EDIT
This is the original proposal. Please scroll down and read the rest to find the more finalized proposal.


Since there was some positive replies regarding the implementation of Epic Adventures (EpAdv) (see Suggestion box, post #582 for the initial post), I thought it would be a good idea to have some more discussion and suggestions about it (so that Miklos and Beholder get some more idea and data and can potentially implement it sooner).

Basic idea
At some point in the game Adventures get less exciting for players, so then it would be a good/interesting idea to introduce something new with Adventures: Epic Adventures. EpAdv are Adventures that rewards you with some different (better) loot, but they should only come up once in a while, and probably be a bit more difficult than a "normal" adventure.

When should the appear?
My suggestion would be for EpAdv to appear at level 100. There are two main reasons for this:
1) There are no new Relics for Soul-diamonds after level 110, so around level 100 Soul-diamonds starts to loose their luster
2) There is nothing else special happening at level 100, and it is level 100 after all

The alternative would be to have an AA ability that would turn EpAdv "on". Such an AA ability should probably have a level requirement of 100, but personally I do not think such an ability would be necessary.

Frequency
The basis for EpAdv are the special Dimension gate battles you get after level 80; Every 10 DG battles you fight a special monster and have the chance of getting a special Focus crystal (for Rings/Necklaces). You get enough Dimension gate battle to have one such DG battle every 2nd day (after Dimension gate level 12).
Some quick calculations says that a player get 3.3-7.2 Adventures/day (the large span is caused by differences in #actions/day and the fact that a player can have between 5-8% chance of getting an Adventure due to a Relic and AA ability). To me this suggest that EpAdv should show up every 10th Adventure, comparable to the DG battles.

Difficulty
Since we are talking about an Epic Adventure, it should be a bit more difficult than a normal Adventure, don't you think? I see a few different ways to do this, but I think the following would be a good way:
The Adventure (that you choose as normal in the Adventure menu) starts as normal. After you have done all the tests as defined by the Adventure, you gain an additional 3-5 Epic Adventure tests. These test would be a) randomly chosen from normal kind of Adventure tests, and b) tougher than the normal Adventure tests. Tougher here means that Skill test would be 5-10 levels higher, Fights would be against the kind of opponents you get every 10 DG battles, and HP/SP/SE loss would be 25% higher (I think it would be a good idea to remove the Healing/Mana potion from these EpAdv tests).

Reward
The reward from the EpAdv would be a Treasure Hoard (TH). The size of the TH should be dependent on the number of Adventure tests taken since the end of the last EpAdv (including those from the current EpAdv). Items in the TH could be basically anything, but why not use the random item generator in the Wheel of Fortune? I would suggest that the game saves up you TH points (one per Adventure test for your 10 Adventures) and then simply roll on the Wheel of Fortune once per 12 TH points you have accumulated, with every 10th roll being a "AS re-roll", and all the other roll being "normal" rolls. Any leftover TH points would be saved for next EpAdv.
This would give on average 4-5 items from the Wheel every EpAdv (potentially less since most rolls would be of the "none-Green-Blue" variety, and only every second EpAdv would you get a "green-blue-Red"-roll).

So, those are some of my thoughts on Epic Adventures and how I would like to have them in this game. There is lots of space for tweaking numbers (how often should we have Epic Adventures? How much loot? How difficult should they be?) and other details (some other kind of loot? Perhaps minor AH relics (as mentioned by Cruel01)?).

Comments and suggestions more than welcome!

Nice summary, thank you! But the most important question remains: what are these epic adventures? The same adventures we already have? I see a difficulty there how to add extra tasks to the existing adventures while keeping the story intact. Or write new, special epic adventures? That's a lot of work and would certainly hinder this development.

What I suggest, keep the current adventures, and do not add extra tests: simply make it's tests harder as you said. Also we have to make sure only adventures with at least 5-6 tasks can be epic adventures. And maybe add the same extra task to each, where you roll a luck test to see if you can find treasure.

I see the problem Miklos.

Basically, we want Epic Adventures to be harder than normal Adventures (to allow for the better Reward), and the question really is how to implement this.

Different options:
A) After Adventure 10 there is a small number of Epic Adventure tests (3-5?) with Adventure text chosen "at random" (similar to how the text is shown when hunting, probably 3-5 different text for every type of test). Essentially these additional test are the Epic Adventure.
B) Every 10th Adventure is the Epic Adventure in itself, all the tests for that Adventure are Epic tests
C) After a player have done 10 Adventures there is a new "Epic Adventure!" showing up in the Adventure menu. This Epic Adventure always have 5 tests and is Randomly generated as in Option A.

Option B have the Advantage that it is simple, there is less writing to do. Unfortunately, Adventures can be tracked, and it is possible to know beforehand how many test (and which tests) it has.
Option A and C both require more work, but has the advantage that the Epic Adventure is more random (and more dangerous). Option C also has the advantage that Epic adventures become optional, you can choose not to do it.

I see the problem with generating text for a Random Epic Adventure. Although there are only 6 basic types of tests (Battle, Ability, Skill, Resource, Item use, and Quiz), some of these (Ability and Skill in particular) has a large amount of sub-groups and as such present a problem for writing generic quest tests. Essentially one would need text for all 27 different skill tests and all 8 different Ability tests.Battle and Quiz would be easy to write generic quest text for, and I think Resource use would be doable too. Item use could potentially be removed from the Epic Adventure.

Personally I would think that Random Epic Adventures (as in option A and C) would feel more Epic, but I see the problem with implementation.

About the addition of a Luck test to see if you find treasure, if you use the Wheel of Fortune to generate the treasure there is already a certain amount of "luck" involved.

I agree with the point raised by Miklós. Simply having random tests would not be fun. But I also understand the point raised by Sbart that we know what the adventures require and it would make us choose the easiest one.
I have a suggestion to address this. How about every 10th adventure, the game randomly selects one of the adventures in the list to be the Epic one? In case the list is empty, the next adventure will be an Epic Adventure.

Cruel.

Brilliant Cruel. Exactly the reason I wanted to discuss this here (on an open forum). That would actually solve both the problem of the random adventure text and the "I will just do the easiest Adventure for my Epic one".

This could also solve the Reward size, and just let it be dependent on the number of tests in the Epic Adventure. Since the Epic Adventure is chosen at random, it will even out over time.

So in summary the "new" suggestion would then be:
Epic Adventures
Starting at player level 100 there will be Epic Adventures. After a player of level 100 has completed 9 Adventures one random adventure in his/her list will be chosen as an Epic Adventure (if the player does not have any Adventure the next Adventure found will be an Epic Adventure).
Epic Adventures will be just like normal Adventures (with the same tests), but all tests will be harder than normal (Battles against tougher opponents, Ability/Skill tests 5-10 steps harder, 20-30% Higher HP/SP/SE loss, require higher level potions), and the Reward after the Adventure will not be soul-diamonds but a Treasure Hoard. This Treasure Hoard should contain some random reward, perhaps generated from the same list as the Wheel of Fortune, and the number/value(?) of items should be determined by the number of tests in the Epic Adventure.

Does that look ok?

To make the tests tougher, just turn off crystal points. It means you'll really have to work to complete the tests.

Option : Can't spend more crystal points on a test than your "Epic Adventurer" AA. This new AA would be limited by (Character level - 99).


This method : "one random adventure in his/her list will be chosen as an Epic Adventure" is ripe for abuse :
1°) Do 8 adventures.
2°) collect/discard adventures until you have 2 adventures you like.
3°) Complete 1 of the adventures : The other one is the Epic adventure !

I'd suggest something along these lines :
1°) Complete an Epic adventure.
2°) Complete 9 normal adventures.
3°) The next adventure you find is an Epic adventure.

Optionally, if you really don't like what you're served, you could pay a serious amount of SE/AS/SDs to take the next adventure you find instead. Epic adventure should not be able to be discarded. Either you complete it, or you pay and replace it with the next one.


There could be a new repeatable quest : "Complete an Epic Adventure"


The hoard should be composed of a number of fixed goodies + some random stuff, so you don't get completely shafted if unlucky. Say "N" is the number of tests of the Epic adventure, and L is character level, it could be something like :
- N boas.
- N x L / 400 AA Pts
- 1 random minor abilty stone.
- 1 "AS reroll" WoF item.
- L "normal" WoF items.

Thoughts ?

Kalann,
I like all your suggestions. Just want to do a small "insertion". Not being able to complete an Epic Adventure should not stop us from getting new adventures. And if we do 9 additional adventures, we should be able to accumulate more than one Epic Adventure. As a matter of fact, there should no limit to the number of stored Epic Adventures (other than the maximum number of adventures itself). They could be highlighted in red (like the DG)

I think we are ready to go

Cruel.

If you make Epic Adventures easier to manage, then the hoard should be reduced, because people will be getting it more often.

My proposal is more like entities : you have to kill one to advance to the next one.
Killing entities is a tough, gruelling process. Sometimes you train abilities/skills/AAs for the express purpose of killing those 2 last entities before the next flashy trincket .... it should be same here.

At the very least, if you can "collect" several Epic Adventures, then you should not be able to discard them, or use the "replacement" option I suggested. Instead, the number of "reserve" Epic adventures you can have could be a new AA "Epic Collector" (maybe 10 AA pts/level ?)

In essence, the more you dilute the difficulty, the less Epic they look.


Edit :

Stalling on an Epic Adventure would not stop you from collecting/completing other normal adventures.
My iniitial idea was that as long as you haven't completed the Epic Adventure, you can't collect another one.

Also, the Survivor AA and the Energy Sanctum would still work as usual, which should help mitigate the difficulty level.

Idézet: Kalann - 2012.07.27. 20:03:38
O don´t like this. Reason is mainly that then Epic Adventures will be extremly hard for the average player, and Crystal points (a very underused resource) will be even less desierable.

Idézet: Kalann - 2012.07.27. 20:03:38
But the Epic adventures would be Very Hard at level 100 and Extremely easy at level 130, since at level 100 I can use 1 CP, but at level 130 I can use 30 (if I buy the AA ability), although the tests will be relatively the same.
I think it is easier to leave CP in the Epic Adventures and just raise the difficulty. This has the added value of making CP useful for everyone (that is doing Epic adventures).

Idézet: Kalann - 2012.07.27. 20:03:38
I have to confess that I didn´t even consider the possibility of discarding Adventures, but the above suggestion (next Adventure you find after doing 9 Adventures) solves that in a very elegant way.
I do not see the reason why you shouldn´t be able to just discard the Epic Adventure though. But when you discard it, it is gone, and you would have to do another 9 Adventures before you find a new one. This would make Epic Adventures non-mandatory (although you would loose one Adventure if you discard it).

Idézet: Kalann - 2012.07.27. 20:03:38
Probably easier to just let the Epic Adventure count as an Adventure for the "Do 15 Adventures" quest. Otherwise you would gain another free repeatable quest, and I think that would be too good.

(to be continued)

(continuation)

Idézet: Kalann - 2012.07.27. 20:03:38

I am pretty sure you mean N normal WoF rolls (and not 100 WoF rolls at level 100!). I like that list of rewards. In fact, I think I like it a bit too much, and that it might be a bit overpowered. So I will counter that suggestion with:
(N= number of test in the Epic Adventure, L=Level of player)
One major Treasure (Random 1-100):
1-50=(N*L)/500 AA pts
51-85=+1 to Con/Mag/Str/Tha (equall probability)
86-99=+1 to Atk/Def/IQ (equall probability)
100=Ultra rare treasure from WoF
and N "non-AS" rolls on the WoF

That should still generate a "good" incentive to do Epic Adventures and not be too OP.

Thoughts?

(You're right, I meant "N "normal" WoF rolls, not "L" )


W1 : Kalann : level 73 : 4000+ Crystal points
W3 : Haakon : level 69 : 5000+ Crystal points.

I do my adventures with a 100 CP allowance (for a few odd skills I haven't really developped). I'm still collecting CPs faster than I use them. At level 100 ... I'll probably be sitting on 8-10k CPs.

"Sheesh, a level 150 execution test ! My execution is only 30 ..."
"Mmm, guess I'll just set my CP allowance to 200. That should do the trick"
How epic does that sound ?
Plus, allowing CPs gives (yet another) significant advantage to DD over EH.

If you allow CPs in Epic Adventures, the only thing epic about them will be the reward


My proposals are for EPIC adventures, not epic adventures. They should be real tasks, not just resolved by some minor planning and tweaking (do a few challenges, mind-boost this, etc ..).

My proposed hoard was tailored to my proposal's difficulty level. To be honest, I find your's a bit fat for the little effort required. No offense intended ... but it looks like a system to convert crystal points into AA/Ability points.

Kalann, some random thoughts (although I tried to structure them a bit):

Crystal Points (CP):
I think we both can agree that it is very easy to get a lot of CP (I have more than 7k on World2), and when you have that many (several thousands) they loose their meaning. Personally, I do not think this is good, and it would be better if they would be meaningful (otherwise they could just be removed from the game). So I actually think it would be good if you would need to spend a bunch of CP on every Epic Adventure, and do so quite often, because the maybe (just maybe) CP would be meaningful again.

About "Epic-ness" and difficulty:
In some way I think we want the same: Adventures which are harder, and give a different (better) reward.
Now I see your point in making the Epic adventures really, really hard (i.e. Entity hard). But then Epic Adventures should also be a lot rarer, perhaps 1/level(?), and not once every 10 Adventures. I structured my original idea on the special dimension gate battles, so that the Epic Adventures would be harder than a normal Adventure, and give a slightly better reward. Now i agree that perhaps Epic Adventure is not the best name for that, and perhaps Special Adventure would be better (although it doesn't sound that good).

I guess what I am trying to say is that both ideas have some merit. Either a) something special every 10 Adventures or b) some really hard every level. Personally I would prefer option a), mostly because I think that would suit the majority of players (and also because I think that it might make CP have a meaning again). Of course the reward has to be tailored to that.

Idézet: Kalann - 2012.07.28. 14:23:44
No offense taken, and my original idea was for the Treasure hoard to contain things from the WoF, not Ability stones and AA points. These were added on as suggestions later, and I think if one would go with the "one per ten"-frequency, it should go back to the WoF rewards only.

*Nods* Good points, Sbart.

Both proposals are worthwhile, and could be implemented, in fact :

~ 1 "Special Adventure" for every 10 normal adventures completed, along your guidelines. Allow CP use, but at a higher cost (3, 5, or 10 CPs to get a +1 on a test maybe ?).

Option : Have a "Special Adventurer" AA. CP cost would start at 10/+1, each AA level would reduce the cost by 1, Max = 5 or 7 (or 9, if you're feeling generous).

~ 1 "Epic Adventure"every level, or maybe, 1 "Epic Adventure" every 10 "Special Adventures, along my guidelines. You could discard it, I suppose, because there would be a long wait in between 2 Epic Adventures anyway.

The problem with CPs is the vast difference in CP collection between duellers/hunters. I agree that CPs should help in completing both types of adventures, however, they shouldn't be necessary. The AAs suggested in this thread should enable players to make up for the differential. Obviously, you wouldn't find the "Special Adventurer" AA a high priority, but I'm sure Cruel would find it immediately useful

How does that sound ?

Hmm, good points.

I do not really like the term "special Adventure", but it works fine as a name for now (hopefully someone will find a better name for it before it gets implemented in the game).

I kind of like the higher CP cost per bonus, but without further data on how much CP the average player has and how difficult Adventures are for the average player I would not put a number on how many CP/bonus. The idea of an AA ability to help is also a good idea.

(I am leaving Epic adventures out for now)

So the new summary would then be:
After a player reaches level 100, every 10th Adventure would be a Special Adventure (name pending). This works in the following way:
1) When a player (of at least level 100) have completed 9 Adventures the next Adventure found will be a Special Adventure.
2) Special Adventures are just like normal Adventures in some ways: Same type tests, can be dropped, count for the repeatable quest
3) Special Adventures differ from normal adventures in that a) test are harder, and b) the reward is different

How are tests harder in Special Adventures?
Adventure test in Special Adventures are harder by having a higher difficulty (Ability tests/Skill tests), require more resources (HP/SP/SE), or require a higher level Potion. Also, Crystal point will be used differently, so that a player will need x CP/+1 Bonus on the tests. Possibly there could be an AA ability that modifies x.

How is the reward different?
Instead of a number of Soul-diamonds (based on the level of the player and the number of tests in the Adventure) the reward will be based on the Wheel of Fortune. Perhaps one "non-AS roll" per 2 tests in the Adventure, with an additional "Luck coupon" roll for every 5 tests would be good? So a 5-test Adventure would give 2 non-AS and one Luck coupon roll.

OKay... stand by as the Wombat throws a spanner (maybe) into the works:

To me, a Special/Epic Adventure has merits, BUT not as just a "you get this as it is Adventure Number 10 in this run" which means that in the normal course of events it will have anything from 3 to 8 (10??) challenges.

Nope. Special/Epic should be just that. It should really test the player and his character.

Ask yourself this: When was the last time you were beaten in a DG battle? (okay, excusing going in with the wrong equipment *blush* and sans pets *beetroot red now*

To be truly Epic/Special, it needs at least one Boss Fight, that is against a monster 30-40 levels above you, and just to be different.. two attempts to remove xx% of hp.

There would be no "you lose x HPs" or Spell points challenges... by the same token nor would you be able to use a mana potion between fights.

There would be the usual skills/attribute tests, maybe a quiz question, but the main thing would be the Big mother you Know is coming... and you have no idea who, what, when or where.

So, to my way of thinking to really make this work, special adventures will need to be written and probably a little tweeking to the program as well.

WEG Of course, as we know there are some here who can take down an Epic all by themselves, without assistance. But if the challenge becomes to hurt the monster by xx% in two battles.......... That could be a variable based on how they go in Epic Battles in determining the % damage they need to total.

*Wombat crawls back into burrow*

Guys, I started to write a long post, replying in detail to Sbart, Cruel and Kalann.
But actually, Sbarts final summary post is perfect, I got to the same conclusion, so I deleted it all. It is just ok as you say, we will do it.
Only one thing remains for discussion, rewards.

I do not want to differentiate it on the number of tasks (will set a minimum of 6 for tasks for epic anyway).
So based on what you say, I suggest this:
1 non-AS rolls on WoF, 1 luck coupon, 1 temple crystal and 1 adventure cystal.

A number of adventure crystals can be exchanged for a reward of choice like temple crystals. I'm open to suggestions.

Also I liked the name Epic Adventure, we can stick to this if you don't mind

Thanks for the positive reply!

About the reward:
Since which Adventure you get is random, it should be ok with that the Reward is not dependent on then number of Adventure tasks, since it will even out over time. As for the list of rewards, I think it is good, except that I would remove the Adventure Crystal. It is just a new resource, and is it necessary? The inclusion of the Temple Crystal already gives the player a resource that can be exchanged for a number of different rewards, and I do not really see the reason for including another resource (unless you have some special plans for it?). And the Reward is pretty good even without it.

I also like the name Epic Adventure, although I do agree with the discussion that they didn't turn out, well, very Epic.

First, I'm happy that this conversation was productive. Kudos to Sbart for suggesting the initial idea, thanks to all who used their brain-cells to provide input.

@Wombat from Down Under : Keep in mind that our proposals are tailored to keep coding/writing to a minimum. Using existing adventures as a basis for Special/Epic Adventures is simply the easiest way forward ... using only adventures with 6+ tasks for completion (as Miklos indicated) should cover most of your points.

@Miklos : Thanks for providing an official approval. It's good to know that we can actually help to improve the game (even if I'll have to wait a few levels before personally taking advantage of this one ). I'll concur with Sbart : Unless the adventure crystal is really necessary, better to replace it with an existing type of ressource.

.... so "epic" adventures (mainly along Sbart's guidelines) seem to be approved. I'll admit to the sin of pride , but I'd like to know what Beholder (and other players) think of my proposal (call them "Legendary Adventures", since "Epic" is already reserved ). Thanks in advance for all answers ~ positive or negative, I'll learn something in the process.

Hey guys, we start programming this. I know it's been a long time, but a lot of things were in the queue Thanks for your patience and support. We adding some new fun to the game this week, Tree of Knowledge. It helps new players to build faster, and it gives new goal to high-levels.

Epic!

I was kind of loosing hope that we would ever see epic advetures in the game. Any more precise eta?