Grouping with Dragons: A quick tutorial

[Guaran]

Well after being jumped in IRC by a few bipeds, and after reading thru many threads and seeing a few posts by bipeds complaining about being grouped with dragons and not being able to select the "wizard" from a wraith group because "all I see are big dragon butt", here are simple workarounds.


The best way to get around the difficulty looting a mob area few newer commands added in June I believe.

/snc selectnearestcorpse

/loot

works well and both can be added to a single hotkey.

/cne is for cycling thru nearest enemies (alive enemies) and is very useful for picking out acertain mob from a group of mobs.This can easily be hotkeyed.

the converse of that is /cn for cycling thru nearest characters (players) and might be useful for selecting people outside of your group. In a group, the group window is fastest method for selecting players.



The loot and snccommands along with /random were added early summer (2005).

Setscale has other various uses, but still has to be added to the file. Here is an already edited version to place in the resources_override folder that also contains the newer commands. If you have a commands_player.def file in resources_override made from an older 'original' copy of commands_player.def (so that you could use setscale), then you might be disablingthe newer commands: http://www.goodboy.mygamesite.net/ho...nds_player.def
Place this file into the resources_override directory.



Not only will these simple workarounds assist anyone who plays in a group with dragons (/cne is an old command I think), they in my mind remove any argument for the re-sizing of adult and ancient dragons.

:edit ok I doubled checked my pc's commands_player.def and the cne is there but isn't implemented like PJ said. Tulga how soon ca we expect a fix?

Sorry about that I was blaming an out of date commands_player.def file for my pc and that command.

How hard can this be to implement?

[Theolaerynn]

Meh, since we are here anyway, is there a way to alias the /cne command to <tab>? It seems there was, but I have long forgotten it if so.

[Varraven]

Guaran, thanks a bunch for posting this info. I just returned from a break and these are all commands I didn't know were possible, and will be very useful. [:D]

[Varraven]

Meh, since we are here anyway, is there a way to alias the /cne command to <tab>? It seems there was, but I have long forgotten it if so.

Also, a very good question. In other games, tab is the key I would use to "tab" through npcs, etc.

[oluviel]

same i didn't know they existed thanks.

[Tantalyr]

Though I was aware of the /snc and /loot commands, I'd never heard of the /cne command. Thanks muchly Guaran!

[PJ]

Last I checked, /cne was not implemented.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

Last I checked, /cne was not implemented.

ditto

[Guaran]

Thanks PJ. Tulga how about fixing that and letting us keep the old size.

in ANY case it would be useful.

[Nalrach]

Now I know why people are sooooo quick looting.

[imported_tjl]

good post guaran. yes like PJ and Hal mentioned, cycle commands are not ready i guess. [:(]

I would rather them make khutit a viable form of fighting, say ... being able to do anything a dragon in reg form can do with the exception of breath attacks, flight, and tailwhip. spells and the melee attacks should be allowed. maybe just a slight armor reduction and a health reduction to compensate.

the only reason we don't have that already is probably because khutit model does not have the associated combat actions and stuff... which prob takes a while to work out and create. not totally sure, im not a 3d artist.

would like to see khutit used for group combat though.

[venom-dragon7799]

some dragons dont like going into biped form to hunt
<-- is a good example.

its kind of a disgrace to have to go into a biped form then our normal one just to please some one else. dragons were made to be on all fours unless a small building we have to go into.

[Guaran]

It would be nice if khutit didn't take the stat hits that it does, so that it could be an optional fighting style. It would just be another workaround. Nothing wrong with choices.

I think the best solution would be a "Monster Group Window" that works like the players group window. so we could see up to 10 closest mobs in it. Would allow for better targetting of specific mobs when the situation calls for it. Usually when you need to pick a ruined cleric or a wizard out of a wraith group.

Having the window with 10 targets in it would allow you to see much better feedback on how the battle is going anyway.

That, along with /cne which could just scroll down the list in the monstergroup window (and have a glowing box around the currently selected monster), would really enhance grouping IMHO.

They recently added the /selectnearestcorpse and /loot commands to help the problems that you sometimes run into trying to loot a mob that fell into the ground, etc.

/cnc cyclenearest corpse would be a good one to add as well for that purpose, since sometimes they fall ontop each other.

[Tribunal]

I personally made a /loot marco, not because of dragons, but because of bodies falling under the terrain. Very useful, and you can be alot faster to loot that way, *uh oh* pirate loots [H]

[Vahrokh]

It would be nice if khutit didn't take the stat hits that it does, so that it could be an optional fighting style. It would just be another workaround. Nothing wrong with choices

I find that being forced to play a de-natured, gimpedform is sort of humiliating like it is humiliating being forcibly shrunk like we have been.

I am old enough to recall when adults were a novelty. I would be invited to kill marrows. The guys I grouped with kept demanding me to fight only in kuthit form, which kept killing me a lot due to the puny stats. They would not even like that result, because a dragon with no hoard moves (at the time it was still to come), bugged and halvened healing (at the time I was ranting about this on Tazoon.com by1 month, the developers answering me "it's fine, learn to play" - only 9 months later and infinite litigations on the forums in those ever green "dragon vs biped threads" and IRC I managed to have the issue studied for real and the bug was indeed here) just sucked against marrows. The feeling was just horrible.
Wimpy, half animations missing, almost all spells not having any feedback or visible result plus it was horribly bugged and many times one would get stuck in that form till relog.

I hated kuthit form, it was almost an humiliatingtestament to "we don't accept you for what you are and we demand you trash your nature and shrink to a weak status so we manage you with no effort.

Something very similar to what happened recently with our size nerf.

[imported_tjl]

some dragons dont like going into biped form to hunt
<-- is a good example.
its kind of a disgrace to have to go into a biped form then our normal one just to please some one else. dragons were made to be on all fours unless a small building we have to go into.

Naturally, it would be a choice you could make venom. Sure it may not go with the standard lore of what a "dragon" is, but it would be a great tool in group situations. It's not called pleasing someone else, its called being courteous towards others. And I stress again, you don't have to do it.

I love to cast burning hands because it's a very useful spell, but it lags the world to hell, so I do not cast it in groups situations. courtesy. on my alt, I ask people before rezing them to make sure they are not AFK. courtesy.

[Varangaard]

I think the best solution would be a "Monster Group Window" that works like the players group window. so we could see up to 10 closest mobs in it. Would allow for better targetting of specific mobs when the situation calls for it. Usually when you need to pick a ruined cleric or a wizard out of a wraith group.

I've been thinking that even a better alternative would be a kind of 'HUD display' that one can quickyl flip on and off with a single keypress. When this HUD is off, everything works as normal. When you turn the HUD display on, it has several effects. Firstly, all monster names would be rendered atop all other graphics, so that another person/dragon cannot obscure it (the text would have a sufficiently thick border to make it legible). Secondly, all mobs would be surrounded by a green, opaque box that is also rendered atop all other graphics so they cannot be obstructed. Clicking inside the box selects the monsted instead of anything that might be standing in front of it. Player characters would not need this HUD treatment as they are always easily selectable from the group list.

Now THAT would make selecting a mob easy regardless of the twenty dragons that surround it. [:)]

[Goriax]

some dragons dont like going into biped form to hunt
<-- is a good example.

its kind of a disgrace to have to go into a biped form then our normal one just to please some one else. dragons were made to be on all fours unless a small building we have to go into.

I absolutely agree.

If I wanted to play a biped I'd have made a biped. One of the major reasons I got this game (at least of the reasons which made itto release) was the ability to play a dragon. If the choice is between soloing and turning into a biped I'll solo.

Some people call that a choice, I call that sticking to the reason I'm playing this game.

A solution for dragons and bipeds grouping together which involves turning dragons INTO bipeds is not a solution. It's a cop out.

Many people don't really care what model their character uses. It's just numbers after all. They'd be happy playing as maggots if the numbers were good. However, some of us care.

My suggestion was a shrink ability to shrink a dragon to about the same size as a hatchling while retaining the normal model for that age dragon.Basically a server side /setscale. They should have done that from the beginning rather then introduce that <expletive deleted> khutit. I don't mind being small half as much as I mind being forced to play a biped. At the time the reason put forward forkhutitinstead of shrinkwas that hatchlnigs and shrunk adults could be easily confused. Obviously that isn't so importantnowadays that ancients and adults are easily confused.

They need to impliment the /one command. Not just for this but because it would be handy in general in combat.

They might also consider an option to make group members unselectable by clicking on them. You could still select them from the group window or the keyboard. As with a /one command,it would be handy because it's often hard to select the right thing in a crowded situation even if everything is about the same size (i.e. it's sometimes hard to select the right mob even if there are no dragons involved)..

Sorry but I have strong feelings on this.

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Also, in regard to how much this relates to ancient size. Notice thatthe whines about dragons being too big are allabout the size of ADULTS yet ADULT size has not been changed and probably won't be. I wonder how many of the biped whiners actually went over to Blight and grouped with an original size ancient.

[DeathHawk]

I've grouped with other Dragons, I've grouped with Bi-peds, I've grouped with other dragons & bi-peds (different ratios within guild) and no-one (Bi-ped'wise) has ever complained about not being able to target or loot. There are many different ways, most have been mentioned above, except one

F10

is actually a key-binding setup in your options window which Selects Nearest Enemy and to take that a step further, if you're fortunate enough to have a programmable mouse (I have a 5-button mouse for example), program your centre button to Keystroke F10.


I have my mouse set to left button = gather, right button = attack, middle button = select nearest enemy and the normal mouse buttons are standard.

There are a number of ways to overcome this sort of problem, the camera moves, your toon moves, there's a checkbox in the options tab to allow free movement in combat.................in other words, learn how to play the game and your character the way it's meant to be played.

Oh....btw......if I ever was asked to switch to Khutit form to fight in a group, then hey, I guess I would be leaving the group and going solo [:P]

[Gliding Frost]

Ignoring all the lore/rp kind of reasons for adults/ancients there is another, rather important reason.

We take an abilities hit.

While I can't speak for all dragons, I do know that when I go out to fight I want to fight the best I can.That means my most powerful scales, being current on all quest abilities, and my most powerful form.