Home  | Login  | Register  | Help  | Play 

Friday, June 6th Design Notes: Arena at the Edge of Time: Your Dragon!

  		Logged in as: Guest
  Printable Version
All Forums >> [Artix Entertainment Games] >> [DragonFable] >> DragonFable General Discussion >> Friday, June 6th Design Notes: Arena at the Edge of Time: Your Dragon!
Forum Login
Message << Older Topic   Newer Topic >>
6/6/2025 23:56:52   
Laeon val Observis
Member
 
quote:


Friday, June 6, 2025
Arena at the Edge of Time: Your Dragon!
Hey there, heroes!

DragonFable's 19th Anniversary month begins! This week, the final chapter of the Beginnings challenge board has arrived. And your opponent is none other than... your dragon!


After countless adventures and stories, it's time to return to where it all began... your partner in heroism (and sometimes crime)! Enhanced by the magic of the Arena, your dragon stands to be a powerful foe... do you have what it takes to win against them in a proper duel?

Just remember, since you're facing your dragon... they won't be available to use as a pet! That would be silly and break the laws of physics and space-time, which definitely never happens in DragonFable.

As for the reward, you'll earn a special new trinket that will be able to upgrade a special item that's well, coming soon! (The trinket has some pretty nice stats on it though!)

Are you ready for a somewhat-friendly spar with your best companion? Or perhaps more of a clash for the ages? Well, head on over to the Inn at the Edge of Time!


Also this week, previous years' special June Anniversary specials have returned! Make sure to pick up your favorites, (and classics) like the elemental scythes while they're here and on sale!

As a reminder, you can also currently earn Bonus Dragon Coins from select packages! It's almost like getting things on super sale!



Also this week, a few changes/adjustments:
  • LUK/CHA on the Chaos Champion's Wings has been inverted (i.e. to -13/-13 from 13/13 at level 90)
  • The Twilly pet's healing has been reduced to 5%, down from 8%.
  • Drakath, Champion of Chaos' diffiuclty rating has been reduced to 4, down from 5.


And that's all for this week! Unfortunately, Dracelix is dealing with some IRL issues at the moment, so we're a little bit shorthanded at the moment, but we'll figure it out!

As for next week... well, you might want to start getting ready for a war!

DF AQW  Post #: 1
6/7/2025 2:36:59   
TFS
Helpful!


 I thought this fight was pretty unfun due to a) threshold immunity spam in Phase 1, and b) excessive shields without the ability to use Scout. Scout has become a load-bearing ability for the past several years of content (ie, it's overpowered but so much content is balanced around the assumption that the player is using it) and this fight is a pretty good example of what that looks like. I do appreciate that glances and DoTs ticked down the Phase 2 scale counter, though, so there was clearly consideration and this wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. I also wasn't super enthralled by the presentation due to the lack of dialogue, but that's not really unique to this fight.

Though, due to the low difficulty, I just rolled over it first try without knowing the mechanics - I'm not yet super familiar with this fight and my opinions could change with experience.

EDIT: I really dislike the Draco ban and hope it doesn't happen again for future challenges.
-Not having pet skills to choose from reduces complexity
-Not having to worry about CHA breakpoints for Draco CDs while gearswapping reduces complexity
-Disproportionately harms weaker classes like Dragonslayer while stronger classes like Paladin are barely affected

< Message edited by TFS -- 6/7/2025 21:09:37 >
DF  Post #: 2
6/7/2025 10:59:32   
FireyBombz
Member
 

 The theme of the fight is pretty cool, fighting against our kid dragon and then it titanizing for the real fight. There are a few interesting mechanics to pay attention to (assuming you're not using a class that can ignore literally every single one like Pirate).

However, the HP gating in phase 1 is absolutely obnoxious and the shields with no access to scout can be extremely frustrating if you're trying to do this on a class that, once again, can't simply ignore them entirely. The stuns are also very annoying unless you can simply ignore them with defensive uptime (funny how that keeps coming up!). Pretty disappointed overall honestly.
Post #: 3
6/7/2025 15:34:22   
Windstar
Member

I need help with most of the challenges at the Arena At The Edge Of Time, please create a guide for this arena, because I'm having problems defeating many of the toughest monsters in there, and I don't know which class is the best to use to defeat some of the toughest monsters, please help me.
AQ DF MQ Epic  Post #: 4
6/7/2025 19:57:00   
Laeon val Observis
Member
 

 No one has done a guide like that in ages simply because the Inn/Arena is deceptively large. If you need to enhance your arsenal, please peruse here as a starting point before you gradually accumulate the best gear. If the Endgame wiki does not suit your tastes, you really have no choice but to face the reality of relying on YouTube vids despite your apprehensions for such forms of guides.

EDIT: On the topic of the fight itself, I actually found it thrilling, likely due to Ninja+Chimera working in decent tandem to my nature to be liberal of crutch usage instead of elitist "perfect plays". While the shielding of our companion may require looking into, it is otherwise ironic that there have been "starved" dragon proof of concept vids over the ages. Here we are, a fight that encourages such plays, and the psychological shock that comes with such paradigm.

< Message edited by Laeon val Observis -- 6/7/2025 23:52:53 >
DF AQW  Post #: 5
6/8/2025 1:00:28   
DragonKeeper
Member

I have made a couple of trial runs of the new challenge and it seems like an interesting sparring match with my old friend – pet dragon and titanized pet dragon. TFS said he disliked the fact that we also cannot use pet dragon but it is obvious that we cannot since pet dragon is our opponent during the challenge. Perhaps we will need to equip weapons that give us a bonus boost like Lance of the Lost Kin III or Lance of Awether III.
DF  Post #: 6
6/8/2025 3:44:57   
TFS
Helpful!
quote:

TFS said he disliked the fact that we also cannot use pet dragon but it is obvious that we cannot since pet dragon is our opponent during the challenge.

this is the third inn fight against this guy
DF  Post #: 7
6/8/2025 5:32:22   
Dratomos
Helpful!


 Overall feeling of the fight is: "it's alright".

Theme is cool and seeing our old buddy switching to Titan version is really neat. It would be great to see more of these tranformations in single fights in the future!

Overall, while Titan Dragon was okay, Pet Dragon fight is odd. Almost all skills it has feel either something that can be just ignored with revamped classes, while weaker classes just are stunlocked. I like that the skills are based on Pet Dragon's own skills, but it just feels odd. And the HP threshold feels like it's there only to prevent the player from steamrolling Dragon to Titan version.

As for lack of Pet Dragon, I don't mind it. Sure it's odd not to train CHA at all for Inn fight, but I think it fits here better than it would have for Doomed Reality fight. All it does however, is to showcase how generally weak other pets are. Besides Baby Chimera, there really isn't another Pet you could use here. Maybe revamping Inn Pets to be a bit stronger would be nice, if we are locked out of Pet Dragon in the future?

I get that Pet Dragon is supposed to be the strongest pet we have, and they are, but that doesn't mean other pets we get should go basically straight to bank.

What I missed the most in this fight was the lack of dialogue from Pet Dragon. I am so used to them being so talkative, so having them say some things during the fight would have been a nice addition.

< Message edited by Dratomos -- 6/8/2025 5:34:10 >
DF AQW  Post #: 8
6/8/2025 13:21:41   
  Verlyrus
DragonFable Boxcat


 I think the fight could have done with my original plan, where the small phase was longer, so the HP gates weren't as cramped, and then titan phase would be longer with a health refill at the start of it. I also think that we aren't properly testing for full offensive builds and strats, which caused a bit of a dichotomy where if you just bursted things, I can see how the HP gates would get annoying and also how Titan phase would feel too short to matter.

Unless you literally fight your dragon (as is, not altered or whatever) again, you won't not have your dragon pet again. It was just too thematic not to do, and would add a little bit of change/adjustment. The shield values were adjusted for no pet dragon, though.

Regarding the intention of the HP gates, when you push them, small dragon automatically uses the final skill of their stat mini-rotation. So if you keep pushing them quickly, it can get a bit overwhelming. The intent was to have you strategize around that, as well as choosing which rotation you want them to start with. Perhaps the gates were too small for that to have as much of an impact as intended.

As for dialogue, that's usually the last thing I add to a fight. This was a later release already, and given the complexity, I was unfortunately extremely drained (and still had to do Design Notes, etc.) I am not opposed to going back in and adding some, however. Another thing I could try is having an alternate version of the fight made with some adjustments, leaving this version as-is (besides any added dialogue), and have a better tuned version in general.
AQ MQ  Post #: 9
6/8/2025 21:06:26   
TFS
Helpful!
quote:

I also think that we aren't properly testing for full offensive builds and strats, which caused a bit of a dichotomy where if you just bursted things, I can see how the HP gates would get annoying and also how Titan phase would feel too short to matter.

I played a defensive class that took 106 turns for first clear and still took umbrage with the HP gates. Spending 10+ turns to charge up 3 turns of 800 DPT and have the third one not count because DoomKnight might decide it's Dooming time and Doom all over those guys is a super unfun way to deny interactivity that still punishes me even when I'm playing the fight as intended (not bursting). I know I always say this about HP gates in general, but they're a super lame mechanic and there are already a million other anti-burst mechanics in the game (stacking defensive effects on hit or after X hits, enraging on next turn, even just throwing on some Evil res [which this fight already does!], etc) without just skipping player turns. Maybe it would make more sense to only start pulling out the anti-burst effects after losing 10% HP in one turn, rather than 10% HP across all turns?

A recent one I really liked was champion drakath forcing you to back off for a turn AFTER passing each threshold, so a) player's turns aren't wasted b) burst classes don't just blitz the whole fight (or skip one threshold at most thru extreme optimization, which is both difficult to do and a proportionate reward), and c) it's an interactable stat like +res rather than just complete immunity, so by preparing in advance you can still make marginal progress on the off-turn. I strongly prefer interactive defensive mechanics like this one to just ringing the coal alarm and shutting down the whole battle every time you deal 10% damage
DF  Post #: 10
6/8/2025 21:20:19   
Laeon val Observis
Member
 

 ^And that was the comparison that I was afraid will appear sooner or later.

At this point, it's not really an issue of the design specs of a challenge, but how it seems that we've been too... accessible. As DF's combat mechanics are relatively in a good spot already, perhaps it is time to remind the existence of class gates (DmK, a super premium class, is supposed to be given a hard "no" by Inn Sepulchure barring AstralCodex-era meme plays. It was quite jarring that V-Hunter EX13 made an exception of Pyro with barely any rhyme or reason) or anti-"imposition" mechanics (e.g. Voyna and Illumina. Had to be reminded that Glaive seemingly undermined any plans to check Ice Scythe shenanigans).

EDIT: And I did my small but regular "doomscrolling" after an Arena release. This particular challenge is a time the reminds me that, for all the love/hate and controversies they acquired, it is a pity that we lost Korriban as at least their Arena content offered a glimpse in suboptimal plays winning.

< Message edited by Laeon val Observis -- 6/9/2025 0:51:38 >
DF AQW  Post #: 11
6/9/2025 15:58:30   
Windstar
Member

Hi, I need help with a strategy on how to defeat each monster in each challenge in the Arena At The Edge Of Time, I tried to find guides on the Dragonfable Wiki, but I didn't find any actual strategy for any challenge, so there are still a lot of challenges that I need to complete to unlock features like customizations for armors and resources for weapons that I need, please help me.
AQ DF MQ Epic  Post #: 12
6/9/2025 21:39:55   
Laeon val Observis
Member
 

 @Windstar, at this point of how you are spamming and thread hijacking for help to raid the Inn/Arena, maybe you should try to attempt to ask for a live with screen share at Discord for someone to guide you. There is no other way if both Endgame Wiki and YouTube cannot sate your desperate bloodlust.

Since you are curious of class matchups, found this. But considering your continued apprehension to videos, I doubt it be of use.

< Message edited by Laeon val Observis -- 6/10/2025 1:15:41 >
DF AQW  Post #: 13
6/10/2025 3:46:11   
Windstar
Member

I never saw any Youtube videos at all, can you give me a link to Youtube videos?
AQ DF MQ Epic  Post #: 14
6/10/2025 14:09:31   
Bluu
Member

There seems to be a good deal of discussion and criticism in the comments section of these two videos. I have rather extensive opinions on this fight but mine seem to align with the general consensus in these, therefore I'm sharing the links here so the developer may see them, if he hasn't already.
Post #: 15
6/10/2025 21:19:58   
SilverSoul
Member

Windstar, the google doc the other poster linked to has a few youtube links that show people beating the associated inn challenges with the classes the videos are listed under. The underlined stuff links to the videos, though some may just link to images. Some are outdated, but generally you should probably get the gist of the fight.


Anyway, in the spirit of being on-topic, happy belated birthday DF!

< Message edited by SilverSoul -- 6/10/2025 21:22:10 >
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 16
Page:   [1]
All Forums >> [Artix Entertainment Games] >> [DragonFable] >> DragonFable General Discussion >> Friday, June 6th Design Notes: Arena at the Edge of Time: Your Dragon!
Jump to:






Icon Legend
New Messages No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages Locked w/o New Messages
 Post New Thread
 Reply to Message
 Post New Poll
 Submit Vote
 Delete My Own Post
 Delete My Own Thread
 Rate Posts




Forum Content Copyright © 2018 Artix Entertainment, LLC.

"AdventureQuest", "DragonFable", "MechQuest", "EpicDuel", "BattleOn.com", "AdventureQuest Worlds", "Artix Entertainment"
and all game character names are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Artix Entertainment, LLC. All rights are reserved.
PRIVACY POLICY


Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition