David Bowman: Reopening the AROP discussion

[Blue Hasia]

We just completed the review of the Ancient Rite of Passage (this is a walkthrough conducted by the primary designer for a review group of developers here). We will be releasing more information about this going forward, but I wanted to put out the requirements so you can begin discussing them.

Level 90 in either craft or adventure
100 days since creation
Adult Rite of Passage complete

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.

David Bowman

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We never got an response back from you after you asked us toexplain why we felt arop should have a longer time requiremnt,

"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.

David"

we brought up many good arguments on why it should be longer. The players have spoken..we await your response.

Link to your topic



[*]To the player base please Keep this thread inline, we already gave are reason why in the old thread no need to repost what was said in the old one I have provided the link to it

[Tzael]

I remember reading this post first time round, and thinking 100 days since toon creation was too low. I personally can't give a reason why, it's more a gut feeling. Also take into account the fact I don't play a dragon...

If it were 100 days spent in-game, I think it would be ok. Sure some people would end up leaving their toon logged in all the time to try and rack up the number, but for those who have been playing for a year, 100 days spent in-game sounds reasonable. I've been playing for a little over a year and have 100 days of in-game time racked up so it sounds plausible to me.

If it has to be days since toon creation, then my gut feeling is a full 365 days.

This is the ancient rite of passage, and imho it should be for those dragons who have been playing on and off for at least a year. If I were to be so bold as to suggest another requirement, I don't think it's unreasonable to consider the idea that a dragon must complete all their ability quests up to level 90. This is just an afterthought, and would ensure that dragons who are serious about their toons would have no problems, whereas individuals who race to complete these things would stop and think before proceeding.

Not sure if this is the right place to be making my comments, just don't want to venture into the dragon forum and get trodden on [:P]

[oluviel]

i've been here since release i'm a 100/100 drag max hoard and 45 days played in game :)

[padishar]

50 days in-gameare enough I think.
as long as the quest is hard enough, the requirments don't mean much.

[R`aven_Sky`Dash]

i think what we're beatin our heads against here is tryin to balance our each and own personal desire to make the ancient status an elite thing and why. which yes to some extent it should be. many of the longer reqs for days since creation or days played are comin from players that have been here from day 1 or close...some ppl feel that they ought to be entitled to that because of such reasoning.

i can see their point, to some degree i feel the same but on the other side of the coin 1 needs to account for how much upfront commitment should rightfullybe asked of a new player. imo 365 is too steep, thats a deterent,100 im on the fence for. its not too low (it is 3 months afterall) but it wouldnt hurt my feelings to see it bumped up a little bit either. to perhaps 150 or so.thats 5 months, an amount of time that is easy to achieve in a mmorpg for many players casual or otherwise. also enough thata player bent on gettin to 100/100 in less (powerlved or just a driven player) wouldhave to take some time to fill in what they missed for content till they met the reqs. whether that be properly techin scales/spells/workin on lairs/adv and or craftin quests/buyin-findin forms and techs/participating in world events that come down the pipe in the future etc etc.

for the record im 375 days created 87 played or so. 94/100 12.9m hord.

[Freak]

Any word on Hoard Requirements for ARoP? I don't feel that the crazy numbers that others have thrown for HV reqs are just. I understand their reasoning of trying to exclude those that are powerleveled, but I just don't think they should be 5-10M+. Maybe 1-2M would be ok. But I for one would rather pawn my scales made so i can buy the latest and greatest teched scales. But if there is a Requirement for Hoar. please let us know, because I am donw around 200K [:'(] from the 2.5M I once had. Soloing at the scourge before merge on my way to lvl 100 ate it all up.

[oluviel]

yeah it's pretty sad there is no hoard req it should be a lvl 90 hoard req at 15.3 mil.

[Seranthor]

I can see that a dragon created very lightly played and shelved in the beginning could log in at level say 10... go to Elnath, week later be 90 adventurer, snack on a bitter pickle collection for RoP hoard req, be PLd through the craft reqs. Then lo and behold they are 'ready' for Rop AND ARoP.... this scenario is entirely possible given the current requirements, please dont cheapen the efforts of the true dragons and make the ARoP requirements laughable. Make it mean something to be an Ancient, not something that will be finished the first day or two its out by some Pld yolk.

[Aquarius]

" can see that a dragon created very lightly played and shelved in the beginning could log in at level say 10... go to Elnath, week later be 90 adventurer"

Someone might do this.. since its possible, but they still would have had to play 100 days with their other toon then..

But i do think this will be a minority that will do this.. maybe 40-50 days ingame time + hoard requirement of 10-15 million would do the trick of preventing this??

[Vahrokh]

Aquarius, with the current trend of wanting it all on a silver platter and now, you'll see people eating their brains if you require ANY reasonable barrier.

More, they'll blame the very idea as elitism on who is i.e. working on his 20-25.6M hoard since monthsor paid gold and gold (the cheapest if you want to buy hoard is:

25M / (hoard value of a mithril bar = 72) = 355.555 bars

Those bars, giving a low price of 100c a bar to a miner (often you pay 120c) will cost you: 35.5 gold.

Even exploiting the mechanism with fireworks it still costs about 12g.


Of course none will want to work so hard.
Of course ancients will be bigger flying chickens since the requirements will be so absolutely laughable. And whatever ability they'll get won't be able to rival flight.

And flight itself, the entire cause why dragons have so many impairments in other areas (to sort of "penalize" the race because of this overpowering ability), is a free giveaway to anyone making an alt "just to fly with" like nowadaysmost do, with spare 100s to order some fireworks. That is, 2 disks of gems.

Of course those who worked their soul out will be once again ridiculized before the "smarter guys" that got it all and easy already.

Then after a week of ancient "uberness" they'll quit the game.
Costed so little to be at the top that who will "suffer" quitting Horizons? You gave nothing, you had all, you can toy, get bored, quit to another game.

And most of all, why this thread is still under the light and not in the dragons crapper?

[Fireclaw]

Someone might do this.. since its possible, but they still would have had to play 100 days with their other toon then..

1. ARoP should be for elite DRAGON players, not for someone who has played their "other toon" (ie biped toon) for 100 days.

2. Players wouldn't even have had to play their "other toon" for 100 days. For instance, a player who created their dragon 100 days ago during the 7-day free trial and then deactivated their account would still meet the 100 day requirement.
______

The 100 day requirement is so short ast to be meaningless. It is pretty much guaranteed that virtually every player account has a dragon in it that was created the day that player joined the game. These sleeper dragons will all meet the 100 day requirement, meaning that everyone who started the game 100 days ago will pretty much automatically meet this requirement. 100 days allows too many dragons to reach ancienthood right away, and is far less than what the playerbase expects.

The only way to reduce the number of PL'd alt dragons who have never been played from reaching ancient right away is to also have an in-game requirement and a time-since reaching adulthood requirement, in addition to the time since creation requirement. A hoard requirement is also expected and should be added:

I suggest the following:
1. 200 days since creation - a respectable amount of time for a dragon to at least have been in existence, even if never played.
2. 40-50 days played in-game - dragons with this number of hours will most likely have been played by serious dragon players.
3. 100 days since completing RoP - prevents powerleveling of never played alt dragons through RoP and ARoP, at least right away.
4. Hoard requirement: I recommend 5-10 million. However, given that on IRC the devs stated that hoard will be redone and hoard requirements reduced, perhaps 2.5 to 3 million would be better.

Note that this system isn't perfect. None of these requirements alone will stop powerleveled dragons from reaching ancienthood. Many players will get around even the 200 day requirement instantly with their sleeper dragon alts. the 40-50 day in-game requirement can be bypassed to some extent by staying logged in while AFK, etc (though I do think that someone who stays logged in AFK for 50 days is at least showing some dedication to being a dragon). However it is the combination of requirements that serves to reduce the number of powerleveled toons from reaching ancienthoo.d

[Sunuke]

I think that lvl 90 adv/craft and 100 game time would be fair. This way there is no way to power lvl your dragon or you need to leave your dragon online for 3 months constant

I have a resonable new dragon which is 110 days old now and i know this would mean i would most likely need loads of time to get there but this is the only fair thing towards to our dedicated dragon players.

The ancient rite of passage should be extremly special not like it is going with the adult RoP that we have a dragon for 2 days online on Unity that is already adult due to extreme power lvling which in my opinion is a pure insult to all that have worked so hard to get there.

If you won´t choose to take 100 days online time then i would say 50 days online time and all quests finished

[Amerelium]

...a req to have ALL quests done - that's the best one I've seen so far. 100 days ingame is too much - think of it. Istead, make a 50-or-something timers since Adulthood (not in-game)...

[Spellbound]

This should be on Dragon forum not General Forum, and I think this topic has been discussed in enough threads already...

[Cobal]

No need to come trolling.
This topic has been discussed enough when Arop is finally in the game, without bugs and with a time requirement that will make us dedicated dragons proud.
Until then this is a great place for the discussion.

[Sunuke]

...a req to have ALL quests done - that's the best one I've seen so far. 100 days ingame is too much - think of it. Istead, make a 50-or-something timers since Adulthood (not in-game)...

I think that if you wanna go for an Adulthood timer I think 100 days adult would be alot better. But then the part of the need of all quests done and lvl 90 adventure/craft would keep it quite a high standard.

Right now i am training my hatchie and I won´t start my Lunus RoP until I have finished all my quests and if this would mean I make it to lvl 40 before finnishing them this would mean that i will have to do some more quests. In my opinion this is the way it should be. Over the past days i have been getting offers to make a certain amount of sandstone spellshards so someone could power level his dragons craft part so he could become adult. I think this is a huge insult to all dragons in Istaria. For this I think we need to do all possible to safe guard the ARoP.

[Vahrokh]

In fact, I think that one should not be able to become adult in one day just because he has a rich and high primary biped character.

There was a some sort of "unwritten" contract that makes so that being a dragon with no help produces a viable but really limited (no multiclass, low stats per level, hoard encumberance...) creature. Advantages: nice and flight.


Using a biped main instead will result in:

- reap the benefits of being extremely powerful.
- reap the benefits of having multiclass.
- reap the benefits of having no hoard to raise, no obligatory craft and having high stats per level.
- make a one day adult and reap the really only one benefit they miss: flight.

If it had been me, evenhatchlings would require more than a day to be able to fly.
Else, it sounds like being stupid to have worked2 months or more to raise a dragon to adult the "expected way" while others can get it in one day.

Instead we are going into the opposite: raping dragons even in ancienthood and give everything away for any powerleveller to toy with.

[Phillip]

i don't know if the devs still have what it takes to believe in ancienthood as something extremely rare and special. the concept of "there will be very few Ancients per server" seems like an after thought due to the sensitivity of it all.

i know a couple of dragons who played through it all, they are 100/100 and hoards between 12-20m. these dragons are shooting for the 25m mark. they are excellent in battle. fat butts and all. i would love to see them make ancienthood.

the rest i can't speak for.

the rest however, will have the power to influence this subject matter.

[IndyMan]

Make it is 100 days to be able to fly and another 100 days to get ancient.

[cauri_order]

I think Fireclaw and Kumu's idea about 100 days since RoP completion is the best way to deter power levelers.

The 100 days is laughable, utterly laughable. Ancient in a little over 3 months? Seems like they want all players to have an ancient dragon. I do see their possible pointof the low time reqs. They want their players to be able to experience all of the options available in game thus increasing the longevity of each subscription.

However, with such low reqs comes very low expectations of what rewards dragons will get once they become ancient. It's like seeing a game in the store in the bargain bin...."It's 2.99? for a game? Something must be wrong with it". Same thing going on with Ancient.

"Hrmmm, 100 days since creation and 90/90? I can get 90 adventer in a couple days, and 90 craft in a week or so. God those rewards for that quest must be horrid!"

I know right now, given the past record of the devs and the posted requirements, I expect another pitiful bonus. If it is pitiful, well, my Istarian days may be numbered.