IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

I am not for removing solo mode. But I do agree that duo is significantly faster than solo. There's also a wall in side contents that you hit as solo because they basically requires you to have another player with you to complete.

Which wall are you talking about? I have been able to complete all the side content solo without too much trouble. In my experience, some actually take longer as a duo.

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

There's also a wall in side contents that you hit as solo because they basically requires you to have another player with you to complete.

Wait a minute. Do you mean minigames, like goat, corridor, souls, watcher and duelist?
They all are soloable. You might like to get sprint boosting gear/potions for the last round of the corridor.
Also, the last round of Aramril (with two crystals and adds) is quite hard, but, definitely, doable.
i play only solo, so i did them minigames with no Companion and, of course, no partner player.

Solo (with a companion) definitely feels like a slog.

After partnering with a friend there is a definite feeling of 'oh, so this is how is meant to be played'.

I guess given how much they stressed during the various promotions that time is not an issue in the archive this is really a non-consideration for them.

However now playing solo after experiencing the archive as duo really feels like the system has nothing but utter contempt for my time.

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Could you share some tips for the Watcher side activity? I know what the various watcher's abilities do, but by the time I'm able to actually locate the direction to find the tomeshell (I do use ability 2) I get killed by various stuff. The watcher is simply not fast enough to outrun them or strong enough to do enough damage.

As it sounds like you've already got the gist of it, all I can suggest is just to keep moving. Taking any time to deliberate is what caused me to mess up on the first few attempts.

I don't use a mini map, so if I don't have a direct path to the closest tomeshell, I just pick a random direction away from the enemies.

I agree that this is the most difficult one to consistently complete, but it is definitely doable if you don't stress and don't stop moving.

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Could you share some tips for the Watcher side activity? I know what the various watcher's abilities do, but by the time I'm able to actually locate the direction to find the tomeshell (I do use ability 2) I get killed by various stuff. The watcher is simply not fast enough to outrun them or strong enough to do enough damage.

From left to right, ability 1 deals damage, and can be used to kill Tomeshells and Hushed. Ability 2 sends green beams of energy to nearby Tomeshells; if there are no Tomeshells nearby, nothing happens. Ability 3 is a speed boost. Ability 4 stuns Hushed, but only if you're facing them. Ability 5 spits a pool of ink on the ground that snares Hushed.

You basically spam abilities 2 and 3 to find Tomeshells and move quickly, and use ability 1 to kill them. Use abilities 4 and 5 to hamper the Hushed who are chasing you. The Hushed are all melee, so you need to keep using 3 to outrun them. The Hushed take damage from the traps, so you can stun or snare them in the path of the book tornadoes or next to the inky tentacles.

I do find the bonus stage is easier with two people, since you can stun and kill each Hushed as it comes, meaning you only need to worry about the traps. But it is much more engaging solo, racing through the stacks and outrunning the Hushed.

This one does need some tweaking, though--since the Hushed spawn immediately you have no time to review your Watcher abilities, putting you at an immediate disadvantage since the Hushed nearly kill you in one hit. They really shouldn't appear until you leave the first room.

***

For the other bonus stages:

Destozuno's Library: The pages and lockboxes have quest markers on them, but they spawn randomly and there's really no strategy other than to keep running Endless Archive until you get everything. This bonus stage is annoying to get randomly since it's basically a missed opportunity for a Verse. However, once you've accepted the quest, you won't get it again until you're ready to turn it in.

Theater of War: This is a miniboss fight.You don't need to kill Aramril, just get her down to about 15% health. At higher difficulties, you need to watch for her channel and interrupt it and destroy the crystals in the corner, or she'll be invulnerable. She often conjures a circle that makes her and her summons invincible; you can lure the Mind Terror out and kill it (just watch for Aramril's channel to interrupt it). It's really resource intensive due to a lot of stuns, but aside from the channel, nothing hits very hard.

Echoing Den: You need to gather the wisps and bring them to the center. You collect wisps by walking into them; they'll stay with you as long as you don't move too fast. If you're using a keyboard and mouse, this is a balancing act of alternating walking and running; I've heard you can Brace and walk backwards to get the speed right. But if you're using a controller, it's a cakewalk--it clearly wasn't designed with analogue movement in mind, so you can sort of half-jog and collect them all in one loop. I think the wisps will try to attach to summoned pets, so unsummon them before starting.

Haefal's Butchery: Keep moving and try to have a vague awareness of where the Butcher is so you don't run into him. The sweetrolls glow through walls, which can be used to find them. On higher difficulties, you have less Stamina... but that also means in regenerates quickly back to full after being depleted, so just Sprint repeatedly as you're able (Sprint, run, Sprint, run, etc.). The Ultimate is available at 300 Ultimate (three sweetrolls) and is actually a gap closer, so when you have 300 Ultimate, get some distance, turn around, aim, and fire.

Treacherous Crossing: Use the white outlines to figure out the right order. You can send Tells to yourself if you need to make notes, or type in /zone or /say. Then hit the buttons in the right order and sprint across. I'd try to keep in mind which side the path begins on, but otherwise, you should have enough time if you sprint. Sorcerers can use Bolt Escape to cover the last bit of distance.

PrinceShroob wrote: »

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Could you share some tips for the Watcher side activity? I know what the various watcher's abilities do, but by the time I'm able to actually locate the direction to find the tomeshell (I do use ability 2) I get killed by various stuff. The watcher is simply not fast enough to outrun them or strong enough to do enough damage.

From left to right, ability 1 deals damage, and can be used to kill Tomeshells and Hushed. Ability 2 sends green beams of energy to nearby Tomeshells; if there are no Tomeshells nearby, nothing happens. Ability 3 is a speed boost. Ability 4 stuns Hushed, but only if you're facing them. Ability 5 spits a pool of ink on the ground that snares Hushed.

You basically spam abilities 2 and 3 to find Tomeshells and move quickly, and use ability 1 to kill them. Use abilities 4 and 5 to hamper the Hushed who are chasing you. The Hushed are all melee, so you need to keep using 3 to outrun them. The Hushed take damage from the traps, so you can stun or snare them in the path of the book tornadoes or next to the inky tentacles.

I do find the bonus stage is easier with two people, since you can stun and kill each Hushed as it comes, meaning you only need to worry about the traps. But it is much more engaging solo, racing through the stacks and outrunning the Hushed.

This one does need some tweaking, though--since the Hushed spawn immediately you have no time to review your Watcher abilities, putting you at an immediate disadvantage since the Hushed nearly kill you in one hit. They really shouldn't appear until you leave the first room.

***

For the other bonus stages:

Destozuno's Library: The pages and lockboxes have quest markers on them, but they spawn randomly and there's really no strategy other than to keep running Endless Archive until you get everything. This bonus stage is annoying to get randomly since it's basically a missed opportunity for a Verse. However, once you've accepted the quest, you won't get it again until you're ready to turn it in.

Theater of War: This is a miniboss fight.You don't need to kill Aramril, just get her down to about 15% health. At higher difficulties, you need to watch for her channel and interrupt it and destroy the crystals in the corner, or she'll be invulnerable. She often conjures a circle that makes her and her summons invincible; you can lure the Mind Terror out and kill it (just watch for Aramril's channel to interrupt it. It's really resource intensive due to a lot of stuns, but aside from the channel, nothing hits very hard.

Echoing Den: You need to gather the wisps and bring them to the center. You collect wisps by walking into them; they'll stay with you as long as you don't move too fast. If you're using a keyboard and mouse, this is a balancing act of alternating walking and running; I've heard you can Brace and walk backwards to get the speed right. But if you're using a controller, it's a cakewalk--it clearly wasn't designed with analogue movement in mind, so you can sort of half-jog and collect them all in one loop. I think the wisps will try to attach to summoned pets, so unsummon them before starting.

Haefal's Butchery: Keep moving and try to have a vague awareness of where the Butcher is so you don't run into him. The sweetrolls glow through walls, which can be used to find them. On higher difficulties, you have less Stamina... but that also means in regenerates quickly back to full after being depleted, so just Sprint repeatedly as you're able (Spring, run, Sprint, run, etc.). The Ultimate is available at 300 Ultimate (three sweetrolls) and is actually a gap closer, so when you have 300 Ultimate, get some distance, turn around, aim, and fire.

Treacherous Crossing: Use the white outlines to figure out the right order. You can send Tells to yourself if you need to make notes, or type in /zone or /say. Then hit the buttons in the right order and sprint across. I'd try to keep in mind which side the path begins on, but otherwise, you should have enough time if you sprint. Sorcerers can use Bolt Escape to cover the last bit of distance.

Thank you for the really nice overview. I find the watcher one to be the most difficult. I play EA only solo (with a companion), so that one is gong to be a slog.

ESO_player123 wrote: »

ComradeBiscuit wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

I am not for removing solo mode. But I do agree that duo is significantly faster than solo. There's also a wall in side contents that you hit as solo because they basically requires you to have another player with you to complete.

Which wall are you talking about? I have been able to complete all the side content solo without too much trouble. In my experience, some actually take longer as a duo.

Could you share some tips for the Watcher side activity? I know what the various watcher's abilities do, but by the time I'm able to actually locate the direction to find the tomeshell (I do use ability 2) I get killed by various stuff. The watcher is simply not fast enough to outrun them or strong enough to do enough damage.

number 3 skill is a temp speed boost, and number 5 skill drops a pool of ink that slows and dmgs the enemies

if they are chasing you can hit 3 to speed up, and/or 5 to slow them down (the number 5 skill can eventually kill them too if they get hit with it enough, though they will eventually respawn)

Some interesting comments in this thread.

I'd say there should be an in-game incentive to progressing as far as possible, whether solo or duo, otherwise people will just farm arc 1 for the currency to get the sets.

I think there should be only 1 mode, so if you attempt it solo it's more of a challenge, but there should be separate leaderboards for solo or duo, and if you use a companion that blocks you from entering the leaderboards.

There should be a way to save progress per arc, so if you want to attempt arc 10 solo you can, it shouldn't require you to slog through several hours of content per attempt to get there though.
But you should only be entered on the leaderboards if you start from arc 1.

Regarding the OPs post - I think giving the EA drops to enhance your companions (OUTSIDE of the EA) would be very welcome. For example, skill line level-ups, companion exp containers, extra companion 'AI' (in-game call it combat training or something, so they learn to for example stack on crown / moon, not stand in stupid etc) a way to level up companion gear to higher quality etc.

Elyu wrote: »

Some interesting comments in this thread.

I'd say there should be an in-game incentive to progressing as far as possible, whether solo or duo, otherwise people will just farm arc 1 for the currency to get the sets.

I think there should be only 1 mode, so if you attempt it solo it's more of a challenge, but there should be separate leaderboards for solo or duo, and if you use a companion that blocks you from entering the leaderboards.

There should be a way to save progress per arc, so if you want to attempt arc 10 solo you can, it shouldn't require you to slog through several hours of content per attempt to get there though.
But you should only be entered on the leaderboards if you start from arc 1.

Regarding the OPs post - I think giving the EA drops to enhance your companions (OUTSIDE of the EA) would be very welcome. For example, skill line level-ups, companion exp containers, extra companion 'AI' (in-game call it combat training or something, so they learn to for example stack on crown / moon, not stand in stupid etc) a way to level up companion gear to higher quality etc.

farming arc 1 for currency is extremely inefficient, you only get a max of about 3k currency from arc 1 if you do all side activities and lucky with scamps

you literally make 2x the currency per boss by arc 3 as you do in arc 1 (non-tho'at bosses and bonus activities are a base of 200 currency + 100 more per arc)

arc 1 is 200 base currency
arc 2 is 300 currency
arc 3 is 400 currency (2x arc 1)
arc 4 is 500 currency
arc 5 is 600 currency (2x arc 2)
arc 6 is 700 currency
arc 7 is 800 currency (4x arc 1)
arc 8 is 900 currency
arc 9 is 1000 currency (2x arc 4, 5x arc 1) (1 boss here is worth almost the entirety of arc 1 bosses)

im assuming the currency continues linearly from there but thats as far as ive been

if your farming for the sets, you need to clear at least arc 2, because you dont get the class set weapons on arc 1

A simple Solo - Easy Mode would be nice to have. Have items drop as blue or something.

I would imagine a lot of us just want to play and have fun.

Or maybe have a Competitor Mode and a Non-Competitor mode, where you would choose to compete and be on the boards, or just choosing the other option to have fun and not being on any boards.

EmEm_Oh wrote: »

A simple Solo - Easy Mode would be nice to have. Have items drop as blue or something.

I would imagine a lot of us just want to play and have fun.

Or maybe have a Competitor Mode and a Non-Competitor mode, where you would choose to compete and be on the boards, or just choosing the other option to have fun and not being on any boards.

I don't understand why anyone would be against this. Let everyone have their fun.

Its easier to get on the leaderboard as a solo player than a duo player that's why I do one solo run a week... I find the fights start getting really fast once you get the right visions up until around Arc 4, and then you have to start being a bit more careful since everything gets more deadly.

I prefer Duo as that is more fun. You can coordinate the fights with your partner and to some degree what buffs you are going to take when there is a synergy between them.

Jimbru wrote: »

I run what are normally good solo/DPS builds and I have trouble even getting to Arc 2. I keeping running into DLC bosses whose mechanics nuke me and I have no idea what even happened, much less how to counter them. I get the need for more difficult content in the end game, but to me EA feels way overtuned.

That depends on what you define as a "good solo/DPS build" I think.

EA is a lot different than soloing a world boss or whatever. I would advise wearing a setup that gets you close to armor cap, but also does reasonable DPS. Start with a one bar Oakensoul build to keep things simple and get a better feel for it. some classes are inherently better at being tanky while doing DPS, but there are plenty of builds on Youtube that will give different setups for each class. Just ignore the ones that don't have a lot of mitigation though. I feel like some youtubers think that getting Arc 1 is doing EA, but really I don't feel like it is complete until you get Inkslayer. To do that you need to build really sturdy.

ESO_player123 wrote: »

EA is a lot different than soloing a world boss or whatever. I would advise wearing a setup that gets you close to armor cap, but also does reasonable DPS.

Lmao than soloing you need exactly that, a sturdy build. And sometimes you can't even have dps.