Endless Archive - Please add Save Progress

Lugaldu

So... today I made my first attempt with the EA... And I immediately saw the worst side of the situation.
First of all: the EA looks nice and it's fun, but - the big but - the lack of the option to save progress is so annoying! I was only in 1.4.3 and fought for ages against Molag Kena, who was invulnerable all the time (I don't know if that's how it's meant to be...) and finally got into 1.5.1 when I had an interruption of my internet connection and when I was back in the game after about 6 minutes including restarting, I was back at the beginning... That's absolutely annoying and makes no fun!

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom

Eventually you will fail because of human fatigue. 3-4 hours in and mistakes happen. You should be able to save, sleep, restore the next day and continue on. Or let me AFK while I sleep and don't disconnect me for 8 hours.

Ragged_Claw

Yep I had a disconnect the second I walked in there and thought 'this is going to be fun'. The fact that the the EU servers can be on the patchy side is going to be a massive headache for players and ZoS who are going to get yelled at. Totally weird to not have any check points in the year of our Lord 2023.

Holycannoli

I really don't know what they were thinking not allowing saved progress.

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom

Lugaldu wrote: »

I was only in 1.4.3 and fought for ages against Molag Kena, who was invulnerable all the time (I don't know if that's how it's meant to be...)

The invuln phase can happen 3-4 times. It's annoying.

Also make sure to stay in the middle of the platform during the big aoe. The red aoe suggests for you to run to the outer edge but if you step into the red circle just barely then you get knocked off the ledge and die. This just happened to me. Never run to the outer edge on the Kena fight or risk dying.

LokiPagan

Yeah, that's extremely annoying. Guild member wanted to do something and I couldn't. Not really sure what they were thinking here, really bad design for something that takes hours.

Lugaldu

I also dont get it why the quest log tells you "go back in the archive wing" after you have lost your 3 lifes but you cant go back in? Only option is to leave and start again with 0... so stupid.

Castagere

EA sounds like a nightmare. Wow, no save system.

FantasticFreddie

This was highly requested during the PTS, and as far as I know, zos did not comment on it

LouisaB75

I add my support to this. I just got booted from the server (and can't log back in!) after clearing the last set of mobs before the final boss of the first arc. There needs to be some save points on this activity.

Jaimeh

I would have preferred a time-sensitive leaderboard, so it wouldn't only matter how far you went but how fast you got there as well, and I think that this would invite less drawn out play sessions, because if you wanted a high score you could try going fast (and if you couldn't go fast you could try to then get far). Regardless, the way it's set up now, it's pretty tiresome, not to mention having to start over especially when you wipe in further ahead arcs.

Beaverton

Yes please. Most of us working folks don't have 5 hours to play at a time.

DarcyMardin

Amen.

fall0athboy

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

This was highly requested during the PTS, and as far as I know, zos did not comment on it

I believe they said it wasn't in the plans at the time because of the leaderboards.

Which is ridiculous. 99% of the playerbase probably does not care about leaderboards.

MidniteOwl1913

Honestly, I don't think I've ever even *looked* at the leaderboards. I don't know what they were thinking.

The MA takes about 45 minutes and *that* has save points!

Jaraal

Beaverton wrote: »

Yes please. Most of us working folks don't have 5 hours to play at a time.

Especially with 12 hour maintenances, unscheduled downtimes, etc.

Kiyakotari

Most of the players I know, one of the first things they do when they roll a new character is immediately go into their social settings and turn off leaderboard notifications. Because no one cares about those.

Theignson

Crashed right before arc three last boss and kicked from endless archive.

This is unacceptable-- all progress lost when game crashes

netch_a_sketch

It seems they're going for a semi-roguelike experience, which means no save points unlike arenas

I'm personally having a blast with it!

Bashev

I am sure they will add this option. I think back in the days VMA also had no save option when Orsinium was released.

Lugaldu

netch_a_sketch wrote: »

It seems they're going for a semi-roguelike experience, which means no save points unlike arenas

I'm personally having a blast with it!

I think there should be an option so that you can decide for yourself whether you want to approach the EA in this form or with save points.

I really don't know what the devs are thinking with this concept... we're not all youngsters with no real responsibilities in life who can play for 5 hours or more at a time. How can someone who has maybe 1.5 hours of playing time in the evening ever experience any success in the EA?

maboleth

Was saying this since Day 1. How Devs didn't see this coming is beyond me.

It's an easy fix:

Want Save? - No Leaderboard

No save - Leaderboard

That's it. If they come up with something even better, great, but this alone should do.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Isnt the whole point of endless archive to go ass far as possible in a single shot? Idn to me adding save point seem to go against the base design of this type of content. Though it woulnt be too much to have some kind of grace period like 5-10 min when crashing.

maboleth

netch_a_sketch wrote: »

It seems they're going for a semi-roguelike experience, which means no save points unlike arenas

I'm personally having a blast with it!

I love roguelike games. But there you CAN save your progress. It's just when you die, you die. Until then, you can play for days and months.

But here you're dead/returned to lev 1 if you got your internet down or you had a terrible diarrhea that lasted long enough to have you disconnected. That just doesn't make sense. External factors should not impact your position in the game, especially that is marketed as 'endless' and the game auto-offs you due inactivity.

Rowjoh

Endless Archive is seriously flawed.

1). It requires a massive time sink with no 'save progress' mechanic.

2). Difficulty is unbalanced - trash mobs and bosses easy for half an hour, then very difficult boss. Then trash mobs suddenly difficult but next 2 bosses easier than first easy boss. Then trash mobs less difficult but repeatedly one-shot by next boss and couldn't progress.

3). The 'unknown' puzzles are all over the place. Typically solve one or two in reasonable time, then stuck wandering around others with no clue.

Big thumbs down

Rowjoh

netch_a_sketch wrote: »

It seems they're going for a semi-roguelike experience, which means no save points unlike arenas

I'm personally having a blast with it!

Guarantee you wont be having a blast if you crash a few hours in.

Lugaldu

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Though it woulnt be too much to have some kind of grace period like 5-10 min when crashing.

They say there´s a 5 min grace period, but 5 min is nothing when you suddenly lost internet connection, have to make a restart of your computer or got kicked due to inactivity because you went in the kitchen to get yourself a drink!

maboleth

Rowjoh wrote: »

Endless Archive is seriously flawed.

3). The 'unknown' puzzles are all over the place. Typically solve one or two in reasonable time, then stuck wandering around others with no clue.

I love that. Seriously, most games nowadays have 'puzzles' that literally have an exit and a solution next to the question, with a shiny LOOK AT HERE marker. You almost feel your IQ crashing when you solve one. Out of box puzzles are exciting.

Ardriel

maboleth wrote: »

Was saying this since Day 1. How Devs didn't see this coming is beyond me.

It's an easy fix:

Want Save? - No Leaderboard

No save - Leaderboard

That's it. If they come up with something even better, great, but this alone should do.

Nice and easy. I hope they'll do it like this. Right now I consider EA as torture and not fun at all. There must be a way to save your progress. There are a million reasons why a person can't hang out in the game for hours on end. So please ZOS, by all means change this!

Rowjoh

given that ESO is 100% stable and rarely crashes, why would anyone need a save mechanic?

Luke_Flamesword

For me it's exhausting. After arc 1 (solo) I have feeling "ok, it's long enough, I want to finish it and do some other stuff with my life". After arc 2 I was feeled relief when marauder one-shoted me, because it was way too long. Eh, but I had to at least once go to arc 4 for this dye reward...

Too much time is wasted for trash fights without even any reward. There should be at least 50 fortunes for every trash stage (100 in arc 2, 150 in arc 3, etc.).

They should choose one thing - this is long thing so we create save points or everything should be much shorter - you should achieve final form of main boss within 1-1,5h (for average player) - anything longer for one time run is just a joke.

Personally I would short every arc from 5 cycles to 3. Two random bossess and final boss is enough for arc, you can faster achieve higher fortunes values (upgrade once per hour is insulting) and you will not get bored on easier levels if you are pro player. It should take 20-40 minutes which is typical dungeon/trial time. So getting one piece of class gear every 20-40 minutes will healthy, typical level of engagement.