Castagere wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

Castagere wrote: »

Bashev wrote: »

No No No. You will nerf the only challenging solo content in the game.

I am not a PvE-er myself but i just went with my PvP build and my game crashed at arc 3. I had no issues with the bosses and I found them too easy and boring in the first 2 arcs. I just waisted some time to reach the fun part and now I have to start over.

If ZoS nerf the EA to arc 5 let say i hope they will give us an option to jump directly on Arc 6 and not wasting time doing trivial fights.

Then ZOS should have not made the claim that anyone can solo it when clearly it is not for everyone. ZOS needs to explain why they made that claim.

Where exactly did zos claim, that anyone could solo EA, regardless of build, experience and skill?

Afaik they announced, that anyone will be able to start EA, as it's basically a f2p-addition, but they never guaranteed that any combination of build/playerskill will accomplish several Arcs in a row or something like that.

Oh, I see they didn't guarantee that you could do it. Give me a freaking break.

Dude. There has always been content you cant complete any level with any build. You can't even do some dungeons until lvl 45 even if your main is cp already. Even at that point as a new player you will die. Come on now. As a newbie you will die in normal maelstrom and vat a metric ton of times before you clear and that is absolutely intended as solo content. You have to have a general idea of mechanics and how to make a survivable build. Your not gonna go in with a basic dungeon build. Respec a little more into health and craft a stat set. Make sure you have decent penetration since you get no buffs from supports.

Quethrosar wrote: »

i am a pure dps player, my point of playing is to do the most damage while having a tank handle the hits.

farthest i have reached is ARC 3 3 1 solo with sorcerer heavy attack. I spent far too much time resummoning pets and spamming heals.

As a stam sorc with maelstrom 2h backbar and nirn , perf coral, daggers front bar i can get into arc 2 somewhere but stamina resources are ridiculous to manage. same with bows.

i haven't tried as mag sorc but will probably in next couple days since that is and will always be my favorite sorcerer mode without pets.

i refuse to spend a fight rolling around all the time which seems what they want you to do here. very rarely do i know when to block or to roll.

my focus is on the mob i am trying to kill, not other stuff. this is why i would be a crap tank.

i also do not feel we should need specialized builds for things. that is just too cookie cutter.

Arc 3 is not so bad.

If healers and tanks start complaining that they cannot do vMA and they have to adjust their build what shall we do?

boi_anachronism_ wrote: »

What. Of course you need different builds for different content. You get buffs from supports in group content. Of course you need to provide your own for solo.

skill wise yes, gear wise no.

I will stay out of the conversation of who or what is an average vs above average... I don't have numbers on any of that.

My feedback would be that you can have a pretty significant difference in experience depending on which bosses you get in those boss rounds. Some of them have one shot mechanics even in the first arc and I can see where a player who does not have experience with those mechanics could have a hard time.

A player who does reasonably good DPS, and knows the basic mechanics of boss fights will get through Arc 1 pretty easily though. Arc 2 gets significantly harder to solo, but is still pretty easy as a duo. Arc 3 is where I think things start to get really spicy. I feel like this content will be significantly easier for veteran players that have done all the boss fights multiple times and automatically understand what the individual mechanics look like, and that more than anything explains the disparity in experience IMO.

On a side note, I wish they would put in a "Start at Arc 3" mechanic when you have completed Arc 2, so we don't have to spend an hour to get there.

Braffin wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

Confirmed, we lost a Q4 story content to something aimed at a small portion of the population that likes hardmode activities.

May we have some proof regarding your claim, that only a small portion of the playerbase is interested in EA?

Where did I say specifically that? It is well known that only a small percentage of the playerbase takes part in hardcore endgame activities.

At least Arcs 1-3 aren't a "hardcore endgame activity" tho. Calling them so is nothing more than framing.

Whoever can't complete Arc 1, shouldn't talk about vet hm content, as they clearly haven't the slightest idea what they're talking about.

Additionally I'd still like to see proof for your claim, that "only a smalll percentage of the playerbase takes part in hardcore endgame activities". Afaik zos isn't publishing any numbers regarding this topic at all. So how exactly do you want to know, that you aren't completely wrong?

ESO does have leaderboards and log postings that can hint at the numbers if they are working.

If the leaderboards are actually working today you have around 5,000 characters that have done EA as a DUO on PC NA since the weekly reset for us. (I got 1,000 points quick on an alt and then ended the run and checked the alts position to get that number then rounded up to the nearest thousand)

My character that got a bit of the way into the third round as duo before I quit is in the top 1200 and is in the top 100 for that class.

My character that didn't beat Arc 2 as a duo is in the top 1400 and is tied with a bunch of other people for 101st place.

You can see how this suggests that if the leaderboard isn't have a bad day the population doing it isn't that big (You've got under 5,000 characters thus far and some people like me have multiple characters in) and that thus far the average score is not all that impressive.

As solo weekly has less players than duo for some of the less popular classes you can see everyone's scores.

For Nightblade, Necromancer, and Warden a bit under half of the characters did not beat first round Tho'at.

There's nothing that requires fixing in regards of the Endless Archives

1. The endless archives slowly, very slowly, increase in difficulty. A difficulty setting is thereby unnecessary as players can decide for themselves how difficult they like their game to be without missing out on rewards. They can simply restart their run immediately and farm on Arc 1 over and over again, just as people enjoying a harder difficulty can play as far as they can get and restart aswell. NOBODY is missing out, as the currency earned will be spend on vendors right outside the archives.

2. Arc 1 is about as difficult as a delve in the open world. My best friend ingame is from turkey and is forced to stick to a HA Sorc build in order to even enjoy group dungeons on normal difficulty due to his high latency. He doesn't know much about the theory crafting behind builds, he's happy to use whatever fun guide suggests and therefore never optimized in the slightest. Not even in regards of set quality or buff food/mundus stones. We ran the endless archives together and stopped at Arc 3 simply because it got late. He enjoyed things greatly.

I ran Arc 1 solo on a magicka necromancer wearing Caluurions, Order's Wrath and 2 pieces of Kjalnars Nightmare. Not because it's a good setup, but I simply am the type of player that runs builds that fit my character or theme in mind when playing solo. No Mythics and the bloody soul magic ult, which is about as useful as a wet wipe against flame atronachs nowadays. I didn't even sweat. The first thing that had me actually pay attention to the enemy was Tho'at, simply because I was suddenly required to block and dodge.

Basic game mechanics, nothing special nor requiring high levels of effort.

Later on my friend and I decided to test how well one could farm XP in the endless archives. So we both logged onto a level 23 nightblade and a level 15 arcanist. FYI, the amount of experience farmed on Arc 1 isn't worth it but it still was not in any way difficult to complete Arc 1 and turn in the quest. On two underleveled, undergeared, almost half of the skills missing, characters covered in crafted training gear and jester's coins for buff food.

3. The players stating that "We missed out on a Q4 DLC for somethign to give to the hardmode players" seem to forget that for the past years the other party simply had to miss out on the level of difficulty they enjoy. Every single instance of Zos attempting to implement something that is somewhat more difficult that breathing got nerfed afterwards because of posts like this one. And as harsh as it sounds, there are quite a lot of players who refuse to block or dodge roll, left alone pay attention to mechanics and avoid them, in order to finish content. I usually hate this phrase more than anything but from the bottom of my soul-shriven heart:

"Learn to play."

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

Confirmed, we lost a Q4 story content to something aimed at a small portion of the population that likes hardmode activities.

May we have some proof regarding your claim, that only a small portion of the playerbase is interested in EA?

Where did I say specifically that? It is well known that only a small percentage of the playerbase takes part in hardcore endgame activities.

At least Arcs 1-3 aren't a "hardcore endgame activity" tho. Calling them so is nothing more than framing.

Whoever can't complete Arc 1, shouldn't talk about vet hm content, as they clearly haven't the slightest idea what they're talking about.

Additionally I'd still like to see proof for your claim, that "only a smalll percentage of the playerbase takes part in hardcore endgame activities". Afaik zos isn't publishing any numbers regarding this topic at all. So how exactly do you want to know, that you aren't completely wrong?

ESO does have leaderboards and log postings that can hint at the numbers if they are working.

If the leaderboards are actually working today you have around 5,000 characters that have done EA as a DUO on PC NA since the weekly reset for us. (I got 1,000 points quick on an alt and then ended the run and checked the alts position to get that number then rounded up to the nearest thousand)

My character that got a bit of the way into the third round as duo before I quit is in the top 1200 and is in the top 100 for that class.

My character that didn't beat Arc 2 as a duo is in the top 1400 and is tied with a bunch of other people for 101st place.

You can see how this suggests that if the leaderboard isn't have a bad day the population doing it isn't that big (You've got under 5,000 characters thus far and some people like me have multiple characters in) and that thus far the average score is not all that impressive.

As solo weekly has less players than duo for some of the less popular classes you can see everyone's scores.

For Nightblade, Necromancer, and Warden a bit under half of the characters did not beat first round Tho'at.

Even if the leaderboards are working (I agree with you on this), your argument is severly flawed:

1) We have no idea how many people are playing the game currently. Please show me how to calculate a percentage of an unknown base value.
2) EA is available for less than half a week now and there wasn't an weekend yet. A lot of players simply don't have time for prolonged sessions during the week (ya know, RL-issues like work are in between). Sure, today is a holiday in most countries but we also got emergency maintenance, so a lot of people didn't bother playing the game today.
3) There is something in games called "progression". That means that most players are still learning the new game mode and getting accustomed to it while their score is steadily improving.

If the numbers you presented would reflect performance in content over a period of for example 2 to 3 month, I'd agree with your statement. But they don't.

Demanding to enter newly published content and faceroll through it on day 1 without any meaningful resistance is entitlement at it's peak to say it blunt.

Smaxx wrote: »

The first Marauder is a bit of a steep increase, for something you can't skip, but so far for me the worst offender (by a long way) was Ghemvas the Harbinger. I think I even had him in first arc yesterday, first time, and instantly lost two threads since I absolutely didn't expect to getting nailed with a 3500 damage ticking bleed that early. That felt way out of whack.

Any chance it was Ghemvas in your case, too?

Now I met Ghemvas... in 1.3.3 - this has to be a bad joke!

Tandor wrote: »

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

Arc 1 is about as difficult as a delve in the open world.

Perhaps those who believe that should list their CPs, gear and build. They may well be the "intended audience" but according to the email from ZOS I received introducing EA, adventurers "can choose to go at it solo or team up with a fellow player or Companion to complete."

Complete what, exactly?

i would assume the repeatable quest/daily quest

which would mean clearing arc 1 which awards the undaunted wall mount (equivalent to completing a dungeon on normal)

the other "complete" would be clearing arc 4 which is what awards the undaunted bust (equivalent to completing a dungeon on vet)

other than that i would still count as "completing" successfully finishing an arc

I definitely agree with the OP here and all the complaints in general. The difficulty (especially early on and I insist on that point) is scaling way too brutally. In my opinion, a casual player should be able to complete at the very least Arc 1 without feeling threatened. For example, The Serpent's mechanic instakilling you as soon as Arc 1 is definitely not a good thing. Instead, it should be like in normal dungeon, where a mechanic one shotting you in vet is "only" taking a chunk of your HP in normal version so people can understand it's dangerous while having the time to actually understand what is happening (nCR is a good example of this during the crystal phase, where if you fail to go up to avois Z'Maja explosion, you just end up losing a big chunk of HP instead of being instakilled like in vet).

Now let's talk about the Marauders and I'm talking as an experienced player who made it solo to Arc 6/3/2 so far: this is definitely not okay. As soon as Arc 2 (their first appearance), the flame Marauder can hit you for 10k light attack on a moderately tanky build and oh god he's spamming them leaving you very little room to actually play agressive. I never died on a Marauder so far but once again, try to put yourself in the shoes of a casual player suddenly meeting that kind of monster in Arc 2 (they can legit hit as hard as some stuff you meet in Arc 4+ which makes no sense) and ask yourself on what planet they can go through that without dying.

So yes, I think the difficulty IN THE EARLY ARCS and I really insist on that point should be tuned down to allow casual players to finish Arc 1 without being threatened (might be good for lore enthusiastic who wants to see a bit of the archive lore) and finish Arc 2 if they manage to pass some little but not too harsh skill requierements. Then from Arc 3 and more, the difficulty should kick in. I'm really not concerned for vet player because trust me, you'll have your dose of challenge from Arc 4 and further. The first Arcs were already a joke for a vet player anyway so I don't see any harm nerfing them for the sake of casual players' experience.

Tandor wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

Arc 1 is about as difficult as a delve in the open world.

Perhaps those who believe that should list their CPs, gear and build. They may well be the "intended audience" but according to the email from ZOS I received introducing EA, adventurers "can choose to go at it solo or team up with a fellow player or Companion to complete."

Complete what, exactly?

i would assume the repeatable quest/daily quest

which would mean clearing arc 1 which awards the undaunted wall mount (equivalent to completing a dungeon on normal)

the other "complete" would be clearing arc 4 which is what awards the undaunted bust (equivalent to completing a dungeon on vet)

other than that i would still count as "completing" successfully finishing an arc

I understand what you're saying, but it seems a bit unambitious for something with "Endless" in the title.

well it definitely does have a definite end, you can either choose to stop, or your 3rd death, by definition

its endless because you can keep going until you die, i also take it to mean "endless" as in variation of content, its far less predictable than any of the existing arenas that have specific bosses and specific add waves

i see "endless" to be more in line with replayability, because its far more varied than current dungeons/arenas because you dont know what boss your fighting until you get to that stage, enemy groups are varied, and the verse/vision buffs add a lot fun things too

Seems like there's a simple enough solution. Reduce the difficulty of Arc 2 slightly so that it doesn't feel so much of a road block (reduce that damage from Tho'at and Maraduers), then allow people to start from Arc 3 (ostensibly the mid-point) if they've already reached it previously. Players who want the daily quest can go up to Arc 1, players who want loot and experience can go up to Arc 2, players who want to get right into the harder stuff can skip right to Arc 3. Who loses there? If you want to be generous, maybe give the Arc 3 starters their choice of two or three Visions so they aren't lagging behind.

EA is intended to be 2 person content.

Solo or +companion is possible, but it's clearly balanced around 1 tank + 1 dps.

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

Arc 1 is about as difficult as a delve in the open world.

Perhaps those who believe that should list their CPs, gear and build.

I mention in the same exact post that my friend and I ran Arc 1 and completed the quest on two underleveled, undergeared, almost half of the skills missing, characters covered in crafted training gear and jester's coins for buff food.

- Exactly 12 pieces of the "Shattered Fate" set with the training trait. Weapons included. Jewelry had the bloodthirsty trait.
(Because it's good? No, because I grabbed the first thing in reach to test the amounts of XP we could get out of Arc 1)
- We used Jester's coins as buff food simply because I had some left over and didn't feel like wasting good stuff on a xp farm test run.

My CP? 2273 points in total. - But just as everybody else, I get to slot 4 actives per category max which only takes 800 CP.

your name is on point.