A "Re-vamp" for the Lunus Rite of Passage?

I've heard many of the older Istaria players say that the Lunus RoP was harder than it is now, needing a certain scale to damage Shadow Dragon.(Who is now easily solo-able) Now if I remember correctly that was how it was, but now it's been, ah, "de-vamped." I saw a hatchling ascend doing the Lunus Rites in one day,(roughly 8 hours to complete) but I feel this is the easy route some players take just so they can earn their wings faster, I'm not saying that everyone who is Lunus takes it as the easy way out, but most newer players I've met. The Lunus Rites should definitely be re-vamped back to the challenges it had years ago, anyone agree?

The RoP is fine as-is, there are 2 problems I see. First, the older vets that complain "we had it harder, so everyone should have it harder." Even at level 70 the Entombed Will and Shadow Dragon are not soloable (meaning without biped buffs/scrolls/potions), which is reasonable. The other problem are the vets that will drop everything to help a level 30/20 hatchling do everything in the RoP. I personally will not help a hatchling unless they are at least level 50 adv, and then I'll only help at Entombed Will and Shadow Dragon. There is plenty enough challenge going through at even level 50, any more challenge with this small low-level population is just overboard.

Well, I don't know which vets drop everything for a 30/20 hatchling, but I don't know any that would do that. But the Lunus rites are shorter than the Helian ones, and Selli is much harder than Shadow Dragon. Wouldn't it make sense to make them more equal in difficulty? And for the vets, I don't know any that complain that they had it harder unless I ask them a question about the Rites. As for lore, Lunus are supposed to be fighters, honestly.

My perosnal opinion on the matter of help is that people, as much as they shouldn't be overly willing to give a lv30/30 help, they shouldn't be too judgemental either. You don't want to force people to level so much they don't need help and do it all alone because the rites are very very boring alone.


Ahem
I think they should be harder..i mean really. Takes me 4 hours on a prepared dragon to do the rites on either one, but slightly quicker at lunus. Probably beacuse helian has more running. IMO - both need ramping up. Maybe not quite to the old standards because population is too low for that, but ramped up either way.

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Originally Posted by Azath

My perosnal opinion on the matter of help is that people, as much as they shouldn't be overly willing to give a lv30/30 help, they shouldn't be too judgemental either. You don't want to force people to level so much they don't need help and do it all alone because the rites are very very boring alone.

Ahem
I think they should be harder..i mean really. Takes me 4 hours on a prepared dragon to do the rites on either one, but slightly quicker at lunus. Probably beacuse helian has more running. IMO - both need ramping up. Maybe not quite to the old standards because population is too low for that, but ramped up either way.

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Population too small for that? Really?? I remember doing my ROP on Aurakvoar with only one assistant, good old dranslin. I personally feel that their should be some kind of buff/debuff that significantly weakens players that aren't on the ROP so yes they can help BUT they are much weaker. Personally i would make it something they have to wear which breaks afterwards. So if a older player wants to help all they can do is heal.

And no this isn't a rant of "I had it harder so you should". This is just me saying that I hate and have always hated 30/20 hatchling being powerleveled through their own RoP at that level they can't even hit the mobs. It is THEIR RoP make them do it!

http://i.imgur.com/fsvqBIq.png
nobody needs that anymore. I dunno if Sellenia also has such an attack (or had...) but it made people wearing one scale less with buffs onto them as they had to equip it in order not to die from the (previous...) Death Attacks from Shadow Dragon. Kind of a small debuff so to speak.

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Originally Posted by Pharaxes

http://i.imgur.com/fsvqBIq.png
nobody needs that anymore. I dunno if Sellenia also has such an attack (or had...) but it made people wearing one scale less with buffs onto them as they had to equip it in order not to die from the (previous...) Death Attacks from Shadow Dragon. Kind of a small debuff so to speak.

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Yes!! Thats exactly what i was kind of refering too. Only kind of however I personally would like to see something that reduced the str of ALL not on the RoP to prevent excessive powerleveling/powergaming. I don't mean to discourage group play thats NOT my intent dragons (or peds) not on the RoP could heal res etc to help.

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Originally Posted by Morrowseer

But the Lunus rites are shorter than the Helian ones, and Selli is much harder than Shadow Dragon. Wouldn't it make sense to make them more equal in difficulty? [...] As for lore, Lunus are supposed to be fighters, honestly.

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That's my issue with the rites as-is, the 'scholarly' Helians have more challenging fights to go through than the 'warrior' Lunus. Yes I realize that a person's build is not restricted to the faction they join but lore-wise it makes no sense! With my ancient I can easily have an alt on auto-follow through the whole Lunus Rites and only switch to that character when something needs to be crafted or looted. The Helian rites are a teensy bit harder and require at least one other ancient to go after Seli but other than that, fairly easy as well as long as you're prepared.

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Originally Posted by Azath

I think they should be harder..i mean really. Takes me 4 hours on a prepared dragon to do the rites on either one, but slightly quicker at lunus. Probably beacuse helian has more running. IMO - both need ramping up. Maybe not quite to the old standards because population is too low for that, but ramped up either way.

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Case and point: Finished my alt Araxes' Lunus rites in just a few short hours last night.
It's not a challenge, not even for new players going through the rites for the first time if they have anyone capable of soloing the bosses (which is pretty much every player with one school to 80).

I think they should just simply raise the minimum adventure level to at least 40 to 45, and craft to minimum of 30, 35 Even then, level 40 is hard to stay alive for most of the RoP mobs. Lem, and Kaa alone are level 60. as for diffculty, it`s still a long quest, sure it`s easier to get to the mobs you need to kill. but entombed, and SD are still a challenge. Maybe just make them immune to post-RoP characters (adults, and ancient) gold rage, and silver strike attacks. At least that way the hatchling`s attacks will count more, and the adult/ancient will have to rely on the less powerfull attacks, and spells. (better then making post-RoP dragon weaker, just make the mobs dodge their SS, and GR attacks. that`ll discourage you from using the hoard depleting abilities, plus make the boss a bit harder to kill ;)

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Originally Posted by Machaeon

That's my issue with the rites as-is, the 'scholarly' Helians have more challenging fights to go through than the 'warrior' Lunus. Yes I realize that a person's build is not restricted to the faction they join but lore-wise it makes no sense!

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Lore wise the only difference between the two factions is their view towards bipeds, with a slight tendency for Lunus to lean melee, and Helian to lean magic. The concept that a Helian is less of a fighter than a Lunus is just an arbitrary assumption (especially given that it was a Helian that created gold strike). A Lunus may potentially be seen as more hot-headed and willing to blindly run into a fight, but that doesn't make a Lunus more of a fighter, simply one who fights differently. One could even argue that a Helian, being one who's more likely to plan ahead and strategize, is ultimately a better fighter. Another way to put it: The average Lunus would make a better grunt, while the average Helian would make a better officer.

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Originally Posted by Darkwing_Duck

but entombed, and SD are still a challenge. Maybe just make them immune to post-RoP characters (adults, and ancient) gold rage, and silver strike attacks. At least that way the hatchling`s attacks will count more, and the adult/ancient will have to rely on the less powerfull attacks, and spells. (better then making post-RoP dragon weaker, just make the mobs dodge their SS, and GR attacks.

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Yes, that would make it better than the post rites dragon weaker, but to make it even, what about Selli? She uses Gold Rage X(One strike only though), why shouldn't we be able to? I'm still sticking to my base opinion about the Lunus Rites, they need to be more equal to the Helian rites in difficulty, and as Machaeon said, she can just walk her alt through most of the Lunus rites. But maybe disabling Silver Strike instead of Gold Rage on the bosses might be better? Because Gold Rage is most dragons source of strength(And you will need help from others on the bosses, so maybe disabling that on the RoP bosses would be a bad idea.)

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Originally Posted by Morrowseer

But maybe disabling Silver Strike instead of Gold Rage on the bosses might be better? Because Gold Rage is most dragons source of strength(And you will need help from others on the bosses, so maybe disabling that on the RoP bosses would be a bad idea.)

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I'm fine with disabling GR for all bosses; except for SD, Seli, and Esh and Entomby. See GR is made for high health mobs, but manages to kill low health easily too. Infact doing that alone (disabling GR for all bosses except those mentioned) would already make them a decent fight. As instead of most bosses taking anytime in between 10 seconds - 30 seconds, without GR they'll take a minute +. The hatchie doing rop might get hurt for once, and...those lv50s who do it alone. I personally don't care if it puts them at a disadvantage, because those are the levels people are happy to help at, and this game is meant for community.

As for those mobs i mentioned - they are high health mobs, ones that take at least a minute to kill anyway.
Esh - 30k health. Thats 10 GRs, 150 seconds/almost 3 mins on only GR at VII. COnsider other attacks too, and thats still not a bad fight' especially as esh isn't supposed ot be overly hard.
Entomby - I believe that you do reduced damage to entomby anyway, and he has iirc 60k health.
SD/Seli - I don't need to explain.
These mobs would need either a different attack restricted or something, because they need to be harder but disabling the whole reason of a dragon's being (i've said it before; dragons are only useful for GR) to do so...

Uhm the fastest I've seen (and was with there) Reklar going down was less than a minute

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Originally Posted by Pharaxes

Uhm the fastest I've seen (and was with there) Reklar going down was less than a minute

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Not about Reklar ;p Besides, very few people do rop with a full group of 10 inc. healers. Pretty sure you'd take about 30 seconds to smish Seli if you did.

on topic a bit. :)

I did Lunus RoP on meeps before most of the EZ-mode revamps, (yes I'm one of the players that strongly believes the older lunus RoP was better.) And it took me roughly a week of 3 hours online everyday, So I can definately give some insights on the differences that I can remember.

First of all, and this is the one that I kind of mind, and kind of don't mind, there was no land-bridge to Draak, you had to actually walk all the way from Harro, through ED, to get over to Draak, now this was a pain in the tail to do if you didn't know the route, if you did, well it was relatively easy, but you had to make sure you didn't pull any aggro.
So yes, this point was in fact solo-able, and really I see no reason for changing it aside from giving people better directions. (if I remember correctly you weren't even told how to get to Draak...but that might be my memory failing, it does that..)

Secondly, the shimmering scale, Shadow Dragon was hard to solo back in the day, but definately not impossible, the shimmering scale merely made sure you didn't get insta-d, even though it was a slight debuff to the scale you would be wearing.
Now SD losing his insta, I dunno, I kinda didn't like it to be honest, but with the low population I could kinda see why this would be done.

Overall I agree that Lunus RoP is a tad bit...easier than Helian right now, and is in need of some overhauling, heck perhaps even the Helian needs some buffing (only did it once) but the main thing is, I agree with almost everything said here:

"And no this isn't a rant of "I had it harder so you should". This is just me saying that I hate and have always hated 30/20 hatchling being powerleveled through their own RoP at that level they can't even hit the mobs. It is THEIR RoP make them do it!"

"I think they should be harder..i mean really. Takes me 4 hours on a prepared dragon to do the rites on either one, but slightly quicker at lunus. Probably beacuse helian has more running. IMO - both need ramping up. Maybe not quite to the old standards because population is too low for that, but ramped up either way."