User blog:Taldin/Do Ferrets Come With The Title?



(Nope, no ferrets in a bag, just this shiny award. And if you get the reference, I know something more about your TV habits.)

One of the big motivators for many Habiticians is the vaunted Beast Master achievement. It requires a lot of patience and getting things you don't want as drops after you've already checked them off the list. It is the driving force behind Achievers and Collector type players; and if you're a paid subscriber, the temptation to just buy your way to victory can be very very strong. Especially since all drops are not created equal percentage-wise; those darned Golden Hatching potions drop the least often. From the Drops page: My current 'extra' potions count shows (+x shows that I used a potion for a Gen 2 pet): The proportions seem to hold pretty true, except I ought to have more blue, pink, shade, and zombie potions than I do. I spent a good chunk of time as a Rogue for extra drops, but for the past couple of months I've been a Warrior for the extra damage on bosses, which sent my Perception through the floor.
 * 30% chance of a hatching potion, governed by the following probabilities:
 * 40% chance of a Base, Desert, or White potion.
 * 30% chance of a Red, Shade, or Skeleton potion.
 * 23.33% chance of a Cotton Candy Blue, Cotton Candy Pink, or Zombie potion.
 * 6.67% chance of a Golden potion.
 * Base/Desert/White:  19(+4)/15(+3)/16(+4)
 * Red/Shade/Skeleton: 10(+2)/4(+2)/6(+1)
 * Blue/Pink/Zombie: 2(+1)/2(+1)/1
 * Golden: 0 (+1: I hatched a Golden Egg months ago.  What was I thinking? :D  Answer: I didn't know how rare Golden potions were.)

Also, being somewhat obsessive about doing all my Dailies left me with mostly blue Dailies, which have the smallest base drop chance, except that they had high streaks (the highest one being 96 days straight) which mitigated that somewhat.

But at the end of the road, being able to do it without spending a single Gem, is pretty danged satisfying as an achievement to me.

Climb Every Mount'ain...
The next stage is to get to Mount Master, which is going to take a heckuva lot of food --  810 drops worth compared to the 900 you need to complete your Beast Master achievement. (Calculated by the fact it takes 9 food per pet, 90 times.)     And again, the temptation to spend Gems to get there will be there, especially since it's a lot more random to collect a set of food than it is for single potions. It takes patience and a lot of clicking off of Tasks - if you bought everything via gems as Saddles, it would take 5x90=450 gems, which, given the 25/month gem cap, would take 18 months. I'm actually better off trying to collect things with tasks, it would seem!

I actually had the goods to get to Beast Master a few days ago, but I was reluctant to part with my last Golden Potion to do it, because the completionist in me didn't want the hole in the Market space for one Golden Potion -- I have at least 1 of all of the other potions left. Now that I'm done, I _could_ just buy one to fill in the space, but where's the fun in that? It's my own self-imposed challenge, I guess....

Orb of Rebirth, or push to 100?
Using an Orb of Rebirth is worth a whole bunch early on - your tasks get reset to yellow (higher base drop chance), and you get a 5% bonus to drops as a "new" adventurer. But you also have to fight your way up the XP ladder again, and all your streaks get reset, too. And I'd hate to see them go. Of course, there's always "Restore Streaks", but I would guess that'd be an unfair advantage.

On the other-other paw, there's the ability to try and document things from a new user's perspective - but if that were the case, why not just start a new account and have the fun of collecting everything all over again?

...except I'd lose my kitty ears forever. :3    Can't have that!

Right. Anyway. The point of this blog post is to say 'yes, it can be done without buying Gems'. And I think the duration to do so is about right - it should be a challenge that takes you halfway through the level cap or so  (I'm level 60) so that it makes the journey seem worthwhile. I'm actually afraid of the feature they're working on - the ability to let your pets and mounts go -- because part of the fun of Habits for me has been the struggles to try and collect all of the pets  ("C'mon, zombie potion!") and discovering new pets with my party of friends. ("Your Shade Cactus.  It is evil.  I want one.")   But on the other hand, I can see the allure - once you have your Mount Master + Beast Master bingo (full mounts and rehatched pets = 1800 egg/hatching drops + 1620 food = 3420 drops), there's nothing left to collect except to work on Gen 2 pets.

So maybe going for a second lap _would_ be an idea.... but the old Zen adage comes to mind: "In life, there are very few second chances - learn to live with what you recieve, and without what you lack, or you will never be satisfied with any of your days."

Taldin (talk) 00:12, August 16, 2014 (UTC)