AROP Crystal suggestion

[Guaran]

Suggestion: Make the ancient crystals' benefits (chance to land The Primal Rage or Fangs of Fury) as passive abilities, and remove the crystals. And grant both sets of benefits to all ancients. It will help remove the faction from the combat style equation (which I have made detailed points about in other threads).


If they will do this, you will still get your benefit of the ancient combat crystal as well as use one of the epic claws. I'm hoping this idea is considered. Allowing both sides the use of either elemental breath attack was the first half of untying combat from the (political) factions. This idea is the logical second half.


If they choose to make it a crystal no matter what, so that the player is forced to decide whether to use the crystal or an epic claw (bad idea since being ancient should have inherent benefits, not ones I have to give up something else for), then another solution would be to add both sets of benefits to both crystals, and then changing it into a jewelry crystal for use in a headscale, so that the Epic claws can be used. The other option would be to add a weapon socket or 2 to the Epic claws.


But the better solution is make them passive abilities, AFTER they finally get the delay modifiers fixed again on The Fangs of Fury. (Broken since 2010 or longer).


If the ancient effects were made passive, those claws (blood and demon) would be in higher demand. As it is they have to compete against Claw techs + fangs of fury or the primal rage which is almost always no contest, even after the recent improvements made to the Epics. Choices are all well and good. But an AROP benefit really shouldn't be something you give up to use a Demon claw.

I'm not a fan of eliminating the differences between helian/lunus dragons. I like the deliberation of choosing one faction or the other and part of that is the abilities each gains with the arop.

As far as helian and lunus combat differences above, remember this: Some of us chose a side before any of this was known/in game. I know I did. The only differences back then was the 20 t&c vs 20 primal and the ice/spirit vs flame resists. In my opinion those rop differences themselves are enough of a difference between factions, that's decided then (when character is still relatively young), and is adequate to satisfy the lore differences talked about during rop. Further differentiation can be one or the other questlines, ancient schools, etc. Faction is a political alignment, nothing more.


Perhaps let me make a different suggestion (the heart of which was originally proposed to be a part of AROP): After completing AROP, the Ancient Dragon may visit the council of Elders and change factions if desired, swapping the weapon crystal for the other sides' at the same time. This change can be made back and forth with no limit. In this way, a Dragon can "multiclass" his combat style as desired. But really, swapping factions should be a do-able thing, just for lore and role playing purposes. Combat (the AROP crystal) really shouldn't be tied to that. Perhaps just give V'Tierru the capability to trade the AROP crystals back and forth, while leaving faction alone? Ugh, but this is so messy.. just please make the effects passive.

[Machaeon]

I'd see nothing wrong with making the bonuses from the ancient crystals passive abilities. Could be done fairly simply by trading your crystal via a dialogue option for the corresponding ability. So those who want their crystals can keep them if they like and those who don't can get the ability.

I don't really care one way or the other about being able to "swap factions" myself but I can see why some might want that.

[Guaran]

I'd see nothing wrong with making the bonuses from the ancient crystals passive abilities. Could be done fairly simply by trading your crystal via a dialogue option for the corresponding ability. So those who want their crystals can keep them if they like and those who don't can get the ability.

That's a great idea. Make it an option.

The passive ability could still contain both sets of buffs.

[Racktor]

Having the effects passive would be nice. Would certainly prefer having a passive and another crystal slot I can use for stats or a damage crystal, rather than my FoF or PR.

Also on the initial idea of just having both factions get the bonuses (if i read you right): I'm personally a fan of having the combat between factions be noticeably different, so I definitely have to say a biased 'no' to that idea. The lore says, in most cases, lunus are warriors and helians are scholars - I remember that someone does say that one of the strongest warriors known was actually Helian, which means that not everyone conforms to that. But looking at how trainers prepare you for the RoP and insist on the combat differences... I'm not a fan of making it just political.

Anyway, this isn't the topic of the thread. I'd like passives, it'd be nice - that's my input. The switching factions idea is nice, too, but I'm not too sure on it. Gameplay wise, the Helian RoP is "harder" than the Lunus RoP (prerequisites and some bosses are tougher). Someone could choose Lunus for the 'easy ride' on crafting, then swap Helian.

Also.. what do you mean by broken? I swore that that crystal was fixed ages ago (+5% delay was changed to -5% delay).
This is what it looks like for me:

[LOVWYRM]

How strong shall we- the dragons- get?

having a free claw slot,
or
a socket for epic claws
or
changing faction to have both benefits whenever we want

dragons already are more uber than its healthy for the game balance- in my eyes.
And not only Flame`s and my drags- not by far- I assume other Order drags are even stronger

The little changes at the beginning of the year did not realy weaken uber drags to less uber drags.
Its been annoyances at most. Couldhave been even out by other tactics (e.g. BoF down to 80 %- its near to 100 again here)

Its not that I cant or wont follow Guaran`s reasoning.
But a straight -NO- to more power to dragons- unless we have mobs that make such a boost necessary.
And pls.- do not make our old mobs stronger- that is not what Isztaria needs- that would be boring.
We need new mobs and new challenges.

And though this is the year for fixes- leave it that way. Changing other things like things we discuss here- is changing content- fixing what is not broken!
(btw: I also see no probs with the Lunus crystal- working fine here)

[Spyrioyo]

How strong shall we- the dragons- get?

having a free claw slot,
or
a socket for epic claws
or
changing faction to have both benefits whenever we want

dragons already are more uber than its healthy for the game balance- in my eyes.
And not only Flame`s and my drags- not by far- I assume other Order drags are even stronger

The little changes at the beginning of the year did not realy weaken uber drags to less uber drags.
Its been annoyances at most. Couldhave been even out by other tactics (e.g. BoF down to 80 %- its near to 100 again here)

Its not that I cant or wont follow Guaran`s reasoning.
But a straight -NO- to more power to dragons- unless we have mobs that make such a boost necessary.
And pls.- do not make our old mobs stronger- that is not what Isztaria needs- that would be boring.
We need new mobs and new challenges.

And though this is the year for fixes- leave it that way. Changing other things like things we discuss here- is changing content- fixing what is not broken!
(btw: I also see no probs with the Lunus crystal- working fine here)

I agree with LOVYRM I'm not for making dragons too overpowered, I am concerned about that, I believe that balance is more the route to go, Dragon still should be powerful and represent how they are respectfully, but there is delicate balance between overpowered and underpowered. Dragon still should have some benefits that bipeds don't, but, still things shouldn't remain the same, cause without change then progress will fail and the game cannot improve. I maybe a Chaos dragon but I am willing to work across line with Order and blight people here to make istaria great. We are a community and we should be working together to fix problems or improve stuff, but call foul when something that doesn't really need change, but we cannot be stuck in mindsets like saying all the time everything should just stay as it is.

[Guaran]

...Gameplay wise, the Helian RoP is "harder" than the Lunus RoP (prerequisites and some bosses are tougher). Someone could choose Lunus for the 'easy ride' on crafting, then swap Helian.

Players can already choose to do this by just going Lunus... That's no argument against it, more of an "I had to do it the harder way, so they should too...".

I chose my Faction before arop was even hinted at. Why should I be forced to stay where I am? Why shouldn't I be able to choose a different party once I've grown and become wiser?

Also.. what do you mean by broken? I swore that that crystal was fixed ages ago (+5% delay was changed to -5% delay).
This is what it looks like for me:

I know that the recycle modifier doesn't work. 5% on a 60 second ability is 3 seconds. That means GR should be 57 second recycle not 60 second. It will show 59 after you get the tooltip to show after using it. When Ravage was 2 minute recycle it was even easier to tell...

[meepsa]

I actually very much support the changing of the crystal into a passive ability. Yes it would open up a weapon tech slot, but name one tech or crystal that can go into a claw that one could consider overpowered.

I don't really support the faction swapping idea though, but that's mostly from a lore standpoint.

[Spyrioyo]

I actually very much support the changing of the crystal into a passive ability. Yes it would open up a weapon tech slot, but name one tech or crystal that can go into a claw that one could consider overpowered.

I don't really support the faction swapping idea though, but that's mostly from a lore standpoint.

I have to agree with meepsa I don't think there should be faction swapping idea, because of the same standpoint the lore. The passive I am ok with as long as implemented in a balance way and not make anything too overpowered.

[Dragonredux]

I don't feel that there should be a faction change it just doesn't fit well with the lore of the game. The crystal on the other hand, making it passive would probably lower the %chance so it probably won't be too overpowered I feel.

[Racktor]

Players can already choose to do this by just going Lunus... That's no argument against it, more of an "I had to do it the harder way, so they should too...".

Most of my characters are Lunus, actually, and my Helians were mostly raised by my Lunus characters. I'm just giving an example of possible disagreement with the idea - that you can avoid the "tougher" ques tline by going through with the other, then swapping. It's also the view the devs might have: the small playerbase is likely to fall back to that "but you should work for what you get like everyone else" thought train.

Also, I wasn't referring to avoiding the harder questline altogether just by choosing Lunus. I meant avoiding that quest line by choosing Lunus, then changing to the outcome of the other questline, therefore circumventing it and avoiding the work associated with it. I don't have anything against the current difficulties of the quest lines or anything.

I'm not against making some things easier. You don't see me going around yelling heresy for making Primal Rebirth a 10 minute cooldown, saying that "but that's the biggest challenge to the ARoP's Rift Run!!!! It should remain the challenge!!!" Im just against things that could be seen as a work-around or exploit. (In this case, avoiding 'tougher' quests for the sake of avoiding them)

I chose my Faction before arop was even hinted at. Why should I be forced to stay where I am? Why shouldn't I be able to choose a different party once I've grown and become wiser?

Being able to change your faction as an adult going ancient is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how that'd work from the quest's lore. (If I remember the ARoP's text right, you're basically called upon by your elders and faction leaders to figure out what happened to Elian and open the Gate of Embers - it's not so much of a political choice as the RoP was anymore) (There's also the circumvention of work I mentioned earlier)
I suppose at the step "Talk to your faction leader", you could have the choice to talk to the other faction leader, who'd seem surprised that you're there, but take note of your change of heart... idk. With that, possibly it'd be a way to get the Lunus stat bonus but Helian crystal or something - mix them, not totally change them?

Anyway, my train of thought is going all over the place here... I'm getting a bit off topic.

My disagreement was to changing on a whim since the game's quests are really clear as to what the factions specialize in, and the player should expect nothing different. After a month in-game most players should now what they want to specialize as and work off of that. However, changing later on as a one time thing would be something to consider.

Edit: Also, so you know, my main character's faction was not the faction I wanted. I wanted him to be Helian, for the lore, but I chickened out last minute because I misread the quests I got and thought I needed 100 crafting. This story might not really mean anything to anyone, but it's just so that you know where I stand here - I know how it feels to be the wrong faction or the one you don't really want, but I still don't agree with swapping on a whim.

I know that the recycle modifier doesn't work. 5% on a 60 second ability is 3 seconds. That means GR should be 57 second recycle not 60 second. It will show 59 after you get the tooltip to show after using it. When Ravage was 2 minute recycle it was even easier to tell...

The tooltips are a bit weird in general. I've gotten hit by mobs that set your recycle up 50%, but the recycle just says "1:00" on GR until 30 seconds pass, then it starts counting down. It's possible that the tooltip just doesn't reflect the changed numbers visually, but counts down slightly faster. To be honest, 5% isn't such a huge change that I really notice it much, anyway - if I have time, I'll mess around with it, but you might want to make a bug topic on it? (I know it's been ages since it was broken, according to you, but recent long-standing bugs have been fixed, so it's worth a shot.)

How strong shall we- the dragons- get?
<snip>

I don't think that making one crystal passive would put dragons over the OP line. It just opens up another weapon slot for a damage crystal or stat crystal or something of the sort. I can't think of any weapon crystals that'd throw dragons into the 'OP zone' if it stacks on top of FoF/PR and other crystals.
And even though I disagree with faction swapping, I have to defend the fact that it wouldn't make dragons OP either. It's still "either or", and would just allow some sort of versatility to characters, I suppose. Like swapping classes, as Guaran (I think?) said.

Also, having FoF/PR a passive would indeed make it stack with epic claws, but I still don't think that necessarily makes dragons OP. After all, they still have to give up 3 techs/crystals slots to take on the bonuses of the epic claw.

Side note: I always quote the words tougher and harder when referring to the Helian RoP because, while that is the general thought, not everyone thinks that and it's certainly not fact.

[Arzel Rashemi]

Suggestion: Make the ancient crystals' benefits (chance to land The Primal Rage or Fangs of Fury) as passive abilities, and remove the crystals.

Ok, don't mind this... can see the benefit of it.

And grant both sets of benefits to all ancients. It will help remove the faction from the combat style equation (which I have made detailed points about in other threads).

And just like the other threads that have brought it or similar up before... NOPE!

I'm really in agreement with Lov, Rackie, and meeps on this one.

I am not in agreement with being able to swap factions. I am actually quite let down the factions have been as muddled as they have over the years because this is part of the reason and the problem that people think dragons are boring. There's no reason to make another dragon once you have one because as it is, you can already do it all on that one dragon.

Also, swapping doesn't fit with lore, but hey why not just make a dragon -more- boring by devolving the lore that makes it interesting to nothing.

[Tilithia]

Good idea :-)
Benefit is obvious and opens possibility for another weapon slot.
+1

And perhaps one time change of factions could be allowed (and that after finishing arop) but not back and forth.

[meepsa]

And perhaps one time change of factions could be allowed but not back and forth.

hmmm, perhaps another use for loyalty tokens?? allow for switching of faction, but with a cost.

[Guaran]

How strong shall we- the dragons- get?

having a free claw slot,
or
a socket for epic claws
or
changing faction to have both benefits whenever we want

dragons already are more uber than its healthy for the game balance- in my eyes.
And not only Flame`s and my drags- not by far- I assume other Order drags are even stronger

Can't say I agree with this. It's not really "more uber" it's taking something we have already, and implementing it differently. I'll mention it again, an AROP benefit is not something that I believe we should chose whether to use or not. Which is the situation if its a crystal.

The little changes at the beginning of the year did not realy weaken uber drags to less uber drags.
Its been annoyances at most. Couldhave been even out by other tactics (e.g. BoF down to 80 %- its near to 100 again here)

Those were nerfs for sure. I am glad you have capably adapted to it. I don't think it's relevant to this suggestion.

Its not that I cant or wont follow Guaran`s reasoning.
But a straight -NO- to more power to dragons- unless we have mobs that make such a boost necessary.
And pls.- do not make our old mobs stronger- that is not what Isztaria needs- that would be boring.
We need new mobs and new challenges.

And though this is the year for fixes- leave it that way. Changing other things like things we discuss here- is changing content- fixing what is not broken!
(btw: I also see no probs with the Lunus crystal- working fine here)

The recycle modifier is broken. It should be fixed.

New challenges are always a good thing. Making this passive is not adding power, or overpowering. Even if both the Primal Rage effect and the Fangs of Fury effect were both added to all ancients and made passive, it wouldn't be overpowering because the effective way to play a dragon is to go all-in on either t&c or Primal. Therefore you would really only benefit from whichever you chose to use. If someone is a maxed out primal user and fangs of fury lands, it might help a little bit, but their real benefit would come when Primal Rage lands. Reverse is also true.

The reason to add both, is because combat styles shouldn't be forced on someone simply because of their political faction. A combat style should not be forced on me for picking whichever I chose on my dragon the week rop came out, before arop was even know to be coming. Making both available, because the fangs of fury/primal rage are the best things you get from AROP, allows someone to change to spellcaster if they so choose. It might take a month to move the training points around, but it's possible. Same thing for the reverse.

Giving players more options is a good thing. Forcing players into something is a bad thing.

****

On the subject of Dragons and power, I don't feel they are overpowered in the slightest. A Dragon should be powerful, otherwise they are just a human in a different model that can fly. My biped has killed reklar in 3 seconds, shaloth in 14 seconds. My Dragon comes nowhere near that. My Dragon is also the toon I prefer to play. If I want to play a biped I can play Diablo 3 or something else. I play Istaria to play a Dragon, yet it's the weakest of my characters.

[Arzel Rashemi]

it wouldn't be overpowering because the effective way to play a dragon is to go all-in on either t&c or Primal. Therefore you would really only benefit from whichever you chose to use. If someone is a maxed out primal user and fangs of fury lands, it might help a little bit, but their real benefit would come when Primal Rage lands. Reverse is also true.

Obviously never seen someone play a hybrid properly and effectively before.

The reason to add both, is because combat styles shouldn't be forced on someone simply because of their political faction. A combat style should not be forced on me for picking whichever I chose on my dragon the week rop came out, before arop was even know to be coming. Making both available, because the fangs of fury/primal rage are the best things you get from AROP, allows someone to change to spellcaster if they so choose. It might take a month to move the training points around, but it's possible. Same thing for the reverse.

Or you could just make a new dragon character? So you are saying that you want this because you have an old dragon character and you feel cheated because you can't change it, but can't be bothered to make a new dragon character to experience all of this. Nope, not supporting the idea as a change should not be made to benefit one player. Answer is simple, if you want the change because you felt like your character was forced into a political faction, make a new character and experience all the stuff you missed.

I can't change mine and it was forced into the same situation and is just as old as your dragon, Guaran. I wouldn't want to either, and that dragon has its bad and good points with being 'forced' into a faction. What I could not get on that dragon character by updating its ability quests, spells, and gear after they opened everything such as TnC Mastery to Helians, I got when I made a new one to experience what I missed and all the new content with it. I honestly prefer the older dragon as it has abilities and bonuses that make it more powerful than the newer dragons via things they can't get like the Wishgiver quests and other bonuses from quests that are long obsolete and out of game.

No, I think making the factions available for dragons would make players with dragons as old as ours, far too OP. I can see Lov's point here. And I know she knows her hybrids, so I trust what she has to say about how OP those can get with something like this.

[Alisto]

hmmm, perhaps another use for loyalty tokens?? allow for switching of faction, but with a cost.

I like this idea, and would add that I think giving only one passive to a character would be the best route. The ARoP crystal is a result of two rather painful quest lines and it would seem rather silly to just undo that.


The crystal is not good enough to dictate a combat style. For min/maxing, possibly, although in my experience even then it is an iffy decision between a crafted claw and my Valkor/demon claw. Getting two passive effects would imo be too 'easy'. Allowing switching would still preserve the value of the choice, while at the same time allowing people to switch to test out builds, change to the faction they prefer due to doing the quest back before there was the crystal reward, or switching for RP reasons.

Giving players more options is a good thing. Forcing players into something is a bad thing.

I would only add that options without cost feels pointless. If the crystals were changed to all dragons receiving both passives, they would (to me at least) become just another passive ability that I never paid attention to, barely even worth noticing when it procs.

[Guaran]

Obviously never seen someone play a hybrid properly and effectively before.

Of course I have. I played that way myself for years.

Or you could just make a new dragon character? So you are saying that you want this because you have an old dragon character and you feel cheated because you can't change it, but can't be bothered to make a new dragon character to experience all of this. Nope, not supporting the idea as a change should not be made to benefit one player. Answer is simple, if you want the change because you felt like your character was forced into a political faction, make a new character and experience all the stuff you missed.

I have done rop 20 times easy, and AROP at least 4. I've done Helian and Lunus both all the way to the end. Doesn't mean I will abandon my original character, the one that everyone knows, the one whose personality I play. Saying this would benefit just myself is absurd. I simply gave what I feel is an entirely good reason for my suggestion. I am not going to play the other Dragons of mine, regardless of your opinion on the matter, it's as simple as that. Perhaps I am just too inflexible in this regard. If so, it's time I moved on to another Realm.

I can't change mine and it was forced into the same situation and is just as old as your dragon, Guaran. I wouldn't want to either, and that dragon has its bad and good points with being 'forced' into a faction. What I could not get on that dragon character by updating its ability quests, spells, and gear after they opened everything such as TnC Mastery to Helians, I got when I made a new one to experience what I missed and all the new content with it. I honestly prefer the older dragon as it has abilities and bonuses that make it more powerful than the newer dragons via things they can't get like the Wishgiver quests and other bonuses from quests that are long obsolete and out of game.

No, I think making the factions available for dragons would make players with dragons as old as ours, far too OP. I can see Lov's point here. And I know she knows her hybrids, so I trust what she has to say about how OP those can get with something like this.

Please explain what it is about your old character that makes it far too OP. Wishgiver abilities? LOL Wishgiver +10 strength, +10 power, +10 dexterity, +10 focus, +10 health, +10 armor. sorry, this isn't OP for anyone.

The crystal is not good enough to dictate a combat style. For min/maxing, possibly, although in my experience even then it is an iffy decision between a crafted claw and my Valkor/demon claw. Getting two passive effects would imo be too 'easy'. Allowing switching would still preserve the value of the choice, while at the same time allowing people to switch to test out builds, change to the faction they prefer due to doing the quest back before there was the crystal reward, or switching for RP reasons.

I remain of the opinion that an AROP benefit should never have been stuck in a crystal. Even if they simply make it a one or the other (Fangs of Fury vs Primal Rage) that the player gets, it should be a passive ability. Seems you have also noticed that crafted remains the best option, and that's because of the crystal (imho).

I would only add that options without cost feels pointless. If the crystals were changed to all dragons receiving both passives, they would (to me at least) become just another passive ability that I never paid attention to, barely even worth noticing when it procs.

The author of AROP originally wrote in a quest to be able to switch factions during AROP, it got dropped because they felt it added too much complexity at the time it was being developed.

It doesn't need to be "free". A questline, even if it's somewhat involved, would be a great way to implement the capability to switch factions. I would think that the roleplaying shard would be especially interested in something like that. The faction switch could swap out the Path of the Lunus/Fangs of Fury for Path of the Helian/The Primal Rage and vice versa.

[Kida]

It doesn't need to be "free". A questline, even if it's somewhat involved, would be a great way to implement the capability to switch factions. I would think that the roleplaying shard would be especially interested in something like that. The faction switch could swap out the Path of the Lunus/Fangs of Fury for Path of the Helian/The Primal Rage and vice versa.

Just wanted to chime in and say I think a faction-swapping quest would be very interesting (and if it provides some difficulty, eliminates that thought of "oh they can just take the "easy" RoP and swap without putting in effort"). There's really no point to restrict players to the faction they originally chose, for reasons you stated (old sentimental character that you don't want to delete, remake, and re-level). "Respeccing" is almost always available in other games.

Even lore-wise, there can be something written to say that Gifted can choose their paths again or.. something. etc etc. If the AROP author also wrote in a swap option, there's gotta be something there in terms of lore.

Don't have much to say to the original topic, personally. I haven't completed the AROP yet, so I don't know the crystals in question and so I don't have much input... If they don't provide large bonuses, I can see why switching them to passives would be a better choice, though.

[Alisto]

Seems you have also noticed that crafted remains the best option, and that's because of the crystal (imho).

I don't agree that crafted is the best option.

it is an iffy decision between a crafted claw and my Valkor/demon claw

It doesn't need to be "free". A questline, even if it's somewhat involved, would be a great way to implement the capability to switch factions. I would think that the roleplaying shard would be especially interested in something like that. The faction switch could swap out the Path of the Lunus/Fangs of Fury for Path of the Helian/The Primal Rage and vice versa.

I'd enjoy a quest maybe half as long as the ARoP + an ~12 loyalty token cost (give or take a couple tokens), and you can only do it once. The third time, you become 'factionless' and lose the faction buffs and gain...something. Or nothing.

Kida, the crystals provide a +50 skill bonus to either primal or tooth and claw skill, then have a 6% chance to proc a buff that gives +250 of a skill and +100 of a stat...or 250 of a stat and 100 of a ski,ll cant 'remmeber. Lunus get TC and str, helians get primal and power.