I’ll be perfectly honest. Over a decade ago, I sent the devs a ten page manifesto on why dragons being locked to a single class was a bad idea, and two possible solutions for it. It was largely ignored, possibly because that team was swamped and could not hope to implement what was needed. Instead, we got Gold Rage, and that was all the character development most dragons felt they needed… the ability to smoosh anything. I wish I still had that old document, but it’s long gone at this point; moreover, it would no longer be relevant now, over a decade later, well past the point of no return.
That said, I don’t think there is *nothing* that can be done at this point. The game can advance, but it has to advance on the same rails that it has been stuck on, or you run the risk of alienating those people who have spent so many years of their life crafting their characters, myself included. Just looking at all of the posts here pretty much sums it up: Don’t change my character. Don’t make me have to roll a new one.
Well, let’s have a look at what dragons are and why they are the way they currently are.
Dragons: Jack of All Trades, Master of Gold Rage
Late in the development cycle, almost literally weeks before moving out of beta, the dragon was completely redesigned. While I was playing beta, I was a dragon blood mage. Sure it was pretty much a reskin of a biped blood mage, but I still liked it. Some of us were a bit confused at this choice, some speculated that it was always intended to trick us so that dragons would be a whole new experience when the game moved out of beta, but most of us understood the real reason: dragons were supposed to be unique. Making them giant bipeds was not unique.
Unfortunately, while the single-class design, quested abilities, and, added much later, the ascension, made the dragon a unique character, it was not fully designed. Some of the abilities we got were hilariously underpowered, especially compared to a multi-class biped. There was no Gold Rage then: Winteria taught an ability called Winter Strike or something of that nature, which worked something like Staggering Howl does. There was no primal revitalize, only the quested cooldown ability and breezes. There was hoard leak which, while an entirely separate issue to this post, made it so that you had a hard time getting the armor and damage most dragons now easily get from hoard. Primal spells took a very long time to cast, and most players didn’t use them. The result was that dragons felt a little bit squishy, and not at all powerful.
As you might imagine, this experience, while unique, did not live up to players’ expectations about what a dragon was meant to be. At the time of my manifesto, we could not even fly, and there was an extreme hope that adult dragons would bring new class opportunities or some quested abilities or SOMETHING that would turn the tables. The rite certainly delivered on content and we dragons loved it, but once the glow faded, we began to realize the horrible truth: we were hatchlings with wings.
The devs then scrambled to come up with a new solution. They obviously didn’t have the time to create new classes and balance them versus the others; moreover, giving them classes would simply put them back into the ‘biped clone’ category, which was the thing they tried to avoid in the first place. The only option that they could come up with was to remove hoard leak, create new, powerful abilities like silver strike and gold rage which would use hoard, and hope it would be enough.
And it was. It broke my heart to see the implementation of gold rage, because I knew there was no going back from that point. Dragons now possessed an IWIN button, rather than meaningful content or choices that they had to make. And that could NEVER be undone.
While I was personally disappointed, dragons pretty much universally lauded the changes. Dragons have since increased in power and flexibility as time passed, such as increasing spell options and spell power so caster dragons can work just as well or better than melee dragons, primal attack and alacrity and heal, and so on. Honestly, life’s been pretty good for dragons, though somewhat stale because of our lack of choices.
Likely, this is what the devs are now attempting to combat. It’s a decade too late, but is there anything we can do?
Current Situation
We know for certain that players, especially the dedicated player base that has been here as long as I have, do not want to see their characters change or invalidated. What this means is that we cannot move into a multiclass scenario like the bipeds have, and we cannot alter the Dragon Adventurer class as it stands too much. In the original manifesto, I suggested specialized dragon forms for one of the options, which would have worked something like stances, increasing stats and abilities in one area while weakening them in another. That is likely too much of a change for the player base to accept at this point, and so it is off the table.
What we must do, then, is to create changes that make the dragon still unique from bipeds, but can be easily implemented and allow vertical progression and something, frankly, to do on your max-level dragon.
Suggestion: Specializations and Vocations
A year or two ago, I was roleplaying on Order and came up with the idea that dragons once followed Vocations – that is, jobs – prior to the destruction of Draak and the coming of the Aegis. This makes a lot of sense, really, as not all dragons can be hunters and crafters for a society to function. There needs to be scientists, politicians, religious leaders, and so on. While most of them would not fit well into the adventuring side of things, there are a few that would, and we’ll come back to those in a bit.
Looking back at the history of dragons and how we got to this one-class-rut, we know that the design decision was to keep dragons unique. So how can we give them classes that are not the same thing as biped schools? Specialization.
Here is how this system would work.
Dragons could choose to ‘specialize’ into one of three to six schools. The three main specialties would be Conqueror (melee), Primalist (spellcaster), or Windmender (healer).This choice would be semi-permanent, meaning they could not switch to another class without first forgetting the specialized school they were in. And yes I know some people have expressed worry that this should not be a permanent choice, but as long as we have the option to switch, even if it is an arduous switch, I think this decision would be fine.
Each of these schools would have appropriate stats – as you might have noticed, dragon adventurer stat gains are quite non-specialized in everything except health, because the class is designed to be the jack of all trades. Bipeds, however, will multiclass to get the best stat gains in a statistic possible, and this choice would mirror that. For example, a Conqueror would have a 10 Strength, 4 Power, 4 Focus, 9 Dex progression, as opposed to the Adventurer’s 7-7-7-7. Skill progression, too, could be better.
What about Dragon Adventurer, then? We should keep that just as it is right now. All abilities, quested or otherwise, should still be tied to this class, and specialization should only be allowed once that class reaches 100 – which is really not much to ask for, and frankly a really good idea for how multiclassing XP works in this game. It should not be tied to faction or age/form of the dragon. Some of the non-quested abilities might not be masterable or otherwise transfer to the new class, but the quested ones probably should for ease of implementation if nothing else.
So, other than the stat progression, what’s the point of the specialization classes? New abilities of course. However, in order to make this still further unique to dragons, the abilities must not be simple copy-paste abilities from bipeds. For example: a Conqueror might get an ability similar to defensive stance. Rather than it just be ‘dragon gets armor for a short period,’ make it unique: Maginval’s Bulwark, which would increase armor significantly for a short duration, but also limit speed (and flight) to 0.
What about people who want to be a mix? Let ‘em. I said three to six classes for a reason: let there be in-between specializations too. A healer-warrior would be a Champion of Drulkar, working like a paladin. They would get weaker versions of the Windmender and Conqueror’s abilities (just like real biped hybrids, getting the same skill at higher levels) and their stat progression would not be as specific (again just like biped hybrids). A warrior-mage would be a Talonmaster, using prime magic to create elemental attacks (like Winter Strike, but less useless), and a mage-healer could be a Clouddancer or Primeshifter. Could even bring back the old Storm magic for it; I loved storm magic in beta, frankly, and used it even as a blood mage.
Not only does this system require very little work in terms of changing what already exists, it stays true to the original ‘unique’ design concept that makes dragons, well, unique. The greatest challenge will be to create truly unique abilities that will not overpower dragons beyond that of bipeds, but I fully believe this can be done, especially if they follow the line of thought of the Bulwark: making most of the abilities have some drawback to counter-balance their power, which is the same idea that led the design of Gold Rage in the first place.
In Conclusion
I think that it is far too late to change the direction of the dragon class. That does not mean, however, we cannot move forward. Rather than schools, let us have vocations – let us specialize to a particular calling, but be able to change it if we are willing to give up our previous specialization. Let us remain unique, but still have the ability to make hard choices and have the options our naka friends do. Let’s hope dragons fly in the right direction this time.
Please let me know what you think on the proposal of specializations and vocations. Feel free to suggest possible skills or abilities the specializations would have as well. If you want to have a look at other vocations I came up with, feel free to search Dragon Academy (Reboot) on the Order main boards. Do keep in mind that the dev team is currently limited, so keep any suggestions within the realm of ‘possible.’