I don't think pinions have anything to do with it, but if you want the achievement you should go back to your starter areas and farm a few anchors. Each zone has a high (though not 100%) probability of spawning 4 of the 20 generals, and a lower probability of spawning one of the others. Search the forums, there's a post I followed to find the ones I was missing. Also, hunting the generals will take you near or over the 250 Anchors needed for another achievement, and you might get some collectibles along the way.

SLy_Kyti wrote: »

There's already huge thread about this should you care to search and perhaps delete this thread.

Every time I try search on this forum I get completely unhelpful results, really, I find GOOGLING the result and getting links within the forums to be more helpful than the search function.

Arato wrote: »

SLy_Kyti wrote: »

There's already huge thread about this should you care to search and perhaps delete this thread.

Every time I try search on this forum I get completely unhelpful results, really, I find GOOGLING the result and getting links within the forums to be more helpful than the search function.

You are right, and you are right. Sorry, I'm usually more helpful (I think) thanks to Runhent for going the extra mile.

And.. I do not believe its anything more than a silly superstition. Though it may be useful to the unwary that the last pinion is now down and to expect the boss, I see no practical purpose. Drop em when you can.

Divinius wrote: »

I really wish ZOS would just flat out debunk this stupid superstition. I'm quite sick of getting yelled at by idiots who believe it whenever I close a pinion.

worst part is that it doesn't actually make sense. the game has no mechanism for determining when the pinions are pulled. the dolmen spawns until it runs out of its monsters. then you pull all the pinions? there is no timer or impact on pulling early. it is based on some weird belief that the game is tracking when you pulled the pinions relative to when each was pulled (I guess because some random miscellaneous buff I've nver actually looked up appears after you pull one, but they have to assume that it tracks not the time of the buff remaining when the last one is pulled, but the time relative to when the buff was activated from each pinion), since it couldn't do anything else since the pinions just stay up until I guess the dolmen might reset if you left it long enough.

we should just put it in the Ask us Anything thread for the next ESO live.

Fyi I easily got the generals achievement with little time grinding, I only had to actually get 4 by the time I finished cadwell's silver, and that took about 2hrs.

Saint_JiubB14_ESO wrote: »

Divinius wrote: »

I really wish ZOS would just flat out debunk this stupid superstition. I'm quite sick of getting yelled at by idiots who believe it whenever I close a pinion.

worst part is that it doesn't actually make sense. the game has no mechanism for determining when the pinions are pulled. the dolmen spawns until it runs out of its monsters. then you pull all the pinions? there is no timer or impact on pulling early. it is based on some weird belief that the game is tracking when you pulled the pinions relative to when each was pulled (I guess because some random miscellaneous buff I've nver actually looked up appears after you pull one, but they have to assume that it tracks not the time of the buff remaining when the last one is pulled, but the time relative to when the buff was activated from each pinion), since it couldn't do anything else since the pinions just stay up until I guess the dolmen might reset if you left it long enough.

we should just put it in the Ask us Anything thread for the next ESO live.

Fyi I easily got the generals achievement with little time grinding, I only had to actually get 4 by the time I finished cadwell's silver, and that took about 2hrs.

It could make sense if it was a scoring system, kill mobs and then use the pinions as some sort of score multiplier. If you pulled the multipliers early you'd have a lower score. At least that was the only way it would have made sense to me.

I got the close 100 daedric anchors achievement and I'm still missing half of the generals. So I'm actually just riding in circles between the 3 in each zone trying to spawn them until I get tired of the scenery and going to another zone.

We have always close them as they come up and the Generals appear about 20 - 30%% of the time. I would definitely call it a myth.

This is a myth. I've done so many Dolmens solo, and with a group. (Close to 1000 of them by now) i've seen no discernable pattern to popping pinions either all at once or one at a time as they come up.

This does not impact your chance at getting a General to spawn.

What I did notice that impacts a Dolmen's spawns is how many players are at the Dolmen when active.

The more players, the more mob spawns.

Not sure if more players at a Dolmen affect General spawn chances as well.

I've had Generals spawn while soloing Dolmens as well.

It is truely RNG.

Just for the record, the dolmens become active automatically, whenever someone approaches them, provided their cool-down timer has elapsed (which is like 10 or 15 minutes, I think).

If no one goes anywhere near a Dolmen, it won't activate on its own.

Personofsecrets wrote: »

As much as I don't believe the pinions have anything to to do with causing a boss to appear I do think that the generals are seeded based on some unknown values.

I did quite a few dolmens. I and several others noticed that when a boss appeared they were more likely to appear again. We might get the ogrim brothers, nomeg haga, or the seducer sisters 3 times in one dolmen farm, but then those bosses would vanish for a while. We were doing Reapers March in EP so all bosses were available in the pool.

So I'll forward a new superstition. In zones where any boss can spawn, those bosses are seeded on something like day of the week or some other value. This isn't unheard of in games, but there is most likely a value that cant be figured out.

LOL, isn't it against forum guidelines to spread rumors? This seems even fishier than OP topic.

It's not that humans are good at "noticing" or "discovering" patterns, it's that the human brain tends to want to make patterns out of true randomness.

Granted, computers are generally incapable of true randomness, but that doesn't change the issue. You can use a True Random number generator to make a list of truly random numbers, and anyone who looks at them will start to see "obvious" patterns in it. It's just what the human brain does.

That does not mean that these "patterns" are in any way repeatable or predictable.

Divinius wrote: »

It's not that humans are good at "noticing" or "discovering" patterns, it's that the human brain tends to want to make patterns out of true randomness.

Granted, computers are generally incapable of true randomness, but that doesn't change the issue. You can use a True Random number generator to make a list of truly random numbers, and anyone who looks at them will start to see "obvious" patterns in it. It's just what the human brain does.

That does not mean that these "patterns" are in any way repeatable or predictable.

This, this, this, a thousand times this.

I'm sure that if someone noticed a general spawned every time they tapped their ring finger against their desk, we'd have threads about the potential viability of that "tactic". Random is random, and our brains hate that.