Anchors need a balance update.... They have become a joke.

Dahveed · September 2019

Just showed up to an anchor that had about 20 players there and I literally couldn't even get a single hit on any enemy before the entire thing was cleared.

Some kind of scaling balance update is required to make these things at least somewhat less of a total farce.

Not sure how exactly, but when an anchor drops the power level of enemies ought to scale somehow with the number of players in the zone.

It could shake things up a bit if (let's say) a group of 8 players tries to take down an anchor in a zone that has 60 players in it. Since the anchor now would scale to a higher level based on some sort of calculation (I dunno, the number of players in the zone divided by 3, let's say), this anchor would now be scaled for 20 players instead of 8, so that those 8 players would have a harder time clearing it.

It could provide incentive to ppl in the zone to call for and to provide help in taking one down. It could get really interesting in a heavily populated zone and it takes a good group of 20 players to actually cooperate to take down a hefty anchor.

Just throwing some ideas out there, because holy mother of Talos, anchors are perhaps the biggest joke in any video game I have ever played in my life. They just spawn and then instantly disappear.... They are supposed to be this big cool, menacing thing spawned by the Daedric Lord of Schemes, but they can't even withstand a wet fart from a small band of adventurers.

It's really sad.

Linaleah · September 2019

scale it properly to the amount of people at the anchor? yes. scale it to number of people in a zone? HELL NO.

Major_Lag · September 2019

Dahveed wrote: »

Just throwing some ideas out there, because holy mother of Talos, anchors are perhaps the biggest joke in any video game I have ever played in my life.

They are a joke, all right.

I've successfully soloed anchors on my magplar... while wearing all completely broken armor... moreover, it was lvl 42 armor on a >CP160 character.

Edit: also, using no buff food at all.

So I had nearly 0 resistances, and very low offensive stats, because of the broken and massively underlevelled gear.
Still, soloing the dolmens like that was zero challenge. It was just tedious, because it took about 3-4x as long as soloing them on a proper build would.

gatekeeper13 · September 2019

My advice, use AOE. In situations where there are tenths of playes in a dolmen, its the only way you 100% hit sth before the anchor is destroyed. I personally use Barbed Trap at the place where the boss spawns.

Dusk_Coven · September 2019

Dahveed wrote: »

Just showed up to an anchor that had about 20 players there and I literally couldn't even get a single hit on any enemy before the entire thing was cleared.

And those people who stand around doing nothing but get hit by the aoe (maybe they're even bots) will get xp and loot too.

I think they could do a few things:
- Divide XP by the number of participants who will get XP.
- Divide the chance of each loot drop by the number of participants.
- Make the aoe lightning add a stacking debuff. Each time you get hit, the duration refreshes to 1 hour and the multiplier doubles. So if you get hit once, for the next hour your damage from that lightning will be x2. If you get hit again during that time, for the next hour your damage from that lightning becomes x4. No limit.

This de-incentivizes zerging, encourages people to spread out into different zones, and helps stop bots and lazy people.

OR

Put a timer on the final loot chest and XP award. For each person over 4 that is eligible for loot, add 30 seconds to the time before the chest spawns and encounter XP is awarded.

Major_Lag · September 2019

Just scale the dolmen enemy difficulty according to the number of players within range of the dolmen.

Also add an "elite boss" mechanic, like with the Geysers in Summerset - if the dolmen is completed too quickly, instead of the usual "easy" boss, a much harder elite boss will spawn instead.

notyuu · September 2019

to those saying "just make them scale based on the number of people there"

they already do, solo an anchor and you'll find it has like 2 waves at the most, but get a group and the two jumps to about 12...

Qbiken · September 2019

Delete alikir dolmen groups from the game

Major_Lag · September 2019

notyuu wrote: »

to those saying "just make them scale based on the number of people there"

they already do, solo an anchor and you'll find it has like 2 waves at the most, but get a group and the two jumps to about 12...

Right, but clearly the scaling is pitifully inadequate, when the Alik'r dolmens are over in an instant.

And scaling the quantity of mobs is not enough, with such AoE spam the mobs are dying in 1 GCD.
The quality (difficulty) of the mobs needs to scale as well.

Linaleah · September 2019

notyuu wrote: »

to those saying "just make them scale based on the number of people there"

they already do, solo an anchor and you'll find it has like 2 waves at the most, but get a group and the two jumps to about 12...

which is why I personaly added "properly" currently the scaling is very weak. you will feel it a bit if there's 2-3 people instead of just one, but when it starts getting into larger groups, scaling may as well not exist. you are lucky if you manage to get a single light attack off on a final boss, before its dead.

and they DID fix that in summerset, because geyser's scale MUCH better. so they would just need to adjust dolmens to scale the same way as geysers do.

Dusk_Coven · September 2019

Major_Lag wrote: »

And scaling the quantity of mobs is not enough, with such AoE spam the mobs are dying in 1 GCD.
The quality (difficulty) of the mobs needs to scale as well.

NWO has scaling based on the thresholds of number of players inside the encounter zone. As soon as a threshold is reached, mobs could absorb more damage. I think they kept the number of mobs the same so that solo-ing an encounter (which often had objectives instead of just killing) was impossible.
But NWO also didn't have aoe spam or ultimate spam.

With their dragon encounters in guild keeps, as soon as there were more than a certain number of people fighting the dragon (20?), the dragon became invulnerable.

starkerealm · September 2019

Dahveed wrote: »

Just showed up to an anchor that had about 20 players there and I literally couldn't even get a single hit on any enemy before the entire thing was cleared.

Acid Spray. You'll do enough damage to get credit. Endless hail on the spot where the boss will spawn before it does, and you'll usually get credit, especially if you're laying down some spray and poison injections with a weave.

usmguy1234 · September 2019

Dahveed wrote: »

Just showed up to an anchor that had about 20 players there and I literally couldn't even get a single hit on any enemy before the entire thing was cleared.

Some kind of scaling balance update is required to make these things at least somewhat less of a total farce.

Not sure how exactly, but when an anchor drops the power level of enemies ought to scale somehow with the number of players in the zone.

It could shake things up a bit if (let's say) a group of 8 players tries to take down an anchor in a zone that has 60 players in it. Since the anchor now would scale to a higher level based on some sort of calculation (I dunno, the number of players in the zone divided by 3, let's say), this anchor would now be scaled for 20 players instead of 8, so that those 8 players would have a harder time clearing it.

It could provide incentive to ppl in the zone to call for and to provide help in taking one down. It could get really interesting in a heavily populated zone and it takes a good group of 20 players to actually cooperate to take down a hefty anchor.

Just throwing some ideas out there, because holy mother of Talos, anchors are perhaps the biggest joke in any video game I have ever played in my life. They just spawn and then instantly disappear.... They are supposed to be this big cool, menacing thing spawned by the Daedric Lord of Schemes, but they can't even withstand a wet fart from a small band of adventurers.

It's really sad.

Do you remember when anchors were hard?

Neither do I.

Hapexamendios · September 2019

Anchors are a joke before you hit champion.

JumpmanLane · September 2019

Dahveed wrote: »

Just showed up to an anchor that had about 20 players there and I literally couldn't even get a single hit on any enemy before the entire thing was cleared.

Some kind of scaling balance update is required to make these things at least somewhat less of a total farce.

Not sure how exactly, but when an anchor drops the power level of enemies ought to scale somehow with the number of players in the zone.

It could shake things up a bit if (let's say) a group of 8 players tries to take down an anchor in a zone that has 60 players in it. Since the anchor now would scale to a higher level based on some sort of calculation (I dunno, the number of players in the zone divided by 3, let's say), this anchor would now be scaled for 20 players instead of 8, so that those 8 players would have a harder time clearing it.

It could provide incentive to ppl in the zone to call for and to provide help in taking one down. It could get really interesting in a heavily populated zone and it takes a good group of 20 players to actually cooperate to take down a hefty anchor.

Just throwing some ideas out there, because holy mother of Talos, anchors are perhaps the biggest joke in any video game I have ever played in my life. They just spawn and then instantly disappear.... They are supposed to be this big cool, menacing thing spawned by the Daedric Lord of Schemes, but they can't even withstand a wet fart from a small band of adventurers.

It's really sad.

Hey, do them in Cyro! I’m sure someone will up the ante for you.

InvictusApollo · September 2019

Anchors are super easy even to solo them. I remember the times when soloing an anchor would bring you great respect in a guild. Many people didn't even believe that was possible.

Jayman1000 · September 2019

I couldnt agree more. It's a complete joke. Soloing dolmens is already a total joke, but in a group it becomes a really stupid joke, or with 20 people it is absolutely ridiculous. What on earth is the point at all?

Red_Feather · September 2019

Make it so that each dolmen quickly done in a row by a person will make it so they get levitated +5 feet and dropped during each dolmen phase. Eventually they'll die of fall damage at every dolmen. Everyone will roll a wood elf.

jainiadral · September 2019

Go to a dolmen in Malabal Tor. No one will be around to dilute your XP

siddique · September 2019

Molag Bal's so called "elite generals" have less health and damage output than random bosses. It's a shame.

Dolmens were super fun when the game was new. They've now become useless. The enemies and final bosses should at the very least be as tough as the dragons in elsweyr, if not more.

Aurie · September 2019

Alik'r is the only zone that seems to be favoured by a permanent zerg with a view to rapid leveling, and unless I'm deliberately trying to put on a fast couple of levels myself I hardly ever go to that round of dolmens. Most other dolmens I have entirely to myself, or maybe another player at most.

Scaling in difficulty according to the number of players onsite at the time to offset the zerg effect is reasonable.

But I wouldn't like to see much more in the way of buffing them as they are relatively quick to do without a zerg, and thus are invaluable for accumulating loot for alt decon, as well as a supply of jewelry for equipping without taking an age.

SydneyGrey · September 2019

Do dolmens that aren't so populated. Simple.
You're complaining about the three dolmens in Alik'r obviously, when no one is forcing you to do those dolmens. Do dolmens in Glenumbra or Stormhaven or something instead of asking that all dolmens be nerfed for you.

spartaxoxo · September 2019

It's okay for low levels to have old base game content to grind, you know. Not everything in the game needs to be about you.

MercilessnVexed · September 2019

AoE if you need that dolmen. Otherwise, go to a different zone and quit grouching about it. The dolmens are fine.

Jhalin · September 2019

It’s a pipe dream of mine that any overland content become even a slight challenge to players.

A great, useful, purposeful idea that would actually encourage people to improve themselves as they progress.

But that’s not “casual toddler” friendly, so unfortunately it won’t happen

HowlKimchi · September 2019

notyuu wrote: »

to those saying "just make them scale based on the number of people there"

they already do, solo an anchor and you'll find it has like 2 waves at the most, but get a group and the two jumps to about 12...

Scale it better then?

Overland content in ESO is laughably easy. I wish there were veteran versions of the map

zaria · September 2019

Jhalin wrote: »

It’s a pipe dream of mine that any overland content become even a slight challenge to players.

A great, useful, purposeful idea that would actually encourage people to improve themselves as they progress.

But that’s not “casual toddler” friendly, so unfortunately it won’t happen

Remember doing an dolmen just after a server reboot.
For some reason the dolmen had lots of hard enemies, I guess an large group was farming it then server went down and server came up with dolmen at max strength or more as it was 6 something harvesters and litches up and various other mobs.
Came in thinking it was an standard dolmen and got killed in seconds, had to handle it more like an world boss or group dungeon.

Mr_Walker · September 2019

You could not run the dolmens in Alik'r?

Linaleah · September 2019

spartaxoxo wrote: »

It's okay for low levels to have old base game content to grind, you know. Not everything in the game needs to be about you.

100% fair. but in that same vein, its pretty hard for a casual lowbie to get even a single hit in with how quickly some of those zergs smash through the dolmen. making it so that the boss dies in half a minute instead of a single global cooldown will actualy help those very same lowbies.

starkerealm · September 2019

Linaleah wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

It's okay for low levels to have old base game content to grind, you know. Not everything in the game needs to be about you.

100% fair. but in that same vein, its pretty hard for a casual lowbie to get even a single hit in with how quickly some of those zergs smash through the dolmen. making it so that the boss dies in half a minute instead of a single global cooldown will actualy help those very same lowbies.

Given you're talking about the Alik'r dolmens, again, the advice I gave earlier carries. Use Acid Spray to mark targets during the first phase, then put endless hail down on the boss. If you're on a mag build, Wall of Zap will get the job done as well or better. You don't need to get credit on every kill, or even the boss, just get XP credit on the dolmen in general, collect a reward, and move on. Those instant zergs only exist in one map. Go someplace like Greenshade or Reaper's March and you'll have a very different Dolmen experience.

Vildebill · September 2019

A lot of people keep forgetting how it is to be new in a game. Five years ago when I hardly knew what a set was, I was light years from soloing a general. So easy for you, maybe, but easy for the new players, maybe not.