Talk to the Team: Dragon Schools: Add to Existing

[AmonGwareth]

Use this thread to discuss adding to the existing school.

[AmonGwareth]

My biggest issue with this approach is simply: How do you add more on top without altering the existing school or abilities? With bipeds, at least, they have to work to gain more power. With Dragons, this would simply give them more power without any work. If the level cap were increased for Dragons how would that impact other aspects of the game? Suddenly we'd have to add T6 scales and claws and spells?

In addition, if the level cap were raised, how far is enough? the game actually tracks xp gained beyond 100 so many players might jump immediately to 120 or 125 if the cap were raised. That doesn't seem fair either.

How do you give a range of new capabilities in only 10 or 20 levels?

How would you work the Rites into it? What about mastery quests and quested abilities?

There are just so many factors and concerns that it makes me unsure how it could be done without altering the base.

[Tzael]

What if there were a couple of schools that dragons could choose when at level 100 and ancient, both would be comprised of buffs with few or no new offensive abilities, so advancing to one of these schools would bolster the existing abilities of a dragon.

The two new schools would be mutually exclusive, a dragon would be unable to take both.

One school bolsters primal magic, the other school enhances tooth and claw. I was thinking of something like "Battle-hardened" as a possible name for one of these schools, something that emphasises the sturdier nature of the advancement.

This is all very basic in terms of suggestion, but offers a possibility of how to advance dragons without altering the existing dragon adventure school. It results in two distinct classes of dragon, and a means of progression beyond level 100 ancient. There is plenty of scope to consider abilities that will enhance dragons in one of two distinct directions, and will ensure that a dragon who chooses to pursue primal magic will not be comparable to a dragon that pursues the physical aspects of tooth and claw.

Would a concept like this be viable? Does it present any problems or go beyond any limitations of a technical or game design nature? I'm keen to see where dragons go in the future, and I'm optimistic that other players will present ideas that can help shape dragons more towards the vision that the developers have in mind.

[awdz]

I was thinking it might work to make dragon prestige schools. I really like what Cooolios laid out in the other thread. Here are some basic thoughts on how it might work, not knowing dragons nor the technical side hardly at all:

Suggested requirements: DRA 30 or whatever level makes sense. If school quests require flying, maybe require adult status.

Quests: If focusing on a particular skill set, not all of the existing ability quests would apply. So, while in the school, keep only the applicable existing ability quests. Primal skill applies for spellcasters, Tooth and Claw for melee focus, Healing ability for healers, etc.

New quests could be introduced for the prestige schools to earn extra ability points, or as for biped classes the points in the relevant skills simply could increase more per level.

Abilities: Consider borrowing from biped concepts but applied to primal form. Only abilities relevant to the school focus should carry over from the general class.

It could also require updating requirements for many existing quests to allow the prestige class levels to apply. Is the same level in a prestige class as in the DRA class sufficient for ARoP?

I do not know how feasible any of this is. It's just where my thoughts took me.

[AmonGwareth]

The problem with additional schools and Dragons is quested abilities. The mechanism by which they work in biped schools, exclusivity and all of that, doesn't work for quested abilities.

Suggested requirements: DRA 30 or whatever level makes sense. If school quests require flying, maybe require adult status.

To me this says "change existing Dragons to fix new concept". Which is something everyone appears to be against.

[awdz]

The problem with additional schools and Dragons is quested abilities. The mechanism by which they work in biped schools, exclusivity and all of that, doesn't work for quested abilities.

I was not saying the existing quested abilities should be taken away. New abilities would be add-ons to what they had already earned. They would just have to level up in an appropriate school to get the existing ability quests, and prestige schools could have non-quested abilities or exclusive school quests for additional abilities. If that makes them too uber, is it possble to just change the rating formula to count the non-current dragon schools more heavily than the biped formula does?

[Tzael]

The problem with additional schools and Dragons is quested abilities. The mechanism by which they work in biped schools, exclusivity and all of that, doesn't work for quested abilities.

To me this says "change existing Dragons to fix new concept". Which is something everyone appears to be against.

I may be having a sudden brain freeze moment, but what would need to change about the existing dragon adventure school if new prestige school 'bolstering' choices only available to level 100 dragons were made available as outlined in the suggestion I put forward? I can totally understand the need to change the existing school if the prerequisite for joining a new school is level 30 as suggested by Awdz, but I do not understand what needs to change if you're looking to extend the dragon end-game by building on top of level 100 ancient. I hope you can clarify this because without us understanding what needs to change then we might as well stop offering suggestions.

[Alisto]

How do you give a range of new capabilities in only 10 or 20 levels?

Raw stat wise, you could just only let dragons - while leveling up - to either take the quests that increase spells damage/Primal, or tooth and claw/melee damage - but not take both to max. For hybrids, they could take 5 tc quests and 5 primal ones, or any combination that they liked, for a total of 10(?) quests. However, this means that lv100 dragons would be 'missing' some stats - increase base stats a smidgen to compensate if need be. At X, the Primal Mastery/TC X quests give 100 tooth and claw or 100 primal. It isn't enough to come anywhere near making or breaking a build, /but/ is still a half decent boost.

That would take part of the load off of fitting a whole bunch of stuff into 10-20 levels. Then, for those levels after 100, there could be a quest chain similar to ARoP/RoP where you learn a little bit about each faction (that -isn't- fighting tendencies), then choose one that has a view you can support. The quest would focus more on the viewpoint aspect of the factions as opposed to fighting style, while also pointing out that you didn't have to agree with /everything/ - it was just about which one has the views you supported the most.

Helians receive quests from Chiconis for the remaining levels. Instead of passive abilities, they are rewarded with spells bound to character and dependent on completing the previous quest about the political factions a certain way. I don't know if this is possible - but could a spell require that a certain quest be done, via checking the completed quest window, to scribe it instead of requiring a school? It would allow spells to be scribed only by those who had chosen Helian, or Lunus - or even those who had, say, completed Primal Mastery X. Some spells from the trainers could require Primal Mastery/Tooth and Claw Mastery V. IIRC, Hero's Resolve is gained from a quest, so the quest rewards from the 10-20 levels could go right into your abilities tab instead of the spellbook. Or even abilities tab for Lunus quests, spellbook for Helian quest rewards.

One could take quests from both factions, and both could be completed for the reward, but you just couldn't scribe it if it didn't match. Perhaps the spells/abilities themselves could sell for a decent sum of silver, so that a Lunus dragon could do the Helian quests even if they couldn't use the spells/abilities.

After the quest choosing which political faction was done, every 5 levels or so there'd be more quests from that faction's trainers. Every five means a total of 4 extra 'things' from each trainer. If there are 5 trainers (There probably aren't >_> I'm guessing), there's 20 abilities/spells that distinguish members of the faction from each other. Edit: I think it'd be better, if it's even possible, to require certain quests done instead of requiring a certain amount of a skill or stat, as imo it would require too much figuring out which number was best. That doesn't mean, though, that I'm discounting using stat/skills as a possibility. I just think it'd be too much trouble to do it that way.

Treat the idea as having interchangeable components. Requirements could be based on Primal Master (gives spell damage) instead of Primal Mastery quests, or a little of both, and the same for the tooth and claw versions. Other already existing quests can already be used, such as Hardened Scales. Combinations of Hardened and tc quests or primal quests could provide lots of options for hybrids as well. I know I sort of left hybrids out of the picture in this, as that's a whole other thing.

Edit2: Also didn't consider allowing those who took the helian path a choice between damage dealer or crowd control, or Lunus a choice between tank and melee damage dealer. Didn't want to make /too/ much of a giant wall :)

Summary: Slight alterations to already existing quests that have little effect on character power would take the strain off fitting a lot of content into 10-20 levels, while also providing a basis for all the additional options a dragon could have at those same later levels being added on. Also, the trainers in Dralk and Chiconic are lazy butts and I think we should make more use of 'em.

[Guaran]

...Helians receive quests from Chiconis for the remaining levels. Instead of passive abilities, they are rewarded with spells bound to character and dependent on completing the previous quest about the political factions a certain way. I don't know if this is possible - but could a spell require that a certain quest be done, via checking the completed quest window, to scribe it instead of requiring a school? It would allow spells to be scribed only by those who had chosen Helian, or Lunus - or even those who had, say, completed Primal Mastery X. Some spells from the trainers could require Primal Mastery/Tooth and Claw Mastery V. IIRC, Hero's Resolve is gained from a quest, so the quest rewards from the 10-20 levels could go right into your abilities tab instead of the spellbook. Or even abilities tab for Lunus quests, spellbook for Helian quest rewards.

One could take quests from both factions, and both could be completed for the reward, but you just couldn't scribe it if it didn't match. Perhaps the spells/abilities themselves could sell for a decent sum of silver, so that a Lunus dragon could do the Helian quests even if they couldn't use the spells/abilities.

You are tying combat to lunus/helian, a mistake the early dev's already made and doesn't need to be compounded further. Lunus and Helian are political factions. What ever is done, whatever might be added, should not be tied to political faction.

I also would not like anything that is permanent with no way to switch it around if desired.

[Alisto]

You are tying combat to lunus/helian, a mistake the early dev's already made and doesn't need to be compounded further. Lunus and Helian are political factions. What ever is done, whatever might be added, should not be tied to political faction.

Perhaps you have some suggestions as to how it would actually fit into the game, then? I only tied it to factions because I didn't have a better idea at the moment.

Yes, some don't like combat and such tied to factions. But it has to fit into the istaria world /somehow/, and factions are the easiest thing. I'd love a new floating hub thingy with new trainers and the whole 9 yards, but workload.

[HeartOfStone]

Guaran I do not wish you to ever leave this land who would supply vengeance to the new blood

lightning claw

Why do people leave? Boredom. Small player base. Some other reason

Cooolios

Suggested requirements: DRA 30 or whatever level makes sense. If school quests require flying, maybe require adult status.

awdz

[Sindala]

This thread is probably dead but i'd love to see a "Shamen" type of Dragon, tapping into spirit magic. The Plague Dragon if you will :)