YMMV / Dawn of the Dragons

• Broken Base:
  • Mini-zones (especially "Peril of the Pumpkin Patch") have caused this - on one hand, players enjoyed it because it allowed the developers to release areas faster and deliver more content over a sustained period of time. On the other, some long-time fans perceive the zones to be lacking in effort and easy to finish.
  • The debate over whether the Expedition/Mystery Packs constituted gambling or not, and whether the RNG ('random number generator') was rigged to benefit the developers. Due to California passing new legislation for online gambling (and an massive forum war that nearly took down the servers), the developers published the chances for obtaining each pack item in November 2012.
  • In June 2014, the decision to replace direct-buy premiums with a random-chance lockbox and key system, which was already heavily criticized in the mobile version for being a cashgrab and spamming players with tons of boxes that couldn't be thrown out or sold. The resulting outrage nearly melted down the official forum, with many players calling 5PG to task for accelerating the game's power-creep and being arrogant in the way they explained it. This system was mostly phased out soon afterwards.
  • Elite raids were said by some players to drive too much power creep, while others thought them a needed outlet for high-level players to burn off extra energy and stamina. Conversely, players have also complained that there are too many elite raids being introduced, and that there is no effort put into them besides changing the raid name and greatly simplifying the end loot.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • In PVP Duel, expect 80-90% of the available players to be wielding a fully-upgraded Sword of Conquered Kingdoms, due to its immense PVP bonus and status as one of the best free weapons in the game.
  • The Worthy Warden's Set (upgraded from the Wooden and Wild Warden's set, respectively) is crafted by using Daily Assignment Tokens, given for completing certain tasks every day, and has become the preferred choice for most PVP and new players due to how easy it is to obtain, its high PVP bonus and very high energy/stamina bonuses.
  • Didn't research or check to see what the right combination of magics are to apply to specific raids? Prepare to get yelled out by other people on the World Chat or on the forums.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Bosso Twinklefingers (a Wicked Toymaker who terrorizes kids in West Kruna with lethal toys) ascended from someone mentioned in the flavor text of a familiar to a Running Gag in virtually every World Raid, to a usable premium general who scaled with owned familiars.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The "My Name Is..." chapter, which details the impact the player has made on West Kruna, and the lengths his/her friends will go to for the safety of innocent civilians and the glory of his/her exploits. One chapter has Teucer Tullian consoling a young girl he rescues from certain death.
  • "Crimson Shadows" ends with Mina von Richten visiting the player character, who is on his/her deathbed, dying of old age, after many decades of adventuring. Said character notes that many of their friends and companions, including many who've been mentioned throughout the main storyline, have come to visit and say their final goodbyes in their own quirky ways.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: Due to what is seen as repetitive grinding during questing, a number of players skip reading the text (which can constitute several pages) in zones, and simply hit the "Continue" button as fast as possible to get through quickly.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: World Raids (also known as "Colossal" Raids), which are limited-time raids that usually have one-time only armor, weapons, familiars, troops and legion bonuses. Most players are advised to throw everything they have at WR's raids to get the most out of them.
• That One Puzzle: Achieving the highest form of the Sword of Conquered Kingdoms. Without a guide, the steps required were so obtuse and confusing, with codes and enigmatic hints, that most people gave up completely.
• That One Sidequest: Several of the quests involving the Legendary items could be this, considering the amount of time and effort they took for comparatively little reward:
  • Both the upgraded Shield of Ryndor and Sword of Conquered Kingdoms tasked the player with taking part in several raids (a minimum of 14 for the shield, and 20 for the sword), using very specific combinations of armor/weapons/troops/Legions/mounts on the right raid and difficulty. The exact combination was only available from player-made guides, it took lots of time raiding just to get all the pieces required for the shield/sword-associated raids, and the eventual rewards were only good for PVP, and was far outclassed by most premium armor and weapons.
  • Getting the Greenleaf and Derek's armor sets from the Dragon's Lair raid. Aside from the fact that the raid had a hideously low timer and high HP (5 hours to chip down 1.2 billion hitpoints), the drop rate for the pieces was hideously low, to the point that some players had to take part in 100 raids or more just to get everything. While the time problem could be mitigated with certain legions found through questing, there was no way around the drop rate issue.
  • Getting Mina's third form (which has a "freemium" ability in the form of scaling stats based on how many generals the player owns) can only be obtained by obtaining gear through the Achievement Points Shop, and takes a minimum of 60,000 AP to obtain all the pieces (not counting RNG). This required the player to do thousands of raids and quest areas, but offered some of the best free bonuses in the game (in addition to Mina, it offered a 25% legion bonus and an additional set of powerful armor).
  • Anything related to guild campaigns can become this. Several freemium generals and items obtained though this mode have incredibly-low drop rates, and can require a lot of grinding. Don't have enough people in your guild? Too bad, you're not getting far in the Nightmare Queen's Horde campaign, which has some of the best anti-nightmare gear in the game (including Tormad the Weapon, the Queen's Mark armor set, the Queenslayers legion and the Holy Grik troop).
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Any new quest area or mechanic can receive this reaction from players.
  • The Zone 11 area, "My Name Is...", finishes with a boss fight against Frog-Men Assassins, who are complete pushovers in the questline and in raids. People loudly complained that they were pointless in light of the previous zone's boss, Carcalla, and didn't have anything new for long-time players.
  • Raid cooldowns. After the development team changed cooldown periods for certain bosses (like Carcalla) to be longer, users complained it would break the flow of the game and hurt the player base.
  • Certain items that have been nerfed have received this reaction from the fanbase. "Omer's Collar" was an item that originally allowed the player to double-proc on raids, but was changed a few days to limit the proc to Human-type raids only. "Guster's Fault" was a magic that equalized power-creep by giving players of all types (including ones who had just joined) high-level stat books, boosters and items that normally weren't available at that stage. Both these nerfs caused no end of complaints on the forums.

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