Endless Archive Progression is Too Slow

skinnycheeks

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey all, just wanted to let you know that we are planning to make some adjustments to the difficulty curve in Endless Archive in next week's PTS patch. Keep the feedback coming!

Just to reiterate from my experience and from what I’ve seen most others say as well:

The difficulty curve is NOT the issue here

The problem is the overall time it takes to get through each Arc. So maybe there needs to be further clarification in the discussion to separate difficulty progression from player progression.

The difficulty progression has not been the issue. Personally, I think the ramp up from Arc to Arc is in a good spot but I've also heard others say that it is already TOO difficult, even in the early Arc(s). But this aspect will vary greatly from player to player.

So why is getting more difficult more quickly a bad solution to this problem of slow progression?

Because progressing through the Archive as a whole is the fun part! We don't want to stall that out sooner! With the solution of making it hard faster, instead of speeding up the rate at which we move through the content and experience more of the Archive’s really interesting and fun mechanics, you just end up having the player experience less of the archive as the solution to the time problem. And if progress is going to be attempted to be slowed by difficulty, then that is going to have a WAY different impact on different players. Sure you’ll stop sooner (taking less time) but end of the day, you’ll get less rewards and less visions added along the way. So it doesn’t really address the core of what feels slow. And that is the player progression.

Speeding up our progression by not wasting as much time on repeating add waves would help to solve the time problem and still let people get into the really fun game of stacking up Visions. Ultimately, we want more of those and more rewards in less time. The archive starts getting really good when you start getting interesting combos of visions stacked onto your character and start seeing that power show up. But it takes SO long to get to that point because of all the trash rounds.

If for some reason ramping up the difficulty more quickly is set in stone with you guys…then rewards need to be upped greatly and some way to acquire visions more rapidly as well. Otherwise this change is not resolving the core of what players have been giving feedback on.

Nilandia

Having done a few runs in there already, I can agree that the number of trash fights to get to the bosses seems a bit much. The difficulty increase seems to be in a good spot as is, especially for players looking for a more casual experience. A single run needs to appeal both to the casual player and the veteran, so we can't tune the difficulty too high all at once.

Removing one wave per stage and/or one stage per cycle could potentially help address the issue of progression taking too long. Just don't adjust the difficulty of those encounters. They seem fine where they are right now.

AJTC5000

Must agree with @skinnycheeks . Adjusting the difficulty curve is not the solution here - the timing and general cadence of the Archive needs to be adjusted overall.

Most of my fun and engagement in the Archive has come from revisiting all of the unique bosses and their mechanics - I don't want to be bloated with extra artificial difficulty from mandatory trash packs before each boss. That isn't fun - it's simply makes it take longer to get to the good parts of the Archive.

If you're insistent on keeping the 3-stage 1-boss model as of current, then each Cycle boss needs to be dropping a piece of Class gear at minimum. It is simply an insult to keep possibly the largest collection of items in an instanced PvE content area locked behind a 1-piece-per drip feed, from a difficult boss encounter that some people may not even make it to. This is free content - it needs to be accessible to everyone. Ideally however, IMO, it should be a 2-stage 1-boss model, with gear at each Cycle boss.

code65536

As I wrote in the other feedback thread, I'm skeptical of accelerating difficulty as a response to the EA being slow, as it's clear that there is a very wide spectrum of player skill levels, and honestly, the current jump in difficulty between each Arc is mostly fine (there could be something said about the cycle bosses, since at the moment Cycle number tends to dominate over Arc number for boss difficulty, and I'm not sure if that's intended, but that's a topic for another discussion).

The biggest problem is the amount of uninteresting and unrewarding filler that slows things down for everyone. Eliminating a stage from each cycle is probably the biggest low-hanging-fruit improvement that can be made at the moment.

DeathStalker

skinnycheeks wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey all, just wanted to let you know that we are planning to make some adjustments to the difficulty curve in Endless Archive in next week's PTS patch. Keep the feedback coming!

Just to reiterate from my experience and from what I’ve seen most others say as well:

The difficulty curve is NOT the issue here

From a casual player pov, the difficulty curve is the issue. If the difficulty at least in the beginning isn't adjusted downward then this Endless dungeon will become just like arenas and trials for the top players only.

skinnycheeks

DeathStalker wrote: »

skinnycheeks wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey all, just wanted to let you know that we are planning to make some adjustments to the difficulty curve in Endless Archive in next week's PTS patch. Keep the feedback coming!

Just to reiterate from my experience and from what I’ve seen most others say as well:

The difficulty curve is NOT the issue here

From a casual player pov, the difficulty curve is the issue. If the difficulty at least in the beginning isn't adjusted downward then this Endless dungeon will become just like arenas and trials for the top players only.

Did you read my post? I was saying that it shouldn't be made harder, sooner as a response to "speeding up progression." If they want to make the opening arcs easier for more casual play, I think that's a great idea. They should just go faster!

XSTRONG

I agree that making Endless Archive harder dont solve this problem, it would probably just push away a big majority of players simply because its to hard in early Arcs.

code65536

DeathStalker wrote: »

From a casual player pov, the difficulty curve is the issue. If the difficulty at least in the beginning isn't adjusted downward then this Endless dungeon will become just like arenas and trials for the top players only.

I believe Skinny's concern is with ZOS compressing the difficulty curve--i.e., making the harder stuff come sooner--because one of the most common complaints is that it takes too long. So by compressing the curve, people will get to the harder parts sooner and wipe out sooner. Which, yes, would address the "too long" problem, but it would create accessibility issues too, esp. since there are people who struggle to clear even Arc 1.

What is being argued here is that instead of speeding things up by compressing the difficulty curve, it should be done by cutting out some of the unnecessary fat, which would be a good change for players of all skill levels.

I do agree that, for a broad audience, the Endless Archive as it currently exists on the PTS is not very accessible. The trash in Arc 1 have more health than the trash in vet Maelstrom, the puny Cycle 1 bosses in Arc 1 have more health than most bosses in vMA, and Arc 1's overall difficulty (esp. if you get a trial boss for Cycle 4) for a solo player is arguably higher that of vMA, so an easing of Arc 1 for accessibility would seem appropriate.

ESO_player123

code65536 wrote: »

DeathStalker wrote: »

From a casual player pov, the difficulty curve is the issue. If the difficulty at least in the beginning isn't adjusted downward then this Endless dungeon will become just like arenas and trials for the top players only.

-snip

I do agree that, for a broad audience, the Endless Archive as it currently exists on the PTS is not very accessible. The trash in Arc 1 have more health than the trash in vet Maelstrom, the puny Cycle 1 bosses in Arc 1 have more health than most bosses in vMA, and Arc 1's overall difficulty (esp. if you get a trial boss for Cycle 4) for a solo player is arguably higher that of vMA, so an easing of Arc 1 for accessibility would seem appropriate.

I finished vMA only once after a lot of struggle and I did not have a limit of 3 lives there. Never set foot in vMA again.
I just wish they would not make it sound that EA could be something for everyone when it was first announced. If they said it was for end-game players - fine. Just like when i hear a word trial it would be a cue that this content is not for me.

Trial bosses in Arc 1 - I personally think that should not be happening at the very beginning, but that is just an opinion of one person.

skinnycheeks

This whole "slow progression" thing is a point we've come back to a lot now this PTS. And a lot of people have pointed to the 1-3 Stages as the root cause of this. I've seen a lot of good discussion around this today and thought I'd share a few things.

So a common request to help speed things up is to "remove a stage of adds." But why is this an area that players are frequently targeting to speed things up and not the other parts of the archive?

1.) No lasting rewards

Stages 1-3 only offer Verses that benefit you for the following stage. No currency to carry over. No buffs to stay with you throughout. So moving through them feels like filler to get to the part where you actually earn stuff.

2.) Not Much Variety

It didn't take long before the formula was figured out. Big wave > Small Wave > Big Wave. And the number of different enemies used within the 1-3 Stages are pretty limited too. After just a few runs you keep running into the same small mobs and same elites over and over.

3.) Nothing Meaningful Added in 3 Stages vs 1 or 2

The special bonus side rooms are cool, but they could easily pop up just as often only doing 1 or 2 stages before the Cycle boss each time instead of 3 Stages. Other than those, there isn't anything to introduce excitement like that wonder of which boss you'll get, or getting to open a chest of loot that has lasting value. There are verses, yes. But the main verses you end up caring about are just for the Cycle boss, or the ones on the off-chance you get a Marauder. And multiple stages plays no real part in those two things.

So I thought it might be helpful to dig into the WHY of the feeling of slow progression. Instead of just saying "the trash takes too long." If some lasting rewards, more overall variety, or just something more meaningful all together could be added to these, I don't think they would feel like they move so slowly.

IneedaDollar

Giving my 2cents here.
My highest Arc on the pts so far was 18 (13h run) and the real problem was that for the 6-15 arc range visions gave more buffs than the arcs increased in difficulty which made all these arcs feel very similar.
Ramping up difficulty might be the right play here.
Either by increasing the curve or by nerfing some of the visions.
I would also cut a trash round from every cycle but i dont know how easy this would be to implement.
It isnt necessary to buff the early arcs 1-4 to get to the achievement but there should definetly be a faster difficulty increase after that to outpace the damage increase from visions and not make leaderboard runs 20 hours long (which is not only tedious but also not healthy at all and promotes accountsharing aswell)

J18696

IneedaDollar wrote: »

Giving my 2cents here.
My highest Arc on the pts so far was 18 (13h run) and the real problem was that for the 6-15 arc range visions gave more buffs than the arcs increased in difficulty which made all these arcs feel very similar.
Ramping up difficulty might be the right play here.
Either by increasing the curve or by nerfing some of the visions.
I would also cut a trash round from every cycle but i dont know how easy this would be to implement.
It isnt necessary to buff the early arcs 1-4 to get to the achievement but there should definetly be a faster difficulty increase after that to outpace the damage increase from visions and not make leaderboard runs 20 hours long (which is not only tedious but also not healthy at all and promotes accountsharing aswell)

Yeah at this rate leaderboard runs will consist of leaving the game running with a macro to keep the instance open and just going until you can't take it anymore

Entaro

code65536 wrote: »

Entaro wrote: »

Maybe a similar amount of time as completing Vateshran sticker book.

Absolutely not!

One of the worst features of the Endless Archive is just how obscenely stingy they are with the rewards.

The time it would take to completed the EA stickerbook is far, far worse than for Vateshran, and maybe even Maelstrom.

There are 7 sets. Every set has all 36 slots (since they drop in all 3 armor weights). That's 252 pieces to collect.

Vateshran has 3 gear sets with 22 items each for 66 pieces. Plus the 16 arena weapons (4x DW, 4x 1HS, 3x 2H, 3x destro, resto, bow) (but since the dual-wield drop in pairs, for the purposes of calculating how many runs are needed, it's really only 14). The arena weapons drop alongside the gear sets on the final boss, so you'll be completing both in parallel (and at around the same time).

The time it takes to complete Arc 1 is in the same ballpark as the time it takes to complete one Vateshran run. In that Arc 1 run, you will earn only one gear piece, whereas in Vateshran, there are 7 loot opportunities for the 3 gear sets. There is the possibility of just additional 1 additional gear item from the optional content in the Arc, whereas you have multiple opportunities for optional bosses in Vateshran. If you don't limit yourself to Arc 1 and venture into Arc 2, you'll get a third loot opportunity from killing the Maurauder, but Arc 2 is going to take more time than Arc 1.

So, you have far more pieces to collect. And far fewer loot opportunities. The gear grind is by no means "similar" to that of Vateshran. It's not even on the same bloody planet.

Hell, this is even worse than Maelstrom. In Maelstrom, the weapons from the 6 gear sets (not counting arena weapons, since those are easy and fast to collect) drop only on the final boss, so it will take 90 runs to fully complete Maelstrom's stickerbook, which is considerably worse than Vateshran's.

Let's say you are running just the first two Arcs in EA: that's 5 loot opportunities (assuming you do all the side content and are able to actually complete the quest if you get the quest and you successfully kill the Maurauder), so it'll take over 50 Arc1+2 runs. But the time it takes to do Arc1+2 is roughly twice the time it takes to waltz through nMA (if you're just going for stickerbook completion, you will need only 14 vet runs to complete all the arena weapons, after which point you only need to run normal for the remaining stickerbook, so most of a Maelstrom stickerbook farm would be on normal, if you're going for expediency).

And at 10K currencies for just a single curated item (and you won't be earning currencies at a decent non-pittance rate until you get to the later arcs, but, again, that's time-consuming), they might as well not figure into your equation. Even for the cheaper non-curated coffers, it'll take about two runs of Arc 1 to get enough currency to buy a single uncurated coffer.

So, yea, the reward structure in week 1 of PTS is pretty insulting and anyone looking to complete stickerbook will need to have copious amounts of time to waste.

Cycle bosses need to be changed so that they drop gear too. Limiting gear to the Tho'at is absurd and disrespectful of the player's time.

Ah Good call. I didn't realize the sets were in all weights and that I was not getting drops from the Cycle bosses. That definitely needs to be changed as you suggest.

J18696

Entaro wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Entaro wrote: »

Maybe a similar amount of time as completing Vateshran sticker book.

Absolutely not!

One of the worst features of the Endless Archive is just how obscenely stingy they are with the rewards.

The time it would take to completed the EA stickerbook is far, far worse than for Vateshran, and maybe even Maelstrom.

There are 7 sets. Every set has all 36 slots (since they drop in all 3 armor weights). That's 252 pieces to collect.

Vateshran has 3 gear sets with 22 items each for 66 pieces. Plus the 16 arena weapons (4x DW, 4x 1HS, 3x 2H, 3x destro, resto, bow) (but since the dual-wield drop in pairs, for the purposes of calculating how many runs are needed, it's really only 14). The arena weapons drop alongside the gear sets on the final boss, so you'll be completing both in parallel (and at around the same time).

The time it takes to complete Arc 1 is in the same ballpark as the time it takes to complete one Vateshran run. In that Arc 1 run, you will earn only one gear piece, whereas in Vateshran, there are 7 loot opportunities for the 3 gear sets. There is the possibility of just additional 1 additional gear item from the optional content in the Arc, whereas you have multiple opportunities for optional bosses in Vateshran. If you don't limit yourself to Arc 1 and venture into Arc 2, you'll get a third loot opportunity from killing the Maurauder, but Arc 2 is going to take more time than Arc 1.

So, you have far more pieces to collect. And far fewer loot opportunities. The gear grind is by no means "similar" to that of Vateshran. It's not even on the same bloody planet.

Hell, this is even worse than Maelstrom. In Maelstrom, the weapons from the 6 gear sets (not counting arena weapons, since those are easy and fast to collect) drop only on the final boss, so it will take 90 runs to fully complete Maelstrom's stickerbook, which is considerably worse than Vateshran's.

Let's say you are running just the first two Arcs in EA: that's 5 loot opportunities (assuming you do all the side content and are able to actually complete the quest if you get the quest and you successfully kill the Maurauder), so it'll take over 50 Arc1+2 runs. But the time it takes to do Arc1+2 is roughly twice the time it takes to waltz through nMA (if you're just going for stickerbook completion, you will need only 14 vet runs to complete all the arena weapons, after which point you only need to run normal for the remaining stickerbook, so most of a Maelstrom stickerbook farm would be on normal, if you're going for expediency).

And at 10K currencies for just a single curated item (and you won't be earning currencies at a decent non-pittance rate until you get to the later arcs, but, again, that's time-consuming), they might as well not figure into your equation. Even for the cheaper non-curated coffers, it'll take about two runs of Arc 1 to get enough currency to buy a single uncurated coffer.

So, yea, the reward structure in week 1 of PTS is pretty insulting and anyone looking to complete stickerbook will need to have copious amounts of time to waste.

Cycle bosses need to be changed so that they drop gear too. Limiting gear to the Tho'at is absurd and disrespectful of the player's time.

Ah Good call. I didn't realize the sets were in all weights and that I was not getting drops from the Cycle bosses. That definitely needs to be changed as you suggest.

Yeah all weapons jewellery and armor weights

Entaro

What is the most optimized Inkslayer time for a solo player roughly do you think in the current implementation? 90 minutes?

I feel like that should be an optimization point for the Devs to consider when thinking about this feedback. Everything else in the game as far as Trifectas and such (I realize EA has no trifecta style achievement, maybe it should for beating Arc 4 tho'at without death in X time) are kind of balanced around the content itself [eventually] being completed in 15-45 minutes by the best players, after progging it out.

In that regard Inkslayer as currently implemented seems like a big outlier as far as time to complete for endgame content.

J18696

Entaro wrote: »

What is the most optimized Inkslayer time for a solo player roughly do you think in the current implementation? 90 minutes?

I feel like that should be an optimization point for the Devs to consider when thinking about this feedback. Everything else in the game as far as Trifectas and such (I realize EA has no trifecta style achievement, maybe it should for beating Arc 4 tho'at without death in X time) are kind of balanced around the content itself [eventually] being completed in 15-45 minutes by the best players, after progging it out.

In that regard Inkslayer as currently implemented seems like a big outlier as far as time to complete for endgame content.

Depends what you mean by optimised do you mean for a clear of a single arc or to clear arc 4 where the boss technically stops evolving because getting to the end of Arc 4 solo was taking me around 2-3 hours range with playing it safe around the marauders and depending what bosses you get

Also adding in im not like efficiently stacking trash but that would speed things up alot

Wildberryjack

I understand it's called "endless", but if you don't plan to add a "save" feature then how about breaking it up into wings so we aren't stuck for hours on end or screwed if we DC?

XSTRONG

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey all, just wanted to let you know that we are planning to make some adjustments to the difficulty curve in Endless Archive in next week's PTS patch. Keep the feedback coming!

They might as well do Arcs easier, nothing said about harder Arcs?

One system would be.. after Arc 4 the diffuculty increase and then more hard when hitting Arc 8 etc.

But a save option i think would be very apreciated for players.

skinnycheeks

IneedaDollar wrote: »

Giving my 2cents here.
My highest Arc on the pts so far was 18 (13h run) and the real problem was that for the 6-15 arc range visions gave more buffs than the arcs increased in difficulty which made all these arcs feel very similar.
Ramping up difficulty might be the right play here.
Either by increasing the curve or by nerfing some of the visions.
I would also cut a trash round from every cycle but i dont know how easy this would be to implement.
It isnt necessary to buff the early arcs 1-4 to get to the achievement but there should definetly be a faster difficulty increase after that to outpace the damage increase from visions and not make leaderboard runs 20 hours long (which is not only tedious but also not healthy at all and promotes accountsharing aswell)

Yeah I agree as you get up into the later ones and the buffs really start adding up, that part might need to ramp up quicker. I guess I was talking more about the earlier 1-6 arc range. Before the pieces have really all come together (unless you've just gotten really lucky.) I'm not sure that section should necessarily be harder, otherwise you won't really have much of the playerbase participating past their daily quest arc 1 run. I also don't really agree with nerfing the buffs, cause this is the 1st place they've really gone wild with them, and I think that will be a big draw and a lot of fun for players. But yeah, the later Arcs scaling more aggressively to outpace the buffs is probably needed, like you said.

NoxiousBlight

skinnycheeks wrote: »

IneedaDollar wrote: »

Giving my 2cents here.
My highest Arc on the pts so far was 18 (13h run) and the real problem was that for the 6-15 arc range visions gave more buffs than the arcs increased in difficulty which made all these arcs feel very similar.
Ramping up difficulty might be the right play here.
Either by increasing the curve or by nerfing some of the visions.
I would also cut a trash round from every cycle but i dont know how easy this would be to implement.
It isnt necessary to buff the early arcs 1-4 to get to the achievement but there should definetly be a faster difficulty increase after that to outpace the damage increase from visions and not make leaderboard runs 20 hours long (which is not only tedious but also not healthy at all and promotes accountsharing aswell)

Yeah I agree as you get up into the later ones and the buffs really start adding up, that part might need to ramp up quicker. I guess I was talking more about the earlier 1-6 arc range. Before the pieces have really all come together (unless you've just gotten really lucky.) I'm not sure that section should necessarily be harder, otherwise you won't really have much of the playerbase participating past their daily quest arc 1 run. I also don't really agree with nerfing the buffs, cause this is the 1st place they've really gone wild with them, and I think that will be a big draw and a lot of fun for players. But yeah, the later Arcs scaling more aggressively to outpace the buffs is probably needed, like you said.

I agree with you 100%. At the current pace I will never reach Arc 6 and beyond. I just don't have 3+ hours to sit and play a game, let alone 10+ hours.

But the FUN of EA is stacking the long term buffs. That is what makes rogue-likes so exciting - getting a bunch of random buffs and making a broken build, then going ham through the game.

EA fails because the round buffs fade after a single trash pack and it takes ENTIRELY too long to get through each Arc and gain that permanent buff. The trash packs just feel useless because I am not gaining anything. Maybe if I select the same buff three times it becomes permanent? At least then I could try and orchestrate some kind of a build which would make things interesting.

Progress should speed up by 50%, at least. That way after a two hours or so we are on Arc 10+ and really have some fun and insane power creep going. A three hour run should be the run of the century, not the norm for a good player. So in my "ideal" version of EA, you could complete 4-5 Arcs an hour.

Dagoth_Rac

NoxiousBlight wrote: »

skinnycheeks wrote: »

IneedaDollar wrote: »

Giving my 2cents here.
My highest Arc on the pts so far was 18 (13h run) and the real problem was that for the 6-15 arc range visions gave more buffs than the arcs increased in difficulty which made all these arcs feel very similar.
Ramping up difficulty might be the right play here.
Either by increasing the curve or by nerfing some of the visions.
I would also cut a trash round from every cycle but i dont know how easy this would be to implement.
It isnt necessary to buff the early arcs 1-4 to get to the achievement but there should definetly be a faster difficulty increase after that to outpace the damage increase from visions and not make leaderboard runs 20 hours long (which is not only tedious but also not healthy at all and promotes accountsharing aswell)

Yeah I agree as you get up into the later ones and the buffs really start adding up, that part might need to ramp up quicker. I guess I was talking more about the earlier 1-6 arc range. Before the pieces have really all come together (unless you've just gotten really lucky.) I'm not sure that section should necessarily be harder, otherwise you won't really have much of the playerbase participating past their daily quest arc 1 run. I also don't really agree with nerfing the buffs, cause this is the 1st place they've really gone wild with them, and I think that will be a big draw and a lot of fun for players. But yeah, the later Arcs scaling more aggressively to outpace the buffs is probably needed, like you said.

I agree with you 100%. At the current pace I will never reach Arc 6 and beyond. I just don't have 3+ hours to sit and play a game, let alone 10+ hours.

But the FUN of EA is stacking the long term buffs. That is what makes rogue-likes so exciting - getting a bunch of random buffs and making a broken build, then going ham through the game.

EA fails because the round buffs fade after a single trash pack and it takes ENTIRELY too long to get through each Arc and gain that permanent buff. The trash packs just feel useless because I am not gaining anything. Maybe if I select the same buff three times it becomes permanent? At least then I could try and orchestrate some kind of a build which would make things interesting.

Progress should speed up by 50%, at least. That way after a two hours or so we are on Arc 10+ and really have some fun and insane power creep going. A three hour run should be the run of the century, not the norm for a good player. So in my "ideal" version of EA, you could complete 4-5 Arcs an hour.

Didn't the patch notes make mention of buffs you can purchase with the Archive currency? Are those permanent? It might make things unnecessarily grindy at the beginning, but if you can accumulate permanent buffs over time via the currency, it could add back in a bit of the fun factor. Is it possible that ZOS' idea is, "Yes, folks, getting the equivalent of the trifecta takes 3 hours now, but once you buy enough buffs, it will take no longer than a Sunspire trifecta. So chill out!"

J18696

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

NoxiousBlight wrote: »

skinnycheeks wrote: »

IneedaDollar wrote: »

Giving my 2cents here.
My highest Arc on the pts so far was 18 (13h run) and the real problem was that for the 6-15 arc range visions gave more buffs than the arcs increased in difficulty which made all these arcs feel very similar.
Ramping up difficulty might be the right play here.
Either by increasing the curve or by nerfing some of the visions.
I would also cut a trash round from every cycle but i dont know how easy this would be to implement.
It isnt necessary to buff the early arcs 1-4 to get to the achievement but there should definetly be a faster difficulty increase after that to outpace the damage increase from visions and not make leaderboard runs 20 hours long (which is not only tedious but also not healthy at all and promotes accountsharing aswell)

Yeah I agree as you get up into the later ones and the buffs really start adding up, that part might need to ramp up quicker. I guess I was talking more about the earlier 1-6 arc range. Before the pieces have really all come together (unless you've just gotten really lucky.) I'm not sure that section should necessarily be harder, otherwise you won't really have much of the playerbase participating past their daily quest arc 1 run. I also don't really agree with nerfing the buffs, cause this is the 1st place they've really gone wild with them, and I think that will be a big draw and a lot of fun for players. But yeah, the later Arcs scaling more aggressively to outpace the buffs is probably needed, like you said.

I agree with you 100%. At the current pace I will never reach Arc 6 and beyond. I just don't have 3+ hours to sit and play a game, let alone 10+ hours.

But the FUN of EA is stacking the long term buffs. That is what makes rogue-likes so exciting - getting a bunch of random buffs and making a broken build, then going ham through the game.

EA fails because the round buffs fade after a single trash pack and it takes ENTIRELY too long to get through each Arc and gain that permanent buff. The trash packs just feel useless because I am not gaining anything. Maybe if I select the same buff three times it becomes permanent? At least then I could try and orchestrate some kind of a build which would make things interesting.

Progress should speed up by 50%, at least. That way after a two hours or so we are on Arc 10+ and really have some fun and insane power creep going. A three hour run should be the run of the century, not the norm for a good player. So in my "ideal" version of EA, you could complete 4-5 Arcs an hour.

Didn't the patch notes make mention of buffs you can purchase with the Archive currency? Are those permanent? It might make things unnecessarily grindy at the beginning, but if you can accumulate permanent buffs over time via the currency, it could add back in a bit of the fun factor. Is it possible that ZOS' idea is, "Yes, folks, getting the equivalent of the trifecta takes 3 hours now, but once you buy enough buffs, it will take no longer than a Sunspire trifecta. So chill out!"

The buffs you can purchase with currency come in 2 types temporary buffs that are like consumables and the account bound buffs unlocked for purchase by achivements that are indeed permanent

loveeso

I agree with @skinnycheeks and most others here. I had actually written about it before in a few other threads. The required time commitment seems to be already much higher than 3-4 hours by the way. Others on this forum have already reported 12 hours as required for them to get to the top of the leaderboard on the PTS.

Also, I don’t understand why some seem to have that peculiar assumption that saving progress is incompatible with getting on the EA leaderboards. Why? Getting on the leaderboard should be a reward for one’s skill, not for how much time in one sitting one’s commitments let one spend in Endless Archive. It’s crazy. Almost like a participation reward. Reward skill, not time spent in game!

I saw some pretty crazy rationalisations coming from people who were against saving and claimed EA was perfect as is, examples:


- "As soon as you enter EA, the build is locked and it must be so for leaderboards. Saving would allow people to cheat by leaving to respec outside EA!"

1. This is simply not true. Inside EA one can currently do everything one is normally allowed to do in trials: swap gear, swap skills, change CPs, change skill morphs, reassign attribute points. No need to leave the instance.
2. More importantly: Why should the build you start with be locked because of leaderboards?! That’s crazy! We swap builds in trials all the time and it doesn’t disqualify us from the leaderboards.


- "EA should not be saved because people would be able to leave and craft sets they haven’t brought with them which would be cheating and would ruin the leaderboards" (seriously, I’m not lying, I’ve seen this somewhere on this forum)

1. What?! Who enters instanced content just to suddenly realise "oh, I know, I will just teleport out and craft myself some new sets for my DD/tank"
2. It’s a nonsensical excuse because, guess what, you can still do that now, without saving, if you are in a duo. You can just teleport out and craft away to your heart’s content, teleport back to your partner after an hour or two, and still get on the leaderboard. So yeah, that’s another reason why adding saves has nothing to do with leaderboards.
3. Why are we even talking about it?! Leaderboards are supposed to reward skill and that has nothing to do with teleporting out and in. You either are good enough to defeat that arc 8 boss, or not.


So yeah, EA has great potential, but it needs to be improved before it hits live, otherwise it will just be another fiasco.

endgamesmug

Can you opt out of the leaderboard? Im just interested in the activity itself, i find the concept unique and interesting and i look forward to challenging myself. I could care less about rewards including via a leaderboard.

i11ionward

loveeso wrote: »

- "EA should not be saved because people would be able to leave and craft sets they haven’t brought with them which would be cheating and would ruin the leaderboards" (seriously, I’m not lying, I’ve seen this somewhere on this forum)

1. What?! Who enters instanced content just to suddenly realise "oh, I know, I will just teleport out and craft myself some new sets for my DD/tank"
2. It’s a nonsensical excuse because, guess what, you can still do that now, without saving, if you are in a duo. You can just teleport out and craft away to your heart’s content, teleport back to your partner after an hour or two, and still get on the leaderboard. So yeah, that’s another reason why adding saves has nothing to do with leaderboards.
3. Why are we even talking about it?! Leaderboards are supposed to reward skill and that has nothing to do with teleporting out and in. You either are good enough to defeat that arc 8 boss, or not.

I hadn't thought of it before, but this situation is very real that the boss mechanics will require you to have a certain set (that you didn't decide to take in the beginning), and literally walking out of EA to get the set and walking back in is cheating. Now I'm definitely against the idea that EA's progress can be saved. But still, I think there should be at least 5 attempts at EA, but no more than 10.

P.S.
And yes, progress in EA should not be so slow.

loveeso

i11ionward wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

- "EA should not be saved because people would be able to leave and craft sets they haven’t brought with them which would be cheating and would ruin the leaderboards" (seriously, I’m not lying, I’ve seen this somewhere on this forum)

1. What?! Who enters instanced content just to suddenly realise "oh, I know, I will just teleport out and craft myself some new sets for my DD/tank"
2. It’s a nonsensical excuse because, guess what, you can still do that now, without saving, if you are in a duo. You can just teleport out and craft away to your heart’s content, teleport back to your partner after an hour or two, and still get on the leaderboard. So yeah, that’s another reason why adding saves has nothing to do with leaderboards.
3. Why are we even talking about it?! Leaderboards are supposed to reward skill and that has nothing to do with teleporting out and in. You either are good enough to defeat that arc 8 boss, or not.

I hadn't thought of it before, but […] literally walking out of EA to get the set and walking back in is cheating. Now I'm definitely against the idea that EA's progress can be saved.

Did you read what I wrote? It clearly stated that you can walk out and walk back in right now, without ZOS implementing any saves, so saves have nothing to do with that.

i11ionward

loveeso wrote: »

i11ionward wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

- "EA should not be saved because people would be able to leave and craft sets they haven’t brought with them which would be cheating and would ruin the leaderboards" (seriously, I’m not lying, I’ve seen this somewhere on this forum)

1. What?! Who enters instanced content just to suddenly realise "oh, I know, I will just teleport out and craft myself some new sets for my DD/tank"
2. It’s a nonsensical excuse because, guess what, you can still do that now, without saving, if you are in a duo. You can just teleport out and craft away to your heart’s content, teleport back to your partner after an hour or two, and still get on the leaderboard. So yeah, that’s another reason why adding saves has nothing to do with leaderboards.
3. Why are we even talking about it?! Leaderboards are supposed to reward skill and that has nothing to do with teleporting out and in. You either are good enough to defeat that arc 8 boss, or not.

I hadn't thought of it before, but […] literally walking out of EA to get the set and walking back in is cheating. Now I'm definitely against the idea that EA's progress can be saved.

Did you read what I wrote? It clearly stated that you can walk out and walk back in right now, without ZOS implementing any saves, so saves have nothing to do with that.

I just wrote in some topic that I wanted progress to be saved. There are also a lot of reviews from people who ask to save progress.

loveeso

i11ionward wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

i11ionward wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

- "EA should not be saved because people would be able to leave and craft sets they haven’t brought with them which would be cheating and would ruin the leaderboards" (seriously, I’m not lying, I’ve seen this somewhere on this forum)

1. What?! Who enters instanced content just to suddenly realise "oh, I know, I will just teleport out and craft myself some new sets for my DD/tank"
2. It’s a nonsensical excuse because, guess what, you can still do that now, without saving, if you are in a duo. You can just teleport out and craft away to your heart’s content, teleport back to your partner after an hour or two, and still get on the leaderboard. So yeah, that’s another reason why adding saves has nothing to do with leaderboards.
3. Why are we even talking about it?! Leaderboards are supposed to reward skill and that has nothing to do with teleporting out and in. You either are good enough to defeat that arc 8 boss, or not.

I hadn't thought of it before, but […] literally walking out of EA to get the set and walking back in is cheating. Now I'm definitely against the idea that EA's progress can be saved.

Did you read what I wrote? It clearly stated that you can walk out and walk back in right now, without ZOS implementing any saves, so saves have nothing to do with that.

I just wrote in some topic that I wanted progress to be saved. There are also a lot of reviews from people who ask to save progress.

Indeed, the checkpoint mechanism for saving the EA progress must be added. Many other improvements suggested here by others should also be implemented ASAP or EA will just end up a missed opportunity.

FantasticFreddie

i11ionward wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

- "EA should not be saved because people would be able to leave and craft sets they haven’t brought with them which would be cheating and would ruin the leaderboards" (seriously, I’m not lying, I’ve seen this somewhere on this forum)

1. What?! Who enters instanced content just to suddenly realise "oh, I know, I will just teleport out and craft myself some new sets for my DD/tank"
2. It’s a nonsensical excuse because, guess what, you can still do that now, without saving, if you are in a duo. You can just teleport out and craft away to your heart’s content, teleport back to your partner after an hour or two, and still get on the leaderboard. So yeah, that’s another reason why adding saves has nothing to do with leaderboards.
3. Why are we even talking about it?! Leaderboards are supposed to reward skill and that has nothing to do with teleporting out and in. You either are good enough to defeat that arc 8 boss, or not.

I hadn't thought of it before, but this situation is very real that the boss mechanics will require you to have a certain set (that you didn't decide to take in the beginning), and literally walking out of EA to get the set and walking back in is cheating. Now I'm definitely against the idea that EA's progress can be saved. But still, I think there should be at least 5 attempts at EA, but no more than 10.

P.S.
And yes, progress in EA should not be so slow.

You could literally get a buddy to group with you for 5 minutes and go do whatever you want.

Zodiarkslayer

Wow. Everything I hear of the archive TURNS ME OFF.

Not just Difficult fights, but long fights as well. And that with little to no rewards.

But because the class sets will be OP you have to torture yourself through the whole thing.

Repeatedly so.

Great idea ZOS. Really great idea.