Ancient Ascension Video and Feeling about the ARoP
Late last night (or very early in the morning), I finally finished my ARoP. Thanks for everyone in the groups that helped me finish the Rift. Since some people were asking for it, I?ve captured the ascension transformation. You can download it here.
Filesize: 6.47 Megs.
Resolution: 800x600
Codec: Video: DivX 5.2 Audio: Mp3
Regarding the ARoP itself, I give it a mark of 60% (barely passing). Why? It has been nearly 2 years since the game was release. Dragons were incomplete, being completely revamped 2 weeks before the original release. A lot went missing; progression hampered. But we were told things would get better with Adult. Adults got there after much waiting, but it wasn?t perfect. The dragon changed, and the world changed too (there weren?t any 120-140 rated monsters back then). Result, dragons we still left behind and things would get fixed with the release of the Ancient.
So we waited and ancient came after 2 years. We get a huge quest, separated in 80 sub-quests. This was supposed to challenge us to earn the right of becoming Ancient.
Regarding the quests themselves, they were nice, but sadly, filled with plot holes and sometime annoyance. For example, the first part was fun, with the hunt those monsters, quite a challenge. However, Ancients were supposed to be a rare thing in the Lores, something that would not happens in burst. Therefore, any dragon should be able to do that solo. I have yet to see a normal adult (not a pet) being able to solo all of those monsters.
Part 2 and 3, were quite an annoyance. Flying left and right in all of horizons, doing errands for bipeds... Ancients were there before biped were in such numbers. How come a dragon working for ancienthood needs help from a biped to get ink and such trivial items such as water? How come does now we need ink to scribe spells while we?ve been scribing spells for 2 years without any inks? Some plot holes there. This kind of kill the fun of part two of the ARoP, if the constant lag from portalling left and right didn?t kill you first
Part 4, the rift, was the most interesting part. There are quite some challenging monsters and we had a few laughs with people falling. However, I find it sad the quest can only be done as it should once. The first runs were done with only adults. But after, if anyone wants to do the quest like that, they can forget it. Restricting the rift to the dragons having finished, or doing their ARoP, kind of kill the feeling of merit. When you?re forced to team with ancients to do the final part, where?s the challenge? I?ve been looking for adults ready to do the Rift and I could only find one. I had to take Ancients along, even though I didn?t want to. It is that, or stays an adult. Except for that, the Rift was nice.
What really rub my scales the wrong way is the ?reward?, for the lack of a better word. For such a big quest, we?re getting less than the original RoP. Dragons are mono-schooled. We don?t get multiclasses. All monsters over there are reflecting Biped ratings. Monsters with 120-140 rating and getting 16 points per level because they can?t multi-class are roaming the land. Yet, dragons are only getting 7-8 points per levels, because their template is a plain copy of the biped one. We get quest, but that only cover basic skill and don?t cover stats. So with ancienthood, having reached level 100 and unable to progress, we?re lacking over 200 points in nearly every skills and stats.
All we get for that is a mere 75, 50, 15 increases. That?s not even half of what we?re missing to be par with a NORMA, NON-MULTICLASSED biped. Tooth and claw, Primal are giving us 8 per level. A warrior is getting 10 in his skills. We should have gotten the balance with Ancient. But we didn?t and are still bellow the average of any biped. However, the HP increase is quite nice and sufficient.
What I have issues too with stats is how we now depends on Crystal to be an ?Ancient?. So our skill, our wisdom isn?t innate. It comes from a crystal? Nice plot hole and nice way to keep dragon relying on items rather than themselves.
Then comes the ?abilities?. What the heck is wrong with dev and Hoard? First we got hoard leak. It got removed and replaced with some basic abilities requiring hoard at affordable cost. No problem there, when you don?t lose ALL of your abilities for hoard based and especially when those abilities were BASIC abilities. Now, breath cost hoard, stun cost hoard, Rez coast hoard. What?s next, everything?
I would have minded if the cost were reflecting the abilities and were affordable: 5000 for a resurrection 1500 for a stun. Any tier 1 player gets those for free once they reached 20 levels. We just worked our cloaca up to 100 levels and we got to PAY what nearly simply multiclassed get. Sorry, but I have yet to see a biped willing to pay 5 silver for an AoE attack, 15 silvers for a stun (which any mage class can get, like root, or warrior class). And the Resurrection... 5000 for ONE ability is ridiculous. Ok, cleric gets a similar one at level 50 for free. We?re level 100 now. That?s 5000, or if you prefer, 50 silvers. Does anyone is willing to pay 50 silvers to be resurrected? We?re getting 2 penalities with that one: 5000 hoards AND a 1 hour timer. Keep one but not both, because it is ridiculous.
Dragons now TOTALLY depend on hoard with ancient. Our abilities now required hoard. Hour armor bonus now require hoard (the 133% armor increase is based on what the hoard gives us, not our scales). So unless you?re a level 100 hoard dragon, the 133% isn?t much an improvement. And what we got from the ARoP in increase still isn?t enough to allow us to LEVEL hoard. We burn it as fast as we use it.
For instance, I?ve hunted some mobs. After some time, I used for about 10?000 hoard, and only got one 16?000 reward. That?s impossible to hunt down 25 millions of hoard this way. Biped says it?s easy, because they can farms those same monsters. Dragons can?t, they were made to take only single target. And single target won?t give you plenty of hoards. Dev really need to review the hoard again. It?s sickening how unbalanced it is.
I just wish Ancient Schools would arrive soon so that we can play once more. Now that the ARoP is gone, the feeling of achievement is gone again. No crafting (thanks for the metal nerf dev, scale hoarding is now worthless). No adventuring with any progression.
My finale note: 60% (D-)
Originally Posted by Valornyx
