sparafucilsarwb17_ESO wrote: »

Maelstrom weapons are no longer a must have. I don't do vma anymore as I have better things to do with my time than doing solo content.

true that

vma weapons good for better vma runs only , nothing special
maybe old days when you only can run jewelry set , main set and monster set then the weapond give extra damage and bonus

If you add health warning to vMA, DSA, trials and especially Cyrodiil need it as well.

There is no obligation to play it for full time. You can do vMA partialy because the quest is saved. Clear stage one and then get yourself a rest and come for stage two another day.

Zvorgin wrote: »

VMA is simply not fun, even the people who have mastered farming it complain about it being not fun. I've never heard anyone say they like doing it.

I like doing it for leaderboards. As solo player you have no competition in this game except vMA leaderboards.

I was really excited about BG leaderboards but it is just another emp-like shiet showing only time played and not player performance. If they actually improve BG leaderboards or add ranked mode, I am done with vMA then.

oranje_elf wrote: »

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

The last boss can also be done even with 2 crystal phases. You also dont have to kill all 3 crystals at once, if the stone wall becomes too fast you can just jump down, kill the deadroth and mage and continue.

This.

I still cannot finish with a crystal phase within one go. Boss dot is just too much for me to heal off. Much easier to jump down, take a shield, kill that lovely "deadroth", and then continue. The problem for me is that the second phase is largely a preparation for the third one, as I need enough resources to nuke the boss fast, and if I burn resources on crystals, the third phase is impossible/too difficult to deal with. Need more practice, I'd guess...

Finally a player that is thinking about how he can improve.

Diminish wrote: »

Red = bad; sure. I play with combat cues off. There is no "red"

Wow, I cannot even imagine it! This must be +5 difficulty levels at least. I think I would be kicked out of all my guilds if I would even dare to mention that I consider switching red circles off ;-).

Massive_Stain wrote: »

VMA will make you better at the game overall. Its punishing, infuriating (at first) and certainly a grind.. but it will make you improve on a massive level.

Totally agree with this. VMA really helps players to improve, certainly helped me. Just have to have patience instead of complaining on forums.

To clarify my initial posting in this thread: i am only talking from my personal point of view. Which comes with a bag of disadvantages I have to deal with. One of which is slower reaction times due to old age and a couple more "goodies".

I have read guides and seen videos on how to do certain stages, sure. But if you are at or approaching your skill ceiling which is a lot lower of those who easily can do this kind of content, then VMA is just going to annoy the living daylights outa you.

Now you might say....tough luck for you, Weyoun. Go ahead and play a slow paced turn based strategy game. Just git gud. And you might be right. I totally get that this kind of content wasnt meant to be played by people like me. I have since tried to forget this place exists...but not being able to complete it even once (mind you I am using sigils left right and center already ) is even more annoying.

No, not calling for nerfs either. I'm just saying that if you are a below average player at best like me...you wont have fun and agree that there should be a health warning

Doubt all you want, my friends did complete it at 200cp. "Skill" does come into it when you have no experience, it's not just about wiping until you memorise it.

oranje_elf wrote: »

Diminish wrote: »

Red = bad; sure. I play with combat cues off. There is no "red"

Wow, I cannot even imagine it! This must be +5 difficulty levels at least. I think I would be kicked out of all my guilds if I would even dare to mention that I consider switching red circles off ;-).

Nobody should imagine that. What a pointless thing to even consider, let alone doing.

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Agree with @Diminish & calling "***" here. Considering the scaling factor & the fact that they'd earn >40 cps practicing. Unless he came from a second account or had massive insight, I sincerely doubt it.

I am, however amused at the prospect that memorizing spawn locations somehow equates to skill. "Half a brain / git gud?" Congrats, you can do what most 5 year old's with a deck of cards can do. If there was an actual dynamic factor involved in any of the content, it would be considerably different.

Unless you're towards the top of the leaderboard, vMA is more about gear, tolerance, and repetition/memorization than it will ever be about skill.

Perhaps you're forgetting that this arena was designed around 300cp; without all of the new ultimates, 5 sets, monster sets and new playstyles that people have adopted since the arena came out - Not to mention the addition of 330CP (210% of what you had at the start (though that doesn't apply to what you're talking about is still important for the rest of the topic)

Let's not forget, you've got unlimited lives now, a save feature and all of the 'insight' you could possibly need online - There's guides with exact add spawns, types etc;

For example: Templars weren't using a staff, grothdarr, moondancer and so on from launch, which makes VMA so much easier.

Granted, I used to be a high ranked MSA player but I had absolutely no issue completing it at 160cp when I moved to NA, I got my flawless run before 170 (full purple training gear, no monster set, missing passives and guilds) - there's no reason, with all of today's advantages, why a new player couldn't complete this at 2-300CP.

Bold
Out of interest, why does it amuse you?

It's not just about memory, it's about kill order, which can play a massive part in whether or not you get overrun, one shot, etc; If you don't consider that skill that's alright.

Pre-dotting portals and letting adds die without you ever touching them, giving you time to deal with more important adds. Not skill either? That's cool too I guess.

Let's not forget that 10 seconds extra in VMA can be the difference between being top of the leaderboards all the way through to writing your first forum rage post about VMA's difficulty, because you've took an extra 10 seconds of damage and died.

You probably believe that everyone who's done HoF or MoL or any other PvE content isn't good either? I mean, it's all just memory of their rotation/boss mechanics.

You're talking about core components to the game.
These are not laughable attributes of a player to me - they're the difference between an average player and a good player.

BNOC wrote: »

oranje_elf wrote: »

Diminish wrote: »

Red = bad; sure. I play with combat cues off. There is no "red"

Wow, I cannot even imagine it! This must be +5 difficulty levels at least. I think I would be kicked out of all my guilds if I would even dare to mention that I consider switching red circles off ;-).

Nobody should imagine that. What a pointless thing to even consider, let alone doing.

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Agree with @Diminish & calling "***" here. Considering the scaling factor & the fact that they'd earn >40 cps practicing. Unless he came from a second account or had massive insight, I sincerely doubt it.

I am, however amused at the prospect that memorizing spawn locations somehow equates to skill. "Half a brain / git gud?" Congrats, you can do what most 5 year old's with a deck of cards can do. If there was an actual dynamic factor involved in any of the content, it would be considerably different.

Unless you're towards the top of the leaderboard, vMA is more about gear, tolerance, and repetition/memorization than it will ever be about skill.

Perhaps you're forgetting that this arena was designed around 300cp; without all of the new ultimates, 5 sets, monster sets and new playstyles that people have adopted since the arena came out - Not to mention the addition of 330CP (210% of what you had at the start (though that doesn't apply to what you're talking about is still important for the rest of the topic)

Let's not forget, you've got unlimited lives now, and a save feature.

For example: Templars weren't using a staff, grothdarr, moondancer and so on from launch, which makes VMA so much easier.

Granted, I used to be a high ranked MSA player but I had absolutely no issue completing it at 160cp when I moved to NA, I got my flawless run before 170 (full purple training gear, no monster set, missing passives and guilds) - there's no reason, with all of today's advantages, why a new player couldn't complete this at 2-300CP.

Bold
Out of interest, why does it amuse you?

It's not just about memory, it's about kill order, which can play a massive part in whether or not you get overrun, one shot, etc; If you don't consider that skill that's alright.

Pre-dotting portals and letting adds die without you ever touching them, giving you time to deal with more important adds. Not skill either? That's cool too I guess.

Let's not forget that 10 seconds extra in VMA can be the difference between being top of the leaderboards all the way through to writing your first forum rage post about VMA's difficulty, because you've took an extra 10 seconds of damage and died.

You probably believe that everyone who's done HoF or MoL or any other PvE content isn't good either? I mean, it's all just memory of their rotation/boss mechanics.

You're talking about core components to the game.
These are not laughable attributes of a player to me - they're the difference between an average player and a good player.

This.

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

BlackbirdV wrote: »

Diminish wrote: »

Araxyte wrote: »

It's posts like these which prevents ZOS from making more difficult solo content. Some of us actually like content which requires half a brain to complete. A lot of my new friends to the game completed it at 160-200cp. The solo content of ESO is far far easier than in other mmo's. I'm afraid this is a case of git gud.

I doubt your "new friends to the game" cleared vMA at CP 160-200; especially post Morrowind. If by chance they did, I will say first hand that they must have lived in there trying to get a clear.

Actually, he did. vMA is about skill, and since ESO seems to be catered towards bad players, obviously a lot of people find it hard because they have no idea that red = bad, or how to actually deal with somehwhat challenging mechanics - they rely on better players too much.

It's honestly a case of get good & learn to actually play. vMA will 100% help players do that if they continuously repeat that content until they actually learn how to deal with situations

Agree with @Diminish & calling "***" here. Considering the scaling factor & the fact that they'd earn >40 cps practicing. Unless he came from a second account or had massive insight, I sincerely doubt it.

Nice quote change; must suck knowing a low level 'pleb' is better than most others. Araxyte stated he helped him. I also know for a fact Araxyte completed vMA at around CP 200 and had flawless at CP 300. It is skill. If you want to doubt, go for it. At the end of the day, don't babyrage over someone being more skilled than you, who happens to be a lower cp.

It's a case of....
Just
git
gud

If players cannot seriously handle this, then I'd doubt they're cut out for end-game vTrial HMs. They'd be the type of people that will die to mechanics, and just... destructive outbreak the whole group constantly.

TeIvanni wrote: »

So.. prior to today. The last time I attempted vMA was almost two years ago, a few months after orisinum was released.
It was one of my worst gaming experiences ever... The run lasted 11 Hours and 15 minutes (4 of those hours were spent on the final boss) and ended with me giving up with 250 deaths
^This experience is one of the reasons I quit playing ESO for almost two years.

Today, however. I am proud to announce that I successfully completed vMA for the first time ever.
The run lasted about 3 hours (most of that time was spent dying to cheesy mechanics on the argonian level... Is it possible for poison buds NOT to spawn inside the mender's shield EVERY SINGLE TIME?).

Anyway.. what should have been an exciting accomplishment was tainted by the fact that I felt physically ill.
Those three hours of intense mental strain really did a number on me...

I had a massive headache and I couldn't see straight for about 45 minutes afterwards.

vMA should come with a health hazard warning.

at lease a BP warning, I know that my blood pressure when well over 200 when I first started running it, it still goes wtf up, but it's much more manageable now that I've done it almost 100 times.

the worst part is trying to go for flawless with 400 pings from australia. making plenty of potions, prepping perfect gear for each rounds, etc, etc- i literally wrote down when to exactly take each sigil and pot. said to myself todays the day im gonna do it- put aside the whole day. but the lag spiikes make it so stressful and frrustrating - not to mention the RNG. getting to last stage with no deaths and dying cos of a lag spike was enough to make me stop going for flawless runs.

now i do it in a very systematic way- stress free. i now take my time- do 3 rounds, take a break do some writs, go back do 3 more- get some shards- open chests - do the undaunted dailies- then do the 3 final ones- that way it dosent build up and bother me. ive heard legendary mage does it that way too- otherwsie it can get way to stressful for players going for perfect runs. i just wish theyd give us servers so we can go for it here in oceania- why release a game in a country where it does not work ?!?

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

I am, however amused at the prospect that memorizing spawn locations somehow equates to skill.
...
Unless you're towards the top of the leaderboard, vMA is more about gear, tolerance, and repetition/memorization than it will ever be about skill.

No, exactly the opposite!

Memoization of spawn locations is what makes the difference between 150k and 500k+ score, as you essentially need to optimize the kill/time ratio. However to get to those ~150k (= to complete it first time) you need (i) skill, then (ii) skill, and then (iii) skill (= to learn how to dps while working under the constraints of arena mechanics). Nothing in this game taught me how to play my character better than vMA (and still teaching).

Moreover, when pug'ing in vet dungeons/trials, I can tell in no time who completed vMA and who has not, especially for stamina (NB) characters. Somehow they even move faster, doing 5 different things at a time - the battle did not even start, and they already put tones of aoes and dots here and there, and move, move, move like ninjas somehow "reading" the battle 2 steps ahead. I do not know, it is hard to explain, but you see those people immediately without looking at their title.