I Hate Maelstrom Arena

Phinix1 · July 2017

ZOS does not know how to do token systems and flatly and stubbornly refuse to learn. No matter how many people try and explain to them the value of seeing light and hope at the end of the tunnel, they refuse to hear it.

ZOS more than any other company I know are totally married to RNG as a design philosophy and will hear no other logic. RNG or nothing. It is what made me suspect early on before Crown Crates were ever a thing that some of the ZOS higher-ups were hopeless gambling addicts.

It is the greatest flaw in their game and in their selves psychologically, in my opinion.

nursingninja · July 2017

If you hate it then don't play it. I don't care for it either myself, I use a combination of crafted and looted items and that works for me. Here is the deal dude, crafted items are only very marginally inferior to some looted items. The upside is you get to pick your motif.

If you don't like the loot grind then don't do it. Simple as that.

For a mage, the only three looted items that are superior in an objective sense, to crafted ones, are the VMA staff (sharpened), the monster sets, and gold jewelry. That's it.

Jewelry is easy enough to come by if you run a few vet trials.

Monster sets are superior because they are the only items that give you a bonus for having one item and two for both. Everything else you need at least two items before you start getting bonuses.

The VMA staff is pretty sweet, and it's a shame that its enchantment cannot be replicated and put on other staves. But that vet arena is a beast and doing it over and over again for sharpened is my idea of purgatory.

There are crafted options that can mitigate this advantage though and I recommend doing one of those. Of course your stats will be a tad bit lower but you can mitigate that with a careful build design and skill. My point is you don't need the staff unless you are simply the completionist type.

There is no objective reason though to use only looted gear. I know people seem to think that because they are used to wow and other games like that. But in ESO this is simply a myth. There are ways around the VMA staff if you just don't want to deal with getting it.

Eiagra · July 2017

I gave normal Maelstrom another run not too long ago, as I'm not yet uber enough to do veteran mode, and normal is already a hefty challenge for me. I'll concur, even though I went in mostly to challenge myself, I didn't find it FUN until maybe the last round with the ghost mechanics. And even then, it was more funny than fun because I was yelling, "MINE!" when I saw the ones I was supposed to touch before the enemy could.

I suppose I'll have to make do with non-Maelstrom setups.

Mashille · July 2017

@nursingninja

That may be true however in many builds I theorycraft I am left with a single or 2 open slots on weapons, which means the only thing it / they can really be is VMA weapons.

For example I made a new Stam DK build a few days ago and realised all the sets fitted together except I had an open DW slot with no set on it. As I was using Flurry and DOTS I thought VMA Weapon fits perfectly but I didn't actually have a good one so I needed to farm in order to get a decent one.

Bonzodog01 · July 2017

I've been playing for 18 months, have 2 characters that have completed all quest content in game, and a third that I am working on, and I have NEVER been in Maelstrom Arena. In fact I couldn't find it in game until a couple of weeks ago.

Believe it or not, no-one in my guilds would tell me where it was.

I will most likely just do nMA once just to get it white on the map. I have no need or want of the weapons, though I do like the look of the bow.......hrm, might go get the bow for looks.

I do worry about it though, as I am not a fast player, and my reactions aren't all that quick. Public dungeon bosses can give me grief, and sometimes take more than one attempt to kill. On a dummy, I have pulled 16K DPS, but cannot maintain rotations, and end up button mashing and hoping stuff dies.

code65536 · July 2017

Mashille wrote: »

That may be true however in many builds I theorycraft I am left with a single or 2 open slots on weapons, which means the only thing it / they can really be is VMA weapons.

For example I made a new Stam DK build a few days ago and realised all the sets fitted together except I had an open DW slot with no set on it. As I was using Flurry and DOTS I thought VMA Weapon fits perfectly but I didn't actually have a good one so I needed to farm in order to get a decent one.

Flurry builds don't work that well, particular on a stam DK. With Molten Armaments buffing your heavy attack damage, you're better off using heavy attacks are your "spammable" instead of Flurry for the damage and for the sustain. So instead of Flurry>DoT, it's HA>DoT. Furthermore, vMA DW has been nerfed to the point that you're just better off using regular weapons, particularly since regular enchants have been buffed significantly, and you really want to use a Poison and Weapon Damage enchant on your DW weapons. 2x 5p sets and a 2p monster set on the front, and on the back, one of the 5p sets will be downgraded to 3p and replaced by a vMA bow (which unlike vMA DW, is something that you do need).

Right now, the only weapons that are sought after are sharp fire and lightning staves and sharp bows. All other vMA weapons are lackluster.

Joy_Division · July 2017

I never quite understood the attitudes of people like the OP.

You know beforehand that odds of getting a sharpened Inferno staff are tiny, I think someone did the math and it came out to over 300:1, and yet decided to do content you dislike even though the only way you'd get value is by getting that weapon. That's going beyond self-fulfilling prophecy, that's knowingly doing something that makes you miserable.

Even if you are *really* good at vMA such that it takes an hour, such that you did it 10 hours a day, which is practically all you're waking hours - no work, no going out, no companionship, no nothing, you'd have to go an entire month just to get the odds in your favor to get one.

If a sharpened weapon is really the only reason people are running vMA, they, their health, and the sanity of those who may live with/love them will all be *much* better off heeding the advice of an old and underrated 1980s movie, "the only winning move is not to play."

The vast vast majority of a DPS parse is independent of a vMA staff. And even if you have a vMA staff, someone without a staff and a clean, more fluid rotation is going to out-parse you every single time. The time spent wasting in vMA would be much better off by cleaning up a rotation or actually thinking about a better build rather than copy Alcast's (which people who hate vMA but grind it anyway are doing since that's where they are devoting their time).

******

If you don;t find it fun, that's fine but please stop speaking for others and calling it "a painful and spiteful chore that we must do" because painful/spiteful are your opinions and "we" most certainly do not have to do. I have my weapons and I still do it occasionally because the solo content in ESO is a joke once you get max CPs and vMA is the only place where I can be reminded that actually playing the game used to be a moderate stimulating challenge. And the leaderboard feature is neat and I can see if there is room for me to improve my build or play.

Besides, if you farmed it nearly as much as you claim, then each run is barely an hour, most mechanics are skipped, and you'll only die 4 or 5 times even on a bad run. That's not painful.

I do agree the armor drops in vMA are not very good, but that's endemic to ESO as a whole because the vast majority of sets ZoS makes are DPS and the non-DPS ones are rarely any good. So no matter what content you do, vMA or no, reward gear is decon trash

Doctordarkspawn · July 2017

Meld777 wrote: »

As someone who got his first Sharpened Inferno after around 620 runs, I feel ya. What I don't understand is this:

Mashille wrote: »

I've farmed VMA quite a bit since it's release. And here's some reasons why I hate it.

It's Not Fun... At All: Very few people may find VMA 'fun' and that's all well and good but for most of us it's a painful and spiteful chore that we must do that always ends up with me either punching my desk because I got killed some some bull**** (**** You toxic mushrooms) or because I got useless loot... again

If you have really farmed it since release, this should not be a problem. 20 - 50 runs in, depending on your general gaming skills, you should've reached the point of continuous flawless runs. And why would a death be enraging? By that time you're gonna get a high enough score to get on weekly even with 15 deaths.

To be fair though, the plants in arena 7 are predictable. I don't remember dying to them in at least 200 - 300 runs. What could kill me was the last boss of arena 5 if I'd get too cocky and would ignore all adds and try to burst on 2nd platform.

Maybe he just wants to get it friggin done and does not care about leaderboard placements. Not everyone is purely competative and result driven.

Mashille · July 2017

@Doctordarkspawn

I'm not sure why so many people are making this to be a 'Skill' issue

I literally don't even complain about the difficulty once in the post and it's not really to do with what I was talking about. Only thing I said that could imply talking about difficulty is taht I called some of the stuff "Random Bull****"

Cage_Lizardman · July 2017

In Eve Online there is this thing you can do called exploration, you scan down things and get loot. This scanning used to be a bit more complicated that it is today, and not something that everyone could do. It took some skill at least to do it in a reasonable amount of time (not nearly as hard as vMA though) and there are some competitive sides to it. I used to make a living doing that (plexing 4 accounts) since I was pretty good.

Even though Eve is a pretty ruthless elitist game and designed to be that way, they still decided to nerf exploration to make it easier and more accessible. The nerf was bad enough that it became the preferred income source for newbies, basically anyone could do it. I realised that this would eventually make the activity unprofitable, and I wouldn't be able to make a living off it anymore. But I didn't complain because I had to admit that the changes made for a better game and were more fun. I stayed with it for about a year until my plex stash ran out.

ESO is not Eve, and vMA is not what makes me want to keep playing it, on the contrary it makes me want to stop playing it. I wish they would not listen to that 0.5% of the population who actually enjoy vMA (even though every one of them hang out on the forum), and nerf this stupid thing until it plays like Hello Kitty Online, just like the rest of the solo content.

Princess_Ciri · July 2017

I am torn when it comes to vMA. On the one hand, I love that it is very difficult (or at least, it is the first time you clear it, after that it gets increasingly easy) and it means that the best weapons in the game are skill-gaited. I also like that vMA usually makes people into better players, they become more self aware and better at surviving.

However I also do also agree that the RNG is stupid, frustrating and feels very dissatisfying when you have done vMA hundreds of times and still have yet to receive anything particularly decent. I also don't like that I have to grind solo content to get the best weapons for group content. I like playing with my friends but vMA forces me to spend 1 hour or so stuck in a long dungeon that I've done loads of times before with no company and it's boring

SnubbS · July 2017

I was actually just thinking about how Maelstrom is the only PvE in ESO that I actually enjoy. It's a shame so many people hate it—I want another Solo Arena.

Hawco10 · July 2017

Never tried it. One look at the forums tells me I made the right decision. Why would I waste my game time to get a prosperous weapon that I would never use ? It's a joke

Avnr · July 2017

finished vma second time, it's realy get easyer after first time beating vma
first run was BA , very nice for my stamina dk

this time i got sharp resto.... but i dont care

my 3rd run i planing to dance after i silence the last boss, 10 sec dance

nursingninja · July 2017

Mashille wrote: »

@nursingninja

That may be true however in many builds I theorycraft I am left with a single or 2 open slots on weapons, which means the only thing it / they can really be is VMA weapons.

For example I made a new Stam DK build a few days ago and realised all the sets fitted together except I had an open DW slot with no set on it. As I was using Flurry and DOTS I thought VMA Weapon fits perfectly but I didn't actually have a good one so I needed to farm in order to get a decent one.

So if you have three gold jewelry with two matching items on your armor, and a sword and board with three matching items on your armor, wouldn't that leave room for two monster pieces head and shoulders? What am I missing?

Apologies, not very knowledgeable about stamina dk

Getern · July 2017

Some of you might not be aware of but for first few patches after MA launch, we could loot weapons in 3 traits only: Sharpned, Precise and Defending. 2/3 usuable traits, all they have to do is bring that back. It won't make it too easy but it will definitely help.

SoLooney · July 2017

Lot of people complaining about VMA. Hate the rng and bs of doing it over and over? plain and simple dont do it, blunt answer, not everyones gonna like it, but its the truth. I see a lot of people whining that its too hard, its too frustrating, the rng is crap, why do i torture myself. If it causes you that much distress, stop lol.

I hate the RNG too, doesnt everyone unless you have all your weps. But if you want those staves and bow, just suck it up and do it, complaining isnt gonna change anything. look at zos, did they do anything? hell no, they dont care, the closest thing we got to a token system was traits being more balanced with the upcoming update.

Im hoping zos brings another arena like dragonstar and maelstrom, give us more content like that. I think its a little fun trying to go flawless and beating your score, seeing how you compare to other people

botanist92 · July 2017

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Mashille wrote: »

@Balsagna

I remember when I first cleared VMA a long time ago and thought 'F**k the weapons I'm never doing that again, I was just proving to myself that I can do it'

*A few months later - "I NEED THOSE GOD DANG WEAPONS!"

Same thing here. For me, it was getting staves (destruction and restoration). All I ever wanted from Maelstrom Arena were staves. That was it. I never wanted the stamina weapons, but received mostly them (and still do). After 90+ runs, I received my first staff. A sharpened restoration staff. A few clears after that, and I received my second staff. A precise restoration staff. I didn't receive my first actual destruction staff, until way into the hundreds. And even then, it was ice. And if memory serves me correctly, it was an infused ice staff.

The grind in VMA is obnoxious...

i wanted lightning staff. and i got sharpened, charged, infused, precise, powered, defending resto staves that i deconned

Bonzodog01 · July 2017

Its worth noting that as of Update 15 (if things stay as they are), then not only will Maelstrom Weapons not be necessarily BiS, but Precise, Nirnhoned and Infused will all be useful traits.

Insandros · July 2017

I hated it before, a lot, i then was able to complete it once, as it goes, each stage gets easier, i'm an average player or a bit above, so, my point is not to make it flawless, i cleared it for the 3rd time last night and about to try stage 9 for the 4th time after this post... but since i cleared it once and know i CAN do it, and find it pretty easy to get to stage 9, i started loving it, i need to consult... besides stage 5 which sometimes goes well, i either die once, never or a few time on last boss, stage 7, whish sometimes is a pain, or i clear it no death, stage 9 last fight is my pain, can take me an hour to beat it, either i die because i'm stupoid or nervous, but last night was the first time i kept diying after first being upstairs, i'm not trying my 4th time, starting stage 9...

As for RNG, so far i can'T cry about it, jsut my 3rd time cleared, 1st time, charged lightning staff (i want a light. staff, but better trait

) Second time, 2x 1H axes nirn trait, and third time, a charged light. staff again... but for now, i'm still on my little cloud that i can beat it, not sure i'll run it thousands of times, but for now i'm having fun in there when friends aren't online for group stuff.... If i can get to stage 9 last boss below 1 hour, i'm proud of my progression so far, one day i'll be able to clear stage 9 last boss in less than an hour and i'll maybe get the weapons i want one day, but for now, if i run it, is because i lvoe doing it, even though sometimes i get some frustrations, but as a 3rd time cleared in 4 days, it's part of the progress, my main goal was to beat it once. The day i'll get pissed at RNG, that's when i'l stop runing it instead of getting frustrated, now i love runing it, so i don't mind. For now i don't care about leaderboard, the day it'll be worth something, we'll see, the day ZoS come up with the reward of 1 year ESO Plus free memberships for the top 100, i'll change my thinling, for now, i run it because i love it, and still at the point i wish for a weapon even though i know RNG sucks. I just want a staff i can equip for now, as a simple Trophee.

Doctordarkspawn · July 2017

Mashille wrote: »

@Doctordarkspawn

I'm not sure why so many people are making this to be a 'Skill' issue I literally don't even complain about the difficulty once in the post and it's not really to do with what I was talking about. Only thing I said that could imply talking about difficulty is taht I called some of the stuff "Random Bull****"

@Mashille

They're making it a skill issue because that is how they rationalize a difference of opinion. Most of the people who praise Maelstrom praise it because it's the one piece of content they can lawd over people. It's the only way they can rationalize anyone disliking it.

Never seen a single thread that had any other defense, any other good thing to say about Maelstrom, any other defense of the mechanics other than 'it's easy' or ''you just need to practice' or 'stop whining crybaby before I beat you'. Allways the same damn thing.

code65536 · July 2017

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Mashille wrote: »

@Doctordarkspawn

I'm not sure why so many people are making this to be a 'Skill' issue I literally don't even complain about the difficulty once in the post and it's not really to do with what I was talking about. Only thing I said that could imply talking about difficulty is taht I called some of the stuff "Random Bull****"

@Mashille

They're making it a skill issue because that is how they rationalize a difference of opinion. Most of the people who praise Maelstrom praise it because it's the one piece of content they can lawd over people. It's the only way they can rationalize anyone disliking it.

Never seen a single thread that had any other defense, any other good thing to say about Maelstrom, any other defense of the mechanics other than 'it's easy' or ''you just need to practice' or 'stop whining crybaby before I beat you'. Allways the same damn thing.

@Doctordarkspawn Why are you even in this thread? The OP is complaining about the loot system in vMA. And nobody (except Artis) defends it. Even the "skilled" players who breeze through vMA hate the loot system. The person who's making this out to be a skill issue is you.

You are the one who barges into this thread with your usual diatribe about ESO content that you try to seed into every thread you come across, completely missing the OP's point (probably because you didn't even bother reading past the thread title). You said you've quit the game months ago. But it's evident that you never quit the forum troll game.

Emma_Overload · July 2017

OP makes a good point. So much of the grumbling about VMA would go away if there was a craftable 1 piece weapon set. It wouldn't even have to be as strong as a VMA staff, just a normal set bonus would be fine for a lot of people. This would make 3 piece jewelry sets like Willpower appealing for people to combine with Monster sets.

Doctordarkspawn · July 2017

code65536 wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Mashille wrote: »

@Doctordarkspawn

I'm not sure why so many people are making this to be a 'Skill' issue I literally don't even complain about the difficulty once in the post and it's not really to do with what I was talking about. Only thing I said that could imply talking about difficulty is taht I called some of the stuff "Random Bull****"

@Mashille

They're making it a skill issue because that is how they rationalize a difference of opinion. Most of the people who praise Maelstrom praise it because it's the one piece of content they can lawd over people. It's the only way they can rationalize anyone disliking it.

Never seen a single thread that had any other defense, any other good thing to say about Maelstrom, any other defense of the mechanics other than 'it's easy' or ''you just need to practice' or 'stop whining crybaby before I beat you'. Allways the same damn thing.

@Doctordarkspawn Why are you even in this thread? The OP is complaining about the loot system in vMA. And nobody (except Artis) defends it. Even the "skilled" players who breeze through vMA hate the loot system. The person who's making this out to be a skill issue is you.

You are the one who barges into this thread with your usual diatribe about ESO content that you try to seed into every thread you come across, completely missing the OP's point (probably because you didn't even bother reading past the thread title). You said you've quit the game months ago. But it's evident that you never quit the forum troll game.

@code65536 I've made two posts.

One in congratulation and warning, one when specifically friggin called. I was directly asked why skill was being brought into the conversation at -all-. So, I dont know what you want other than to attack me for views you dont like, using the OP as an excuse despite being directly tagged by him. You want proof? here's the quote:

Mashille wrote: »

@Doctordarkspawn

I'm not sure why so many people are making this to be a 'Skill' issue I literally don't even complain about the difficulty once in the post and it's not really to do with what I was talking about. Only thing I said that could imply talking about difficulty is taht I called some of the stuff "Random Bull****"

OP asked a question, I gave an answer. Take it up with @Mashille if you dont like it, but the only forum troll here at this point is you, for trying to play outraged on the OP's behalf.

Wrecking_Blow_Spam · July 2017

For all it's criticism the majority of end game players have most of their time spent in there.

I've done my time but for sure it makes you a better player and even challenges you in many ways to achieve better.

The drop system is the most annoying thing in there for sure.

di_rty · July 2017

I wholeheartedly agree that vMA is not fun at all. It took me about a week to finish for the first time and I have never wanted to go back.

NyassaV · July 2017

@ZOS_GinaBruno @Wrobel making a token system takes time and money, I get it, we all get it. BUT you already have a token system in the game, it's called gold. If you get rid of bind on pick up, it'd make A TON of players happy and you wouldn't have to design an extra token system. Please understand that adding RNG to the game does not make it difficult, it just makes it annoying and frustrating and makes people want to quit.

Sarato · July 2017

Anyone else never VMA'd? Always thought of it as too boring lol

MCBIZZLE300 · July 2017

vma is quite fun tho.

Blackbeard · July 2017

I had abit of luck in there. As a mag class i mostly get sharpened stamina weapons tho. Did 4 runs one evening and it gave me sharp greatsword, sharp bow and a sharpened dagger and a powered ice staff. I have every stamina weapon in almost every trait by now. And i done maybe 60 runs. All i want is a sharp lightning staff. I got a lightning staff but in a bad trait.
So i'm lvling a stamina class

But dunno what class to choose. NB or Sorc.

Either way. I feel that the steps on every stage could be decreased down to 4 besides the last stage. Last stage can be left at 6 steps.. Alot of the step's are just unnecessary and time consuming because there is no real challenge.

Im not very good at vMA and the time for me to do it is a little less then an hour. Usually 55 - 60 minutes or so. But to choose either a token or a RNG weapon at the last chest would be nice