February 28, 2014

Hardcore Paragon Explained

Let's Be As Clear As Possible

First, some changes have been made to the Hardcore Paragon Pet being released later today. 

After announcing the extreme challenge quest and rewards in YESTERDAY's DESIGN NOTES, we sat down and did a little math. As of yesterday the quest was to collect 13 drops at 2% drop rate, which would give you 66 legion tokens OR a 1% chance to get the Dual BladeMaster Katanas or the Living BladeMaster armor.

Let's Look At The Numbers

Most of the time, winning battles against binky take an hour on average. 

2% means an average of 50 wins to get a drop. You needed 13 drops. 

13 X 50 = 650 runs, or 650 hours on average. 

The item drops are 1%, meaning it would take, on average, 99 quest completes to get one of them. 

650 X 99 = 64,350 hours, on average, to get one of the item drops. 

That is 7.3 years of straight playing without eating, sleeping, pooping or doing anything else. 

There is no accounting for luck, (and I just KNOW that some lucky turkey is going to get one of the drops on their first turn in) but still it seemed a LITTLE unreasonable to play a game longer than it's been alive to get a single quest drop. Granted, when you got it you would feel like a GOD but even Dage isn't that evil. 

Let's Fix The Numbers

Dage has requested that the drops be lowered to 1 rib, rather than 13. It's STILL a VERY HARDCORE quest requiring an average of 206 hours of gameplay, but a lot more possible to actually complete. The Legion Token reward has also been raised from 66 to 250 per turn in. 

A lot of people also pointed out last night (thank you) that while an optional hardcore quest seems like fun, the POINT of a Paragon Pet is to be able to farm Legion Tokens faster or at least easier then you could without the pet. It was a very good point. 

I've added a second quest (this one is a daily) that will require 20 drops (25% drop rate) off of the Ultra Chaos Warrior, but the reward is 100 Legion Tokens. Not the fastest way to earn Legion Tokens but faster by far than not having the a Paragon Pet. The quest and monster also both drop rather a lot of XP and gold so it's a good place to farm to approach max level. 

If you have 0 Tokens now, get the Hardcore Paragon Pet, complete his quest once a day for the next 20 days, you will have enough to get the Legion Token version of the new BladeMaster Class and still have time to spare before it goes rare. 

Dage has also created the LESSER CALADBOLG (which is just as powerful as the original but harder to get and with no glows or animations to cause lag) which has been added as another 1% drop to the Binky quest. 

Summary!

The Hardcore Paragon Pet is going into Dage's Birthday Shop later today. 

It has 2 quests: 

1. FIRST QUEST: Collect 1 Rib from Binky (2% drop rate). Rewards: 250 Legion Tokens, or a 1% chance to get the Dual Blademaster Katanas, Living BladeMaster armor or the Lesser Caladbolg weapon. This quest is NOT a Daily.
   
   
2. SECOND QUEST (DAILY): Collect 20 Chaorrupted Dark Fire samples from the Ultra Chaos Warrior (25% drop rate). Rewards: 100 Legion Tokens. 

The Hardcore Paragon Pet is showing up in Dage's Birthday Shop later today and will cost 2000 ACs like all of its brothers before it. 

ONCE AGAIN: This pet was made with HARDCORE players in mind. The first quest isn't unfair to anyone because it's not required and completely optional. This is a CHALLENGING quest for people who were asking for a CHALLENGE.