Endless Archive Observations Solo V. Duo w/ player

EdjeSwift

I've been predominantly been playing EA solo for the grind for the stickerbook and the leads and just last night I dragged a friend of mine who I used to play other MMOs with into the EA and wow, was I amazed at the difference.

Some observations which were eye opening:

Some of the Verses are actually shared between players. I could use his Guardian of Pestilence, Mighty Bash, and others while not having the verse myself.

The Mini-Games are harder/easier depending on how you view it. The filer wing is tougher with more tomeshells, the treacherous crossing actually requires you to use teamwork, you get 2 butchers in the goat game, the theatre of war was the most interesting one, because I could see the room filling with tentacles if you got unlucky and had low DPS, especially with double the tentacle spawns.

That said, I dragged a player with no DLC dungeon/trial experience into there and he did agree that some of those bosses can be overwhelming, but once I explained the mechanics he started getting it down and surviving. We were unfortunate enough to get the MoL boss with the pillar and both Kena and Lord Warden in our runs, and he did state that it was hard keeping track of everything but it was a nice challenge when we did beat it.

That said, if you're a solo grinder, try finding someone to go in there with, it's a different experience, and you don't really lose threads cause you need both of you to wipe to lose one anyway.

Also, the mini-games were based upon his level (lower) despite me being group leader.

Necrotech_Master

when in a 2 person group, the bonus portals difficulty scales to whoever has the lowest level completed

so if you take someone who has never been in the archive, you would start at level 1 of the bonus portals even if you as the group leader had all of the achievements for doing all of the highest difficulties

i would also say that it is definitely a lot more fun/easier in a 2 person group

ive actually been predominantly running it in a 2 person group, though i do solo runs occasionally to see how far i can get and what my toons problems are

Sarannah

Good to read this, as I've been thinking about trying the EA with other players. As companions in arc three and higher are useless. About how long does a run take? And how far does the average duo run get? Are there any rules for groupcomposition, like should one be a tank or does duo dps work?

My problem as a solo player is usually time, as I often have to take short breaks. So I like doing things on my own schedule/at my own pace. And I don't want to inconvenience other players.

So this thread was a good read on how duo EA works.

EdjeSwift

If you're looking for a long run, tank is probably a necessity, or at least someone with the ability to taunt and tank a hit from Gothmau, we went in there as two DPS, one high CP, one literally level 30, and we just had fun, made it to arc 3 before it was midnight and sleep/work called.

I'm sure finding someone who is cool with breaks shouldn't be too hard to be honest, not everyone can grind hard continuously.

Necrotech_Master

Sarannah wrote: »

Good to read this, as I've been thinking about trying the EA with other players. As companions in arc three and higher are useless. About how long does a run take? And how far does the average duo run get? Are there any rules for groupcomposition, like should one be a tank or does duo dps work?

My problem as a solo player is usually time, as I often have to take short breaks. So I like doing things on my own schedule/at my own pace. And I don't want to inconvenience other players.

So this thread was a good read on how duo EA works.

for time and distance its going to vary significantly depending on your composition

from my experience, it usually is an avg of 30-45 min per arc depending on your level of damage

ive tried running in a dps + healer setup, however the biggest threat to that usually becomes marauders by about arc 3-4 (usually ran out of threads by arc 5-6 because died to most of the marauders) (these runs would usually last about 2-3 hours)

ive tried doing a dps + dps, and had similar problems, namely marauders (about 2-3 hours)

ive had a good run as a dps + tank (the tank was a dk attempting perma magma shell) and we almost made it to arc 6 with no deaths before the tank had to leave (when the tank had to leave i think we were at about 3 hours)

the most successful run ive done was a tank + healer and we made it to arc 9 cycle 2 boss (the run was ~5 hours)

if you just want to try to make it to at least arc 4, a tank + dps should be fine and probably will be the fastest method

if your running in a 2 person group, its also a lot more forgiving on the instance, and unlikely to lose your place in the run should you disconnect

another advantage to 2 person group is if both players have the upgraded thread count, you start with 5 threads instead of 3

EdjeSwift

That thread note is really good to know, and it's not a hard one to get, since it just means RNG farming the drops, no mini-games.

J18696

EdjeSwift wrote: »

If you're looking for a long run, tank is probably a necessity, or at least someone with the ability to taunt and tank a hit from Gothmau, we went in there as two DPS, one high CP, one literally level 30, and we just had fun, made it to arc 3 before it was midnight and sleep/work called.

I'm sure finding someone who is cool with breaks shouldn't be too hard to be honest, not everyone can grind hard continuously.

Gothmau will literally one shot you through block at the higher arcs you just need to either never leave magma or don't go near him

Necrotech_Master

J18696 wrote: »

EdjeSwift wrote: »

If you're looking for a long run, tank is probably a necessity, or at least someone with the ability to taunt and tank a hit from Gothmau, we went in there as two DPS, one high CP, one literally level 30, and we just had fun, made it to arc 3 before it was midnight and sleep/work called.

I'm sure finding someone who is cool with breaks shouldn't be too hard to be honest, not everyone can grind hard continuously.

Gothmau will literally one shot you through block at the higher arcs you just need to either never leave magma or don't go near him

most of the marauders light attacks are overtuned for sure

that one is especially overtuned though with the nasty bleed and multiple quick swipe light attacks

i think was in arc 9 and got the fire marauder last night, got hit by 46k light attack + several ticks of a 4500 dmg bleed and that killed my nearly 50k hp warden (the 46k was because i missed a block)

fred4

Esoteric Greaves are very inconsistent. They only mitigate some types of attacks without much rhyme or reason, even when you are at full stamina. You'd want the ability to dig deep into ZOS' code in order to see what is classed as direct damage, and what is not. For example the greaves do not appear to mitigate attacks that have a cast time, such as the "taking aim" bow shots from the archers in vBRP, but that are clearly direct damage to my mind. I'm pretty sure they also do not mitigate the water marauder's attacks. I am talking about his single-target attacks that still hit hard, not the big splashes. I am, however, happy to report they mitigate the fire marauder's attacks (specifically) and I'm pretty sure Tho'at Replicanum's as well. Beware that, after transformation into a goat or a watcher, the little green mote from the Esoteric Greaves is gone. Who knows what other item sets are also still not fixed. I recommend continuing to reslot gear after transformation.

madman65

I actually made it to 3 2 1 on the levels, there is a big difference once you get into the 3rd Arc so be ready.

NoSoup

I haven't done it duo yet, only solo. It seems unfair that when duo'ing you can rez the other player without it counting as a thread. So obviously with the way it stands duoing is always going to be significantly easier (not to mention the difficulty scaling is the same)

KlauthWarthog

It was built and balanced for groups of two players, and the preview stream heavily implied that you want a tank in there.
It can be done solo or with a companion but, again, this is not what they built and balanced it for.

BigMakatak

fred4 wrote: »

Esoteric Greaves are very inconsistent. They only mitigate some types of attacks without much rhyme or reason, even when you are at full stamina.[...]

I'm very sorry to hear this.

fred4 wrote: »

Beware that, after transformation into a goat or a watcher, the little green mote from the Esoteric Greaves is gone. Who knows what other item sets are also still not fixed. I recommend continuing to reslot gear after transformation.

And I'm extremely sorry to hear this! Just got my first butcher event earlier today, fortunately I unequipped and reequipped all my gear after doing so anyway, just in case the bug wasn't fully fixed. Bethesda and zenimax REALLY need to use an engine other than gamebryo, it is just not optimised for these big, open-world games.

fred4

BigMakatak wrote: »

Bethesda and zenimax REALLY need to use an engine other than gamebryo, it is just not optimised for these big, open-world games.

Well, I wouldn't say it's got anything to do with optimisation, just quality control, probably lots of legacy spaghetti code, maybe staff turnover. Possibly management accepting a certain level of bugginess as par for the gaming industry.

Whatever engine they're using, I'm not aware of many games that support the level of addon development that ZOS/Bethesda games do, and do so in in a Lua environment that isn't a potential security threat to your PC or the integrity of the game client. The engine inherits other things I like. The rare ability to customise your character's body. The impression of scale and distance haze, perhaps not unique, but IMO good nonetheless. While other engines may be more advanced in one way or another, I suspect this one serves the game well enough. I recall Bioware having reported issues moving to Frostbite for Dragon Age Inquisition a decade ago. Big name engines that major on graphics and are used in shooters are not automatically well-suited to (MMO)RPGs. Some might be, but I believe there are reasons why not everyone is defaulting to, say, Unreal Engine.

Necrotech_Master

fred4 wrote: »

Esoteric Greaves are very inconsistent. They only mitigate some types of attacks without much rhyme or reason, even when you are at full stamina. You'd want the ability to dig deep into ZOS' code in order to see what is classed as direct damage, and what is not. For example the greaves do not appear to mitigate attacks that have a cast time, such as the "taking aim" bow shots from the archers in vBRP, but that are clearly direct damage to my mind. I'm pretty sure they also do not mitigate the water marauder's attacks. I am talking about his single-target attacks that still hit hard, not the big splashes. I am, however, happy to report they mitigate the fire marauder's attacks (specifically) and I'm pretty sure Tho'at Replicanum's as well. Beware that, after transformation into a goat or a watcher, the little green mote from the Esoteric Greaves is gone. Who knows what other item sets are also still not fixed. I recommend continuing to reslot gear after transformation.

the day of the fix i was using pearlescent set in the archive, we did the goat bonus and after the event i still retained the pearl bonus though i lost the floaty pearls

very possible the set lost the graphics but still retained function

the greaves from my understanding only block dmg from direct dmg, and much of the actual deadly dmg in the archive is in the form of dots