I think it's high time we had a meaningful discussion on the state of attaining arch skills in this game. We can all agree that they are (mostly) extremely powerful and nice quality of life upgrades to the arch classes. Having these skills gated by harder difficulty content makes sense. The issue I have with the current system is some skills take an extremely large investment in order to be able to attain them anywhere close to the same rank the character arched at, and some are nigh impossible until much later. Every class in the game spends the majority of their time farming low level pents (1st Lieut only from 1st Lieut until arch) or sometimes sneaking into Major AT at Captain or Major until they are capable of beating Lab 12 and arching. It feels like a drag to go through all of that and be met with another long grind to get the full fruits of your labors.

Don't get me wrong - I do NOT think arch skills should just be handed out. I like the mid-rank content that isn't a pushover, it adds a little variety to the pent and AT grind. This comes back to the difficulty of the content is too high for when I feel we should be able to get these skills. The main culprit here is Emerald Cave. The lizards are notoriously a pain in the arse for just about everyone. You also have to consider the amount of enemies and backtracking needed to complete the quest. From what I understand, the content was made this difficult to encourage grouping to get the skills. This is a great plan!... if we had people to group.

Aranock seems to have a dedicated core of players that rotate in and out of the game as time passes. There are a few players that are around a lot more often, and those players you see have the strongest characters in Aranock (read: nobility!). It proves difficult to find anyone that can even group a Brig General, let alone someone that can actually help for Emerald Cave without being specifically built for it. My purpose here today is to explain why I think grouping restrictions should be slightly relaxed.

I think we can all agree that around Captain is when most races can pent 1st Lieut solo reliably for the arch grind. Obviously, it can be done earlier with good gear and constant drugs, but that proves my point further. Captain requires 1,998,700 experience. I think we can all agree that most races will arch at or around Colonel (being generous). Colonel requires 6,384,350 experience, around three times more than Captain. To group with the majority of the people that play this game on a regular basis, Colonel isn't even close to enough to be able to group. To be able to group nobility, you need to be Lieut General. Lieut General requires 16,368,450 experience, a whopping EIGHT TIMES more experience than Captain!

But wait! The v2 system is designed to be a grind! Yes, I agree! However, I also believe in having fun while playing. Aranock has a different type of grind than most any other game in the way we raise our skills and how those skills give us power increases. My idea of fun is not grinding from Captain to Lieut General in order to reliably be able to get all of my arch skills.

I propose we modify the grouping restrictions. I think we should raise the rank restriction to 4 ranks. Major Generals can do a lot of end-game content on spells and drugs (Ice Pents, Ice Nest, Tower) already, so allowing them to group with nobility wouldn't cause major problems from my perspective. And even if someone managed to carry a Major General through Prison, or Cohors, is the fact that they earned Major General enough evidence that they are here to enjoy the game? What is the harm in letting another rank of players have that fun? This also provides the benefit of being able to group with the people whom you are most likely to encounter in-game.

What say you, denizens of Aranock?

Well written.

I understand your pain, especially if you are a non stunner trying to do that area.

The grouping restrictions were put in for a good reason and that reason still exists.

Your issues with the Emme Cave are real but I am not sure the grouping restrictions relaxation is the best answer.
I suspect the Cave is too hard an area for that quest.
It is too much effort to make that area easier.
We could move the quest but then the Cave becomes a bit of a relic and no one would ever do it, other than maybe Seyans.

The best solution is to get more players to play the game but we would need a big recruitment drive.

Any other alternatives?

I must admit, I don't know any edge cases or weird issues where an additional rank could cause massive balance or "speed ranking" issues but I am sure they exist. I don't know that a recruitment drive for this game would ever be successful - the game is just too old, slow, and archaic. The people that play are people coming for nostalgia. I think Astonia Reborn launching on Steam proves that point, they still have no players. I think the solution is finding something that doesn't totally upset the delicate balance of ranking up while also giving a nudge towards that particular quest. Problem is, I just don't know what that solution is. Is a seyan shrine enough to justify the time spent on creating Emerald Cave? I don't have that answer, either.

Emmy caves is a fantastic place for the new, improved, beefhog ghost companion 2. This arch hara only gc2 will be aimed at players lt general and above, and will ultimately be usable in ice pents and possibly uw with the right conditions. 😉