Dark Anchor Improvement

Phantax

Now just about everybody that has played ESO knows what a disappointment Dark Anchors have been. Way to easy, rubbish rewards, no teamplay required (probably everything zeni didn't want them to be). So... here is a possible solution AND the best part is almost everything needed is already in the game so the cost/time needed for zeni to implement would be minimal !

A few basic changes would be needed-

Firstly, better loot incentive. Nothing mega, but a definite blue drop and other bits (basically what we get from dungeon bosses)

Second, increase in mobs HP, nothing too drastic, say 15-20% just so its a bit of a challenge

Third, every 30sec a new mob will spawn at the anchor, minor mobs are fine (up to a max of 12(maybe 15) mobs. Giving those who reach the anchor a real fight !

Forth, changes to the spawn format-

Dark Anchor opens, nothing new, basically same as before


Stage 2- 60sec after the Anchor has opened 2 Dark Fissures spawn (doesn't have to be in the positions I have put them as long as they are on opposite sides of the Anchor) And close enough to the anchor that you cannot sneak between them without pulling the mobs!


Stage 3- 90sec after the first fissures spawn, another 2 spawn at equal spacing to the first. This effectively seals of the anchor meaning that people will have to fight the fissures before reaching the anchor and to be more effective attacking from opposite sides


Stage 4 / Stage 5 (90sec after Stage 3) are basically rinse/repeats of stage 3. The only difference is that they are placed a little further out making it more difficult for players to reach the anchor and now impossible for players to sneak past without engaging the fissures.



Stage 6 90sec after Stage 5, is a little different as in it doesn't spawn fissures. I'm sure most of you have by now seen those little portals that get opened by some Daedric worshiper. Well during Stage 6 there will be four of those portals opening around the Anchor. (outside of the fissures but with less of a gap)
VR mode could always replace these with fissures for more challenge)



Visually it will be quite stunning because you are just going to see mobs, fissures and battles everywhere. Mentally it will be much better as even when you are fighting you will still have to be aware of where you are standing (don't want to be stood around when another fissure opens on top of you). There is going to be a sense of urgency as players will know mobs are constantly pouring through the anchor as times passes making that battle even harder ! There is also going to be a greater need for healers, something that outside of dungeons ESO was lacking in. Now healers are going to be an integral part of open world PvE !

Now what we have is Anchors that have a dynamic effect on the surroundings. They are themselves more challenging due to the increase in mob HP and the constant spawning of additional mobs.
Ultimately (and more importantly) the players are supplied with a challenge. Increase in mobs, spawning of fissures will require thought, timing and teamplay IF the Anchor is to be closed.
And as I said at the start of this post everything here is already in the game !
all Zeni would need to do is add some spawn points/locations, timers and adjust the HP levels of the mobs !

Simple solution.. with dramatic effects... sorted !

Syntse

Pretty interesting idea... kinda like it

Phantax

Syntse wrote: »

Pretty interesting idea... kinda like it

Thanks, appreciate it. Working on another couple of ideas/suggestions also.

Saerydoth

Sounds interesting. Due to the travel time though I would like to see the times between "phases" lenghtened a bit. But yes, it would be nice if Dark Anchors were both more interesting and had better rewards.

Running up to one with 4 other people and insta-facerolling everything in 1 minute isn't very fun, even if there are good rewards.

Lox

You know what, after 15+ years of MMOs and forums I have seen some really diabolical and ill thought out ideas, however, this isn't one of those.

I actually quite like this idea and you seem to have put a good bit of thought in to it. Its not a massive technical change as you say but the overall impact for the players could be quite dramatic, in a good way.

I would like to see it being a little more dynamic, for example if there is a small group trying to defeat part of it them perhaps extend the timers for other spawns / fissures etc, to give those already engaged a fighting chance.

Maybe have mob HP adjust dynamically, per spawn, dependant on the number of players within a defined area. That way, the battle gets progressively harder as more people arrive on scene.

MasterSpatula

I probably haven't done as many anchors as you, but I haven't experienced them being "too easy" at all. One of the things that makes them extra challenging, for me at least, is the crazy amount of lag you get when there are that many players and that many mobs active at once. I suspect this proposal would shift that lag from "crazy" to "unplayable." At least for me.

I have experienced the lack of rewards, but hey, it's ESO. That's what they do.

Rage_Frost

You probably haven't done many Anchors in the VR zones yet. talk about a crazy time. and it does take a group of people and by group more then 4 players

Cogo

Phantax wrote: »

A few basic changes would be needed-

Firstly, better loot incentive. Nothing mega, but a definite blue drop and other bits (basically what we get from dungeon bosses)

Second, increase in mobs HP, nothing too drastic, say 15-20% just so its a bit of a challenge

Third, every 30sec a new mob will spawn at the anchor, minor mobs are fine (up to a max of 12(maybe 15) mobs. Giving those who reach the anchor a real fight !

Forth, changes to the spawn format-

Dark Anchor opens, nothing new, basically same as before

WOWZA! You should WORK for ESO team. I agree completely and am bloody impressed by your grand idea and way to present it.

One thing I would like to add, is to make the event less common. Shouldn't happen so much.

This is the first time in any post here that I 100% agree on a fundamental change in any feature.

Um, Zenimax! Look over here! Hire this guy please!

Cogo

Ok everyone, how do we get the Mods attention to this topic so they can see it. This is so outstanding that it belongs in our great game.

Anyone know if there is a way to get the attention of Zenimax personell without doing something that breaks the rules that get their attention?

DMuehlhausen

It would be nice if they had a more last effect on the zone/world too. I loved the idea behind the Rifts in Rift...having a zone overrun for a few hours kinda sucked, but at the same time it the downfall if people didn't want to help stop the invasion.

yodased

Everything the OP said except 1 thing. Phase it so that if you aren't there after the first fissure opens you don't see the anchor. This means that you don't get to the last boss of the anchor and have a vr10 come by and boom headshot its done.

Phantax

Lox wrote: »

I would like to see it being a little more dynamic, for example if there is a small group trying to defeat part of it them perhaps extend the timers for other spawns / fissures etc, to give those already engaged a fighting chance.

Maybe have mob HP adjust dynamically, per spawn, dependant on the number of players within a defined area. That way, the battle gets progressively harder as more people arrive on scene.

That was actually one of the ideas I had to go with this originally. I just wanted to keep it simple and easy to implement to begin with.
But 'scaling' would be ideal for this situation. Zeni must already be running some kind of player proximity detection for the boss spawns in dungeons so It wouldn't be too difficult to have the mob/fissure spawns react to player numbers.
Only a few players present and the spawns would be slightly longer than my suggested 90sec, lots of players and then spawns might happen every minute.
I hate to use the 'B' word, but that balance would also have to be monitored and adjusted over time to get it just right.

Ojustaboo

MasterSpatula wrote: »

I probably haven't done as many anchors as you, but I haven't experienced them being "too easy" at all. One of the things that makes them extra challenging, for me at least, is the crazy amount of lag you get when there are that many players and that many mobs active at once. I suspect this proposal would shift that lag from "crazy" to "unplayable." At least for me.

I haven't experienced any lag doing them.

As for how easy they are, the thing is, sometimes there's just me and one other person really struggling, other times there's 20 of us and I can just stand there and do nothing if I wanted and still complete it.

On average I would say when there's 5 or 6 people, it is a bit too easy, Yes it can take a couple of mins to complete, but I never have to use any health pots, I never have to worry about even looking at my health bar.

As you say, its your lag that is making it challenging for you, I'm in England playing on the EU server (based in the US) and so far haven't had any such problems.

Weird how some of us are and some of us aren't (not saying I don't believe you, I do believe you), I wonder whether it's down to PC spec or ISP? Sometimes there's server lag where everyone in a zone experiences lag, regardless of what they are doing, but this appears to be different.

I'm doing them with everything maxed out fully at 2560 x 1440 res and often have other things running on my second monitor too. Zero noticeable lag. Not trying to brag, just trying to show that I don't THINK it's server related for you. I have a fairly decent graphic card but it's still not top of the range (4GB GTX 670)

ChairGraveyard

Cool idea OP.

I would settle for them just making the Dark Anchors scale better in general - spawning more enemies when there are lots of players, more elites, etc.

Fairydragon3

I would propose this for Cyrodiil, although I hear those require a great amount of people. Sounds like a good Idea for questing, But I'm afraid of the long term effects, right now it takes at least 3-5 people(depending on the group) to take down the last fight. although there are plenty of people in the questing zones now, there is no telling how long that might last. Eventually the first zones will lose their population,and these anchors will become impossible to complete if left alone

Audigy

I see two problems here.

1. Performance

The game doesn't support multi core rendering, nor a low level API. I believe the Dev´s are currently working on an absolute maximum in regards of what they can draw per frame.

If we open several portals with an increasing rate of mob spawns, maybe hundred´s of players trying to fight them off, then I honestly doubt that this will run on the most PC´s if its even possible to code right now in regards of how many draw calls the Dev´s can do per frame on the PC.

However, if they fix the current engine problems, then I believe this could be a fun thing, but it might never be as big as you want it to be due the limitations of our systems.

2. Influence on players

At wow we had events during the Alpha, Beta and early Vanilla days. Those were similar to your suggestion, just that we had a massive battle versus infernals, doomguards and orcs. (Alliance side)

While I absolutely loved it, it was removed for a reason in the later process of Vanilla wow. It had a massive influence on players who tried to quest or do some other stuff.

If you expand the event too much, it might harm those not interested in the event. At Ultima we always had these attacks and I believe it would be fun at ESO too, but without "young player" protection so to speak, this would probably make many players very angry + we would run into problems as more the game progresses, as we will just have less and less players in the low level regions available.


Idea is good, but hard to do in my opinion

Lox

Rage_Frost wrote: »

You probably haven't done many Anchors in the VR zones yet. talk about a crazy time. and it does take a group of people and by group more then 4 players

I see a fair few comments on this sort of line, about VR stuff being harder etc. My question is, why should I have to wait until VR content for something to challenge me?

I am not at VR yet (only lvl 35 having played since early access), but I get the general impression there is a significant jump in difficulty when you get to VR? that just seems wrong to me, it should be a steady progression of ever increasing content difficulty IMO. With the inclusion of open world elements along the way that require groups and challenging content

Lox

yodased wrote: »

Everything the OP said except 1 thing. Phase it so that if you aren't there after the first fissure opens you don't see the anchor. This means that you don't get to the last boss of the anchor and have a vr10 come by and boom headshot its done.

Although I agree with the sentiment behind this, it really goes against the entire concept of a scaling, open world event. This would then no longer be an open world event, it would be a random event that is only available to the first few to arrive.

yodased

Hmm yes good point. Some kind of middle ground must be possible.

Cogo

Why not keep the anchors as they are (No larger area). Makes the event harder if thats possible to scale. Just like OP said.

I am level 33 and played since early access. I have been to quite a few of these anchors, and apart from the finaly boss.....they are WAAAAY to easy.

Just this morning/Last night, one opened in Shadowfen. 1 person asked for help, I got there. It was a nightblade level 36. We both kill the whole damn thing.

And for the first time, I actually got loot from the mobs. In daytime where lots of people get there, its almost impossible to help fight, and defently do not get any rewards for it.

Buff up the event like OP said, but keep it around the anchor so it doesnt disturb the whole zone. Some people might just be questing, and I do see how they get upset if they got drawn into this without wanting it to.

babylon

No thanks, because they'd be impossible at vet levels, with the way ZOS over scales things.

Dodece

Lox wrote: »

Rage_Frost wrote: »

You probably haven't done many Anchors in the VR zones yet. talk about a crazy time. and it does take a group of people and by group more then 4 players

I see a fair few comments on this sort of line, about VR stuff being harder etc. My question is, why should I have to wait until VR content for something to challenge me?

I am not at VR yet (only lvl 35 having played since early access), but I get the general impression there is a significant jump in difficulty when you get to VR? that just seems wrong to me, it should be a steady progression of ever increasing content difficulty IMO. With the inclusion of open world elements along the way that require groups and challenging content

What you fail to appreciate is that this content needs to be manageable for the life of the game. You have to think about how the difficulty will impact players months or years from now. Starter zones in most games aren't typically all that populated. The content in such zones needs to be easily manageable by largely unskilled players in small numbers.

If you honestly want to challenge yourself. Then handicap yourself. I don't really get why people forget this is an option. Why ask the developer to do something you can do for yourself. Nobody is forcing you to wear a full set of armor, or to spend your attribute points. No rule saying that you need to use your absolute best weapon, or that you need to use consumables. You can make this game really hard to play if you really want to.

The reason that Veteran level difficulty is reserved for Veterans is really quite simple. They have the ability to better cope with the difficulties. It is less of a challenge, and more a reaming. Players in Veteran zones often find themselves entirely retooling their characters. Just to squeak by as opposed to getting the snot beaten out of them repeatedly. I didn't spend twelve hours rerunning a dungeon, because I thought it was fun. I needed to level up a wider variety of abilities.

bugulu

I find Dark Anchors being pretty challenging in veteran contents when you are only 2-3 players, that requires teamwork to close it down then.

I like this idea but I see way too many complications for it to be viable. Dark Anchors shouldn't affect players that have no interests in them.

This idea coupled with relocations of the Dark Anchors relocated to isolated areas in the zones could work out. We have already a few of those locations pointed out so could expand to those areas (Stonefalls southern dolmen for example, there's not a single quest nearby).

Sakiri

Nifty but screams "lag" with that many rifts. Number of mobs is okay... but they need more hp. Boss at the end esp.

Fight whole thing and not get a hit on last boss = sucks.

Cogo

babylon wrote: »

No thanks, because they'd be impossible at vet levels, with the way ZOS over scales things.

Nothing is impossible. Just harder to overcome.
Just because you cant do something right away and maybe even "loose" an anchor event, that would be a good thing! Then Anchors gets a real thrill for ALL ESO players. You dont need to be in a guild to help out the fight even, sort of like Cyrodiil. Groups are forming, Someone is leading and its fun as hell.

I think with the OP idea, Anchors can be a simular thing, hard, and not possible for 4 people do clear in 2 mins. Its a world event and not only does it require more players to defeat it, but it forms groups and possible new friendship.

I fail to see the reason in needed to have a smaller raid team in order to do the anchors. Whats wrong with that?

Phantax

Cogo wrote: »

babylon wrote: »

No thanks, because they'd be impossible at vet levels, with the way ZOS over scales things.

Nothing is impossible. Just harder to overcome.
Just because you cant do something right away and maybe even "loose" an anchor event, that would be a good thing! Then Anchors gets a real thrill for ALL ESO players. You dont need to be in a guild to help out the fight even, sort of like Cyrodiil. Groups are forming, Someone is leading and its fun as hell.

I think with the OP idea, Anchors can be a simular thing, hard, and not possible for 4 people do clear in 2 mins. Its a world event and not only does it require more players to defeat it, but it forms groups and possible new friendship.

I fail to see the reason in needed to have a smaller raid team in order to do the anchors. Whats wrong with that?

Agreed, would be nice to lose a world event sometimes (here's hoping VR4+ is more difficult)
As for the guy who said too hard to overcome in VR, hell no. So far (I'm VR3) I haven't done an Anchor that required more than 4 people. We had a group of 6 the other day and sometimes I'd miss killing a mob because it was already dead by the time I'd ran round the anchor to get to it....lol

Phantax

Here is a great example of what a world event should look like -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICxnMHjOQMs
(ignore the two plonkers doing the voiceover...lol)

Look how many players are gathered to fight this boss (could just as easy be a Rift or an Anchor) This is what anchors should have been, especially with ESO's optimisation (GW2 was not as optimised or PC friendly as ESO is)

If Zeni made the time between anchors longer but implemented something like my original suggestion then this is what we would end up with !

Turelus

Really interesting and fresh idea, I hope someone from ZOS manages to see this before it gets berried in the normal complaint threads of this forums section.

P.S give us a feature and ideas section so we can make content ideas like this more visible to the development teams.

Phantax

yodased wrote: »

Everything the OP said except 1 thing. Phase it so that if you aren't there after the first fissure opens you don't see the anchor. This means that you don't get to the last boss of the anchor and have a vr10 come by and boom headshot its done.

I see where your going with this, but I think it would be counter-productive. Firstly big events like I'm suggesting need more people to clear them. Restricting it to just the first few people who got there might not give you enough numbers to complete it.
Thinking back to my days in other MMOs, when a world boss/event started it took a few minutes for it to get around chat, people to read it and for them to get there. (besides one of those people might be the healer that's desperately needed...lol)

Cogo wrote: »

[. Its a world event and not only does it require more players to defeat it, but it forms groups and possible new friendship.

This more me sums it up completely, its this bonding that big events can create and that eventually echoes through the whole community !

Lox

Dodece wrote: »

Lox wrote: »

Rage_Frost wrote: »

You probably haven't done many Anchors in the VR zones yet. talk about a crazy time. and it does take a group of people and by group more then 4 players

I see a fair few comments on this sort of line, about VR stuff being harder etc. My question is, why should I have to wait until VR content for something to challenge me?

I am not at VR yet (only lvl 35 having played since early access), but I get the general impression there is a significant jump in difficulty when you get to VR? that just seems wrong to me, it should be a steady progression of ever increasing content difficulty IMO. With the inclusion of open world elements along the way that require groups and challenging content

What you fail to appreciate is that this content needs to be manageable for the life of the game. You have to think about how the difficulty will impact players months or years from now. Starter zones in most games aren't typically all that populated. The content in such zones needs to be easily manageable by largely unskilled players in small numbers.

If you honestly want to challenge yourself. Then handicap yourself. I don't really get why people forget this is an option. Why ask the developer to do something you can do for yourself. Nobody is forcing you to wear a full set of armor, or to spend your attribute points. No rule saying that you need to use your absolute best weapon, or that you need to use consumables. You can make this game really hard to play if you really want to.

The reason that Veteran level difficulty is reserved for Veterans is really quite simple. They have the ability to better cope with the difficulties. It is less of a challenge, and more a reaming. Players in Veteran zones often find themselves entirely retooling their characters. Just to squeak by as opposed to getting the snot beaten out of them repeatedly. I didn't spend twelve hours rerunning a dungeon, because I thought it was fun. I needed to level up a wider variety of abilities.

I do appreciate the concept of long term games. I have been playing MMOs for over 15 years, I have a fairly good understanding of the genre. The population argument is a non-argument really, if they scaled properly it wouldn't matter if the area was relatively unpopulated.

Yes, I could make the game harder by gearing down but the point is I shouldn't have to, the game should be a challenge to some degree with the gear you are handed (I currently have all green gear, at least half of which is 3+ levels below me and its still easy). I will also add that my MMO experience is the deciding factor, I have friends playing what have never played an MMO before and they are going through a lot of the content with ease.

Currently dark anchors can be absolutely destroyed by a small group of players regardless of armor / weapons they are that easy, when you get a slightly larger group with a bit of gear they might as well not even spawn.

Ive done a few of them this week where there have been a few players, probably a max of 10 and every single creature that spawned died before it even had a chance to take a step or make a hit, maybe got 1 hit off if there was a player standing next to the spawn point, that is just too easy.

If people have to completely rebuild their character to do VR content then that is a failure of the game design in my opinion. If the build has worked up to level 50 then it should work in VR, it just might be more difficult with an obscure build. Part of the levelling process is to learn about your skills and how to use them best in a fight, you shouldn't get to a certain point and then have to redo everything because the game has made a massive jump in difficulty.

As always, these are my own opinions, I am in now way saying anything other people have written is wrong, I just don't necessarily agree with them

Phantax

Thought I'd give this a bump as obviously people are still frustrated with the current state of Anchors ! (hopefully Zenimax will sort this issue)
(feel free to use my suggestion, no copyright infringement)