Ascension

[Obscure_Trash]

Even tabling the potion discussion, I am seeing these splits (separated so I can just get out my thoughts, not how the whole idea would come together):

 

-Time

--3 months

--6 months

--1 year

 

-Failure

--None

--Flat rate (~85% is what I'm seeing mostly)

--Increasing rate (~50-75% and increasing ~5% is what I'm seeing mostly)

 

-Cooldown

--None/N/A

--Two weeks

--A month

(At least, I think these were the major one; I skipped over cool down rates a bit.)

 

-Limit

--None

--Five per week

--Ten per week

--Trophy based, like upcoming scroll limits

(I think those were the major ones.)

 

I think we could mix these up for three+ main ideas to be presented to TJ. :3

However, I think if we wanted to gather up a handful of ways potions would work and present those as well, why not? :3

Edited March 29, 2011 by SockPuppet Strangler

[RheaZen]

Ah, for Limit, add in "Based off Trophy, x/y/z per week"?

[Aviatus]

Obviously you didn't read my whole post carefully, as I said that. My point is, who should decide which dragons don't ascend? An RNG, or the PLAYER? Since the way Ascension is being proposed right now doesn't have any game effects, I would say it should be the player. He/she decides, based on the role they envision for that dragon, that they are one of the foolish ones who don't learn the lessons life teaches.

 

Who would you rather have decide which dragons on your scroll will ascend? Personally, I would rather decide for myself, and not let some RNG decide, "Nope, you fail." Maybe that particular dragon is the one I've described as the leader of my scroll, the one all the others turn to for advice. How lame would that be?

 

As for limits, I thought the 10 per week sounded like a good compromise, as well as the 6 month wait for them to be old enough.

 

ETA: and Fuzz? You ain't that much older than I am. Just FYI.

 

ETA2: and Socky, I thought we'd agreed to table the potion discussion for an indication that someday we'd maybe get Search, since the mechanism for getting the potions hinged on that.

I'm sorry, I just lol'd I picture a dragon tamer going "Ok you can be smart, you can be smart, you can't be smart I don't like you, but you, you and you can be smart ok?" Cause that's basically what you're saying. They have no part in it, you push a button and BAM they're wise and awesome. Is sense being made? no, no it's not

[KageSora]

Obviously you didn't read my whole post carefully, as I said that. My point is, who should decide which dragons don't ascend? An RNG, or the PLAYER? Since the way Ascension is being proposed right now doesn't have any game effects, I would say it should be the player. He/she decides, based on the role they envision for that dragon, that they are one of the foolish ones who don't learn the lessons life teaches.

 

Who would you rather have decide which dragons on your scroll will ascend? Personally, I would rather decide for myself, and not let some RNG decide, "Nope, you fail." Maybe that particular dragon is the one I've described as the leader of my scroll, the one all the others turn to for advice. How lame would that be?

 

As for limits, I thought the 10 per week sounded like a good compromise, as well as the 6 month wait for them to be old enough.

 

ETA: and Fuzz? You ain't that much older than I am. Just FYI.

 

ETA2: and Socky, I thought we'd agreed to table the potion discussion for an indication that someday we'd maybe get Search, since the mechanism for getting the potions hinged on that.

Well, it's not like if they fail they can never ascend ever, they just need to try again in a bit, right?

 

Even people who are wise make mistakes. Perhaps it could be seen like that--they thought they were prepared, but something unexpected came up that stopped it from working? From that perspective, a fail rate where you have a better chance to succeed each time makes sense--they learn from what went wrong and know better for next time.

[~!~]

I'm sorry, I just lol'd I picture a dragon tamer going "Ok you can be smart, you can be smart, you can't be smart I don't like you, but you, you and you can be smart ok?" Cause that's basically what you're saying. They have no part in it, you push a button and BAM they're wise and awesome. Is sense being made? no, no it's not

I think the fundamental argument here is one of RP versus gameplay. On the one hand, we want the game to be realistic. Any intrinsic properties of the dragon will be determined by the inner workings of the game. Like in Pokemon, IVs are determined by the RNG. However, on the gameplay side, we want to be able to control everything about our dragons. I think what we need to achieve, primarily, is balance between those two interests.

[Syphoneira]

I think the point Fiona BlueFire was trying to make (please correct me if I'm wrong - again, ) was that we write descriptions for our dragons, we determine their personalities and capacities, and that it would logically then be our decision as to whether any particular dragon that we owned was capable of Ascension, so that those not felt suitable simply wouldn't be Ascended.

 

And as ~!~ has pointed out, others feel that this should be dependent more on a 'roll of the dice' and, as far as opinions go, the twain shall never meet, lol.

 

But as far as game coherency goes, it seems to me that alterations based on personality issues would be more in keeping with general game parameters if it continued to be the player (who best knows her/his own dragons) who made this determination.

 

???

 

Edit: after all, the game does not assign character traits or wisdom levels to our various dragons as individuals - we, the players, do.

Edited March 29, 2011 by Syphoneira

[Completely Different]

I see what people are saying about balancing realisim with the ability to control our dragons. For example, I understand that having some chance of failure makes it more interesting and more realistic- however, it seems a bit strange that the dragon which I consider the wisest in the cave would fail, whereas one I consider young and reckless succeeds.

 

Of course, I never considered ascension to be based on wisdom. I considered it a mix of some wisdom and intelligence, but also physical maturity and magical prowess. Which adds in some slightly different problems, although in practice its not much a of a difference; whether a dragon fails because they’re not wise enough or not strong enough, same problem.

 

Which is why I would like it not to be a permanent failure rate (meaning the dragon could try again, after x period of time). Failure could come down to either the dragon not being mature enough, or just the unreliability of the magic, whichever one makes more sense for that particular dragon.

 

[PinkyHedgehog]

Edit: after all, the game does not assign character traits or wisdom levels to our various dragons as individuals - we, the players, do.

I differ. To me, the descriptions is how we see how our dragons are, and we write those traits in our scroll, so when people read it, learn about them.

 

Also:

"however, it seems a bit strange that the dragon which I consider the wisest in the cave would fail, whereas one I consider young and reckless succeeds."

 

Well, if you consider the younger is like that, I don't think you will even ask it to try to ascend

 

 

 

And no, no perma-failures! >_>

[Completely Different]

I differ. To me, the descriptions is how we see how our dragons are, and we write those traits in our scroll, so when people read it, learn about them.

 

Also:

"however, it seems a bit strange that the dragon which I consider the wisest in the cave would fail, whereas one I consider young and reckless succeeds."

 

Well, if you consider the younger is like that, I don't think you will even ask it to try to ascend

 

 

 

And no, no perma-failures! >_>

You're right, I probably wouldn't try to ascend that particular dragon. Speaking hypothetically, it might be the only dragon of that breed on your scroll, so you try even if it doesn't fit....

[Fuzzbucket]

Obviously you didn't read my whole post carefully, as I said that. My point is, who should decide which dragons don't ascend? An RNG, or the PLAYER? Since the way Ascension is being proposed right now doesn't have any game effects, I would say it should be the player. He/she decides, based on the role they envision for that dragon, that they are one of the foolish ones who don't learn the lessons life teaches.

 

Who would you rather have decide which dragons on your scroll will ascend? Personally, I would rather decide for myself, and not let some RNG decide, "Nope, you fail." Maybe that particular dragon is the one I've described as the leader of my scroll, the one all the others turn to for advice. How lame would that be?

 

As for limits, I thought the 10 per week sounded like a good compromise, as well as the 6 month wait for them to be old enough.

 

ETA: and Fuzz? You ain't that much older than I am. Just FYI.

Actually I agree with you on the whole. The player should decide which dragon they TRY to ascend.

 

All I meant was that not everyone who is ancient deserves to ascend. And TJ clearly couldn't POSSIBLY go by descriptions. So there's no other way but RNG. Because I don't think every try should succeed just as no-one in life succeeds with everything they try. Even when they really do their best. As you clearly know too, being of elder years, Fiona BlueFire !

 

A limit based on trophy sounds sensible, as it addresses the point about people with 1000 dragons.

 

I wonder who the oldest person here is, she says irrelevantly...

 

ETA OMG you are listed as born in 1911, Fiona BlueFire. You win !!!

Edited March 29, 2011 by fuzzbucket

[Shanthaia]

All I meant was that not everyone who is ancient deserves to ascend. And TJ clearly couldn't POSSIBLY go by descriptions. So there's no other way but RNG.

Even if it was possible - would we want that? It just would result in about every dragon being described as: (s)he is the fastest, smartest and most powerful dragon in the whole of my cave. Just to up chances at ascention. I don't think we remotly want something that encourages spam description (which even may be of pretty low quality) - the description moderator is pretty busy as it is already.

[Fuzzbucket]

Even if it was possible - would we want that? It just would result in about every dragon being described as: (s)he is the fastest, smartest and most powerful dragon in the whole of my cave. Just to up chances at ascension. I don't think we remotely want something that encourages spam description (which even may be of pretty low quality) - the description moderator is pretty busy as it is already.

No, I wouldn't. But as someone said - it would feel odd if the one we had described as the genius of the cave was held back and the one described as a lazy git made it.

 

THen again - when I was at school and acting up, they made me a prefect to see if that would give me some sense of responsibility. To their (and my !) surprise it worked quite well ! So....

[Syphoneira]

Obviously I can't speak for anyone else, but I would certainly not want to alter all of my dragons sprites in those breeds given the potential to Ascend.

 

And it seems evident to me that various scroll completionists who want only one (or a pair or whatever,) of each sprite on their scrolls, even where important BSAs are involved, would hold to their self-imposed goals.

 

Would that many people really want to turn all, or the bulk of, their Ascendable dragon types, into something else?

 

Certainly, personal tastes and goals differ, but generally, those of us who load up on specific sprites do so because we like those sprites so much, and it seems unlikely to me that we'd want to replace all, or even most, of them, even if we liked the Ascended version better, something evidently not guaranteed in each case.

 

I must admit to being curious as to how many current commenters would wish to convert a high percentage of their dragon's sprites, rather than in most cases retaining the original sprites for which they may have been collected in the first place...

[Fuzzbucket]

If you want a head count - not a lot of mine, I think. CERTAINLY not more than a pair of each breed and only if that would leave me with an unascended pair. No way would I want to totally lose the original sprites from my scroll.

 

(Yes I split an infinitive there )

[Fiona]

I'd have to think about how many of each breed. It would depend to some degree on the ascended sprite. But, I think it likely that at most I'd only ascend one or two pairs of each breed.

[olympe]

Hmm, I've been considering ascending all my CBs and special lineaged dragons. But it depends on the sprites. The least I'd want is a pair of all - even if I don't have the CBs for a pair.

[HeatherMarie]

Syphoneira: I definitely collect certain breeds because I like the sprites a lot. So, for example, if vines were Ascendable, I would only Ascend one or two of mine, because I really would rather keep the regular sprites.

 

I'm figuring probably 2-3 Ascendeds for each breed, in general... Although of course that really depends on what the Ascended sprite looks like.

[Kirbyburn]

Syphoneira: I definitely collect certain breeds because I like the sprites a lot. So, for example, if vines were Ascendable, I would only Ascend one or two of mine, because I really would rather keep the regular sprites.

 

I'm figuring probably 2-3 Ascendeds for each breed, in general... Although of course that really depends on what the Ascended sprite looks like.

You just reminded me of something,what happens to alts?

[Obscure_Trash]

In the original thread, it was decided that alts would get the same ascended form as the regulars, I believe, since they're the same dragons, just different sprites. :3

[Kila]

I only have a few dragons of each species that I want to Ascend. of my Storm dragons, for example, I would want to ascend Var. He was my first dragon, and my first Storm.

 

I want to choose which of my dragons can ascend. I don't want to have it picked for me by a RNG. I think having a flat fail rate and a cooldown works just fine. If someone wants to ascend all of their dragons, why not let them? It's how they want to play the game.

[Kirbyburn]

In the original thread, it was decided that alts would get the same ascended form as the regulars, I believe, since they're the same dragons, just different sprites. :3

Do you know anyway to incorpate that into the warning message?

[Mirikitani]

I've been following this idea long before I joined the forums (I joined yesterday; hello everybody!) and I want to say that this is a great idea. It gives veteran members some dragons to look at - as well as more age status - and new members reason to play longer.

 

Having there be a limit on the Ascended dragons seems detrimental, as people are already against the limit of Holidays. The Ascended dragons could be a representation of the length of play, and if people really want to show they are long-time dragoners, they should be able to. It would also allow the AP to empty more: the more dragons ascended, the more "original" forms would be needed to complete a collection.

 

This being said, it should definitely be a choice, otherwise there might accidentally be whole armies of a specific ascended breed.

 

Placing a large cool-down, the possibility of failure, and a long "required age" would keep the Ascended forms as rare as it would be if there was a limit. Overall, although getting an idea like this into action would take lots of time and effort, I am definitely in favor of it.

 

Edit: added in the "failure" option

Edited March 30, 2011 by Mirikitani

[SlowHornpipe172]

If someone wants to ascend all of their dragons, why not let them? It's how they want to play the game.

+1

 

Especially because Ascension doesn't affect gameplay, it's just a different sprite.

Edited March 30, 2011 by SlowHornpipe172

[RheaZen]

Well, some people do want for dragons to gain upgraded BSAs and the link with Ascension, so it could affect gameplay. All depends on how things turn out/what's used.

[Fuzzbucket]

Well, some people do want for dragons to gain upgraded BSAs and the link with Ascension, so it could affect gameplay. All depends on how things turn out/what's used.

I thought that idea had been nixed ?