Feedback: Biped "hoard" abilities

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

I was just thinking after reading something someone brought up...

How possible is it to give bipeds "hoard" abilities and give bipeds a "hoard" to feed?

I think it would be cool if there was a line of quests to obtain and upgrade a line of abilities specific to bipeds that required "payment" as the dragons have. It of course may be a bit harder to plan what types of abilities these might be given the diversity of the schools for bipeds but I think the idea may have merit.

Instead of a Hoard, bipeds would have a Power Pool. Drops would be included that would have Power Value (instead of Hoard Value) and feed this Power Pool.

The additional power fed abilities would need to be equal to or slightly superior to abilities of like kinds and can overwrite/be overwritten if a buff style ability. This way a player will have to choose which to use if they happen to have/be in a school with an ability that attributes the same effect.

For example. Lets say one of the power fed abilities is a damage shield. It's damage output might equal or slightly exceed that of Cloak of Thorns but lasts for only a minute or two and it's recycle may be 5 minutes. This damage shield would of course cost Power when activated. So while it would of course not be preferential to a biped capable of using Cloak of Thorns, it WOULD be useful to a biped in a class that doesn't support CoT or who never obtained the ability.

Another could be a straight forward attack much like Silver Strike and Gold Rage are supporting the various melee attack abilities (1hc, 1hp, 1hs, etc). So proficiency in a melee skill would determine the attacks effectiveness, again much like Gold Rage/Silver Strike.

Things like that. Opinions, feedback, suggestions?

[Eni]

Can be something in style of items. Special in am thinking for banners. At moment they are useless as they cosume vielo only trophys. Maybe they can be changed to use something like this power and add other items like this.

[Goriax]

And just like dragon non-hoard abilities aren't much to write home about, if bipeds were given some sort of super abilities which required payment, their abilities which didn't require payment would have to be toned down to compensate.

[Jenntonix]

Great suggestion! Maybe a biped will be able to take on a mob over 20 rating points above their own like dragons can currently.. Tone down? lol Turn it up!!

[Dragoniade]

And just like dragon non-hoard abilities aren't much to write home about, if bipeds were given some sort of super abilities which required payment, their abilities which didn't require payment would have to be toned down to compensate.

True, because lets not forget that when a dragon get a new hoard ability, they lose one from the past. We lost our free Ice Strike for Silver Strike; we lost the free Drain Strike; Rez and Mez are costly.

So I'm totally for hoard abilities for biped, as long as they lose their non-hoards ones.

A Warrior would lose Multistrike and Rend Armor to gain a 3 hits abilities that cost 'hoard' and can do both at once.

A Wizard would lose the ability to multicast to for an ability to cast spell that stun.

A cleric would lose half their heal for a superior heal at lower level that cost hoard.

But thinking about it, don't this sound much like the idea of 'Mana' that was introduced quite some time ago by AE? A non self-replenishing Mana pool that can be use to fuel spells and abilities?

[Valornyx]

Whilst I have no problem with the idea in principle - in order to introduce "hoard"" abilities, as has been pointed out - you'd have to remove or tone down the "non-hoard" ones .. this would likely be construed more as a nerf than a step forward by a lot of players.

[JDavidC]

I'm actually wondering why there IS no form of mana or magic points in this game whatsoever. It would be a nice alternative to using 'ammunition' we need to power armour and breath attacks. I'd also like to see a dragon able to use all versions of an ability that are learned, rather than having higher rank ones replace lower ones (especially in the case of gold rage). Ofc, recycle/cooldown timers would still have to be shared. I'm NOT looking forward to the highest rank of drain strike requiring hoard to use, nor am I looking forward to a DP-free rez that costs 5k hoard!

[Goriax]

I think a year or two ago they were considering reintroducing mana or SOMETHING. There was a specific reason for it. As they saw it, in the current combat system often the best tactic is to push down a button as soon as it pops up. The whack-a-mole combat style. They were trying to give people an additional tactical consideration somehow so there would be more to tactics then slamming most ability buttons the moment they pop (I don't fight like that except for a couple abilities but apparently many people do). If they could come up with something which didn't require mana (also some sort of equivalent for melee abilities) that would have been fine too, but everything anyone came up with always came to some sort of mana pool. The whole thing seems to have been allowed to quietly die, possibly because it really isn't a good idea to make fundamental changes in the combat system after the game is released; possibly for other reasons.

However, that isn't quite what a "hoard" ability is. A mana pool is typicaly self-replenishing with a maximum.The timescale for replenishmentis typically so short you can go from completely empty to completely full in a few minutes. If it takes longer then a couple minutes playersstart grumbling.

Hoard doesn't work like that. Hoard has no maximum but it is NOT self replenishing. If you're empty you're going to STAY empty until you find some stuff to hoard.

But I suppose they could introduce some sort of "hoard" like system for bipeds. They could have random mob drops of some sort of mana which, when consumed increased your mana pool. This mana poolwould behave like hoard and not a traditional mana pool. There would be no other way to increasethe mana pooland it would not replenish itself.If it's empty now it'll be just as empty 2 weeks from now if you don't put anything in it. By far the best means of adding to your mana pool would be random mob drops.

You could use the mana pool to power extra powerful spells.They would removeseveral non-mana spells to compensate. They would also do something similar with melee attacks. Basically, all the really good abilities would draw on this pool and abilities which didn't draw on the pool wouldn't be very good.

As others have pointed out, many bipeds would consider this a nerf.

[Bori Grimbattle]

Hoard abilities for bipeds? Why not just give them wings as well?

There is too little differentiation between races as it is. Giving biped Hoard like abilities when they can already multiclass out the proverbial whazoo is a bit too much.

In my opinion of course.

[Valornyx]

I'm actually wondering why there IS no form of mana or magic points in this game whatsoever. It would be a nice alternative to using 'ammunition' we need to power armour and breath attacks. I'd also like to see a dragon able to use all versions of an ability that are learned, rather than having higher rank ones replace lower ones (especially in the case of gold rage). Ofc, recycle/cooldown timers would still have to be shared. I'm NOT looking forward to the highest rank of drain strike requiring hoard to use, nor am I looking forward to a DP-free rez that costs 5k hoard!

Actually - the drain strike and dragon rez are pretty nice..

many many timesthe difference between winning and losing a fight has been that one ancient still had their rez up and could get the healer back up to rez everyone else.

For the number of times I'd use rez a week, 2-3 kills on the icy dires will drop a hoard item that will replace the hoard used.