New adventure schools for draggys ideas

[DragonOfTheFirstDawn]

I heard about that Crystalshaping school and how it gives buffs when you use the crystals and all but will draggons ever get more adventure schools for on Chaos and Order? Draggys could choose more then one school once they ascend . Like if someone was lunus they could choose from Tooth and Claw school and Breath school and Helian people could choose from Primal and Healing school. Just an idea. But it would probably make ancients go back and do lv 30 quests if you guys added it the game. I wouldn't really care if i had to do lv 30 quests though. Anything to get into a dragon healing school if they had one.
Would make finding healers for epic hunts faster. Took me 8 hours to find a healer that could help me with Myloc queen today.

~Satturn

[Racktor]

I think this has been suggested before... and the answer was something along the lines of "Dragons were never designed to have multiple schools"... I dunno, not very knowledgeable on this topic.

[AmonGwareth]

Actually, its more that we would love to do this but we can't without completely altering the existing Dragon Adventurer school. And the majority of players would not appreciate that.

[Veruliyam]

We can be a cranky lot...

[Andrakhyn]

Actually, its more that we would love to do this but we can't without completely altering the existing Dragon Adventurer school. And the majority of players would not appreciate that.

It could be done without altering the existing school if you did two things.

1) Like the new crystalshaper school, you make them very advanced schools.

Have several specialised schools open up eg. only after you've completed your ancient ascension and perhaps other pertinent quests (eg. primal master for magic schools).

They wouldn't need to be more powerful than the current DRADV school but they could provide different options. The existing DRADV school is basically melee - primarily gold rage - with a little bit of relatively weak magic. As a starting point you could branch out into a full melee (or 'physical', eg. tooth/claw, bite, wing, breath) and a full magic school. And there's obviously room for further specialisation within each of those.

2) Either don't follow the same mechanics as biped schools that allows some abilities to be used while you're playing another school or if you follow the same scheme, isolate the DRADV school as an exception - so the DRADV school post addition of new schools would be literally unchanged from the one before.
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Do those two things and you could offer more dragon adventuring schools without having to change anything in the existing one.

[AmonGwareth]

I appreciate the feedback and thought that went into your post. And if the Dragon Adventurer school was setup like a biped adventurer school then it might be more possible. however, dragons quest for a large number of their abilities and those cannot be controlled by changes to the school. The only way to balance them would be to remove/replace or modify. None of which players would appreciate one bit.

[Andrakhyn]

I appreciate the feedback and thought that went into your post. And if the Dragon Adventurer school was setup like a biped adventurer school then it might be more possible. however, dragons quest for a large number of their abilities and those cannot be controlled by changes to the school. The only way to balance them would be to remove/replace or modify. None of which players would appreciate one bit.

So what if dragons quest for some abilities? The same is true for bipeds isn't it? Don't they have 'epic' spells and abilities?

And if you're talking about balance then you've completely misunderstood what I said.

Hypothetically...

The current Dragon Adventurer school has one set of spells and abilities.

A new Dragon Primal school has a different set of spells and abilities.

A new Dragon Tooth and Claw school has a different set of abilities.

There's no / little crossover.

If you have the DRAD school active then those are the spells and abilities you can use. The spells and abilities in the DRPR and DRTC schools can't be used.

If you have the DRPR school active then those are the spells and abilities you can use. The spells and abilities in the DRAD and DRTC schools can't be used.

If you have the DRTC school active then those are the spells and abilities you can use. The spells and abilities in the DRAD and DRPR schools can't be used.

eg. you wouldn't have Dragon Primals running around gold-raging and Dragon Adventurers wouldn't be able to cast all the really cool Dragon Primal spells.

Surely you can see there would be absolutely no need to change or rebalance the existing dragon adventurer school with the setup?

[AmonGwareth]

Its hard to explain, but it won't work the way you say because of how its all setup. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Ultimately, as has been discussed in other threads about this topic, no matter what changes are made to Dragon schools you still end up with Gold Rage and other super-powered abilities. And without altering those abilities, removing them, or adding them directly to Dragon schools (which would also require us to remove them from Dragons) there isn't a good solution for it.

[AmonGwareth]

Guess I should try to explain a bit further why...

There are two ways to receive abilities in the game.

a) From a school/class
b) From a quest/npc

Using method (a) you get the ability, it shows up on your ability list and says the school's name next to it, it can use the mastery system, it can be level restricted, etc. If you switch schools it can become disabled. If you were a biped and dropped a school the ability might be removed entirely.

Using method (b) it actually occupies a hidden slot in your inventory, it has no associated school name on the ability list, it cannot use the mastery system. If you were to drop a school these abilities would never be removed.

Hope that helps describe the situation a bit better.

[AmonGwareth]

If I were given it all to do again I would create four schools I think for Dragons. Dragon Fledgling (Hatchling) would be the default, then once you ascended you could join Dragon Adventurer (Adult), and then after ascending again to become an Ancient you could join either Conqueror (melee) or Primalist (spellcaster). But, thats in an ideal world and not something that could feasibly be done at this point of the game.

[Racktor]

If only that was possible! It sounds really neat and would be fun to play through. But dreaming is dreaming, I suppose.

Thanks for the explanation btw, Amon

[Starmind]

Here's a simpler solution that would give us dragons who've been maxed out for years something to do.

Increase the level cap. I don't see why this can't be implemented across the board for all races.

With this, you have to choose a specialist class to go past 100 in. Only 1 specialist class would be available and would be unchangeable. Each specialist class could require player to have 100 in 1 or more specific base classes. They would keep the base class's skills (whichever they're using) but only would be able to use and level the specialist class if the base class they're on is level 100.

This shouldn't be impossible to implement. Many a MMO has increased level caps post-launch.

[JDavidC]

OK, here's a mad idea then, seeing as quested abilities are stored as hidden items in a player's inventory. Have hidden inventory slots in a player's bank that they cannot access, and place abilities that they aren't currently allowed into those from their hidden inventory slots, if they switch into a school that does not allow that ability, or drop a school altogether. If they rank up an ability, put the old one into the bank (in case a school is dropped). I've seen class/level restrictions on items already, so I hope it's possible to apply it to ability 'items' as well. If they switch back, or gain a level, the highest-ranking abilities that they previously gained, that are valid for the school, for their current level, are switched into the players's inventory, and the other ones that are not allowed for the current school/level taken out (only when switching schools). It'd be a way of allowing players access to abilities that are quested for, but tied to specific classes/level. If you were to drop a school, the quested abilities (including ranks of the same ability) would be banked until you levelled an appropriate school up again.

This would be less complicated if people couldn't drop schools altogether, but it might help provide an alternative method of gaining access to abilities that can be taken away with a hidden banking system should a player no longer be eligible to use the ability, and to give it back once they are eligible, without having to redo the quest for the ability.

[Andrakhyn]

Guess I should try to explain a bit further why...

There are two ways to receive abilities in the game.

a) From a school/class
b) From a quest/npc

Using method (a) you get the ability, it shows up on your ability list and says the school's name next to it, it can use the mastery system, it can be level restricted, etc. If you switch schools it can become disabled. If you were a biped and dropped a school the ability might be removed entirely.

Using method (b) it actually occupies a hidden slot in your inventory, it has no associated school name on the ability list, it cannot use the mastery system. If you were to drop a school these abilities would never be removed.

Hope that helps describe the situation a bit better.

That does clarify things somewhat, yes.

It sounds like the code has been written in a very messy manner. There surely can't be any reason why the type b's would need to be invisible inventory objects?

I don't know what kind of skills are on the development team but if I had this I'd write a script to convert all the type b's into type a's, and add an extra column in the database to denote whether the ability is quested or not - if you need that information.

That would just be a matter of the script looping through all player inventories looking for those pesky type b's, translating them into type a's and then deleting the type b's.

Here's a simpler solution that would give us dragons who've been maxed out for years something to do.

Increase the level cap. I don't see why this can't be implemented across the board for all races.

This seems to sort of be happening behind the scenes anyway.

With the new login UI, I've seen my dragon adventurer level rise past 100 to 103. And I know one dragon with 111.

OK, here's a mad idea then, seeing as quested abilities are stored as hidden items in a player's inventory. Have hidden inventory slots in a player's bank that they cannot access, and place abilities that they aren't currently allowed into those from their hidden inventory slots, if they switch into a school that does not allow that ability, or drop a school altogether.

I want to say that is a mad idea for pandering to an insane way of storing quested abilities and they'd be better off converting them all as I described above, but...

... that does sound like it would work and might be easier for them to implement.

[Mensar]

Actually, its more that we would love to do this but we can't without completely altering the existing Dragon Adventurer school. And the majority of players would not appreciate that.

Actually, anyone that suggests otherwise doesn't understand what that means exactly.. TRUST ME, we don't want dragons messed with.

If you want to multi-class or have classes, try a biped. They are a very complex and interesting alternative if you want something new.

[cauri_order]

If a rewrite of the dragon schools resulted in the ability to specialize dragons, I'd be all for it.

[Andrakhyn]

If a rewrite of the dragon schools resulted in the ability to specialize dragons, I'd be all for it.

I think it would be brilliant, too.

I'd even go so far as to say I'd help if the dev team needs it.

Eg. converting dragon abilities from that problematic invisible inventory type to the regular one would be:

1. two database queries (1 insert from + 1 delete)
2. one ctrl-F like search of the codebase for references to the old type (eg. in Dragon quest givers) and replacing with the new
3. testing

They're obviously not going to let anyone into the code for part 2, but I could help with 1 if they don't know how to do that and I bet there'd be no shortage of players willing to do 3.

[cauri_order]

I know nothing of code besides how to write a few SQL queries but I'd be up for the challenge of testing the changes should they ever happen!

[LOVWYRM]

Flame and me go with Mensar:
Don`t mess with the dragons
create a biped and enjoy all thats possible.

Could post a wall of text here- but did hat before-and will do again if necessary^^

[Northwind]

Same here - I would rather not have my Dragon messed with.