PTS Update 40 - Feedback Thread for Infinite Archive

AlterBlika

OtarTheMad wrote: »

So here I am positioning myself to take on these adds but distance myself from the boss… then I explode… apparently another one shot sword dropped down and I didn’t see it. This all happened in like 15 seconds maybe… how can I, as a solo player, fight that? The game was basically wanting me to fight tough adds, the boss, and kill the one shot sword thing all while healing through damage, blocking and other stuff… nah man. I’m just solo…

You can solo it, but here's another issue - you have only 3 attempts, so you kinda can't try different approaches build-wise. If you're not familiar with the boss, then no room for mistakes either. EA feels more like going for no-death runs in group content for me

maboleth

I seriously hoped this would be a dungeon to explore and see something unexpected, uncover some secrets by excavation etc.

It's just another arena with random bosses, three lives to try, so there you go. With the level lost the moment you logoff or try other things.

I'd suggest ZOS to change this behaviour to: Save progress -> No leaderboard placement. No save -> Leaderboard.

OtarTheMad

J18696 wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

J18696 wrote: »

I think nearly all the bosses I've fought besides the marauders are reasonable for soloing the problem is less skilled/knowledgeable players will run into is not being able to learn the mechanics because you get 3 attempts and are kicked out if they let you continue to push through the rounds after losing all threads and just not score it would give players a way to learn by letting them continue

Here is my issue, while I do agree that they should allow players to continue on but just not score it I am not sure it would matter in some cases.

I’ve watched some streams of players doing EA and I see that while they are solo they are running into tough bosses but not anything crazy for solo… they make sense.

However, in my case I am not sure what I could have done differently. Out of the 3 different runs I did I ran into the Serpent twice as I’ve mentioned a few billion times. During the second time I got it… kill the one shot sword, block and heal or dodge out of the poison AOE or whatever it was. But then The Serpent summons adds and these weren’t dinky little adds… no it was a Mantikora and a Lamia… could have sworn there was a third but I don’t remember right now and these didn’t tickle. So here I am positioning myself to take on these adds but distance myself from the boss… then I explode… apparently another one shot sword dropped down and I didn’t see it. This all happened in like 15 seconds maybe… how can I, as a solo player, fight that? The game was basically wanting me to fight tough adds, the boss, and kill the one shot sword thing all while healing through damage, blocking and other stuff… nah man. I’m just solo…

It’s so weird to me the different experiences players are having. Some solo are hitting hard bosses but ones that make sense for solo and some, like me, are hitting hard bosses but ones made for multiple players which does not make sense for solo.

I fought it earlier today and it's just about stacking it all together and aoe the manticores and lamia down with the boss so it might just be a dps check

This boss also has a mechanic where you need to pick up a pink/purple orb off the ground of the arena somewhere otherwise you will get one shot from memory the orbs spawn with the lamias

I don’t think I would have been able to do that since I was, at the time, built more of a tankier dps as that was bringing me more success in other fights. My first time through went okay but I felt like I needed more health and needed more resource sustain. Maybe if I had Pale Order I would have been able to take a heal off my bar for more aoe’s but I doubt I would have been able to burn down those adds and still get over to the one shot thing. It honestly happened so fast, the adds spawned and I think I got two or three shots down before I exploded.

Doesn’t seem like this is the content for me. I’m not an endgame player. I hope those who enjoy it have fun but I will stay with my solo’ing normal base game dungeons as my version of fun hard content. For groups I got PvP and normal DLC dungeons.

Toxic_Hemlock

If I may ask a question, I can't install it but...

Are there any random treasure chests to discover like in EVERY OTHER dungeon in the game?

If so how is the loot, and does it make up for the lack of rewards elsewhere?

If not, why not, it could, if done right, alleviate the pain somewhat of the non-existent loot players are reporting on.

Edit to add: I might have been mistaken and this is not, in fact, a dungeon per say, and more like an arena in which case it is rather deceptive. And honestly the game does not need another arena IMO. I would have preferred they put the person in charge of creating public dungeons in charge of this instead.

oogaboogaoogabooga

At some point after certain amount of arcs it gets very repetative and doesn't give that feeling of a unique fight every round anymore.You can meet the same boss over and over a few times, and the variety of trashmobs are not that large. I would suggest to change it somehow, like adding more different mobs further on and that if you defeated some boss you will not meet it again untill there are no bosses left that you haven't defeated, Then when there are no unique bosses left they reset and you can fight them randomly all again, you get the idea.
Because some bosses are so easy that it's not fun or challenging to fight them, and some are so hard that at further arc you don't wanna meet them again and again if you have already defeated them before imho.
People with bad rng will get really frustrated with this trust me on that

oogaboogaoogabooga

Also there should be a time window to login back if you get random disconnect from the game to not lose all the progress, right now if you get dced and log back you lose all the progress, it makes it really frustrating that you can lose all your progress after a few hours. Like for example at some point I tried to reload ui, got booted from the server after 5 hours run, logged back and guess what, I had to start from the stratch and the score that I had didn't go for the leaderboards. You should have like 5 minutes to log back without losing all the progress since there are no speedrun leaderboards.

Capricas_Kirito

Toxic_Hemlock wrote: »

If I may ask a question, I can't install it but...

Are there any random treasure chests to discover like in EVERY OTHER dungeon in the game?

[snip]

Not that I saw in any of my runs nor on the live stream.

ssewallb14_ESO

I do think you should be able to save progress in this. I'm sweaty enough to enjoy some of the later arcs but don't have the time or desire to keep doing the earlier ones for 40 minutes a run to get to something that might be fun. I'd rather just hop into a dungeon or trial. As it is I can't see myself running this for anything other than stickers. Love the concept though.

loveeso

Re. U40 & Endless Archive:

1. Please make it possible to skip one or two first arcs. For many of us having to go through such easy content every time when we start a new run is just boring / tiring and will make many of us avoid EA (like many of us avoid vDSA) which would be a shame because it has potential to be fun if you improve it.
2. Please make it possible to take a break and resume like we can with the vMA quest. Since score in EA is not related to time/speed and thus everyone who wishes can just switch builds (even without addons) while inside without any penalty, it should even allow us to still get onto the leaderboards after we resume.
3. Please make a separate leaderboard for the player+companion duo as these will otherwise never hit leaderboards (companions cannot compete with players). An easy fix to keep it fair: Please permanently flag the duo as player+player if the group contained two players at any moment in the run. Otherwise, keep it player+companion.
4. Please keep adding new locations (and, possibly, bosses) so that there is more and more variety and it gets more interesting with every update.
5. Please make the new EA currency exchangeable to other currencies (AP, Tel Var, writs - iirc we can already trade the new currency for gold). By opening access to so many other rewards already available in-game (furnishing, PvP sets and so on), this would incentivise so many more players to participate in EA runs. Of course the exchange rates would need to be sensible for this to work - e.g. hardly anyone will be interested in getting 5000 gold for an hour or two of EA. See: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/643414/new-endless-archive-currency-exchangeable-for-tel-var-ap-and-writs


Hope this helps, thanks

The above idea comes from the following megathread we keep, where everyone is encouraged to share their ideas of new features and improvements:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/640937/eso-kaizen-u40-u41-based-on-the-other-games-you-know-how-would-you-improve-eso#latest

jaws343

loveeso wrote: »

Re. U40 & Endless Archive:

1. Please make it possible to skip one or two first arcs. For many of us having to go through such easy content every time when we start a new run is just boring / tiring and will make many of us avoid EA (like many of us avoid vDSA) which would be a shame because it has potential to be fun if you improve it.
2. Please make it possible to take a break and resume like we can with the vMA quest. Since score in EA is not related to time/speed and thus everyone who wishes can just switch builds (even without addons) while inside without any penalty, it should even allow us to still get onto the leaderboards after we resume.
3. Please make a separate leaderboard for the player+companion duo as these will otherwise never hit leaderboards (companions cannot compete with players). An easy fix to keep it fair: Please permanently flag the duo as player+player if the group contained two players at any moment in the run. Otherwise, keep it player+companion.
4. Please keep adding new locations (and, possibly, bosses) so that there is more and more variety and it gets more interesting with every update.
5. Please make the new EA currency exchangeable to other currencies (AP, Tel Var, writs - iirc we can already trade the new currency for gold). By opening access to so many other rewards already available in-game (furnishing, PvP sets and so on), this would incentivise so many more players to participate in EA runs. Of course the exchange rates would need to be sensible for this to work - e.g. hardly anyone will be interested in getting 5000 gold for an hour or two of EA. See: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/643414/new-endless-archive-currency-exchangeable-for-tel-var-ap-and-writs


Hope this helps, thanks

The above idea comes from the following megathread we keep, where everyone is encouraged to share their ideas of new features and improvements:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/640937/eso-kaizen-u40-u41-based-on-the-other-games-you-know-how-would-you-improve-eso#latest

But that isn't even true. You are locked in to whatever morphs you have or gear you have ready when you enter.

Allowing players to come and go would allow them to specifically craft gear or change skill morphs for each individual fight they encounter. Which would basically defeat the purpose of the survive as you are aspect of the instance.

AlterBlika

jaws343 wrote: »

But that isn't even true. You are locked in to whatever morphs you have or gear you have ready when you enter.

Allowing players to come and go would allow them to specifically craft gear or change skill morphs for each individual fight they encounter. Which would basically defeat the purpose of the survive as you are aspect of the instance.

You should have multiple sets for soloing anyway, and switch them depending on content. It's like having trash setups for trials. Change skill morphs? I know no encounter where you would have to change morphs, speaking from my perspective (stam nb), so maybe other specs might have to

loveeso

jaws343 wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

Re. U40 & Endless Archive:

1. Please make it possible to skip one or two first arcs. For many of us having to go through such easy content every time when we start a new run is just boring / tiring and will make many of us avoid EA (like many of us avoid vDSA) which would be a shame because it has potential to be fun if you improve it.
2. Please make it possible to take a break and resume like we can with the vMA quest. Since score in EA is not related to time/speed and thus everyone who wishes can just switch builds (even without addons) while inside without any penalty, it should even allow us to still get onto the leaderboards after we resume.
3. Please make a separate leaderboard for the player+companion duo as these will otherwise never hit leaderboards (companions cannot compete with players). An easy fix to keep it fair: Please permanently flag the duo as player+player if the group contained two players at any moment in the run. Otherwise, keep it player+companion.
4. Please keep adding new locations (and, possibly, bosses) so that there is more and more variety and it gets more interesting with every update.
5. Please make the new EA currency exchangeable to other currencies (AP, Tel Var, writs - iirc we can already trade the new currency for gold). By opening access to so many other rewards already available in-game (furnishing, PvP sets and so on), this would incentivise so many more players to participate in EA runs. Of course the exchange rates would need to be sensible for this to work - e.g. hardly anyone will be interested in getting 5000 gold for an hour or two of EA. See: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/643414/new-endless-archive-currency-exchangeable-for-tel-var-ap-and-writs


Hope this helps, thanks

The above idea comes from the following megathread we keep, where everyone is encouraged to share their ideas of new features and improvements:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/640937/eso-kaizen-u40-u41-based-on-the-other-games-you-know-how-would-you-improve-eso#latest

But that isn't even true. You are locked in to whatever morphs you have or gear you have ready when you enter.

Allowing players to come and go would allow them to specifically craft gear or change skill morphs for each individual fight they encounter. Which would basically defeat the purpose of the survive as you are aspect of the instance.

As I have written in my previous post, from inside EA you can swap skills, use skill respec scrolls to change morphs or reassign attribute points, and you can also switch gear. No idea how you can claim that "it's now even true". Everything I wrote had been tested before I posted it.
You can even leave the EA instance, do whatever you want (craft, buy, whatever), and teleport back in if you play in a duo… so the stuff you write really doesn’t make sense

Wildberryjack

Can we have a non-leaderboard version of this that has no 3 and done and is soloable? Otherwise a lot of players will not even bother. I'd like to do it because it's interesting in a way but flying solo it's pretty much impossible. There needs to be a solo version, just tone down the bosses to give us a chance to actually beat them. It doesn't have to be easy, I don't mind a challenge, I just don't like an impossibility. For that one boss, my being chained stunned and damaged each time, yeah that counts as an impossibility. Why would anyone bother with that?

If you intend this to be like vet dungeons where you can not solo them then that's fine, but just say so. That way those of us not geared or good enough for that content know not to waste our time on it.

jaws343

loveeso wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

Re. U40 & Endless Archive:

1. Please make it possible to skip one or two first arcs. For many of us having to go through such easy content every time when we start a new run is just boring / tiring and will make many of us avoid EA (like many of us avoid vDSA) which would be a shame because it has potential to be fun if you improve it.
2. Please make it possible to take a break and resume like we can with the vMA quest. Since score in EA is not related to time/speed and thus everyone who wishes can just switch builds (even without addons) while inside without any penalty, it should even allow us to still get onto the leaderboards after we resume.
3. Please make a separate leaderboard for the player+companion duo as these will otherwise never hit leaderboards (companions cannot compete with players). An easy fix to keep it fair: Please permanently flag the duo as player+player if the group contained two players at any moment in the run. Otherwise, keep it player+companion.
4. Please keep adding new locations (and, possibly, bosses) so that there is more and more variety and it gets more interesting with every update.
5. Please make the new EA currency exchangeable to other currencies (AP, Tel Var, writs - iirc we can already trade the new currency for gold). By opening access to so many other rewards already available in-game (furnishing, PvP sets and so on), this would incentivise so many more players to participate in EA runs. Of course the exchange rates would need to be sensible for this to work - e.g. hardly anyone will be interested in getting 5000 gold for an hour or two of EA. See: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/643414/new-endless-archive-currency-exchangeable-for-tel-var-ap-and-writs


Hope this helps, thanks

The above idea comes from the following megathread we keep, where everyone is encouraged to share their ideas of new features and improvements:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/640937/eso-kaizen-u40-u41-based-on-the-other-games-you-know-how-would-you-improve-eso#latest

But that isn't even true. You are locked in to whatever morphs you have or gear you have ready when you enter.

Allowing players to come and go would allow them to specifically craft gear or change skill morphs for each individual fight they encounter. Which would basically defeat the purpose of the survive as you are aspect of the instance.

[Snip]

As I have written in my previous post, from inside EA you can swap skills, use skill respec scrolls to change morphs or reassign attribute points, and you can also switch gear. Everything I wrote had been tested before I posted it.

Everything you mention requires you to have those things ALREADY on hand, in the instance or your bank, in order to do them.

All of which requires prior prep before entering.

You cannot respec morphs or skill points, unless you already have a respec scroll. A scroll which costs crowns...
You cannot swap gear unless you have already pre-crafted it or collected it prior to enterring the instance and it is in your bank or on your person already.

So, if that gear is on an alt or in a storage chest you cannot swap to it. If you don't want to pay crowns for a respec, you cannot do it in game in that instance.

[Snip]. You have to have all of the resources ready to go to change anything about your build in the instance. Not in storage, not on an alt, not in your stickerbook.

Which, to my point, prevents you from hopping in an out of the instance to craft gear that fits the boss or stage you are on, or jumping out to use your armory. Or jumping out to go farm set X to wear in a specific fight. Sure, you can pre-craft pre-farm it all and spend 100s of dollars on respec scrolls, but you are still having to go in prepped for the instance.

[Edited quote and removed content]

code65536

There should be crafting stations in the lobby.

Right now, you can spend literally hours in there. You're consuming food and potions that you may need to replenish mid-run. You're accumulating loot that you might want to decon.

loveeso

jaws343 wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

Re. U40 & Endless Archive:

1. Please make it possible to skip one or two first arcs. For many of us having to go through such easy content every time when we start a new run is just boring / tiring and will make many of us avoid EA (like many of us avoid vDSA) which would be a shame because it has potential to be fun if you improve it.
2. Please make it possible to take a break and resume like we can with the vMA quest. Since score in EA is not related to time/speed and thus everyone who wishes can just switch builds (even without addons) while inside without any penalty, it should even allow us to still get onto the leaderboards after we resume.
3. Please make a separate leaderboard for the player+companion duo as these will otherwise never hit leaderboards (companions cannot compete with players). An easy fix to keep it fair: Please permanently flag the duo as player+player if the group contained two players at any moment in the run. Otherwise, keep it player+companion.
4. Please keep adding new locations (and, possibly, bosses) so that there is more and more variety and it gets more interesting with every update.
5. Please make the new EA currency exchangeable to other currencies (AP, Tel Var, writs - iirc we can already trade the new currency for gold). By opening access to so many other rewards already available in-game (furnishing, PvP sets and so on), this would incentivise so many more players to participate in EA runs. Of course the exchange rates would need to be sensible for this to work - e.g. hardly anyone will be interested in getting 5000 gold for an hour or two of EA. See: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/643414/new-endless-archive-currency-exchangeable-for-tel-var-ap-and-writs


Hope this helps, thanks

The above idea comes from the following megathread we keep, where everyone is encouraged to share their ideas of new features and improvements:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/640937/eso-kaizen-u40-u41-based-on-the-other-games-you-know-how-would-you-improve-eso#latest

But that isn't even true. You are locked in to whatever morphs you have or gear you have ready when you enter.

Of course it's true. Everything I wrote.

code65536

This is a DAILY endeavor?!?!??!?!?!?



Even if it was just one time, this would be a pretty time-consuming daily endeavor. It would be equivalent to "Complete XYZ dungeon 1 time with a guildmate". But two times?! For a daily?!

acastanza_ESO

So far I'm loving the Endless Archive - with one exception the Marauder.
The current iteration of the Marauder is super un-fun. First trash pull of the second arc getting a wildly disproportionate boss fight in the middle of ads you're already fighting and getting practically one-shot by it is an awful experience
Marauders need to be scaled to the arc you're on.

Other than that, my only criticism is that the ad pulls on early stages are too slow. Just spawn them in all at once and let you pull at your own speed.

acastanza_ESO

oogaboogaoogabooga wrote: »

J18696 wrote: »

oogaboogaoogabooga wrote: »

So after finishing solo whole non repetative circles up to the circle 7 I can assure you the maraderus that are spawning midfight are way overtuned. It's basically the most difficult bosses right now, harder than the final ones, almost every time if you are soloing it's a guaranteed death. I think you should tune down them a little, especially the one that casting tornadoes, it had 9kk hp, I doubt there is a way to kill him fast enough before he casts 300 tornados everywhere. Make him cast tornado 1 at a time, imho

I've managed to take down the tornado marauder it's the other one I have issues with forget it's name but it looks very similar to magma incarnate hitting me for 22k hits in a duo it's not to bad but solo that particular marauder is a certain death so far for me

At some point they are getting so much damage and hp that it's just getting ridiculously hard, you basically are not allowed to take any hits and have to kill trashmobs as well at the same time
https://imgur.com/a/6TAyf4x

The concept of the marauders is great, but the lack of scaling to the arc you're on is really unfun.

code65536

Having run EA a bit more, I'll say that Zhaj'hassa the Forgotten is the worst boss that I've encountered.

The two problems are the curses and the placement of the pillars.

In the trial itself, curses affect 3 people out of 12. So on average, you're getting cursed every 4 curse cycles. In the EA, you're getting cursed every single time, and it's excessive.

In the trial itself, when the tank gets the curse, the other tank takes over, so that the boss doesn't chase you to the edge of the room, but in the EA, the boss will end up near the edge. So he'll end up at the edge, then get stuck there because he immediately does the shield mechanic, after which he does the shatter, and there's no opportunity to move him back to the middle, which is problematic when the pillar for the shatter ends up on the opposite side of the room.

And finally, in the trial itself, the pillar placement is player-controllable; it'll spawn at the location of the player farthest from the boss, so when players stay close you get pillars close to the boss. But in the EA, pillar placement is random and is almost always all the way out in Narnia.

In short, Zhaj'hassa in the EA is arguably more difficult and worse than what you encounter in the trial itself, because the translation of this boss from trial to EA was, frankly, poorly done.

Necrotech_Master

code65536 wrote: »

This is a DAILY endeavor?!?!??!?!?!?



Even if it was just one time, this would be a pretty time-consuming daily endeavor. It would be equivalent to "Complete XYZ dungeon 1 time with a guildmate". But two times?! For a daily?!

does "complete" in the sense of the archive just mean 2 runs, regardless if you went through the entire thing, or the run ended early because you were out of lives?

code65536

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

This is a DAILY endeavor?!?!??!?!?!?



Even if it was just one time, this would be a pretty time-consuming daily endeavor. It would be equivalent to "Complete XYZ dungeon 1 time with a guildmate". But two times?! For a daily?!

does "complete" in the sense of the archive just mean 2 runs, regardless if you went through the entire thing, or the run ended early because you were out of lives?

This means defeating the Arc boss twice. So either complete Arc 1 twice, or complete Arc 1 and Arc 2.

ESO_player123

code65536 wrote: »

Having run EA a bit more, I'll say that Zhaj'hassa the Forgotten is the worst boss that I've encountered.

The two problems are the curses and the placement of the pillars.

In the trial itself, curses affect 3 people out of 12. So on average, you're getting cursed every 4 curse cycles. In the EA, you're getting cursed every single time, and it's excessive.

In the trial itself, when the tank gets the curse, the other tank takes over, so that the boss doesn't chase you to the edge of the room, but in the EA, the boss will end up near the edge. So he'll end up at the edge, then get stuck there because he immediately does the shield mechanic, after which he does the shatter, and there's no opportunity to move him back to the middle, which is problematic when the pillar for the shatter ends up on the opposite side of the room.

And finally, in the trial itself, the pillar placement is player-controllable; it'll spawn at the location of the player farthest from the boss, so when players stay close you get pillars close to the boss. But in the EA, pillar placement is random and is almost always all the way out in Narnia.

In short, Zhaj'hassa in the EA is arguably more difficult and worse than what you encounter in the trial itself, because the translation of this boss from trial to EA was, frankly, poorly done.

Imagine what all of this is going to do to any player (like me) who has never been to any trials. When I first heard about EA I though it will be something anyone can reasonably participate in. Judging by the feedback, that is not really the case. Oh, well...

Toxic_Hemlock

ESO_player123 wrote: »

...snip
Imagine what all of this is going to do to any player (like me) who has never been to any trials. When I first heard about EA I though it will be something anyone can reasonably participate in. Judging by the feedback, that is not really the case. Oh, well...

Right there with ya, from now on I'll just call EA the Endless Arena, and forget it exists like the rest of them.

Edit: slippery keyboard

skinnycheeks

Really loving the archive. The concept is insanely good. But after a few runs, I'm noticing one thing that many others that have done it a few times now are also saying...

It takes TOO long to progress through it

Each of my runs has been 3-5 hours now. That is a bit more than most want to sit down for. The # of bosses per arc feels great, but I think removing one of the non-boss stages from each cycle would go a long way. So maybe 3 stages total instead of 4 for each cycle (2 stages of adds + 1 boss = 1 cycle.) The base pop starts to feel really tedious having to do the same 3 pack formula over and over to get to the bosses.

The difficulty ramp up from arc 1 > arc 2 > arc 3 > etc. feels good I think. And through the smaller increments as well. It just takes too long to progress through them.

Also, GoAvs tested and noticed that the bosses in the arc have a pattern of 9100, 18200, 27300, and 36400 resistances. And the Marauder's that drop in also have 36400 resistances. This is especially out of whack with the rest of the adds that accompany the Marauder as they only have 9100 resistance. So essentially you have to build for WAY over pen on all of the adds on the off chance that the Marauder drops in. I'm not sure if this is intentional but thought it was worth bringing up at least in case it isn't.

ninibini

When you loose your last thread on a boss fight, you should be allowed to continue with as many tries as you want on that boss fight. So you a) have a chance to learn/understand mechanics, and b) a chance at loot. And EA should end after you have killed that boss (or leave before that).

code65536

Fabled:

It would be nice if the Fabled are more visually distinct.

They are meant to be bannermen... except they have no banners and they often blend in with the rest of the base pop.

Sticking a banner on their backs will go a long way to help distinguish them.


Boss curation to avoid repeats:

There are some bosses that people have talked about in this thread who I have yet to encounter despite the number of hours that I've spent. And there are bosses that I've encountered multiple times within the same run. It would be nice if the bosses were "curated"; i.e., you'll always get a boss that you haven't encountered yet in that run, until you've encountered them all, at which point it can go back to being completely random.

AJTC5000

Some immediate thoughts:

• The Tho'at encounter, specifically the particles, effects and terrain shifting visual effects, are really strong on the eyes, and I feel these would be particularly damaging to people who have photo-sensitivity. The shiny effects all being the same also lead to a lot of visual confusion during the encounter.
• The Cyclone Incarnate Marauder Hilkarax is incredibly over-tuned compared to the Fire and Water ones. The lightning vortices being permanent is incredibly punishing to lower damage team configurations, especially in arenas with limited space.
• To emphasize from the above point, a lot of the Stages are particularly cramped, which is not very helpful when there's a lot of area denial AoEs.
• Zhaj'assa the Forgotten has been translated very poorly for a 2-man encounter. Curses are way too frequent, requiring the use of the cleanse on cooldown, and when the pillars are spawning on the other side of the room, the snare is so punishing that often the damage dealers will die - particularly bad for melee characters.
• Weird de-sync issues upon using the portal where a character will be able to move on their screen, but not on their partner's, and only solved by a relog. Relogging whilst in combat consumes a Thread . . .
• The Stage/Cycle/Arc counter is not always showing, with the "Stage X/X/X" message upon the start of a stage often just showing "Stage" - this might be a conflicting add-on issue however.
• The jump between Arc 2 and Arc 3, particularly in the Tho'at encounter, is a huge jump. I don't see solo players being able to complete this on the regular?

For context, my main experience playing roguelike games is Gunfire Reborn. Whilst this mode is still a lot different than that, I have a couple of suggestions for improvement based on my experience in GR:

• Make Verses persist. Currently this would be pretty broken, so with the below caveat:
• Swap the current Visions and Verses. Visions as they currently are underwhelming compared to the Verses, just being stat buffs. So it makes more sense to me to be able to stack more of these, and let the flashier Verses be the reward for defeating bosses. For context, Gunfire Reborn's "stages" reward you with basic modifiers to your character abilities, while boss kills reward more potent and unique buffs that are a lot more powerful. The current verses could be reduced in power/increased in cooldown to compensate for their continuous availability. This would also make the buildcrafting a lot more involved, instead of simply dismissing the current Verses unless you're about to face a boss.
• Combine the three trash pulls in a Stage into a single pull. Stages as they are currently are a lot of busywork, with the second trash pull of each Stage being particularly underwhelming. Combining these into a single pull would make them more engaging.

J18696

skinnycheeks wrote: »

Really loving the archive. The concept is insanely good. But after a few runs, I'm noticing one thing that many others that have done it a few times now are also saying...

It takes TOO long to progress through it

Each of my runs has been 3-5 hours now. That is a bit more than most want to sit down for. The # of bosses per arc feels great, but I think removing one of the non-boss stages from each cycle would go a long way. So maybe 3 stages total instead of 4 for each cycle (2 stages of adds + 1 boss = 1 cycle.) The base pop starts to feel really tedious having to do the same 3 pack formula over and over to get to the bosses.

The difficulty ramp up from arc 1 > arc 2 > arc 3 > etc. feels good I think. And through the smaller increments as well. It just takes too long to progress through them.

Also, GoAvs tested and noticed that the bosses in the arc have a pattern of 9100, 18200, 27300, and 36400 resistances. And the Marauder's that drop in also have 36400 resistances. This is especially out of whack with the rest of the adds that accompany the Marauder as they only have 9100 resistance. So essentially you have to build for WAY over pen on all of the adds on the off chance that the Marauder drops in. I'm not sure if this is intentional but thought it was worth bringing up at least in case it isn't.

I dont mind it being time consuming honestly but the trash rooms start to take longer than boss fights and I would rather have majority of my time on bosses then grinding through trash mobs with half a mill health

mdjessup4906

Dumb question, but what is a marauder? I've been in there 5 times and haven't seen anything called that.