Was It Wise To Make Lairshaping So Complicated?

[LaughingOtter]

I would have liked to see biped construction be more like lair shaping - not just in the modular approach, which is far superior to the static structures bipeds get, but in the complexity and sub-assemblies that are required. Making stone bricks into smooth tiles and foundation supports, then combining them into stone floor units which are then applied, for example, would be a lot more interesting than collect bricks, make blocks or keystones, and apply.

Maybe it's just an immersion/RP thing, but the names and descriptions of lairshaping resources and the logistics involved with making them feels a lot more real and satisfying than biped construction ever has.

[Goriax]

There's two aspects to the puzzle. The design and the crafting. I think what it comes down to, and why I like the system, is there's room in both aspectsfor player ingenuity and unique solutions. The deseign gives us ways of expressing ourselvesin our own ways. Usually in an MMORPG the best approach is pretty obvious if you exclude exploits. You frequently end up with all the players following the same more or less optimum path.Not so here.

We've discussed the design although there's definately room for a lot more . By discussion I'm mainly thinking not of complaining about the current system, but working outgood lair design approaches USING the current system. It's complex enough that how to make a good lair isn't obvious even ignoring the fact that dragons will differ a LOT in what they consider "good" which is itself good.

We want a lair in which will fit on our plot and on which we can develop our laircrafting skills get the chambers we want (lair, hall, crafting, whatever we're building a lair for), fit them together in a way which allows us to upgrade as our skills progress, ease of movement through the lair (or not so easy for dragons who want a big maze) and probably some other issues as well. To manage that we need to discuss how to arrange chambers, halls, etc., tips for making the best use of space for storage, moving between levels, etc. All in 3-D. There's a lot of things to work out and the more which can be worked out before the mad construction boom next weekthe better.

Shargrym touched on the puzzle part of actually making the components. Is it best to fill up your cargo disk with orbs and drag it over to where you can craft metal bars or vice versa? Should I use a Tarbash or a Deluxe for this particular job? Both disks have advantages and disadvantages and I need to weigh them carefully for each job. Should I make just enough for the current project or can I store some in a silo? Or should I keep that silo empty because the next step will absolutely require that silo? What should I build next on the lair: a crafting chamber or another silo?

A cool thing is the puzzle will be constantly changing. When you move up a tier and are getting different resources it will change. If someone near a resource field builds asmelter that may change the best way to make some resources even if it's not aore field he's near.

Some people won't like the puzzle aspect or the need to dream up a complicated lair plan in 3-D. Many won't like having to constantly think aheadto figurethe best way to build the lair complonents. Others (such as me) love the idea that they've managed to give the crafting aspect of the game room for ingenuity and originality. Plus when we're done we have a cool lair of our very own.

Laircrafting is a sub-game in and of itself. Like any game, some people will like it and some people won't.

[Theolaerynn]

I wonder how many of us will enjoy gathering resources from fields saturated by every other Dragon Lairshaper out there, or from schlepping resources from all over the planet in an attempt to avoid the popular fields.

I love Lairs, very well done in my book. But I hate the zillion ports and long distance flights required to drag resources to machines from the resoure fields that wont be innundated by players. You kind of have a choice, fight for a meager share of resources, or spend all your time moving about rather than crafting. Yay.

[Tantalyr]

I wonder how many of us will enjoy gathering resources from fields saturated by every other Dragon Lairshaper out there, or from schlepping resources from all over the planet in an attempt to avoid the popular fields.

I love Lairs, very well done in my book. But I hate the zillion ports and long distance flights required to drag resources to machines from the resoure fields that wont be innundated by players. You kind of have a choice, fight for a meager share of resources, or spend all your time moving about rather than crafting. Yay.

And don't forget that you'll be competing with bipeds as wellfor every resource save crystals . . . .

[Goriax]

I wonder how many of us will enjoy gathering resources from fields saturated by every other Dragon Lairshaper out there, or from schlepping resources from all over the planet in an attempt to avoid the popular fields.

I love Lairs, very well done in my book. But I hate the zillion ports and long distance flights required to drag resources to machines from the resoure fields that wont be innundated by players. You kind of have a choice, fight for a meager share of resources, or spend all your time moving about rather than crafting. Yay.

We'll see soon enough, and nothing wesay or do at this late dateis going to change things. but for at least tier I (I haven't been grinding enough for higher) I rarely see other players harvesting when I'm making lair materials. Ok, maybe they've all already gotten their lairshaping over 80 and are doing tier V, or maybe I'm the only one who is actually doing anything with it now, but that's what I've observed.

[Akuluxtraxas]

I have a few views. i like the planning window tho it has some quirks its realistic and has many nice feautures with its few poor ones. overall B+

The units/names/RP value of construction is imo the best part. as said its realistic, it was very detailed and adds a lot of immersion and for me lore aspects to the process. rating A+

rsource fields/gathering/transportation. this is where i give the lairshaping system the big F. Insane amounts per minor and major unit,crystals often in horrible locations away from anything,forced crafting of units til a structure is done (immersive and realistic but with no other XP options/storage issues) and the lack of disks to accomodate such tedious work (not to mention reaching lairs off the ground will be hell). this area is very very painful and gets a bad mark from me. final rating D and only because i like the multiple steps in creation.

XP/time vs reward/final product reward this area gets a good score from me overall but has some flukes. Grand halls,chabers and the like look fantasstic and add so much lore/immersion to dragon lairs its beautiful ^^. The negative aspects are chambers being immense at higher tiers,taking up multiple levels and be hard to connect well together. I dont see why my tier V crystalshaping room has to be so huge vs my tier I. that has no realism catch and a shop is a shop you dont need it huge to have it more effecient. Silos should be larger by tier but the way lirs work dragons get a royal screwing here. while it makes some since i think its crossing the line in fairness to dragons. I dont hate the size increases but i feel if they stay we should get our lairs returned to the 5x5x10 or larger because atm tier VI silos are a complete waste of space and utterly useless to build. as are most any tiers above 1 from my view Overall rating B-. Great looking chambers,very immersive,overtedious in some aspects and chamber size variances creating a huge disadvantage vs a biped plot to the point some are even inch by inch less than tier Is stacked.

Overall lair rating B-. great creativity,roleplay value and beautiful end results shine. extreme grind,poor chamber sizes in upper tiers and lack of variation in lair sizes overall give a rushed and slightly tarnished appearance. basicly some aspects are beautifully done but rusty spots adorn the edges and there is room for significant improvement. i feel lairs were rushed and the flaws from such are glaring at times. Overall ill build mine and enjoy parts of the process but feel dissapointed in the fact tier VI shops and silos etc are more harmful then beneficial and id in fact get penalized by them if i made em.

[dorrin]

right now my main complaints are -- the need to put more wisps and gems into the respective fields on trismus.. they need to activate that dang crystal shaper... and they really need to get more t3 crystals in.
of course.. i would probably have more to complain about if i wasn't a measly level 28 lairshaper ;)

[Death-knell]

Akuluxtraxas hits it right on, in my book.

Also Dorrin has it right, there are not enough resources out there. Tier 2 gems are a minor pain. Crystal resource fields are poorly placed and very sparse. I emptied out feladan titian crystal fields in no time at all (and only got a 25 titian lattices, the second field around dralk while being plentiful is spread out way too far and the dragon crafting cave has no crystalshaping machine in that area.

Porting - ever since last tuesdays patch lag has been especially bad fordragons and bipeds alike.

Tulga you bent us over when it comes to construction itself, your placement of crystal fields is just overkill.

I seriously hope you have some advanced cargo disks in planning/production. Because with this new crafting systems and the multiple component building block make it extremely frustrating. Its like running a model T in the Indy 500.

[AmonGwareth]

I have yet to see someone actually list the locations for Azulyte crystals. For example, Titian Azulyte Crystals are found in more locations than simply Chiconis.

--edited--

[Pharcellus]

There are no Titian Azulyte crystals in Chiconis, they are up near Feladan. Cerulean Azulyte crystals are near Chiconis. Not sure why we have to have a list posted here as a refutation of the arguments presented, but OK, here ya go:

Viridian Azulyte: Found on the Parsinia Mountain in and around the edges of the Blight, in the T1 gem fields just outside the Kion Volcano mine, and around/in the Kion Volcano.
Cerulean Azulyte: Found Southeast of Chiconis, up on the hill from the beach, just Northeast of the Cleric Tower.
Amber Azulyte: Found North of the Trandalar Rift, just Southwest of the Big Mountain, near the lairs there. There are reports that some exists on Live at this time South of the Rift, but I have yet to see any.
Titian Azulyte: Found West of Dralk on the top and West side of the hill running along the West side of the Obsidian field, the one the craft cave is in. Another field is just South and West outside Feladan, starting in the Bright Wisps, and extending towards the shore and Chiconis.
Crimson Azulyte: Found in the Fire Island Lava tube with the T5 gems. Also found in spots on Drakul (the one I know of is on the SW part of the island up near the top of the volcanic region).
No clue where T6 is or will be.

There are supposedly other spawns than these, but many of the ones pointed out by you all have yet to make it to live, despite some of you telling players "they are there!", leading to long, fruitless searches, where the players are wondering if they are really there, or if the stupid client is not loading/showing them, as it is apt to do at times.

Lastly, WHY are there any crystals on New Trismus at all? Lairshaping is a prestige school. No newbies are going to be on New Trismus long enough to raise Dragon Crafter high enough to join the school, and there is no trainer there for Dragon Lairshaper anyway. Anything that would be an introduction to Dragon Lairshaper should be put somewhere in Lesser Aradoth, just like Gerix is there to introduce Dragon ability quests.

New Trismus should be an introduction and tutorial island to the game. Advanced concepts and classes like Dragon Lairshaper don't really have any more place there than the rest of the prestige schools, like biped construction classes. Are we going to see a NPC plot on New Trismus soon, and Fitter/Carpenter/Mason/Enchanter/Weaver trainers there soon as well? I understand it is neat to show off a Lair to the newbies, but doesn't a Lair and its associated resources belong on Skalkaar rather than New Trismus?

..and, yes, that is one of my complaints about having such resources on New Trismus; people are going to go there and work their construction, because it is most convenient, so the newbies have to compete with L100 veteran toons for T1 resources.

[imported_Frith-Rae]

Overall lair rating B-. great creativity,roleplay value and beautiful end results shine. extreme grind,poor chamber sizes in upper tiers and lack of variation in lair sizes overall give a rushed and slightly tarnished appearance.

You say "extreme grind" but give a B-. To me that extreme grind almost topsout over how great anything looks, because in the end if you aren't having fun and are fed up with your 760,344 run through the portals in a month - people will crap out and give up, no matter how good it looks.

So to me, the extreme complicated grind, and the excessive need to dig hundreds of ores for a 5 basic peices of tier1 parts (I dread tier IV or V..) - brings that grade down to a C, possibly a C-.

A B grade does not indicate "room for significant improvement" as you said. You say B, but then qualify it with all these issues, which the only priase is "they look really good and cool."

To me, C is "average", not great, not horrible. If they lair chambers didn't look so good (even though I think they should REMOVE the ONE LIMIT OPTION!! WHO CARES how may Lairs or Halls are on a space of the smae tier!), then they'd get a D as far as I'm concerned. As that's really the only positive you seem to list - "they look good and make sense, so RP wise that's nice.."

A couple of positives, a whole slew of negatives - but you grade a B? To me those couple of positives aren't quite as heavily weighted. I say C-

[Death-knell]

I have yet to see someone actually list the locations for Azulyte crystals. For example, Titian Azulyte Crystals are found in more locations than simply Chiconis.

Tier 1 gems are found in other locations than New Trismus. In fact, you're only hurting newbies by working them there.

Good luck finding titian crystals anywhere near chiconis. Feladan and dralk is the location and by y'alls admission there are 2 locations for tiers 2-5 and 3 locations for tier 1. So far only 1 location has been found for tier 3, trandar. And in found locations of all tiers there are enough nodes to support one or two lairshapers but after that you SOL!

And many dragons/bipeds have been looking. Personally I have spent about 12 hours scoping auggie and mahagra (since they are tier 3 cities).

[AmonGwareth]

There are other Tier3 places... Tazoon.At least 1 Island.

[LaughingOtter]

And many dragons/bipeds have been looking. Personally I have spent about 12 hours scoping auggie and mahagra (since they are tier 3 cities).

Aughendell is T5.

[Guaran]

Best thing to do for lairs is to make them guild projects. It's what my guild has always done for construction projects. When time to start construction, everyone helps in some way or other. Mining, running, and the crafting/placing. Plan out how many dim orbs you're going to need. and how many dim essence put someone to work on that. go get the sandstone and bronze. make excorations, give to runner (who has disk grounded at the lair) rinse repeat. should be able to get half to 1 resource type per day doing something like that, for say 1 room. To keep from burning out on it, only do it 1 day per week.

Did I mention to put the bipeds to work running materials! [:D]

[Pharcellus]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Death-Knell wrote:
And many dragons/bipeds have been looking. Personally I have spent about 12 hours scoping auggie and mahagra (since they are tier 3 cities).

Aughendell is T5.

Not for resources it isn't.

Cotton/Iron/Nickel/Granite/T3 Gems. Tier 2/3. Silk is the exception, but is still only T4.

[AmonGwareth]

Actually, it is on the border between those and T5. Mithril is very close. So it depends on which side of Aughundell you go to.

[Dragoniade]

Actually, it is on the border between those and T5. Mithril is very close. So it depends on which side of Aughundell you go to.

Speaking of grin and overcomplication, could you explain to us Amon, why dragon get penalized when building silo in their lair while building the same Tier silo on a plot goes without penality?

[Death-knell]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Death-Knell wrote:
And many dragons/bipeds have been looking. Personally I have spent about 12 hours scoping auggie and mahagra (since they are tier 3 cities).

Aughendell is T5.

Hows that, marble and mith aren't part of auggie, but the mines with nickel and tier 3 gems and granite are. So what makes it tier 5?

[Pharcellus]

Actually, it is on the border between those and T5. Mithril is very close. So it depends on which side of Aughundell you go to.

T5 resources are a LONG ways away from Aughendell proper. Marble is the closest, and it is way on the other side of the old Arbotus area east of Aughendell. I'd daresay Harro is closer to all of the T5 resources than Aughendell. The "Aughendell Mines", which are named for the town, contain T2/T3 resources. The addition of the platinum mine at the far end really doesn't change that much, because it is closer to Feladan than Aughendell.