And again, if that "tiny minority" is so tiny, why anger them, for no reason?
That argument goes both ways.

Question and be honest.

If ZoS had added a new weapon set to VMA but called it something COMPLETELY different like Staff or Bow of Maurading Hate with better stats for example would that have been better? I think there would have far less complaining people would be thrilled I think.

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

Question and be honest.

If ZoS had added a new weapon set to VMA but called it something COMPLETELY different like Staff or Bow of Maurading Hate with better stats for example would that have been better? I think there would have far less complaining people would be thrilled I think.

My hunch is that there would have still been an outcry, although it's always tough to gauge emotional reactions to a hypothetical. The core issue has never been about the specific gear for most of us, more that the rewards structure shifted out from underneath us. We object to getting to a finish line of a marathon for the best weapon, only to have ZOS pull a bait and switch on us and say, "Haha, you thought that was the best?! Sorry, no, this is the best! Go run it again if you want it."

The fact that the perfected weapons offer only a negligible bonus probably actually leads to less criticism, as many people just shrug and say NOPE and forget about it. If there were a more noticeable power advantage to the new weapons, those people would probably be complaining too.

I can certainly appreciate Rich Lambert being personally invested into the game, however, this also makes him act or at least appear very unprofessional. Further subjective and emotional reasoning holds very little value in my opinion and I would much more prefer objective and statistical explanations for changes to the game.

He said to regrind the weapons of I want the perfected version. It took me over 3 years to drop a vMA flame staff and a vMA bow which I have drop only once in my life time of both of them after several hundreds of runs and wasn’t even in the preferred trait. Luckily we got transmute stones now to fix the trait. I’m so not looking forward to regrind perfected weapons from vDSA and vMA. Yeah, the increase may not seem too great for organized PvP groups, but some of the extra stats can affect certain PvP builds significantly, and a solo payer could use all the help they can get whether they run a meta build or not. Fortunately most vMA weapons are preferred for backbar and does effect too much. It’s the vDSA weapons such has the Destro staff and 2Hand that will get affected since that is used for front and back.

brennz wrote: »

the entire point is to get people doing MA and if there’s no reason to do vMA, then they haven’t met their goal.

But that wasn't their stated goal. Rich said their design goal was to make the weapons more accessible. The choice of how to handle existing weapons had nothing to do with their vision or goals.

According to his own words, Rich made the call not to upgrade because he was intentionally drawing a line about not upgrading things that don't change in power, regardless of circumstances. He admits it's a line that seems arbitrary and upsetting, but it's apparently a line he thinks is important enough that he's willing to upset some people over it.

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@ZOS_RichLambert thanks for the feedback but you're missing the mark again.

85% of users polled in the forums were against the decision. It's a small sample compared to the total user base but you can't count the thousands that didn't answer in either camp therefore, a majority of players polled were disagreeing with your decision.

As for not losing power, you're mistaken because, as weak as they are, they still raise the power cap and as raising the power cap is equivalent to increasing gear level which wasn't part of the deal.

Let me just give you an example of another way your decision is unacceptable. Let's pretend you introduced Perfected Vicious Ophidian at a certain event. I believe NOBODY would object to you not upgrading. I certainly wouldn't. Here's why:

Pre-Greymoor post

vMA Non-perfected. Perfected
nMA Nothing. Nonperfected

Pre perfected VO. Post
Vet crag non-perfected Perfected
Normal. Non-perfected Non-perfected

There's no way to tell which piece of VO was earned at what difficulty therefore no way to upgrade the gear. And from observation, a lot of end game raiders farmed their stuff on normal to save some time. I saw that a lot when AY became bis.

For Maelstrom Arena and Dragonstar Arena, there were no rewards for completing normal so EVERY SINGLE PRE-BLACKROSE ARENA WEAPON was earned by either completing veteran difficulty and the leaderboard rewards.

So the reward structure was broken with the introduction of pre-blackrose prison perfected arena weapons and that's one of the biggest issues with your decision, it's inconsistent.

Now, you use your enthusiasm with completing vMA as a reason to go back in there and "earn" weapons that were essentially already earned before. In no way is your desire to do something a proper justification for sending players back in there. I can complete vMA with every class stam and mag with a score of at least 550k except for Sorc where, without ever pushing score (can't be bothered to remember all that crap), I can easily get a 570-580k. Imagine, I don't even push scores...

That doesn't make it that I want to go back. I don't want to have to go back. I farmed Elemental Succession set recently, have dozens of golded Master and Maelstrom weapons. I don't need a reason to go back.

If it was your intention to revatalize the content, you missed the opportunity by a very large margin. You frustrated the playerbase and didn't introduce anything new.

In short, you missed the mark. With the performance issues we experience, we absolutely do not need more annoyances. You haven't fixed desyncs, which you admit having with the change to barswap cool-down, and you want the playerbase to complete semi-competitive content.

Many faux-pas committed on this case.

Parting note: I'm happy with the set changes (still salty about ravaging and Veiled Heritance who fell into obsolescence), I enjoy the base crit resistance, dont know how I feel about the healing nerf but wtv. In essence YOU ARE DOING SOME THINGS RIGHT but you owe it to the playerbase to make the experience a good one and part of it, is being humble and admitting it when there is fault.

Ps: I, in no way, am under the impression that Rich will read this but... Worth a try...