July 2017

mvffins wrote: »

This is not an rng problem, it's a not every trait/weapon is equal problem.

Not all traits were created equal.

Qbiken · July 2017

My desired system involves RNG (which in my opinion should be there) but it minimizes the rng a bit. At the start of Maesltrom arena there´re 2 more merchants:

* One of the merchants can give you the desired weapon but with a random trait
* The other merchant can give you the desired trait but with a random weapons

This system would involve tokens as well of some sort. I don´t think choosing desired trait and weapon should be possible. With my suggestion you reduce the RNG a lot but it´s still present.

Qbiken · July 2017

Yoohoo4411 wrote: »

mvffins wrote: »

This is not an rng problem, it's a not every trait/weapon is equal problem.

Not all traits were created equal.

The distrubition of traits are very equal actually (with sharpened being the most common). What type of weapon that drops is not equal though.

DocFrost72 · July 2017

Qbiken wrote: »

My desired system involves RNG (which in my opinion should be there) but it minimizes the rng a bit. At the start of Maesltrom arena there´re 2 more merchants:

* One of the merchants can give you the desired weapon but with a random trait
* The other merchant can give you the desired trait but with a random weapons

This system would involve tokens as well of some sort. I don´t think choosing desired trait and weapon should be possible. With my suggestion you reduce the RNG a lot but it´s still present.

I could definately live with that system, as well.

KingYogi415 · July 2017

WTB HARDMODE!!!

botanist92 · July 2017

right now i feel that the probability for weapon x trait is too low. this should be increased by eliminating some traits or allow players to choose specific weapons they want to drop before the run. by that i mean they could probably choose 3 weapons out of 11 types of drops (if i counted correctly) and remove the training trait.

that would really help.

or another solution is to have only weapon types that the player has equipped drop. like if im dual wields and a bow.. either 1h or bows drop from chests. condition is that they have to be of different types of weapons slotted