Dragons and their Roles

[Galdethriel]

Heya, it's been a while. Sorry if this has already been suggested, it probably has but I can't find anything.

I've just returned from a very, very long break, and during that break I played a lot of WoW.

Wait, wait, don't close the thread yet, hear me out!

Still here? Good.

Playing WoW I learned a hell of a lot about all sorts of fantastically MMORPG-y stuff, so when I got back and tried a bit of combat on my Dragon Galde I really noticed how much the Dragon Adventure class is focused on DPS. To be fair, it's a very versatile class, but as a Dragon, you're stuck as DPS, you can't do anything else.

(Note that I can't claim to be sure of whether Dragons can actually be effective tanks, since my main's a spellcaster type, but I've never seen a Dragon who can really take hits. Without the aid of good old Shield of Gold, at least.)

There is no option to heal, there is no option to tank. You can make yourself more effective at what you CAN do, but what Dragons can do is very broad, very cookie-cutter DPS with a few heals and a shield thrown in for good measure. I know why the original Dragon classes were removed, and don't get me wrong, it's good to have distinction between races - the OTHER races should be distinct too... that's a headache for another day... - but I feel that even if Dragons were afforded the most basic, simplistic variation in their adventuring skills it would go a long way to help balance them up more fairly against Bipeds, letting them fill different roles, and generally making them feel a bit more awesome.

Talking to a friend earlier about it, I popped up with the 'They need talent trees within the Dragon Adventure class, yay, whee~' but was made to see that that's effectively adding a game mechanic that will take a lot of coding time and whatnot. So instead, why not bring back a -very- limited selection of the old Dragon classes that were in Beta? You'd only need three or four. Four being 2 effective DPS classes: Melee/Warrior and Ranged/Mage, a single healing class, and a single tanking class. Or, just three - Melee is a DPS/tanking style combination, Range is a magic DPS, and healing is, well, healing.
The resources are more or less all there, as far as I understand it, and the Dragons still won't have the number of classes Bipeds have (you don't even need to let them multiclass if you really don't want to - multiclassing would probably be good, but if it would be a better idea to approach the 3 - 4 classes like specialized versions of Dragon Adventurer and have them be more standalone classes, I still think it would be a positive change).

I know you're probably going to want to rip me a new one, but go easy on me, I've been away for a long time! XD

~Galdeface

[Chasing]

Putting in new dragon classes/schools would be a good idea.

However,

The way I see it is that in order to add extra dragon schools you would need to take away some existing abilities and/or quests from the DRAG school. Everything historically has been put into one school which has meant that it is 'over powered' when compared to single biped schools (when you consider multiclassing). So you have to nerf in order to add multiclassing. The DRAG school as it is now, isnt designed to work with multiclassing.

[Galdethriel]

The way I see it is that in order to add extra dragon schools you would need to take away some existing abilities and/or quests from the DRAG school. Everything historically has been put into one school which has meant that it is 'over powered' when compared to single biped schools (when you consider multiclassing). So you have to nerf in order to add multiclassing. The DRAG school as it is now, isnt designed to work with multiclassing.

I was sort of implying that these classes would more or less replace Dragon Adventurer. Their strength would really depend on whether they'd be standalone or if Dragons would be able to multiclass with them, but they would be instead of - not in addition to - Dragon Adventurer.

I mean, they could keep Dragon Adventurer if they still didn't want to let Dragons multiclass and felt they needed a jack-of-all-trades like class, I suppose...

[Raptress]

I doubt it will ever happen, but I'd like to see some means for dragons to specialize in certain areas better than they do now.

The main argument I see against adding more spell-casting capability to dragons is that it would make all dragons more powerful, not just the dedicated casters. So, a way that forces the player to choose between their abilities in some way would allow for the casting (or healing, or tanking...) ability of dragons to be increased without just making them really over-powered.

It might be interesting to see this done in a different way than actual classes. Multiclassing has always seemed to be a very "biped" thing in Istaria to me. Dragons could do it in a more unique way, such as having abilities share 100% cooldowns (e.g.: Gold Rage vs. the-oft-desired Gold Burst), or having quests that reward abilities but have to be chosen between by the player.

[Darkwing_Duck]

I would love to see more school choices myself my draggie on Blight is neo druid, and I love it!
As for taking hits, healing, and killing, you can tech up scales, claws, and spells to help with that. I myself have made an almost God Moded scale set for one of my draggies, he`s only a level 53/80 but his T5 scales fully teched, Yeah high leveld mobs still hit him, but I have noticed, the damage isn`t as bad, as without teched scales. you just need to know what the mob you`re hunting hits you with e.g. crush/slash/mind/fire ect....
Same with claws. tech each to do damage according to what the mobs do, and heal increase/recycle added to healing spells is a blessing.
I personly <3 primal health teched with clease/healincrease/potency.

[hallucin8]

OK, first up, I haven't read everything the others have said, yet.... but I am inclined to agree that multicassing for dragons would be a good thing. Unfortunately, over the years I don't think a single player or Dev has managed to come to any conformed idea on how to pull this off.

As with multiclassing for peds, making abilites masterable seems to be the simplest method imho. Such that, if you multiclassed, depending on the style of the other class, you might not have access to all the Gold Rage abilities but perhaps have a new Shield of Gold on a shorter timer (for the Tank class, as an example).

Following along this line, you might have access to other spells when in the 'dedicated' healer/spellcaster school, such as more heals. Also, in order to get around the differences in skill gains, the other schools might have passive abilities that boost those, so that if you were a spellcaster, you might have a passive (masterable) ability that adds to the Primal skill.

I think the tricky thing is, that Dragon is (again IMHO) a hybrid school, one which is mainly melee (DPS) with some magic backup. So even if the mechanics were solidified, should the current school have even less magic abilities? And should any new schools be granted from the start, or would they not be available until a set lvl, or even after the RoP (I would NOT suggest the later though).

Ultimately, making NEW schools which are significantly different enough to the current dragon school would likely result in the current dragon school being modified, which I would not support.

I always enjoy reading, and sometimes contributing to, the idea of multiclassing dragons, but I don't thing it will ever happen. But please don't let this discourage you.
See yas in Istria!

[Galdethriel]

The main argument I see against adding more spell-casting capability to dragons is that it would make all dragons more powerful, not just the dedicated casters. So, a way that forces the player to choose between their abilities in some way would allow for the casting (or healing, or tanking...) ability of dragons to be increased without just making them really over-powered.

Just make powerful or additional spells non-masterable? By my idea, you would not get -more- spellcasting ability unless you were in a spellcasting class, and to be in the spellcasting class, you'd sacrifice your melee ability in exchange. So it wouldn't really just be 'take DRAG, add healing, add tanking, add magic DPS' ... say you went the Dragon equivalent to mage, you might not have your Gold Rage anymore. You might get Gold Burst instead. Your melee capabilities would be lessened but your magic would be much more powerful to offset that.

It might be interesting to see this done in a different way than actual classes. Multiclassing has always seemed to be a very "biped" thing in Istaria to me. Dragons could do it in a more unique way, such as having abilities share 100% cooldowns (e.g.: Gold Rage vs. the-oft-desired Gold Burst), or having quests that reward abilities but have to be chosen between by the player.

I wouldn't half mind that idea either, but the basic problem with Bipeds having many classes and Dragons having just one remains and it's something that could be tackled by having more Dragon classes, even if just the very basic few. Once upon a time, Dragons multiclassed too; I don't think the original devs really thought the implications of removing all but one of the Dragon classes through properly.

They say that Bipeds have to max out about 4 schools to get to the power of a Dragon with DRAG maxed. Just imagine, okay, you're playing WoW. You decide to roll, say, a Druid, and you choose to play a Worgen, because everyone seems to play Worgen these days. Now someone else rolls a Druid as well but they pick a Night Elf.

That Night Elf Druid levels 4x faster than you. Why? Because it's a Night Elf.

There's a big problem right there. If there were 4 Dragon classes though, it would match up at least until the early endgame. Dragon levelling would be slower making it roughly on par with Biped levelling and you would GET the specialization that Bipeds can get.

As with multiclassing for peds, making abilites masterable seems to be the simplest method imho. Such that, if you multiclassed, depending on the style of the other class, you might not have access to all the Gold Rage abilities but perhaps have a new Shield of Gold on a shorter timer (for the Tank class, as an example).

Exactly! This is what I mean; not just blindly adding more abilities onto Dragons, it would be an exchange of abilities.

I think the tricky thing is, that Dragon is (again IMHO) a hybrid school, one which is mainly melee (DPS) with some magic backup. So even if the mechanics were solidified, should the current school have even less magic abilities? And should any new schools be granted from the start, or would they not be available until a set lvl, or even after the RoP (I would NOT suggest the later though).

Ultimately, making NEW schools which are significantly different enough to the current dragon school would likely result in the current dragon school being modified, which I would not support.

It would need to be chopped down to its original form or removed if they were going to allow Dragons to multiclass with the additional classes, so that you didn't just end up plonking more and more abilities onto an already powerful character, but if they decided that you couldn't multiclass with these classes, they could well leave Dragon Adventurer exactly how it is. The other classes would be standalone too, like the healing class would be a heavily modified version of DRAG that loses a lot of its DPS abilities but gains a lot of healing ability. Gold Rage, Silver Strike? Pretty much gone. But Primal Rebirth all of a sudden has a drastically reduced timer, you have more heals, lesser rezzes. You're a healer now.



The point of my suggestion is not to make Dragons more powerful - they start slow and end weak (particularly spellcasters. Nudge nudge hint hint) but for the most part they're decently powerful by all means. The point of the additional class choices is to let them perform a combat role other than DPS. Dragons need more roles as a whole; usually people talk about their lack of roles in relation to crafting, but there's a very similar issue with combat.

~Galde

[Malaya]

I think dragons should be sorta more epic than they are, especially when reading Istaria's history you get the impression that dragons are all mighty. But when you play the game they are pretty weak ( much weaker than what history describes ) and some of the epic spells do ver little damage. Drulkar's Wrath for example does very little damage despite the fact that the "father" of all dragons is summoned to roundhouse kick a mob. And when looking at peds one might feel that dragons have been left out of all the action. They have hundreds of spells and some of them are VERY awesome. Now you might say that dragons aren't spellcrafters. Thing is that Helian's are spellcrafter's. So the new spells that can be added could be linked to Helians. And since I mentioned this, they could also make new abilities that each faction can get. (helians get some pretty cool spells, and Lunus get some pretty cool attacks ). Anyway, my main point is that I think dragons should be improved and made stronger, and made so that they play a more important role in Istaria (since they are supposed to be like that, atleast that's the impression the history gives )

[LOVWYRM]

Even stronger????

Not a good idea- its hard for a well trained/well equipped dragon
to find a real challange. Only a few bosses left that cannot be soloed.

Drags need to be more important?
Show me on big mob(s) that can be killed without drags...

[Galdethriel]

I think dragons should be sorta more epic than they are, especially when reading Istaria's history you get the impression that dragons are all mighty. But when you play the game they are pretty weak ( much weaker than what history describes ) and some of the epic spells do ver little damage. Drulkar's Wrath for example does very little damage despite the fact that the "father" of all dragons is summoned to roundhouse kick a mob. And when looking at peds one might feel that dragons have been left out of all the action. They have hundreds of spells and some of them are VERY awesome. Now you might say that dragons aren't spellcrafters. Thing is that Helian's are spellcrafter's. So the new spells that can be added could be linked to Helians. And since I mentioned this, they could also make new abilities that each faction can get. (helians get some pretty cool spells, and Lunus get some pretty cool attacks ). Anyway, my main point is that I think dragons should be improved and made stronger, and made so that they play a more important role in Istaria (since they are supposed to be like that, atleast that's the impression the history gives )

The problem with Dragons in comparison to Bipeds is, as far as I've come to understand it, multiclassing. No one seems to be able to decide whether Dragons are overpowered or underpowered, but in a way they're both. A level 100 Dragon is, supposedly, roughly equivalent in power to a Biped with 4 schools at level 100. Making the Dragon overpowered in the sense that it requires a lot less work to get that power. But once the Biped in the comparison begins to multiclass further, the Dragon begins to fall behind, and ends up being sorely underpowered.

Though personally, I DO think there is a bit of a balance problem between spellcasting Dragons and melee Dragons. Cast times are too long, spell damage is too low, and since spellcasting Dragons tend to be a bit squishy and are forced into melee regardless, yeah... it's a recipe for trouble for a mage type.

But to make the class as it stands more powerful would just disbalance the early game further, and I don't think it would really have any good effect on the end game either. :/
It's a big puzzle that, honestly, I think can only be solved by returning some measure of multiclassing to the Dragons. You can't have a game designed for multiclassing for everyone, take away multiclassing for one group, and expect the two groups to be balanced.

My personal-personal-personal feelings on the issue is that multiclassing should be brought back and Dragons should have a unique mechanic to play. Maybe a rage bar that fills as you get hit and when it's full, it procs a Gold Rage, BAM! Or some such. But I was warned it would never be put in because of the amount of coding it would take... Stripping away the classes was a lazy, easy way out, but IMO it wasn't well planned at all. :/

Not a good idea- its hard for a well trained/well equipped dragon
to find a real challange. Only a few bosses left that cannot be soloed.

I dunno whether this is because of the apparent weakness of spellcasting Dragons, but I struggle with normal enemies 10+ levels below me. You're a pro, Lov. XD

~Galde

[Malaya]

What you say isn't wrong. However I think that they could atleast make some changes with the factions. Despite their apparent difference in words and history...they are exactly the same ingame. Helian's for example could get a pretty lowered casting rate, an almost doubled increase of damage for spells and spells that Lunus don't get. Lunus could have a reduced load for melee attacks and an increase of damage done by them as well as some attacks that Helians won't get.

[Galdethriel]

What you say isn't wrong. However I think that they could atleast make some changes with the factions. Despite their apparent difference in words and history...they are exactly the same ingame. Helian's for example could get a pretty lowered casting rate, an almost doubled increase of damage for spells and spells that Lunus don't get. Lunus could have a reduced load for melee attacks and an increase of damage done by them as well as some attacks that Helians won't get.

But what about Lunus casters, or Helian warriors? They would end up with their chosen specialization being noticably weaker than the other faction equivalent. :/

The Lunus = Warrior and Helian = Caster thing, if I remember right, is more a stereotype. I think. XD

~Galde

[Akrion]

The Lunus = Warrior and Helian = Caster thing, if I remember right, is more a stereotype. I think. XD

It is really. The Dragon's most powerful melee ability, Gold Rage, is taught by a Helian.

[Raptress]

The Lunus = Warrior and Helian = Caster thing, if I remember right, is more a stereotype. I think. XD

This is correct. Both factions have both casters and warriors.

I would be opposed to having choice of faction be tied to choice of play style any more than they already are. Having us choose between melee or casting is fine, but do it outside the factions. Especially since all adults and ancients have already made their irrevocable choice. It's probably the very reason that lightning and ice breath are no longer faction-tied.

[Thicklesip]

I keep going to post something and then giving up. Wah!


As a player I'd love to have two-four class options for Dragons, to give us some multiclassing options and differentiate the abilities of a caster from a melee dragon beyond how effective different buttons are. I would be over the moon if I could make Thickle a "real" caster, who gave up some of the highest-caliber tooth and claw attacks to master more potent spells that meatshields could only envy.

From the perspective of somebody who would have to design, balance, and implement Multiclassing Lite the notion makes me run screaming into the night. This is an extremely approximate MSPaint faux-graph of the current multiclassing power curves for bipeds. (Real math is crying at the sight of this atrocity.)

You start off weaker, but as you add more classes you eventually end up more powerful than an equal-leveled dragon, and have the potential to keep going up. However, while each class makes you more powerful, you're steadily getting less bang for your leveling buck. The difference between someone with 1 class at 100 and someone with 3 classes at 100 is notable. The difference between someone with 10 classes and someone with 12 classes requires squinting and a magnifying glass. If you try to replicate this curve in two or four classes it would look hideous.

Also note that I could have labelled the first curve's Y axis "effort required to level". Level 100 everything uberpeds exist, but it's not a coincidence that they are, as a rule, almost all players from the release of the game, with massive /played time racked up. Even just getting two or three classes to level 100 does horrible, horrible things to your options of what to do to level your next class. By the time you have 5 classes to level 100 and are embarking on your 6th class, you start at level 1 with a rating of 111. 9 level 100s under your belt? That 10th class at level 1 has a rating of 150. And do note that pretty much nobody has the discipline to solely kill mobs to grind out the first one or two classes to 100, so by the fifth or tenth or nth go-around you're probably out of quests besides diminished-exp-from-repeated-exposure trophy turn-ins.

I guess the only way to tackle it from a design standpoint is to speed up the power curve per class for dragons (ex. 1 100 biped is 50% of their total potential power, 1 100 dragon is 70% of their total potential power) but still have them cap out "weaker" than bipeds. But that's just the theoretical balance. How the tap-dancing tomato would you actually implement it? As easy as it is to brainstorm, we're playing a game where just trying to balance out adding a single ability to a class/race is a massive headache. Or, shoot, even just balancing the extant abilities. And then once you decide what you're doing you have to get the playerbase to mostly go along with it, and if I remember right we've had some mass ragequits over relatively trivial things like food timers.


If I have to save my dreams of Multiclassing Lite for Istaria 2, then I'll fall back on the common pipe dream of all wanna-be caster dragons. I'd be delighted with a Gold Burst and all my Dragon-ish abilities scaling better according to how I allot my training points and equip myself. Fully outfitting myself in primal/power/focus EVERYTHING and then still hitting harder and faster with my claws instead of my spells has always been pretty "...".

[Khalon]

In my opinion, there's a really easy mechanic already in place to add primal spells only dragons with a certain amount of dedication will be able to scribe & use: just make the base primal reqs over the 1,000 base skill a level 100 ancient has without putting training points into primal. Say the devs implemented the following new spells:
1. Repeating bolt spell with damage slightly more than a fully teched improved prime bolt V, with a slightly faster recycle. Primal req might be base skill 1050.
2. Medium area effect spell that does a bit more damage than a fully teched blast 5, and adds a +20% delay and/or recycle penalty to targets hit. Base primal skill req might be 1100.
3. Area spellbind effect. Primal base skill req might be 1150.
4. Large area of effect nuke with noticably higher damage than Drulkar's Wrath. Primal base skill req might be 1175 or 1200.
I'd recommend making these new spells untechable quest rewards given without the formula, similar to Volcano. We might also want to implement a check somehow when the spell is cast for it to ensure current base primal skill is over the minimum for the spell. This would prevent players from raising primal to scribe the new spells, and then respecing training points later back to melee .

Melee dragons spending their training points in tooth & claw skill and/or strength simply won't have the training points left to reach the base primal numbers required by the new spells intended only for spellcasting dragons . Spellcasting dragon players would thus have a number of quests to complete which would add to the roleplaying feel of questing for advanced magical knowledge, and occupy a fair amount of playing time for many established players currently at loose ends. It would give dragon players options for how much or how little they want to be spellcasters in combat, which would at least give the feel of having different "classes" to many players .

[LOVWYRM]

I really like and support this idea, Khalon.

(and not because I made a similar suggestion in a similar thread^^)
Seems to make a fast and satisfying solution of the Helian prob possible.

Galde-so good you are back*winghugs*
gimmi a tell next time you are on, I`m sure we find a way to make you kill mobs 10 lvl above

[Galdethriel]

I'm going to start to try and rein in this discussion a bit, because we're getting off track.

Though I do think that spellcasting Dragons are pansies and the Biped's job to grind is unbearable-looking (maybe speed up all around levelling? Grind isn't fun. Having 10+ classes to level should really have enough potential play time for Bipeds to compensate for a buff to exp gains, but that's just me. I find it easy to fall out of love with a game if playing it becomes boring, no matter how attractive the reward). There could be a lot done to tweak Dragon DPS and all that but...

...what about the other roles? At the end of the day, adding special quests and whatnot would be great but all Dragons would still end up being stuck as DPS. It wouldn't solve the problem I described in my original post. <:3

Galde-so good you are back*winghugs*
gimmi a tell next time you are on, I`m sure we find a way to make you kill mobs 10 lvl above

Great to see you too! And thank you <3

~Galde

[Phillip]

Bored at work so here's my wall of text..

Galdethriel is hitting the all time Istarian crutch. This cannot be remedied. Multiclassing is within the spirit and design of this game. We got multiclass in biped adventuring & crafting, and multiclass on dragon crafting - yet dragon adventuring is the single school, linear progression. The oddball here is obvious.

They had multiclassing for dragons in beta. I didn't see anything wrong with that. The testers though, were like this massive groups of unintelligent possums without a single trash can. These betas who wanted dragons to be different. I suppose that huge thing flying around in the sky isn't different enough. The change to single school led to the various hiccups that lasted years which plenty of time & resources lost. The lot of dragons angry - and influenced development to pretty much where we are now.

The basis of argument - varies within the context that I have never witnessed in all the years of MMOs. None seem to get it but that was then, this is now. Now, now I feel the folks to play dragons are the smart lot. You get it. Where were you in beta?

A bit late, though.

Look, there's no way to balance the single school progression to over 20 schools in which a single of those - can and will multiclass its way to competency. There's a need to understand the arcane, mystic & melee lines, as well as the base requirements for each (Healer for all, Healer & Mage for the rest etc).

There's a need to understand what difference that each school, as their basis of multiclassing entity, will bring.

There's a need to understand that the more schools a player has doesn't mean he's more powerful.

There's a need to understand that for many schools, each as main - respectively, will have certain specific schools to multiclass, level up, for abilities and spells working in conjunction, at times in sequential of each other, from the build up to execution that can reach the performance plateu. Few have done this through the years. It takes lots to figure this out.

To balance a single school with stuff handed to as development proggesses against multiclassing is a nightmare.

Take a piece of paper and draw a line down center. On left write Dragon, single school. On the right, list the possible schools, multiclassed, of which the single school dragon on left will balance to. Let's think of a few to put on the right:

Paladin & Reaver - Mystic line (Healer-Mage-Spiritist-Berserker-Druid-Shamen-Monk-etc)

Healer - Mystic line

Cleric - Mystic and/or Arcane line - and yes they are different than healers.

Battlemage - Arcane Line

Ranger - Mystic & arcane

Berserker - melee line (aka healer/monk + various for overall defenses)

etc etc..

I've only listed a few. There are about 20 more.

Now, think of how to make each of those schools to be at its best. Read Kwinn's multiclassing guide and see what it takes to swing one single battlemage - it takes a long, long time. The same goes for just about any school. Some may share the same schools to multiclass, but at its core, each of those are very different. A multiclassed Ranger is very different from a multiclassed Paladin, or Battlemage, or Cleric and so on. They each bring something different to the table, don't they?

Now, look on the left side of your paper - see the single school there? How are you to balance that to the other side - and to which school, and type of multiclassing? Because to make a single school equal to all on the right, that school should be called: God.

Development basically dumbed massive DPS on dragons while giving them more stuff - as well as waves of unnecessary fixes and revisions (nerfs) to biped multclassing from spells/abilities/items/etc - buffed the mobs and give various immunities that took away legitimacy of some biped multiclassing - everything to show the lack of knowledge and understanding of how things are suppose to work. The lack of respect above all else. They actually made dragons to have a huge, huge, huge amount of DPS - even in comparison to the highest DPS multiclassed to the nines biped with top end equipment, the disparity is massive and all at the cost of little hoard, which is possibly the easiest thing to get in Istaria. Too, too much simply handed over. Spoon-fed - but really, this is what all dragons wanted? Really?

You wanna do 1/3 of that DPS as biped to a mob boss in comparison a dragon? Be ready to spend a massive amount of time multiclassing and learning/earning your way and have lady luck in your girth. Chances are you won't hit that 33%. (we tested this 4 years ago, and with the original boarmask to boost)

On a personal note: I don't mind how strong dragons are right now. There's a thing about looks and feel - something that massive should be that poweful. I like it. Too much yes but I like that.

But that's it. There's a lack of versatility in playstyles here. Sure you can say 2 paths, or hybrid, or whatever - y'all can pretend - it's still one single school linear progression and there isn't much development can do to change things. All there is, is to either make dragons stronger, or even stronger. There is no way to get dragons to do more unless they give more. They got it wrong a long time ago and this is the end result.

[Phillip]

On the endgame progression, ala boss encounter, tell me, would it make sense for a biped to show up as anything other than a Healer (or cleric), given that you got enough dragons around? (and there are more draggies around nowadays)

From my standpoint, aside from RP reasons, I don't see why my paladin should be there, or spiritist or mage or berserker etc. Those will not contribute anywhere near competently as a dragon would DPS/Tank or Healer biped.

All you need are dragons and healers at the echelon of the game itself.

I agree with the graph, but various changes made things different than what it seems.