Dragons & The state of this game..

[Drachnyen]

Alright, I agreed with myself to give this game 1 month of my time.. I'm a former beta tester who never bought the retail due to the way beta ended.

so far im not all too happy.

first off.. WHERE ARE ALL THE MOBS! seriously, you can wander around for hours and not find a damned thing to kill.

when you do find something that you can kill, that actaully gives you SOME resemblence of decent XP, they put it next to other mobs that are twice the level. making it virtually impossible to attack the mob you can kill, without setting off the one next to it that will squish you into paste in a matter of seconds.

on the subject of fighting mobs, lets discuss the timers for the abilities. well, jsut the dragon ones actaully since thats what im playing. some of them are absurdly long. 2 or 3 minutes for an ability that really isn't all that great, but something you despretly need in order to kill something your own lvl.. dragon ravage, and bite seem way too long. tail whip isn't TOO bad, but should definatly be reduced a bit. Right now im killing sandstone golems. #1 because they are close to my lvl, and #2, i happened to run across them!. now they use 2 abilites, crush and hurl boulder. both definatly do more dmg. Comparing it to similar abilites i have, like ravage and galewind, im feeling a bit.. under powered. In the course of the battle the gloem will use crush aprox 3 times, and hurl boulder 2-3 times. in the course of a battle i can only use gale wind and ravage ONCE, and they both do about the same dmg increase as hurl and crush do for the golem. i should be able to use both at least twice in a battle IMO. #1. i'm a dragon, not exactly a species known for thier fragility, if it was a dryad or a gnome i could see it. and #2 im a supposed " gifted warrior", I should have little problem killing something my own lvl. and theres very, VERY little hope of me killing something even +1 my lvl.. the only way i could is if i got lucky and hit with everything and the mob missed me with all its abilitys

speaking of dragons lets talk about the dragon quests shall we? today i went to dralk and got a quest from the breath accuracy trainer. He told me to go to mahgra and kill 20 winter wolves. (Im lvl 12 BTW) so i figure, this quest is made advailable when a dragon hits lvl 10.. so winter wolves should only be around lvl 10-15 i figure. well i port my way to mahgra and look around.. took my about 10 minutes to actauly FIND a mob first off, and what i found was a winter mountain wolf.. lvl 51!.. ok, this was a mountain wolf.. obviously not what im looking for. so another 20 minutes of wandering around looking for winter wolves.. found ice beetles, and some more mountain wolves.. no winter wolves. so becoming fed up i hop on the dragon channel and ask where in mahgra the winter wolves are... the response... there ARE NO winter wolves in mahgra.... well great, turns out they are on some little mountain in the middle of darvus. so off to darvus i go, hike up the mountain and find the winter wolves.. GREAT ... right??... wrong, turns out the winter wolves are not lvl 10-15 like i expected, and like they SHOULD be, but are lvl 20-25!! so why the heck is this dragon trainer giving me a quest at lvl 10 that i can't possibly do till im either lvl 22ish OR bring 3 or 4 other lvl 10-15 dragons with me?! sorry, but i can't quite figure out the logic in this. first the trainer tells me the wrong location of the wolves, and second, theres not a snowballs chance in hell that im ever going to be able to finish this quest anytime soon.

Now lets look at dragons and crafting.. first off, why should a dragon be REQUIRED to craft at all? bi-peds don't have to craft, it may be a good idea for them too, but they arn't REQUIRED to. As long as they make money they can jsut buy the stuff off people who DO like to craft., why is it that just because im a dragon i HAVE to craft stuff? And you may ask, well why DO dragons have to craft? well simple, because we need to have hoarde values of a certain amount to actaully get anywhere. and guess what, mobs don't drop anything near worthwhile to add to the horde. so you have to go craft dragon scales and add em to your horde jsut to gain some horde value. now if mobs droped some stuff that you could put in your horde from time to time, that was worth something this wouldn't be as bad. course you still need to be lvl 30ish in craft in order to complete the ROP for a dragon.. which i supose is mildly understandable, but I see no reason for it. a set adventure lvl, and hoarde value should be enough, I see no need to tack on a craft lvl as well. its hard enough jsut to build up a decent sized HV

and what does a dragon crafter get to even do anyway? spells, scales and gems.. thats about it. most spells dragons can't use. so all those are good for is to sell, or add to your horde... scales are good, but every dragon is required to craft anyway so all can pretty much craft thier own scales for thier lvl.. gems, not a whole lot of good those are, can't add em to your horde (whic to me is rather absurd.. you can't add GEMS to a dragons HORDE!) so bascialy the're only good when cetain techniques call for em. theres no dragon lairs to be built, so me don't ahve much to work towards in the way of construction (BTW lairs were said to be ready to be implemented before beta even ended...)

theres about 100 more things I could bring up, but im tired of typing.. and my head hurts thinking about all thats wrong. All I know is that yet again I was lied to by DB. his email said they had fixed all the major bugs, balanced everything out, etc, etc.. bascially saying that everythigng we asked for in beta, is now done and in the game... yet, theres no dragon lairs, broken quests, or at least misapropriated quests, lack of stuff to kill, forced crafting for dragons ( we are NOT slave labor damnit!!).. list goes on.. This is NOT what I call all fixed up and ready to go.

I'll still stay in for a month, maybe my views will change. but right now it feeels like im still in beta, playing a broken game and paying for it, in more ways then one...

[Blue_Moonrider]

Try playing a biped. As much as you might want to play as a dragon, forcing yourself to play the vastly different play style of a dragon might not be the best idea for you. So before you place Horizons squarely in the round file play the other 8/9ths of the game.

[Fireclaw]

dragons are difficult to play. Low level dragons especially are quite weak. You'll be underpowered compared to mobs your level for quite some time. As such, just because you can get a dragon quest at level 10 doesn't mean you shouldn't take some time to level up on mobs that are easier to handle. When you do the quest at level 15 or higher, it should be much easier for you.

That said, there is light at the end of the tunnel if you stick with it long enough. Higher level dragons can hold their own against most mobs and are above average compared to the typical biped.

At low levels, I recommend that you group. Until you get some of the dragonquests down and level up a bit, you probably won't be able to hold your own. You'll need help. Look for a large guild with other similar level individuals willing to help you out.

Some things to keep in mind:
1. Do the dragon adventurer quest to get the "spiked scales" ability. It is a 1 minute duration damage shield on a two-minute timer. At low level, this is probably your most powerful ability easily doing as much damage in a battle as the rest of your attacks put together. Do this quest first . Make sure to bring help if you need it though.

2. Gold rage, also a quest ability, is a dragon's most powerful ability, but costs hoard each use. The highest available gold rage (Gold Rage VII) is on a very fast 15 second timer and can easily do 1500 damage even against level 100+ mobs when used by a high-level dragon. Once you get to intermediate levels (approx level 40) and have gold rage, your damage-dealing potential will go way up, and you'll probably find you can comfortably handle mobs significantly above your level.

3. Try putting your training points into strength and tooth and claw to help bump up melee damage.

4. Buy or make some dragon spells: True Grit and Promote Vitality are the main dragon buff spells. You should have them up at all times in combat.

5. Keep your eye on the objective: to become a flying adult dragon. Adult dragons have the ability to fly over any terrain and can ignore mobs if they want to. Flight is a great ability and well worth the work. Their's no timer on flight, so you can fly or hover as long as you want to and take off and land as much as you want.

[Drachnyen]

i ahve played bipeds before. i don't really like em :/ and the point is that dragons should be just as versitile a biped. or at least be on equal par in their own way. a biped can have several diffrent types of professions, pladin, cleric, warrior, druid, spiritist, etc etc. on top of that they have a whole host of craft abilites as well, weaver, confetioner, feltcher/ dragons have dragon, and crafter... therse no sub catagory for dragons.. ok, they have Lunus dragon or Helian dragon, but theres not a huge diffrence between the two really.

In beta dragons WERE jsut as versitile, they were able to train in several clases, warior, spiritist, bloodmage, druid, cleric, healer, mage chaos warrior and i few others i think. why can't they bring back those classes in some form rather then jsut having.. dragon.. and thats it, claws things, bite things, one side has a few more spells, the other has a bit more strength. not a whole lot of variety in dragons.

there should be a bit more variety, at least have healer, mage, and warrior class. SOME diversity at the very least.

[Larus-Fel]

yea.. something to this nature was discussed before then it got locked before a Dev could answer it.. but my only guess is to wait for december and see what AE has in store of us 'Dedicated' Dragons that have played sense Dec

[Iconath]

see below

[Iconath]

man it's sick that they can't even get the boards right.

[Mordoth]

From what I understand, Dragons were completely re-done right before release, and resemble nothing like what they were in Beta. I wasn't in Beta myself, and I like Dragons best of all the races in Horizons (I've got a couple bi-ped alts, and tried a lot of class/race combos).

My biggest pet peeve with dragons would be the limited amount of Dragon Magic in comparison to bi-ped magic schools. I'm hoping something will be expanded in that area.

But even tho dragons are under-powered at lower levels, they are still fun to play, especially on the RP shard (Order) if you like to give your character a personality.

[Iconath]

Why are my answers to the rediculas crap that some non Dragon posted greyed out ?

[Iconath]

Grim

[Iconath]

dragons are difficult to play. Low level dragons especially are quite weak. You'll be underpowered compared to mobs your level for quite some time. As such, just because you can get a dragon quest at level 10 doesn't mean you shouldn't take some time to level up on mobs that are easier to handle. When you do the quest at level 15 or higher, it should be much easier for you.

Bi-peds don't have to why should I ?

That said, there is light at the end of the tunnel if you stick with it long enough. Higher level dragons can hold their own against most mobs and are above average compared to the typical biped.

Very wrong... Bi-peds can heal constantly and they never die as quick as dragons.

At low levels, I recommend that you group. Until you get some of the dragonquests down and level up a bit, you probably won't be able to hold your own. You'll need help. Look for a large guild with other similar level individuals willing to help you out.

Why should he have to group?

Some things to keep in mind:
1. Do the dragon adventurer quest to get the "spiked scales" ability. It is a 1 minute duration damage shield on a two-minute timer. At low level, this is probably your most powerful ability easily doing as much damage in a battle as the rest of your attacks put together. Do this quest first . Make sure to bring help if you need it though.

Spiked Scales is a joke...

2. Gold rage, also a quest ability, is a dragon's most powerful ability, but costs hoard each use. The highest available gold rage (Gold Rage VII) is on a very fast 15 second timer and can easily do 1500 damage even against level 100+ mobs when used by a high-level dragon. Once you get to intermediate levels (approx level 40) and have gold rage, your damage-dealing potential will go way up, and you'll probably find you can comfortably handle mobs significantly above your level.

BLAH...

3. Try putting your training points into strength and tooth and claw to help bump up melee damage.

STR is the only way to go... get Strength scales.

4. Buy or make some dragon spells: True Grit and Promote Vitality are the main dragon buff spells. You should have them up at all times in combat.

Please... any Dragon knows that TG and PV are the best... that's why all the Bi-Peds Want them... funny how you think that the most important spells are the ones that can be cast on non-Dragons

5. Keep your eye on the objective: to become a flying adult dragon. Adult dragons have the ability to fly over any terrain and can ignore mobs if they want to. Flight is a great ability and well worth the work. Their's no timer on flight, so you can fly or hover as long as you want to and take off and land as much as you want.

LOL ... try flying over the mountains on the new islands... you have to go around!... and it cracks me up that we can not fly away from a bad fight ( since we can't kill 10 mob's that are all past our lvl like all bi-peds can do) we just die.

Lets try this again

[Drachnyen]

dragons are difficult to play. Low level dragons especially are quite weak. You'll be underpowered compared to mobs your level for quite some time. As such, just because you can get a dragon quest at level 10 doesn't mean you shouldn't take some time to level up on mobs that are easier to handle. When you do the quest at level 15 or higher, it should be much easier for you.

Bi-peds don't have to why should I ?

My point exactly, why SHOULD I have to be weaker.. I'm a dragon, if anything I should be stronger then most other races at the begining, especialy seeing as to how limited dargon abilites are.

That said, there is light at the end of the tunnel if you stick with it long enough. Higher level dragons can hold their own against most mobs and are above average compared to the typical biped.

Very wrong... Bi-peds can heal constantly and they never die as quick as dragons.

the last week of beta had all these new dragon cahnges put in, the ones now are EXACTLY the same as they were in beta, baring the ROP and a few high lvl abilites.. gold rage is new, and the alternate breath weapons are new. suddenly Paladins were the absolute undisputed kings of comabt int he game. nothing could come close. you would seein paladins taking on mobs a good 10+ lvls above them with NO problems at all, simply because they had tons of armor (more armor then a dragon) GREAT healing spells, and really good dmg abilites. and from teh looks of the game, i doubt thats changed a whole lot

At low levels, I recommend that you group. Until you get some of the dragonquests down and level up a bit, you probably won't be able to hold your own. You'll need help. Look for a large guild with other similar level individuals willing to help you out.

Why should he have to group?

Ya, why should i have to group? what if i'm anti-social and wanna do thing solo??, should it be harder to do things solo? of course, but it shouldn't be immposible to.

Some things to keep in mind:
1. Do the dragon adventurer quest to get the "spiked scales" ability. It is a 1 minute duration damage shield on a two-minute timer. At low level, this is probably your most powerful ability easily doing as much damage in a battle as the rest of your attacks put together. Do this quest first . Make sure to bring help if you need it though.

Spiked Scales is a joke...

Yes they are, they were in beta. and again, from teh looks of things none of those abilites have changed one bit. Does spiked scales help.. some, but certainly not enough to turn the tides of battle.

2. Gold rage, also a quest ability, is a dragon's most powerful ability, but costs hoard each use. The highest available gold rage (Gold Rage VII) is on a very fast 15 second timer and can easily do 1500 damage even against level 100+ mobs when used by a high-level dragon. Once you get to intermediate levels (approx level 40) and have gold rage, your damage-dealing potential will go way up, and you'll probably find you can comfortably handle mobs significantly above your level.

BLAH...

Don't know it, can't really coment on it...

3. Try putting your training points into strength and tooth and claw to help bump up melee damage.

STR is the only way to go... get Strength scales.

Iv been doing about 25% in T&C, 65% in Str, and 10% in health. str and health help the most. the extra health gives a small buffer, like 10 HP over a mob.... i may switch some out of T7C and put them in health ande Str

4. Buy or make some dragon spells: True Grit and Promote Vitality are the main dragon buff spells. You should have them up at all times in combat.

Please... any Dragon knows that TG and PV are the best... that's why all the Bi-Peds Want them... funny how you think that the most important spells are the ones that can be cast on non-Dragons

5. Keep your eye on the objective: to become a flying adult dragon. Adult dragons have the ability to fly over any terrain and can ignore mobs if they want to. Flight is a great ability and well worth the work. Their's no timer on flight, so you can fly or hover as long as you want to and take off and land as much as you want.

LOL ... try flying over the mountains on the new islands... you have to go around!... and it cracks me up that we can not fly away from a bad fight ( since we can't kill 10 mob's that are all past our lvl like all bi-peds can do) we just die.

yes i know what flight is. we cracked the game in beta to allow us to do a single player type game with a flying ancient dragon. no mobs or NPC's, but it let us see what a flying dragon was like.. and Iconath is right, you cant clear most mountain ranges, heck, if theres a tree on a high hill, you may not be able to clear that either. thers a definate ceiling as to how high a dragon can fly. But i do agree, flying is helpful to some degree. but in honesty i think its nothing more then a niffty gimmick rahter then a great useful ability. Id rather have increased comabt abilitys and lose flight then have flight and be stuck with mediocre combat

Lets try this again

[Fireclaw]

"Lets try flying over the mountains on the new islands... you have to go around!"

WRONG - dragonflight lets you fly to a max altitude of 200m (as seen using /printpos) over the terrain mesh directly below the dragon at any given time. If you exceed that, you will slowly descend till you are at 200m. An adult dragon can fly over ANY mountain in the game (yes, I've tried). The trick is to fly right up to the mountain so you are touching it. Since even the steepest mountains are slanted at an angle, you are no longer at 200m over the terrain mesh and can rise using the ascend button. The ONLY terrain a dragon cannot fly over are the tallest towers, since they are objects and not the terrain mesh.

"Spiked scales is a joke"

I disagree - While spiked scales is not the best damage shield in the game, it is certainly not a joke. A level 110 travertine golem hitting me with its multistrike might do 1000 damage to me, but will take about 1000 damage back just from spiked scales.

"STR is the only way to go... get Strength scales"

Possibly at lower levels, but at higher levels most dragons prefer armor scales. I've tried fighting single and multiple mobs using 10 marble strength scales (1772 strength, and 940 armor) and for comparison using 9 mithril-marble armor scales and 1 strength scale (about 1370 strength and 1454 armor). Armor is VASTLY better for almost all combat - even one on one. The added damage reduction more than makes up for the slight loss in damage.

"any Dragon knows that TG and PV are the best"

Well, they are the best of the buffs that dragons can cast. Which I agree isn't saying much. Dragon spell selection is too limited and biped spells and buffs are just better. But given how the game is now any dragon should never EVER fight without TG and PV up if they can cast them.

"bipeds can heal constantly and never die as quick as dragons"

True that bipeds can heal constantly. However I have seen bipeds my level die quicker than me, so a blanket statement that bipeds "never" die as quick as dragons is innacurate. With gold rage and the numerous dragon specials, a high level dragon can pretty easily take down any normal mob in less than a minute - sometimes in less than 5 seconds. Of course dragons have to kill quickly unless using refreshing breeze, because all our other heals suck. Still, I can kill a mithril golem in under 10 seconds and be ready for the next one without down time. If I use longer timer specials I can handle 3 travertine golems at the same time. I doubt most bipeds can do that. Also, an adult dragon hardly ever get overwhelmed, because its so easy to just take off and fly out of reach if too many mobs approach.

[in reference to waiting till higher levels to do a quest you can get at lower levels] "bipeds don't have to. Why should I?"

Dragons aren't bipeds. Bipeds also don't get the ability to fly and don't get larger with age. If you want it easy, play a biped - but you won't get to fly, you won't get to grow big, you won't get to look forward to doing the best and most complex quest in the game (adult ROP) and you won't get to look forward to becoming an ancient dragon. Also, bipeds have very few quests to do period in comparison to dragons. Dragons don't have to worry about carrying tools or cargo armor. Dragons are supposed to start weak and get stronger as they age.

"Blah" [in response to comments on Gold Rage]

Well, Gold Rage should be mentioned because it is a dragon's most powerful ability. Its this ability alone that gives dragons their ability to hit really hard and do so constantly - even compared to most biped tank classes. Its wrong to ignore Gold Rage simply because it doesn't match your impression that dragons are wimpy fighters.

[Kalis]

I completely agree with you Fireclaw, obviously Iconath is either not a high lvl dragon or is doing something wrong. I remember when all the bipeds where complaining about not being able to kill something thier own lvl cause mobs were to hard I was taking things 5-10 lvls over me then when they decreased the difficulty of mobs I was killing ones 10-20 lvls over me, and this is without using GR.

[Fireclaw]

"been putting 65% of my training points into strength"

I find this statement odd given that you are limited to putting 50% of your training points into any single stat. You might want to look at the training point system again. Its completely different now than it was during beta or earlier in the game's life.

"spiked scales is not likely to turn the tide of battle"

One thing regarding spiked scales - it does far more damage now than it did when the game went live right after beta. It is no longer a joke. It is an effective weapon that can and will do serious damage in a fight.

"...and it cracks me up that we can not fly away from a bad fight ( since we can't kill 10 mob's that are all past our lvl like all bi-peds can do) we just die."

Don't know what you are talking about. When I get too many mobs on me I almost never have difficulty flying away. Rather than standing in front of the mob trying to take off while it is whacking on you, you should back up and then take off. Best is to back up down a slight incline - if you do it right you take off instantly with no takeoff animation. If no appropriate terrain is available, try running away, possibly even using the sprint button. You don't need much distance at all to allow the 1-2 second takeoff animation to cycle uninterrupted.

Regarding killing 10 mobs all past our level like "all bi-peds can do" -- this statement is just plain inaccurate and suggests a certain lack of experience with the game. Very very few bipeds can kill 10 mobs higher level than them unless they have a much higher rating due to very high levels in other classes. I doubt any biped or dragon could handle 10 level 101+ mobs at the same time (not since the fix was made to wolves and spiders). If one could handle it, that player would be the exception not the rule.

[Kalis]

"spiked scales is not likely to turn the tide of battle"

One thing regarding spiked scales - it does far more damage now than it did when the game went live right after beta. It is no longer a joke. It is an effective weapon that can and will do serious damage in a fight.

Indeed spiked scales now does anywhere from 40-100(depending on the mob)damage to the mob for every hit they deal me, so it can and will turn the tide of the battle. Also you may not have noticed but the amount breeze spells heal has been doubled so my Refressing breeze V now heals 230 hp every 5 seconds.

[Vahrokh]

Just to say how much dragons are weak, suffice to say that me with a single class I kill 2-3 mithril golems 100 alone while most of single classed bipeds (incluing clerics!) have an hard time (btw I deal 73-90 damage with a regular hit and 120-180 with spiked scales at the same time. Guess how much useless are spiked scales? They just double or triple my overall damage... and on multiple mobs).

Sure, oncebipeds are 100/100 they'll surpass mein power. But they are 200 levels worthnot 100 like me.

The only thing that's "wrong" with dragons and that makes them "weaker" is the fact that unlike bipeds we cannot ever put 200 levels in our character, so in the end the overall worth suffers.

[Anikitos]

Drachnyen,

You posted something about solo and what "if" you are anti social.
If you are anti social,what are you doing in a ONLINE GAME?

Solo ability is somethingI value too and have done it most of the time, but i have teamed also and have a great time interacting and helping out friends.
That includes young dragons seeking my help to become adults.

Now about dragons.
The way i see it a dragon would get like 1400 armor at lvl 100 as max, or something like that. That according to a good friend of mine who is a 100 dragon. I could have misunderstood him though, not sure.

A biped, as myself for example, is a different story.
Getting 2400+ armor under a short period time is what i have.
Under normal conditions, 2000 armor.
Bipeds power comes from multiclassing, period.

Even so, a well build dragon will be an excellent dmg dealer addition for any team. Dragons are steady reliable dmg source with their Gold Rage of what i have seen and personally i like having them. Teamed with high lvl ones many times.

They start out weak but become stronger further on.
I agree there are issues with them as there many other issues ingame.
But dont underestimate a dragons potential in a team, i have seen it first hand and i LIKE what i see.

Comparing them to multiclassed bipeds with 200-400+ adv lvls under their belt is stupid, there is NO comparison. A biped with 200-400+ lvls, will be more versatile if build right and be ofcource much stronger in certain areas.
But thats normal, concidering the ammount of lvls under his belt.


One thing i would like to see for dragons, so that they dont get bored to death after they reach 100 is this:

Get dragons some special schools, not biped schools mind you...biped schools should not be for dragons.

I dont know how these schools should work but an idea would be once a dragon becomes Ancient he would gain the wisdom to "unlock" certain hidden schools for dragon. Meaning he can train in them. How many lvls, what kind of schools, or how and when i dont know.

But even when they raise the lvl cap to 120, it will still not be enough for high lvl dragons, some form of specialization will be needed for them...so they can have their time-sink as we bipeds have.


Anikitos

[Phillip]

another dragon moaner...

Zz........

[Amerelium]

"...and it cracks me up that we can not fly away from a bad fight ( since we can't kill 10 mob's that are all past our lvl like all bi-peds can do) we just die."

...u need to cancel the combat before you attempt to fly...