Blight Patch 9-23-05

[Pharcellus]

Bulgrim,

I'm going to be quite candid and honest in this post. These are my thoughts and feelings on the matter, and I know no other way to answer it than to just pour them out from my heart. I'll probably be made to regret it later, but I want to air this out once and for all.

The first thing you have to realize when asking someone to answer this question is what experiences have they had which could shape their answer.

There are basically two extremes at work here. I and others come from one extreme, the "old guard". Still others come from the other extreme, the "newcomers".

My experience is that I have lived through the hell of Dragon development, from day one. It colors my opinions. I don't deny that. I came up at a time when Dragons should have all been shot in the head and put out of everyones' misery. I have put well over TWO HUNDRED DAYS of IN-GAME time into mine. I have FAR more XP AFTER capping than it took TO cap. I "levelled" hoard to max as well, which is akin to another class all by itself. I don't think I have put much less effort in my character than PJ or any of the other uberpeds. No, I didn't farm and powerlevel through umpteen classes, but I played my character just as often. I didn't just log in and sit around with the meter running. I crafted hard, I fought hard, and after June 5th of last year, with the exception of hoard, NONE of it has done ANYTHING for me. What do I have to show for it?

The "newcomers" have come up in a time where hoard is more plentiful. A time when our abilities are FIXED and no longer BROKEN. A time when we have more decent spells and abilities. A time when there are mobs to fight for max XP up to cap and resources/forms to process to cap. A time when there are plenty of others to help them out with the RoP, and soon the ARoP. In short, things which make the rise from new hatchie to L100 Ancient a short-term, low-pain ordeal. Things which pretty much make the class about the same amount of effort as your average single biped class.

Now, I'm not going to say that the newcomers do not deserve to be Ancient; I am not that unfair. I WILL say that I want to feel like I have achieved something special, something which now FINALLY allows me to enjoy the fruits of all that hard work, and all that pain and suffering from the outset. Something which is the culmination of my dreams and desires about this character since before I logged into beta for the first time. Lastly, something when I go out and hunt with a biped, I will NOT BE FRICKIN' OUTCLASSED ANY MORE.

What it boils down to is that what I want... no, NEED Ancient to be is much greater than what I believe the newcomers need it to be, and what you all as bipeds want it to be as a measure of fairness to your efforts. That's where the problem comes in where I try to answer your questions. However, I will try.

On the face of it, no, I don't think that the results of the effort to level a SINGLE class (Dragon) now should vastly outclass the results of the effort to level an uberped.

Ultimately, I am all about reward for effort. I do believe that a certain amount of effort put in by ANYone on ANY character, seeking to achieve a reward should achieve the reward most proportionate to their efforts. Dragons should be as effective at what they do in the world towards their goals as bipeds, over the long term. If that means that they have to suck it down for a long time up-front, limping along, in effect "investing" their power for later, so be it. That's the route I have had to live. If that means that they follow the same curve as bipeds in lock-step, then that is fine as well; that's not the route I lived.

You have to understand how I view the Dragon vs Biped situation, based on my experiences over the course of two years to know the context I use to compare them isn't "foolish", but a valid set of reasons why I think things should be a certain way. Most bipeds don't know. Many can't know. Some don't care to know. However, they all have their opinions, whether they know about it or not. That's fine. All I have ever asked for is some kind of understanding and, once in a while, a little compassion from them.

The usual answer is just another "shut up, Dragon whiner" post and/or a whack on the head from the trolling stick.

I'm sure a few of them may be more than happy to demonstrate below.

Point is, there are different viewpoints at work here. Different situations. However, there is only one path. One set of rewards.

Maybe what I want is unfair to give to the newcomers. However, what we're being given seems unfair to me.

Perhaps the nature of this game is that there is no long-term reward for Dragons. Is everything short-term? If so, what's the point of playing beyond the short-term?

[imported_Ssilmath]

<Applauds Pharcellus>

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between a whiny "More power" post and a good one.

Though it's unlikely to get dev time soon, what's needed for dragons next is a way to turn their effort into a reward. I know that Pharcellus has done far more than all my classes combined, and knows how to play his character far better than I do. Personally, I think he should have more power comperative to the effort he put into his character.

The only snag with this is, how to do that while not turning dragons into bipeds. Some of the best suggestions I've seen is to turn in XP for hoard, for abilities, for stat increases, etc. I don't want to see (And I don't think anyone else does either) dragons with a rating of 200 that are uberquilts. But,a dragon that has the same amount of XP should, through XP to <reward>

Just my thoughts...

P.S. Yeah, I get angry when dragons ask to be as powerful as bipeds with just the upgrade to ancient, because for new people and even some veterans that cheapens the effort of quilters. Post ancient developementis much more palatable...

[BKBanzai]

Any old schooler, whether it be dragon, or biped labored long, hard, and painfully to attain a single level 100 character. Any old school biped can tell you that leveling that 2nd level 100, pre-merge was even more painful, with the level rating penalty.

Yes, dragons were gimpy for the longest time. Yes, hoard leak sucked and you basically did nothing with that hoard, except have to build it at rates greater than leakage, yes, hoard drops were not as plentiful as they are now.

How did most of us level pre-merge? By forming large groups and doing wraith quests a million times. Others of us did cursed wolves over, and over and over again. None of it was easy and yes, it was boring as hell. But dragons are not the ONLY race in game that had to grind to reach 100. Old school is old school and leveling was a grind.

And as far as all that exp you have doing nothing for you....well, I have something like 340 million toward my next level. I know it's going nowhere.

Oddly enough, I have things to do in game and no, it's not leveling up 11 class 100s, it's not trying to get to master crafter or build up my own plot solo. I spend a good chunk of my time hunting.

I don't sit around andbemoan how all that exp is going to get me 1 point shy of level 101 if and when they finally raise the level cap.

You want to talk gimpy classes? Monk. I knew old school single classed monks and I can tell you it was very painful for them.

I knew a dual level 100 warrior/cleric. Leveled them both up, painfully pre merge and usually ran as a warrior, meaning no rez ability.

Dragons are not the only race/class to feel pain. Dragons are not the only players that have no where to put their exp except to know that it will get them almost to level 101....one of these years.

Why not enjoy the aspects that make you a dragon, and stop wanting to be a multi-classed out the wazoo biped? It took me a ton of work to get to where I'm at and I haven't multi-classed to maximum potential, just enough so I can stay alive and kill things in less than 7 minutes. Before I leveled up warrior, as a cleric/druid I was, at level 98, doing 35 damage to mithril golems level 92....and that was the 1 out of 5 times I could hit them. Mostly I missed, whether casting or attacking. Warrior gained me the ability to wear the best armor available. Dragons DON'T have to multiclass to be able to use the highest level scale available....most bipeds do. Dragons don't have to multi-class to be able to use the best weaponsavailable (950 weapon use).

And someone earlier posted they wanted to be a dragon, like in lore, where they could sweep their tail and send their enemies to the ground and insta-kill them (basically). Well, you can do that, just go engage some mobs 40 levels below you and you can feel all powerful.

Because that's about the only time I feel uber, is when I'm killing a field full of mobs (but guess what...they're all much lower level than me). Oh, and as for uberped....I logged in at flame wolves (logged in afk) and came back to find myself quite dead. That's not very uberpeddy to get killed by mobs 40 levels lower that shouldn't even be able to land a blow every 20.

I bet if I engaged a mob 40 levels higher than me, I'd be lucky to land a blow every 10...and odds are I'd do 0 damage (remembering me as a level 50 trying to tackle a marrow, most hits were for 0).

[Fireclaw]

Sadly hunting in Hz doesn't interest me. as a max level dragon with max hoard what is the point of hunting? Is it going to make me stronger? Nope. Will I level up? Nope. Give me elusive uber set or unique items? Nope. How about weapon crystals? Nope. Will it help me craft my plot (even if I were interested in crafting which I'm not)? Nope.

A maxed dragon has exactly ZERO to look forward to from adventuring. You may have heard of risk v. reward. A maxed dragon has zero reward. No reward = boredom. Horizons as an MMO should keep us entertained. But if there's nothing to work towards then the game becomes very boring very quickly. This is why most of the older high-level dragons either left the game or went inactive.

Frankly I don't care if dragons get the ability to multiclass. But as a dragon I would like some form of advancement so that there is actually some incentive to continue playing. Bipeds have reward for however long they continue to adventure. But for dragons the game just... ends.
_______

Marrows... I remember marrows. Its a good thing they aren't in the game though. The only way a dragon was able to beat a marrow was to equip a satyr island crystal. Without that marrows were immune to most of our attacks because unlike bipeds we lacked the ability convert our damage to other damage types by use of low level spells (ah the ability to multiclass...). Due to the change to satyr island crystals so that now they do zero damage to anything except their designated satyr isle blights, a dragon would probably die to a marrow.

[EmilyDawn]

wait. so is everybody saying that ancient draggies shouldn't be as powerful as multiclassed bipeds? [^o)] because i think they should be more powerful, really?

cause, realistically,i don't think a multiclassed warrior should even come close to being able to killan ancient dragon.maybe a group of them, but not one guy. [:^)]

but anyways, i think ancient dragons should be something of awe that even "uber" bipeds look upon. [:)] something that even SoG might fear [:P] heehee.

...but that's just me. [:$]

[Mandovar]

hmm, my hope has been that the Ancients become real big and the differences between Lunus and Helians would become clearer. All the other i dont care about. I am strong enough to kill nearly every single mob and i dont need to be "uber". Since i dont would defenad against it if it happend[8-|]
You have to think about game balance too. If you get a monster buff at Ancient and the schools afterward you would to have level 200 and higher mobs to have a goodfight, dont you?
And please allways remember that Tulga is a little Company and they cant do all they want at once.
Oh, and the Reeze is a nice present that a long time not was planned for Dragons. And in my Opinion its ok to let it cost Hoard.

[Bulgrim StoneCleaver]

Ok - I got some good answers, Malt - thanks for a very well thought out post. I'm not one that is arguing that dragons shouldn't get anything. I'm also someone that has always felt they were unfinished to a great extent and deserved much more.

Its just that in every single MMO (except EvE - which is not experience based but rather TIME based) experience isa quantifier for Risk vs Reward. It just scares me with some of the posts I've seen in these dragon threads lately.

My biggest fear now will be the possible imbalance between dragons and bipeds when it comes to pure power ONCE a dragon can multiclass and all classes have their level cap raised. Dragons have deserved class balance for a long time now, seems that they are getting it. If you get too much, it might cause nerfage down the road as things change.

Bulgrim

[BKBanzai]

Sadly hunting in Hz doesn't interest me. as a max level dragon with max hoard what is the point of hunting? Is it going to make me stronger? Nope. Will I level up? Nope. Give me elusive uber set or unique items? Nope. How about weapon crystals? Nope. Will it help me craft my plot (even if I were interested in crafting which I'm not)? Nope.

A maxed dragon has exactly ZERO to look forward to from adventuring. You may have heard of risk v. reward. A maxed dragon has zero reward. No reward = boredom. Horizons as an MMO should keep us entertained. But if there's nothing to work towards then the game becomes very boring very quickly. This is why most of the older high-level dragons either left the game or went inactive.

Frankly I don't care if dragons get the ability to multiclass. But as a dragon I would like some form of advancement so that there is actually some incentive to continue playing. Bipeds have reward for however long they continue to adventure. But for dragons the game just... ends.
_______

Sounds like you can get ancient and then there will, once again, be nothing for you to do/look forward to.

If ancient dragons were something even SoG might be afraid of....well, that would be every single dragon on every shard, so you'd have shard full of uber beings that would have 0 challenge in game.

[Fireclaw]

[img]/Web/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Fireclaw wrote:Sadly hunting in Hz doesn't interest me. as a max level dragon with max hoard what is the point of hunting? Is it going to make me stronger? Nope. Will I level up? Nope. Give me elusive uber set or unique items? Nope. How about weapon crystals? Nope. Will it help me craft my plot (even if I were interested in crafting which I'm not)? Nope.

A maxed dragon has exactly ZERO to look forward to from adventuring. You may have heard of risk v. reward. A maxed dragon has zero reward. No reward = boredom. Horizons as an MMO should keep us entertained. But if there's nothing to work towards then the game becomes very boring very quickly. This is why most of the older high-level dragons either left the game or went inactive.

Frankly I don't care if dragons get the ability to multiclass. But as a dragon I would like some form of advancement so that there is actually some incentive to continue playing. Bipeds have reward for however long they continue to adventure. But for dragons the game just... ends.
_______




Sounds like you can get ancient and then there will, once again, be nothing for you to do/look forward to.

If ancient dragons were something even SoG might be afraid of....well, that would be every single dragon on every shard, so you'd have shard full of uber beings that would have 0 challenge in game.

Actually I'm quite satisfied with the rewards for ancient as they are now with a couple exceptions. Despite Tulga's statement that an ancient should be significantly more powerful in battle than a same level adult, I had very low expectations based on what happened when RoP came out. And sure enough... my expectations were met. An ancient is stronger than an adult... but barely so. An ancient will fight with almost exactly the same capability as a same level adult. The same types of encounters that an adult could barely handle an ancient will also barely be able to handle. Still, I expected this and because my expectations were met I am overall not disappointed with the excpetion of 2 things:

(1) The new ancient model is too small. Players have been looking at the ancients models for over a year now dreaming about being huge like that. Suddenly shrinking the ancient model down to the size of a large adult is a colossal last-minute letdown. Also, as players on Blight have reported, the new ancient model is actually harder for bipeds to adventure with because they can't look underneath it like the could when it was bigger. This change gave nothing to the game, except a big letdown.

(2) There is no way to improve as an adventurer dragon upon completing ancient. Right now I'm in the situation where I'm bored when I login because I have no way to improve as an adventurer. As soon as I complete the final stage of ancient, I'll be right back in the same boat. I'll chat, congratulate the other new ancients. Fly around a bit, kill a few monsters, buzz Aughundell... and then logoff, because there's nothing else to do to improve. Sure the devs stated that ancients will eventually have schools to level in for post-ancient advancement, but we all know that those schools are probably at best 1-2 years away and at worst will never arrive. In the meantime total boredom ensues. If plots come out that will be something to work on. But frankly, the crafting aspect of Horizons never interested me. I play Horizons to be a big fire-breathing flying dragon that goes out and kills things. I find crafting to be pretty boring. And when I get bored, I play other games. A game is supposed to be entertainment and if its boring its not entertaining. I want Horizons to entertain me, but without some form of advancement, its just not entertaining. Unfortunately, as soon as I complate ARoP its "game over" again.

[Vahrokh]

I'm asking this because it seems very foolish to me to try and compare bipeds to dragons - they are two very different things and the experience needed to be an "Uber-ped" let alone the tedium/boredom (from my own experience) can't be compared to what it takes to be a 100 level dragon IF they are the same amount of experience.

I'd would never want a dragon becoming a copy of an uberped, I am not interested the least in anything about "bipeds".

I do want to compare an hatchling to an adult and an adult to an ancient.
They should scale up.
Instead we get pretty strong hatchlings, slightly better adults and slightly better ancients.
An ancient should be _at least_ bigger than an adult. It's not an hard thing to do to use a decent scale factor and everyone knows how dragons love becoming bigger.
I do, I waited 2 years to see stats improvements (you know, once again we had to ******** whine to prevent the stealth nerf stick to hit us again, it's not nice even for us to do but hey those devs have hard rock heads that don't learn after years) and a size increase.
Call it a "status symbol".

Size, it's not much to ask for paying a yearly subscription to log in, fly 5 minutes to feel good, log off for 3 weeks (the boredom in Hz kills me) yet I'd be already happy with that.

Why have they to deny us this? Anything like a rational answer?

I still haven't seen anyone answer my question tho. Is the experience table the same for dragons as it is for bipeds when it comes to leveling? If it is, will dragons have to follow a different experience per level progression to balance them out in the long run?

It has been answered in Tazoon.com times by me already and multiple times for you old timers :P

I happen to play a well made game. It's "just" a MUD. With dragons. Unlike Hz it HAS PvP so balance IS important.
Yet you play a dragon that dwarfs the other races, is hellishly strong and can stun you just with a hit with the neck.

The price? Enormous. You level up at 45% experience rate (other races have up to 120%). Moreover the bigger you become, the lower this rate becomes. Still you lose up to 25% of your entire level if you die. Each level can use up to 10M exp and mobs give 250 exp...
The equipment is very few, absurd to obtain, breaks easily.
Heck the very act of USING a non unbreakable weapon makes me break it beyond repair with few hits (that DESTROY mobs in the process :P).
I can almost permastun instance bosses just at biting and tail slapping them.

The feeling is IMMENSE. No one besides me could arrive at level 83 and this is after 11 years.

Now, if I could instill just a tiny, tiny fraction of this feeling and sense into Horizons I'd be the most happy flapper in the universe.

You know, that game is an insane challenge including requiring a group to do everything.
It's probably WAY too hard core.

But what do we get in Horizons? Ding 100 adv! After some time Ding 100 craft. Get some new scales.
For a new dragon that won't get epic items or techs it's more or less game over.
From that day on, it's all a dull wandering around, flying here and there, kill a mob here and there.

No gain for the effort, no reward for any risk, nothing.

After 2 years it becomes a bit old, in fact I had to turn to other games I like much less than Horizons because I can't stop getting asleep here.

I roleplayed, I crafted, I vendored, I got everything including 101 x 101 plot, hoard beyond the maximum, all the important epics DRAGON and BIPED (i.e. the boar mask and mossy mace etc. etc.), 9 sets of scales.

What to do now? It kills me to leave this game but...

Well I want to still "believe" in Horizons and pay for it even if I seldom play it but at least PLEASE give me a graphic improvement.
Maybe graphics where my horns, teeth and fangs are of "natural color" and not red. Or at least a visible size increase.
It's not years in development, the size scaling is like 15 seconds of hacking a multiplier.

I came up at a time when Dragons should have all been shot in the head and put out of everyones' misery. I have put well over TWO HUNDRED DAYS of IN-GAME time into mine. I have FAR more XP AFTER capping than it took TO cap. I "levelled" hoard to max as well, which is akin to another class all by itself. I don't think I have put much less effort in my character than PJ or any of the other uberpeds. No, I didn't farm and powerlevel through umpteen classes, but I played my character just as often. I didn't just log in and sit around with the meter running. I crafted hard, I fought hard, and after June 5th of last year, with the exception of hoard, NONE of it has done ANYTHING for me. What do I have to show for it?

Nicely written, can't agree more. Was so fun staying up to 4am in the night helping a guildie of mine making me hoard that in 2 days would self turn in smoke...

I have put in this character 2 years @8-13 hours a day.
I challenge most of the rating 200 to have played more.

Yet the hatchling who yesterday bought the game, in few days can do exactly what I do, not a bit less.
Am I comparing with bipeds? No. It's all and only a "reward for effort" matter.

I play Horizons to be a big fire-breathing flying dragon that goes out and kills things. I find crafting to be pretty boring. And when I get bored, I play other games. A game is supposed to be entertainment and if its boring its not entertaining. I want Horizons to entertain me, but without some form of advancement, its just not entertaining. Unfortunately, as soon as I complate ARoP its "game over" again.

Agree here again too. I have everything possible maxed but I am still and adventurer at heart. A fiery dragon that wants to smoke and blow stuff like a crazed demon.

Everything that helps me in this feeling is welcome, starting from size.

I don't even demand some "advancement" system, just that having bazillions of spent hours and unspent exp after 100 "translates" into something visible.

Else I am still "Mr. hatchling turned adult 2 days ago with no exp" and I frankly feel like this stinks, expecially in a game based on levels and advancement.

[FleshRoast]

I'm a relative newcomer to the game, so take this viewpoint as you wish. I'm currently a 72/70 Dragon.I am not, nor do I want to be power-leveled, it would stick in my throat, plus take the fun out of it for me. I have yet to reach 1 million hoard and only have maintained 600k+ about 5 levels ago. Craft grind makes me mind-numb at times, but so can hunting, especially quests requiring 50 mobs with a molasses spawn rate.

I kinda agree with the statement about not really able to compare a dragon and a biped. That's simply apple and oranges. There *should* be things that one can do the other can't. That being said, we come to the issue of balance.

Here again, we have a lot of balance levels to talk about. In a perfect world, *all* the races would be balanced. ATM, they're not. Most of this thread has lumped all bipeds races into a single group and I don't think that should really be the case. I do think, however, that given current game progression, this will be addressed some way. Currently, in terms of bipeds, a *class* change affects the most players because any biped can use a class, some better than others. Given this fact, it makes sense that devs focus on class changes more than race (e.g. the most bang for the buck). Dragons become unique here because there is a 1:1 ration of class to race, unlike anything else in the game.

I really don't have the experience to determine if one class ability compares with another. I *can* tell you what I've observed via the Arena. A120 rated biped (current class of healer) took down 3 100/100 Adult dragons. It took 5 dragons (same size) to take down the biped. Depending on what therating of an "uber-ped" is, my idea of balance is that an Ancient could win about 50% of the time mano-a-mano. The difference being solely attack sequence and the variables of a strike chance and damage.It's my opinion that observing Arena contests and taking some notes will give the data needed to make a better balance. Not just between dragons and bipeds, but even between the biped races themselves.

If identifying the problem is the first step, quantifying it is the second. What is needed is a common "measurement" between different abilities. This is the only way a true balance can be achieved. Without it, balance is simply a player's own perspective, which is, of course, biased toward the type of character they play.

[Pharcellus]

Some of us have quantified and documented the disparities for nearly two years.

"Cowboy" balancing sucks.

[FleshRoast]

Some of us have quantified and documented the disparities for nearly two years.

"Cowboy" balancing sucks.

If "cowboy" means using a "winner gets nerfed" methodology in chronicling Arena contests, obviously it would stand to reason that this would have to work purely statistically. No one battle would be able skew results nor would a player in the top or bottom 5%.

As to having extensive data documented and quantified over this period of time, that's great news! Part of my RL job is "tuning" computers for performance. If nothing else, it has taught me that you tweak 1 thing at time. Otherwise, you have no clue to what change caused what effect or if you are observing a "combination" effect.

Obviously, using all minimum damages results in no damage, so a good way to start is to always assume maximum damage. We can't really account for chance to hit either, so assume a 100% chance to hit. These assumptions eliminate 2 variables for comparision purposes. Now you could take a dragon and a biped and, assuming all normal abilities for a given level, calculate damage they can deal using each attack only once over a given time frame. You should be able to construct an average DoT ratio for a character.Compare this with the normal HP of each. A multiclass biped may easily have more attacks, but having each do less damage and/or having longer recycle times may "balance" this out.

[Bulgrim StoneCleaver]

Now see, FleshRoast, you made some good comments - nothing truly new but very good reminders. I would have rather seen biped powers get nerfed to some extent rather than what might become 100adv/100 rating dragons with 120 powers.

I'm glad that dragons got the ancient progression done. I'm worried that it will cause more problems down the road tho...