Hey y'all!

so, I am far from an end gamer, Mid tier at best in all walks of the game (except flower picking, node locations are committed to memory at this point, tri pots for AP when pls?), I run a mix of proper 2 bar set ups and oaken set ups in PVE, mostly oaken in PVP (that cyro lag tho ), rarely do Trials, but do short man vet hard mode dungeons, and I was eagerly anticipating Endless Archive since hearing about it earlier in the year. After a handful of runs, my thoughts on it

The Good:
- It. Is. Fun! Assuming you enjoy combat challenges. I often challenged myself solo'ing vet hard modes, or carrying others, for fun, because I enjoy challenging myself and learning mechanics. It isnt always pretty. But Endless Archive starts out easy breezy, and ends up giving me exactly that challenge I enjoyed from pushing difficult content in ways it wasnt designed to be done. Love it.
- Easy to jump in and play around a bit, earning something when you have no plan/not a ton of time/no ones around doing anything interesting.
- That DK set. its good enough to be its own point here. /drool
- The side rooms (except 1) are pretty fun! Though one (the tomeshell one) could use better explaining. Also the tomeshell one is total cheeks. no me gusta
- The Boss fights. my gosh, they demonstrate what all of the boss fights in dungeons COULD be. Even the basic biscuit bosses from base game dungeons have modified mechanics that made it so much more engaging. Love it. and seeing 'solo' versions of trial bosses has been really cool (though, a combination of I assume bad RNG and lag did have a dragon Fus-ro-yeet me off the platform in one of my runs before i did anything, on my last life, which, while crappy, was also hysterical)
- SUPER POWERS! some verses are absolutely amazing (step on a rat, do 250k damage to the whole damn room from nasty-stank damage, amazing!) and some Visions make select builds absolutely shine, letting you have a massive power trip that may or may not carry over into real life. Also turn into a giant werewolf and live out your Auridon RP dreams.
- Rewards! Tons of unlockables. Heck yes
- Marauders! I love the idea that at any time, the room can become extra spicy (though I do think they need some adjustment/scaling with stage, but I need to face more of them before I have input on that). I love the rewards they give as well. I do think it would be nice if there were other surprise challenges of a similar nature that could be in rotation. Seeing the Boss fights in each cycle, id love to see more mechanic heavy, less raw damage based 'boss mobs' kind of randomly show up to throw a wrench in a stage.

The Bad (and ideas for improvement):
- :'( HP Sponges instead of interesting mechanics. as you advance, there isnt really any extra challenge besides every mob having absurd amounts of hit points and being in groups large enough to rival West Coast gangs. With mobs that routinely ignore CC immunity, it becomes a game of be a turtle while nibbling on those millions of enemy HP. Glad we swapped to paper straws I guess, my nose will be safe now.
- Rewards... the first 2 Arcs currency rewards are just... sooo small. Add in that the first two arcs are pretty trivial, it would be amazing to be able to skip Arc 1 (and or 2) and start at 3 for the juicier fights/more currency.
- Rewards part 2- Overland sets? I mean it was cool when i saw I was missing some. But those are collected now. so its mostly just junk. it would be awesome if we could choose what we want to some degree. Include dungeons (maybe not trials). Maybe a selector to say specific zone or dungeon loot, or more broadly, a region (AD zone, EP zone, DC zone, overland and dungeon loot?). Id enjoy that much more and not auto dump it to clear my bags perhaps.
- Super BAD Powers- while some verses and visions are amazing, some are.... not. and hey, RNG makes it funky fresh each time! but today... I did 4 runs that I stopped at Arc 3 because i got ZERO Visions that synergized with my available builds (and I have 5 builds to swap around between reasonably easily without leaving the instance). Combined with the pitifully low rewards of the early Arcs, this was... not rewarding to do at all, and by Arc 3, while when you have Visions that enhance your build this is where I start really getting into it, if you have no useful visions, its just... painfully slow (see above, HP sponges/turtling up=slow unengaging gameplay). Not impossible, but... just not fun at that point. Perhaps some sort of Curated powers list would be beneficial. Not removing RNG entirely, but maybe based on skills slotted it can favor certain Visions. On a full Magicka spec for example, offering nonstop martial damage Visions and that one weird specifically poison damage enchantment vision are all much less useful than things boosting elemental/crit chance, etc. Or maybe a "reroll" Visions function, perhaps at a currency cost, to give you a different pair of offered visions if you dont like the ones offered.
- :'( Obligatory "Theres no Save function!" note. I personally dont mind not being able to save progress, but I know its a pain point for many.
- Bugs. did you die? unequip and reequip all your gear. did you enter a side room? unequip and reequip all your gear. Did you have music playing and not hear what the dude said about tomeshells? Wander around for 30 minutes at a snails pace as a weird eyeball thing and give up, as theres no where to even see what the heck youre supposed to be doing. also unequip and reequip all your gear again.
- Every Set except the DK set: meh. I can see use for most of them (though the sorc set sounds really cool, its functionality is absolute trash), but not enough to want to grind out the 36 pieces or whatever it is.
- "Extend your CC immunity!" - theres a verse or vision, I forget which, that offers extra CC immunity time and some other bonus. But it seems like every enemy ignores CC immunity and at later stages can all pretty much stun lock you while a flamecaller spams fire through a wall at you. so its either a useless verse/vision, or y'all gotta adjust everything using stuns that ignore CC immunity. I had 1 amazing potential run, all the right visions, super powers were on fire, only to be continuously staggered/knockedback/thrown/stunned/forced into a 4 year contract with early termination fees and locked in animations while getting burnt to a crisp and literally unable to do anything for about 5 seconds before i died. Felt bad, man.
- Lack of Variety- in the early Arcs its fine, every mob pack seems unique. but by arc 4, theres so many Fabled enemies that show up in the same places in the same pairs that each room starts to feel the same in how you go about handling it.

In Summary:
I love it. The "bad" section looks bigger, mostly due to needing more explanation, but all in all Endless Archive is a huge win, ZOS. It is the best content added in a long while. But it is not perfect, and there are many things that could be improved upon to make it REALLY shine. Hoping this gets built upon and improved upon (and maybe some different scenery in the future, too!) and I'd love to see these revamped boss fights get a bigger spotlight, be it in dungeons, or maybe in a pure boss rush mode? a guy can dream!