David Bowman: Reopening the AROP discussion

[evilkarl]

Ah evilkarl but that is the problem. Horizons simply doesn't have any powergamers left. They all went to EQII (WoW doesn't cater to powergamers, it is too easy to level).

If you think the power gamers have left you are smoking something

Every part of HZ is designed for casual players in mind, from the ease of leveling, to the ease of getting magic equipment (techs are broken right now. they are much harder to get then they are intended to be). Why should Dragons be different? They are one of the few selling points this game has over EQII and WoW. Should we really attempt to make them inaccessable to a large portion of the (potential) playerbase?

Its been stated on numerous occasions that dragons were never intended for the casual player. The rest of the game is casual player friendly but dragons were not designed for casual play.

[Akuluxtraxas]

My honest opinion is obviously we all dislike powergaming aspect but let me put it this way PLers always find ways to do it. Rather than focus on that and try jacking things out of reach of many who dont PL therefore hurting their ability to reach the status while PLers do it anyway. Best to let this go and see what comes next and go from there.

Do i think the Requirements are to low? yeah i do. Do i feel that its a wash if its not upped? no as ill work from there. bottom line is you cannot stop PLing its always going to be a factor and for those who have jobs etc and put strong effort in their dragons when able consistently they deserve ancient just as i do or anyone with 100+ days in game. just because im retired etc doesnt mean all are and i feel those players deserve a chance as well. Also the game cannot be a total turnoff to new players and making ccertain major features ridiculous to achieve in a reasonable amount of time hurts subscriptions.

While i have some idea how to rework these reqs some to achieve both slowing PLers and in rewarding those who work hard but can sit here all day currently im going to see what happens. If rewards and the content are like Adult nobody will care anyway then itll be onto attacking that (and rightfully so)

My current thoughts here and just a heads up on the bottom lines in this. AE clearly is taking steps to stop PLing but its a fight that cannot be fully won. so it comes down to those doing it and those who support em to stop it.

[oluviel]

"have bout 3.02 mil hoard, will probably stay that way till the rework hoard and provided added benefits. "

Did they say in irc the hoard will not only be reworked but also have more benefits to dragons?

[Dragonboy]

A nice addition to the list of requirements will always be ALL dragon quests complete.

Just a fewproblems with this requirement:
1) With the annoyance of hoard grinding I doubt many ppl actually done all Gold Rage quests, but if hoard is collected easier in the future then this could change.
2) Not even to speak about the Craft quests.
I have been lvl 100 craft for 2 RL weeks now, but still unable to complete all my craft quest for the simple reason that the Expert "resource" crafting forms are quite hard to come by and paying 300s per form at Vielo is quite expensive (6*300s = 1g800s).

[cauri_order]

Don't really know Oluviel......they say they are going to rework it. If they rework it and its not so much of a grind and the rewards are worth the effort, then ya I'll go ahead and start hoarding.

As it stands now, its just another statement made by the AE dev team and I'll take it with a grain of salt. I'll start believing and supporting them again when I see positives.

[Fireclaw]

While a re-working of hoard would be welcome, it could take months to arrive, if ever.

[Blue Hasia]

Firgures just becuse the title has dragons in it It gets instanly moved to the dragon board[:@]...But my intention of this thread was not to start a dragon debate but to get A response from David bowman...and that is a general

The dragon baord is here for us dragons to talk with other dragons about dragon stuff...My thread was concering what david bowman said and was finishing what got locked in the frist place...This is a major concern for me and I bet many other players not only just dragons but i seen alot of bipeds that dont even play a dragonpost there concerns about this topic also.

[Cobal]

And who is the trigger happy Mod responsible for this?
Why are you always moving these discussions to dragons?
Theres a couple of other threads there that mention classes and races other than dragons.
why arent they moved to their class or race forums?
This always happens to threads that mention dragons since tazoon.

This is a general topic that needs discussion in General, not in the dragon forum.
I suggest you move it back to General, so that David Bowman actually looks at it.

[cauri_order]

Blue,

Didn't you know that dragons are the read-headed step child of AE? We're used and abused :P

[oluviel]

Monks can multiclass and be more effective. Dragons deserve more time, ae made their decision to make dragons the way they are, and because of it instead of being almost carbon copies of bipeds we are weaker than the other races, unable to multiclass, ect ect. They created a class/race that was stuck and unfinished. It still is today, moreover there are a lot more dragons than people wanting to be monks, so of course the devs will and should focus on fixing the larger problem, ratherthan fixing a broken class in a multiclassing game.

[Marco]

Monks can multiclass and be more effective. Dragons deserve more time, ae made their decision to make dragons the way they are, and because of it instead of being almost carbon copies of bipeds we are weaker than the other races, unable to multiclass, ect ect. They created a class/race that was stuck and unfinished. It still is today, moreover there are a lot more dragons than people wanting to be monks, so of course the devs will and should focus on fixing the larger problem, ratherthan fixing a broken class in a multiclassing game.

It's rather pointless to argue who has it worst, monks or dragons? It does not matter who really has it worst, what matters is showing the message that we do not want it this way and we'll leave unless they fix it down thier throats. Anyone got a marker pen so we can write on thier monitors?

[Pharcellus]

I don't begrudge monks and other broken/unfinished biped classes any love, as they deserve it as much as we do, regardless of whether they can multiclass or not. We're going to get dev time because we are a larger segment of the player population, and we also happen to be more vocal about it.

However, I will always carry the banner of the other races/classes who need attention anytime. If someone wants to play a pure monk/disciple and not multiclass, their base class should be no less effective overall than any other single class, and they have as much right as we do to vie for attention.

[Marco]

I don't begrudge monks and other broken/unfinished biped classes any love, as they deserve it as much as we do, regardless of whether they can multiclass or not. We're going to get dev time because we are a larger segment of the player population, and we also happen to be more vocal about it.

However, I will always carry the banner of the other races/classes who need attention anytime. If someone wants to play a pure monk/disciple and not multiclass, their base class should be no less effective overall than any other single class, and they have as much right as we do to vie for attention.

QWORD.

If I can hovewer give my opinion without... naw not possible but anyhow.
I believe monks are even worse of than dragons, as we have some things they don't. That damage shield for starters, 2 healing spells, a bite ability, which really won't do the spellcasters any good but anyway... [;)]

[Vesuvius]

In making dragons a playable race, Artifact hadtook the responsibility of making them live up to their expectations. With a few exceptions, AE for themost partfailed in meeting those expectations. The topic at hand is in regards to ancient dragons and the requirements to become one. Per Lore, Ancient dragons are very rare and very powerful creatures. Being that Tulga has purchased the assets of AE, they now have the responisbility to live up to meeting the expectations ofwhat ancient dragons should be. Very rare and very powerful.

Creation Time Requirement of 365 Days:
I did mention this earlier in the thread but I might as well repeat it. There are many reasons behind having a requirement at 365, including but not limited to:
- Adding prestige to the Ancient Status
-Filtering outthe number of dragons who become Ancient
- Living up to past discussions/Dev-Chats
- Having taken this long to release it, leading those who have waited on the notion that 365 would be the requirement (a repeat of what they were told for the Adult RoP...)
- Other points mentioned both in this and other threads

Played Time Requirement of 60 Days
This functions as another filter, focused more on the hindering of the insta-ancient.

180 Days after Adult
The primary idea behind this is that a dragon should actually be an adult for a good period of time, rather than become an adult and then an ancient 10 days later. It also helps function as a filter to level 1/1 dragon alts created at day 1. In my opinion, this is more important than the 365 day creation timer in regards to requirement/dedication.

100 Levels both in Adventuring and Crafting
Anadult should be at the peak of its power and knowledge whenprogressing to become an ancient. I dont see why it should be anything less. It also shows dedication. I for one hate crafting, utterly. Yet I maxed it to 100 to make sure I would be ready to the best of my ability for the ancient RoP.

12.75M Hoard Requirement
This is half way to the cap. An ancient dragon should have accumulated a decent amount of hoard. I really dont care how boring and horrible the grind is, its part of being a dragon and the ancient RoP should reflect that.

DragonExclusive Quest
No reason why Bipeds should be able to help out. Though, they should be able to witness the change (which, in my opinion should happen at the same place the adult RoP did). The quest itself should be long and difficult. Even a powergamer should not be able to rush through it in a day.

I have seen many arguements on work-arounds for all of the above requirements. That some dont 'show dedication' or 'can be powerleveled'. I answer with a so what. Perhaps any one of the above could be worked around, but the entire net of all of them will prevent most who do not deserve it from bothering to try. Those that do manage to slip through the system will probably lose interest and not play the ancient anyway.

Something along the lines of the above would effectively make ancients rare without preventing anyone from getting there eventually if they wanted it bad enough. It would also lay the groundwork for a reward worth its effort.

In conclusion, the motive, at least my motive, behind having very stringent requirements goes well beyond the lines of 'I had to wait a year, you should too!' or 'I want my elitist powerfix'. It reaches to meeting expectations of what dragons, and more importantly, ancient dragons, are in traditional high fantasy.

I stand by my original post which is based off of age old disscussions dating back to Tazoon and even Stratics. From what I gathered from the previous 'official' ARoP disscussion (that was stupidly locked), most players support harder requirements like the above. In typing the previous sentance, I know that there will be the screaming minority who will attempt to attack that statement and appear as the majority, but ::shrug:: what can you do.

[Deth]

Just one Note that I am not sure people may have taken into account, I am not for or against the In-mgame timer with this tstaement just something to think of, With all the non-deticated people leaving thier dragons logged in while they are at work,sleeping, doing something else, What about the lag of 100's if not 1000's of people staying logged-in.

I am not sure how much lag this will create but I would assume it will create some. This may cuase problems for others that already have problem or it may not but it is something you have to think about untill they put in a auto-log out. Which I assume would not be in before the non-IE log-in comes in.

[Pharcellus]

The few who are going to bother to circumvent it won't create an appreciable drag on the server or the client. If they all camp out in one town, then it may take a little longer to port there, but that's the extent of the effect that I foresee. I don't see hundreds or thousands of players on the server every night total, let alone the ones who are going to bother to use such a tactic to work around the requirement.

Besides, the software is still notorious for lagging out and disconnecting/crashing even when just sitting around doing nothing, especially in-town, so I would expect that the problem would be somewhat self-correcting in that situation.

[Valdez]

I am not going to say much on this, since I meet almost all the requirments thought here anyway. Except maybe hoard. But 100 in both classes is wrong. For some hate to craft. I love to craft, but forcing someone to craft is wrong. a level 100 dragon in either shcool should be fine, or 140 in levels combined, and 90 in at least one school. so a level 90/50 dragon could be ancient or 100/40 dragon could be ancient. To be a high level craft your adventure already goes up, but not vice versa, and for the casual player not many craft.

[Pharcellus]

Valdez,

That may have been true in the past, where it was a hideous grind for adventure AND crafting. However, it is easy to level both now. It took me six months to get to 100/100. Nowadays, I don't think it takes half that time for players who play regularly. Hell, even Devilin is in his 80s as a crafter, Ebonfyre is a few levels from 100 crafter. Two people I never expected to ever see in T4, let alone T5, and they both still say how much they loathe crafting to this day.

However, it is easy. whereas it used to take us a day or two per level in the 90s, you can now get 2-3 levels easily in a day.

[Guaran]

Evilcarl said:

Dragons are not intended for the light gamer, they have the biggest time sink of all associated with them and are designed for the players who really want to play them as much as they can.

I don't play a dragon however I think ancient needs a few more requirements otherwise people will just power level their way to it.

High hoard req inexcess of 5million imo
300+ days since birth
75 minimum 100 days preferable in game time
100 days since becomming an adult at least

But thats me..I just don't want to see ancients sucking because the requirements are so low

I pretty much agree with these. Not sure hoard needs to be a req, since it is being redone somehow. We have no idea what they are doing with it, no point in that being a requirement. 100 days "In Game" time would be enough to keep powerleveled and alt - never - played dragons from being Ancient. And rightfully so.

For ancient to be worth a ********, it's likely got to be hard to attain. I'm all for that. Hoard can be ground out (Powerleveled so to speak), and anything that can be ground out makes for a poor requirement. The level 90 in either class is fine.Days since creation, days in game, days since adult should all be requirements if you ask me.

[evilkarl]

The hoard req is another ant-power leveler mechanism. Most PL'ing dragons would not bother getting 5m hoard as it takes far too much effort.