Update xx: The Infinite Fun in the Archive

TheDarkRuler · November 17

I have been enjoying Infinite Archive ever since it came out in The Elder Scrolls Online and even though I have everything completed in there, i tend to go in every now and then for the fun of it. However I feel that the mode is incomplete when comparing it to the actual survivors-games out there (such as Brotato, DeadMustDie, ...), there has been alot improvements ever since its release but there are a few things that I would love to see adressed.

I have seen another user making suggestions in the form of a (fictional) patch post and I actually enjoyed that idea. The following post is adressing a few tweaks here and there and also trying to add a few new things that I'd love in the mode. Of course, it is just my opinion so I'd love to see a discussion.

Adding locking, banishments and rerolls
With the mode being heavily dependant on lucky-picks on Visions and Verses, there can sometimes be the situation where the obtained verses do not fit at all to your build. The common tactics these days to hope for Focussed Efforts until Arc 2 and reset if that does not pop, is boring though and is making the mode feel extremely random.

I'd suggest to add more or less "standard" functions from similar games: Banishment, Locking and Rerolling picks.

Adding Quality of Life changes to reduce the random factor in the runs at the cost of Archival Fortune.
- Banishment: Uses X archival fortune to permanentely disable a pick. The cost starts at a 100 but increases by 100 for each item you banish to avoid overusage.
- Locking: You can lock up to one Verse per cycle and up to one Vision per arc. The said pick will reappear during the next possible pick but then must be chosen without being given any other possibilities.
- Rerolling: Uses X archival fortune to give you a new random set of picks (while considering your banishments). Starts at 100 but doubles with each reroll. The costs reset upon defeating one Iteration of Tho'at Replicanum.

Tweaking existing visions and verses
The power-scaling in the verses and vision is considerably unbalanced. Some such as Focussed Efforts, Exsanguinate and Flame Aura are doing an exceptionally good job. I am against nerfing those because those are the things that bring fun into the run. I'd like to rework the ones that are lacking to make them a worthy competitor. Please note that not all are included below but they should give you a general idea of what you can achieve.

Verses

Archival Flexibility: With Assault and Open World Abilities being extremely lacking, I think that combining Archival Worldliness and Archival Assault two into one should give a broader range of usefulness. This will now affect Assault skills, Support skills, Soul Magic, Werewolves and Vampire abilities.
Archival Expertise: SiImilar to above Archival Weaponry and Archival Guild Superiority were be combined into one. Because most builds are supplementing their class skills with those, this will give it a broader effect.
Cold Blast: Reduced the cooldown of this verse to 2 seconds (down from 10s) to allow chained explosions to help you in trash fight encounters. Also each explosion will now give a guaranteed Chilled status effect to all enemies being hit.
Frenzied Zeal: Now also counts up from medium- and heavy-attacks and will increase all light-, medium- and heavy-attack damage at maximum stacks. Also each stack of Frenzy now persists 8 seconds (up from 5s). This allows Heavy-attack builds or semi-perfected weaves to benefit from the bonus.
Swift Gale: Now also triggers of medium- and heavy-attacks to allow a broader usage.
Archival Bulwark: Combined Archival Evasion and Head-On Defense into one to give less damage taken from all Area effects and all direct damage effects.
Siphoning Vigor: Now has a 2 seconds cooldown (down from 5 seconds). It will also track which buffs you have active and try to give you buffs you don't have on you.
Reactive Curse: This verse can now also debuff elite enemies such as Marauders and bosses. Also the damage reduction goes up from 25%/35% to 50%/75% to be worth it in higher arcs.
Phalanx: Enemy projectile-based attacks attempting to pass through the Phalanx will now be disabled. Also each hit by a shield guard will apply the Dragon Knight stagger debuff onto enemies resulting in more Damage over Time.
Rebirth: When being picked this verse persists until it is consumed instead of being only active in the current stage.
Redirecting Bonds: Similar to Reactive Curse the damage reduction is increased to 50%/75% to provide extra utility in higher arcs.
Reflected Ruin: Can now proc every 10s instead of just once. Also when applying the charged bash it will hit every enemy in the room in the line of sight of the caster.
Sequential Shield: While the shield is active, you can only take damage up to 10% of your max health per damage tick. This will allow Non-Dragon Knights to have a significant damage reduction. As a compensation the shield will terminate after 10s (down from 15s).
Enhanced Remedy: Combined the old Enhanced Remedy which increases your healing with the effect of Transfusion. To allow extra heal to happen.
Gilded Sleight: Ramming into an enemy will automatically collect the gold instead of leaving behind a gold stash that has to be picked up manually.
Blessing of Magicka: Combined the Magical Expiration and Magicka Renewal into one big magicka restore and max magicka increase.
Blessing of Stamina: Combined the Energetic Expiration and Stamina Renewal into one big stamina restore and max stamina increase.
Blessing of Health: Combined the Vital Expiration and Restorative Elixirs into one big health restore and max health increase.

Visions

All "Martial" damage increase visions will now affect Class ability damage. All "Magic" damage increases will now affect Non-Class ability damage. This was done to make sure that in a hybrid playstyle you can benefit more from your class and supporting skills.
- Brawling Advantage: Now grants Critical Strike Chance for all class abilities per stack.
- Brawling Blitz: Now grants Critical Strike Damage for all class abilities per stack.
- Persistent Pain: Now grants increased Damage over Time for all class abilities per stack.
- Lethal Sorcery: Now grants Critical Strike Chance for all non-class abilities per stack.
- Thaumic Boom: Now grants Critical Strike Damage for all non-class abilities per stack.
- Thumping Thaumaturgy: Now grants increased Damage over Time for all non-class abilities per stack.
Piercing Perfection: Now grants +1000 flat penetration and then additional 20% (down from 30%). This way you can have higher penetration even on builds that dont have a high penetration value to begin with.
Targeted Ire: Now also extends to Marauders and gives +5% (up from 2%) per stack. Bosses also are 25% more to be affected by negative status effects for each stack.
Well-Trained Command: This will also affect pets summoned by sets (Aegis Caller, Maw of the Infernal) now. Also the damage done per stack was increased to 40% per stack (up from 20%).
Storm Projection: All enemies being hit by the arc will now be applied with the Concussed status effect. The arc will no longer consider corpses a valid target as long as living enemies are nearby.
Flawless Defender: Armored Shell and Mystical Ward were combined to reduce all incoming over-time damage by X%.
Restorative Protection: Now also includes the effect of Tempered Ward where it increases the value of damage shield effects.
Effortless Acrobatics: Greatly decreased dodge costs (15% up from 5%) per stack. The dodge cost penalty also decreased 5% faster per stack.
Effortless Aegis: Greatly decreased block costs (15% up from 5%) per stack. While blocking damage is capped to deal maximum of 10% of the players max. health per tick.
Attuned Enhancements: Now also decreases the overall enchanment cooldown by 10% per stack (50% max.)
Vicious Poisons: Now grants bonus damage to all alchemy poisons as well as Poison enchants instead of just poison enchants.
Resolute Mind: Now also includes the effect of Unrestrained Endurance where break free-costs are reduced.
Quickened Tinctures: Every potion and poison you use also has a 5% chance per rank to not be consumed upon usage.
Boundless Potential: Instead of reducing ultimate point costs, this will now grant a 1 point per second passive ultimate gain while in combat per rank (5/s on max stacks).
Full Coffers: Now also grants +Archival Fortune gain instead of gold. The amount of bonus is increased by 10% per rank and +5% per arc you've completed. Costs zero Archival Fortune to banish.
Lessons Learned: Greatly increased the XP gain to 75%/100% (up from 10/12%) per stack. This vision has a higher chance of spawning when being level 50 or below. Costs zero Archival Fortune to banish.

I'd love to hear your feedback about this.

Sarannah · November 17

Awesome post! Though personally I would not like to use archival fortunes for banishment/locking/reroll, as you suggest. Maybe limit this to one use per arc, or one use per full run if it is really powerful. Just without the fortune costs. (Edit: Or make each into a buyable upgrade)

Another thing: Full coffers and lessons learned should be combined into one vision, and should make repairs in the IA free for that entire run. This will make it useful and worth picking.

Players also want a save function in the archive, but instead of that I'd rather see more buyable upgrades to significantly speed up IA runs. Here are some of my upgrade ideas to speed up the archive, which I made in another thread:

-A skip arc upgrade. Example: You buy the skip arc 1 upgrade for 1 million fortunes(has to be very expensive), and are allowed to skip arc 1. By buying the skip arc 1 upgrade, you unlock the skip arc 2 upgrade to be bought for 2 million fortunes. By buying the arc 2 skip upgrade, you unlock the skip arc 3 upgrade to be bought for 3 million fortunes.

-An upgrade to have a 25% chance to get an avatar verse each time you can select a verse in arc 1-3, without having unlocked that avatar fully yet. Should be 500k fortunes. To allow players to get through the arcs faster. A similar upgrade for arc 4-6 for 1 million fortunes, arc 7-9 for 1.5 million fortunes, etc, etc. You can only buy the higher arc avatar verse upgrades if you have all the lower ones. So to buy the arc 4-6 avatar verse upgrade, you have to have bought the arc 1-3 avatar upgrade. And so on.

-An adjustable IA upgrade which would allow us to spawn all three groups of monsters in a stage at once, up until the arc we set it at(including the marauders!). This would still have players start over every run, but would allow us to move through the *for that player* easier arcs much much faster. A fair price for such an upgrade would be 1 million fortunes. For example: The new upgrade "IA overload" allows the player to right click and set any number from 1-99. After setting this number, all arcs up to and including that number now have the monsters in those stages spawn all three groups at once. If a player sets IA overload '5', all arcs up to and including arc 5 will spawn all three groups of monsters in stages instantly.

-After every boss stage, let us select a verse and a vision instead of only a vision. This will help speed up our progress in the archive quite a bit, as we won't have to clear a round without a verse active.

-A fourth vision and fourth verse choice every time we get to select one of either.

-Make repairs from the merchant in the IA free.

-Vision scrolls, granting a permanent vision for that run. Usable only once per arc. Drops from marauders and buyable from the IA merchant for 2k fortunes.

There could be many more ideas for upgrades like this, to make the IA go faster. But I do feel having to start runs over is kind of important. (Note: The costs of all the above upgrades should be high, as they also allow for gaining fortunes much faster. And the upgrades should always have an option to turn them off.)

Malyore · November 17

Honestly what I'd love to see is getting some unique scribing script scraps or grimroire scraps from the archive based on visions and verses. After seeing the crazy spells and abilities in the archive, it makes returning to nirn feel like something's missing from my arsenal. I'd love the idea of being able to learn more abilities FROM the experiences gained in the archive. Although toned down so it's balanced separately for both PvE and PvP.

Rishikesa108 · November 17

I'd like to reroll the leads obtained as rewards, because a lot of them are totally unuseful for me and others are desirable.
Another option would be to make curated the leads obtained in IA.

oldbobdude · November 17

I’d like to see it working before adding more components. I haven’t gotten the library unknown in multiple runs. Saw another post on this a while. Until I saw that post I thought maybe after X times completing the 10 page quest it just stopped.

Solo, with companion, duo. All the others come up just not that one.

Treeshka · November 17

I would like to see a flat resistance increase vision.

Nord_Raseri · November 17

I especially love the proposed option of banishment. I like all the rest as well. While it would take way challenge, it would be ballanced out by all the fun your changes would bring.

Finedaible · November 17

Considering ZoS's approach of anti-fun balancing, the only thing I foresee in the future of the archive is the destruction of the few functional verses and visions to appease the Almighty Spreadsheet.