Why do we agree with David Bowman's number of 365, but we disagree with his number of 90 levels? It seems awfully convenient to use his words as "justification" sometimes, and as "lies" others.Originally Posted by Kumu Honua
I didn't say "why are we using time", I said "why are we using 365", versus some other number of days. Again, "because David Bowman used it" is not relevant to the game, or to what you or I think Ancient means. If we want to define Ancient by whatever David Bowman says, then why is there a thread on this? Let's just listen to David Bowman, and do whatever he says.How does it have any bearing on the concepts of commitment and dedication? Time is the very method used to judge commitment much of the time. The length of a relationship, the length of your career, how long you have lived at an address...
Ah, I see. So "because David Bowman said so" is meaningful justification. Okay, I see where we disagree now. There's no getting around that.No one has made any meaningful justification for that value? I have....about 6 times now. (There, an arbitrary number. Have a field day!)
I don't have the answers. The devs do. But I can define what the answers would look like if I did have the data. I can define the answers in terms of game mechanics and concepts of Ancient. Which I did.Fine. Give me your answers. I'm not going to whip out excel to try to determine what "Average" actually is based on how many worms are currently being eaten by trout on July 23rd 1987...
Merriam Webster defines arbitrary as "based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something". There's nothing intrinsic or necessary about 365 (versus 300 or 700) that has anything to do with the nature of Ancient in the context of the game. It's simply a number David Bowman once said.I don't think you know the meaning of the word arbitrary. The numbers have meaning. Wether you agree with the meaning is irrelavant.
I don't deny that all those points taken together help throttle the things we want to see filtered. I think they're a good idea. I think if you came up with them, you should be applauded. That's why my model stuck with those points -- levels, hoard, and age. Age-since-adult should have been in there, too, as it was originally, but at 3am, I left it out accidentally. All I'm trying to debate with you and everyone else is the rationale behind the number choices, but all I keep getting back are slights and beratements.With the 3 points, a sleeper dragon is defeated by the in game time. An afk dragon is defeated by creation time. A powerlevelled dragon is defeated by time since adult.
It's not slander when it's true. However, it's an insult when it's done in an rude tone. There are more diplomatic ways of saying the same thing, and since the previous thread was closed on account of insult slinging, I should think we would be more sensitive to that.It's not an insult when it's true. David Bowman has outright lied on several occasions.
Okay, that's fine, but why 180 now instead of 90? Simply because it's a greater deterrent for power-levelers, or is there some other meaning behind it? If you have a justification, please voice it, so it can be agreed with or disagreed with.How is it a valid number? You have me convinced. It should be 180. Half of your life should be spent as an adult.
Au contraire. I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- I don't care what the final requirements end up being, as long as there's reason and logic behind their selection. The reasoning for choosing 60 days, or 365 days, or 90 days, is fairly weak so far, as it doesn't seem to correlate to anything other than DB statements and player feelings. Show me correlations for those numbers, and I (and others who have simply been reading) might be persuaded.You know. The way you "Argue" would have me slap you in the head if we were face to face. Nothing has been arbitrary. They were simply not what you would like to see.
Is 120 going to be the new max once ARoP comes out or something? I've heard rumor of that, but haven't seen it verified yet.Even better. Lets call it 120/120 right now. That way it's another thing that "Qualifies" David's interview. No dragon currently meets the requirement because noone has 120 levels. Glad we agree!
Relax. According to the definition of 'arbitrary', 16 million is not. It is a round number based on the optimal hoard to achieve level 90 in the game. Level 90 was selected because it's "what David Bowman said", which, with the premise of being non-arbitrary, is sufficient justification. I personally don't think a quote from DB some months or years ago is valid justification for anything, but for the sake of argument, I went with it. It's possible DB used non-arbitrary means to come up with the number, but I haven't seen his reasoning behind 365 yet.Anyway, 12.5mil is mostly non-arbitrary, as it's based on game mechanics. The 'half' still sounds like it was chosen because of its roundness and ease. As it happens, 12.5 corresponds to about level 85 .. which is awfully close to the 90 number DB first put out. If we're going to use previously stated values as valid, justifyable numbers to work from (though I personally think that's not the best thing), then perhaps "16 million" would be good, as it's above what you need for 90th level. 15 and a third million is more clumsy to say -- it would probably be even smoother to just say "optimal hoard for 90th level". That way, if the hoard mechanism changes later on, you don't have to redefine the ARoP hoard requirements, since the definition is flexible enough to allow for such changes.
16 million is arbitrary! Just because it's easier to say?????!!!!OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!
Sorry, I couldn't resist. It was finally my turn.
Non-arbitrary does not mean non-precise. It means related to the intrinsic nature of something. In this case, related to the intrinsic nature of the game, of the pairing between hoard and character level. Related to. Related. And as I said, perhaps it's just easier to say "optimal hoard for level 90" -- precise, without being clumsy as with 25,333,333, and capable of being changed.We already agreed that it should be max/max, so that changes the hoard requirement to 25.5million (Oh wait, can't be arbitrary!) 25,333,333 hoard.
They may have a source. But that's not the same as 'meaning' in terms of Ancient or the game. If you consider "it's because David Bowman said so" to be sufficiently substantial, then we have nothing more to discuss.In about half the cases, I found the reasoning to be insubstantial, as I described above.To you, however they have reasoning wether you like it or not. I didn't pull numbers out of my ******, they all have meaning.
Untrue. Defining the requirements in terms of game mechanics and something tangible and repeatable and related to the intrinsic nature of the game is the definition of non-arbitrary. As opposed to "because it's about half".I already have, but since you kindly reposted, I will as well, and take the opportunity to clarify and expound in the process. Since I don't have actuals from the database, I'll use placeholders and define them:ARBITRARY! - defining placeholders is no different than me saying 60 days.
All I used were percents and averages. I believe that requires about a 6th-8th grade level of math understanding. Yes, there are some people in Horizons who won't be expected to understand percents and averages, but then again, there are many people in Horizons that don't know how to make a 3D model, but they use them all the time. Certainly the crafting system in the game is more complex, as it employs not only averages and percents but ratios and resource management.I'm sorry, your "Math" option is simply confusing to those that don't have the desire to decode it.
If you personally don't understand it, that's fine, but I'm pretty sure the devs would figure it out, as would the majority of the Horizons population. Had I used standard deviations, predictive algorithms, or population models, then I'd agree with you.
Is there something I can elaborate on that would help you to understand the model? Anything in particular you're confused about?
The queries can be made on a copy of the database, on a test server. And they don't even need to be made very often. Like I said, "whatever is practical." Taxing an already unstable database constantly would not qualify as "practical." The game is offline once a week for maintenance -- just add the query to that if it ends up being a taxing process and there's no test server available (a notion I find laughable).I can already see you trying to tax an already unstable database with queries to determine the requirements.
If it's a rolling requirement, yes, it would be evolving and changing and perhaps confusing. That's why I said it (the dynamic requirement mechanism) might be too unwieldy to implement. However, that doesn't denounce the core requirements -- if they're calculated once instead of evolving over time, they're still valid.Beyond that I see a convoluted evolving system that is just asking to be riddled with new bugs everytime something changes. I see a system that will cause confusion and frustration.
Simple. I would say "You can do the ARoP after at most 60 days, but possibly sooner."How the hell do you explain those sets of rules to someone that is not good at math? "You can do the Ancient RoP after 60 days, but don't quote me on that cause it can change next month."
Is that too complicated?
I was specifically referring to the mechanism of dynamic / changing requirements, not the initial determination.But this is probably too unwieldy, so perhaps it's best left as academic.And then you go and say the same thing...
Huh? I said "Why wouldn't you" in terms of "Why wouldn't you achieve the requirements", in response to your statement about "I'll qualify for nearly everything you throw out there." Stepping out of your own desires won't change the fact that you'll accomplish Ancient, before I do even. I never refuted that, but you've suggested on a number of occasions that I somehow have a personal agenda here to ensure that I can get there at the same time or even before you do, or before other super-dragons do. That's simply not the case.Sure, why wouldn't you? I don't think anyone's trying to come up with requirements specifically to prevent you from getting Ancient, but somehow allow them to. Least of all me. More power to you, I say -- you've put in more effort than most, after all (though Pharcellus has you beat, claws down, in terms of time [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-5.gif[/img]).Why wouldn't I? Because I am able to step out of my own desires. If I could get away with double the numbers I provided, I'd be happy to do so. Even though I would no longer myself qualify.
Then we have the same goal. We just have different ways of expressing it. The slights, the veiled insults, and apparent myopia are wearing me thin, however, so I will bow out of this discussion until it looks more like a debate and less like a fight. Which might be never.However, people like you who don't have extensive amounts of free time would simply be denied access. Great for me, but my goal isn't to kill the game for more casual players. My goal is to strike a balance between casual and manic, and to somehow have the people that don't actually PLAY their dragon to somehow simply be deleted from the database.