Solo Infinite Archive, Simply Not Fun

Dimorphos

No save points, despite the intent that the content take hours
Continued unfixed bugs
The rewards are useless

Those three points I can agree with, after going 9 arcs as solo I totally felt like there should be a possibility to save the run and continue tomorrow. Of course IA would always have a weekly reset too so you will have to finish your runs by then.

Bugs. No one likes bugs and I hope they will get them fixed.

Rewards could be more rewarding yes and they should increase in number and value each time you get to a higher arc.

- But all the rest written in the original post is just a lack of commitment and skill. I suggest you learn some and get better. We need challenges and we need content that seriously challenges even the most skilled players and IA offers that. I hope we would one day see a dungeon+ system where you can run dungeons on higher levels of difficulty to a point that even the trash monsters become minibosses. And of course there should be a high score list too for it. I like to appear better than others and it is one of the reasons to play these games and develop your skills and character, to be more than the rest. Healthy competition.

xylena_lazarow

What keeps me away is being forced into 2 rounds of "normal mode" before round 3 "vet mode" starts. Feels like my time is being deliberately wasted. I'm unclear why it doesn't have separate difficulty modes like everything else.

El_Borracho

@Dimorphos I've played this game since Morrowind. Have cleared almost all veteran hardmode PVE content, with the exceptions of VMOL and VDSR. If only that could translate into the commitment and skill necessary to find continuously beating trash packs at increased levels of difficulty fun.

MidniteOwl1913

Mostly I'm yet again disappointed I was promised an endless dungeon and got an endless arena. If was going to be an arena why call it a dungeon?

Arunei

I <self-snip> HATE Dragons in IA. If there's one boss I think they should code to not show up, it's those damn things. The arena is already the size of a freakin Kleenex, and Dragons can knock you clear to the other side of Tamriel no matter if you're beside them, behind them, or in front of them. Which means being anywhere near one will likely result in you getting yeeted off the platform that a toddler's kiddie pool is bigger than, unless you have the ability to burn them down within a few seconds.

/rant

That out of the way, I'd love a pause feature. The fact that you get so few Fortunes and have to play numerous Cycles to get higher numbers means by the time you're earning a decent number...you're probably either going to have to leave soon after. Please ZOS, I'll give you all a cookie if you can program a pause feature that works with other players and not just for solo people going in with Companions.

Orbital78

El_Borracho wrote: »

I keep giving solo IA chances, and each time IA never fails to disappoint. Went back to farm the last lead of the Ayleid King mythic. Same old complaints:

No save points, despite the intent that the content take hours
An old one, but at this point, no save point in IA would be the equivalent of making you do the Main Quest or every zone story quest in one sitting. As in, if you stop, you have to start all over at the beginning quest. Every. Single. Time. There is no logical reason for no save point. You don't get a higher score for time, unlike the arenas, so why?

The game design is atrocious
Its pretty much a 3D version of a sidescroller with no end. I'm okay with the increase in difficulty, as there should be an increase in difficulty, otherwise it would be infinite. I'm also okay with the bosses being random. But Sun Eaters for adds? Ugh. Lightbringers and the Brewmasters are too much. It feels like "difficult for the sake of being difficult." Heck, why not throw in Bitter Knights, Crimson Knights, Tidebreakers, Stormcallers, Keelcutters, Firestorms, etc. while we're at it.

The game design is ATROCIOUS
"Hey, I know, lets put in fall damage. Oh, and then, let's put a dragon as a boss who will slap you off the platform. Yes, you could conceivably block or roll dodge the wing, but it won't work for a variety of reasons. Lag. Bugs. Apathy. FUN!!!" It feels like I've never seen a dragon before when one of them pop up. Sigh. Fall damage in anything with limited lives is dumb.

Increased difficulty of side quests
The asinine quests like catching books using unresponsive controls. Or catching lights by walking backwards, but not too fast! Because I said when I did it the first few times, "This would be awesome if it were harder and more unrewarding for completing." With the rewards being some IA money. Yay. The only one worth doing is finding pages of a book.

Continued unfixed bugs
Can't taunt certain bosses. Block drops. Bashing won't interrupt no matter how many times you bash the target. Heals and skills not firing. What is this, Cyrodiil?

The Tho’at Replicanum fight is a mess
Ooh, more adds and shards and colossi as you continue. Neat. Oh, and a random Vision, which I will likely not get 3 of a kind in this run. Thank you. And lets not forget about that piece of gear I will never use. Speaking of which...

The rewards are useless
They keep introducing sets to get players to play IA (i.e. Pyrebrand) then immediately nerf them. Why? Its the only reason players who do not love IA do IA.

Look, I understand there are players who love IA and can't get enough of it. But I don't think that is the majority of ESO players. In the guilds I am in, you're better off trying to get a vet DSA run together than trying to get one guildie to run IA with you. Because its long, boring, and unrewarding. More than DSA. Which says a lot.

1) This is the main reason I only do short runs, above Arc 3 starts to really slow down. I've pushed all the way to the dragon tho'at for achievements.

2) I actually think this is what makes IA valuable as a learning experience. There are not that many solo learning experiences to teach players to get good at learning mechanics and mitigating damage. I think IA, vMA, vVH are some of the most valuable learning experiences for players. Learn to be self sufficient before you go into normal dungeons thinking you can tank with 20k hp.

3) I won't lie a few of the side quests were rougher, but I don't think everything in the game should be EASY. I have done all the quests in time solo.

4) This is one of the biggest issues to me. Companions cannot tank Gothmau reliably, I have noticed mobs getting stuck in walls in the ice map. There were some leashing/reset issues but I haven't experienced those lately. Some of the bosses aoe/phases still do way too much damage to companions if they cannot give them a decent AI.

5) Tho'at fights seem fine to me...

6) The rewards are far from useless, at least the currency. The sets... some are OKAY, but I agree for a specialized CLASS set they do mostly feel lack luster. This COULD be a great way for devs to bring up other classes that are lacking. IE Corpseburster is one of the best sets and it is actually FUN (in my opinion). I hope they return to the sets and think them out a little better. Stop adding sets to the game that no one is really going to use, please. Every DLC adds more, maybe one or two of the trial sets every year will be used at least for awhile and that is it.

My take on IA: I think it is a valuable tool, especially for new players. It is not terrible experience, there is no worry about competition/overcrowding. Your companion(s) level fairly well in there and it is a perfect place to learn the basics of self survival. Many of the bosses for the stage are from dungeons or trials, which will give a slightly dumbed down intro to the mechs of that encounter.

I tend to do short runs myself, I have farmed all the achievements and sets gradually over time. I have leveled multiple companions up, and still run it just to get currencies and experience (I guess, I'm 3200+ so CP really are pointless). I do need to find a guild/friend to do the later duo achievements yet, but I am in no real rush.

For a base game update/addition it was pretty solid in my opinion. It was a better addition for me than Tales of Tribute or Scribing which were the main additions for a paid chapter. I think it is a under-utilized and very valuable learning tool, players have to teach themselves somewhere or they will always be a liability or carry.

AvalonRanger

Solo Infinite Archive, Simply Not Fun

It's a common sense bro.

Dimorphos

El_Borracho wrote: »

@Dimorphos I've played this game since Morrowind. Have cleared almost all veteran hardmode PVE content, with the exceptions of VMOL and VDSR. If only that could translate into the commitment and skill necessary to find continuously beating trash packs at increased levels of difficulty fun.

But what you wrote really seems like you are asking for easier IA. All those situations you described are meant to be challenging and give the player a feeling of being overwhelmed, it is meant to be hard and get harder every time you step into next arc level. And I hope it will remain so, finally some solo content that really challenges you. We have all these sets and skills and free hands to combine them as we wish and I feel like IA really adds reason to all that since all the rest of the PVE content [ outside trifecta trials and newest dlc hard modes ] can be run through naked using light attack spam.

How far did you get in IA? As I mentioned, I got as far as 9 arcs and almost made it to 10th. As solo that is, no companion, no help. And I failed mainly because I got so tired and if I recall right also got a DC once. This is why I wish they would give us a way to save our runs so you could keep humane breaks. But starting from Arc 8 the fights really become hectic and demanding and there is no room for error or missed interrupts etc. and your damage must be insane. But it is meant to be so. The last model of Thoat boss comes in the end of Arc 4 and I don't think they intended players to go much further than Arc5. But for those who keeps on going, it becomes a survival of the strongest and it is only to gain some name and glory to show up in the ranking list.

Asking for easier IA is totally pointless since any half-skilled player with a real working solo build can clear 4 Arcs any day and it will not take that long. With 4 Arcs you will get all the rewards and titles and achievements that there exists. ESO is enough casual game as it is and we do not need anymore nerfs done to any content. The game becomes uninteresting at that point. I recall reading a post that they even intent to raise a difficulty of overland stuff like monsters and quests etc. And I hope it will happen and I hope they will add more content like IA. I have always hoped ESO to introduce a dungeon+ system as it is in many other mmo games (on top of what we now have as challenge modes), because now majority of dungeons are too much as walk in the park even in veteran mode. Also the more there are stuff where players can compete each other on ranking list will lure in competitive gamers and those gamers lure in their fans and all that creates more streaming and youtube videos made which again lures in more players.

Necrotech_Master

i dont mind running archive solo when i have something in there i need, but i do find it less enjoyable than running with another player

at least another player you have someone to talk to during the run and can help by sharing gear

El_Borracho

@Dimorphos No. I'm not asking for it to be easier, no matter how desperately you try to push that position. I thought I made that abundantly clear. Guess not.

Since you asked, I have made it to Arc 7, Cycle 3 on a mediocre IA build. And guess what, IT WAS THE EXACT SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Crazy, I know. Almost as if that content is exactly what was intended.

But hey, you love IA. Good for you. I don't, and I have explained why. Sorry my "lack of skill and commitment" displeases you.

Personofsecrets

There are people doing skill intensive thing in IA, but let's also not see IA as a genrally skill intensive thing to do. Accomplishment in IA is way too dependent on just having free time to play. Those with the time can show us some cool things, but too many people are gated from that competition by time issues.

I've seen this idea popping up more and more due to the digital card game scenes that I've been in. Design has used the concept of skill based play to launder all kinds of ridiculous RNG based effects as well as overpowered effects into their games. As a result, winning has more of a chance aspect built into it that it doesn't necessarily need to have. The leaderboards then just become a test of who can play the most and grind enough games until an inevitible win streak pushes them into a a good spot.

We've had this dull dynamic show it's ugly face in ToT. There are quite a few good players who are great opponents, but when I do push leaderboard, I almost never get them in games. As a consequence, I had a 90% win rate in ranked over more than a thousand games during 2024. Some who do well on the board seem to have inferrior win rates, but push all the same because they play a tremendous number of games. One unfortunate player was even rumored to be account sharing which would make sense since, based on some data that I keep, I found that they would have to be playing an inhuman amount of time in order to gain the amount of ladder points that they gained after the passage of 1 day.

Given the barrier to entry being free time especially since the build to go infinite in the archive is cheesy, I don't really see the point to the content having any difficulty. The leaderboards in ESO just don't give prestige for these parts of the game. That would require real competition.

Oceanchanter

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

As an aside to the discussion I believe that the side games were made harder, not sure how long ago. It seems that the duel one is harder in particular. Maybe the tombshell one as well...

Whenever I got a tomeshell, I just isekaied myself into the nearest booknado.

I mentioned in the thread that started; I'm personally done with IA after another instance of Marauder vanishing on me once I figured out Companion counts as pet, and you can command them to attack and taunt Marauders.

I'd go back if they release more signature set, particularly boosting Dark Magic skilline for Sorc, but at the same time I'd think about doing so, long and hard.
It's enough for me I ended up using only 1 set of the 4 or 5 I grinded for.
Especially since my Sorc is crit heal focused, having the Blind Monster set, Order's Wraith, and using Power Surge.
Redistributor set ended up not to be to my liking on my Sorc, so I'll move sets around, but I can always go back to Treasure Hunter or other crit sets instead of farming a signature one; something that should be creme de la creme of sets for classes, I'd asume.

Kyip

My own experience in IA has been improved recently by reading how some other people are successful there. I appreciate the insights into systems, companions, etc, that people have shared here and in other recent IA threads. It still sucks and I'm not gonna get all the way to the end, but I can actually reliably make it past the first arc now.

Duke_Falcon

Every loot box in this place should drop an Infinite Archive sets, every single one, not just at the end of Arcs.

I need to farm the gear for some builds, but I literally farm one Arc and I want to log out and play other games. It was fun for a week, then it just becomes a not fun grind with very little reward. I was hoping the sets in here were choreographed with all the open world sets that the loot boxes dropped so I went and farmed every overland set in the game since I've been playing for 10 years and had a lot of them already. I can tell you they are not choreographed, its way easier and way more enjoyable with more reward farming all the open world sets in the game than running this. Every loot box in this place should drop an Infinite Archive set, every single one, not just at the end of Arcs.

Playnice

Sadly, Infinite Archive was a squandered opportunity to finally create fun repayable content with great rewards for players of all skill levels. What went wrong? ...

• The Class Sets are lackluster in all types of content. Some Class Sets are still bugged - Basalt-Blooded Warrior was released over a year ago and it still hasn't been fixed. (lack of investment in IA's success)
• Since progress cannot be saved, there is a pseudo-prerequisite to set aside a block of several continuous hours to complete a serious run. (As opposed to Maelstrom Arena, a player can return to the previous run at whatever round they left off at.)
• Once you obtain a nice nest egg of Archival Fortunes, there is little reason to return to IA.
• Much of the run feels like a game to get Focused Efforts visions as quickly as possible.

SeaGtGruff

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

As an aside to the discussion I believe that the side games were made harder, not sure how long ago. It seems that the duel one is harder in particular. Maybe the tombshell one as well...

Were they actually made harder, or is it just that they get harder after you've done them? What I mean is, the first time you do a side quest it's at "difficulty level 1" or whatever, and the next time you do it (after having successfully completed it at level 1) it's at difficulty level 2, etc. For instance, this is perhaps easiest to see with the side quest where you collect the wisplike bits of essence to reconstitute the mage or whatever he is, as indicated by the number of wisps you must collect. I might have it wrong, but I thought I'd read something to that effect.

DenverRalphy

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

As an aside to the discussion I believe that the side games were made harder, not sure how long ago. It seems that the duel one is harder in particular. Maybe the tombshell one as well...

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

As an aside to the discussion I believe that the side games were made harder, not sure how long ago. It seems that the duel one is harder in particular. Maybe the tombshell one as well...

Were they actually made harder, or is it just that they get harder after you've done them? What I mean is, the first time you do a side quest it's at "difficulty level 1" or whatever, and the next time you do it (after having successfully completed it at level 1) it's at difficulty level 2, etc. For instance, this is perhaps easiest to see with the side quest where you collect the wisplike bits of essence to reconstitute the mage or whatever he is, as indicated by the number of wisps you must collect. I might have it wrong, but I thought I'd read something to that effect.

The side portals each have 5 tiers of ramping difficulty. Completing the 5th tier unlocks a purchasable upgrade to improve your IA performance. Each time you complete one, you graduate to the next tier.

[edit[ Pretty sure it's 5. I could be mistaken though.