PTS Update 40 - Feedback Thread for Infinite Archive

acastanza_ESO

mdjessup4906 wrote: »

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

They're "minibosses" that can randomly spawn during ad waves any time after you fight Tho'at for the first time.
I say "minibosses" because so far, they're a lot harder than most of the other bosses. At least early on.

J18696

mdjessup4906 wrote: »

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

They are bosses that appear in the trash rooms they can randomly appear each arc in a trash room once per arc at anytime

James-Wayne

Arc 1, Boss 4, A Dragon! Arc 1, Boss 5, Another Dragon!!! Really ZOS?? I lost 2 threads because of mechanics knocking me off platform or too many atros/AOE that covers the entire small platform but I got through it eventually. Personally having one of the more harder bosses in the first Arc is a bit rough, having it twice and if other newbie players get this constantly in their runs they wont be playing EA long. We need to make sure the really challenging bosses are not in the first Arc so people have a chance to complete it with 3 threads.



Which bring me to another issue, 3 threads! Is that all?? In Maelstrom and Vateshran your score would adjust if you die but you can at least keep trying over and over. Pushing the player back to reset everything after 3 deaths (yes I was solo) is a painful journey I wont do over and over, lose the thread count at least for the first Arc so player can complete the story.

code65536

Personally having one of the more harder bosses in the first Arc is a bit rough

The bosses are not completely random. Instead, it looks like they divided the bosses into 4 groups, from least to most difficult, and then the cycle 1 boss is always drawn from the easiest group, and the cycle 4 boss is drawn from the hardest group.

Every time there's been a trial boss--in my runs or in the runs that I've watched on stream--it's been on cycle 4.

However, this creates a situation where the cycle matters more than the arc for boss difficulty.

The Arc 4 Cycle 1 boss is almost always easier than the Arc 1 Cycle 4 boss.

I had gotten the impression from their ESO Live show that the Arc was supposed to dominate, and for the trash rounds, that's true, but for the boss fights, the Cycle number seems to matter more than the Arc number.

Dragonnord

Arthtur wrote: »

I think after 3 deaths the run should be "done" in terms of leaderboards. So u die and u are done getting points for leaderboards but u can still continue doing the EA. So u can learn the boss mechs and overall this would make the content a lot less punishing for less capable players without affecting veteran players. Right now ending the run after 3 deaths is rly punishing.

Definitely not! The Endless Archive is a test of skill and knowledge. Every single boss exists in the game, so you don't need to go to Endless Archive to learn its mecs, you can go to the trial, the dungeon or the place it belongs too, and learn it there.
You can also watch videos and guides that ALREADY EXIST for those bosses since, as mentioned, all those bosses belong to a part of the game already.

In any case, what you request could be considered if you get NO REWARDS at all, not even xp, not even 1 gold, nothing, or the dungeon would be wrong for the game itself. You shouldn't be able to go to the dungeon and remain there forever gaining experience and rewards endlessly.

All other games with endless dungeons I know work the same way, you die x amount of times, you're done and out.

Finally, I'm a veteran player and CARE NOTHING for leaderboards, so don't mention leaderboards as the main aspect of the Endless Archive because probably 1% of the players care for leaderboards. So that you say about "without affecting veteran players" doesn't apply to me. What I would hate is being able to continue going deep further in the dungeon even if I die 1000 times.

To me, that would transform the Endless Archive in the Meaningless Archive or the Boring Archive, as I could be there forever with no challenge and no risk at all.
 

RaddlemanNumber7

Is some of the stuff in Filer Ool's store supposed to generate an element of FOMO in order to attract players into the archive? If it is, then I think the store needs a wider range of goods and lower prices to be effective.

mdjessup4906

What level were you when you went through Endless Archive?
Dark elf arcanist max template, dps trial build with pale order ring.

Did you play solo, with a companion or with another player?
solo

What Stage, Cycle, and Arc did you reach?
4,5,1 been in there around 5 times over the past week, only made it to thoat boss last night.

Which bosses were the toughest?
for the level i got to, none were terribly difficult, with a few exceptions. Just unfamiliar mechanics.
Lady thorn when you get the circle, I had to throw the things 4 or 5 times to get her to come down. That's too much, especially for live, where in that dungeon it almost always bugs out on me. Make it 2 or 3 at most.
The manticora or chimera, I don't remember exactly, but it has this enormous fire aoe spitting mech that swirls out at you and I seemed to get hit by the circles even when I outran or dodged them. Not fun. It also fills almost the whole arena so there's no where to run even if you could.
Also boss adds are very spread out and difficult to line up for burn. No idea if they can be pulled since i was solo and didn't run a chain, but i can see this being a pita on higher difficulties, especially for other classes that don't have the range or aoe of arcanist.

Which Cycle and Arc did you fight the boss on?
lady thorn was 4 4 1. i don't remember which the chimera was.

Which Verses did you find the most and least effective?
Which Visions did you find the most and least effective?
Answering these together because i don't remember which ones were which.

Most effective: extra damage and damage mitigation ones. teh ones that auto damage like the ring of fire and the one that spits damage balls were fun too.

Least effective: heavy attack focused ones, since i wasn't on a heavy attack build, and the ones where you have to activate a synergy. One actually helped killed me becasue i thought it was a boss mech lol. Maybe not my finest hour, but still.


Did you use any Portals to the Unknown?
yes.
Which side content did you do?
the watcher one, the green puzzle room, and the sparring boss.

I got the green floor puzzle several times and was fine, but had to quit one of them because it kept resetting too fast for me to get across. The watcher one I only completed it by accident, spamming buttons until I did whatever I was supposed to.

Did you feel adequately rewarded?
meh. i did get a few leads which was nice, but the rest of it was just junk.

Did you use any Verse Scrolls?
no
If so, how effective were they? x
Would you use them again? x

Did you have fun?
yes, overall.

Do you have any other general feedback?
I love how you can actually pull trash. Biggest annoying thing about the other arenas is having to run to or chain every damn thing. Some stuff doesn't pull, but it doesn't in dungeons either, so whatever. The more I played the more fun I had figuring ways to group everything for burn.

I love the variety of bosses. Some I've never seen before or don't remember. I think done well, this would be a good place to introduce dungon and trial mechanics on a lesser scale for solo players, so they are at least passingly familiar with their big brothers, if they ever decide to do group content one day.

The 3 lives thing is way more discouraging than I thought it would be. I like to solo dungeons, so I'm fine with dying 20 times in a row to figure out a mech. But this place doesn't give you the chance. I figured I'd just use the currency to buy more lives, but they're so expensive (8k!) I still don't have enough for even 1.

The side "Unknowns" are cute. I'd like to see more of these, and maybe curated, so i'm not getting the puzzle room twice in a row, for example.

Sometimes the stages get stuck and won't spawn. I found porting to the archive from the map while still inside the archive fixed it.

There was one run where I got almost entirely heavy attack focused buffs. Would have been great if I was on my heavy attack build lol. Not so useful otherwise though.

Overall, as both a trial/group player and dungeon soloer, I really like it, but it definitely needs tuning up. I am also very much looking forward to leaderboard content i will actually attempt to do, because i hate the other areans.

ninibini

for the selection dialog for the verse and visions, i'd like to see which type it is, without having to hover over it, and if it's a stackable vision, the current bonus so far.

code65536

Who came up with the balance of these DAILY endeavors?!



So, first, only the cycle bosses count. Tho'ats don't count, and Maurauders don't count. So this meant getting to Arc 4 Cycle 4.

Second, how the hell is this balanced for a DAILY endeavor? Esp. when the WEEKLY endeavor is complete 20 stages. Essentially, the weekly translates to "complete 1 arc" while the daily is "complete 4 arcs"? How on earth did this endeavor balancing even make it past QA?!

NoxiousBlight

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

Yeah. I think the trash packs between bosses need to be reduced by one round. The bosses are the good parts and several minutes of trash between each one starts to feel like filler.

ESO_player123

NoxiousBlight wrote: »

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

Yeah. I think the trash packs between bosses need to be reduced by one round. The bosses are the good parts and several minutes of trash between each one starts to feel like filler.

Question: do you get any drops from the trash packs? Or is it the same way as in Basion Nymic? No rewards till the boss?

code65536

ESO_player123 wrote: »

NoxiousBlight wrote: »

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

Yeah. I think the trash packs between bosses need to be reduced by one round. The bosses are the good parts and several minutes of trash between each one starts to feel like filler.

Question: do you get any drops from the trash packs? Or is it the same way as in Basion Nymic? No rewards till the boss?

No. There really would be nothing lost if the trash stages were reduced from 3 per cycle to just 2. They don't drop loot, they don't give rewards, and verses last for only one stage, so only the penultimate stage--the one before the boss--matters.

Cutting a trash stage from each cycle is probably the easiest and most inconsequential way to make the pacing better.

FantasticFreddie

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Endless Archive. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• What level were you when you went through Endless Archive? Current level, 1900 CP
• Did you play solo, with a companion or with another player? Ember, but she died on every boss (seperate problem)
• What Stage, Cycle, and Arc did you reach?
• I killed 1 tho'at and got bored
• Which bosses were the toughest? Lady Thorn
  • Which Cycle and Arc did you fight the boss on?
  It was last one before the Tho'at
• Which Verses did you find the most and least effective? Don't remember
• Which Visions did you find the most and least effective?
• Did you use any Portals to the Unknown?
  yes
  • Which side content did you do? I turned into a goat
  • Did you feel adequately rewarded?
  Not really. It was a decent chunk of time for a single set piece and about 1k of the new currency
• Did you use any Verse Scrolls?
  no
  • If so, how effective were they?
  • Would you use them again?
• Did you have fun? Meh
• Do you have any other general feedback? The tho'at felt over tuned, it was harder than it felt like it was meant to be.
• Several mechanics targeted Ember throughout the fights and she died immediately.
• Overall felt like a wast of time, rewards need some adjusting
• UI needs work. Several times the word "STAGE" would appear but not tell me what stage it was, and there needs to be some sort of way tp keep track of what arc and stage you are on.
• achievements are broken. I recieved an achievement for killing a long list of different sorts of enemies, however I had only actually encountered about half of them.

J18696

I also find the extra side portals after you get all the achivements for the account unlocks give me like zero motivation to enter them now.

More than 50% of the time the verse I get out of them isn't actually useful would much rather we get visions out of them with how rarely they pop up

Donlup

What level were you when you went through Endless Archive?
cp 3600 template
Did you play solo, with a companion or with another player?
solo
What Stage, Cycle, and Arc did you reach?
stage 2 cycle 3 arc 3
Which bosses were the toughest?
Mini boss killed me straight up with more damage than the stage boss?? seems very overtuned
Which Cycle and Arc did you fight the boss on?
somewhere in arc 2
Which Verses did you find the most and least effective?
world skills one and the bonus exp but tbh theres to many with a block then heavy or roll then block and so on I did the thing dont make do a second for the effect, also what are the ones that interact with a corpse worth in a boss fight? most have none???
Which Visions did you find the most and least effective?
They felt completely useless most of them 2%of this and 2%of and you would get one of the transformation ones never to see another
Did you use any Portals to the Unknown?
Yes every possible one just to skip the grind of the normal ones
Which side content did you do?
All possible ones
Did you feel adequately rewarded?
No I am risking a buff for failing i would like to gamble that one getting two or more currancy
Did you use any Verse Scrolls?
No i did not feel the need
If so, how effective were they?
NA
Would you use them again?
NA
Did you have fun?
well it get boring and very grindy very fast its a shame, you have small adss that pose no challange with tons of life very fast
Do you have any other general feedback?
It feels like something is ass backwards in there, I am collecting insanely overpowered upgrades on adds and borderline useless ones that stack on bosses. The add waves are boring and pose no problems until there is a mini wrecking everything in sight srsly have a look those dudes something aint right. Pets seems to take damage from some aoe sources they should not and just die rng. The upgardes are locked behind currancy and achivements??? pick one doing both is just strange same with the furniture seems very odd do a cost reduction or something if you want it tied to achivements. Some of the encounters act a bit strange with only one player but its not a deal breaker. Powerups would likely feel better if you dident yoink them all the time i can see that being overpowered the way its made atm, so i propose you should give tiny stacking buffs for vs verses, bigger for cycle bosses and the huge transformation ones or some of the ones we are currently getting for cycle bosses and leave them all permanent. last but not least the yolna boss did not spawn a portal after it died and ruined a run for me this made me realize there is no save mechanism for a run. I cannot tell you how much I dont wanna do plus 2 hours runs to dc and lose everything or have a boss bug out.

RaddlemanNumber7

code65536 wrote: »

Who came up with the balance of these DAILY endeavors?!



So, first, only the cycle bosses count. Tho'ats don't count, and Maurauders don't count. So this meant getting to Arc 4 Cycle 4.

Second, how the hell is this balanced for a DAILY endeavor? Esp. when the WEEKLY endeavor is complete 20 stages. Essentially, the weekly translates to "complete 1 arc" while the daily is "complete 4 arcs"? How on earth did this endeavor balancing even make it past QA?!

This one's bad, but not quite so bad - Daily Endeavor for 23 Sept:

James-Wayne

What level were you when you went through Endless Archive?
CP2836

Did you play solo, with a companion or with another player?
I played Solo and other times with another player

What Stage, Cycle, and Arc did you reach?
Arc 2 Final Boss was the most ever reached due to final boss one shot mechanic

Which bosses were the toughest?
Dragons at first but mostly final boss by far

Which Cycle and Arc did you fight the boss on?
Arc 2

Which Verses did you find the most and least effective?
Least Effective is anything World related or anything not part of my playstyle like roll dodge
Most Effective probably Class buffs and AOE proc buffs

Which Visions did you find the most and least effective?
I didnt get through enough stages to see any of these actually be useful
For example the ones that give you 2% buff are not going to be worthwhile till MUCH later on

Did you use any Portals to the Unknown?
Every one that came up

Which side content did you do?
Collect the pages but very rarely saw any in 6 full runs
Eating sweetroll was cool as was fetching the pages of the book with the unique skillbar
The puzzle and wisp ones were cool at first but lame after you have seen them more than a few times

Did you feel adequately rewarded?
Not even close. The real rewards are from last Arc boss and that is so far and few between time playing

Did you use any Verse Scrolls?
Few times

If so, how effective were they?
Its random so if you get a bad one like I did you cant get rid of it by just right clicking the buff like you can with say food buffs your stuck with it so not at all effective based on what I got.

Would you use them again?
Nope. I'd be saving my money so I can get set pieces because it doesnt like Ill be getting many of them from finishing arcs

Did you have fun?
Its a fun system but if the threads stay the way they are it wont be fun for very long with no rewards for the time spent playing it

Do you have any other general feedback?
The game is a great but needs to be balanced no doubt about that. Super hard trial bosses with trial mechanics in the first few Arcs shouldnt be a thing especially while solo. Also the one shot damage mechanics need tuning down at least in the first few Arcs, WAY too punishing that early in. You need fix the thread count because that is disheartening. With Maelstrom and Vateshran lives would just affect your score and you could still go through and keep trying over and over again but here 3 lives, 30min runs to final boss only to get hit with one shot mechanics and your game is done no class sets, no rewards. Speaking of class sets I thought you would get a curated class your currently playing but you get all classes which doesnt seem its worth it if you dont get the class your actually playing.

FantasticFreddie

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Who came up with the balance of these DAILY endeavors?!



So, first, only the cycle bosses count. Tho'ats don't count, and Maurauders don't count. So this meant getting to Arc 4 Cycle 4.

Second, how the hell is this balanced for a DAILY endeavor? Esp. when the WEEKLY endeavor is complete 20 stages. Essentially, the weekly translates to "complete 1 arc" while the daily is "complete 4 arcs"? How on earth did this endeavor balancing even make it past QA?!

This one's bad, but not quite so bad - Daily Endeavor for 23 Sept:

What are you talking about, that is TERRIBLE

Tandor

I played through it 3 times with my standard lvl 40 stamplar and a companion. No CPs, and 3 star gear. I routinely solo basic public dungeons with few problems but play mainly for exploration and questing. Each time I made it through the first 3 stages without difficulty but got killed by the 4th stage boss. Each time I'd get some of the boss's health down with him hitting for a couple of thousand damage and then from nowhere he'd hit with anything between 40,000 and 75,000 damage.

I found the buffs useless, they tended to match the increased threat in each stage and sometimes included 2 magicka options for my stamina character.

Clearly this whole concept is aimed solely at high-end characters with competitive play builds and extensive experience of more demanding dungeons and trials, and this is borne out by the responses here. That's fine if it's clearly described as a high-level arena, but as an endless dungeon and major new feature with a lot of rewards locked behind it I find it a shame that there's no attempt to offer a better-scaled option for casual non-competitive players whose natural encounter level is delves and public dungeons. As such I won't go near it on Live.

Elsonso

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Endless Archive. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• What level were you when you went through Endless Archive?
• Did you play solo, with a companion or with another player?
• What Stage, Cycle, and Arc did you reach?
• Which bosses were the toughest?
  • Which Cycle and Arc did you fight the boss on?
• Which Verses did you find the most and least effective?
• Which Visions did you find the most and least effective?
• Did you use any Portals to the Unknown?
  • Which side content did you do?
  • Did you feel adequately rewarded?
• Did you use any Verse Scrolls?
  • If so, how effective were they?
  • Would you use them again?
• Did you have fun?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

1. CP 1500 ish
2. Companion, not fully leveled.
3. Did not complete first Arc
4. Arc boss
5. First Arc
6. Stamina ones were least useful
7. Only had one Vision, so cannot answer
8. Used one portal to the unknown
9. Chased some light back to owner
10. Felt adequately rewarded, at least for now
11. Did not use Verse Scrolls
12. n/a
13. n/a

Comments:
1. Companions are useless. Don't count them as a second person. It is like playing with someone who is AFK. My run was a solo run with Azandar watching. When he wasn't dead.
2. First Arc boss is too tough compared to content difficulty leading up to it.
3. Felt that this was not yet tuned to the point where playing it on PTS is meaningful. May try again later in the PTS cycle.
4. Do not feel this is something I would do on Live very often. Not a fan of arenas.

robertlabrie

This is the official feedback thread for Endless Archive. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

What level were you when you went through Endless Archive?
CP1900 stamsorc pale order and malestrom

Did you play solo, with a companion or with another player?
Solo

What Stage, Cycle, and Arc did you reach?
I fought two bosses, didn't really pay attention to the progression

Which bosses were the toughest?
Which Cycle and Arc did you fight the boss on?

Which Verses did you find the most and least effective?
Most effective was the stam recovery AOE least was the evade attack to spawn a book

Which Visions did you find the most and least effective?
There were ones that added 2% to some stats, I don't think I played long enough to make them matter

Did you use any Portals to the Unknown?
Which side content did you do?
Did you feel adequately rewarded?
No

Did you use any Verse Scrolls?
If so, how effective were they?
Would you use them again?
No

Did you have fun?
Generally yes. The second boss I fought was a grind (I forget, it threw red splotches everywhere which damaged me). I think on live I would play longer since the repeat incentive comes from the currency but there was no sense in grinding on PTS.

Do you have any other general feedback?
The verses that trigger on killing an enemy are useless before a boss fight unless the boss spawns adds. Neither of the two I fought did, making the verse kind of useless.

It took me quite a while to figure out how to leave endless archive, that wasn't intuitive.

maitrescott_ESO

Zhaj'hassan the Forgotten has been my most difficult fight. I seem to get this boss EVERY SINGLE TIME I go through the Endless Archive. I've learned his mechanics by now, but the fight is so unforgiving that I rarely, if ever, survive the fight. Without this boss, I could progress a lot further. While I like a challenge, I think this fight is a bit much.

oogaboogaoogabooga

After running a several long sessions and reaching arc 8 solo a few times I would strongly reccommend to reduce the amount of stages between boss fights from 3 to 2 because right now it's not really a skilltest or fun to fight so many trashmobs, it's more of a tedious and time consuming pointless grind. These mobs don't give any loot, have too much hp later on and not enough damage to be a real threat. It only gets really challenging when a maraderur drops on your head midfight and that happens strictly once per arc. So right now it feels more like a time filler between actual boss fights to keep you busy. There is no point in it, that arena is endless anyways. People would want to just rush through them to get to the fights where it gets interesting and rewarded for their time spent.

It also slowing down progression a lot by taking so much time to clear at further arcs. For example it took about 12 hours the best duo to get to arc 16, mostly because of the trash waves, mobs had over 4 million hp each lol. Solo it would take even more time, it took me about 7 hours to get to arc 8. At some point It will make it close to impossible to go any further without an option to save your progress to make a break and continue later on.

TLDR: more fun fights, less boring ones. Reducing the amount of stages would help with it. Also allow to save the progress or start from a checkpoint

f047ys3v3n

Me and Kojou did another run at the archive this week. This time, instead of taking two raid arcanist dps, we took one and a hybrid half tank half dps hybrid warden build. The result was the same, we got to last boss of the second arc, this time we just got there a bit slower due to the lower dps. The semi-tank build just couldn't really tank either the marauder or Tho'at at the second level of difficulty. You absolutely need a full raid tank build. This brings up two points:
First: The gulf between the difficulty of Tho'at, the marauder, and every other boss is just massive. You need full tank for these and no tank at all for anything else.
Second: Your along with a tank for a full hour of content before you have any real cause to use one. Not exactly exciting.

One thing that was interesting on our second run is that substantially decreased dps meant we saw a lot more mechanics from the bosses. The serpent in particular was quite good. It definitely brought back some nostalgia for the days of running vSO in it's original incarnation. Glad I didn't have to drop magica like on the vSO serpent fight. Given my ARC had +50% magica regen from a couple of the buffs in there, that wouldn't have happened. Doing the serpent boss was really the highlight of the run. It's mechanics were well done.

As for the totality of the thing here are my thoughts:

1) Were talking about a piece of content that is looking like ~4hours to get through all 4 arcs of evolution and get what amounts to a clear. That is insane.
2) You only have 3 wipes to do that and then you have to totally start over. How do you think somebody is going to feel after putting in 4 hours to get to arc 4 Tho'at and then wiping at say 10% and facing 4 hours just to get back and have another shot?
3) It takes a full hour to even get to a fight that is remotely challenging. OMG that is boring.
4) The loot drop rate and achievements suggest that you think players are going to want to spend 100's of hours in here but given that the sets don't look like must haves and the content is miserable drudgery, I don't see many doing that.
5) Did I mention it's miserable drudgery? It is. It's round after round of utterly uninspired trash pulls takes up the bulk of your time.
6) The marauder and Tho'at are scaled vet HM level to other bosses non-vet level. Also, this scaling has nothing to do with mechanics and is solely do to how hard their basic attacks hit.
7) Despite spending a lot more time on the Tho'at fight, I can't say I saw a lot more mechanics outside of not standing in red and having to take pretty large incoming seemingly unavoidable damage from those crystal ball things. Nothing really jumped out as a compelling mechanic though this may just be because I have only seen that fight for probably 5 min of the 3 or so hours we have spent testing the archive. Not much time to figure it out given how much time we spent in the content.
8) I don't see myself spending much time in the endless archive. Given I do mostly endgame PVE, and have spent enough time doing that to have most of the HM achievements, that is probably a very bad sign.

My suggestions:
1) Drop all trash rounds and the temporary buffs you do between them. All this is pointless drudgery.
2) Scale the number of bosses per arc such that the whole 4 arc evolution thing takes about 1 hour for a good team
3) Scale the bosses so that bosses that hit like vet HM encounters are not immediately beside ones that hit like non-vet ones. Right now it doesn't feel like a progression going from round to round and arc to arc, it feels like a grab bag.
4) I have mixed feelings about the 3 wipe thing. There were things I liked about back in the day when trials gave you a limited amount of group member deaths but there were also down sides. At least, if the whole thing took only an hour the down side would be somewhat mitigated. At more like 4 hours currently it's a big yikes. Even if you stick with a limited number of wipes, I don't think 3 deaths are enough. I, for one, want more practice on a bosses mechanics before having to restart. I would make it more like 10 wipes.

J18696

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Me and Kojou did another run at the archive this week. This time, instead of taking two raid arcanist dps, we took one and a hybrid half tank half dps hybrid warden build. The result was the same, we got to last boss of the second arc, this time we just got there a bit slower due to the lower dps. The semi-tank build just couldn't really tank either the marauder or Tho'at at the second level of difficulty. You absolutely need a full raid tank build. This brings up two points:
First: The gulf between the difficulty of Tho'at, the marauder, and every other boss is just massive. You need full tank for these and no tank at all for anything else.
Second: Your along with a tank for a full hour of content before you have any real cause to use one. Not exactly exciting.

One thing that was interesting on our second run is that substantially decreased dps meant we saw a lot more mechanics from the bosses. The serpent in particular was quite good. It definitely brought back some nostalgia for the days of running vSO in it's original incarnation. Glad I didn't have to drop magica like on the vSO serpent fight. Given my ARC had +50% magica regen from a couple of the buffs in there, that wouldn't have happened. Doing the serpent boss was really the highlight of the run. It's mechanics were well done.

As for the totality of the thing here are my thoughts:

1) Were talking about a piece of content that is looking like ~4hours to get through all 4 arcs of evolution and get what amounts to a clear. That is insane.
2) You only have 3 wipes to do that and then you have to totally start over. How do you think somebody is going to feel after putting in 4 hours to get to arc 4 Tho'at and then wiping at say 10% and facing 4 hours just to get back and have another shot?
3) It takes a full hour to even get to a fight that is remotely challenging. OMG that is boring.
4) The loot drop rate and achievements suggest that you think players are going to want to spend 100's of hours in here but given that the sets don't look like must haves and the content is miserable drudgery, I don't see many doing that.
5) Did I mention it's miserable drudgery? It is. It's round after round of utterly uninspired trash pulls takes up the bulk of your time.
6) The marauder and Tho'at are scaled vet HM level to other bosses non-vet level. Also, this scaling has nothing to do with mechanics and is solely do to how hard their basic attacks hit.
7) Despite spending a lot more time on the Tho'at fight, I can't say I saw a lot more mechanics outside of not standing in red and having to take pretty large incoming seemingly unavoidable damage from those crystal ball things. Nothing really jumped out as a compelling mechanic though this may just be because I have only seen that fight for probably 5 min of the 3 or so hours we have spent testing the archive. Not much time to figure it out given how much time we spent in the content.
8) I don't see myself spending much time in the endless archive. Given I do mostly endgame PVE, and have spent enough time doing that to have most of the HM achievements, that is probably a very bad sign.

My suggestions:
1) Drop all trash rounds and the temporary buffs you do between them. All this is pointless drudgery.
2) Scale the number of bosses per arc such that the whole 4 arc evolution thing takes about 1 hour for a good team
3) Scale the bosses so that bosses that hit like vet HM encounters are not immediately beside ones that hit like non-vet ones. Right now it doesn't feel like a progression going from round to round and arc to arc, it feels like a grab bag.
4) I have mixed feelings about the 3 wipe thing. There were things I liked about back in the day when trials gave you a limited amount of group member deaths but there were also down sides. At least, if the whole thing took only an hour the down side would be somewhat mitigated. At more like 4 hours currently it's a big yikes. Even if you stick with a limited number of wipes, I don't think 3 deaths are enough. I, for one, want more practice on a bosses mechanics before having to restart. I would make it more like 10 wipes.

You definitely don't need a "full raid tank" because we already have 2 people solo pushing into arc 8 and 9 with essentially dps builds just beefing up on health and armor

I completely agree that the trash rooms feel boring and a slog eventually they need to adjust them somehow either by lowering the trash rounds per boss or reducing the health but making them do more damage maybe not to sure

Also agree that having 3 wipes isn't really doing anything but stopping players from learning by trial and error at least give people away to keep pushing without score

Entaro

Are people somehow able to reset their boss encounters? I've had 3 runs cut short at Arc 4/5/6 due to Yolna preventing progress. I see the leaderboard a Duo at like Arc 16 is that just super RNG that they never run into this boss? Or that I am the one with super (Bad) RNG.

code65536

Entaro wrote: »

Are people somehow able to reset their boss encounters? I've had 3 runs cut short at Arc 4/5/6 due to Yolna preventing progress. I see the leaderboard a Duo at like Arc 16 is that just super RNG that they never run into this boss? Or that I am the one with super (Bad) RNG.

Go use the bathroom. Get a snack. Stretch. Check your e-mails. After about 9-10 minutes, the chest will spawn and the stage will complete. It's only a problem with Yoln, and the solution is to just be patient and wait.

kojou

Feedback RE: PTS Patch Notes v9.2.1

The cost for items in the store is still to high for the rate that we are acquiring the currency.

I have very little motivation to continue testing this content. It takes too long to get to an interesting fight, and there was no adjustment to the amount of rounds between boss fights, so I am expecting it will still be over an hour to reach the second arc which is too long IMO.

In its current state I am not sure how much motivation I will have to do it on live either. There are other dungeons and trials that are much more fun and rewarding to do.

DeathStalker

I must say, I'm disappointed in the lack of changes to the endless archive in patch 9.2.1. in regards to difficulty. If many bosses are not adjusted downward, most will be impossible for any but the top players to do. This will end up being another piece of content like arenas and trials for only the top players, that the overwhelming majority of the player base has no choice but to ignore.

Toxic_Hemlock

So other than a few tweaks around the edges, EA is going to go live the way it was in 9.2.0, thanks, got it...

Why even bother having a feedback thread if you are not even going to implement any of the feedback?

I'll just enjoy the jewelry crafting update and not bother until next year when the 2% of people that are left playing it move on to other games. What a waste of an opportunity, I was looking forward to it last month.

Edit: spelling