Injustices moved: Lets discuss Multiclassing. That's general...

[Pharcellus]

1500 mithril bars, made into ringmail bracers = 7500 hoard.

1500 Mithril bars is 108,000 hoard (1 Mithril Bar = 73 hoard).

ok I mine ore by leaving my disc in the smelter and running back to it with a cap of 4300, I can mine 6000 ore an hour without any difficulty, Golems are not a problem, although on unity we dont have the blighted resources as yet.

Then, either the hoard value of that item is broken, or you are horribly inefficient making it, or both. 5hv per mithril bar is wrong.

I take my disk in and drag it back out, full. 1200 ore in the disk, and ~450 ore in my pack.

What do you make with these bars that gives such a huge hoard value?

Any Tier V scale (except for the T5 scalepack) gives that value, if you are at max efficiency. All T5 scales are 864hv, they take 12 refined resources each to make at max eff, so that works out to be 72hv per bar/brick (73 was a typo, btw, but was so close I decided it wasn't worth the effort to correct; please forgive me). All items that are hoardable are supposed to be based off of the same values for the materials that make them up. So, all Tier V items should be 72hv per refined resource at max efficiency. That was the last "adjustment" (nerf/buff/whatever) made to crafted item hoard values.

I am sorry you seem to think my post is negative, I just hear that its impossible to raise hoard at the same time as dragons I help seem to raise it quickly, quicker than I can raise miner.

I don't necessarily think your post was negative, just had factual information and assumptions in it that was incorrect, so I posted corrections.

I always remember somthing that happened to me, a friend both in RL and in game has a 100/100 dragon and spends alot of time having conversations much like this thread. Bemoaning the fate of dragons, and casting a green eye at bipeds. Always quick to jump on any minor factual discrepancy in a conversation he came out with the best line ever.... so when your warrior casts instant heal..... he assumed ALL bipeds got instant heals and many of the buffs. I think there are a number of dragons who realy have little or no idea of how a biped works and his abuilities and limits, and the same happens with bipeds in regard to dragons.

Well, I assure you, I do NOT have that problem. My biped alt is 80 Healer right now, and has ~500 crafting levels. I have guildmates and quite a few biped-playing friends who have multiple 100s in Adventurer that I hunt with, and I know the reasons why they chose the classes they did, and worked up to the levels they did. As such, I know EXACTLY how bipeds and multiclassing work. I have my multiclassing plan for my biped, both in terms of adv and craft planned out. But, he is not my main, so it will be a while before he achieves the goals I have set for him. He is primarily a crafter.

I think hoard is a good idea, I dont know a melee class that can outtank a dragon, well maybe a zerker. But those attacks cost hoard.

*shrug* Most melee classes I have fought with outtank me easily, except pure Monk/Disciples. Paladins/Berserkers/Reavers/KNOCs/Warriors/Guardians, etc have come and gone in groups I have been in; it never ceases to amaze me the kind of damage output I see. Some of them are multiclassed, some aren't. I've done enough examination of logs after evening hunts to get a good idea where I stand in relation to bipeds, and what I have seen isn't pretty.

As Fireclaw has pointed out, my figures for hoard were not only out, but out by a factor greater than 10, so this means hoard must be 10 times faster to make than I thought, 1500 bars=7500 hoard turns out to be 1500 bars=108000 hoard.
Assuming those figures are correct I think it shows that although mining mithril is dull, tedious and annoying, that in a day a dragon could make multipe millions of hoard, if not I know players on unity who sell mithril bars for 70c each.. I wont try and do the maths, but I am sure the ammount ofplayers (dragon and biped)who sold 7g plots back to the community from 100s tokens should be able to afford to buy in substantial stocks of mithril.

OK, let's do a little math here, since we are on the subject. Let's take me, for example. I have 2.3m hoard. I should have 23m more to make L100 cap. 23m hoard divided by 72 times 70cp per each bar is over 22gp. I have a little over 1gp to my name at the moment, and no reliable way to generate more except sell production to a PB. Hunting is out of the question, as the only mobs that drop that kind of coin are high-level undead or stunning ogres, which I can't fight very well solo, unless I use GR constantly. Assuming I have to use GR twice per mob on the average, that's 1280 hoard, which translates (according to your 70cp/bar amount) to ~1.3sp, which is more than the mobs drop on average., so I would be "double-paying" for hoard by hunting.

Crafting for coin is pretty paltry, giving me around 100sp per packload of Tier V gems, which takes about 30-45 minutes. Still means it will take me over 100 hours of crafting and paying a biped to make bars and I STILL have to get the bars to a scaleforge to make them into hoardable items.

So, basically, I am paying 20+gp for +400 armor, +100 dragon breath, and what else? The ability to Gold Rage / Shield of Gold without reckoning? I don't think so.

[Pharcellus]

Remember the xp decreasing per kill as you went up and got higher and higher above the wolves level? Well guess what that happens to those who multiclass. The reason it took monks to reach 100 back then was because it meant endless killing mobs 20-40levels below you and there is no multi mob bonus. Now there are heaps more mobs at higher levels and multimob bonus which speeds things up. Hell I get a measly 3k xp from a giant flame beetle now before i added more schools I was getting 6-8k. Thats a big difference if you ask me.

Thank you for making my point for me. [:)]

3k solo, yes. Try hunting in one of the groups that's out there on the Satyr isles nightly. 1/2 to 1/4 a level per pull from 50-80 is not uncommon.

Hoard and the hoard abilities are an intricate part of the dragon adventurer class design. To not work on your hoard and not use hoard abilities could be likened to a ranger fighting only with his 1hs or nature spells.

Except for the fact that the RoI for that Ranger to "work" on his abilities is FAR higher than the RoI for me to "work on my hoard". The design is broken, you even admit it below. Why should I bother when even you contradict yourself in the same post, Zodias? Your argument isn't convincing AT ALL.

Do I agree that hoard in its current implementation is working correctly? No Do I think caps and the rate it increases is obscene Yes. Is it part of the class that dragons deny a great deal of time? Yes. Is this a bad choice? Yes.

Let me get this straight. It's not working correctly, it RoI is obscene, and it is a bad choice to deny/avoid it? Snuh? OK, I will go ahead and neglect my guild, guild hall, events, etc for a couple months and get my hoard up, and then reap what benefit? Give me a farging break.

[Dangit NotAChance]

are we really back to this?

I mean seriously, the original poster wanted to discuss the short comings of multiclass system. Which is a great topic, but it seem people seem to keep hashing out biped vs dragons issues.

So, now if you want to talk about multiclassing and whether or not it needs increased penalties or not. or needs redone and offer suggestion fine. But if you just want to hash old arguements again. Then I have a frogbottom I would like you to meet.


Ka'pish?(or what ever that phrase is )

[evilkarl]

3k solo, yes. Try hunting in one of the groups that's out there on the Satyr isles nightly. 1/2 to 1/4 a level per pull from 50-80 is not uncommon.

With one school it may give that much but this disucssion is about multiclassing and the penalties. The more multiclassed you are the more you need to kill for the same amount of xp, as the xp returned gets diminished. At rating 150 (98 or so cleric) I had to kill 2-3 groups to move 5%.

Except for the fact that the RoI for that Ranger to "work" on his abilities is FAR higher than the RoI for me to "work on my hoard". The design is broken, you even admit it below. Why should I bother when even you contradict yourself in the same post, Zodias? Your argument isn't convincing AT ALL.

You play a dragon, its design is broken as well so why shouldn't you hoard?

Let me get this straight. It's not working correctly, it RoI is obscene, and it is a bad choice to deny/avoid it? Snuh? OK, I will go ahead and neglect my guild, guild hall, events, etc for a couple months and get my hoard up, and then reap what benefit? Give me a farging break.

You don't have to neglect those things unless you want to but you do need to hoard, you need to consume hoard in order to play the char as it was intended.

[Jah]

To me it seems that either rateing is not counted the same as level or something involved in the effect changes dramatically past lv100 or so...

As lv94 rateing ...not positive~ 108. I would get less than 100xp for lv50ish and I know I get nothing for stuff in 40s. Yet I have seen 2 players with rateing over 170 which means they are xping of stuff over 50 lvs below rateing for which I get nada. And they are only 6 lvs above me at most. IMO players should not gain xp for 50+ below or 50+ above.

As I understood the rateing was suppossed to be a limiter, not just a time sink.

[Vahrokh]

Thank you for making my point for me.

3k solo, yes. Try hunting in one of the groups that's out there on the Satyr isles nightly. 1/2 to 1/4 a level per pull from 50-80 is not uncommon.


Hoard and the hoard abilities are an intricate part of the dragon adventurer class design. To not work on your hoard and not use hoard abilities could be likened to a ranger fighting only with his 1hs or nature spells.

Except for the fact that the RoI for that Ranger to "work" on his abilities is FAR higher than the RoI for me to "work on my hoard". The design is broken, you even admit it below. Why should I bother when even you contradict yourself in the same post, Zodias? Your argument isn't convincing AT ALL.

About the ROI
I just made a bit of math, understood that there is a curve of max efficiency or ROI in hoard and limited myself to that.

The break point I chose was level 70 hoard. Relatively easy to make up, 5M is just 1/5 of the maxed hoard yet it gives me 70% of the bunus I'd get with maxing it.

Later I got nearer and nearer the dreaded "level 100" or game over so I started crafting hoard for myself and raised it to 11M. Notice how doubling the hoard raised the armor by 40 AC, that is 4 damage less a hit. While having it at less than half raised the armor by 280 AC, that is 28 damage less a hit.

I think that what pisses some dragons (I personally don't care since I think hoard is an invariant of a larger picture) is to have to boringly

work X to get A,
work 2 * X to get B = 14% more of A and so on till you
work 5 * X to max hoard and get C = 30% more of A
(hope the math is right - I suck at it).

That told in words means "the more effort you put in it, the less becomes the results". That's clashes with the concept of satisfaction some people want to have when accomplishing tasks.


About classes and multiclasses


Another thing I think impacts even more than hoard, even more than armor is the fact that Istarians base classes are divided in 4 basic segments:

- Who punches little and heals alot (reliable sustained healing) and uses decent armor.
- Who punches big time in short time (reliable burst damage) and heals next to nothing and has from armor to decent armor.
- Who punches little or even acceptably and heals little (unreliable healing).
- Who punches little or a lot but sparsely (unreliable burst damage) and heals sparsely (unreliable healing).

By reliable I intend something that follows a linear law and is available pretty often (short timer, basically a repeater - you know it cycles, when it cycles and since the recycle time is short you can predict well if you'll cope without until it becomes available again). A typical exaple is the revitalize line. The heal XX, cycle pleasantly often, you more or less know that in some seconds you'll get a "refresh".

By unreliable I intend something that may even be great but has long downtime, so long that actually you have little hope to see it available in the current fight. So as long as it's on all is good. But as it shuts down... ouch. A typical example would be a dragon breeze ability (not spells) or an instant heal. They basically are one shooters for the entire duration or the fight and often of the next.

By sustained I intend something that can go on forever. Again a typical example would be the revitalize line, since I can hammer the key forever as it's refreshed and pronto you get a new heal like the first.

By burst I intend something that goes by a burst in a short period of time, then it is basically unavailable. I included here too expensive things to be done routinely (even if in theory they could be done forever) and that more or less end up used scarcely.


The classes that are strong in this game are naturally those that get closest to the ideal of:

Who punches big time in short time (reliable burst plus sustained damage) and heals a lot (reliable sustained healing) and uses decent armor.

There are some pure classes that have an upper hand at that, the so called "well rounded classes", but this ideal may be approached much better multiclassing to pick the best off the available classes.

There are definite and known "power house combos" like guardian/shaman/etc. that provide a good compromise and are relatively bug free.
The horsepower comes anyway from good overall damage over time (or little damage over time getting conversely little damage from mobs, i.e. blocking/stunning them and slowly blasting them to death) and the contemporary presence of good and reliable healing, that more or less maps to the revitalize spell line.

On the contrary there are well known poor classes like pure monk that lack the punch, are not healers, have little armor yet their main defense (evasion) stopped working (like many others - dragons have i.e. tail whip and menacing presence working bad since the new world).

Then there are dragons.
They punch little and reliably or big time but cannot do it continuously due to the cost and the way many new mob protections to effectively nullify the effects (the infamous 0/0/0 damage) and they get unreliable healing due to the fact that both their two abilities are on 5 minute timers, so most of the time they are not available.
What happens is that a dragon dents damage a bit at a time with some bursts due to either a hoard ability usage (I'd say that silver strike would candidate as repeater as gold rage is out of question expecially now that hoard drops are sparser than expert formulas). A dragon can use spiked scales too, which perform exceptionally well but last just the initial part of the fight.
The provided healing spells on paper seem to do the job but in practice they perform very long startup animations that let the mobs get one or two free hits for a total damage of about their total healing over time worth. Unlike some claim, the healing dots don't lack in duration since with a bit of attention is easy to make them cycle one after the other forever.
The provided healing abilities, after a months long battle (that would not have ben won without the hammering complaints of mine and others) have been finally fixed so that they heal considering all the relevant stats (basically now they work as they should and give more or less double healing than before).

What I think should be done:

In theory if in a game many players join a known "power combo" that power combo should be serched for the overpowering factors and rebalanced (the dreaded nerfs). A typical example is that in any case a power combo has the property of including revitalizes, that tend to be mastered by lots of classes or being mastered thru multiclass.
Since with the current state of the game denies such an unpopular move, all I can see is increasing the overall effectiveness of the other classes.
With the current hard mobs there is space of manouvre for that without the risk to make the game too easy again.

So i.e. monks should be vastly revisited and given much more effect in their special hits (as per published class defining properties) and either their armor be improved or their evasion over boosted so much that it surpasses the boosted mob capability to hit them.
Dragons should to be updated to the new evil incarnations of the mobs they confront.
I.e. make DOT healing spells cast 3 x faster with no baroque lengthy animations (hey apparently we miss most graphics and sounds but they took the effort to make seconds long DOT casting animations that bite us) and heal about 2-3 times the amount of now (no use at being cured for 30hp over a long span of time while a mob hits me continuously for 250). It's possible that these spells too don't consider all stats like the abilities did? A debug session would tell. And not add revitalize like some ask for, because it would become too overlapping to other classes healing. Dragons instead win a fight by "dying slower than the opponent" (in fact usually a dragon has to take much hp back before continuing).
Since mobs now use to take even minutes to die, spiked scales too should adapt to the new realm an last one minute like other abilities.
Use the ancient opportunity to finally diversificate them so meleers get what they want (damage) and casters too (ways to slow or halt mobs so they can cast in paper armor for a while like mages do).

[evilkarl]

A good post Vahkroth.

You identified several key points and suggested fixes.

I too agree the delay on dragon spells are way too long and if the breezes had its duration increased and delay reduced to more reasonable level they would be much better.

btw guardian/shamen lacks real burst damage.

[Jah]

*A dragon can use spiked scales too, which perform exceptionally well but last just the initial part of the fight.
**The provided healing spells on paper seem to do the job but in practice they perform very long startup animations that let the mobs get one or two free hits for a total damage of about their total healing over time worth. Unlike some claim, the healing dots don't lack in duration since with a bit of attention is easy to make them cycle one after the other forever.
***The provided healing abilities, after a months long battle (that would not have ben won without the hammering complaints of mine and others) have been finally fixed so that they heal considering all the relevant stats (basically now they work as they should and give more or less double healing than before).

*Spiked scales is the only damage shield in game that has a recycle time greater than 5 secs. Perhaps let hatchlings struggle with it, bur for adult at least they should fix that so it is always on. Either 5 sec recycle or 15min duration is needed IMO.
**Your entirely correct, I think a simple 60sec duration / 120sec recycle would at least alllow one to cast breeze, then pull and usually have the target dead before the HoT drops. They are extremely weak also. 1 interesting way to increase there effectiveness would be to ( in addition to extended duration ):
Currently most aura ( group spells that require staying near caster to maintain ) are a 2 part spell.1) is a base spell that only lands on caster / last 30mins / every 29 secs casts a group aoe that o lands on any group member in area and applies a 30 sec buff.
Healer class has 'aura of health' which is aoe Hot and works as I describe above.
Nature regens are cast onto target for its spell duration.
Those like ours block out any xtra regen, the differenceis a dragon breeze spellis only active on caster. Let's step outside of the box and consider it to be a short - term repeating group heal ( which it is ) andnot have those tiny heals blocked by a regen:
End result is that dragon canonly have active1 in the effect window, but if 3 dragons group and all keep one going on self than dragons will be gaining a triple heal for teamwork.
As is it's easiet to just count on 1 player to keep recasting or those slow motion cast time are wasted moution..if altered as I described than its effect is only limited by numberdagon's one can speeze into spot. I think it couldgrealty enhance grouping.

In theory if in a game many players join a known "power combo" that power combo should be serched for the overpowering factors and rebalanced (the dreaded nerfs). A typical example is that in any case a power combo has the property of including revitalizes, that tend to be mastered by lots of classes or being mastered thru multiclass.
So i.e. monks should be vastly revisited and given much more effect in their special hits (as per published class defining properties) and either their armor be improved or their evasion over boosted so much that it surpasses the boosted mob capability to hit them.

I don't consider all nerfs to be bad, but I think most of insanely powerful abilities in game have been nerfed. Your comment that players tend to flock to the better class sets is true, but that doesn't mean it needs to be nerfed or over time you kill the best , then nextbest, then next best...andin the end you get a bunch of crappy classes. Instead lets use some the good classes as a marker of where we want the lesser usefull classes to be at. It is better to enhance the weak ones vs nerf the good ones, well Imo at least.[;)]
There are 4 class types in game actually, though I use different sets
1) Arcane[ Mage, wiz, sorc, conjuror, KoC, Chaos, Battlemage ]shouldinclude ELAR
2) Mystic [ Cleric, Healer, Spirit, Druid, Reaver, ranger, etc..]
3) Dragons
4) Non magical [ warrior, zerker, any class that gains no spell skill ]
Most spell useage kept within these groups, a few are castable by any biped.

2 classes within a group should work well together, 2 classes from seperate groups should be more limitedand they are by spell use, but thats it. For best approach in balanceing AE could allow more transfer of abities on weak classes [ monk ].. or look at the other classes within their group and what are factors that make thebetter classes stronger vs the weak.

For non magic>> monk is generally consideredweakest. Reason is obvious vs warrior
warrior's armor is far better at protecting than monk's +1 evasion [vs a warriors]and
imp dodge they just nerfed. removeing a warrior armor is no good.. giveing monk 11 evasion / lv, re-enable imp dodge to work vs multiple foes and compare effectiveness..monk also has iron body, flow like water, and a self regen that all could be enhanced bit by bit until a warrior and a monk can last as long as each otehr in similar combat, but for different reasons [ warrior takes less dam, monk takes less hits and self regens ]

monk damage actually can be multi-classed into hard hitting since they can wield staves, with the skill + some str and time useing chain attack with UA..then weild staff..then use special..then repeat. In the end your doing the damage a warrior or does with a slightly inferior weapon and a 20% damage modifier (or whatever 2h crush you worked up,staff almost as good as maul , is better than maul in flurry ]

or work ways to increase their damage with UA
[ any to general combat could be stacked onto how I play guardian/ spirit disc and it does mass dam as is ]Most monk players want to be UA
Inner str, which doesnt boost str but increases damage with UA only
or short term , high powered 'find weakness' - start abilitiy and basically get rewarded with small, but non-resistable armor / resist removal.. but isupdateed with every successfull strike..the effect would be that high accuracy would granthigher damage for every
Sadly getting a monk to do damage is pointless, since they cant take any.

[Pharcellus]

With one school it may give that much but this disucssion is about multiclassing and the penalties. The more multiclassed you are the more you need to kill for the same amount of xp, as the xp returned gets diminished. At rating 150 (98 or so cleric) I had to kill 2-3 groups to move 5%.

We had people who were on their 5th class working towards 100 saying "I got 20k for one mob in that last pull, keep it going!".

The penalty is NOT EFFECTIVE ANYMORE. Thank you, try again.

You play a dragon, its design is broken as well so why shouldn't you hoard?

Ummm, because it is broken? Because it is a waste of time better spent doing more important things that a) aren't broken, and b) are more effective in the game world, and c) are actually somewhat fun?

You don't have to neglect those things unless you want to but you do need to hoard, you need to consume hoard in order to play the char as it was intended.

Aye, we've always needed to consume hoard, even back when it all leaked away like a sieve. Except hoard keeps changing, from the things we CAN hoard, from the worth of the things we can hoard, to the effects of hoard. I don't think it is too far-fetched of a notion to consider WAITING until it changes again into someting that is finally sane.

That's my last word on the Dragon subject for this thread. If you want to argue more, I'm available via PMs or back in the other thread.

[Fireclaw]

Ok, I'll try again

in a day a dragon could make multipe millions of hoard,

Uh no. Its not at all practical to make multiple millions of hoard in a day. At absolute max efficiency, assuming no breaks to eat, sleep, use the toilet, etc. I find it takes at LEAST 10 hours to make 1 million hoard. That number might even be a little low with the real number close to 12-14 hours. To make 2 million would take 20-28 hours. There are very, very, very few gamers who can stand doing such a mind-numbingly dull, repetitive task for 20-28 hours straight. This also assumes that everything is in place in-game too. If the blight anchors come in and blight all of the mithral as has already happened a couple times on Chaos shard, you might as well log, because hoarding is pretty much impossible.

I am usually on at least a couple hours a day and am spending most of my time online crafting hoard. Still I find that its taking me 2-3 weeks to get 1 million hoard.

[kengar]

Regarding dragons, since I have absolutely no idea, how much did the powers increase by turning into adult, and couldn't the ancient RoP do even more? As said, I've no idea how it works, I could just imagine a point in becoming ancient beside the size change

Well, the Adult RoP is all we have to go on, and it was about flight, AoE breath, some stat increases, and a butt so big we have to shrink down and loose almost all of this to fight.

One way of balancing things could be to beef up dragons on a level by level basis, so they they are far superior to a single class biped of the same level, and then increase the exp required per level for dragons.

This way a level 100 dragon might be as tough as a biped with 2 or 3 level 100 classes.

I could get behind this idea. It addresses my two biggest concerns as a dragon. The fact that once we're at 100/100, we've filled the dragonsized box and there's nothing else we can do to improve, and the fact that even that box is underpowered compared to the same amount of effort put into a well rounded character.

But then again, until we see what an ancient dragon is like, all discussions on this topic might be moot!

After seeing the effect of the Adult RoP, I really doubt that the Ancient RoP will be worth doing, except for pride. Flight was the only thing the Adult RoP brought that was worth it.

[Robert Quicksilver]

As I posted in suggestions

imho I'd like to see a system when if you are using a skill from another class it is not as effective as your primary skills. this would still make shaman/healer a valid combo, for example, since they both have access to healing spells.

An example would be that if you are a lvl 100 mage/ lvl 100 spiritist. You would still gain the abilities and attribute ratings but the skills such as flame would only be 80%? effective as a spiritist since a spiritist doesnt have that skill and likewise spirit is not as effective as a mage. If you are lvl 100 flame disciple / lvl 100 mage then since flame is applicable to either then that skill isnt affected.

It's controversial and a blatant nerf LOL but it makes class system realistic, I think. You will still be able to use that triple teched flame spell, but this time only as a mage not a spiritist since the skill requirement wont be met.

[Galem]

I think that any change to multi-classing would be the end. This thread piss me much because it is envy, pure and plain.

I see nothing worth in this post except whine.

If AE wants to finish game, then this thread would be the way to do it. Enough messing with working things and fix the nonwork things.

Dragons have issues, but after reading this envy thread, I can't see how anyone would support dragons.

Spiteful, hateful thread.

Go away thread.

[kengar]

I think that any change to multi-classing would be the end. This thread piss me much because it is envy, pure and plain.

I don't think so, most of the players I know that play bipeds think that multi-classing is overpowered when taken to the extreme, so it's not as simple as dragons-vs-bipeds, it's just that the arguement always winds up centering on that because dragons can't multiclass, and almost every biped multiclasses to some extent.

Personally, I think many of the ideas for limiting multiclassing are too far out there, and my main is a dragon. I'd rather see a way of rewarding single-classed (or mostly-single classed) characters, both dragon and biped. The idea of dropping skills to 80% of base if in a class that doesn't get that skill doesn't seem to extreme to me, but that's about as far as I'd be willing to go. I like multiclassing my biped, and I'd hate to see multiclassing ruined to try to balance multiclassed characters against singleclassed ones. I'd rather see a singleclassed character get a boost that even moderately multiclassed characters wouldn't get. Say some extra class-dependant ability that is only active while you're in that class and your Adventure Rating is less than 5 or 10 above your level in that class. Or an ability that scales back according to how far apart the AR and level are, rather than just turning off at some magic point.

Multiclassed vs Singleclassed characters are severely out of balance, so the thread won't just go away. Defend multiclassing rather than attacking those that attack it.

Personally, there are only two reasons I haven't already moved on to WoW or EQ2. First, I like my dragon. Second, I like multiclassing. My main biped alt is only lvl 81, and I'm already evaluating different secondary classes for when I hit 100.

My first MMORPG was Rubies of Eventide, which had classes, but they were flexible classes. You got a certain amount of training points for each level and each amount of XP you earned, and you were free to spend those TP on any skill in the game. However, both your race and your class modified how expensive the various skills were, so you could easily wind up spending twice the points in your least optimal skill as your most optimal skill.

[Jaraiden]

If AE would propose a multileveling cap for the schools with levels 1 to 100, it would go a long way. Say 300 total levels compared to a Dragon's 100 adventure levels and 100 hoard levels. There is already a mechanism to drop schools and releveling schools would be a short inconvenience.

It is obvious AE didn't think of the ramifications of extreme multiclassing as they slowly changed Horizons. First the multiple monster and group bonus. Then the training point system. Then stronger monsters (players will find then continually hunt the bestXP/effort ones likethe cursed wolves of old). Then tier V gear with triple tier III/IV/V techs. Think what will happen with triple teched tier VI gear (even if it decays).

All during this time, they had to develop monsters (and AI hopefully) for challenging content. Well, dragon playability developed slower than multiclassing biped playability(Gust, Barrage, Gold Rage hampered by incomplete skill tasks and only recently added Primal Damage vs. added item content for biped players to go with more slots for triple teched tier V gear).

So the ability to multiclass without limit, especially optimally among several schools for their statistics, skills, abilities, and/or spells puts multiclassing characters at a distinct playability advantage. Especially when the Adventure Rating scaling was blown away with XP from bonuses and monster ratings higher than the character's rating (by 10 to 20 levels).

Do as I did and look through the school subforums. You'll see "what school should I add, what abilities are transferable, signatures with builds, posts about what secondary schools a character has" posts and replies. Ultimately, there aretwo biped battle toon classes that are an optimal blend of various schools - spellcasters with perfect multicast on Flame/Ice/Spirit spells with schools to max their Power and Focus and meleers with dispirit foe, evasion, mage 9 elemental spells with schools to max their Strength and Dexterity. Then you add training points.

Meanwhile, characters that opt for the challenge of minimal multiclassing are not rewarded with their dedication to their chosen profession. On Tazoon, I had hoped training points would have two factors - 50% cap for low multicasting and 25% cap for more multiclassed characters, however AE caved into the player . . . posts and changed the 25% cap to a 50% cap on skill.

The part few players want to face is that most use the skills of their primary class to level the secondary. How many Paladins will use mage only skills to level the mage school for that level 36 multicast? If they had it, they would use a Blade of Rendering. Or Cleric for that Dispirit Foe?

For AE to balance the challenge of monsters so they challenge most of the players, there has to be some multileveling limits. If not done for levels 1 to 100, it must certainly be done for levels 101 to 120 and any later cap.

All players are paying for high end content, yet only a small number (increasing though) can enjoy it fully. Forced grouping is not a viable option due to interracial conflicts and dragon factions . . . well should be. Thus to enjoy more of that content, multiclassing is the only viable route, which leads to characters wanting to level toward 100 fast then at rating 100 level secondary schools. Unfortunately, that is not an option for dragons.

Dragon playerspay their monthly fee and thus should have access to the same playability and perhaps they mayafter the race is completed, when dragons match Istarian lore, and Ancient statistics, skills, and abilities are known. Sure, biped players can level dragon alts to experience flight (not hard to do btw if fed well and powered) and dragon players can level biped alts to enjoy content that caters to bipeds . . . but is that truly fair? Is the cost to dragon characters that much just for full timeflight?

[PJ]

Why are you so down on multiclassing Jaraiden? Aside from the fact that dragons can't do it, and have no real comparable way to get stronger. (I'd comment more on that but this thread is about multiclassing)

Is a multiclassed player more powerful than a singleclassed player? Depends. I'm level 100 in 3 classes + a scattered 154 more levels. My rating is 128. Am I more powerful than a single level 100? Yes, I ******** better well be. Am I more powerful than a level 128 single class, Probably not. Especially given the way to hit calculations are working at the moment.A level 100 monster shouldn't challenge me (although there are still a few that can give me a run for my money if a crucial move or two misses).


High Level content? Where? Up until now, multiclassing has been high level content. The blight anchors are a step in the right direction, but previously when you hit 100 there was nothing to do but start another class.

(Gonna say the word Dragonhere to try and alleviate the need for a dragon to do so,Dragons couldn't do this. And now back to the topic)

Multiclassing only over balances players with respect to mobs cause players can get ratings over 120. And this still isn't as big a deal as players are capped at level 100.
What I mean is while getting a rating over a 100 somewhat makes that player equivalent to a mob of that level. It isn't so cut and dry. A players skills are capped at 1000 (exception of those few classes that get 11/level and training points). The way to hit is calculated at the moment, small advantages in skill make a large impact on your ability to hit a mob. Versus a level 120 you're effectively getting 8 points per level if you have base 1000. 8 points isa level is a large reason why certain classes suck (Read Dragons and Battlemages)


If anything the balance of equal rated players and mobs was tilted towards the mobs by AE. AE adjusted their skills gains to mirror the effects of training points, techs, etc. Then gave the undead some wicked debuffs and DoT's.

I know i've been rambling, but seriously what's wrong with multiclassing in and of itself. Sure dragons can't take part in it, and most people i see complaining that its unbalanced are dragons. Are there any other real reasons?

[Hiko]

First.... Hello again to my old friends. I have been contemplating a return sometime when I again know the meaning of free-time. Good to see that some classics are still here! Drug Makers never die eh?


Sad to see that everything still comes down to dragons vs everybody else. Perhaps that is a nice sorta role playing, but it is horrible for discussion.

Multiclassing? Overpowered? Who the hell cares! I had almost 4 level 100 classes, I really didnt care anymore (the reason why I quit) because there was no benefit to multiclassing more than 2 or 3 classes. The skills become almost reduntant. I took battlemage to 80+ because I wanted to master Energy Sabre. That is all that I gained.

Now that my credentials have been established, lets get down to the meat of the issue. People are jelous. Plain and simple. Quality players (okay, some of them quality) spend their time building up their char, and others who havenot invested that time, but still want those rewards. Ask yourself, why multiclass? There are 3 answers:
1) to kill time. That is the road I went. The same reason why people have 5-10 crafting classes. They enjoy crafting/hunting, and when the road runs out, they want to feel that as long as they are spending their free time in virutal land, they might as well get something constructive done, and not earn redundant xp
2) to become more powerful. This is nice and fun, or at least it was in the beginning when there were only a few of us with multi 100. Very useful for events too. However, there is no pvp in this game. We should take more pride in doing something well than being "powerful," because power is meaningless as long as you can pull your own weight in a group.
3) to fix your character. Oh how I pity the broken classes who have been neglected. While we sit here in argue how my 62x100 character is way to powerful for my rating-penalty, the battlemages and others (I really do not remember who is still broken) can barely kill something their level without having true skill.

Dragons.... come on.... I mean come on!!!! Being a dragon is like going to see Alien verses predator, or Blade III. You know exactly what you are getting yourself into. A dragon cannot multiclass. It would be nice and cool if they could. But did you not notice this until you got to 100? Try the biped point of view for this.

Peace guys! Take care.

[Joolara]

I love multiclassing. It is one of the strengths of the game, and something that keeps people playing.

However, I also like the idea of only one class being able to go over 100. That would allow us all to be a little more specialised than it becomes after a while with multiclassing. The devs would really have to look hard at making every class playable and balanced to 120, with or without other multiclassed to 100.

Personally I am thinking I would opt for Paladin - I have played one for the majority of my play, and that is what I am at heart. If multiclassing was capped at 100, and classes remained much the same, I could gain access to certain other skills (like nature and spirit).

As to the dragon position - from what I have heard here it sounds very frustrating. A solution would seem to be to make adding to the hoard more useful, so that it gave players a sense of accomplishment and purpose beyond lvl 100.

[evilkarl]

Giving benefits to dragons and those who stay in a single class sounds like a good idea to me. Some alternate system to improve onesself or epic quests or whatever.

Just so long as the benefits would disppear should they multiclass.

[Blixx]

I'm sorry, I don't quite get this thread. From what I've seen a Dragon class is a quick way to level and be pretty much self-contained with making your own sh... stuff. A large down side to being a Dragon is they very reliant on the community to help since there are obstacles in the way that would be better tackled with a group than solo (or need a group) Dragons tend to level slower starting out, but once they become adult, they kick some major butt, then after that they seem to kinda not do as much damage as tuned multi-class biped. Not that they don?t do a lot of damage, but a hardcore multi-classed Reaver or Chaos Warrior is one mean mother. Dragons can craft like a mad man if they are willing. And make a fair amount of money off crafting. They don?t have to buy tools (they would probably eat ?em anyway =)) This to me seems like a nice class to take, except there?s a level cap of what can be done. Bipeds on the other hand can?t fly, have to refit like crazy, and if they craft at all, have to buy about a million tools, all though you can tech the tools. But don?t have the level cap. When they reach 100, they can run up another class to help them take out larger prey, or learn something to take care of a nasty effect a mob would throw at ?em. I don?t think Bipeds are really un-balanced (compared to Dragons).. It?s a lot of work.. To get all that equipment and levels to kick that much booty, and a lot of cash as well. But I would agree that Dragons need something more to do. They need more leveling, more abilities. Hehe, if Lairs are still a ways off, give them the ability to work wood for a while =)

My proposal to fix the situation is to provide some Dragon specific quests to unlock ... um Plat Rage or somthing similar
My 2 cents -Blixx