Do dragons still need love?

[Guaran]

So the parameters of the test will be number of hours in game to take a new dragon to the point of building a Lair T2 Helian Chamber - Essence Shaping, and a bi-ped to the point of building a Beginner Scholar Shop, since bi-peds don't get the option of individually tiered shops.... I'll happily do the dragon side of the testing and let you have the pleasure of doing the bi-ped half of the test.

On my biped (and on my dragon) I've assisted in completeing aJourneyman Scholar shop, Jman Jewelry shack, Jman Stoneworking, Jman Blacksmith, Jman Alchemists shack, Jman Confcetioners shack, Jman Mill, Jman Woodshop, Jman Tanning, Jman Clothworking, a slew of t1 and t2 silos, and a few t3 All of these I've assisted in thier construction. It's safe to say that I've done 1 half of the construction test. I may not have every construction school of high level (have low level carp on one toon, high level (80+) fitter on another) but have a pretty good idea what it takes to get a jman shop up.

As was pointed out, the tier 2 essence chamber is the closest equivalent to the beginner scholar shop. I still will let you perform your side doing only the t1 chamber. The idea is for you to experience first hand all the intermediate steps and resources, and the sheer number of resources (which is even more on the higher tier chambers). If you really want the test to be fair, then go for the tier 2 chamber.

[Death-knell]

As a quick example not to bore others.

The easiest is the imbued bronze bar. You need 140 applied, which like every other construction class is not 1:1. At optimal it is 2:1, so you need 280 imbued bronze bars, What is an imbued bronze bar? At optimal it is 15 dim orbs AND 15 bronze bars, how many other construction classes have a 30:1 AT optimal? So for your 280 Imbued Bronze bars you need 8400 units of raw resources. And that is the very simplest (ie.....they only require 2 seperate resources)

[Amerelium]

...lessers made the Powers nerf the ancient model - we want the old one BACK!!!

[Tribunal]

...lessers made the Powers nerf the ancient model - we want the old one BACK!!!

...

...

...

...wow... I wasn't expecting that, but you know after seeing the post I'm not all surpirsed. I guess this will be a stupid question but... they still havn't given you a reason?

[Dragoniade]

I don't call 'love' when someone tell you 'I love you' then give you a nice slap in the face.

Yes. Dragon got a lot lately. But when you look at it, a lot of those are not really fair.

* Dragon finally getting ancient after 2 years, and seeing all of their model shrunked and their stats bellow expectation.

* Dragon Ancient school being cancelled and maintaining racial imbalance.

* Dragon Laircrafting being way much harder to build and time consuming than any other crafting class.

* Dragon Lair room being way sub-par versus Biped Building. For instance, Lair storage are from 2 to 9 time less efficient than a biped silos. An 'expert' Lair shop take up to 4 more space than an expert plot shop.


Dragons don't need love. Dragons need to be recognized as a race of Istaria and get treated properly. Getting sup-par abilities and building isn't a display of love to me.

[Inferno]

There was going to be an Ancient Dragon school? [:O]
anyone got any details about that?

[imported_tjl]

There was going to be an Ancient Dragon school? [img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-3.gif[/img]
anyone got any details about that?

there was a proposed dragon ancient multiclassing kind of thing that was planned. but the devs used some common sense and scheduled things that have nothing to do with dragons ahead of it.

dragons do still need some love. but they can now wait their turn for it.

[Death-knell]

dragons do still need some love. but they can now wait their turn for it.

I partially agree with this, but dragons have 2 series of quests that have been missing before the confectioner school was even brought into game. Thats really the only thing I would like to see added at this point.

And yes, I know bipeds have been waiting for dragon-like quests. But these 2 quests only allow dragoncrafting sub-par instead of laughable in these 2 skills (smelting/stoneworking)

[Kulamata]

Weeelll yesss, but only because they are sensitive, vulnerable creatures at heart.

[Justa Mirage]

Actually, being 40th level and stopping to smell the flowers, I don't need love, by the time I will be needing love, things may drastically change.

Kumu - I like your new SIG but the old one I preserved because it took some imagination to put dragon bodies with bi-ped lower limbs in "such" a position... every time I scroll through threads I have to stop and admire it ;)

As for Justa.... I purposely didn't want to uber-multiclass him... I was hoping for a little of that Bi-Ped love to flow this way so I wouldn't have to be like the Jones' and multiclass healer, spirituallist, reaver, etc so I can go into eastern blight and kick ****** and take names... right now I can barely take down Abominations out there without a hassle. So I am far from Uber.

[imported_Frith-Rae]

well I just remind everyone as DA was trying to do...

you can't have love without pain...

..and those bipeds who were paying attention to what was behind the "complaining" of the dragons in the last six months, will be awaiting their turn of "love" with a certain amount of fear...

[Barnaby Gump]

Before they brought down blight today I so far have my dragon to craft 17/adv 23 after 37 hours of in game time. With luck I should get to start the lairshaping tomorrow.

Has anyone decided to take up the challenge of seeing how long it takes to get a bi-ped from 0 to completion of a begineer scholar shop?

[PJ]

Everybody needs loves. Confectioners more then others, and their love is in the works. But after that we all need love equally. Not any one category based on the # of legs.

We've seen the completion of several large projects that have given much love to dragon kind. But to say that dragons don't need love anymore is wrong. There are still several areas that are lacking.

Ancient Classes (even just the preview)
Stoneworking/Smelting Craft Quest lines
Dragons & Crystals

to list a few.

But bipeds having been waiting patiently (and some not so patiently), for much needed love as they're far from complete themselves. Some of this love promised just as long ago as ARoP and Lairs were promised to dragons.

Quests. Period
Epic Spells
Fixes to Glaring Class deficiencies and bugs unfixed after 2+ years.

again to list a few.

But we've spent the last year with the majority of the developer focus, focused on dragons, and we've seen where that's gotten us. A large influx of new dragons and rises in their population. But bipeds in turn are dwindling and growing resentful. Should 2006 be the year of the biped? That could potentially reinvigorate the biped population, but at the expense of dwindling dragon populations, and growing resentment there.

Its time to stop focusing on certain minority segments of the population, and focus attention on things that benefit players of all segments. To improve the game as a whole not just certain parts of it.

Now that's not to say that any of the race/class specific issues like those listed above shouldn't be resolved in the near future. But the resolution of those issues shouldn't be the main focus.

[Pariah]

Barn as a guildie of Guaran I can attest to Bi-Ped construction I'm T5 opt in Carp/MSN/Ench I know how long it took to lvl these schools and the difficulties in constructing Biped structures I also have a T4 opt lairshaper, if u want to know which is tougher BY FAR lairshaping , no ped school requires 3 different resources ,other then fitter ,not carp not msn nor enhanter, they also arent required to go to 3 totally different areas to gather these resources and fitters are lumped back in with the one location along with the other ped construction schools.Test all you like the higher the tiered lairshaping the harder it is to gather the resources you will fight t5 treants for esse t5 mithril golems t5 marble golems just to produce ONE item to apply and they don't fit on a tarbash disk like all the ped resources and those are the only porting disks currently in game ,nor do the dragons get xp for the three resouces till they are finally mixed an applied bars and bricks and orbs are basically freebies, unlikethe ped schools that currently get xp for these I'll take ped construction any day over lairshaping... unfortunatelyI own a lair and can't use the ped skills Ive gotten to help too much other then bricks bars and orbs whichI can actually get exp for with my ped to further advance my lair construction, save yourself time and effort , unless you are building your own lair,comparing apples and oranges when they are just buds on the tree isnt much of a test bed ina race to do a jman structure against a t5 opt lairshaper and my ped.... I'm pretty sure I could erect the structure faster and easier , sololy based on the use of a tarbash disk and the easy of ped machines available around current resources.

[Vizharan]

we all need love equally. Not any one category based on the # of legs.

Well, I agree with you to the fullest extent there. However, I'm not sure if that would be possible.

Dragons/bipeds are so completely different, especially in the equipment department. There is only one item both a biped and dragon can equip(emblem), and that really doesn't do much for you(I like the emblems nonetheless, just saying). For what its worth, a 50% focus on dragons or bipeds(my vote goes towards bipeds right now, considering all the dragon stuff), and 50% on stuff everybody can enjoy. Town Marshall/Trophy quests were a good start(even though not many of any race seem to do Town Marshalls), the Reklar, Valkor peices and so forth. Of course, if the dragon content stops and switches to biped, I'd probably spend more time on my biped then dragon. But thats just the way it works...they would have to hire quite a few more people to do both at the same time.

That I dont think would fly very well. IIRC David said they were turning a $20k profit/year right now. Is that enough to hire a programmer? I dont know about you, but $20k a year is tough to live on. Especially if you have kids, and especially if said kids are in college.

[PJ]

The differences are large, and for the most part difficult to get around (although you did neglect armor/weaponcrystals [;)])

But there's really no shortage of things that they can add/fix/change that'd benefit everybody equally.

Client/Server Performance issues
loot tables
the tier based world revisions (like what they did to LA)
non class/race specific Quests

and my personal favorite

War vs the WA

[Barnaby Gump]

no ped school requires 3 different resources ,other then fitter

Perhaps I have been misunderstood. I don't think that the lairshaping of a specific item is easier than the same bi-ped structure. WhatI do suspect, and am in the process of finding out, is that getting to the point of being able to solo build a similar structure takes far less time when you include having to gain the skills to make it. I will gladly accept that it will likely be far more painfull for a level 100 lair shaper to build a t6 shop than it would be for a level 100 carpenter/enchanter/fitter/mason/weaver. Never mind that the bonus from the said shop is significantly better than what a bi-ped shop would provide, which should make it somewhat more difficult to make.

The point that seems to be missed here is that to make that t6 shop a dragon only need advance one school, whereas for a bi-ped to solo the same shop they would need to advance 5 currently, and if changed to match larishaping, 7 schools with the need to advance miner and gatherer as well. My question can be put in a different way, how many months will a dragon be able to spend going through the agreably more difficult process of building their equivalent structure while a bi-ped is still strugling to even get to that same ability?

[Death-knell]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Pariah wrote: no ped school requires 3 different resources ,other then fitter


Perhaps I have been misunderstood. I don't think that the lairshaping of a specific item is easier than the same bi-ped structure. WhatI do suspect, and am in the process of finding out, is that getting to the point of being able to solo build a similar structure takes far less time when you include having to gain the skills to make it. I will gladly accept that it will likely be far more painfull for a level 100 lair shaper to build a t6 shop than it would be for a level 100 carpenter/enchanter/fitter/mason/weaver. Never mind that the bonus from the said shop is significantly better than what a bi-ped shop would provide, which should make it somewhat more difficult to make.

The point that seems to be missed here is that to make that t6 shop a dragon only need advance one school, whereas for a bi-ped to solo the same shop they would need to advance 5 currently, and if changed to match larishaping, 7 schools with the need to advance miner and gatherer as well. My question can be put in a different way, how many months will a dragon be able to spend going through the agreably more difficult process of building their equivalent structure while a bi-ped is still strugling to even get to that same ability?

actually that is not correct. Dragons have to advance 2 schools, and they CANNOT power level one off the other. You'd be a great level 100 lairshaper if you can't harvest the needed resources.

[PJ]

well that's not 100% true, you cannot power level Dragon Lairshaper off Dragon crafter, but its possible to power level Dragon Crafter off of Dragon Lairshaper.

Dragon Lairshaper is a viable school in and of itself as it gets gathering and processing skill gains per level, just does not gain experience in using them. But those skills can be in turn used to level dragon crafter.

[LaughingOtter]

Dragon Lairshaper is a viable school in and of itself as it gets gathering and processing skill gains per level, just does not gain experience in using them. But those skills can be in turn used to level dragon crafter.

Just making T2 intermediate resources I got my dragon from 36 DCRA to 51 while getting DLSH to 40. It's a lot more fun than grinding on scales, that's for sure...