- Jan 5, 2018
- 65
- 114
It's likely been brought up before, but I'd like to bring it up again with some insight on hows and whats. A long time ago, back in closed/open beta, Runewaker made an attempt to bring the similar Dungeon Ancient mechanic to the larger raid styled dungeons. At the current patch, the level cap was 60, and the available raids were Dunar Temple, Accursed Tower and Juno Crystal Gallery. At the same time flutes existed, and upon using them people chanced upon some unusal spawns.
These were Indigo Flame, Emerald Crystal, Jade Soul (and Ebony Thorn, but has since been patched out), Diamond Bulwark, Scarlet Flame. Within time, each dragon was determined to be spawns of particular dungeons, like how Indigo Flame belongs to Puretia's dungeons, should you have either the luck or the endurance to run multiple times.
With digging some flavourtext by Infernium, as well as translations provided in game by the dragon compendium Diamond Bulwark, Scarlet Flame and Vibrant Thunder were intended to be located in Juno, Accursed Tower and Dunar Temple respectively.
It was mentioned multiple times that the lines that would trigger the spawn do exist, but in their current form don't work. I don't know if this was a flaw due to removing the extreme difficulty setting, or the fact that the dungeon has more rule modifiers than a normal instance, but Runewaker never looked at implementing dungeon ancients again and never did for the following level cap raids.
The proposal I have is that, not only re-implement these raid ancients, but use it as an oppotunity to offer a 'cookie'. People run Racman's Grotto, Dragon Heart Temple and Dunar Temple a lot. To see either new or pre-existing dragons within these instances in some form would give variation to a long series of runs as well as offer something new that couldn't just be handed out with eggs.
The 'cookie' also gives an oppotunity to run other dungeons a lot. Sometimes, I get a little tierd of seeing the dragon-gambling casino halls of Corzine again and again and again, so sometimes I'll switch regions to grind my ancients, loot and what-have-yous to keep the scenery and content fresh. Besides the Flameheart Amulet, no one is going to likely wander into Iron Fang Fortress again for anything other than glamour. There's probably stats on instance usage somewhere.
There are issues with this system. It's easy to just suggest things, the marathon is the implementation. There was a solid reason in the mess of code why Raid ancients never worked in the first place, and I imagine it would take a deal of sleuthing and testing a mechanic that seems, on the outside, very simple to function. Another issue is that raid dungeons are a deal longer than your regular dungeon fair. Implementing the same point system into a raid and not factoring the extra minutes it takes to complete them (We're looking at 10 minutes per run on DHT compared to a 2 minute run of Bloodstone Citadel) and the grind burnout would be pretty real. Raid ancients could benefit from the same flat spawn rate as regular dungeon ancient encounters but with only half the point total required. Or you could factor the third difficulty in Methus/IFF. Again, another tricky trinket that needs fine-tuning.
So outside Juno Crystal Gallery, Accursed Tower and Dunar Tower, what goes where? It's up to opinion honestly. But I'm sure you've ran through Dragon Heart Temple and thought:- Man, Obsidian Thunder is a neat dragon I want him on my team, but then you try and press the capture when you spot this unique ancient in the dungeon and just frown. But what if, upon killing Urukar Hexclaw, you had a chance, or with enough dedication to multiple runs, a guaranteed chance at him? I'm sure there's also dragons in Runewaker's library that go unused in some manner, or could be converted into a capturable format.
So what else? Besides dungeon ancients in raids being a tiny cookie to help them push forward a bit more without the 'It's in eggs, so I don't need to run ancients.' It brings back some of the more classic grind to Dragon's Prophet, because to be honest, without it, the grind solely lies with getting loot, extracting it for recipes and crafting. I'd rather have both accompanying me at least, because at the heart of it all, Dragon's Prophet is a pokemon collectathon game too.
These were Indigo Flame, Emerald Crystal, Jade Soul (and Ebony Thorn, but has since been patched out), Diamond Bulwark, Scarlet Flame. Within time, each dragon was determined to be spawns of particular dungeons, like how Indigo Flame belongs to Puretia's dungeons, should you have either the luck or the endurance to run multiple times.
With digging some flavourtext by Infernium, as well as translations provided in game by the dragon compendium Diamond Bulwark, Scarlet Flame and Vibrant Thunder were intended to be located in Juno, Accursed Tower and Dunar Temple respectively.
It was mentioned multiple times that the lines that would trigger the spawn do exist, but in their current form don't work. I don't know if this was a flaw due to removing the extreme difficulty setting, or the fact that the dungeon has more rule modifiers than a normal instance, but Runewaker never looked at implementing dungeon ancients again and never did for the following level cap raids.
The proposal I have is that, not only re-implement these raid ancients, but use it as an oppotunity to offer a 'cookie'. People run Racman's Grotto, Dragon Heart Temple and Dunar Temple a lot. To see either new or pre-existing dragons within these instances in some form would give variation to a long series of runs as well as offer something new that couldn't just be handed out with eggs.
The 'cookie' also gives an oppotunity to run other dungeons a lot. Sometimes, I get a little tierd of seeing the dragon-gambling casino halls of Corzine again and again and again, so sometimes I'll switch regions to grind my ancients, loot and what-have-yous to keep the scenery and content fresh. Besides the Flameheart Amulet, no one is going to likely wander into Iron Fang Fortress again for anything other than glamour. There's probably stats on instance usage somewhere.
There are issues with this system. It's easy to just suggest things, the marathon is the implementation. There was a solid reason in the mess of code why Raid ancients never worked in the first place, and I imagine it would take a deal of sleuthing and testing a mechanic that seems, on the outside, very simple to function. Another issue is that raid dungeons are a deal longer than your regular dungeon fair. Implementing the same point system into a raid and not factoring the extra minutes it takes to complete them (We're looking at 10 minutes per run on DHT compared to a 2 minute run of Bloodstone Citadel) and the grind burnout would be pretty real. Raid ancients could benefit from the same flat spawn rate as regular dungeon ancient encounters but with only half the point total required. Or you could factor the third difficulty in Methus/IFF. Again, another tricky trinket that needs fine-tuning.
So outside Juno Crystal Gallery, Accursed Tower and Dunar Tower, what goes where? It's up to opinion honestly. But I'm sure you've ran through Dragon Heart Temple and thought:- Man, Obsidian Thunder is a neat dragon I want him on my team, but then you try and press the capture when you spot this unique ancient in the dungeon and just frown. But what if, upon killing Urukar Hexclaw, you had a chance, or with enough dedication to multiple runs, a guaranteed chance at him? I'm sure there's also dragons in Runewaker's library that go unused in some manner, or could be converted into a capturable format.
So what else? Besides dungeon ancients in raids being a tiny cookie to help them push forward a bit more without the 'It's in eggs, so I don't need to run ancients.' It brings back some of the more classic grind to Dragon's Prophet, because to be honest, without it, the grind solely lies with getting loot, extracting it for recipes and crafting. I'd rather have both accompanying me at least, because at the heart of it all, Dragon's Prophet is a pokemon collectathon game too.
