PK and Dragons are really apples and oranges. I'd also argue that someone who is awesome at PK in Achaea has earned certain rights and privileges that other players can't access (ie, a different form of consistent experience gain and often membership in the Achaean Combat Council, which may in fact help make their PK better than others through the information and interactions they have access to).
Just because one is heavily involved in PK does not mean they're ACC. Personally I'm not in it, nor do I want to be. I have learned everything I know through practice and reading what is available both in game and on forums/pastebin. Saying PKers and Dragons have "earned certain rights and privileges" doesn't make sense. They have earned knowledge and experience, and in the case of Dragon - a new skillset and a language.
Teleporting across the world might be slightly faster than using wings, a vibrating stick, or speed walking but honestly for the time it takes to dragonform and then travel that route I might as well hoof it - and I do. About the only real advantage is when traveling to Ulangi because you don't have to pay the initial ferry. Maybe if there were more Gare exits this would be a more significant class advantage.
Then go earn something. Get Elder Dragon - which you should be able to do now that they've made things slightly more tedius for all the basement dwellers who are auto-looping the talisman areas 24/7.
I was playing long before dragon class skills came out, so I recognize that what Dragon means is defined by the Garden. I also acknowledge that you may be tweaking things as you go along. But at this point I don't see any significant reason right now for my other characters or anyone else to invest time in bashing to dragon (or beyond 90 for that matter) or, conversely, using dragon for bashing. I hope that changes.
From what I've seen and read here, it sounds like what they're doing is a great thing. They're essentially leveling the playing field for all classes. And hopefully less unartied Monk/Runie/Shaman rolling to dragon in 2 IRL weeks and then being used as credit factories for peoples' main characters.
This is also going to possibly affect house influences. Can't speak for other classes because I don't have 50 alts, but I think these changes are great for serpent houses because now serpent hunting is actually fun. Serpents in my house would often say "I'm quitting the house so I can go monk and bash to dragon." or "What arties do I need to PK to dragon? Hunting is too slow. A lupine? That's too expensive for me, I'm going monk. Bye." Now they're given a whip as novices and hunting is actually enjoyable instead of "this is so boring... it takes me 3 minutes of hit and run to kill one sidhe knight."
This is all anecdotal of course, but I've been bashing steadily to 101 (achieved it this week) for the last RL year. I hunt a few hours a day, at most - but that is really all I should need to put into hunting at this point in the game.
I definitely don't earn mud-inflating gold from that hunting either, and as far as talismans go I don't know who is gathering these up but it isn't me. The drop rate definitely seems to have be diminished again recently because for 14-21 hours of bashing I've received a total of 3 talismans this week (and all of those weren't even ones I needed).
If the current drop rate I've seen continues as far as my hunting goes, I project that I'll have Elder in about 2 more RL years (yay?) because, again, I don't make the gold necessary to buy huge quantities of these things. Then again, that is assuming I don't keep getting stuck with pieces I already possess and which no one else needs because they are so very common. Hm, yeah. Better make that 3 RL years.
I agree the lesserform changes are great. I think it definitely will help Houses in the long run and it may cut down on people rolling into dragon in 2 IRL weeks - both because hunting is a little more level and because who the cares about becoming a tank that can tear into and leap across the veil (especially when the places you can access are just as easily reached by other modes of travel).
Dragon is meant to be a reward. One that technically anyone can achieve with the proper effort and discipline, whether it takes them 3 in game years or 300. We're all basically equally capable (exceptions might apply in some cases) of reaching dragon, and those who choose not to reach that goal are responsible for not having the rewards that come with being a dragon. Those of us who are dragon are basically on an even level, arties aside, and many stop hunting regularly. The full experience is nice, but it's not that great. Once you reach a certain level experience doesn't mean as much unless you have a certain rank you want to obtain like passing up Seragorn.
Oh, we definitely agree that Dragon should be attractive to everyone, regardless of class. No question about that. (Well, at least people who think the concept of being a Dragon is cool. If they don't, not much we can do to make Dragon attractive.)
However, we don't agree that the reward of being a Dragon needs to be all about how fast you can bash. The ability to Gare all by itself sets Dragons apart from everyone else, and I watch Dragons use it frequently, so I know it's useful.
The artied normal class vs. Dragon is a tough one and it's looking like we may need to boost Dragon damage some. I think Dragon bashing should probably be approximately as good as a fully-artied person, giving a fully-artied person the option to choose one or the other, and giving everyone else a bashing class that's as good as can be gotten with arties, but earned via leveling. Emphasis on approximate, since classes are all different, and the arties available to them are often different. We also wouldn't want to introduce Dragon-specific arties either - that's going too far.
Don't worry, we hear you guys here, and are pondering our course of action. What we're not going to do is put bashing damage for Dragons back to where it was, though we're definitely looking at undoing part of the nerf. It's worth pointing out that Dragons do actually get xp from bashing 15% faster now than previously too, though I realize that leveling up past 100 isn't the primary reason for liking Dragon bashing for most people. Nice when you have to recover xp lost to dying in PK though.
Is this right place to ask for a cool city specific secondary skillset for dragons, so that you can get cool city based benefits for being a dragon and party of a city. Like nothing ground breaking. Being able to summon city flavoured minions that wash your feet and a city based description add on, and customise some of your dragon messages to city aligned messages. That kind of thing.
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
So, I know you guys are all going on about the dragons right now. But this thread is for everyone (Screw you, haters, yes it is :P). Has anyone been able to test the matter of Serpent hunting out a bit yet? Are we going to want to concentrate on a high damage whip, or what?
Has anyone been able to test the matter of Serpent hunting out a bit yet? Are we going to want to concentrate on a high damage whip, or what?
Haven't found a serpent to test garrote damage with yet. I couldn't figure out exactly how dexterity affects speed either, I'd like to see garrote with 16+ dexterity.
Sultani brought up a good point with Aetolia's end game. Their incentive for continuing to bash is that they earn points they can spend on different stats, or what we'd consider here a lair. So reaching the end game still remains something you really want to obtain there, and it becomes more about other things, rather than just how much gold you can hoard.
Sultani brought up a good point with Aetolia's end game. Their incentive for continuing to bash is that they earn points they can spend on different stats, or what we'd consider here a lair. So reaching the end game still remains something you really want to obtain there, and it becomes more about other things, rather than just how much gold you can hoard.
Lair, sure. Misc fun stuff, sure. PvP stats? No thank you. That would be a gross misunderstanding of why people play MMOs in general. Honestly the fact people consider lv80 a minimum requirement to PvP is already dumb. Raising that to 99+ is just awful, no thank you.
Sultani brought up a good point with Aetolia's end game. Their incentive for continuing to bash is that they earn points they can spend on different stats, or what we'd consider here a lair. So reaching the end game still remains something you really want to obtain there, and it becomes more about other things, rather than just how much gold you can hoard.
Lair, sure. Misc fun stuff, sure. PvP stats? No thank you. That would be a gross misunderstanding of why people play MMOs in general. Honestly the fact people consider lv80 a minimum requirement to PvP is already dumb. Raising that to 99+ is just awful, no thank you.
Not all of it is PVP stats. Some of it is flavour "add-ons" that come from the races your character doesn't belong to, like the alcohol resistance of a dwarf. Though some of it makes better sense there because they have stat packs, which we don't have, and some of the flavour skills are tailored to the fact that they have undead classes, which require abilities that aren't important here. I'm not at all saying we need to be OP combatants (I'm not even into combat).
Can we get a shield-takedown for monks now? I always figured we didn't get one because we already had solid hunting, but now that we don't, it would be nice to at least have that. Especially if knight classes are the new hunting powerhouses, and they already have raze, seems like it's only fair for us to get something similar.
Can we get a shield-takedown for monks now? I always figured we didn't get one because we already had solid hunting, but now that we don't, it would be nice to at least have that. Especially if knight classes are the new hunting powerhouses, and they already have raze, seems like it's only fair for us to get something similar.
While we're leveling things out, let's make shaman's Bleed go through denizen shields too, pls.
I kill the monks at judgement mountain so fast now Magi buff so awesome!
Aurora says, "Tharvis, why are you always breaking things?!" Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh." Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."
It could be something separate from stats altogether. Perhaps just additional utility abilities similar to gare or something aesthetic. The main thing I enjoy about Aetolia's version is simply that you can stay in your familiar form. I do recall hearing that dragon used to be used in conjunction with class skills which I agree would be pretty OP.
The ability to Gare all by itself sets Dragons apart from everyone else, and I watch Dragons use it frequently, so I know it's useful.
One ability does not make it worthwhile, just like enter/exit messages do not make Elder Dragon worthwhile. Even the quicker dragonform is kinda meh. But talismans are addicting as evidenced by many hours of bashing a day, every day. Hope it doesn't get nerfed again since I'm already very behind even with people helping me out sometimes. Monk's balanceless mind-sense is used a lot but it should not be the defining characteristic of that class. Never, ever nerf mindsense, though. ._.
The artied normal class vs. Dragon is a tough one and it's looking like we may need to boost Dragon damage some. I think Dragon bashing should probably be approximately as good as a fully-artied person..
Don't worry, we hear you guys here, and are pondering our course of action..
That person who made a post about customer service in this thread and everyone else only ever wanted this. For you to understand, and stroke our hair, and whisper sweet nothings. We have needs!
Can we get a shield-takedown for monks now? I always figured we didn't get one because we already had solid hunting, but now that we don't, it would be nice to at least have that. Especially if knight classes are the new hunting powerhouses, and they already have raze, seems like it's only fair for us to get something similar.
While we're leveling things out, let's make shaman's Bleed go through denizen shields too, pls.
Not sure if I'm misreading your tone because things can get muddled on the internet, but in conjunction with the 'disagree,' it seems a little snide and I'm not sure how necessary that was? It's just a suggestion. The amount of times I've heard non-monks say something along the lines of, "Oh man you guys have nothing for shields? That sucks," leads me to believe it's not all that outlandish of an idea.
Can we get a shield-takedown for monks now? I always figured we didn't get one because we already had solid hunting, but now that we don't, it would be nice to at least have that. Especially if knight classes are the new hunting powerhouses, and they already have raze, seems like it's only fair for us to get something similar.
While we're leveling things out, let's make shaman's Bleed go through denizen shields too, pls.
@Sarapis Relieved that something will be done to rebuff Dragons a bit. I think the community definitely feels that bashing-wise they shouldbe a bit OP, though perhaps it was too much - not there yet, so don't subjectively know.
From my own viewpoint, getting to Dragon is definitely billed as a major accomplishment - even being mentioned right at the beginning of character generation (at least it used to be). I knew it was a whole new game at Dragon bashing and that has been one of the goals holding me to Achaea and keeping me bashing over the last year and a half or so. Achieving Dragon made me buy bashing artefacts (pendant, lash (not particularly vital for PvP, but game-changer for PvE - same with SoE, etc.) I'm now within a couple months of making it (with the time that I have to be on) and as it stands now, verified by the numbers coming in on the Miscellaneious Maths/Testing II thread, I bash much better now than I would as a Dragon.
Piercing the Veil I'm sure is great and a good utility, but I already have several methods of travel (warps, shipreturn, bronze token, wings) so that alone isn't really worth the 180ish hours of solid bashing I have left to get there (and I'm already level 91, doing about 5% per hour) - plus the credits to buy the lessons to learn dragoncraft.
If it's not going to go back to how it was, maybe at least halfway between where it is now and where it was so that it's still at least (and should be a little better) than where artied lesserform bashing would be. Could also do a buff on dragon armor or give a regen ability or something that would make them tankier so there's a significant reason they're better; especially if damage isn't going to be spectacular. Potentially that could balance out as otherwise I heard that unartied Dragon can't tank a DK anymore.
However, we don't agree that the reward of being a Dragon needs to be all about how fast you can bash.
Sure, but it still needs to be about something. Achaea's bashing (for me) is more boring than most real jobs- not exactly a selling point for something that's supposed to be, on some level, entertainment. People put up with it (or used auto-bashers) because there was a massive homemade pie at the other end of the soul-sucking death march of bashing to Dragon. This pie has been replaced with a jolly rancher. Yeah sure, it's still attractive. I'll take one if you offered it to me. But is it worth putting in the time to achieve it? Is it appropriate as an end-game PvE reward? Hell no.
I understand your desire to keep Dragons from completely dominating the gold-generation market. Fair enough. But come on, we're talking about the ability to transform into a Dragon. It's a fantasy trope that exudes power. It requires a huge time investment to achieve. It's featured in the website's video. It's teased in the newbie intro. It's what every midbie with stars in their eyes goes to bed dreaming about. Of course you're getting a massive backlash when it's nerfed into the ground. When I Dragonform I want to be Smaug the Terrible, not Jabba the Hut with a teleportation amulet.
Okay, sure, maybe Dragon isn't about being an unstoppable PvE death machine anymore. But I just got hit pretty hard upside the head with the stick, and I don't think it's unreasonable to be expecting a damn fine carrot.
Comments
This is all anecdotal of course, but I've been bashing steadily to 101 (achieved it this week) for the last RL year. I hunt a few hours a day, at most - but that is really all I should need to put into hunting at this point in the game.
I definitely don't earn mud-inflating gold from that hunting either, and as far as talismans go I don't know who is gathering these up but it isn't me. The drop rate definitely seems to have be diminished again recently because for 14-21 hours of bashing I've received a total of 3 talismans this week (and all of those weren't even ones I needed).
If the current drop rate I've seen continues as far as my hunting goes, I project that I'll have Elder in about 2 more RL years (yay?) because, again, I don't make the gold necessary to buy huge quantities of these things. Then again, that is assuming I don't keep getting stuck with pieces I already possess and which no one else needs because they are so very common. Hm, yeah. Better make that 3 RL years.
I agree the lesserform changes are great. I think it definitely will help Houses in the long run and it may cut down on people rolling into dragon in 2 IRL weeks - both because hunting is a little more level and because who the cares about becoming a tank that can tear into and leap across the veil (especially when the places you can access are just as easily reached by other modes of travel).
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
Oh, we definitely agree that Dragon should be attractive to everyone, regardless of class. No question about that. (Well, at least people who think the concept of being a Dragon is cool. If they don't, not much we can do to make Dragon attractive.)
However, we don't agree that the reward of being a Dragon needs to be all about how fast you can bash. The ability to Gare all by itself sets Dragons apart from everyone else, and I watch Dragons use it frequently, so I know it's useful.
The artied normal class vs. Dragon is a tough one and it's looking like we may need to boost Dragon damage some. I think Dragon bashing should probably be approximately as good as a fully-artied person, giving a fully-artied person the option to choose one or the other, and giving everyone else a bashing class that's as good as can be gotten with arties, but earned via leveling. Emphasis on approximate, since classes are all different, and the arties available to them are often different. We also wouldn't want to introduce Dragon-specific arties either - that's going too far.
Don't worry, we hear you guys here, and are pondering our course of action. What we're not going to do is put bashing damage for Dragons back to where it was, though we're definitely looking at undoing part of the nerf. It's worth pointing out that Dragons do actually get xp from bashing 15% faster now than previously too, though I realize that leveling up past 100 isn't the primary reason for liking Dragon bashing for most people. Nice when you have to recover xp lost to dying in PK though.
We tried to replicate the real thing. Success!
Is this right place to ask for a cool city specific secondary skillset for dragons, so that you can get cool city based benefits for being a dragon and party of a city. Like nothing ground breaking. Being able to summon city flavoured minions that wash your feet and a city based description add on, and customise some of your dragon messages to city aligned messages. That kind of thing.
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
@Mishgul That's not going to happen, no.
necrodragon.
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
So, I tried to hunt, and I do not see the difference with before. Hunting is still as much boring, but not more than it was.
Can we joust vs denizens yet
Haven't found a serpent to test garrote damage with yet. I couldn't figure out exactly how dexterity affects speed either, I'd like to see garrote with 16+ dexterity.
I guess I switch to being a serpent, that was my second choice and it sounds interesting anyway.
@Sena Datrius is sitting at 17 Dex if you wanna test using him.
Sultani brought up a good point with Aetolia's end game. Their incentive for continuing to bash is that they earn points they can spend on different stats, or what we'd consider here a lair. So reaching the end game still remains something you really want to obtain there, and it becomes more about other things, rather than just how much gold you can hoard.
I want daemon-dragons, damnit!
Dracolichs, please.
Clearly all Mhaldorians should be able to do this if they were dragon. Making their breathe stream giving similar affects as decay or something.
Does that mean Eleusian dragons will give heartseed on breathstream? Flowery corpses everywhere!
Not all of it is PVP stats. Some of it is flavour "add-ons" that come from the races your character doesn't belong to, like the alcohol resistance of a dwarf. Though some of it makes better sense there because they have stat packs, which we don't have, and some of the flavour skills are tailored to the fact that they have undead classes, which require abilities that aren't important here. I'm not at all saying we need to be OP combatants (I'm not even into combat).
While we're leveling things out, let's make shaman's Bleed go through denizen shields too, pls.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
I kill the monks at judgement mountain so fast now Magi buff so awesome!
Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."
It could be something separate from stats altogether. Perhaps just additional utility abilities similar to gare or something aesthetic. The main thing I enjoy about Aetolia's version is simply that you can stay in your familiar form. I do recall hearing that dragon used to be used in conjunction with class skills which I agree would be pretty OP.
One ability does not make it worthwhile, just like enter/exit messages do not make Elder Dragon worthwhile. Even the quicker dragonform is kinda meh. But talismans are addicting as evidenced by many hours of bashing a day, every day. Hope it doesn't get nerfed again since I'm already very behind even with people helping me out sometimes. Monk's balanceless mind-sense is used a lot but it should not be the defining characteristic of that class. Never, ever nerf mindsense, though. ._.
That person who made a post about customer service in this thread and everyone else only ever wanted this. For you to understand, and stroke our hair, and whisper sweet nothings. We have needs!
Not sure if I'm misreading your tone because things can get muddled on the internet, but in conjunction with the 'disagree,' it seems a little snide and I'm not sure how necessary that was? It's just a suggestion. The amount of times I've heard non-monks say something along the lines of, "Oh man you guys have nothing for shields? That sucks," leads me to believe it's not all that outlandish of an idea.
Yes please
@Sarapis Relieved that something will be done to rebuff Dragons a bit. I think the community definitely feels that bashing-wise they should be a bit OP, though perhaps it was too much - not there yet, so don't subjectively know.
From my own viewpoint, getting to Dragon is definitely billed as a major accomplishment - even being mentioned right at the beginning of character generation (at least it used to be). I knew it was a whole new game at Dragon bashing and that has been one of the goals holding me to Achaea and keeping me bashing over the last year and a half or so. Achieving Dragon made me buy bashing artefacts (pendant, lash (not particularly vital for PvP, but game-changer for PvE - same with SoE, etc.) I'm now within a couple months of making it (with the time that I have to be on) and as it stands now, verified by the numbers coming in on the Miscellaneious Maths/Testing II thread, I bash much better now than I would as a Dragon.
Piercing the Veil I'm sure is great and a good utility, but I already have several methods of travel (warps, shipreturn, bronze token, wings) so that alone isn't really worth the 180ish hours of solid bashing I have left to get there (and I'm already level 91, doing about 5% per hour) - plus the credits to buy the lessons to learn dragoncraft.
If it's not going to go back to how it was, maybe at least halfway between where it is now and where it was so that it's still at least (and should be a little better) than where artied lesserform bashing would be. Could also do a buff on dragon armor or give a regen ability or something that would make them tankier so there's a significant reason they're better; especially if damage isn't going to be spectacular. Potentially that could balance out as otherwise I heard that unartied Dragon can't tank a DK anymore.
Sure, but it still needs to be about something. Achaea's bashing (for me) is more boring than most real jobs- not exactly a selling point for something that's supposed to be, on some level, entertainment. People put up with it (or used auto-bashers) because there was a massive homemade pie at the other end of the soul-sucking death march of bashing to Dragon. This pie has been replaced with a jolly rancher. Yeah sure, it's still attractive. I'll take one if you offered it to me. But is it worth putting in the time to achieve it? Is it appropriate as an end-game PvE reward? Hell no.
I understand your desire to keep Dragons from completely dominating the gold-generation market. Fair enough. But come on, we're talking about the ability to transform into a Dragon. It's a fantasy trope that exudes power. It requires a huge time investment to achieve. It's featured in the website's video. It's teased in the newbie intro. It's what every midbie with stars in their eyes goes to bed dreaming about. Of course you're getting a massive backlash when it's nerfed into the ground. When I Dragonform I want to be Smaug the Terrible, not Jabba the Hut with a teleportation amulet.
Okay, sure, maybe Dragon isn't about being an unstoppable PvE death machine anymore. But I just got hit pretty hard upside the head with the stick, and I don't think it's unreasonable to be expecting a damn fine carrot.