Ancient Rite of Passage Requirements

[Vahrokh]

I am almost fine with it but I'd lower the creation time to 300 days.
For the rest I am fine, IF all these locks mean something in the second part of the equation effort = reward.

Else, to play a watered down version of a puppy, a requirement of level 90 is even too high.

[rooth]

365 days since creation, 60 days in-game --

Let's consider for a moment the newcomer to Horizons. They're in the game store, they have the game in-hand, and it's been reduced to $19.99. They're thinking, "I heard about this game, I get to play a dragon in this game, that's cool." They turn the box over, and it says, "NOTE: to 'win' this game as a dragon, it will cost at least another $200 and at least 4 hours a day for a full year." How quickly is that potential player going to put the game back on the shelf?

We want content. We want quests. We want all sorts of stuff as dragons. It'll all mean nothing if this game continues to lose players. It's not just content, but population that makes the game interesting. Remember back when we were 8 big servers? We're now down to two, and there are fewer people active on Chaos than there were when I first joined Twilight 11 months ago. We have to consider the effect such a requirement, whatever it ends up being, is going to have on the commercial lure of the game. Maybe it's not much, but it should be considered.

90 days since RoP --

Whether it's 90, 180, or whatever, I think this is a fine idea. This will help curb the power-leveling problem quite a lot. Not completely, nothing's perfect of course, but it would be substantial. I'd be really disappointed if I saw a dragon spend only a week or two as an adult before achieving Ancient. It Just Isn't Right. ;)

Level requirements --

As has been stated before, the requirements to start the quest don't imply certain requirements to finish the quest. I think with the lack of ability quests after 90, there's not much difference between 90/90 and 100/100. I can't speak for the content of the ARoP, of course, but I suspect there will be plenty there to keep a 90cra/10adv busy for a very very long time. 100/100 finishing requirements sorta makes sense, since that's the current cap -- but if the cap grows to 120/120, should it be raised to that?

12.5 million hoard --

Sure, there should be somewhat of a hoard requirement. My only problem with any hoard requirement is that there have been several hoard exploits over the past 365 days, and some people have 80 million hoard resulting from very minimal 'dedication'. Also, with the thinning ranks of characters in the game, it's a lot harder to find ways to power-hoard (if you can call it that). So that means doing it yourself, and with the rearrangement of resources and dragon caves in the game, it takes a lot longer to do that. So, by extension, any legitimate hoarder at this point would easily meet the 60-days in-game requirement, since it would take at least that long to get 12.5 million hoard. ;) But the illegitimate hoarders would have no problem with this.

"All the current requirements mean is that everyone will be an ancient dragon 1 week after it's released." Umm, I'd have a hard time reaching 90th level in a week. A real hard time, and I'm already 60/55. Why? It's hard to power level when there's hardly anyone around to level you! ;) I wouldn't do it anyway, out of respect for the game, but I think saying "everyone will be" is a bit of a broad statement. You're comparing it to adult RoP, and yes, people got to adulthood "pretty fast", but power leveling to 30/30 or so is a lot easier than powering up to 90/90. Yes, I know, they said "only 90 in one class to qualify for ARoP", but what they didn't say is what's needed to /finish/ ARoP. Recall that there was a fair gap between starting RoP and finishing RoP. If that's any indication, ARoP's finishing requirements will be a lot higher than just "level 90 in one class".

I think many old dragons are wanting the requirements to be high, so that only they can be first, and everyone else has to wait while they coast around being unique for a while. By the time ARoP comes out, I'll have met that 365 day creation requirement (so I 'suffered' through all the same things the other 'ancients' did -- RoP bugs, hoard decay, etc), but I'll be behind in the other requirements. I've only been able to manage 2 3/4 hours per day, on average, mostly thanks to work-related travel keeping me away from the game for weeks at a time. But I've been very dedicated otherwise, and I have no alts at all. I'd feel slighted if I had to wait another few months due to some arbitrary '60 day in-game' requirement.

To sum up:

I've soaked more than $150 into this game, been playing it since February, I play it every chance I get, and I only play my dragon. A better player than me could have met those level and hoard requirements already, no problem (I know of at least one who will, by the time they catch up to me in creation-time, and he's equally opposed to power-leveling). I accept that--I goof around some, I do charity work for hatchlings, I mule for plot builders sometimes, I sometimes do all that stuff that cuts into my efficiency. But, even if I had played with much greater efficiency in the ~40 days I've been connected, I could meet everything but the 60-day in-game requirement. Why is all that not enough to qualify for Ancient?

Put another way: suppose you're in a room with a dozen or so dragon-players who've been in the game for 40 days, were created over a year ago, have 20 million hoard, and maxed out both crafter and adventurer levels without power-leveling. That's an accomplishment. That's really impressive. What would you say to them to assuage their frustration at having to wait another month before they can become Ancient?

[imported_Sablisk]

I dont understand why thier is so much "eletism" involved in so many aditudes towrds ARoP.

Playing a dragon is seriously limiting as it is why make it any worse ?

[evilkarl]

I dont understand why thier is so much "eletism" involved in so many aditudes towrds ARoP.

Playing a dragon is seriously limiting as it is why make it any worse ?

Rather simple. if the requirements are too low the reward will be worthless

[Larus-Fel]

and once again someone things AROP will suck because of the low requirements,.. once again... all heresay.. only people saying it'll suck are people that dont believe in the work that AE has worked on for AROP i think the requirements are just fine.. i could care less about the casual gamer, or the hardcore gamer.. a gamer is a gamer.. you still play the game, and you still play for the game. theres no "special" treatment that you guys think you are referring to.

[rooth]

Yeah, that's part of it. If the requirements were, say, "50s", you gotta figure that the benefits of Ancient-ness would be pretty pathetic. And dragons are pathetic enough as it is. ;) So, the notion is that if the requirements are decently high, perhaps even extremely high, the benefits of Ancient-ness will be proportionally awesome, and that'll make up for the many hours, days, levels, etc, of being relatively inferior to every other race and class.

That's the technical part. The 'elitism' is really just 'value for my money' -- the ARoP should be hard to get, and even harder to finish. It should be fun and challenging at the same time, and should be something fairly special, because it's the ultimate accomplishment for the dragon character. EDIT: There's really nothing left for a dragon to do after achieving Ancient, other than to fly around and feel important. :)

Some of the posts have been very heavy on the RP side, such as "the dragon should be old and wise, knowledgable of the land, respected among the other races," etc. Well, the problem is, there are two servers, one RP, one non-RP. Can't really have different requirements for the different servers. I think the RP server in one way puts more emphasis on the importance and specialness of Ancient status, and thus drives the requirements up, while the non-RP server is littered with powerlevelers and exploit exploiters, arguably more so than the RP server, so that, too, is driving the requirements up. Net result: high requirements.

There are downward pressures as well, such as what Sablisk mentioned -- playing a dragon is already limiting, why not improve it? Other downward pressures are like those marketing ones I mentioned in my previous post.

All these pressures must balance for a net positive outcome. There will be a bunch of people disappointed with the end result -- that's unavoidable. It would be nice to minimize that, though, if possible.

[Jaraiden]

Edited from the topic locked by Peaches. Remember all, no insults.

Level 90 in either craft or adventure

There seems to be a misconception that just because someone can receive a quest means that they will be able to complete a quest. I've listed the requirements to receive the quest. I believe any Dragon attempting the Ancient Rite of Passage with ONLY the minimum requirements to receive the quest will die. But they will be able to see what they need to be able to overcome the challenge.

It should be level 100 in either, but matters little as the challenges will need the extra 10 levels to make up for lacking stronger abilities from ability quests that have not been completed to level 90 or 100 (most stopped at level 70, twoat 40). Besides, most dragon ability quests can be received at the minimum level, but cannot be completed without a biped and/or dragon group or being a higher level.

Also, to be consistent, dragons will be crafting another mirror and statue (Travertine vs. Obsidian, Marble vs. Granite) and phylactery. So high crafting levels will be required anyway to work withthese or other materials.

(Parts of the quest are not accessible by bipeds, so biped assistance will not be available.)

Why not make it dragon only? A dragon community event by your own words for a hatchling's Rite of Passage to adulthood would be nice to see for adults seeking to become Ancient. Really, should dragons continue to depend on the overwhelming might (fighting and healing) of bipeds? Such reliance really taints the efforts of the dragon race to thrive and counters lore. From relying on bipeds to pass the Kill X quests of the hatchling's "Become a True Lunus/Helian, buffs and using their machines in the field to craft more efficiently, to attending their auctions to buy formulas and techniques, to grouping to enjoy tier V content, . . .

How much more should the dragon race continue to rely on the other living races?

Dragon players already derive minimal enjoyment from the lastest biped focused content additions (added plot functionality, Crimson Scourge jewelry, Engagement Ring, more blighted item variety, etc.). Certainly this will make up for most of that.

100 days since creation

I've heard that 100 days is too few for some of you. Some have even proposed specific numbers. Please share your reasoning behind any proposed time lengths so we can take that into account as we continue to develop the ARoP.

By your own words in a July interview it should be at least 230 days. Listen to the dragon players- 365 days is better.

Check the dragon character files. How many sleeper dragons are there that have been created long ago, but not played. Really, there would likely be a sudden rush of hatchlings or adults to be powerleveled and/or powerhoarded to and through adult levels.It is showing now on the servers. Then sleep more (if needed) for that 100 days as they play a biped character (and possibly mule over to their dragon character).

Leveling is so much easier due to tropies and experience leaching. So crafting and building hoard takes time, but players can easily get around those due to game mechanics. Already, I'm seeing hatchlings with marble tools in their hoard. It will only get more prevelant to feed player desires to meet adult and Ancient requirements faster . . . . thus less effort = less dedication.

Adult Rite of Passage complete

Obviously. The hatchling RoP is mainly a time sink since bipeds can power a hatchling to and through the tasks. Many hatchlings on the Lunus path rely SO much on biped might to finish the tasks so they get (not earn) their wings to fly. Helians to a lessor degree (but Lunus tasks are easier than Helian). However players are taking advantage of AE's game mechanics and thus we see many level 30 adult dragons knowing full well they were mostly ineffective in fighting for their own ability to attain adulthood.

Most dragon players that favor the RP of a Lunus dragon (and many Helian) would rather not see this continue.

We are all excited by what we've discussed today, and after we've done our next review we'll let you know more of the details.

I'm interested in discussion, that is why I posted here.

What is your feedback on the numerous posts in related topics that you and/or your staff did read? Why is that not evident in the "requirements" you posted? Just an observation.

What are the in game playing time requirements? Certainly you want the player to enjoy playing their hatchling and also enjoy playing their adult dragon. To fight effectively as a dragon, not as a pet of bipeds (relying on biped buffs all the time). At least 50 game days should be considered.

What are the hoard requirements? Level 90? To be consistent as a hatchling needs level 30 hoard for that Rite of Passage? However, with the current challenge AE has in providing hoard drops for the Lunus dragons, it should be closer to what others have posted, around 10 million hoard.

Just to re-emphasize. Make this a dragon only series of quests. Make sure the reward matches the player's effort (in gaining adventure levels with unfinished abilities, crafting levels with no scaleforge in the field, hoard with insufficient drops and mindless hoardcrafting, and completing the quest to become Ancient mostly solo and/or with fellow dragons. And finish the race to match lore and AE's original design (per Official Strategy Guide) so adult dragons can have an enjoyable playing experience and not feel a rush to attain Ancient status to enjoy Horizons' content.

[Vahrokh]

I won't have peace until I'll meet two ancients doing what I posted in

http://community.istaria.com/Web/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=35065

Nothing less.

Two _average_ (i.e. not the rating 180+ or the rating 150+ players that my shard has in increasingly big numbers) bipeds were able to kill before my agape face lots of mithril boulder golems PLUS Mhedon like honey.

I could not even talk when I saw the very mobs that shred me into pieces or even single shot me being done like I can do the golems 50 (i.e. you pull an entirespawn and then kill all). Only difference, I survive doing mobs half of my level. Those players survive doing mobs that would kill me when in > 2, figures when in 10 plus Mhedon).

But unlike most bipeds who are 4 x level 100, I have 130 days of played game (double of them) and effort spent and still I suck awfully compared to anyone of them.

So, how such an achievement would reflect on ancient requirements?
After what I saw today... I don't even care any more.

Modern fighters need nowadays considered basic features like detox self, cleanse andde-stun (with blighted jewels). And all those I know, but really all have Dark Cyclone (I made it for them), perfect spell, multicast, 3 teched V improved revitalize V. Most have cloak of thorns and improved spirit bolt V with 3 techs V (again I made them a lot).

I cannot even start to believe that dragons will ever get anything distantly comparable to what all the others get by spending a week raising an ancillary class.

So in the end, any requirement is worthless, because it's the reward that won't come any way.

130 in game played days wasted in the closet. This is being ancient.

[evilkarl]

Modern fighters need nowadays considered basic features like detox self, cleanse andde-stun (with blighted jewels). And all those I know, but really all have Dark Cyclone (I made it for them), perfect spell, multicast, 3 teched V improved revitalize V. Most have cloak of thorns and improved spirit bolt V with 3 techs V (again I made them a lot).

Only druids and rangers have CoT. Only people who play those classes as their active will be able to use CoT. Only Priest classes have DC and only druids, shamen and storm discs ,guardians get enough nature skill to cast it. Rangers if they spend tps.

Detox self, cleansing and heals I will agree are needed and its ashame dragons can not tech breezes with cleanse.

Back OT
I don't doubt the effort and work AE have/will put into the AROP. I just don't want to see level 90 ancient dragons in the same way I dont want to see level 30 adults. I hope the rewards are far greater and there are few or no powerleveled ancient dragons.

[Vlisson]

i dont want to sound arrogant but i remember the adult rop

ive been a lvl 82 hatchling and craft 0 Dragon when the Rop started, i had to craft to get hoard and the needed craft skills

but i hear like yesterday the cries of all lvl 15 hatchlings in my ears

woohoo i will never reach it, ******** high hoard req......

and now all are adult, ok they needed 1 month to get there but they are all adults now

i want the Ancient Rop to be real high, real terrible to achieve. I want toget proud if i get there. Ok how can a casual player be satisfied too? He should not play a dragon [;)]

But if a minority wants to get the causal players ancient too then i agree to Kumu: make a suggestion and dont cry!!!

all ingame requirements can only be done by statistics! lvl / hoard / ingame time / time since creation / help from bipeds

do you want to add an dragon test? how to be a real dragon? an rp test?

my personal view: make the ARoP difficult as possible else we get a flood of Ancients!

[rooth]

How about they simply make the note say: "Note: Dragons are pathetic wastes of time. You can 'win' this game as a dragon in less than two weeks. Might as well pick up WoW while you are here."

What good is that going to do for the longevity of this game.

So, are you agreeing, or disagreeing, that marketability and game longevity are issues that should be considered when setting Ancient requirements?

There were NEVER 8 big servers, and they were ghost towns. You could hunt nearly anywhere in the world and never meet another player unless you were in the "Wolves or Marrows".

Perhaps Twilight was different than all the rest, then. I only ever played on the one server, so I can't be sure, but for the first 4 months or so, the place was packed. Heck, even when Zymosis was implemented, it was a madhouse. I spent hours and hours doing nothing but curing people with the help of half a dozen other dragons--it must have been a lot easier to keep that disease in check on the other servers if they were so empty.

How many servers were there, if not 8?

You seem to believe that simplicity is a good thing to have to draw in new players.

Perhaps I misrepresented myself. I meant only to assert that there's a balance to achieve. No one who is interested in picking up the game to play a dragon will do so if it will take them longer than the game's expected lifetime to achieve. Not even the most dedicated would waste their time with it. Likewise, not even the most casual player would bother picking up the game if they knew it only would entertain them for a few hours at best. Somewhere in between those two extremes is the sweet spot for setting ARoP requirements, with the dragon fans in mind. This thread is an attempt to identify the rough edges of that sweet spot. With that tool, the devs can decide the specifics.

All that does is draw in temporary players. They need committed players. A slew of new players doesn't matter one bit if they are all gone in two weeks after acheiving the pinnacle of Dragonhood. However, with a 1 year goal set before them, they have something to work towards. This gives AE 1 year worth of income for every Dragon they end up recruiting.

I understand your point. If all we want to attract are the dedicated, hard-core gamers that see 1 year of play as a valuable return on a $200 investment, then you're right on the money. However, I think that is such a tiny audience, it would be insufficient to fund the product for any decent length of time. There needs to be balanced appeal to the more general, more casual audience, as well. If 12 people only play the game for a month, that's equivalent to 1 person playing it for a year. If you have a feature in the game that attracts vast quantities of short-term players for a month or two, without sacrificing the value of the game for the long-term players, that's a good thing.

Maybe it's enough that Adult RoP is there for the short-timers, with ARoP there for the long-timers. But if ARoP req's are set so extreme that they exclude all but a few, what good is it?

90 days since RoP --

This requirement is the least effective powerlevel inhibitor. This one is there more for "Realism" than as an obstacle.

Realism has a place in the game, does it not? I mean, it's a fantasy game, sure, but there are things like gravity and day cycles and a semblance of an economy and such.

Without an age requirement between Adult and Ancient, what's there to stop a dragon from power-leveling their way to Ancient? Suppose someone creates a level 1 dragon, and leaves their computer connected for 60 days, while they play a real biped or something on another computer. Then they sit down and decide to play the dragon. In "2 weeks" (or however long it takes to power up to the level and hoard requirements), they could get as high as Ancient. Wouldn't the age requirement between Adult and Ancient be sufficient to prevent that scenario?

It seems to me that neither connect-time nor age are, alone, sufficient to deter power leveling. The two of them together are a little better than either one of them alone, but are still insufficient. The core problem, I think, is power-leveling. And the only way to stifle that is to induce artificial, arguably unrealistic time requirements for each character level achieved.

Yes, yes, we have all heard that before. However, why not simply make the requirements 100/100 and get it overwith. This way there's no "Level 30 Adult" style ancients. As for the level cap being raised to 120. If I had my way, the requirements would be 120/120. In fact, that's a darn good idea. You have convinced me.

I thought you said no one opposed to high requirements has offered up alternatives that you liked? ;)

So, set the ARoP starting requirements to "whatever the current max is in the game", right? I might be okay with that, unless they implement a system that is unlimited. Then you have to set a limit somewhere, or else there won't be any Ancient dragons, ever. ;) The only thing that concerns me about max/max is that there's nothing left to do in the game one you're done with the ARoP. When/if I achieve Ancient, I would prefer it if it helped me in my further adventures in the game, and wasn't purely an end-game condition. Getting /use/ out of my ultimate achievement is important to me, and it is for this reason that I would want the ARoP requirements, when it comes to level, to be less than max/max level.

BTW - if you set the level/level requirement to max/max, wouldn't you also need to adjust your connect-time requirement? If it was 60 days for 100/100, what would you change it to for, say, 120/120? Or would you change it at all?

The fact that there were exploits has absolutly ZERO bearing on the requirements.

Power-leveling is an exploit. It has a huge bearing on the requirements, or we wouldn't be having this discussion. How is exploiting hoard bugs any different?

The fact that you qualify my 60 days in game time requirement because a legitimate hoarder would have reached that qualification at the same time as the hoard requirement further adds power to my arguments. A legitimate player will meet these requirements simply by PLAYING a dragon. That was the whole point of it.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. Sure, I will be at 60 days, probably well beyond that, by the time I have the hoard and the levels. But not in time to start ARoP with all the other old-timers. What I meant to say was that there are legitimate, non-power-leveled, non-hoard-exploiting characters out there that would meet all the other requirements in 40 days. They've PLAYED their dragon, as you say. But they would still fall far short of your 60 day limitation.

I guess what I'm getting at is -- any in-game connection/time requirement should match, or at least reflect the minimal amount of dedicated, non-cheating time it takes to meet the other requirements which are not directly based on time. You think it's 60 days, based on half what you've put in, which is what you think is a good round number to indicate 'dedication' -- I think it's 40 based on what I've seen other dedicated players do without cheating.

Another way of looking at it is this: start with a 60-day in-game requirement, and nothing else. Someone (a Game Theorist, a statistician, a group of players, etc) could then figure out what's the most someone could legitimately achieve in that timeframe, and set the other requirements based on that. Making the time requirement longer than that only becomes an unnecessary burden for the pure, efficient, expert players who have accomplished everything else.

The in-game time shouldn't be a chore. It shouldn't be a burden. It should be a matter of course. You derived 60 days by taking your own time and dividing it in half. That doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the requirements, it's simply arbitrary. If the other requirements are set based on what can reasonably be done in 60 days, then that would be a complete, non-arbitrary package. If you take the opposite approach--if the time requirement is derived from the amount of time it would reasonably take to do the other requirements--then that, too, would be a complete package.

As an example: set the time to 60 days. Figure it takes about 15 solid days to get up to 100th level adventurer, without power leveling. Figure another 15 days of crafting. (these are guesses -- it's hard for me to say how long it would really take for an expert, dedicated, focused player, since obviously I've accomplished far less than those levels in the same amount of time). If all you want to set is level/level/hoard, then that leaves 30 days left over. How much hoard could you manage, without power-hoarding, in 30 days? Whatever it is, that should set the hoard requirement, and complete the package. Then the time requirement only becomes a burden to people who cheat. If you throw in some sort of age requirement, or connect-time requirement, between Adult and Ancient, that would figure in here as well, but I won't construct an example with it, since you're so strongly opposed to such an age-requirement thing.

Yes, it's a broad statement and it's also an exaggeration. I'm sorry that it wasn't obvious to you.

That's okay, apology accepted. They need to come up with a smiley of some sort, to indicate sarcasm. ;)

Comparing it to the Adult RoP is simply because they bear similarities. Simplicity. We know what happened when the Adult RoP was released with such puny requirements. There were adults less than 24 hours after release, and everyone and their brother created a dragon alt and powerlevelled their way to adulthood. Seeing an adult dragon is nothing special because everyone is an adult dragon. Today, I'm more impressed when I see a hatchling. With the current requirements for Ancient, the same thing will happen.

If the requirement is set to X days connect, and Y months of age, then Y months from the implementation of ARoP, every dragon will be Ancient, and the same thing will happen all over again.

I see this a lot, and it makes me mad. My reasons are plainly set. I tell you exactly why I want them high. I could set them to twice what they are now, and noone would meet the requirements. Would that help ease your mind? No, because I will still reach that level before you because I have been here from the beginning. That's a side effect from a time requirement.

I think you're reading too much into what I'm saying. Even by the existing, lvl 90 requirements--which I never argued against--it will be at least several weeks past ARoP implementation before I qualify to even start it, much less finish it. I'm only level 60. And it takes me a full week to go up one level (whatever that amounts to for in-game time, I haven't been keeping track of that). I have no delusions about being able to be the first Ancient, or even in the first batch of Ancients. And I don't personally care if you end up being #1 or #10. I'm concerned about the game's viability as a competing product, I'm concerned about balancing game quality with expense, I'm concerned about pleasing as many people as possible, while irritating as few as possible.

If I had an agenda here, I'd say set the requirements to 60/55, and the time requirements to 331/33. But even if I wanted that, there's no way I could justify it, since I've seen people get to 75/75 in as many days. What, we should cater to the less efficient players? Why? At a stretch, I could say that it encourages more community involvement, or rather, doesn't discourage against it. But that's horribly weak.

I look at it this way -- the higher the requirements, the more time they'll have to fix the inevitable bugs before I get started on it. :) Hmm, though with Adult RoP, bugs were introduced later that made it quite impossible to get through. I finished it in the nick of time, two months or so after it debuted.

The exact opposite of that argument can also be said. The people that don't qualify are happy with the requirements because they know they are pathetic, but that means that they qualify and they have no ability to reach a goal.

Lost me on that one. "The people that don't qualify .. qualify." ? Anyway, as pathetic as the requirements are as currently written, I know plenty of dragons who wouldn't qualify even a month from now. Certainly there are more that wouldn't qualify than those that would. Especially if you don't count the inactive folks.

Please for the love of all that is holy, submit an alternative that makes Ancienthood something to respect that is not easy to accomplish, and is difficult for "Powerlevellers" to get through. Anything. Not one person who is against high requirements has said one thing that would help. Nothing. If you could submit an alternative I would be ecstatic to consider that alternative.

Well, for example, you've shot down the Adult Age requirement idea, several times, without really giving a reason why. Just saying "it doesn't stop powerleveling" isn't really anything of substance. Could you tell us why you think it's "least effective"?

(....rooth's summary of his accomplishments, and question about why they're insufficient for Ancient status...) Why is that not enough? I don't know. Give me a good reason to change the numbers. I personally have over 120 days. I chose 60 days because it's 4 hours a day which is a number halfway between casual and manic.

Assume for the sake of argument that ARoP starts at 90/whatever, and can't be finished until 100/100. How many days of connect-time did it take you to reach 90 in one class? How many days of connect-time did it take you to reach 100/100? Assuming you're a hard-core, dedicated, very efficient player, which by all accounts so far is an accurate description of you, then that value should set the minimum connect time required. If you didn't note your connect times when those events happened--which is quite understandable 'cause you had no way of knowing what the ARoP reqs would be--then extrapolate. You probably know the stats of your 100/100 event--that would be the end goal, the time requirement to complete ARoP. Maybe it's 60 .. maybe it's 50, or even 40. Or even 70. Maybe a statistical analysis would be in order -- do it on the number of days it took all current 100/100 dragons to get to 100/100.

Put another way: suppose you're in a room with a dozen or so dragon-players who've been in the game for 40 days, were created over a year ago, have 20 million hoard, and maxed out both crafter and adventurer levels without power-leveling. That's an accomplishment. That's really impressive. What would you say to them to assuage their frustration at having to wait another month before they can become Ancient?

What would I tell them? I'd tell them to wait till they earn it. I'd tell them that when they do reach the requirements they will feel the accomplishment. They will know that they earned it instead of it having been handed to them on a platter because they were able to power their way through it...

It sounds like you're saying that even if someone legitimately accomplishes everything else in 40 days, it would still be "you haven't earned it yet" ... it would still be "handing it to them on a platter" if they were awarded with Ancient right then, instead of in 20 more days of connect time. Why should they feel more accomplished after sitting around idle and bored for 20 more days than they did at day 40? What's so impressive, so respectful, so awe-inspiringly cool and accomplished about an extra 20 days of game time under their belts? Seems rather vapid to me.

PS - Did you really put in 120 days of game-time in the past year? That's, like, as much time as the average person sleeps in a year. Wow, that's astounding!

[rooth]

Okay, here's the thing. ARoP is being implemented rather late in the game, so to speak. As a result, there are a lot more people who would qualify for it now than would have qualified at the start of the game (0). That's obvious. The only way to make it equivalent is to set the requirements higher than the most advanced dragon in the game on all servers, but then you get into bell-curve and exception problems.

So, since we don't want a flood of Ancient dragons running around, especially after what we experienced with Adult RoP, we're now all trying to set the requirements to prevent that. It's completely different than if we were trying to set the requirements up-front, such as at the start of the game, or after a complete and total db reset. (which isn't out of the question, btw, but I won't go there).

Since that's the main issue--avoiding an Ancient Flood--the question that must be answered is: "What constitutes a 'flood', and what would be an acceptable non-flood?"

Would it be considered a 'flood' if 10% of the 'dragon population' qualified to start ARoP as soon as it was implemented? Is it 5%? 1%? 20%?

What am I getting at? Consider these steps to calculating the ARoP requirements such that we accomplish the main goal: avoiding the RoP's flood-problem.

1. Determine what fraction of the population being Ancient makes a 'flood'. Let's say, for the sake of argument, we all agreed that having more than 1 in 10 dragons be Ancient is a bit much. So, 10% or more of the dragon population instantly qualifying for starting ARoP would be considered a 'flood'. We'll call the dragons that fall into this 10% range "Old".
2. Determine the average in-game time of all Old dragons.
3. Determine the average character age (time since creation) of all Old dragons.
4. Determine the average Adventurer level is of all Old dragons.
5. Determine the average Crafter level is of all Old dragons.
6. Determine the average hoard value is of all Old dragons.

These steps could be computed by a 'simple' DB program. Now, derive starting and finishing requirements for ARoP, and let the devs fill in the content:

1. Starting time requirement: #2 and #3 above. Not really feasible to come up with a minimum finishing time requirement, unless you want to require some minimum time spent to complete ARoP. In which case, just add the appropriate time to #2 and #3, and you have finishing requirements.
2. Starting hoard requirement: same as #6 above.
3. Finishing hoard requirement: none. For fun, make it the same as #2--use any hoard during your quests, and you have to backfill it before you finish ARoP. ;) This would be much more fun if there were some hoard drops during the ARoP quests.
4. Starting level requirement: the lower of #5 and #6. You only need to meet it in one of your classes, to start the ARoP quests. This gets you going and involved early, and makes teaming up with other dragons easier, thus reducing the reliance on bipeds.
5. Finishing level requirement: the greater of #5 and #6. You need to meet this level in both classes to finish ARoP.

There. Cold, calculating, not really tied to any RP or story, but it prevents the flood. Using the example of 10% of the population being considered "Old", less than 5% of all dragons (less than 50% of all "Old" dragons) would qualify for ARoP right out of the box. Less than 5%? Yes, 50% of all "Old" dragons will be above average in any particular category, by definition. It's most likely that some of those will not be above average in all categories. So, less than 50% of all "Old" dragons (or less than half of 10% of all dragons, aka less than 5%) will be able to start ARoP right way, based on these calculations. That's one in twenty.

Assume it take 72 in-game hours to finish ARoP, due to travel or stupid timers or what have you. We wouldn't see our first Ancient until 3 days after ARoP was implemented, at a minimum. If you assume 8 hours of play a day, Ancients would start trickling through after about a week and a half, and after 3 weeks (4 hours per day), the above-average "Old" dragons would have finished ARoP. Thus, assuming everyone puts in an average of 4 hours a day, 5% of the dragon population is Ancient after 3 weeks. Almost all the "Old" dragons would be done after .. oh .. probably 1.5-2 months.

Which leaves the other 90% of the dragons still working on ARoP after two months of release. Only the most dedicated Adult dragons would have entered into the Old category by then, backfilling the Olds that have left. After another 2 months, 10% would become 15% or so, and so on.

That, I think, is a good draft procedure for how to craft the ARoP requirements while meeting the common denominator -- keeping Ancient from spreading too fast.

Still think it's too fast? Then your set your preferred definition of "Old" or "flood" to be less than 10%. Is it too slow, too restrictive? Set your definition of "Old" higher than 10%. Remember, the sample data is coming from the pool of all dragons--this will include all the 'sleepers', which might artificially depress the requirements. If there was a good solid way of excluding 'idle' characters, that would probably be useful. You'd have to change your definition of 'dragon population' in that case, but so be it.

Here's an interesting side-effect to this procedure -- it works just as well for non-dragon RoP's. Elf, half-giant, dryad, human, whatever! In fact, if you wanted to rewrite the Dragon RoP, all you'd have to do is tweak that 'flood percentage' -- make it like 50%, or 60% instead of 10%, and viola, all the other req's naturally precipitate, and are naturally proportional to the ARoP quest.

If you want to throw in an age requirement, simply figure out what the current proportion of Adult to Ancient is in terms of level, hoard, and time averages. That is, throw in a .. a step 7, that says "Calculate the average time Old dragons have been Adult." Keep in mind that every one of these things thrown in will reduce the fraction of Old dragons that can start ARoP immediately, and will also increase the amount of time it takes for the other dragons, Old and Adult alike, to reach the ARoP qualifications.

I've spent far too much time on this topic now -- my adult dragon needs some work, so I'm going to give him some time, and go to sleep. ;)

Cheers,

[Vesuvius]

Yes, yes, we have all heard that before. However, why not simply make the requirements 100/100 and get it overwith. This way there's no "Level 30 Adult" style ancients. As for the level cap being raised to 120. If I had my way, the requirements would be 120/120. In fact, that's a darn good idea. You have convinced me.

Or make it 100/100 and open upprestige dragon only 'schools' post 100 that are ancient only. An adult could still progress the standard dragon school to 120 if they wished.

[Sharduk]

What an excellent analysis , Rooth.

Thanks
Sharduk

[LaughingOtter]

Wow, Rooth, excellent thought process there. It would be interesting to see what the actual numbers would be based on current server population.

[Pharcellus]

While that analysis is really good, it is completely irrelevant to me.

I don't really care if there is a 25-30% Dragon population flood the day the ARoP is released.

What I do care about is that the requirements are stringent enough to be meaningful.

IE, for the requirements I have suggested in the past, I want it to make it *hard* for people to qualify, because it should be hard. It should be even harder to complete it. That gives a reason for AE to make us into the powerhouses of legend we should be. The reward becomes worth the effort, from the day we hatched to the day we finally attain that which is our heritage and right to attain.

I know there are quite a few Dragons who qualify for even my extrememly stringent requirements. My aim was not to prevent a "flood", but to make sure that the bulk of it was for those Dragons that EARNED it, at least as much as an automated game mechanic could allow.

[rooth]

(arigatou gozaimashita, to the compliments)

Pharcellus -- you're assuming that the more difficult the requirements are, the more reward AE will grant us for completion. ;) I'm not too sure they're going to change the reward all that much at this point. I think they have a reward in mind, and just want some input for setting the requirements. Without knowing the reward, it's hard to say what 'hard' would look like. If all we get is a size increase, and maybe equivalent bonuses to what we had as adults, I would say 'hard' would amount to '3 hours of drudgery'. If we got some really kick-butt abilities and upgrades, then 'hard' takes on a whole new meaning. I dunno, maybe AE really does intend to establish a correlation between the ARoP difficulty and the reward -- AE? Care to comment?

For the record, I agree -- if they are going to make the rewards proportional to the challenge, then yeah, let's make it pretty darn challenging. :D But of course, that also assumes that the maximum possible reward is really going to make a difference to us -- if AE's notion of a reward cap results in dragons still being the weakest class/race in the game, then there's no point in making the ARoP all that difficult, and this whole discussion is basically moot.

Either way, 'hard' is still relative. It's ridiculously hard for me to put in an average of 4 hours per day, but it's relatively simple for folks like Kumu to do. It would be very hard for me to hit 90/90, but some of you are already there, so you might not consider such a requirement to be 'hard'--maybe it was considered hard when you first started, but not anymore. You say you "want it to be *hard* for 'people' to qualify" -- this goes back to what I said about relative requirements. Unless they put the requirements higher than every single dragon in the game presently qualifies for, there's going to be a fraction of the population ('people'), however small, that will meet the requirements right away, and thus will tend to consider the ARoP "easy". That fraction is directly related to the mechanism I proposed above, so perhaps it's not as irrelevant to you as you first thought.

I mean, heck, I consider my current status in the game to have been very "hard" for me to achieve -- considering the time I've put into it relative to the time I have available to put into it, not to mention the difficulty of identifying optimal paths to leveling in the game, finding good groups to work with, etc. But I think if the requirements were down as low as I am, that would be generally considered pretty pathetic, and not 'hard' at all. ;)

If I were a maxed out dragon, with hoard coming out of my yinyang, I'd be equally, or perhaps more concerned about the ARoP itself being 'too easy', boring, and anticlimactic, than I would be about the starting or finishing requirements themselves. I mean, suppose the requirements from ARoP are like what Kumu or you (Pharcellus) were suggesting, and the benefits were super cool, but the ARoP itself was little more than a chat session with the Dragon Historian. I'd consider that a major let down.

Let's hope it's more entertaining than that. ;)

[Pharcellus]

No, I am not ASSUMING it, I am HOPING for it. BIG difference. They have yet to determine the reward from what I understand, and yes, it still can change. It can change right up to the minute they roll the patch to the live servers.

Like I said in a previous post that is apparently no longer available on this forum (could have been on Tazoon), no single requirement is going to serve as an effective barrier for entry, and no low barrier will be suitable, even in combination with others.

Perhaps the best thing to do is to take some statistics from the current database, and look at what requirements need to be to allow some percentage of the Dragon population to be eligible upon release. Massage the numbers and add extra requirements as needed to accomplish making it so that there will be a steady flow of Ancients for a while. Make it so that someone cannot just start playing a Dragon the moment it comes out and be Ancient after a few months.

Like I said way way back in beta, I fully expected adults to be 3-6 months since creation, and Ancients 1-2 years since creation. It is an epic accomplishment; it needs the real time efforts and dedications of one.

The requirements suggestions that Kumu, Vesuvius, myself, and others have made come the closest in my mind for doing that. They weave a web of efforts that serve as a filter, to sort out the real dedicated players from those who are, yes, casual, for whatever reason, be it they play a Dragon alt for giggles to they only have 10 hours a week to play tops. Not a single requirement we have posted prevents anyone from meeting the requirements; all it takes is time.

[Vlisson]

the biggest problem is that HZ is not an finished game

hey ive been lvl 83 while i got Adult

i stood in Front of the floating island Ancient (he is lvl 75) as a hatchling lvl 83

if the Adult Rop had been ingame since the beginning then no mass Rop had been started.

if the Ancient Rop would have been ingame since release then we would not discuss the requirements needed for it. hey we play now 1 year and its clear that some players already hit the requirements we would have mouned about 1 year ago!

till the Ancient Rop goes Live we play close to 1 1/2 years

A good discussion about the requirements can only take place if DB show us what Power will be connected with

Adult=Lvl 80 biped
Ancient=Lvl 100 biped or 120? or 150?

[rooth]

No, I am not ASSUMING it, I am HOPING for it. BIG difference.

True, reading your post again, I see you said "It gives AE a reason [to make us buff]." Not exactly the same thing as assuming. I didn't mean to offend you with the word 'assuming', but seems I hit a sensitive spot by accident. Sorry.

Is it safe to say that if they don't scale the benefits to the difficulty, everyone will be upset?

Like I said in a previous post that is apparently no longer available on this forum (could have been on Tazoon), no single requirement is going to serve as an effective barrier for entry, and no low barrier will be suitable, even in combination with others.

"low" is relative, and qualitative. It must somehow be quantified to fit the majority understanding (which means of course that the minority will be upset with it ;)).

Perhaps the best thing to do is to take some statistics from the current database, and look at what requirements need to be to allow some percentage of the Dragon population to be eligible upon release.

This is precisely what I outlined in my post above, which you cited as being "completely irrelevant." Apparently not?

Massage the numbers and add extra requirements as needed to accomplish making it so that there will be a steady flow of Ancients for a while. Make it so that someone cannot just start playing a Dragon the moment it comes out and be Ancient after a few months.

One of the suggested ways of doing this was to establish an age requirement for an adult to start the ARoP. That was shot down by Kumu as having "absolutely ZERO bearing on the requirements". Do you have an alternate suggestion?

The requirements suggestions that Kumu, Vesuvius, myself, and others have made come the closest in my mind for doing that. They weave a web of efforts that serve as a filter, to sort out the real dedicated players from those who are, yes, casual, for whatever reason, be it they play a Dragon alt for giggles to they only have 10 hours a week to play tops. Not a single requirement we have posted prevents anyone from meeting the requirements; all it takes is time.

I don't think anyone said it was impossible. However, I protest the notion that only being able to spend 10 hours a week in the game automatically makes one "casual". Some of us have to work to pay for the game, and the electricity that feeds the computer, and the heat that warms the house, and the mortgage on that house, and the taxes levvied against that property, and the required insurance to protect the bank's investment. These cost money, which in turn costs time. Some players don't have to do these things--they are provided for them. That's all fine and good--most of us were there at some point in our lives, and we took advantage of it then just the same. But the fact that I have to work for it, and others don't, doesn't automatically mean I'm any less dedicated. If I devote half my available time to the game, that should account for something more than "casual."

Yes, whatever the requirements are, anyone can meet them, in time. But, our accounts are not charged per month of play, they're charged per month of activity. If it takes me 4 times longer than someone who can put in 8 hours a day, I will have to pay 4 times as much money to accomplish the same goal. That's a major deterrent. Unless, of course, the benefits are higher for me than for others, since I will have paid more money. ;) That's a joke, btw, if you can't tell from the smiley -- I'm not suggesting that Ancient status should be something you can buy. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if AE considered that--they're here to make money, after all :D).

Now, that's mostly just me whining. Maybe I'm an exception in the game, and there are more players who put in more time than I have than those who have put in less time. It all harkons back to those statistics that both Pharcellus and I have talked about -- if the aim is to make Ancient an elite status in the game, then the game's statistics should be used to define that threshhold (although this would not be true if the game were significantly younger... or older?). And if I'm far below that threshhold and it'll cost me another $400 to get there, that's perfectly fine, as long as it was determined with some degree of reason and logic, and not just arbitrarily.