Ancient Rite of Passage

[Vahrokh]

Update from Unity: I talked with prominent dragons...

you know ... after so long time we are all 100/100 now since months. Capped. Paying since months without any novelty or reward in advancement we cannot have.


They are ALL extremely disappointed.

They (and me) all made 1 + 1: if any wussie can be ancient with mild requirements it means we will get nothing of value like it happened for adult RoP already.

All can do it = it sucks in reward.

This equation has already made some more 100/100 guys say me that they will quit since they are losing the only, last, long standing hope of become something worth playing.

Please David don't do this to us. We waited a year. Even payed 2 subscriptions in faithful waiting that we'd finally become "invited" and not "tolerated" (and because of gold rage, nothing else) in grouping because we are worth the effort.

We really deserve something for the huge effort.
If the concept is once again "make it easy for all so we can refrain giving away any worthy power" it's the last straw.
There is nothing else for us after this. If it again comes out mild, average, grey, muddy... better to really deal with it in the only way we can do.

Signed Vahrokh and several other dragons of my shard. Some told me they'll try and post here even if they don't know English.

[Firedragon]

We need to discuss another issue that is more important than the ARoP requirements: What do the players want ancients to be like?
By asking the devs to raise requirements for ARoP, we just might be asking them to raise the requirements to become an even bigger hatchling.
I have high expectations of what Ancients should be like, since Adult was a bit of a dissapointment.

Hence I have started this thread so that we can discuss what we would like to see:
http://community.istaria.com/Web/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=33200

From what I understand, some players are either staying or going based on the outcome of ARoP.

[Fireclaw]

I recall there was a poll over 6 months ago in which the voters decided that the most powerful characters in the game should be ancient dragons.

I too agree with Vahrokh: Many of us long-time dragon players have been playing our dragons now for a year in the hope that AE would finally fulfill the promise and make dragons what they are supposed to be. We were disappointed with adult ROP in that an adult dragon fought with virtually the same capability of the same level hatchling.

We want ancient dragons to be extremely powerful - the light at the end of the tunnel for having to put up with all of a dragon's disadvantages compared to a biped (weak at low levels, no multiclassing, mindless hoarding, etc.)

But the only way for AE to truly make ancients truly powerful is to make it very difficult to become ancient so Istaria is not flooded with hundreds of ancients. To do this the requirements to begin and complete ARoP must be high. I very much fear that the extremely tame requirements posted for ARoP will mean that the reward for completing it will be a colossal letdown, like with ROP. Essentially Ancient dragons will be just a bigger hatchling.
______
On another note: I am in favor of having a minimum crafter level rather than just having high craft skill requirements on ARoP quests. The problem is that with T4 and T5 techs out now, even a fairly low level dragon can probably get very very high craft statistics by obtaining or borrowing the proper set of skill boosting scales and using playerbuilt craft machines that give skill bonuses. Its fine for ARoP quests to have very high skill requirements, but I think there should also be a minimum crafter level requirement to even begin.

[Atolmyth]

Oh, so there is a real-life time since creation requirement in place - maybe my PM had something to do with that? I've kind of worn myself out with unloading my mental burden intomy PM to Amon regarding the ARoP so I really don't feel like transferring my views to here.

Let me say outright and firstly; I am a casual gamer - or rather was until only a couple of months ago when I started to 'regularly', for lack of better phrasing, to play HZ again - who has been around since the first day of the UK launch. I had only very limited play-time, something like only a couple of hoursnow and then on my hands plus I went into hibernationfor near half a year due to problems. Due to constanthindrance from bugs and other problems I have only just ascended to Adult status around a month ago.

I feel I am a good example of what one can manage with only a scarce amount of game-time i.e. a casual gamer and with that I reveal that I have only managed to scrape up 64 adventuring levels, 61 crafting levels and 530,000 Hoard Value, and let me remind you I have been playing HZ since launch... Donot think I am telling porkies.

Even the level 90/90 requirements posted here had me wincing, and when I see pleas here for the requirements to be set even higher I can't help but find myself seething. This was actually the main topic that I was addressing in my PM to Amon, what about casual gamers who if they probably looked upon this would be spitting acid?

If I had my own way I'd simply have a one year - or even higher - time since creation as the requirement - 3 months is far too low, why the dragon in my eyes wouldn't have the mental age of a whelp. Some say that there should be 'in-game' time included in the requirement too but I feel the one year real-life time would suffice enough, I mean there really isn't that many of the 'first day of launch' players sticking around anymore is there?

Sure, one could simply wait with a hatchling dragon until it would be old enough but really... would someone have a dragon sit in a state of inactiveness for one whole year as well as paying the subscription to do nothing just so they can have a character in which they'll 'really' start playing the game with after all that time? Somehow, I sincerely doubt it...

A very severe real-life time requirement would insure that ancient dragons will be a rarity, since you'd have to be pretty darn patient to wait one year for it, no matter whether the majority of the time you spend is in-game or not.

Think of the casual gamers, I severely doubt they'd be happy to see a 100/100/?14 million Hoard Value as well as a real-life time since creation requirement staring them in the face effectively screening them from their one goal and new source of joy or else there's no longer any point in playing. I, and others with a mere puddle of game-time - uch, my imagery sucks today... - are paying just as much as those of you or the 24/7 computer geeks that havea reservoir fullof the stuff... that easily attained 100/100 and goodness knows what hoard value some of you might've accumuluted long ago with the time you've got compared to mine or some other with a similar time allotment.

I want to be an ancient too, I ******** well have the age of one so why should I be barred from becoming an ancient, I no longer want to suffer from stunted growth like that of the time I had to wait to become adult. I say drop the level requirements and kick the real-life time requirement right up. The element of challengeand difficulty should be allocated toduring the questing process itself.

[Vlisson]

OK David

first you should discuss how many ancients you want to have on 1 server

if you want 60-80% of the dragons to become ancient then your requirements seem to be ok

but if you want to see ancients as very rare creatures with special power then you should decide requirements only 5-10% of the dragons can fullfill

ok ingame time can be cheated by beeing afk every night.

I would add some other requirements:

1) completed all adventure/craft dragon tasks till Quest Xy (insert lunus/helian part)

2) hoard 30.000.000 (but the problem is that some dragons used the xxgen and the mithril scale exploit)

3) lvl 100/100 to start the ARoP (or if you raise the dragon softcap earlier then raise it to 110/100 for lunus and 100/110 for helian)

[Fireclaw]

Oh, so there is a real-life time since creation requirement in place - maybe my PM had something to do with that? I've kind of worn myself out with unloading my mental burden intomy PM to Amon regarding the ARoP so I really don't feel like transferring my views to here.

Let me say outright and firstly; I am a casual gamer - or rather was until only a couple of months ago when I started to 'regularly', for lack of better phrasing, to play HZ again - who has been around since the first day of the UK launch. I had only very limited play-time, something like only a couple of hoursnow and then on my hands plus I went into hibernationfor near half a year due to problems. Due to constanthindrance from bugs and other problems I have only just ascended to Adult status around a month ago.

I feel I am a good example of what one can manage with only a scarce amount of game-time i.e. a casual gamer and with that I reveal that I have only managed to scrape up 64 adventuring levels, 61 crafting levels and 530,000 Hoard Value, and let me remind you I have been playing HZ since launch... Donot think I am telling porkies.

Even the level 90/90 requirements posted here had me wincing, and when I see pleas here for the requirements to be set even higher I can't help but find myself seething. This was actually the main topic that I was addressing in my PM to Amon, what about casual gamers who if they probably looked upon this would be spitting acid?

If I had my own way I'd simply have a one year - or even higher - time since creation as the requirement - 3 months is far too low, why the dragon in my eyes wouldn't have the mental age of a whelp. Some say that there should be 'in-game' time included in the requirement too but I feel the one year real-life time would suffice enough, I mean there really isn't that many of the 'first day of launch' players sticking around anymore is there?

Sure, one could simply wait with a hatchling dragon until it would be old enough but really... would someone have a dragon sit in a state of inactiveness for one whole year as well as paying the subscription to do nothing just so they can have a character in which they'll 'really' start playing the game with after all that time? Somehow, I sincerely doubt it...

A very severe real-life time requirement would insure that ancient dragons will be a rarity, since you'd have to be pretty darn patient to wait one year for it, no matter whether the majority of the time you spend is in-game or not.

Think of the casual gamers, I severely doubt they'd be happy to see a 100/100/?14 million Hoard Value as well as a real-life time since creation requirement staring them in the face effectively screening them from their one goal and new source of joy or else there's no longer any point in playing. I, and others with a mere puddle of game-time - uch, my imagery sucks today... - are paying just as much as those of you or the 24/7 computer geeks that havea reservoir fullof the stuff... that easily attained 100/100 and goodness knows what hoard value some of you might've accumuluted long ago with the time you've got compared to mine or some other with a similar time allotment.

I want to be an ancient too, I ******** well have the age of one so why should I be barred from becoming an ancient, I no longer want to suffer from stunted growth like that of the time I had to wait to become adult. I say drop the level requirements and kick the real-life time requirement right up. The element of challengeand difficulty should be allocated toduring the questing process itself.

I disagree. Ancient dragon is the final and most powerful stage of dragonhood. Ideally, a level 100 ancient dragon should be as strong as, or possibly even stronger than a biped character with multiple level 100s.

As such, Ancient dragons should not really be intended for the casual gamer just as bipeds with multiple 100s are not casual gamers. Rather ancient dragons should be something dedicated hardcore dragon players can aspire to as the ultimate symbol of dragon power. To have relaxed standards for ancient dragonhood would mean that very quickly well over half of the dragons you see online would be an ancient, which is NOT the way it should be. ROP is for the casual dragon gamers, while ARoP should be reserved for the dedicated dragon gamers. Of course, nothing's to stop a casual player from eventually meeting the requirements for ancienthood - but to do so casually without help should be expected to take a very long time (possibly another year).

Ancients should be rare and powerful - NOT common and mundane. Having ancienthood hard to attain means that AE would be justified in giving ancient dragons the power they should have. Something AE could not do if everyone was an ancient.

[evilkarl]

With the present requirement I suspect the ancient reward will suck.

[Larus-Fel]

all i can say is that if feels like i've played more then 54 days of in game time.. playing almost 13-18 hours of HZ a day.. to me doesn't feel like it.. but if the requirement is higher then 60 in game days played.. you'd prolly only see 1 dragon under that category[:$]
(just an assumption.... maybe 2 or 3)

[evilkarl]

There are several I know with 100+ in game time.
There would be many with less than that as well
A middle ground would be nice

[Vahrokh]

Just to demonstrate how dragons as are now are considered by other players, look at the following.

You see a guy asking for someone topowerlevel him to 60 (he cannot level alone any more - level 1 rating 100).

He asks for someone level 100 to powerlevel and will pay 1G.
Just to see the reaction when I "infer" that I am such a level 100.
Read his answer.

What he saysit is a dragon in a nutshell.
All know it's like that. And now we could risk staying like we are. That is not worth $4 of subscription (imho) since all I can do is ... chatting and watching the others do stuff while I regen off my double digits deathpoints gotten where the others breeze thru.

[Larus-Fel]

*shrugs* i get that all the time.. i only made a biped to save myself from using hoard to get items.. didn't wanna eat 1 million hoard in a day. kinda like when the crimson scourge first came out before merge.. (best fun ive had in game)

[Spellbound]

I personally feel the requirements should be 90/90 for both adventure and craft and at least 180 days since creation.

As for hoard,well there are many that have just given up totally on hoard. And I don't see the need to punish anyone for not having high hoard.

Some here want the high hoard requirements because they were able to amass a huge amount of hoard while we had the 1M vault capacity. There were many that did not get the benefits of that vault size and since it is now gone, leave the hoard out or at most, makeit 2.5M since RoP was 250K. 10 times the amount.

Please leave in game time out of this, while some people have no real life, some of us do.

Requiring both adventure and craft of 90 will demonstrate dedication to the dragon community imo. I will give an example, myself. I cannot speak the words to demonstrate how much I HATE crafting, yet I got determined and finally got my dragon to L100 craft.

[Dragonboy]

I must add a few remarks...

DB also stated that minimum level adults "probably wouldn't survive" ARoP, "because there are areas that are inaccessible to bipeds." This is simply not very realistic. First, Dragons doing ARoP will most likely be in groups with other dragons, so any weaker dragon would be protected by the rest. Second, there really is very little difference in survivability between a level 90 dragon and a level 100 dragon, especially given that AE has failed to add in adventurer ability quests up to level 100. The bottom line is that almost anything a level 100 dragon could survive, a level 90 dragon could also survive. Also, if those 10 levels really make that much of a difference, it wouldn't be that much of a problem for the powerleveled dragon to spend another few days at Elnath packing on more adventurer levels..

Only 1 way to prevent dragons from achieving Ancient at minimal requirement...
That is to make ALL adventuring a solo achievement, no help what so ever allowed by fellow dragons or bipeds...

200 days since character creation - One year since creation might seem more reasonable but that might be a bit too discouraging to newer hardcore players. I don't see why a dragon who has 60 days game time but only 250 days since creation should be less qualified for ARoP than a dragon with 365 days since creation, but only 10 days played.

45-50 days in game - If there is going to be a timer, there should also be an in-game timer. This is especially important for weeding out those who just want to powerlevel to ancient, from those who are actually hardcore dragon players. Of course, this won't prevent players from logging in their dragon before going to bed AFK, but combined with other requirement, should help to weed out the true dragon players from the quick powerlevelers.

Agree on both points... [Y][Y]

100 days since completing adult ROP (realtime-not game time) - additional protection to prevent dragon alts who were created long ago but never played from being suddenly powereleved to ancient once ARoP goes live.

This point I consider something not worth the effort of typing... [^o)]
This wont prevent any form of powerleveling, it willonly encourage the powerleveling from hatchling to adult and the few (myself included) that took things easy and didnt powerlevel themselves with MASSIVE help from their (guild)friends are now punished for this... Bad bad point indeed... [:S]

Hoard requirement: 5-10 million - Yes, hoard is a mindless waste of time, but building up hoard is a mark of dedication to the dragon class. Many dragons have been spending months building up hoard in the expectation that some hoard would be required for ARoP. However, at the same time I can see that perhaps AE's choice not to have a hoard requirement is in recognition of the fact that the present hoard system is less than satisfactory and AE is trying to decrease reliance on hoard.

Nice statement and I partially agree, but it would require some things to change with the whole hoarding system...
For example hoardable gems, higher HV on tokens and maybe on scales/spells aswell...
How is someone expected to build up hoard to 5-10 million with only obsidian scales at 288 hv per scale since Expert resource forms and/or scale forms are only for the rich at this moment since mostly biped players gather and sell them (or vielo of course)...

[Raptress]

Alright, here's my clichéd two copper:

At least a year since creation is whatI feel the requirement should be for time since creation, and I haven't even reached it yet.

There should be some sort of in-game requirement, just perhaps not as steep as some others suggest. I do havequite a bit of amassed play-time (but nowhere near the levels needed. I mess around too much.^_^), buteveryone does level at their own pace. I am one of the extremely slow, but there are some dragons I've heard of who created their account months after mine reaching 100/100 while Iam still at 53/64, even though I play quite a lot. In-game time should be at the very, very least ten days. Preferably 20-30. That shows dedidication to the character and even casual players should reach it eventually.

The levels I'm really not sure on. I would hate to split it into Helian -craft, Lunus - adventure, because there are crafting Lunus and attacking Helians. I think 90 should go for whatever your faction is 'supposed' to specialize in. But there should be at least a level 70-80 level requirement for the other side, whether that requirement is needed to get the quest or to complete it.

There should be some hoad requirement. But not unreasonable. I believe 1 million to be a fair amount, even though I am only at 400k or so myself.

I also agree that 100 days since adult form is a good idea, and I love the fact that there are some areas where bipeds will not be able to help.

[Leviathan]

Dave,

You would be wise to listen to the council of these elder dragons.

365 days should be a requirement. It would be a status symbol for when you see an ancient. someone who truly has been around. But more than that, would prevent Power Leveled dragons.

50 day in game to ensure that the person actually played the dragon would be another good safeguard.

100 days (real time) since Adulthood would further safeguard against power leveled sleeper dragons.

It all come down to this as the principle reason why everyone here wants this:


Someone who worked on thier dragon constantly and suffered through being gimped, and ridiculed, and an outcast in groups, now has a chance to be something powerful and respected. Allowing those without that sort of dedication to come in and powerlevel a sleeper dragon to ancient in a few months is an outrage and a slap in the face of those who suffered through dragonhood.

If you cannot understand this, then you truly do not understand your dragon players.I am glad you have posed the question here to ask us. It shows a sincere desire to not offend those who have worked so hard. I hope you take this advice to heart.

Regards,
Leviathan_spirit

[Spellbound]

Lev, how does 50 days in game time ensure that the player played the dragon? They could play a biped, then when they go to bed, login their dragon and leave it in game sitting there to get in game time.

And how does 365 days since creationhave any impact on PL'd dragons? There could be new players that just started 6 months ago, became Adult after 90 days of working their dragon in adventure and craft without being PL'd.

So you all want to make them wait another 6 months because we had to wait 1 year. IfARoP had been in the game when it came out 1 year ago, would you all still want 1 year? I would bet not. Why do I think this, simple, one month after Adult RoP people were screaming when is ARoP coming out, we want it now!

Ancient should be level based, requiring both schools at L90 takes care of both worries, thereis no super quick way to level craft. 180 days in game time, doubling what Adult required is more then sufficient and won't penalize the newer players to the game!

[Vahrokh]

How is someone expected to build up hoard to 5-10 million with only obsidian scales at 288 hv per scale since Expert resource forms and/or scale forms are only for the rich at this moment since mostly biped players gather and sell them (or vielo of course)...

Made 2M with 33 hoard value lightning bolt I when hoard self eaten itself.
Made 2M with irons scales
Made 4M killing hoardables
Made 4.5M with obs scalepacks
Made 1M with mithril wings

All having to work all days including some saturdays and sunday.

It's not that impossible. It's just dedication.
It's just what somehow I'd like was prized (i.e. stats or something).

[LaughingOtter]

First off, let me say I have a biped main with a dragon as my primary alt. I'm not presuming to speak as one who lives dragonhood, just as one whoenjoys being a dragon when the occasion arises.

David, you asked for people to give you their feelings and the reasons they feel that way. For me, it's simple. I think you should keep your word.

Some time back, you were asked about the requirements for ARoP. Your response was that 'no dragon in thegamemet the requirements' for ARoP. At that time, there were numerous dragons who were 100/100. There were dragons with maxed hoard and then some. There were dragons that had completed every available dragon task & quest.There were no dragons over a year old.

I concede that you may have been referring to another qualifier, the nature & existence of which has not been made known to the players. However, I don't think that's what you meant. I think you intended to make ARoP require one year since creation. I saw that as a promise, and Ithink it's the right thing to do.

I share theconcerns expressed here that the abilities gained will be directly proportional to the difficulty of the quest. I strongly urge you to share the exact details ofancient status, in private, under NDA, withseveral of the dragons who have posted here & expressed concerns. Make Kuma, and Varokh, and Akul, and Blue, and Silowyi (not to leave anyone out; you get the idea) happy, and you'll have something I think the rest of the community will embrace.

[Spellbound]

After reading all the replies in here and the last one by LaughingOtter, I think it would be best if AE did NOT do the ARoP.

Instead just add in new quest for dragons to up their abilities, get better scales, etc...

Why?Because ARoP will not appease everyone, there will be some that will like it and some will hate it no matter what AE does.

[LaughingOtter]

Why?Because ARoP will not appease everyone, there will be some that will like it and some will hate it no matter what AE does.

Please don't think I'm advocating design by committee. I think that would be a very bad thing. I *am* advocating that the development team get honest and informed feedback from the most dedicated of dragon apologetics.

AE cannot please everyone everytime. That's a given. That's no reason not to try to make the final version a thing to be proud of.