Dragon Ressurect Spells

[Vaz]

if a bunch of players are dragons, doesn't that sort of cause any biped in a mostly dragon group to be pressured to play as a healer/rezzer instead of what they actually want to play?

Good point.

I feel in favour of dragons getting a mini-res, but my brain doesn't want to think it through properly at the moment.

[Zexoin]

Rez comes from the LIFE skill, which Healers and Clerics are the only 2 classes that get it.

And Paladins

[Galdethriel]

But would you agree then that bipeds should be able to fly and have an ability that can hit for 3k damage every 15 seconds? If your goal is parity, then I too demand parity. For every complaint of "bipeds can do this or that" I can counter with "dragons can do this or that" as was stated before, it gets you nowhere.

The flying is what makes dragons unique. The multiclassing is what makes bipeds unique. This has nothing to do with making them exactly the same in play, just evening out the odds for lower-level groups. :/ And keep in mind that gold rage is only really that useful for melee dragons, not all dragons. I play a dragon mage, and it's only really useful as a debuff for me. :/

What will be the next ability you want after regular ressurects? Will you pick up another biped school and decide that Dragons also "deserve" an ability that lets them evade the next special attack, or one that halves an enemies attack speed, or perhaps a ranged bolt that ignores armor, maybe a 100% chance of your spells landing for a short time, or a boost to the damage a group does for a while? Almost every class has something that makes it special (and some are severely lacking).

I said it before. I'm not asking for every skill in the game. Rez is a basic skill that is important for grouping. The only problem is when and how you can get it in both cases. :/ I'm not asking for a new uberskill, I'm asking for a lesser skill with a cost that we actually already have, just it's fairly inaccessible until the end-game.

All these new things that have been given to dragons, some of them "versions" of biped ablities, and yet it is still not enough. I wish you could play a launch day hatchling and see how rediculously good you have it now.

Improvements do not mean perfection. :/ So what if it's got better, does that mean we should suddenly stop trying? Because it's 'not as bad as before'? I'm really not trying to be mean, but the game's not perfect. Not yet.

And, to briefly flirt with the dragon vs. biped argument, I don't really see why anyone would be opposed to bipeds getting a secondary, very inferior fly. The people who want to play bipeds are going to play bipeds, and if a bunch of players are bipeds, doesn't that sort of cause any dragon in a mostly biped group to be pressured to play as a dragon/flyer instead of what they actually want to play? I don't mean to say that bipeds should be able to take up a full dragon role, I'm just saying that the ability to fly is so vital in a group environment that having it be more accessible can hardly be a bad thing.

I'm confused. Rezzing saves time and trouble getting back to wherever you were hunting. Flying... it's only useful for preserving yourself and abandoning your group. :/ I wouldn't really see that as a vital group ability.

Also, please stop trying to twist my suggestion as if I think dragons and bipeds should be precisely the same. That's not my aim. :/

Rez comes from the LIFE skill, which Healers and Clerics are the only 2 classes that get it.

And dragons are the only race which can't get said classes. To everyone else, they're free game. :/

~Galde

[Raptress]

One of the problems with twisting my words from rez to flight is that rez is, at least to me, almost necessary for a serious group hunt. Flight is not. (By the by, I am not opposed to bipeds getting inferior flight in some way, in fact I rather support it honestly. So you're kind of preaching to the choir here.) In my mind, rez and flight are apples and oranges.

Also, I did play a dragon shortly after release. I remember hoard leak and I remember not having hoard moves. I know how much dragons have improved. I do not agree with the sentiment that asking for another rez will lead to asking for other biped abilities. The reason is because the ability to rez is very different from those other abilities. Besides the fact that we already have a rez, it's just that sticking an hour long cooldown on it hampers its effectiveness significantly, even in addition to the hoard cost and the fact that one must do most of the ARoP to get it.

And yes, we do all play what we want. Your argument sort of seems to leave out the fact that some people play dragons also just because it's a dragon though. To those people, their options are limited. Dragons as a race do not have access to a healing class.

[Hraefn]

A quickie suggestion from Hrae :

Double the hoard cost, halve the timer? That wouldn't be half bad.

[Trust]

Why did dragons even get a rez in the first place? Was that for rift runs? Personally I dont see where dragons should get a rez at all, and I play one. I mean its nice and all but I can't see the justification.

Granted a biped can take cleric up to level 10 or whatever, but unless he stays in a mystic class with the ability to cast it, he will have to run back to town, find a trainer, train cleric, run back out, then cast the spell. Run back to town, get his old class back, and then head back out to the hunt.

[Guaran]

Dragon spells =! Biped spells.

of course biped spells come in many flavors. and there are similarities. but the magic is different.



The reasoning was to have some kind of interdependence (grouping), or simply hunt differently (style/tactics).

My own opinion is that the Primal Rebirth is sufficient. I won't tell you to play a biped to get a 1 minute recycling Rez. Simply plan your battles around the knowledge that your res has a 1 hour cooldown. While you are a hatchy you are supposed to be weaker, so take an adult or ancient (or cleric, etc) along when you know you'll be in danger.

The only suggestion in regards to dragons and res'ing that should be made might be examining the current cooldown on primal rebirth.
************************************************** ***
I love that story about the hatchy who had to run all the way back out to the Shadow Dragon That sounds like a memorable RoP, and a good story to retell. (not a sufficient reason to add shorter timer res spells to dragons). And if none of you ancients had resses up when you pulled the Shadow Dragon....

[pajlizard]

I can easily see what galde is talking about. It would be a great deal more helpful to at least put someone back on their feet. Might not have more than 5-10% hp, might cost some hoard, but at least they are on their feet. I think the entire idea is to not have to wait for your friend to walk back. Maybe haev them be 'sick', like the death penalty stat reduction, for a small ammount of time. At least they wouldnt have to walk theirselves back.

This is about where I stand on the matter too- I'd like to see dragons have some sort of Rez before ARoP, even if it's a rather weak Rez.
Aliveness is aliveness after all, and perhaps having a small quest or something to get it would be quite entertaining, and something to work towards.

There was this one time where there were two or three ancients in the group with their rezzes on cooldown and we had to hold the Shadow Dragon while the hatchling ran all the way back from Harro.

I know it isn't really a valid reason to change things, but..
... GOOD TIMES EH?

[Hrough]

I don't know about needing another rez skill, but the cooldown on the one we do get is a bit ridiculous. Maybe we should get one around level 40-45 that would be half hp but with deathpoint, and half the cooldown of the other rez. It would make things a little more balanced. That or the 'increase hoard cost, decrease cooldown time' proposition.

I only say this because as a hatchling doing my rites, I had a couple times where something came out of the blue and just smacked me or my companions hard. We only had a couple of ancients with us, and after a short time there were no ancients left online with a active rez - or in one sad case the hatchling had drowned, so we couldn't target her to revive her.

I do agree that the main point of this is that then we don't have to wait for someone to walk back to wherever we are in the unfortunate event that they die. This can be a huge deterent to hunting, and I've seen hunts abandoned because one or two members died, and the others didn't, but no one wanted to wait for them to get back.

[Deth]

Myself I do not want to see this. I feel there needs to be diffrence between classes. Dragons just recenetly gained more healing ability, but we are really meant to be more of a DPS class and not a healer. The rez was really only given to us, I think, to give us a rez in the one place a Biped can not go. The Void.

[LOVWYRM]

Gal kindly and politely asked for opinios, input, ideas etc.
She deserves kind and polite answers!

My reason against more rezz spells
(as long as we have no healing school-hmm- a dragon healer?? *imagines herself in white nurse scales^^*)
is a social one: I always loved and still do to hunt with a healer at my side- even if it`s an unexperienced one. I enjoy this "togetherness" where both sides have to do good teamwork.
I love healer school, my healer friends and I like this kind of hunting more than with a mate of my species-
an untrue Lunus

Dragons atm have a lot of healing abilities- I am absolutely satisfied with that.
I have my job, our healers have theirs- and they all do a very good job!

[LOVWYRM]

- I'd like to see dragons have some sort of Rez before ARoP, even if it's a rather weak Rez.

*giggles* weak Rez= half dead= half pregnant??

(sry Slee- just was imaginating and saw Zombi -like pictures^^ )

[LaughingOtter]

Not taking a position on either side here, but I do want to make one small point:

Dragons and bipeds have totally seperate games. In many ways, they have totally seperate rule sets guiding them. "Because bipeds can do it" really isn't a good argument when discussing changes to dragons. This is because that argument is fundamentally flawed.

Not all bipeds will have all abilities from all classes, and even those that do will not be able to use all of them all the time. However, all dragons of a given level and age have the same abilities, assuming everyone is doing their quests. All dragons have all abilities all the time.

"All dragons should be able to do this" is a much stronger argument - if you can support it.

[Zexoin]

Gal kindly and politely asked for opinios, input, ideas etc.
She deserves kind and polite answers!

My reason against more rezz spells
(as long as we have no healing school-hmm- a dragon healer?? *imagines herself in white nurse scales^^*)
is a social one: I always loved and still do to hunt with a healer at my side- even if it`s an unexperienced one. I enjoy this "togetherness" where both sides have to do good teamwork.
I love healer school, my healer friends and I like this kind of hunting more than with a mate of my species-
an untrue Lunus

Dragons atm have a lot of healing abilities- I am absolutely satisfied with that.
I have my job, our healers have theirs- and they all do a very good job!

I agree with everything above. In my opinion, giving a rez to dragons would only make the healers' job less important, and we'd probably see less group hunts.

[Frith-Rae]

All I'm saying is that you shouldn't have to drive all the way to the end-game to get a skill a level 10 biped is running around with, just because you play a dragon. :/ And this same skill, because you're a dragon, has quadruple the recycle time and a hoard cost tacked on. Because you're a dragon.

And its why out of my own protest - Frith has yet to become Ancient.

Because to me, the rewards were insulting to players who put in the type of time and effort they had in order to get to "Ancient"

Ancient was suppose to mean something...and those rewards just took away any meaning at all to me. I thought, and still do, that the rewards are a joke, bordering on pointless.

And more on topic..

I agree that dragons should have at least one other rez ability - a lesser ability. The major hoarde consuming one hour timer rez is "barely" a rez. As a previous poster stated, we were only given it because we "kinda had to have something" so that Rift Runs wouldn't be a continuous source of pain .

But why are dragons expected to be, or suppose to be, content with something that "barely" qualifies?

In a game with such a low population, in a game where sometimes you know you can't get a group together to help you out - WHO DOES IT HURT to give a lower level dragon the ability to pop himself back up once in a while (costing hoard still, not removing DP, whatever).

I agree with putting in a quest, making it for lower levels than Ancients (even if its 70 or something!), a very basic rez ability.

Its not game breaking. This is not going to kill groups. Its going to enable the solo hunter to have a bit less painful of a hunt. That's pretty much it.

Dragons who are in dragon only groups for whatever reason are going to continue to do practice the same group dynamics.

Dragons who enjoy grouping with friends, dragon or bipeds, are going to continue to do the same.

Dragons who want to group with bipeds for their BETTER heals and rezzes will continue to do so.

I don't see how this hurts anything in the present state of the game or the interactions between players.

But then we never got a good answer about the Ancient Size Nerf, or why the Ancient rewards were so poor to begin with *shrugs*. Such is the way of the company at times.

[Drevar]

How exactly does a rez help a solo hunter? *grin*

"This" request is never overpowering. "This" request is just being fair to dragons. "This" request won't affect gameplay significantly. On and on and on.

What happens after *ALL* of those little things that have such small effect are added up? Lots of little things becomes a big one.

What can a dragon already do....Melee attacks and buffs, Mystic style heals and buffs(just got another new one on Blight), Arcane style attacks and buffs, flight, better armor than any other school. The only thing missing is something from the Missle schools.

You get all of that by leveling ONE school. To even come close to that utility bipeds have to level (with diminishing xp gains) a minimum of 3 vastly different schools. If you want to specialize in Melee, you lose most of your Arcane abilities, and more than half of the best heals and buffs from Mystic. If you specialize as a cleric/healer, you lose your most powerful Melee attacks and most of your Arcane. If you go the Arcane route you lose your best Mystic abilities and your Melee abilities suck (note the distinction between abilities and skills). Don’t forget that you will want 3 totally different sets of equipment while leveling each school. You can hybrid 2 schools by taking a prestige school...yet another school to level, but it will usually have a drawback like limited armor or weapon choices vs. the base schools.

Now that the spew is out of the way I can state…none of it matters. Dragons and bipeds are two very different beasts. They are meant to be different experiences, exclusive of each other. Trying to compare and “balance� them against each other is a folly from the start, as they were not meant to be compared side by side.

My best advice for getting new abilities for dragons is to stay away from comparing or equating abilities to those of bipeds. Don’t just say, “Clerics get X at level Y, dragons should too cause its nice and I want it!� Compare them to various life stages and level tiers of other dragons. Compare them to the defenses and abilities of commonly fought monsters or discuss glaring weaknesses you see while fighting epic bosses. Come up with something innovative that extends the mechanics already in place for dragons; some new way to spend hoard, for example. My own idea is to allow “pumpable� breath weapons…the option to spend more than the base hoard to add damage to the attack.

Gald, you were fine with wanting a lower level version of Primal Rebirth, until you brought up biped rezzes. It wasn’t until you saw cleric/healer resurrects that you began to covet them and wanted to pile them onto the dragon pile of goodies. That is the impression I got from reading your OP. It wasn’t a track of groups of hatchlings needing some kind of help in some situations but a track to “level the playing field� implying that there was some kind of injustice or conspiracy by bipeds that needed to be corrected. You openly admit you are biased and don’t understand why dragons have to wait until Ancient to get a rez. I don’t understand why they were given one at all.

I’m a cranky old vet--played both biped and dragon from the first day of US release. I’ve seen post after post of dragons asking for yet another ability to make them “even� with bipeds, all the while taking the constant stream of truely new content and abilities as their rightful due. If my responses seem a bit confrontational it stems from the cynicism built over years of reading the same things again and again; the same pleas for more goodies that just make dragons more like bipeds instead of actually making them “better�.

Drev

[velveeta]

as a player of both types, i can only think of the adage i learned early in my roleplaying career -
its not how weak or strong your (magic/equipment/weapons) is, its how you use it.

if you don't have something you want, you make do with what you have.


(if anyone takes that as an insult, i apologise, that was not my intention.)

[Galdethriel]

I understand what a lot of people are saying, but I still think rez is a gameplay skill, not a racial one. :/

If you think about it really, dragon and biped gameplay isn't like playing a completely new game. It's playing a different version of the game; it's the same at heart. It's not apples and oranges, but red apples and green apples, you know? :P

They have a different taste, and you might prefer one to the other, but they're still both apples. Same here. Biped play and dragon play has a different flavour, and people have preferences, but they're still both HZ.

That's how I see it anyway.

I still think giving dragons a minor rez at a lower level wouldn't suddenly turn dragons into biped clones. And healers are safe; they are still far superior at keeping people alive and giving them life if they fall. And I know to some it feels unfair that bipeds are restrained by classes, but dragons are restrained by their LACK of classes. I'm not saying to give dragons loads of new classes; that'd make them just like bipeds. I'm just saying that that arguement can go both ways. Bipeds have the option, in the end, and dragons don't.

And yeah, somewhere along the line my thought processes were probably 'bipeds get rezzes so easilly, why can't dragons have them earlier?', but in honesty, that flips the other way too. When I was going through the game I just accepted that I died a lot and got a lot of death points. I accepted that I couldn't help dead players, and that I could only attack when in a group. I just kinda said alright, beggers can't be choosers. Only then, I was also assuming that bipeds would be in exactly the same position, which they weren't. So I got into this curiousity of why it was like that, and if it could be changed.

I didn't see the biped's rezzes first and start whining. I accepted the dragon's lack of rezzes before I noticed the number of biped rezzes and began inquiring. It's just a little different inkling there, and if I came across too passionate earlier, I apologise.

I think the lowest tier of rez at say... level 45? A 2000 hoard cost or some such. No death point lift, and a 15 to 30 minute recycle. Something clearly inferior to healers, but so that dragon players don't have to just accept that all their characters can be are really tanks or guns. That would be great, I think.

~Galde

[Teto Frum]

Bipeds are in the exact same position, theres no biped rezs like keeps getting said on both sides. Theres a cleric rez, druid rez, healer rez and dragon rez. If your a biped whos not one of those you dont have a rez, i have rez as a 100 cleric, but cant cast it in warrior, monk, xbowman, or spearman any of my other maxed classes, very few schools can cast rez even if youve gained the ability.

Rezs are class specific abilities, ive always found it more weird that dragons can rez at all, than that its only something learned by the most advanced. I do see your point and understand where your coming from, but its not something i see as needed.

[Silverblaze]

Not taking a position on either side here, but I do want to make one small point:

Dragons and bipeds have totally seperate games. In many ways, they have totally seperate rule sets guiding them. "Because bipeds can do it" really isn't a good argument when discussing changes to dragons. This is because that argument is fundamentally flawed.

Not all bipeds will have all abilities from all classes, and even those that do will not be able to use all of them all the time. However, all dragons of a given level and age have the same abilities, assuming everyone is doing their quests. All dragons have all abilities all the time.

"All dragons should be able to do this" is a much stronger argument - if you can support it.

I mostly agree with this however I have one caveat: they do not have totally seperate games.

I also will not take aside persay, but I'll give my opinion.

They hunt the same mobs, same resources, and in the same places. They talk to one another and do some of the same quests. Therefore they cannot be so vastly different. Also eventually when one does too much the otehr cannot or many things better than the other. The obviously better chocie will vastly outweigh the other. I already know many biped players who only play a dragon, to fly.

I know many dragon players who only play a biped after making a few dragons and taking them all the way to ancienthood.

I like it that way. It creates a nice duality. However, if the scales are tipped too much in one direction or hte other, the ratio will change drastically. The game will be even more A) primarily dragons or B) Primarily Bipeds.

Therefore in some sense a balance must be struck. When a race can do everything eventually, it is timeto sit back and realize, dragons are not made to make bipeds obsolete nor vice versa. They each have strengths and weaknesses and this needs to be observed and respected. Too long has this game gone without a need to group in my opinion.

Once upon a time crafters would sit around and help dragons craft up their hoard for RoP reqs. The crafter got exp, the dragon helped mine and got hoard. (somtimes the dragon made bars and got some DCRA exp). In other words, if a hatchling needs a rez, work with a biped who has life magic. That's all aprt of an MMORPG. If you choose not to do this, deal with the consequences rendered.

When a dragon can do all a biped can, the bipeds will become less enticing to play. We(dragons) now heal a bit better and rez, we used to be primarily DPS, as that changes something must be taken away. How many dragons want to lose DPS for anotehr rez, I for one do not. Not at all.

I played my hatchlign before Gold Rage or Primal Health. Yes now I play an ancient and a multi classed biped. I also work on lower level bipeds and a hatchling. Playing a hatchling now is a cakewalk. I mean that. I account that mainly to my experience and tactics. Very important to learn, rather than be given easy buttons to help level. That's just my opinion of course.

By the same token, many people call one side overpowered in relation to the other. I disconcur. having both a multischooled biped with all the bells and whistles..and an ancient dragon Ican say they are mostly on par. Even in the arena( yes, I mean that) Please also lets stay away from PVP in this thread or we'll all need rezzes and we might get locked for abandoing thread topic.

In closing. To gain much more for dragon-kind evenutally we must be willing to give something up. I wish to give nothing up. Many will agree. I will simply give this final opinion.

Dragons are an effort in patience(used to be), they have been made very easy to level very fast, they need no early rezzes to speed this up more. They really don't. Wait to become the all powerful creature you want to play, or do something else that gets you there faster. Again, just my opinion. I won't argue anyone is using hte wrong tactics, or that people die to much...I will say this though. Sometimes something isn't meant to be soloed and sometimes it is far easier to change your ways and work with someone rather than to call for a change by a higher power or government, or dev staff. It will also be mroe rewarding in the long run.