PTS Update 40 - Feedback Thread for Infinite Archive

RaptorRodeoGod

It'd be nice if losing all your lives just took you off the leaderboard, and you could keep going. You know, like with all other content? 🤔

How else is anybody gonna learn what they're having trouble with?

Tannus15

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

Also, you get the unfair platformer problem with some mechanics when you only get 3 lives instead of infinite.
I get it that ESO in general has little conveyance deliberately, but it becomes unfun with limited lives. Someone mentioned letting the player complete a stage after losing all lives before resetting the instance, which seems like a good solution.

This feels to me like the best solution. It will give people an opportunity to work out boss mechanics or whatever and in the case of the arc boss let them still get some sort of reward for their time and effort.

Parrot1986

RicAlmighty wrote: »

Parrot1986 wrote: »

Whilst having less trash is better the trash we have is still useless. Having buffs remove after the next phase is pointless and having them not carry on is a major issue.

I don't necessarily agree fully with this. The "trash" in the 2 stages is akin to the trash in Dungeons or Trials, it's there to get in your way and you get nothing from it in either of those too. I don't need verses to carry through the whole cycle, but it would be nice to have more "boss specific" verses that you can choose specifically before a boss fight. Some of the general verses are kind of useless against bosses and it feels like you got screwed by RNG in those cases.

I think the number of Fortunes needs to be increased dramatically if the vendor prices are going to stay at what they are on the PTS. Considering most players are not going to get much farther than Arc 2, if they even make it that far, you are looking at a lot of 30 minute runs just to get something reasonable from the vendor. The time being spent is not worth the reward currently, on that I agree. But I think the overall reward segmentation is ok for the most part.

This isnt a normal dungeon or trial though, this is more rogue like content. From what I've done with these running Hades a little bit and WoWs version the idea was that these buffs helped you to build for your entire run and create a bespoke build or amplify your current build to address the ramping difficulty. Having them be added and then removed defeats the point of this a bit.

Also trash in dungeons and trials at least give the chance to drop gear so having this as a small option wouldnt be a bad thing for me.

Overall I do think the change is a step in the right direction, will try it on PTS later today but it's still some way short of what I'd love to do with this different type of content to keep me playing long term rather than just get achievements and gear and be gone.

DinoZavr

as for PTS Patch Notes v9.2.3

Cycle Bosses can now drop Overland Set Items.
Each week, 2 overland zones will be selected in a random rotation. One zone will be selected from the base game zones, available to all players, and one zone will be selected from DLC zones, only available to players with relevant content access.
Each boss will pull from the available overland sets associated with these zones.

Dear Zenimax, this is rather pointless.
Overland gear is tradeable and most of overland sets are of no interest to the players, being, basically, a deconstruction thing.
There are very few sets which might be useable (like Briarheart, Pariah, Mothers Sorrow), but they, most likely, already are in the player's stickerbooks, so, could you, please, explain me what is your point?

FantasticFreddie

Yeah, adding the overland sets feels like a way to show they increased the rewards on paper, without meaningfully increasing the rewards for the players.

jaws343

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

Yeah, adding the overland sets feels like a way to show they increased the rewards on paper, without meaningfully increasing the rewards for the players.

If they wanted to add sets, I'd think just adding sets across the entire game would be a better approach. Dungeons, trials, arenas, PVP, overland. Leave out monster sets and perfected sets. And let these drops be curated. Could be interesting and provide some value for players when certain sets not in their stickerbooks drop.

oogaboogaoogabooga

Good changes this week, all left now is to make checkpoints or allow people to save the progress.

ssewallb14_ESO

I should add that I find the base pop pretty fun starting at arc 3. There's just a bit too much of it and not enough variation. It also feels noticeably harder than the cycle bosses, which feels a bit off. Maybe it's because I'm running arcanist, but I just end up bursting most of the cycle bosses as some of the DPS verses are really powerful, and I almost always end up with an OP one by the time the cycle boss comes around. The hardest part for me as the arcs progress is dealing with elite adds while others are spamming heavy attacks and other weird mini-mechanics, while most of the cycle bosses feel like a parse.

This is a good time though. It would be cool to have more difficult solo/duo stuff.

Toxic_Hemlock

jaws343 wrote: »

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

Yeah, adding the overland sets feels like a way to show they increased the rewards on paper, without meaningfully increasing the rewards for the players.

If they wanted to add sets, I'd think just adding sets across the entire game would be a better approach. Dungeons, trials, arenas, PVP, overland. Leave out monster sets and perfected sets. And let these drops be curated. Could be interesting and provide some value for players when certain sets not in their stickerbooks drop.

So much THIS...

I'll never do trials, most PvP, or most arenas for that matter. At a curated 2 items from said content a week it would still take years for me complete a set, but it may give me one items I have always wanted. Leaving out the perfected versions and monster sets is fine too, as there should still be rewards for those that like to earn that stuff.

Provided a casual could do the daily, I'd be fine with this.

RaptorRodeoGod

It'd be cool if each boos dropped gear from their respective zone/dungeon, to pay homage to where it came from

AJTC5000

Echoing the sentiments for the Week 4 changes:

• Thank you for removing a Stage
• Overland gear is not the answer - these are cheap, tradeable pieces that most players will find faster to get from the actual Overland source, rather than the Archive.

Necrotech_Master

i also am questioning adding overland gear, this may only slightly benefit certain zones which have curation issues (such as jewelry from wrothgar for example), but in general its not hard to buy anything your missing

i also agree with others that it would be easier for people to just get the overland gear drops from the actual overland than doing the archive

instead of gear there are other items that would be of value as well:

• housing mats (decorative wax, heartwood, etc)
• alchemy mats
• currencies (tel var, writ vouchers, AP)
• furnishing blueprints

im sure the list could go on, but any of those would be far more useful than overland set gear

if you want to add gear in here, then add gear from at least dungeons on a rotating basis so you have an alternative place to farm them instead of the dungeon itself

Elsonso

DinoZavr wrote: »

Dear Zenimax, this is rather pointless.
Overland gear is tradeable and most of overland sets are of no interest to the players, being, basically, a deconstruction thing.
There are very few sets which might be useable (like Briarheart, Pariah, Mothers Sorrow), but they, most likely, already are in the player's stickerbooks, so, could you, please, explain me what is your point?

Not everyone has their sticker books all filled out. Every opportunity for overland and dungeon sets to drop should be taken.

Luke_Flamesword

Every opportunity for overland and dungeon sets to drop should be taken.

If you need overland sets, just go in public dungeon and you will have half of collection in 20 minutes. But dungeon sets? Yeah, it would be REAL reward, not fake one.

We have also plenty of PvP sets which are much more difficult to get.

Everything will be better than overland sets which are biggest no-brainer in whole game.

Elsonso

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

Every opportunity for overland and dungeon sets to drop should be taken.

If you need overland sets, just go in public dungeon and you will have half of collection in 20 minutes. But dungeon sets? Yeah, it would be REAL reward, not fake one.

We have also plenty of PvP sets which are much more difficult to get.

Everything will be better than overland sets which are biggest no-brainer in whole game.

And yet... what percentage of the active game population do you think has every piece of overland gear? It would be interesting to find out, but I would not be surprised if that number isn't even at 50%.

Necrotech_Master

Elsonso wrote: »

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

Every opportunity for overland and dungeon sets to drop should be taken.

If you need overland sets, just go in public dungeon and you will have half of collection in 20 minutes. But dungeon sets? Yeah, it would be REAL reward, not fake one.

We have also plenty of PvP sets which are much more difficult to get.

Everything will be better than overland sets which are biggest no-brainer in whole game.

And yet... what percentage of the active game population do you think has every piece of overland gear? It would be interesting to find out, but I would not be surprised if that number isn't even at 50%.

putting overland gear in the archive will not entice people to go there though

and at the fact that its going to be limited to 2 zones at a time for a period of a week (1 dlc and 1 non-dlc, the dlc only dropping if you have the respective dlc), its still going to be significantly less time consuming to just farm the actual overland zone you want the gear from than waiting for it to show up in endless archive

the only "overland" that would make any sense at all to add to the archive would be cyrodiil overland drops, since while the loot pool there was expanded, the zone still severely lacks curation for most of the gear (its limited to jewelry from dolmens, and the drops from delve bosses, which is 2 pc of gear)

ESO_player123

Elsonso wrote: »

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

Every opportunity for overland and dungeon sets to drop should be taken.

If you need overland sets, just go in public dungeon and you will have half of collection in 20 minutes. But dungeon sets? Yeah, it would be REAL reward, not fake one.

We have also plenty of PvP sets which are much more difficult to get.

Everything will be better than overland sets which are biggest no-brainer in whole game.

And yet... what percentage of the active game population do you think has every piece of overland gear? It would be interesting to find out, but I would not be surprised if that number isn't even at 50%.

What percentage of the game population that still does not have the sticker book filled is ready to grind EA to fill it? I probably have some pieces absent here and there, but EA would be the last place I would go to obtain them (if I suddenly want them for some reason).

As people above noted, adding dungeon gear as drops would be another story altogether, but we are not offered that (and I doubt that they would do it).

Rkindaleft

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

It'd be cool if each boos dropped gear from their respective zone/dungeon, to pay homage to where it came from

I agree, they should've never added overland gear sets as rewards and instead should've buffed the currency obtained/made class sets drop from more enemies, but this would be a cool addition if they plan to stick with this idea.

Rkindaleft

Elsonso wrote: »

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

Every opportunity for overland and dungeon sets to drop should be taken.

If you need overland sets, just go in public dungeon and you will have half of collection in 20 minutes. But dungeon sets? Yeah, it would be REAL reward, not fake one.

We have also plenty of PvP sets which are much more difficult to get.

Everything will be better than overland sets which are biggest no-brainer in whole game.

And yet... what percentage of the active game population do you think has every piece of overland gear? It would be interesting to find out, but I would not be surprised if that number isn't even at 50%.

It's rather that most experienced players bar completionists don't care about obtaining the sets this way nor filling their collections of sets they will never use as there are only very few (Mother's Sorrow, Briarheart, Venomous Smite, maybe a couple others) that are even moderately close to being comparable with good dungeon/trial sets. The less experienced players aren't going to farm these sets in the Endless Archive because they will have a much easier time farming them in overland or even just buying them for pennies.

Also being limited to 2 zones a week means that the vast majority of the time you're going to get zones that only have junk. They should've just buffed how much currency you get or have the class sets drop from more sources and it would've been way better.

Tannus15

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

It'd be cool if each boos dropped gear from their respective zone/dungeon, to pay homage to where it came from

This seems like the best answer.
Defeat the boss, get the drop. You want me to fight the serpent? drop trial gear.

Tandor

Elsonso wrote: »

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

Every opportunity for overland and dungeon sets to drop should be taken.

If you need overland sets, just go in public dungeon and you will have half of collection in 20 minutes. But dungeon sets? Yeah, it would be REAL reward, not fake one.

We have also plenty of PvP sets which are much more difficult to get.

Everything will be better than overland sets which are biggest no-brainer in whole game.

And yet... what percentage of the active game population do you think has every piece of overland gear? It would be interesting to find out, but I would not be surprised if that number isn't even at 50%.

Every piece? I'd be surprised if it was even 1%.

RaptorRodeoGod

Tannus15 wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

It'd be cool if each boos dropped gear from their respective zone/dungeon, to pay homage to where it came from

This seems like the best answer.
Defeat the boss, get the drop. You want me to fight the serpent? drop trial gear.

I didn't even think of trial gear, I like my suggestion even more now lmao

Elsonso

ESO_player123 wrote: »

What percentage of the game population that still does not have the sticker book filled is ready to grind EA to fill it? I probably have some pieces absent here and there, but EA would be the last place I would go to obtain them (if I suddenly want them for some reason).

I think my point is getting confused. I don't expect people to drop everything overland and go to Endless Archive to get overland gear. I expect that they will be doing Endless Archive because of Endless Archive, and it would be nice if they also got curated overland gear when they did it. That is what I mean by "every opportunity" to provide that loot.

Lugaldu

It would also be nice if they not only added overland set-pieces as loot, but also something for people who aren't interested in collecting set-pieces. For example, purple blueprints.

RaptorRodeoGod

Lugaldu wrote: »

It would also be nice if they not only added overland set-pieces as loot, but also something for people who aren't interested in collecting set-pieces. For example, purple blueprints.

Yeah it'd be cool if the entire loot table in the game had a chance to drop. It's designed to use all content previously made, so it would kind of make sense if all the loot had a chance to drop

NoxiousBlight

Just wanted to thank ZOS for listening and removing some of the trash packs. With arcs being 33% faster it takes a lot of the sluggish edge off.

While i'm not sure the overland sets are a perfect solution, I don't think it is a bad one. While I have most of them done, I can see the Hew's Bane and Gold Cost weeks being very popular to fill out sticker books. I am assuming they are curated, of course. If the drops are not curated then this is no solution at all.

I would love if you added a curated drop from the ENTIRE loot table upon completing arc 4 or 5 or something. Would be really neat to get that juicy reward for making it far.

Tyrant_Tim

One bit of feedback I have regarding Endless Archive is that I’m not the biggest fan of the Apocrypha setting.

Seeing how we will be spending hours in the content farming gear, it would be nice if each arena matched where you would find the enemies following and boss. Maelstrom, Vateshran and Dragonstar did a phenomenal job of this.

ie; If you fought the boss from Red Petal Bastion, I would appreciate the arena looking like the dungeon, except maybe more Library-like?

ssewallb14_ESO

My final verdict on this is that it's a lot of fun and a nice challenge for the solo or duo player, but still takes a little too long for me without a save feature or some way to skip the first couple of arcs.

I actually really like the base pop encounters once they get harder, It would be cool to see more solo/duo content with something similar.

Nebs

I played with a max level character. I played for a short while before I had to log off due to time constraints, I unfortunately didn't reach Th'oat in that time. I got to go to a Portal to the Unknown and it was charming though abruptly over when I found the lone tome-shell that was causing a ruckus. I didn't have sound on, and there weren't any on-screen visuals that told me what to do. I made do, but some UI elements giving instructions would be really nice.

For the Endless Archive itself, it was a fine experience, but the most fun concept to play with, the Verses, were so fleeting I felt like I never really got the chance to play with and experience them. I would love if these somehow lingered longer, even if there was a purchasable buff that let you save one (or more) into the next cycle.

For me, the biggest draw of any Rogue-Like or similar experience is getting wildly powerful builds that let you power trip. The experience in Endless Archive is intentionally tame when it could have been really taken off the rails since it is isolated from the rest of the game. I felt like this was an opportunity to be able to relive that delight that came from the quests that let us fight Molag Bal, Mulaamnir, or Mehrunes Dagon. The Verses I collected let me do exciting things against the masses of enemies, but as some have noted, they always felt like they were just in my way to the important content. With even the Verses so temporary, it really made every encounter with the fodder on my way to the boss feel even less significant.

I didn't like that I didn't get to get attached to any of the Verses, because their effects seemed really cool and I wanted to enjoy them longer. I'm sure the balance is a result of the choice of making Leaderboards so it needs to be balanced, and I think that really locks Endless Archive into looking like another farm rather than a whole new way to experience my characters and enjoy even higher levels of power.

I'm really excited to experience more of the Endless Archive when it goes live, but I hope that somehow I get to enjoy the Verses a little bit longer and get to experience even more of the power and fun they offer at a time.

AJTC5000

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

One bit of feedback I have regarding Endless Archive is that I’m not the biggest fan of the Apocrypha setting.

Seeing how we will be spending hours in the content farming gear, it would be nice if each arena matched where you would find the enemies following and boss. Maelstrom, Vateshran and Dragonstar did a phenomenal job of this.

ie; If you fought the boss from Red Petal Bastion, I would appreciate the arena looking like the dungeon, except maybe more Library-like?

This won't change - it's baked into both the lore and setting. We're fighting creatures from "fictional" events made from vivified ink - the arena is an actual place in Apocrypha. While it would be cool to have it as with the previous arenas, I can't see this happening unless they rework it from the ground up, and they no longer have time to do that.