Infinite Archive makes me want to quit ESO

Frayton · May 28

U50 DPS meta is going to be the IA class sets, so I've been trying to farm them, but good grief it's so mind numbingly boring that I just logout of ESO after a few cycles and play a different game.

ZOS please improve this experience.

- The cycles are too spread apart. Having an option to lump several or all of them together, so that you can get through the monotonous slog faster would be nice.

- Why in Oblivion are all the gear pieces broken up into each individual weight? This game has so much bloat with sets. It would lessen the grind and bloat if each gear slot only required 1 drop. An example would be 1 head piece covers all head weights (heavy, medium, light). The same way motif style pages work.

- Let the class gear be tradable so I can give someone who enjoys that place some gold or other items in exchange for IA gear. If this is impossible, then let us buy the gear with gold or add IA sets to the Golden Vendor to purchase with gold or fortunes to lessen the horrible boring grind.

spartaxoxo · May 28

You can purchase set pieces with fortunes. They aren't curated but it still helps especially if you're still early in the process

ETA

Actually you can get them curated. Talk to Filer Brax

https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Filer_Brax

Frayton · May 28

spartaxoxo wrote: »

You can purchase set pieces with fortunes. They aren't curated but it still helps especially if you're still early in the process

I do that too, but it's still so much grind in a very boring place, and I have to do it for each class. Ugh just the thought of that makes me want to quit ESO until the meta changes again.

Treeshka · May 28

How are you farming sets? If you are doing Arc 2 runs and resetting it becomes so long and boring.

You can make a meta Ice Warden build that utilizes Focused Efforts vision and effectively farm the sets. After certain point you get double drops from end of Arc and Marauder loot.

Gabriel_H · May 28

IA was intended to be the last solo arena for a while so the grind to complete is longer
Running as a duo is quicker and you have company to break up the boredom and you can trade gear
Using a class set will add maybe 1 - 2% to dps depending on the class. It's not going to make or break a content clear

MRAW · May 28

An MMO is supposed to have a grind. For a perfected raid set you might also have to run the trial 50 times. How do you want to keep players busy for tens of thousands hours otherwise.

spartaxoxo · May 28

Frayton wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

You can purchase set pieces with fortunes. They aren't curated but it still helps especially if you're still early in the process

I do that too, but it's still so much grind in a very boring place, and I have to do it for each class. Ugh just the thought of that makes me want to quit ESO until the meta changes again.

If that's how you're feeling, then just skip farming it. You don't actually need it and it sounds like it's not worth it.

tsaescishoeshiner · May 28

Are you sure the gear is even going to be required to play the content you want to play? There are usually a few different set combinations that work at most of the higher DPS levels. No need to play the game if you don't like it, but this sounds like sort of a playstyle/mindset issue at least in part.

Luneca · May 28

I would never grind for gear in this game. You never know what will and will not be nerfed in the future. If you don't like the grind, it's better to simply not do it iMO. Remember, time only moves forward; not back. You can't get the time that you aren't enjoying yourself back.

Silaf · May 28

Frayton ZOS is secretly waiting for you to finish your collection to introduce the 3 class set in the arkive.
We are all waiting for you!

Vonnegut2506 · May 28

They could make the IA sets do double the damage of every other set in the game, and I still wouldn't run IA. It is garbage, recycled content. My time is more important than that.

DenverRalphy · May 28

I started the gear set grind when the 2nd round of class sets dropped. That was a slogfest. I can't remember how long it took to farm out all 14 sets, but it was measured in months. If ever there's a 3rd class set release (as some players seem to hope), there's no way I'd tackle the effort as a new player. Even with purchasing the set piece boxes. Because those boxes aren't cheap compared to the rate of Archival Fortunes revenue over time spent.

JiubLeRepenti · May 28

Frayton wrote: »

U50 DPS meta is going to be the IA class sets, so I've been trying to farm them, but good grief it's so mind numbingly boring that I just logout of ESO after a few cycles and play a different game.

ZOS please improve this experience.

- The cycles are too spread apart. Having an option to lump several or all of them together, so that you can get through the monotonous slog faster would be nice.

- Why in Oblivion are all the gear pieces broken up into each individual weight? This game has so much bloat with sets. It would lessen the grind and bloat if each gear slot only required 1 drop. An example would be 1 head piece covers all head weights (heavy, medium, light). The same way motif style pages work.

- Let the class gear be tradable so I can give someone who enjoys that place some gold or other items in exchange for IA gear. If this is impossible, then let us buy the gear with gold or add IA sets to the Golden Vendor to purchase with gold or fortunes to lessen the horrible boring grind.

I agree with the first point. Yes, cycles are too long. A long time ago, I spent 4 hours until I reached 6-2-1. I still had 2 lives left, but I just killed myself because it was taking too long and left. After that record, I simply stopped playing IA.

For the 2 other points, the reason is simple: ZOS wants us to farm IA to get the gear. That's it. If cycles were shorter, I would spend more time in IA, but now it's clear that I'm not farming gear there lol.

AScarlato · May 28

I got just enough pieces for my templar jabs set, but not in the best spots but whatever. I decided to just get new gear for every spot as I was over IA. A third set will make this unbearable if you want a specific set in specific spots/weights. My tinfoil hat makes me believe the drops favor the most useless possible combinations first lol.

I'm back in IA now for some heavy companion armor but it's still a bit of a frustrating use of time if you are sick of it.

xylena · May 28

Imagine queueing into a Vet dungeon actually means the game forces you to play through it on Normal (with no monster mask drop) every single freakin time before it even lets you do the Vet run for the monster mask. That's the IA experience. It's like you don't even get to start playing the game until the first Marauder spawns whenever in Arc 2 a half hour in, time that can't even really be reduced because most of it is just enforced waits between spawns or rounds.

Players should be able to run IA on Vet starting at Arc 3 or somewhere you immediately get the Marauder for the all important loot drop (also the PvE itself is probably less boring for many people this way). Reduce wait times between spawns and rounds. As is it's like this entire game mode was carefully engineered specifically to waste as much of your time as possible.

LunaFlora · May 28

i wish we could skip the Stages in the infinite Archive.
only Tho'at and Cycle bosses are fun to me, the stages are tedious.

so i definitely agree with "The cycles are too spread apart. Having an option to lump several or all of them together, so that you can get through the monotonous slog faster would be nice."

BXR_Lonestar · May 28

Frayton wrote: »

U50 DPS meta is going to be the IA class sets, so I've been trying to farm them, but good grief it's so mind numbingly boring that I just logout of ESO after a few cycles and play a different game.

ZOS please improve this experience.

- The cycles are too spread apart. Having an option to lump several or all of them together, so that you can get through the monotonous slog faster would be nice.

- Why in Oblivion are all the gear pieces broken up into each individual weight? This game has so much bloat with sets. It would lessen the grind and bloat if each gear slot only required 1 drop. An example would be 1 head piece covers all head weights (heavy, medium, light). The same way motif style pages work.

- Let the class gear be tradable so I can give someone who enjoys that place some gold or other items in exchange for IA gear. If this is impossible, then let us buy the gear with gold or add IA sets to the Golden Vendor to purchase with gold or fortunes to lessen the horrible boring grind.

I was just in IA last night with another guildmember. Took ~ 3 hours, but we got half way through Arc 6. It wasn't bad. If its going slow for you, try going with another player. The burn we had going on was insane, even when scaled towards the later arcs, and we only failed because we were both getting tired.

jaws343 · May 28

You don't have to grind it on each class. The class you are on starts out curated for sets for that specific class, but as you finish gear type drops for your class, the other class sets start to drop curated as well.

I did all of the sets on my Sorc. The longest part are the weapons as they drop from alternating arcs, so you end up getting the body pieces done really quickly.

You would need to do Arc 1 only 21 (42 now with two sets, but when it first released there was only one set) times for the entire body set. Or Arc 1 through Arc 3 around 10-11 (~20 for two sets) times.

Mauraders also drop curated gear, so you can significantly speed this up by killing the Maurader in Arc 2 and completing Arc 2 for the weapon drop as well.

So, once you only have Weapons left for your specific class, Arc 1 starts dropping curated pieces from other class sets.

jaws343 · May 28

xylena wrote: »

Imagine queueing into a Vet dungeon actually means the game forces you to play through it on Normal (with no monster mask drop) every single freakin time before it even lets you do the Vet run for the monster mask. That's the IA experience. It's like you don't even get to start playing the game until the first Marauder spawns whenever in Arc 2 a half hour in, time that can't even really be reduced because most of it is just enforced waits between spawns or rounds.

Players should be able to run IA on Vet starting at Arc 3 or somewhere you immediately get the Marauder for the all important loot drop (also the PvE itself is probably less boring for many people this way). Reduce wait times between spawns and rounds. As is it's like this entire game mode was carefully engineered specifically to waste as much of your time as possible.

Arc 1 takes less than 10 minutes.

xylena · May 28

jaws343 wrote: »

Arc 1 takes less than 10 minutes.

Then it's a waste of 10 minutes that's so boring it feels like 30 minutes.

If I still need to kill 30 more Marauders then that's 300 minutes, 5 full hours of my time down the toilet on useless crap. It really adds up. This is why players are turning their backs and devs are easing grind demands (to the chagrin of minority hardcore grinders).

o_Primate_o · May 28

i used to do the daily - one or two arcs and that was it and now i have all the sets farmed (four pieces per day - Arc 1/2, marauder, daily reward). But it sounds like you are doing both releases at once so yeah, it's going to be a slog farming 5 to 7 of the 72 sets' pieces each race.

xylena wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Arc 1 takes less than 10 minutes.

Then it's a waste of 10 minutes that's so boring it feels like 30 minutes.

If I still need to kill 30 more Marauders then that's 300 minutes, 5 full hours of my time down the toilet on useless crap. It really adds up. This is why players are turning their backs and devs are easing grind demands (to the chagrin of minority hardcore grinders).

10 minutes 1 arc = two item sets (1 x daily)
abt 30 minutes 2 arcs = four (1 x marauder)
bail and come back tomorrow again until you get the 5 to 7 pieces you need.
yeah gear farms suck - remember farming medusa and maelstrom weapon in trait and sorrow in divine (or buy)? ppl who are serious will farm the gear griping the whole time - myself included. best you can do is make it psychologically tolerable and do a little at a time or spend a day hard core IA w/wo partners.

o_Primate_o · May 28

farming-trial-set-weapons-is-ludicrous-v0-f7931av7qwve1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1eeed08fce2fd7af8658f1e56f3068984a863820

o_Primate_o · May 28

we need a double-drop event again. hopefully when the third set is released and before then.

SeaGtGruff · May 28

.

Illmatic · May 28

Magden
pale order ring
Ice furnate (chest, 1 ring, neck, staff)
threads of war (rest)
40 health 24 magicka
focused effort visions (for one = your dps is x2...for real...so if you have 2 efforts, you can hit 250k on bosses easy)

Frayton · May 28

xylena wrote: »

Imagine queueing into a Vet dungeon actually means the game forces you to play through it on Normal (with no monster mask drop) every single freakin time before it even lets you do the Vet run for the monster mask.

And the trash packs between bosses have their own instances, and you have to wait for them to slowly trickle in, and then you have to wait again after you kill each trash pack to take another portal to do the same thing again x10.

Infinite Borechive in a nutshell.

Frayton · May 28

Treeshka wrote: »

How are you farming sets? If you are doing Arc 2 runs and resetting it becomes so long and boring.

You can make a meta Ice Warden build that utilizes Focused Efforts vision and effectively farm the sets. After certain point you get double drops from end of Arc and Marauder loot.

The difficulty level isn't a problem. The problem is Infinite Archive is so disgustingly boring and the grind so much that I just logout of ESO and play a different game.

xylena · May 28

o_Primate_o wrote: »

ppl who are serious will farm the gear griping the whole time - myself included. best you can do is...

...I quit playing and post on forums the many reasons I stopped. Devs change their approach when players don't just stop spending, but also stop engaging with the content altogehter.

CatoUnchained · May 28

Frayton wrote: »

U50 DPS meta is going to be the IA class sets, so I've been trying to farm them, but good grief it's so mind numbingly boring that I just logout of ESO after a few cycles and play a different game.

ZOS please improve this experience.

- The cycles are too spread apart. Having an option to lump several or all of them together, so that you can get through the monotonous slog faster would be nice.

- Why in Oblivion are all the gear pieces broken up into each individual weight? This game has so much bloat with sets. It would lessen the grind and bloat if each gear slot only required 1 drop. An example would be 1 head piece covers all head weights (heavy, medium, light). The same way motif style pages work.

- Let the class gear be tradable so I can give someone who enjoys that place some gold or other items in exchange for IA gear. If this is impossible, then let us buy the gear with gold or add IA sets to the Golden Vendor to purchase with gold or fortunes to lessen the horrible boring grind.

Thank you so much for posting this. I couldn't agree more. IA is not only a stupid forever grind, it's not even new content. All the bosses exist elsewhere in the game and we'd all already killed them 100's of times before ZOS decided to throw them all in a blender and put a label on that says "new content", when it's not new content. It's just the same old content in a different spot on the map.

I knew before it was released that the concept was faulty in the extreme. Now that I've tried to play IA a bit, it's even worse than I thought it would be. Nothing new, and the drops are unbelievably rare for the time investment.

There is nothing ZOS could put in IA that would make me do that content. I'm insulted by it's very existence. IA is ZOS loudly proclaiming they couldn't care less about our time and effort.

CatoUnchained · May 28

MRAW wrote: »

An MMO is supposed to have a grind. For a perfected raid set you might also have to run the trial 50 times. How do you want to keep players busy for tens of thousands hours otherwise.

Oh, pick me! I know the answer!

ZOS could go back to chapter releases and actually create new content for us to play.

CatoUnchained · May 28

o_Primate_o wrote: »

we need a double-drop event again. hopefully when the third set is released and before then.

If they quadrupled the drops I'd consider doing the grind, but probably still wouldn't. The place has a horrible feel to it. It's just miserable, dark and dingy from the moment you enter until the moment you leave.