New adventure schools for draggys ideas

[Arzel Rashemi]

Agreed. Please don't mess further with my dragon.

[AmonGwareth]

There are no plans to make any changes to the Dragon Adventurer school. I understand that some would like changes, but many more would not. As others have said, there's a world of biped schools available if you wish to try them out. Just create a new character and have fun!

[Andrakhyn]

There are no plans to make any changes to the Dragon Adventurer school. I understand that some would like changes, but many more would not. As others have said, there's a world of biped schools available if you wish to try them out. Just create a new character and have fun!

Please don't mischaracterise player suggestions.

Those asking for additional dragon adventurer schools have suggested ways that additions could be made without in any way changing the existing dragon adventurer school.

Players who are perfectly happy with the existing dragon adventurer school could carry on being perfectly happy with it since additions wouldn't in any way change the existing school.

It's your game and if you just don't want to do it, then by all means say so.

But claiming it's impossible or you can't do it without upsetting existing players when neither is true.... well that's dishonest isn't it?

[AmonGwareth]

Please don't mischaracterise player suggestions.

Those asking for additional dragon adventurer schools have suggested ways that additions could be made without in any way changing the existing dragon adventurer school.

Players who are perfectly happy with the existing dragon adventurer school could carry on being perfectly happy with it since additions wouldn't in any way change the existing school.

It's your game and if you just don't want to do it, then by all means say so.

But claiming it's impossible or you can't do it without upsetting existing players when neither is true.... well that's dishonest isn't it?

We have said no many times, yet it keeps coming up. And each time there is a large number who want it and a large number who don't. That is all I was saying. That and we cannot make the changes without heavily altering the existing school and abilities.

[Andrakhyn]

We have said no many times, yet it keeps coming up.

Likely new players having the same great idea, who happen not to have read through every forum post since the game's creation....

And each time there is a large number who want it and a large number who don't. That is all I was saying.

Fair enough.

That and we cannot make the changes without heavily altering the existing school and abilities.

I don't think this is honest.

Please keep in mind that at the beginning of this thread you said you'd "love" to be able to implement extra Dragon schools. Taking you at your word, I and other forum members have outlined several ways this could be done without altering, let alone heavily, the existing school and abilities.

You have selectively ignored those posts.

I truly do think it's fair enough if you just don't want to do it. But if that's the case I feel you should just say so.

As I understand it the development team is relatively small, and all other considerations aside, creating, testing and balancing completely new adventurer schools for either dragons or bipeds would be a big job. There are - as I've outlined in a new thread - simpler / easier / quicker ways to offer more variety to dragons.

[awdz]

I don't think this is honest.

Please keep in mind that at the beginning of this thread you said you'd "love" to be able to implement extra Dragon schools. Taking you at your word, I and other forum members have outlined several ways this could be done without altering, let alone heavily, the existing school and abilities.

You have selectively ignored those posts.

I truly do think it's fair enough if you just don't want to do it. But if that's the case I feel you should just say so.

As I understand it the development team is relatively small, and all other considerations aside, creating, testing and balancing completely new adventurer schools for either dragons or bipeds would be a big job. There are - as I've outlined in a new thread - simpler / easier / quicker ways to offer more variety to dragons.

I don't think it's just a matter of coming up with an individual school that is balanced, but a matter of rebalancing game dynamics as an entirety. Multiclassing dragons would make them overpowered given all the abilities they currently earn, as single classed they can hold their own in areas that single class bipeds cannot.

[Andrakhyn]

I don't think it's just a matter of coming up with an individual school that is balanced, but a matter of rebalancing game dynamics as an entirety. Multiclassing dragons would make them overpowered given all the abilities they currently earn, as single classed they can hold their own in areas that single class bipeds cannot.

You have responded in ignorance

This has been covered in earlier posts in this thread.

Additional dragon adventurer schools wouldn't need to follow the biped multiclassing scheme with masterable abilities.

Additional dragon adventurer schools could be added with their own abilties and spells which are not usable while what is currently called the dragon adventurer school is active. And vice versa.

[awdz]

well that's dishonest isn't it?

You have responded in ignorance

Do you have any idea how much insulting the person you are responding to makes the person shut out anything valid you might have to say? Your post stands much better without the insulting statement. The same holds true for other posts you have made to other people.

When I see insults, I think "troll". Calling devs liars and calling other players stupid is not appropriate. Please try to make your points without the insults; when I ignore them, it sounds like you have reasonable statements. However, it is really hard to push aside the emotional reaction to the insult.

[sparkcal]

Do you have any idea how much insulting the person you are responding to makes the person shut out anything valid you might have to say? Your post stands much better without the insulting statement. The same holds true for other posts you have made to other people.

When I see insults, I think "troll". Calling devs liars and calling other players stupid is not appropriate. Please try to make your points without the insults; when I ignore them, it sounds like you have reasonable statements. However, it is really hard to push aside the emotional reaction to the insult.

i agree with this awdz

[Racktor]

Andrakyhn, please refer to Amon's previous post.

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.

He explains exactly why multiclassing dragons at this time is impossible without modifying DRAG. Many people are opposed to modifying the school and I believe may overpower the amount whom aren't. Dragons are dragons and bipeds are bipeds. Somethings in the school can be updated to make it more balanced, yes (between primal and TnC) but multiclassing at this point is illogical or impossible.

Please excuse any nonsense or typoes in this post, it's 12:08am and it was a long day.

~Racktor

[LOVWYRM]

yes pls-

Well spoken Awdz!

Dragons are already overpowered. Find out why.
All additional power will disturb game balance.
If dragons decide only to fight with gold rage
it is THEIR decision- not a restriction from the game.

But I`m not going to go deeper into this.
The horse is already dead.

[Andrakhyn]

Do you have any idea how much insulting the person you are responding to makes the person shut out anything valid you might have to say?

I - and others - have already very politely made a bunch of valid points, which have been selectively ignored. That is true, isn't it?

Was I wrong about your earlier post? It was ignorant, wasn't it?

Not that I think that's a sin or anything but your objection had already been raised and dealt with so when you come in on the end of a thread and say "Hey the issue is really this..." when it really isn't and you'd know that if you'd read earlier posts in a relatively short thread, what would you call that?

No hostility was intended - the sad face was for disappointment.

And I really don't believe Amon is being honest here.

Amon says they'd "love" to implement extra dragon schools but there are obstacles X, Y and Z. When ways to surmount those obstacles are presented they are selectively ignored.

Like I said before, I don't think there's anything wrong with just saying, "It's not a bad idea but sorry, we don't want to do this." That's better than saying you'd love to do it and then making up excuses why you can't.

Just to be crystal clear - I don't think Amon is lieing about the type a / b abilities stuff. But as I pointed out in an earlier response, problems like that can be fixed.

Andrakyhn, please refer to Amon's previous post.

Raktor, please refer to my response to Amon's post.

I have programming experience. I'm particularly adept with databases.

I've a fairly good idea how easy it would be to convert the invisible inventory dragon abilities into the regular kind. In terms of the database - where inventory and abilities are stored - it would be dead simple. One or two very short scripts.

There'd be more work going through the client code to remove references to the old type and replacing with the new. A ctrl-F like search could find all those references. A replace-all might be unwise (I probably wouldn't with something like this) but there's only a relatively small number of these abilities.

It would take time. Any proposed change to the game would. But it's certainly not impossible.

[Andrakhyn]

Dragons are already overpowered. Find out why.
All additional power will disturb game balance.

Oh goodness, another one...

You're horribly wrong!
Read the thread and find out why.

Though seriously - if you had bothered to read earlier posts in this thread you certainly would not have said this.

The proposed changes would in no way make dragons more powerful - only offer them alternative styles of gameplay.

[LOVWYRM]

too sad you obviersly do not understand the complexity of this issue

[Andrakhyn]

too sad you obviersly do not understand the complexity of this issue

Ahhh, and we've devolved to personal attacks? Joy....

If you go back through some of the earlier posts in this thread, you'd see that not only do I understand it but I could probably resolve these terrible complexities during a lunch-break.

[Bahkar]

Ahhh, and we've devolved to personal attacks? Joy....

If you go back through some of the earlier posts in this thread, you'd see that not only do I understand it but I could probably resolve these terrible complexities during a lunch-break.

Take a look in the mirror.

Your acting like a child and have been since our "discussion"

You won't win friends this way, you won't make your point this way, and you're rapidly losing credibility.

You don't like me because i was "rude" to you, fine i can live with that. I can't live with seeing the way you react to anyone that doesn't agree with you, you obviously have no sense of how insulting, you, as an individual are being with your responses

Everyone else here has been civil. You are the one that are provoking these reactions. Even in our "discussion" you did the same thing. Because I did not agree with you.

Obviously, it was a mistake to engage you in any kind of discussion, heated or otherwise. I apologize for that, but really, do you have any credible reason why you can fly off the handle?

I apologize to the community, for apparently provoking this reaction and would suggest to Andrakhyn, that you try to be a little more accepting that some things aren't going to be changed no matter how much you harp on it, and that hopefully in time the devs can find a soloution that will satisfy everyone, as far-off or impossible as that may be

[AmonGwareth]

I apologize for not responding to some posts regarding suggested solutions.

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?

People always say this type of thing and I myself have been guilty of it with other games or applications, but the fact is that you cannot know truly without seeing how the underlying systems and data are setup.

In this case, there is a very good reason why they are in inventory. They are treated as items (they have been instantiated and everything) and so they have their own hidden container in inventory. Truly they aren't 100% hidden cause as you have an Abilities screen on which they are setup. But, they are different than the methods I described in (a) because when they are associated with a school the abilities are not instantiated as items.

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.

Certainly a script could be written given sufficient time, but the fact is that there is no desire to change the way the system works. It isn't just Dragons that use this type of system, but also Monsters and Bipeds (racial abilities use this same system).

Add to that the fact that this would mean that when you started the game as a Dragon you would have 0 or very few abilities until you gained your first school.

Also, add to that the fact that moving these abilities out of their current slot would mean that all ability quests would be invalidated for both past and future players.

And maybe then it becomes a little more clear why a sql script isn't a simple solution.

I would like to point out that I am not saying it is impossible. Very little is impossible. But, it comes down to a cost-benefit decision with the costs being the amount of time involved in creating and testing the scripts, deploying the updates (it would have to be tied to a delta), and making decisions (and changes) regarding ability quests, schools, existing players, etc. Its a very large and significant change that would take a lot of effort and investment.

[LOVWYRM]

Amon, thy for explainig again.
I was looking for thread you`ve already explained that -and more already.

[Andrakhyn]

Take a look in the mirror.

Your acting like a child and have been since our "discussion"

You won't win friends this way, you won't make your point this way, and you're rapidly losing credibility.

You don't like me because i was "rude" to you, fine i can live with that.

Bakhar, I haven't even seen you on since our "discussion".

How have you concluded that I don't like you? Do you believe that everyone who doesn't agree with you, doesn't like you?

When I didn't just completely agree with you in guild chat, you logged off without saying anything at all. And haven't logged on since. If someone is upset here I'm quite certain it's not me.

I really couldn't care less whether you agree or disagree with me about this or anything else. It's just a game and you're just a member of the same guild. We really don't have to agree about stuff like this and if you can't handle that, I suggest you think about learning to.

Everyone else here has been civil.

Not true.

These forums don't but many specifically prohibit straw man arguments because they are an inherently aggressive and deceitful form of argument.

The OP, myself and others have argued for additions to the dragon school. Several other posters in this thread have said "Oh you want changes and more power etc.. Those can't be done because blah blah blah."

I'll also note for the record that if you read Amon's most recent post they confirm what I've said previously in this thread and to you - it's not impossible. Just too big a job / not something they want to do.

I have no problem with that.

FYI Bahkar - if you do care (and it doesn't bother me at all if you don't) I am and always will be unapologetically direct and honest. I'm perfectly aware that some people don't like that about me but I know from many years of experience that most appreciate it. For those who don't like that about me - well I feel no need to be universally loved. I'm not a politician and life isn't a popularity contest....

@Amon - thank you for providing additional information and clarifying.

Certainly a script could be written given sufficient time, but the fact is that there is no desire to change the way the system works. It isn't just Dragons that use this type of system, but also Monsters and Bipeds (racial abilities use this same system).

If it's not just Dragons then I can understand why there'd be reluctance to change it.

Add to that the fact that this would mean that when you started the game as a Dragon you would have 0 or very few abilities until you gained your first school.

This is no different from how it works now.

Hatchlings start with just Fire Breath. Then they pick up Bite and Silver rage over the first few levels.

Since there is/would be only the same Dragon Adventurer school for new players under the proposed scheme, new players could easily start in the school.

Also, add to that the fact that moving these abilities out of their current slot would mean that all ability quests would be invalidated for both past and future players.

If players X, Y and Z have all done the Gold Rage VII quest then they'd have the Gold Rage VII invis object in their inventory.

A script could very easily see the Gold Rage VII (or any dragon quest ability object) and write an entry into an existing or new table to record that the Gold Rage VII and preceding quests have been completed.

[Andrakhyn]

Good news everybody!

It has been claimed that extra schools can't be added without overpowering dragons because their abilities are stored as invisible inventory objects. Because of this they can't be disabled in the same fashion as biped school abilities - so any ability ever earned by a dragon is always available irrespective of current school.

While it's possible to convert dragon abilities to the same form as biped ones, that's too much work.

Except this isn't true and we have a working example in game.

Khutit form disables both breath attacks and flight.

If Khutit form can disable breath attacks then a caster "form" (using either khutit or dragon character model) could disable gold rage and any other abilities which for balance reasons shouldn't be available cross "school".

And vice versa - new spell like abilities could be added which can only be executed while in caster form.

To recap

1) There are no technical hurdles. A working model is already in place.

2) Since there is a way to disable specific abilities, balance is achievable.

3)Those who enjoy playing dragons exactly as they are could continue doing so if all the new abilities for other schools/forms were disabled for the default dragon form.

__________

Amon - if you were genuine when you said you'd really love to do this, then this is the blueprint which solves all of your problems.