Wolf_Eye wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I think ZOS will be paying attention to the data they get when this goes live.

If not enough people complete Arc 1 (by whatever metrics they use), then it will likely be nerfed. If they're satisfied by the amount of people completing Arc 1, then it won't be nerfed.

That's my prediction.

I still maintain that players looking for a harder challenge will likely become bored with this, as they would still have to go through the "boring easy Arc" (that's like overland) every single time they want to get to the harder stuff. And I imagine they might get too sick of that after the shiny newness of it wears off.

And players that are ultra casual and find this too tough would not even bother with it.

I think it needs tweaking in many ways. I'm worried that this would end up not satisfying anybody in the long run.

this is how i see it

i think they will likely make 2 adjustments down the road:

1. adjusting the difficulty scaling
2. allow people to set their start point from a later arc (up to the highest one reached), but you would get no verses or visions from "previous" arcs which may actually be more challenging

point 1 will likely happen if they see too many people failing arc 1, and i see them implementing point 2 to help entice the more sweaty players to continue replaying

Yeah your point number two was something I was expecting to be part and parcel of the launch version, and was surprised when it wasn't. Some would argue that it would threaten the integrity of the leaderboards, but there are options around this:

Option 1: Not everyone who wants a challenge wants to be on the leaderboards, so you could make it so that skipping Arcs disqualifies you from the leaderboards

Option 2: Everyone equally has the ability to skip the first two Arcs (if they so choose). This essentially means that everyone on the leaderboards has the same head start if they want to use it.

Option 3: (which is what you suggested) You have the ability to skip the first two Arcs, but it comes at a cost; you not get any verses/visions from the Arcs you skipped. But you also don't get any score from the monsters you skipped too (I think that's how the scores work? I dunno; I'm not very familiar with how the scores work in ESO).

This might encourage potential leaderboard chasers to do the first two Arcs anyways (to avoid missing out on the verses and the monster killing, both of which might help their score), while also allowing the people who don't care about the leaderboards to skip ahead and still get to something they'd want to do.


Or it could be some other combination of these things. Maybe even sacrifice one of your threads to skip, I dunno. As long as it levels the playing field, as I know fairness is a very big deal among leaderboard pushers.

im not entirely sure how it is scored, but i agree that skipping arcs would just disqualify for a leaderboard score

my suggestion wasnt just to skip the first 2 arcs, but skip up to the last cleared arc, for example if you did clear arc 5, you could start on arc 6, but without any bonuses from the previous 5 arcs

this would give 2 things, allow those who want a challenge to start at the challenge, and give additional challenge due to the lack of previous beneficial buffs

this is what i actually think most of the "sweaty" players want for this content

everyone else i think would be more than content to start from arc 1 and build up bonuses as you go so the difficulty doesnt get as punishing as quickly

i saw another post actually suggesting that the leaderboard itself is what is going to hold the endless archive back, and there really should be a way to decline being scored if your not interested in it

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I think ZOS will be paying attention to the data they get when this goes live.

If not enough people complete Arc 1 (by whatever metrics they use), then it will likely be nerfed. If they're satisfied by the amount of people completing Arc 1, then it won't be nerfed.

That's my prediction.

I still maintain that players looking for a harder challenge will likely become bored with this, as they would still have to go through the "boring easy Arc" (that's like overland) every single time they want to get to the harder stuff. And I imagine they might get too sick of that after the shiny newness of it wears off.

And players that are ultra casual and find this too tough would not even bother with it.

I think it needs tweaking in many ways. I'm worried that this would end up not satisfying anybody in the long run.

this is how i see it

i think they will likely make 2 adjustments down the road:

1. adjusting the difficulty scaling
2. allow people to set their start point from a later arc (up to the highest one reached), but you would get no verses or visions from "previous" arcs which may actually be more challenging

point 1 will likely happen if they see too many people failing arc 1, and i see them implementing point 2 to help entice the more sweaty players to continue replaying

Yeah your point number two was something I was expecting to be part and parcel of the launch version, and was surprised when it wasn't. Some would argue that it would threaten the integrity of the leaderboards, but there are options around this:

Option 1: Not everyone who wants a challenge wants to be on the leaderboards, so you could make it so that skipping Arcs disqualifies you from the leaderboards

Option 2: Everyone equally has the ability to skip the first two Arcs (if they so choose). This essentially means that everyone on the leaderboards has the same head start if they want to use it.

Option 3: (which is what you suggested) You have the ability to skip the first two Arcs, but it comes at a cost; you not get any verses/visions from the Arcs you skipped. But you also don't get any score from the monsters you skipped too (I think that's how the scores work? I dunno; I'm not very familiar with how the scores work in ESO).

This might encourage potential leaderboard chasers to do the first two Arcs anyways (to avoid missing out on the verses and the monster killing, both of which might help their score), while also allowing the people who don't care about the leaderboards to skip ahead and still get to something they'd want to do.


Or it could be some other combination of these things. Maybe even sacrifice one of your threads to skip, I dunno. As long as it levels the playing field, as I know fairness is a very big deal among leaderboard pushers.

im not entirely sure how it is scored, but i agree that skipping arcs would just disqualify for a leaderboard score

my suggestion wasnt just to skip the first 2 arcs, but skip up to the last cleared arc, for example if you did clear arc 5, you could start on arc 6, but without any bonuses from the previous 5 arcs

this would give 2 things, allow those who want a challenge to start at the challenge, and give additional challenge due to the lack of previous beneficial buffs

this is what i actually think most of the "sweaty" players want for this content

everyone else i think would be more than content to start from arc 1 and build up bonuses as you go so the difficulty doesnt get as punishing as quickly

i saw another post actually suggesting that the leaderboard itself is what is going to hold the endless archive back, and there really should be a way to decline being scored if your not interested in it

Oh I understand now. I must not have understood before.

Yeah I actually prefer your idea here. Skipping disqualifies you from leaderboard, and you can jump to the start of any Arc (provided you've cleared the previous one) without any Archival Buffs.

I also think this would be beneficial for many types of people too. More casual players might still find Arc 1 too easy, and prefer to hang out in Arc 2; they'd be able to skip to their preferred difficulty and have fun from there.

It would certainly offer a greater range of options for customizing the experience which, in my book, is always a good thing.

Braffin wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

It all comes down to what "the intended audience" (to quote the previous patch notes) is. If EA is aimed at a particular section only of the playerbase then that's fine, and they can structure/balance it accordingly, but if they want to broaden the appeal (if only for commercial reasons) then they will need to recognise the need to offer different options so that the different parts of "the intended audience" can progress reasonably well into the Arcs. Having it so that the casual/lower level/lesser geared players can be told just to repeat Arc1 and get their dailies isn't creating "Endless" content, it's just adding to the existing "repeatable" content - not the same thing at all, and a wasted opportunity in my view.

Those players won't stay casual/lower level/lesser gear tho and will eventually proceed to higher Arcs.

No they won't, they'll simply not bother with EA and do the other things they're doing now. Only competitive players play a game in order to put in time and effort to better themselves, others just want to play the game and have fun while doing so.

I've given some time to EA on PTS in order to provide some feedback from my kind of player. If it stays the same as it is now when it transfers to Live then I'll have no interest in it at all. That's fine if I'm not part of "the intended audience", and a few more competitive players will stick with EA at least for a while and enjoy it, just as a few card game enthusiasts are sticking with ToT long after everyone else has sampled it and moved on. Both game features will prove to be wasted opportunities, they could so easily appeal to a wider audience.

it was a terrible idea from the beginning, like so many others ...

If endless archive proves to be difficult to approach for casual players, in my opinion, that will be its "end".

Get it, an end to the endless dungeon?...

I'll see myself out.

Bobargus wrote: »

If endless archive proves to be difficult to approach for casual players, in my opinion, that will be its "end".

Get it, an end to the endless dungeon?...

I'll see myself out.

Sometimes, i really hate being right. And this is one of those moments.

What a shame, really...

The difficulty spikes feel really weird. Arc 1 is a breeze, but then Tho'at feels significantly more difficult, particularly with respect to how much damage she does on basic attacks. I had a little bit of trouble with it on unoptimized solo builds, so I don't feel like an Arc 1 completion is going to be accessible to the majority of the playerbase?

Arc 2 and beyond feel like a big jump from Arc 1 difficulty. I'm also /really/ not enjoying the Marauders - their basic attacks deal so much freaking damage. It feels like I'm not supposed to be doing them as a solo DPS when they're doing like.. 50%+ of my HP on a single basic attack? It's been a genuine struggle for me to defeat them, and them disappearing when I die also feels bad - like they're pretty hard and I don't get a chance to practice defeating them or figure out some better strategies for kiting them.

I think all of this echoes everything that was said on PTS.. Arc 1 Tho'at should IMO be way easier, and the difficulty curve from Arc 1 to 2 and beyond needs to be smoothed. Additionally, I /really/ think endgame players need a way to skip over the beginning Arcs to avoid the content that feels like a boring slog. Right now it's a weird compromise where Arc 1 is easy-ish (but probably not accessible to casual players) and Arc 2 feels like a huge difficulty jump to appeal to endgame players.

For reference, I made it to 3-3-1 before giving up on my solo attempt.

AlterBlika wrote: »

flizomica wrote: »

It feels like I'm not supposed to be doing them as a solo DPS when they're doing like.. 50%+ of my HP on a single basic attack?

soloing isn't about dps. If something hits too hard with light attacks you should consider some defenses. Although I agree that marauders feel harder than all bosses in EA, except maybe Tho'at

Yes, it was plain to me that soloing EA beyond Arc 1 was going to require some more investment in tankiness. That was my first attempt and I hadn't tried to optimize anything. I stopped where I did because I was feeling both too squishy and because the add packs were starting to feel like a slog with how tanky they were getting. The idea of needing to sacrifice more personal damage and therefore make the add packs take even longer, just to guarantee I could spend even more hours in the same content, was extremely unappealing. I don't think the later arcs are going to feel "good" to me unless I'm doing them as a player tank/DPS duo.

To me arc1 seemed like nFG1,and the last boss in arc1was vFG1.It'll jsut take time for ppl to get used to it,and figure out what gear,and they'll start burning throguh it with more ease.

LOL Having breezed through nFG1 solo in 10 minutes earlier that day for event skulls, that wasn't my experience with EA at all. Even though the first boss I had on my second run was the chief from FG1. My first run cycle 4 boss was a trial boss, The Serpent. Lost all my threads to him. Second attempt was also a failure but on the EA boss itself.

I like the random bosses but feel RNG was against me yesterday.

Personally i do play Eso alot and love the game i'm also a wow player and after entering the EA i feelt like it was just a copy paste thing from the Torghast The Infinite Dungeon they had in wow , did it up to 2-4-3, then just left as i found it so boring and don't really see a reason to do it the class set for my class is also useless so why bother i play for fun

LouisaB75 wrote: »

There are definitely leads in one of the shops and if I recall correctly it is the one that rotates weekly. Currently had one gold lead for part of the new well from necrom and a purple one for dwarven cogs.

Which one was the dwarven cogs again? Did it belong to a mythic?

Also, I noticed what looks like a piece from the Summerset public dungeon collectible memento....Does this mean we get rotating public dungeon mementos too? That would be sweet. I like having alternative ways of getting things!

flizomica wrote: »

So I guess I'm just really confused as to what you are wanting. Are the mobs not dodgeable?

One of my issues was how hard the basic attacks were hitting from the Marauders, which aren't avoidable the way that AoEs are. I'm not sure if I could deal with them better by trying to kite them or if I would need to invest way more in tankiness as a solo player. I haven't managed to survive against them long enough to really develop strategies lol.

Ah ok. Yeah the mobs need to be dodgeable to be fair to all builds. The only other thing I can think of is that maybe they were intended to be shot from afar, but then that would basically require everyone to bring at least one ranged weapon (or a ranged skill).

LouisaB75 wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

LouisaB75 wrote: »

There are definitely leads in one of the shops and if I recall correctly it is the one that rotates weekly. Currently had one gold lead for part of the new well from necrom and a purple one for dwarven cogs.

Which one was the dwarven cogs again? Did it belong to a mythic?

Also, I noticed what looks like a piece from the Summerset public dungeon collectible memento....Does this mean we get rotating public dungeon mementos too? That would be sweet. I like having alternative ways of getting things!

It is a purple lead so won't be a mythic. I think it is part of the wolf mount but not sure without checking.

And yes that was a Summerset PD memento part there too. I had levelled up an alt grinding for those a few months ago and recognised it right away as one that had eluded me for ages.

I wonder if other PD drops like parts of big eared ginger kitten might appear in there too but only time will tell on that.

Yeah I looked it up just now and it looks like the Dwarven wolf.


And the Summerset PD memento parts.....

That's so dang cool! And so very helpful to have alternative ways of getting these things. I think it make a lot of people happy.

I think I would assume that the leads that you find are probably not among the rotating stock. (For example, the pieces of the druid provisioning table in High Isle are static items that are found in the world and not randomly dropped from mobs). And I would assume that "ancient map" furnishings are also not sold here since they are already sold by merchants around the world.

But the potential for any lead that's droppable by mobs? Yes. Yes please.