Endless Archive Progression is Too Slow

FantasticFreddie · September 2023

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

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.

The class sets are not OP. The DK set is the best one, and it's had a gentle nerf

code65536 · September 2023

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)

I think it's fine for the vision buffs to keep pace with the increases in enemy health. Otherwise, the pace will slow down too much. Ideally, you want the fight lengths to remain mostly similar, so things don't drag out too long.

The important thing is that the increase in incoming damage isn't completely negated by defensive visions.

Pelanora · October 2023

AlwaysDancing wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

XSTRONG wrote: »

Funny how people thinks the "Endless" Archive takes to long

I guess "forever" isn't as long as it used to be.

Kids these days don't have the patience for Eternity.

Eternity doesn't have to come all at once though. Short bursts of endless....interminable in stages....bite size chunks of ever after....

Gawd imagine if you had to read war and peace, or Ulysses, but every time you put it down, you had to start from the beginning again. Nuts.

The endless archive needs to be random, endless, but attuned to your level FAST, so you get to where it's a challenge FOR YOU, fast. Responsive and not just pre programmed 'random'. Suggest zos you whack some AI in amongst that code.

AlterBlika · October 2023

i11ionward wrote: »

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.

How comes that? If you already have that set then what's the problem? It's all about your skill and build in the end. Even so, such cases would be rare. If you're into soloing or duoing game content you would already have needed sets at all times when going in such content. It's not like you must have specific sets for specific bosses so you run out of inventory space if you have them all.

Alphawolf01A · October 2023

Maybe a Vet version IS needed. For example, if you are able to get to Arc 10 or beyond, then Vet is unlocked, and your next run you can now choose to start on "Normal" at Arc 1 or "Vet" at Arc 10. Starting on Vet also lets you choose 5-6 verses to start, to be roughly on par with working your way up to it.

skinnycheeks · October 2023

I had some more time to dig in this weekend and managed to get to Arc 11. Took about 10 hours or so total but that was with breaks, so probably 8 hours or so of time spent running through there. Obviously, that is way more time than I'd be willing to give to something like this more than a couple of times.

Don't get me wrong, it was a TON of fun. I really, really enjoy the Archive and the design of it. But so much of that time is spent just on non-boss Stages 1-3 that don't really add much value to the overall experience or have any rewards. No loot at all, not even the base loot you'd expect from trash mobs. Not overly challenging either except for the Marauders that occasionally show up. But those are 1 and done per Arc. These non-boss stages also get pretty repetitive after a while. Same 3 wave formula in each one. Same few mobs types, same few elites types used. All of these things combined make the trash stages really drag on.

Compare that to the Boss stages where you get buffs (Visions) that last the whole run, Archival Fortunes to spend on all kinds of cool stuff, lots of different Boss possibilities, and a chance for Treasure Scamps to get even more loot.

So all that to say, I think they are on to something really great, but I do hope they stick with it and keep tweaking. Cause it does need a little work. And down the road would love to see more variety added to the monster types and locations. I have some Visions feedback as well, but that seems better suited for a different thread.

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Necrotech_Master · October 2023

it sounds like they changed some of the pacing pretty significantly after todays patch, will be interested seeing the take on that

Quethrosar · October 2023

i do not want to spend time in a timed crapola like DSA or Maelstrom again. I hate when timers slow down my life. I hate boss fights that have a timer involved. kill stuff and wait. this is atrocious.

are waves in EA like this?

skinnycheeks · October 2023

I think the adjustments today did not adequately resolve the complaints the players had about the length of time it takes to move through the archive. It will still take just as long to move from Arc to Arc. Actually, even longer now that it gets harder more quickly. The complaints were not around the difficulty not scaling up quickly enough, but around how long each individual Arc took, due to the unnecessary amount of trash mobs you have to fight that give no rewards at all. Now you will fight higher difficulty mobs for lower level rewards than were offered in weeks 1 and 2.

A big appeal to the archive is the vision stacking/selecting game and this is something that most players won't ever really get to engage with due to the difficulty. And now even less will get to participate in it. I think the change to the difficulty scaling was either the wrong decision or a misinterpretation of the feedback.

The only real winners from these changes are people that just want to do 1 Arc for their daily and then port out. Everyone else will have a less rewarding experience than before.

I'm hoping that the adjustments are not final here and more can be done to reach the heart of the "takes too long" problem.

1) No way to save progress
2) No way to skip ahead after completing high level arcs
3) Trash rounds take up the bulk of the experience and offer no lasting rewards

RaptorRodeoGod · October 2023

skinnycheeks wrote: »

I think the adjustments today did not adequately resolve the complaints the players had about the length of time it takes to move through the archive. It will still take just as long to move from Arc to Arc. Actually, even longer now that it gets harder more quickly. The complaints were not around the difficulty not scaling up quickly enough, but around how long each individual Arc took, due to the unnecessary amount of trash mobs you have to fight that give no rewards at all. Now you will fight higher difficulty mobs for lower level rewards than were offered in weeks 1 and 2.

A big appeal to the archive is the vision stacking/selecting game and this is something that most players won't ever really get to engage with due to the difficulty. And now even less will get to participate in it. I think the change to the difficulty scaling was either the wrong decision or a misinterpretation of the feedback.

The only real winners from these changes are people that just want to do 1 Arc for their daily and then port out. Everyone else will have a less rewarding experience than before.

I'm hoping that the adjustments are not final here and more can be done to reach the heart of the "takes too long" problem.

1) No way to save progress
2) No way to skip ahead after completing high level arcs
3) Trash rounds take up the bulk of the experience and offer no lasting rewards

Not to mention you only get set drops from Tho'at and not the other bosses. 👎

J18696 · October 2023

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

skinnycheeks wrote: »

I think the adjustments today did not adequately resolve the complaints the players had about the length of time it takes to move through the archive. It will still take just as long to move from Arc to Arc. Actually, even longer now that it gets harder more quickly. The complaints were not around the difficulty not scaling up quickly enough, but around how long each individual Arc took, due to the unnecessary amount of trash mobs you have to fight that give no rewards at all. Now you will fight higher difficulty mobs for lower level rewards than were offered in weeks 1 and 2.

A big appeal to the archive is the vision stacking/selecting game and this is something that most players won't ever really get to engage with due to the difficulty. And now even less will get to participate in it. I think the change to the difficulty scaling was either the wrong decision or a misinterpretation of the feedback.

The only real winners from these changes are people that just want to do 1 Arc for their daily and then port out. Everyone else will have a less rewarding experience than before.

I'm hoping that the adjustments are not final here and more can be done to reach the heart of the "takes too long" problem.

1) No way to save progress
2) No way to skip ahead after completing high level arcs
3) Trash rounds take up the bulk of the experience and offer no lasting rewards

Not to mention you only get set drops from Tho'at and not the other bosses. 👎

And marauders they drop the class gear

MashmalloMan · October 2023

skinnycheeks wrote: »

I think the adjustments today did not adequately resolve the complaints the players had about the length of time it takes to move through the archive. It will still take just as long to move from Arc to Arc. Actually, even longer now that it gets harder more quickly. The complaints were not around the difficulty not scaling up quickly enough, but around how long each individual Arc took, due to the unnecessary amount of trash mobs you have to fight that give no rewards at all. Now you will fight higher difficulty mobs for lower level rewards than were offered in weeks 1 and 2.

A big appeal to the archive is the vision stacking/selecting game and this is something that most players won't ever really get to engage with due to the difficulty. And now even less will get to participate in it. I think the change to the difficulty scaling was either the wrong decision or a misinterpretation of the feedback.

The only real winners from these changes are people that just want to do 1 Arc for their daily and then port out. Everyone else will have a less rewarding experience than before.

I'm hoping that the adjustments are not final here and more can be done to reach the heart of the "takes too long" problem.

1) No way to save progress
2) No way to skip ahead after completing high level arcs
3) Trash rounds take up the bulk of the experience and offer no lasting rewards

Agreed. Should add this to the OP, I feel like your feedback is a little more important than others given you're a content creator and respected in the community, I guarantee most of us agree with you. I have a feeling ZOS isn't going to read every single comment and could easily miss this.

Rkindaleft · October 2023

The changes during the 9.2.2 PTS don't exactly hit the mark in terms of what the main issue is with the Endless Archive. Making Arc 1 shorter but increasing the difficulty of Arc 2 and beyond quicker in practice actually works against most of what the feedback was.

People wanted to get to later arcs faster for a couple reasons:

1) There are no substantial rewards for players as the trash takes up most of the time and give nothing of value which means grinding of the sets if you can only access the early arcs makes it an awful grind. Arc 2's difficulty is far above nMA or nVH (or any normal dungeon or trial) and by doing that content instead they get sets that are only very slightly behind their perfected counterparts, where it is not the same for EA. Even for veteran players the time it takes to fill a stickerbook is ridiculous and the rewards system for the archive should be reworked (this one is just my personal opinion.)

2) For veteran level players, the issue is that progression through the archive takes too long. The answer to this was never to make Arc 2 and beyond more difficult quicker to give players who beat Arc 1 more of a challenge, but rather the period of time it takes to progress through arcs. I do agree that making Arc 1 easier is a good change to give less experienced players access to the content but ramping up the difficulty faster for the arcs post Arc 1 made progression through the archive worse as now it takes a lot longer to finish each one.

3) Since there is no way to save progress people are going to be disincentivised from the running the content if the actual progression through the arcs is slower. It needs to be faster, not in terms of difficulty but rather how fast you can clear each arc. For engaging and rewarding content, progression should happen faster and the level of difficulty should stay the same as veterans can get to engaging content faster and it doesn't ruin the difficulty for less experienced players.

I would have much rather you left the difficulty the same as it is (while slightly reducing the difficulty of Arc 1 to help less experienced players, which you did) while significantly reducing the amount of trash that give no rewards per/between cycles.

Pelanora · October 2023

Noone wants to do this endless archive for the sake of it, the doing of it, but only for the rewards (loot, sets, whatever). That's kinda sad?

Why do they build these things, if noone actually wants to be doing them, they just want to have done them. They want the reward, achievement, done and out.

Endless fighting isn't actually what anyone wants, it seems? Just a mechanism for delivery of endless rewards?

essi2 · October 2023

Pelanora wrote: »

Noone wants to do this endless archive for the sake of it, the doing of it, but only for the rewards (loot, sets, whatever). That's kinda sad?

Why do they build these things, if noone actually wants to be doing them, they just want to have done them. They want the reward, achievement, done and out.

Endless fighting isn't actually what anyone wants, it seems? Just a mechanism for delivery of endless rewards?

You just described MMORPGs.

On a related note, not getting any gear for finishing a Cycle feels bad.

NoxiousBlight · October 2023

skinnycheeks wrote: »

I think the adjustments today did not adequately resolve the complaints the players had about the length of time it takes to move through the archive. It will still take just as long to move from Arc to Arc. Actually, even longer now that it gets harder more quickly. The complaints were not around the difficulty not scaling up quickly enough, but around how long each individual Arc took, due to the unnecessary amount of trash mobs you have to fight that give no rewards at all. Now you will fight higher difficulty mobs for lower level rewards than were offered in weeks 1 and 2.

A big appeal to the archive is the vision stacking/selecting game and this is something that most players won't ever really get to engage with due to the difficulty. And now even less will get to participate in it. I think the change to the difficulty scaling was either the wrong decision or a misinterpretation of the feedback.

The only real winners from these changes are people that just want to do 1 Arc for their daily and then port out. Everyone else will have a less rewarding experience than before.

I'm hoping that the adjustments are not final here and more can be done to reach the heart of the "takes too long" problem.

1) No way to save progress
2) No way to skip ahead after completing high level arcs
3) Trash rounds take up the bulk of the experience and offer no lasting rewards

Agree 100%. Ironically they made it a worse experience with the latest adjustment.

Man EA could be the best content in the game but ZOS just needs to listen to this.

Jaimeh · October 2023

I feel like the fact that they've removed time conditions works against the content, like someone said above: after a while the leaderboard will just be dominated by only the few people who have time like that available to play (not to mention this kind of thing will absolutely invite trying to keep an instance open shenanigans). Personally I like that arenas and trials have time-sensitive leaderboards, and although I didn't mind they removed the time component from the archive, given how the stages and progression is structured, I think it just goes against the enjoyment of the content.

Varana · October 2023

Pelanora wrote: »

Noone wants to do this endless archive for the sake of it, the doing of it, but only for the rewards (loot, sets, whatever). That's kinda sad?

Why do they build these things, if noone actually wants to be doing them, they just want to have done them. They want the reward, achievement, done and out.

Endless fighting isn't actually what anyone wants, it seems? Just a mechanism for delivery of endless rewards?

Doing the Endless Archive for the fun of doing it would be talked about more, if doing it would be more fun.

The point is that the add waves aren't fun, they're a slog to get to the fun bits, at least for a while. And even when they become challenging, they're somewhat monotonous. They follow a scheme, that scheme doesn't have enough variation.

And not being able to save or skip rounds means that you have to dedicate a lot of uninterrupted time to it, with large parts of that time occupied by doing stuff that is neither challenging nor particularly fun. When I know I have to start from the beginning and will only progress to a point that I have already done when my playing time is up, the fun is rather limited. Just whacking pixels dead is one thing; for many, the fun starts when they can progress.

Most of this thread is dedicated to exactly that issue - how to make the experience of the EA more fun so players will do it. The discussion about rewards is an important one as well, but only a part of what this thread is about.

FantasticFreddie · October 2023

Pelanora wrote: »

Noone wants to do this endless archive for the sake of it, the doing of it, but only for the rewards (loot, sets, whatever). That's kinda sad?

Why do they build these things, if noone actually wants to be doing them, they just want to have done them. They want the reward, achievement, done and out.

Endless fighting isn't actually what anyone wants, it seems? Just a mechanism for delivery of endless rewards?

The random bosses are fun (they would be MORE fun if you couldn't get the same boss more than twice per instance but that's a different discussion.)
That bosses don't drop set pieces is a huge disappointment, and that it takes almost an hour to get through 1 arc solo means that me, personally? I will not do beyond arc 1 basically ever. I have 2 hours max to play a day. The chances I would actually have time to clear 2 full arcs solo is low, so I would never bother. If I have a buddy, sure, we can go as far as we can in 2 hours and then I guess they can replace me and go further.
It's just silly. ALL bosses need to drop gear, cut out some of the meaningless trash fights, and add a save point.

All concerns/suggestions from week 1

jaws343 · October 2023

I don't quite understand how them increasing the ramp up difficulty doesn't address the problem of it taking far too long to reach the difficulty wall that is supposed to stop players. I mean, that is literally the only way that a 13 hour run through becomes 2 hours, the difficulty wall is moved forward to stop progress sooner. It's the whole point of the content, pushing the limit of what a solo or duo can accomplish based on skill and difficulty. So, increasing the ramp up in difficulty does exactly that.

Not saying I don't agree that maybe there should be less rounds/trash fights, and more bosses. But this adjustment seems to cut down on the amount of time a player needs to stay in the arena to hit that difficulty wall.

CameraBeardThePirate · October 2023

jaws343 wrote: »

I don't quite understand how them increasing the ramp up difficulty doesn't address the problem of it taking far too long to reach the difficulty wall that is supposed to stop players. I mean, that is literally the only way that a 13 hour run through becomes 2 hours, the difficulty wall is moved forward to stop progress sooner. It's the whole point of the content, pushing the limit of what a solo or duo can accomplish based on skill and difficulty. So, increasing the ramp up in difficulty does exactly that.

Not saying I don't agree that maybe there should be less rounds/trash fights, and more bosses. But this adjustment seems to cut down on the amount of time a player needs to stay in the arena to hit that difficulty wall.

Because it misses what the criticism was in the first place and only reinforces the other issues with the EA.

The amount of Arcs to reach the difficulty curve wasn't the issue - the issue was that the Arcs feel like they're bloated with fluff for very little reward. Trash packs within the Arcs serve no purpose other than padding time. You don't get rewards for them, they don't have interesting mechanics, and until a ways in, they provide no real challenge.

By removing a wave of adds, you'd solve the issue of Arcs taking too long without ruining the reward curve. The solution ZOS implemented only really works for the very tip top % of players, and even for them, they'll now receive fewer rewards (as they'll hit a difficulty wall even sooner).

For players NOT at the tippy top of dps, they'll hit a difficulty wall MUCH more quickly, which means they'll be receiving FAR fewer rewards - all the while still taking tons of time to make it through even 1 Arc.

AlterBlika · October 2023

They should just get rid of trash stages

Dagoth_Rac · October 2023

jaws343 wrote: »

I don't quite understand how them increasing the ramp up difficulty doesn't address the problem of it taking far too long to reach the difficulty wall that is supposed to stop players. I mean, that is literally the only way that a 13 hour run through becomes 2 hours, the difficulty wall is moved forward to stop progress sooner. It's the whole point of the content, pushing the limit of what a solo or duo can accomplish based on skill and difficulty. So, increasing the ramp up in difficulty does exactly that.

Not saying I don't agree that maybe there should be less rounds/trash fights, and more bosses. But this adjustment seems to cut down on the amount of time a player needs to stay in the arena to hit that difficulty wall.

There are other ways way to reduce a 13-hour run to 2 hours. Let people pick up at or near where they left off. The whole "you can only die 3 times and then have to start all over" is a big part of the problem.

Or cut out trash to keep same number of arcs but make each arc shorter.

The 13 hour run is 12 hours of too easy + 45 minutes of just right + 15 minutes of overwhelmingly difficult. The 2 hour run compresses it into 1 hour and 50 minutes of too easy + 7 minutes of just right + 3 minutes of overwhelmingly difficult. OK. that is exaggerated. But it is the gist of the problem.

Before, it took way too much boring content to get to the fun part. But at least the fun part objectively lasted a little while. Now there is less boring content to get to the fun part, but the fun part is over really fast.

The ratio is out of whack. It is like getting a double cheeseburger and complaining it is too salty. And they give you a single cheeseburger with half the salt. Still too salty!

Also, some of the fun across many arcs was accumulating many buffs. The enemies become far more powerful than anything you have ever faced. But you also become far more powerful than you have ever been. A lot of that fun is lost when instead of making each arc less time consuming, you see fewer arcs and hit a wall earlier.

Pelanora · October 2023

All great, generous, responses, to my wonderings.

Fun is making gains, making progress, getting somewhere, being challenged, getting rewards for effort, always different experiences. Fun is not... just the same stuff over and over. Endlessly.

ZOS_Kevin · October 2023

Hi All, just wanted to follow up here. As you may have seen, in these week's patch notes, we have made some changes to Infinite Archive that will hopefully help with progression. We are removing one stage from each cycle for the Infinite Archive in order to increase the overall pace, especially early on. So there will be two stages per cycle instead of three and one arc will be 10 stages instead of 15. As always, please continue to pass along your feedback as you continue to play.

Full patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/644544/pts-patch-notes-v9-2-3

FantasticFreddie · October 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, just wanted to follow up here. As you may have seen, in these week's patch notes, we have made some changes to Endless Archive that will hopefully help with progression. We are removing one stage from each cycle for the Endless Archive in order to increase the overall pace, especially early on. So there will be two stages per cycle instead of three and one arc will be 10 stages instead of 15. As always, please continue to pass along your feedback as you continue to play.

Full patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/644544/pts-patch-notes-v9-2-3

Wonderful news! Thank you to the whole team!

Tandor · October 2023

I take it this change is confirmation that "the intended audience" mentioned in the previous patch notes comprises high-level competitive build players, as the change involves reducing what they refer to as "trash content" but which is the only content that more casual players can actually make much progress with.

ESO_player123 · October 2023

Tandor wrote: »

I take it this change is confirmation that "the intended audience" mentioned in the previous patch notes comprises high-level competitive build players, as the change involves reducing what they refer to as "trash content" but which is the only content that more casual players can actually make much progress with.

Progressing through only trash did not mean anything before and does not mean anything now. The trash does not drop anything, so doing just trash is pointless (it does not progress the player in any meaningful way, and there is nothing to be had as a reward). That was not changed with this patch. If anything, "non target audience" can progress to the boss and meet its demise faster (so less efforts I guess)

J18696 · October 2023

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I take it this change is confirmation that "the intended audience" mentioned in the previous patch notes comprises high-level competitive build players, as the change involves reducing what they refer to as "trash content" but which is the only content that more casual players can actually make much progress with.

Progressing through only trash did not mean anything before and does not mean anything now. The trash does not drop anything, so doing just trash is pointless (it does not progress the player in any meaningful way, and there is nothing to be had as a reward). That was not changed with this patch. If anything, "non target audience" can progress to the boss and meet its demise faster (so less efforts I guess)

Yeah bright side is you dont have as much mindless trash rooms to clear anymore but still feels like filler some currency reward or something would go a longway

Elsonso · October 2023

Tandor wrote: »

I take it this change is confirmation that "the intended audience" mentioned in the previous patch notes comprises high-level competitive build players, as the change involves reducing what they refer to as "trash content" but which is the only content that more casual players can actually make much progress with.

From what i got out of Finn's interview with Xynode... First Arc is not really for end game players. After that, difficulty is ramps up for the end game and competitive players.

As a non-competitve player who just wants to do the first arc as a daily and then move on with life, this change is terrific. Opinion based on patch notes, not in-game.