Dark Anchor Improvement

Robbmrp

With having a V14 character, there's no point in doing Dark Anchors really ever unless I need a General from it. Since these are already in the game, why not expand on them and make it more difficult to do. Below are some suggestions that could really make Dark Anchors fun and encourage others to come jump in and help on them.

1- When an Anchor Spawns and no one is there to attack it, summon a General. The General then summons waves(every 2-5 mins or so) of Daedra who wander out past the anchor area say up to 2000 meters and attack anyone within that range. The longer the anchor stays open will determine the strength of the Daedra that will be summoned. With Daedra flooding out of the anchor over into the surrounding areas, it creates large scale battles like we've seen in the Trailers and become more challenging. These would be really fun and would require a lot of people to go help out to take care of the problem.

2- Anchor Spawns and there are people there fighting. Summon larger and more Daedra. Summon 3-5x the daedra per player in waves every 1-3 minutes for 10 -15 minutes, each wave taking into account the number of players at that anchor bringing more and more Daedra. All ranging in various sizes and difficulty with increasing difficulty for each wave spawned. At random times summon down Generals who summon smaller versions of the existing dungeon bosses. Imagine going to an anchor and seeing a smaller version of a Mantikora running around killing people. Or spawns of Mephala running around webbing up people requiring people to let them out, or a smaller version of Bogdan spitting white fire circles everywhere.

There has to be a greater plan for the anchors than what currently exists. They were neat at first, but really need a major overhaul to keep people going back.

Do these change or not, just do something please.....

@ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom thoughts?

Zhoyzu

itwould be interesting for the 1-50 zones. no one occupies vet zones and thats where the wave idea falls off. eh, i never really cared about it as much. For being the god of schemes he didnt really think through the anchors idea very well. " im going to pull oddly specific locations with minimal traffic into cold harbour through a smaller then ideal portal, muahaha" also like no one noticed the construction of the anchors base????

Robbmrp

Zhoyzu wrote: »

itwould be interesting for the 1-50 zones. no one occupies vet zones and thats where the wave idea falls off. eh, i never really cared about it as much. For being the god of schemes he didnt really think through the anchors idea very well. " im going to pull oddly specific locations with minimal traffic into cold harbour through a smaller then ideal portal, muahaha" also like no one noticed the construction of the anchors base????

Or that's where things could really get interesting. You port to Bankorai and are dropped into a bloodbath of Daedra waiting to attack you because no one closed the portal.....

The fights would make the lower zones a lot more fun for sure. But it could also help keep people in the Vet zones as well.

Nestor

I am not sure if a a Solo Dolmen fight should guarantee a General, that would be a source of drama. Like when one person starts it, and another happens to come along. Or, one could stay back out of range until the anchor drops then come running in to guarantee a general.

They do scale somewhat to the number of players at the Dolmens, I see more mobs when there are more players fighting. Not sure when that scale is set though. However they could be tougher fights and the mobs a bit more numerous.

I think it would be nice to add a Group Dolmen to each zone, where there is no way your going to win unless you have a group with you. If you try to solo it, your served up as the first course at Sheogorath's table.

Robbmrp

Nestor wrote: »

I am not sure if a a Solo Dolmen fight should guarantee a General, that would be a source of drama. Like when one person starts it, and another happens to come along.

They do scale somewhat to the number of players at the Dolmens, I see more mobs when there are more players fighting. Not sure when that scale is set though. However they could be tougher fights and the mobs a bit more numerous.

I think it would be nice to add a Group Dolmen to each zone, where there is no way your going to win unless you have a group with you. If you try to solo it, your served up as the first course at Sheogorath's table.

The General summoned doesn't necessarily need to be one that achievements are based off of. I should have worded that more of as a Leader/Summoner instead of a General but you get the idea.

Celless

A group dolmen (or virtually unsoloable dolmen) would be nice. Maybe with some uh... nice XP bonuses for clearing it and a wheel of cheese from our lord?

Gidorick

I really like this idea.... The radius should be so wide that if all anchors in a zone are ignored the entire zone eventually becomes overrun with Daedra... so much so that Merchants hide, shops close, towns go on lockdown.

A zone ignored would just eventually shut down.

RazzPitazz

This was am idea a bunch of beta testers were shooting around about a year ago; oblivion style dolmens. It didn't happen then, Maybe you will hava better luck.

Robbmrp

Gidorick wrote: »

I really like this idea.... The radius should be so wide that if all anchors in a zone are ignored the entire zone eventually becomes overrun with Daedra... so much so that Merchants hide, shops close, towns go on lockdown.

A zone ignored would just eventually shut down.

Exactly. I think it would be a blast. It could totally catch people off guard randomly porting into places only to find the Daedra have taken over the area and shops have closed down until it's safe for them again.

UrQuan

Robbmrp wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

I really like this idea.... The radius should be so wide that if all anchors in a zone are ignored the entire zone eventually becomes overrun with Daedra... so much so that Merchants hide, shops close, towns go on lockdown.

A zone ignored would just eventually shut down.

Exactly. I think it would be a blast. It could totally catch people off guard randomly porting into places only to find the Daedra have taken over the area and shops have closed down until it's safe for them again.

The problem with this idea is that it would be effectively impossible to organize an effort to re-take the zone, outside of a concerted effort from a large guild. I mean, you could go recruiting through all of your other alliance zones, but what are the odds that you'd be able to get enough people to do anything about it? You sure wouldn't be able to group with enough people to do it.

Also, what if this happens to Glenumbra or Auridon or Stonefalls? Brand new players who just completed the escape from the Wailing Prison walk out of the house (or boat) where they wake up, and are immediately slaughtered by hordes of Daedra...

If the main cities of the zones were able to hold the Daedra back, on the other hand, it may be workable. That way, people porting into the city would have a safe place to organize from. People coming into the zone at other wayshrines might get slaughtered and/or see what was happening and go to the city. You'd be able to organize a recapture of the zone using /zone chat.

Robbmrp

UrQuan wrote: »

Robbmrp wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

I really like this idea.... The radius should be so wide that if all anchors in a zone are ignored the entire zone eventually becomes overrun with Daedra... so much so that Merchants hide, shops close, towns go on lockdown.

A zone ignored would just eventually shut down.

Exactly. I think it would be a blast. It could totally catch people off guard randomly porting into places only to find the Daedra have taken over the area and shops have closed down until it's safe for them again.

The problem with this idea is that it would be effectively impossible to organize an effort to re-take the zone, outside of a concerted effort from a large guild. I mean, you could go recruiting through all of your other alliance zones, but what are the odds that you'd be able to get enough people to do anything about it? You sure wouldn't be able to group with enough people to do it.

Also, what if this happens to Glenumbra or Auridon or Stonefalls? Brand new players who just completed the escape from the Wailing Prison walk out of the house (or boat) where they wake up, and are immediately slaughtered by hordes of Daedra...

If the main cities of the zones were able to hold the Daedra back, on the other hand, it may be workable. That way, people porting into the city would have a safe place to organize from. People coming into the zone at other wayshrines might get slaughtered and/or see what was happening and go to the city. You'd be able to organize a recapture of the zone using /zone chat.

They could update these so they are only for the higher level areas. So when someone starts out, they get to experience the normal Dolman and stop the anchors. Then as they progress to higher levels, they get more difficult and into high Vet areas where the Daedra would roam out from the Dolman. Not all of the Daedra would be roamers as well, only a certain number would be out roaming around.

That way the town wouldn't have more than 10-20 that could be cleared out by 5-10 players. The Daedra would roam into town, the people would flee into their homes and the guards would come keep the Daedra at bay until a player came along to kill them just like some of the existing city quests. Then when the town was cleared of Daedra, shops would open back up as normal. They could base achievements off saving towns as well.

Once the town was saved, we'd still have plenty of Daedra to go take care of at the Anchor as well.

Think of each anchor spawning 50-200 Daedra to fight. For arguments sake lets say 100 Daedra are summoned at an anchor, 80 of which are spread into groups of 20 and sent in four different directions. The 20 that stay at the anchor are the toughest of the group and spawned at 5 Daedra per wave. They would not spawn another wave until those 5 were killed. That way you aren't trying to fend off 100 daedra at one spot. These 5 Daedra could easily kill 1 player with all of them attacking it which is why it would require a group effort to take them down. Once you've killed the 20 at the anchor then it can be closed for x number of minutes/hours.

You only need to kill the Daedra at the anchor to close it. You could then go daedra hunting for those that left the anchor and take care of those as well. If you don't want to, someone else can do. Eventually they would have to be dealt with as they could shut down a town.

They could create new armor/weapon sets off these also. Daedric Hunter that could be crafted or dropped.

Molag Bal should be scheming about how to retry to take over Tamriel. How better to do so that to start with the existing anchors. He can summon endless Daedra to do his bidding, it's about time we start to see it

AlnilamE

Dark Anchors spawn by proximity, though. So them spawning when no one is around doesn't really happen in the game right now.

Nestor

AlnilamE wrote: »

Dark Anchors spawn by proximity, though. So them spawning when no one is around doesn't really happen in the game right now.

I wonder about that. I see Dolmens coming up at a distance, I ride over and all I usually see are Cultists having a BBQ. Although lately, I tend see someone else at the Dolmens, but that could be more a population factor than anything else.

UrQuan

Nestor wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

Dark Anchors spawn by proximity, though. So them spawning when no one is around doesn't really happen in the game right now.

I wonder about that. I see Dolmens coming up at a distance, I ride over and all I usually see are Cultists having a BBQ. Although lately, I tend see someone else at the Dolmens, but that could be more a population factor than anything else.

I've wondered about this too. It seems to me like most times when I come close to a dormant dolmen suddenly cultists appear, so that would seem to indicate to me that it's triggered by proximity.

At the same time, like you, I've sped over to a dolmen in the distance when I hear/see it triggering, only to find nobody else there. I guess it's possible that somebody was there, but was just passing by?

So is it proximity or isn't it? I have no idea.

Sneak_Thief

Nestor wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

Dark Anchors spawn by proximity, though. So them spawning when no one is around doesn't really happen in the game right now.

I wonder about that. I see Dolmens coming up at a distance, I ride over and all I usually see are Cultists having a BBQ. Although lately, I tend see someone else at the Dolmens, but that could be more a population factor than anything else.

Many times players will set them off simply by running past and they remain up after the player runs off.

Cody

Anchors can be soloed nowadays.....

its bad. they need to be twice as hard, maybe even harder than that.

I also think anchors left unattended should spawn daedra that "patrol" the countryside and attack players on site, giving people a reason to go after these anchors besides achievements and meagar XP