Dark Anchors Reworked - A Better Approach for more Fun

TheDarkRuler

Greetings Adventurers of Tamriel,
the Dark Anchors are being active as ever but due to the amazing work of our fellow comrades the daedric forces are being pushed back whenever they come out. Well, that's not true. They are being destroyed, annihilated and never stood a chance because we are 4:1 against the deadly forces of the Daedric prince.

Feel the Irony? Good.
I want to use this thread to provide a possible rework for Daedric Dolmen that prevents the rushing and almost instant destruction of Dolmens due to the sheer amount of players farming them.



1.) Extending the fight while keeping rewards worthwhile
Most of the One Tamriel players are doing the Dolmens to farm for sets or to complete the Fighters Guild daily missions. However the difficulty of the Dolmen is not fit to the amount of players going there right now. It was ok when there were one or two players at a Dolmen but now there are Dozens.

1.1.) Dynamic Enemy Numbers/Difficulty
The Dolmen should spit out more difficult enemies depending on the amount and level of players entering the Anchors Area. If there are few only minor enemies will come out like Scamps, Banelings and lesser Xivilai. If the amount is high, there will be Dremora, Bone Colossi and Atronachs as well replacing the minor daedra. If there are lots of players there will be elite enemies like Imperial City Xivkyn, Flesh Colossi and Liches.

1.2.) Making the Pinions time-based instead of Killed-Daedra-based.
While fighting within the Dolmen each minute fighting should activate a Pinion. This should prevent instant harassing and getting done to easy and too fast for other players to join.

1.3.) Adapting the reward
Since Dark Anchors require much more time now I'd suggest to remove Green Set items completely from a players reward table IF (and only if) they have been fighting within the Dolmen for at least 3 minutes (of 5 minutes in total). If you've been fighting less than 3 minutes within a Dolmen fight you can get Green items just like now. If you've been fighting since the beginning (since Worm Cultist Episode) you've a chance to get golden reward items from the Dolmen as well!

2.) Adding a marker to help organizing
I've already posted it somewhere else, there should be some kind of indicator showing an active fight at a Dolmen (just like the Markers of Fighting within Cyrodiil).
This should ONLY happen if a player is in the respective area, e.g. only Stonefalls-Alerts shown on Map if being in Stonefalls.
There should be three indicators that are being shown at a Dolmen with different colour.

RED : This Dolmen is being attacked right now by the Forces of Tamriel
GREEN: This Dolmen is able to be activated
GREY: This Dolmen was closed recently and cannot be activated.

SanderBuraas

1.1.) Dynamic Enemy Numbers/Difficulty
The Dolmen should spit out more difficult enemies depending on the amount and level of players entering the Anchors Area. If there are few only minor enemies will come out like Scamps, Banelings and lesser Xivilai. If the amount is high, there will be Dremora, Bone Colossi and Atronachs as well replacing the minor daedra. If there are lots of players there will be elite enemies like Imperial City Xivkyn, Flesh Colossi and Liches.

No. This could lead to players griefing the experience. No need to introduce an unnecessarily advanced system.

1.2.) Making the Pinions time-based instead of Killed-Daedra-based.
While fighting within the Dolmen each minute fighting should activate a Pinion. This should prevent instant harassing and getting done to easy and too fast for other players to join.

The faster you defeat the Deadric forces, the faster you should be rewarded. That is how it should remain.

1.3.) Adapting the reward
Since Dark Anchors require much more time now I'd suggest to remove Green Set items completely from a players reward table IF (and only if) they have been fighting within the Dolmen for at least 3 minutes (of 5 minutes in total). If you've been fighting less than 3 minutes within a Dolmen fight you can get Green items just like now. If you've been fighting since the beginning (since Worm Cultist Episode) you've a chance to get golden reward items from the Dolmen as well!

Remove green jewelry and introduce yellow jewelry? I am not sure about this.

2.) Adding a marker to help organizing
I've already posted it somewhere else, there should be some kind of indicator showing an active fight at a Dolmen (just like the Markers of Fighting within Cyrodiil).
This should ONLY happen if a player is in the respective area, e.g. only Stonefalls-Alerts shown on Map if being in Stonefalls.
There should be three indicators that are being shown at a Dolmen with different colour.

RED : This Dolmen is being attacked right now by the Forces of Tamriel
GREEN: This Dolmen is able to be activated
GREY: This Dolmen was closed recently and cannot be activated.

Tamriel does not have technology. When we open our map, it is literally a map. Just head to the Dolmen and check.

The current Dolmen monsters are too easy, just like overland monsters. Their difficulty should be on par with group dungeon monsters, to provide a proper group challenge. Dark Anchors should be more of an event.

timidobserver

I agree with Dynamic enemy spawning/difficulty. The bosses don't even fully spawn before they die at the moment.

altemriel

sounds nice

stevepdodson_ESO888

quite frankly (and lets face it who wouldn't want to be called Frank) with One Tamriel and the total ability to just ignore the whole story (or even if you actually did bother with "pre-cadwells silver and gold) you end up defeating Molag Bal so there shouldn't be any more anchors dropping at all

problem solved

AjiBuster499

stevepdodson_ESO888 wrote: »

quite frankly (and lets face it who wouldn't want to be called Frank) with One Tamriel and the total ability to just ignore the whole story (or even if you actually did bother with "pre-cadwells silver and gold)

you end up defeating Molag Bal so there shouldn't be any more anchors dropping at all

problem solved

Talk about spoilers.

idk

@TheDarkRuler

Personally, I don't see the need to change dolmens. Plenty of areas for better chsllenging constant.

Though, on one of your points, scaling the difficulty of the dolmen based on participants would be filled with to many problems considering it's an open world activity. Have 6 players around and 3 go afk shoe waiting for the dolmen to spawn, they're counted in the difficulty yet not entering combat.

That's just one of the issues.

Oakmontowls_ESO

Smepic wrote: »

1.1.) Dynamic Enemy Numbers/Difficulty
The Dolmen should spit out more difficult enemies depending on the amount and level of players entering the Anchors Area. If there are few only minor enemies will come out like Scamps, Banelings and lesser Xivilai. If the amount is high, there will be Dremora, Bone Colossi and Atronachs as well replacing the minor daedra. If there are lots of players there will be elite enemies like Imperial City Xivkyn, Flesh Colossi and Liches.

No. This could lead to players griefing the experience. No need to introduce an unnecessarily advanced system.

1.2.) Making the Pinions time-based instead of Killed-Daedra-based.
While fighting within the Dolmen each minute fighting should activate a Pinion. This should prevent instant harassing and getting done to easy and too fast for other players to join.

The faster you defeat the Deadric forces, the faster you should be rewarded. That is how it should remain.

1.3.) Adapting the reward
Since Dark Anchors require much more time now I'd suggest to remove Green Set items completely from a players reward table IF (and only if) they have been fighting within the Dolmen for at least 3 minutes (of 5 minutes in total). If you've been fighting less than 3 minutes within a Dolmen fight you can get Green items just like now. If you've been fighting since the beginning (since Worm Cultist Episode) you've a chance to get golden reward items from the Dolmen as well!

Remove green jewelry and introduce yellow jewelry? I am not sure about this.

2.) Adding a marker to help organizing
I've already posted it somewhere else, there should be some kind of indicator showing an active fight at a Dolmen (just like the Markers of Fighting within Cyrodiil).
This should ONLY happen if a player is in the respective area, e.g. only Stonefalls-Alerts shown on Map if being in Stonefalls.
There should be three indicators that are being shown at a Dolmen with different colour.

RED : This Dolmen is being attacked right now by the Forces of Tamriel
GREEN: This Dolmen is able to be activated
GREY: This Dolmen was closed recently and cannot be activated.

Tamriel does not have technology. When we open our map, it is literally a map. Just head to the Dolmen and check.

The current Dolmen monsters are too easy, just like overland monsters. Their difficulty should be on par with group dungeon monsters, to provide a proper group challenge. Dark Anchors should be more of an event.

Tamriel does have magic though

jedtb16_ESO

the hysteria around dolmens will fade as people collect the bits they want.

no need to change anything.

cpuScientist

I would love to see harder enemies there TBH. Like the boss should have 2 million health minimum. But it's whatevs. Poor new players will never know the fun and thrill of breathing their first dolmen solo and it being a challenge...

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO

Why do dolmens just to get green jewelry non worth the talk.

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO

We all if ZoS does care enough to listen it will be one or most likely two updates away so why talk about it.

jedtb16_ESO

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO wrote: »

Why do dolmens just to get green jewelry non worth the talk.

because they drop blue and purple as well

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO wrote: »

Why do dolmens just to get green jewelry non worth the talk.

because they drop blue and purple as well

You have a small chance even with CP and most of the time you're running back and forward or waiting at one for ten minutes. I'm not paying $15 a month to play a horse simulator or to /lute cause of a global cook down.

I don't have much time as it is having to grind forever is not my idea of fun.

Kalifas

Dolmen Idea

kamimark

TheDarkRuler wrote: »

1.) Extending the fight while keeping rewards worthwhile
Most of the One Tamriel players are doing the Dolmens to farm for sets or to complete the Fighters Guild daily missions. However the difficulty of the Dolmen is not fit to the amount of players going there right now. It was ok when there were one or two players at a Dolmen but now there are Dozens.

1.1.) Dynamic Enemy Numbers/Difficulty
The Dolmen should spit out more difficult enemies depending on the amount and level of players entering the Anchors Area. If there are few only minor enemies will come out like Scamps, Banelings and lesser Xivilai. If the amount is high, there will be Dremora, Bone Colossi and Atronachs as well replacing the minor daedra. If there are lots of players there will be elite enemies like Imperial City Xivkyn, Flesh Colossi and Liches.

1.2.) Making the Pinions time-based instead of Killed-Daedra-based.
While fighting within the Dolmen each minute fighting should activate a Pinion. This should prevent instant harassing and getting done to easy and too fast for other players to join.

1.3.) Adapting the reward
Since Dark Anchors require much more time now I'd suggest to remove Green Set items completely from a players reward table IF (and only if) they have been fighting within the Dolmen for at least 3 minutes (of 5 minutes in total). If you've been fighting less than 3 minutes within a Dolmen fight you can get Green items just like now. If you've been fighting since the beginning (since Worm Cultist Episode) you've a chance to get golden reward items from the Dolmen as well!

2.) Adding a marker to help organizing
I've already posted it somewhere else, there should be some kind of indicator showing an active fight at a Dolmen (just like the Markers of Fighting within Cyrodiil).
This should ONLY happen if a player is in the respective area, e.g. only Stonefalls-Alerts shown on Map if being in Stonefalls.
There should be three indicators that are being shown at a Dolmen with different colour.

RED : This Dolmen is being attacked right now by the Forces of Tamriel
GREEN: This Dolmen is able to be activated
GREY: This Dolmen was closed recently and cannot be activated.

The number of players at each dolmen will drop over time, but hopefully fighter's dailies will keep some players coming around. Scaling for dozens of players would be a bad idea, it's already a massive fps hit in a big fight. Scaling for solo already happens, and it works fine.

I don't think it taking the same time for a competent group as a zerg of newbies is reasonable. If you want to be there for the dolmen, camp it when it's inactive and attack when the cultists show up.

*eyeroll* at not getting greens. Why not have ZOS just hand you a basket of gold jewelry and an atronach mount, while youre at it? I'd mostly prefer *smaller* rewards. I'm getting too much useful stuff just doing dailies, without grinding.

The one useful idea here is the dolmen status alert. That'd save some time running back and forth, make it easier for fighter's groups to show up at the same dolmen.

Katahdin

Dolmens are fine as they are.
People will stop doing them after a while and it wont be as crowded.

The world bosses are bad enough as it is. Its not even a week after the update and the amount of people doing them has already dropped off significantly.

MerkzM8

If any of you have ever played a game called Defiance, there was a system in it where every once in a while this big thing would fall to the ground and everyone in there area got an alert that this had happened near by and you would fight of waves and waves of enemies, until the final boss and it was super fun and usually like 30-40 people would show up. I would love for dark anchors to be similar to this.