IA emmm, is good?

Parasaurolophus · October 20

I really liked the idea of IA (Infinitely Ascending) dungeons. Many MMOs have various endless dungeons. I enjoyed IA until I took it seriously. And… oh my God, seriously?

Why is there so much trash? Why are trash stages, not bosses, the main threat?
The trash is extremely boring. No matter what spawns—from dromatras to silver roses—they all feel exactly the same. Only mages bring any variety to the mob packs.
At some point, the enemies' damage and HP get out of control. You are forced to go heavily into defense, and this happens way too early. The whole thing gets dragged out for too long.
Visions (buffs) are too random and insignificant to have any noticeable impact on the gameplay experience.
In the end, you can only play comfortably as a DK with magma, and even then, only if you get lucky with Focused Efforts.

I did two runs—one up to Arc 12, the other up to 16. I don’t want to continue. Even with the ability to save, it’s incredibly boring and pointless.

Soarora · October 20

I AGREE! There’s too much trash. Like, yeah the trash is more dangerous in IA but that doesn’t mean they have fun mechanics like bosses do. It feels like such a slog to get to bosses that instantly die.

RomanRex · October 20

I don’t mind the trash mobs, but they aren’t fun and DON’T GIVE ENOUGH XP.

I would consider playing IA more if the XP gain was decent like BRP or DSA. It’s just a low reward slough for as many hours as it takes to get to (and through) higher Arcs.

SkaiFaith · October 20

RomanRex wrote: »

I don’t mind the trash mobs, but they aren’t fun and DON’T GIVE ENOUGH XP.

I would consider playing IA more if the XP gain was decent like BRP or DSA. It’s just a low reward slough for as many hours as it takes to get to (and through) higher Arcs.

This is an awesome idea: I typically run Public Dungeons for XP + Gold. IA is not a good place for any of those. It would incentivize me A LOT to go there if XP and Gold rewards were on par with a Public Dungeon farm.

I really enjoy the IA experience after the latest update! But I have very little reasons to participate: Give us XP and Gold, please - having to rely on the random appearance of those 2 specific Visions and having to give up to other Visions for that... It's not good.
I would definitely prefer taking away XP and Gold Visions entirely and just up those values passively for everyone. This would also improve chances of better Visions, since now there are a lot.

Cooperharley · October 20

Yea agreed - I'm also surprised they never added any more mounts or meaningful rewards to the system. You may consider the class set styles as a reward, but with how low the drop rate is, it turns into quite a slog.

They definitely need to take a trash stage away at the very least per cycle & also drastically increase the amount of XP they reward you with.

SkaiFaith · October 20

Cooperharley wrote: »

Yea agreed - I'm also surprised they never added any more mounts or meaningful rewards to the system. You may consider the class set styles as a reward, but with how low the drop rate is, it turns into quite a slog.

They definitely need to take a trash stage away at the very least per cycle & also drastically increase the amount of XP they reward you with.

Instead of removing 1 entire trash Stage per Cycle, I would prefer if they just remove the second of the 3 waves of adds in every trash Stage. 2 waves of adds in total in a trash Stage are enough and would speed up the process. 3 waves of adds in a Trash stage is unnecessary tedious.

YandereGirlfriend · October 20

I think that the ramping is fine but the Vision strengths are still wildly imbalanced.

Like compare Focused Efforts to the measly +3% AOE damage Vision or the +6% to single-target Martial DoTs. Or like -2 seconds to potion cooldowns. Uhhhhhh, what.

If all of the damage (and mitigation) Visions were actually of roughly equivalent magnitude then players wouldn't feel as though their run was doomed when they get to the end of Arc 3 without any Focused Efforts.

It'd also make those later Arcs a bit less like chopping wood.

Pelanora · October 21

Yes I do think that basically they didn't land this new system. Almost great but, not great.

They made the decor different , but they should have made the fights different. Waves of trash quickly becomes un-interesting.

Cooperharley · October 21

SkaiFaith wrote: »

Cooperharley wrote: »

Yea agreed - I'm also surprised they never added any more mounts or meaningful rewards to the system. You may consider the class set styles as a reward, but with how low the drop rate is, it turns into quite a slog.

They definitely need to take a trash stage away at the very least per cycle & also drastically increase the amount of XP they reward you with.

Instead of removing 1 entire trash Stage per Cycle, I would prefer if they just remove the second of the 3 waves of adds in every trash Stage. 2 waves of adds in total in a trash Stage are enough and would speed up the process. 3 waves of adds in a Trash stage is unnecessary tedious.

Yea whatever works - I think most people that engage with IA agree that we need a save, more/better rewards, and less trash mobs 🤙🏻

SeaGtGruff · October 21

I don't mind the trash mobs-- but then, I've cleared arc 1's final boss a mere two or three times, then died in arc 2 as soon as a marauder appeared, and I frequently die to one of the cycle bosses before I ever reach arc 1's final boss. So basically, those trash mobs are about the only things I have to look forward to when running the IA.

I should probably add that I typically just port out as soon I die in the IA, rather than continuing with any remaining threads, mostly since I don't see much point in trying to kill the same boss that just wiped me out, presumably just so I can get killed a few more times by that same boss. I'd much rather just reset the hour glass and start over at the beginning (if I choose to keep running the IA).

If I were able to consistently clear arc 1 and then somehow make it through a few more arcs, I might feel differently about all of those trash mobs.

I do wish they dropped some rewards.

colossalvoids · October 21

Personally it just shows how static and uninteresting the trash mobs are, especially in early stages. I'd take the gauntlet doing bosses one by one or just one, beefier trash stage instead of two in between bosses.

pklemming · October 21

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I don't mind the trash mobs-- but then, I've cleared arc 1's final boss a mere two or three times, then died in arc 2 as soon as a marauder appeared, and I frequently die to one of the cycle bosses before I ever reach arc 1's final boss. So basically, those trash mobs are about the only things I have to look forward to when running the IA.

I should probably add that I typically just port out as soon I die in the IA, rather than continuing with any remaining threads, mostly since I don't see much point in trying to kill the same boss that just wiped me out, presumably just so I can get killed a few more times by that same boss. I'd much rather just reset the hour glass and start over at the beginning (if I choose to keep running the IA).

If I were able to consistently clear arc 1 and then somehow make it through a few more arcs, I might feel differently about all of those trash mobs.

I do wish they dropped some rewards.

Consider IA a training area for the game. I have a guild member who could not get past arc 1 when she started. We helped her through and got some achieves for her.

She can now solo to arc 4 and higher, and it has also vastly improved her awareness in the likes of undaunted dungeons and trials

The area features a lot of the common mechanics to the game as well as individual boss mechanics. It helps all 3 roles in different ways. If you are struggling on arc1, then maybe a change of gear or skills. The average arc1 trash is around 10 seconds for me, with arc 1 bosses being from 10-20 seconds. It is really just practice.

Similarly, when i started, I could get to arc 3, but not higher. Now, i just port out at arc 7 or 8 due to time constraints. Later arcs require different gear setups, mind, with me now having 6 separate builds for IA on one char.

SeaGtGruff · October 21

pklemming wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I don't mind the trash mobs-- but then, I've cleared arc 1's final boss a mere two or three times, then died in arc 2 as soon as a marauder appeared, and I frequently die to one of the cycle bosses before I ever reach arc 1's final boss. So basically, those trash mobs are about the only things I have to look forward to when running the IA.

I should probably add that I typically just port out as soon I die in the IA, rather than continuing with any remaining threads, mostly since I don't see much point in trying to kill the same boss that just wiped me out, presumably just so I can get killed a few more times by that same boss. I'd much rather just reset the hour glass and start over at the beginning (if I choose to keep running the IA).

If I were able to consistently clear arc 1 and then somehow make it through a few more arcs, I might feel differently about all of those trash mobs.

I do wish they dropped some rewards.

Consider IA a training area for the game. I have a guild member who could not get past arc 1 when she started. We helped her through and got some achieves for her.

She can now solo to arc 4 and higher, and it has also vastly improved her awareness in the likes of undaunted dungeons and trials

The area features a lot of the common mechanics to the game as well as individual boss mechanics. It helps all 3 roles in different ways. If you are struggling on arc1, then maybe a change of gear or skills. The average arc1 trash is around 10 seconds for me, with arc 1 bosses being from 10-20 seconds. It is really just practice.

Similarly, when i started, I could get to arc 3, but not higher. Now, i just port out at arc 7 or 8 due to time constraints. Later arcs require different gear setups, mind, with me now having 6 separate builds for IA on one char.

I don't struggle on 90% of arc 1, just certain bosses that I can't get past. I can even get past the final boss (Tho'at or whatever it's called) some of the time, meaning I've learned how to successfully deal with its mechanics-- but it wasn't easy, because most of the time I get wiped by the third or fourth boss and never get to the final boss, so my opportunities to learn the final boss's mechanics were few and far between.

As far as gear, I have no doubt that that is my biggest problem, because I don't have all of the mythic gear that has become "essential equipment" in the game, hence I am not "massively overpowered" like the typical ESO player is. I don't grind trials and arenas and dungeons to get the sets that drop there, or to try to collect the leads for the fragments for acquiring all of the "must-have" mythics. That is not my idea of fun, and all of the complaining I see from other players about how much they hate the RNG drop rates and the tedious grinding for hour after hour, day after day, week after week, and sometimes month after month, does nothing to persuade me to go down that rabbit hole of endlessly chasing the cutting edge of some neverending power creep-- especially when I see how unhappy most of the massively overpowered players have become with the game due to the majority of the content having become too trivial for them to enjoy.

If that's how other people want to play the game, that's fine with me. I just don't think it sounds like much fun.

KromedeTheCorrupt · October 21

IA suffers from player retention for various reasons.

1.) EVERYTHING is black and green and lacks any diversity of aesthetics besides 1 particular style pallet.

Fix - Add more variety like sandy beaches or dungeons like captain black heart island. Nobody wants to look as the same pallet everyday also not dark colors that are hard to even see everything in.

2.) Everything is expensive and most won’t even buy all the upgrades due to the sheer amount of time you have to sink to even get just those unlocked.

Fix - Either lower everything by half of increase the reward currency by double. It takes far too much to unlock stuff and it’s not feasible unless you login to play IA on eso and that’s it’s.

3.) IA - Visions, Verses, ect.

This makes playing IA even worse for most people. We got rolled up into the RNG powers that be. So the endless dungeon isn’t a test of your skill, gear dmg, defensiveness or healing capabilities. It’s you get focused efforts and 1 shot everything or you get small other buffs that almost all become useless in arc +4 due to the sheer amount of stupid dmg and hp mobs do.

Fix - Re work IA with no visions or verses. So we don’t have to allow on RNG to determine how far were allowed to go.

If you aren’t going to remove RNG from your dungeon at least let people pick what verse and visions they want but not count for leaderboards.

Having fun is more important rather than when we’re given content that completely ignores all of our power and gear and makes us rely on rng for how good we do. Yeah that’s such a good idea make a new arena with that and see how well the feedback is.

4.) Boring - Trash mobs/boss repeat

- the final arc boss changes until arc 4 but the mind numbing rounds of trash mobs don’t. The ever changing random boss is fine but the trash mobs are just boring and lack luster.

Fix - Some type of change to mobs the mages were a good change but it’s more or less still the same just the stakes are higher and more dangerous. Not really thrilled or fun doing the rounds rather be doing writs sometimes. Boss fights are fine though since it’s always random to keep it fresh.

5.) Drop rates, style pages

My brother was going to farm style pages until he ran it 10 times and got zero. That’s a good way to keep people away why mmo rely on rng so much is beyond me.

Sets are another thing it takes far too long to grind all the pieces on 1 class let alone 6.

Fix - style pages drop more often and 1 guaranteed at the end of the arc boss fight.

Sets drops in 1 weight that counts for all 3 weights. This is just a padded set drop rate tbh for people to play it more.

6.) No save mechanic

Fix - just add one already it’s the most requested thing for IA just disable them from the leaderboard. Everybody wins.

That’s all I got right now but people don’t really want to play something filled with RNG nothing is in our control and it feels helpless to even start playing IA when everything that makes up IA is stacked against you from the very beginning.

Vulsahdaal · October 21

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I don't struggle on 90% of arc 1, just certain bosses that I can't get past. I can even get past the final boss (Tho'at or whatever it's called) some of the time, meaning I've learned how to successfully deal with its mechanics-- but it wasn't easy, because most of the time I get wiped by the third or fourth boss and never get to the final boss, so my opportunities to learn the final boss's mechanics were few and far between.

Which certain bosses is that? It might just be a mechanic issue as well. I mean to me, some bosses are a total nightmare (looking at you Baron Zaudrus) but they are a very small minority.

Im much more likely to die by a momentary attention lapse and getting dragon winged off the platform (Im too embarrassed to say how many times that happened lol)

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

As far as gear, I have no doubt that that is my biggest problem, because I don't have all of the mythic gear that has become "essential equipment" in the game, hence I am not "massively overpowered" like the typical ESO player is.

Well for IA I dont think 'massively overpowered' is the way to go. There are probably less than 5 bosses I can think of that require high dps there. Better to build for higher armor, resistance and resources than higher dps.

I mean, I have some high dps characters and they roll right through arc 1 and 2 like is nothing, but once they hit arc 3 and especially when the marauder shows up, their squishiness is their downfall (especially when they run out of resources due to their build counting on everything to be dead before this happens).

My best IA characters that consistantly finish arc 4 (marauders and all) are my Mag Necro (shows how important dps is lol) and my PvP Stam Warden (built not to roll over his enemy, but to outlive him).

Basically in short, learn the bosses mechanics (look it up or even ask here and Im sure many would be glad to help) and build to stay alive, using verses and visions to help your offense along. This is what helped me progress in IA.

BXR_Lonestar · October 21

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I really liked the idea of IA (Infinitely Ascending) dungeons. Many MMOs have various endless dungeons. I enjoyed IA until I took it seriously. And… oh my God, seriously?

Why is there so much trash? Why are trash stages, not bosses, the main threat?
The trash is extremely boring. No matter what spawns—from dromatras to silver roses—they all feel exactly the same. Only mages bring any variety to the mob packs.
At some point, the enemies' damage and HP get out of control. You are forced to go heavily into defense, and this happens way too early. The whole thing gets dragged out for too long.
Visions (buffs) are too random and insignificant to have any noticeable impact on the gameplay experience.
In the end, you can only play comfortably as a DK with magma, and even then, only if you get lucky with Focused Efforts.

I did two runs—one up to Arc 12, the other up to 16. I don’t want to continue. Even with the ability to save, it’s incredibly boring and pointless.

The trash is part of the challenge to be honest. You have to not only know boss mechanics, but you also need to understand proper kill chain, priority targets, and try to prepare for a random marauder encounter and sometimes boss mechanics too. It does get really tedious when the mobs can take away half your health in one hit or worse - one shot you if you are not careful. But that is all part of the challenge of higher arcs.

My main problem with the archive is that the more verses/visions they add to the game, the harder it becomes for you to get the quality verses and visions that you want that will actually be most useful to your archive build.

YandereGirlfriend · October 21

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I really liked the idea of IA (Infinitely Ascending) dungeons. Many MMOs have various endless dungeons. I enjoyed IA until I took it seriously. And… oh my God, seriously?

Why is there so much trash? Why are trash stages, not bosses, the main threat?
The trash is extremely boring. No matter what spawns—from dromatras to silver roses—they all feel exactly the same. Only mages bring any variety to the mob packs.
At some point, the enemies' damage and HP get out of control. You are forced to go heavily into defense, and this happens way too early. The whole thing gets dragged out for too long.
Visions (buffs) are too random and insignificant to have any noticeable impact on the gameplay experience.
In the end, you can only play comfortably as a DK with magma, and even then, only if you get lucky with Focused Efforts.

I did two runs—one up to Arc 12, the other up to 16. I don’t want to continue. Even with the ability to save, it’s incredibly boring and pointless.

The trash is part of the challenge to be honest. You have to not only know boss mechanics, but you also need to understand proper kill chain, priority targets, and try to prepare for a random marauder encounter and sometimes boss mechanics too. It does get really tedious when the mobs can take away half your health in one hit or worse - one shot you if you are not careful. But that is all part of the challenge of higher arcs.

My main problem with the archive is that the more verses/visions they add to the game, the harder it becomes for you to get the quality verses and visions that you want that will actually be most useful to your archive build.

Big agree. The trash fights in later Arcs are so tactical and interesting that the actual boss fights afterward can be sort of like a mental reprieve from them (e.g. ah, Duneripper, so we meet again...).

We just need better balance from the Visions. Because it feels quite bad to get 3 dogwater Vision choices and just knowing that you're falling behind the power curve through no fault of your own.

It's fine to have some dud Visions (like gold gain, etc.) but we need to have some more niche Visions that can compete with Focused Efforts if you adapt and slant your build into them. Because things like +3% to bosses or 2 second potion cooldown reduction... those ain't it (5 to 8 second potion cooldown reduction, OTOH, and now you have my attention... as I can probably make a reasonable build around that).

Vonnegut2506 · October 21

IA is hot garbage. I did it when it first came out, and it was a buggy mess. I did it a week or so ago (whatever week the weekly endeavors were all terrible), and I hope to never do it again. For those that enjoy it, I am glad there is content for you to enjoy. I file IA in the same dumpster as Tales of Tribute as far as my enjoyment goes.

katanagirl1 · October 21

Every time I run this area, I think of how it is not like arenas in other games I have played. Typically they are a large circular area where the mobs come at you from all sides in staggered waves. The IA is these little chained together small rooms that you have to pass through with 3 groups of mobs spread along the length. Some of the enemies stay in the back and you have to wade through the mass to get to them. The new Lightbringers have been a problem for me, I get killed by them before I can find them. Since the latest update they have caused almost all of the deaths for me. I think maybe the game is not rendering an aoe to let me know that I am being damaged.

I don’t really enjoy this content, but am stockpiling fortunes to buy antiquity leads that I need when they come up in the vendor rotation. I also need leads that drop from within there as well, and they keep adding content faster than I can keep up.

SeaGtGruff · October 21

I actually enjoy IA, even if I don't run it a lot and usually get killed in arc 1 by the 3rd or 4th boss. It would be great if the trash mobs between bosses would drop a few rewards, but if not then maybe add more lootable containers and put an occasional nice piece of loot in them. And if the trash mobs become too boring and repetitive in later arcs, maybe cut down on how many there are in later arcs, so players can go from boss to boss more quickly.

Ilumia · October 22

There's a lot of great suggestions for improving IA here. It is, however really clear that people have vastly different experiences, and want different things from it.
I was right on line with Yandere with asking for the dud xp and gold visions to be taken out, but someone else is saying they use those exact ones all the time.

I really think that it would be great to add another one or two collectibles that give 1 more vision and one more verse choice. Especially since adding so many new ones. I think it's great that new ones are added, but not without extra choices. There's so many times when I'm offered 3 verses that are all useless to me. Either completely useless, or where there might be a defensive one in the mix that I could have gotten something from, if it wasn't that it was arc 1 or 2 where a bad defeive verse is obsolete. It's a verse, so no biggie, just a small disappointment. It is however really annoying to get offered visions that have no use to me (like the gold and xp), or very little (like 3% boss damage, because it's only 3 frigging % or the potion 2 sec reduced cooldown, I had to read that 3 times when I first saw it, and I wondered what I was missing on why that would be fun, I still do.).

A save mechanism is essential. Please let us have it!

KromedeTheCorrupt wrote: »

1.) EVERYTHING is black and green and lacks any diversity of aesthetics besides 1 particular style pallet.

Fix - Add more variety like sandy beaches or dungeons like captain black heart island. Nobody wants to look as the same pallet everyday also not dark colors that are hard to even see everything in.

This is a great suggestion too. It would be nice with variation, and it doesn't have to be a hostile environment like the ice and fire ones.

I agree with the trash mobs being boring. However at some point they become too hard for me, and I am a squishy sorc, so I'll lose threads to them, but it would still be great to be able to toggle if you want 1 strong wave per stage, or 3 normal ones. Let us maybe do it arc for arc.

I only have one IA set, but I really want to start learning what to do to get further and do the multiple set rotation thing, it's just that I already carry gear for too many different setups, and I need inventory space for more. Please give more inventory space! The people who excel at IA are the ones who shuffle different sets on and off, I cant start doing that unless I get more space. The inventory management is too tedious, I dont want more spaces to dissappear into sets I currently use to do the content I find fun, and therefore carry around.

Urvoth · October 22

I was really hoping it would be an actual endless explorable dungeon, like in dungeon crawler games, not just an endless reskin of the other arenas. Random dungeon layouts, dark/foggy interiors, interesting and valuable discoveries, etc., would've made it a lot more fun and replayable.

AzuraFan · October 22

I hate the platforms with bosses that have an AoE effect that covers just about the entire platform. I most often die by falling off the platform / being knocked off the platform. It feels like the game is cheating. Get rid of the platforms.

Also, a save feature for sure.

Nerouyn · October 22

Urvoth wrote: »

I was really hoping it would be an actual endless explorable dungeon, like in dungeon crawler games, not just an endless reskin of the other arenas. Random dungeon layouts, dark/foggy interiors, interesting and valuable discoveries, etc., would've made it a lot more fun and replayable.

Yeah I was hoping for massive, sprawling, procedurally generated dungeons, like delves, rather than 2 person "dungeon" dungeons with ick "mechanics".

One run dispelled that notion.

Necrotech_Master · October 22

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I actually enjoy IA, even if I don't run it a lot and usually get killed in arc 1 by the 3rd or 4th boss. It would be great if the trash mobs between bosses would drop a few rewards, but if not then maybe add more lootable containers and put an occasional nice piece of loot in them. And if the trash mobs become too boring and repetitive in later arcs, maybe cut down on how many there are in later arcs, so players can go from boss to boss more quickly.

they actually scale up how many mobs are in the trash groups per arc (up until arc 4 then it remains constant)

arc 1 for example has the fewest mobs (first stage the first and 2nd waves have 3 enemies, the 3rd wave has either 3 or 4 enemies depending on which enemy group you get, and theres no fabled)

by arc 4 the standard trash stages go: wave 1 5 enemies (1 of which is fabled, with chance of marauder if you havent gotten one yet), wave 2 is 4 enemies (no elites), and wave 3 is 0-1 elite (depending on enemy group), 2 fabled, and like 8 trash tier enemies

Desiato · October 22

I don't enjoy it.

I think the devs may have clarified that it's not truly procedural, but I've never been a fan of generated dungeons in any game.

I would like it better if there was a vet version so the difficulty ramps up immediately. I see no need to force experienced players to endure waves of completely trivial trash and boss fights.

I would prefer it if it was designed so that an optimal session could be completed in 45 minutes like most content in ESO.

MidniteOwl1913 · October 23

I tolerate it for what I can get out of it, I don't enjoy it. Fewer trash waves would be a good start. They are sooo very boring. The color palate is visually tiring. *Something* besides sickly green, jaundiced yellow and bug skin black would be nice.

The platform for the dragons needs to be bigger. The trash waves should drop something. It's a lot of trash fight for basically nothing. The rewards in general are pretty poor. If you design a time sink at least make it a rewarding time sink.