This is somewhat a response to an insightful post by Anikitos at
http://community.istaria.com/Web/AddPost.aspx?PostID=47774

about the nowadays tiring (and boring) "nerf everything calls" from basically one side.

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You have an insight that is amazing, your posts are very "rough" but have the juice, Anikitos.

While I am a dragon (well, since I started my reaver seriously I am not looking back - at level 14 warrior tanking level 30 oastics is just too fun) I cannot voice for nerfs gratuitously.

Besides I find highly incorrect and vile to call nerf on other people.

On the opposite, because I am playing a biped alt for real and not to make up a puppet to tag along and heal me, I don't find this rating thing pleasant at all.
It's not like I cannot cope with it - I am still getting about 10 more times fun than when I played the dragon - but the very concept of it is completely illogical.

Why I learn how to wear plate and unlearn it basing on a talk with a NPC? I don't even drop stats or anything. IT's just some "external" rule that decides that I cannot use what I earned already (and spent my time on it). And why I should start a new class from level 1, but I am "rated" 25? What's this rating for? Apparently to "slow me down" (tiring people with useless grind is one of the most lasting assets of Horizons - it pervades EVERY little aspect of the game). Will it slow me down for real? When if I just asked (I don't because I strictly play "correct" if possible) to a guildie I could powerlevel the crap off the penalty, rendering it null?
I'll even dare to say that rating is one of those dull things that suggest people to powerlevel - who wants to be a gimp level 1 rating 80? What would you do in that situation if there were not spirit bolt and lightning bolt? You'd be stalled already, game over - and months ago - like dragon. Did dragons get any good at being stalled? Nah! Why stalling a non dragon too?

Horizons like other small products can allow itself at exploring new original ways...
Some are a bright success, like personalized plots and the flexibility of the crafting system.
Others are sorry fiascos. Dragons, rating, tiering of everything so it's darn repetitive (a game that's over after 20 levels for a crafter - seen all) are all GLARING dead ends.

I played a dragon up to his maximum achievable "power" with the best of the best and it's just as dishearthening as when you pay loads for a supercar that after 10 minutes melts the engine. Dragons suck. Not because they suck in game or anything.
But because they fit bad in the game like sand fits bad in precision swatch gears, the game rules are not good for them - a single generalistic (and boring) build against a fully changing and evolving world is a loosersince the beginning.I won't even give a suggestion about fixing dragons. The ARoP won't cut it - it'll give possibly an unbalancing and _not earned_ huge buff in overall worth of a class that will still keep it's deadly shortcomings (not earned in this context means... what a dumb level 90 dragon DID to earn i.e. double his power? Nothing, not even 1 exp more. Nor the minimum requisites will grant any real effort of time like all bipeds must do or at least the non leeching ones do. And us oldtimers that feel like we "earned the power in virtue of having waited for a year"? Sorry, it'spure game mechanics, it's not like rotting for a year should give off free stats - we were just SOL).
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I play a biped and see that multiclassing as is, is bad. It's not about power, it's about sense.
So I take 4 classes. Am I a criminal that I sinned enough to deserve to beg friends to raise me at Elnath till I can at least do on my own because a number decided I must be "good" for level 80 mobs even if I am a lowly level 1 scout?
At level 1 scout I would as well forget ALL of my other abilities, including spirit bolt, healing etc but have a rating of 1.
Then at 10 scout I would be able to (unheard of!) enjoy the content of a level 10 scout seeing the world by his eyes, and not off the eyes of a rating 120 who must burn up to at least level 80 NOW, else he cannot do anything but get 0 exp. As of now a multiclassed, even a dual class that was not so careful to raise a bit of each class in turn, is doomed to HAVE to powerlevel and loose the low level content (wether there is much or not low level content is another separate issue).

At the moment I am living just that, I am level 20 reaver now, but either I kill level 35 mobs or I just don't level up. I LOVE to be level 20, why I have to self-******** and skip to bigger stuff when I cannot care the less to go to 35 mobsnow? Sure I can kill my level mobs but they give me nada and the fun is just not here.
I'd by far prefer I'd lose any > level 20 ability I got in my other classes until I reach with reaver their level and "regain" back my other classes abilities (the masterable ones only of course) and be able to get level 20 exp from level 20 mobs.
Or, if this seems to be too much powerful, instead of raising a boring rating, lower the value given by the abilities of the other classes by affinity. I.e. I am level 20 paladin and level 20 cleric and level 20 mage? I get a 20 rating and the "equivalent" of being a level 20 paladin, an overall power of alevel 16 cleric (because the two are very affine) but just 8 mage (numbers just given to give an idea). In this case I'd finally have fun with my level 20 vs level 20 mobs or even higher, while retaining the skills I earnt as cleric.
If I switched to mage, I'd be rating 20 again, with mage 20 and an equivalent in power of a cleric 12 (way less affine magic, but still caster) and paladin 6 (awfully different and not affine in anything, different magic, melee etc).
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Same goes for craft. So I levelled to a new tier. WOO! Again the same soup. Ingredients: long sessions of digging while in real life I read a book (I am basically paying a book to get relief at the ugly grind a game I am paying exactly to avoid the crap in real life I must do).

To learn how to make a brick (a construction block used to make houses, not a sandstone brick)... I do an essence shaper.
No, not one. Zillions! All equal, flawless essence shapers. Same shapers any newcomer or year old does! And this will raise my skill at doing bricks O_O.
Sure, I can level up doing bricks at 1/10 of the speed, but why do I have to hammer my balls with 40 billions CTD due to recalls and teleports when I can save my day with tools?
And then it comes the grand day. I finally start granite! But ... wtf! It's again essence shapers, just grey instead of brown >_<.
Recursive grinding.
Then I arrive at level 100 BLK. WOO! DING!
Ok let's raise spellcrafter. 6 days later I am SPL 100. Without a single spell done. Just criss-crossing.

I'd really drop all of this vicious scheme and introduce one of those nice skill systems based on what you really craft.
I do my first 100 shapers (all numbers are fictious). They still are flawless (making low level stuff worse would just lead to all demanding only high level crafters cutting off the poor newbies who produce crap stuff), but I take a ton of resources. Then more 1000 and I use far less resources. Good. Then more 2000 and... DING I finally get the skill (I still have to get the formula off a trainer or by drop) to make a granite essence shaper. WOO!

Now I switch making an essence syphoon. It's more or less on the same "field" of application so I take less and after just 1000 of them, I can make the granite one.
Same for the essence structurer, but it's intrinsically harder (like it's now already), so I take much more time, even if I still have some bonus of "proximity" with the other essence tools.
Now I decide I am in a fancy day and build a shield. OWW I suck! It's completely unrelated, so I must redo the grind for it from scratch. No nice but odd shortcut to insta make a level 70 bow "because" I levelled to 100 BLK and so I got magically imbued the fletching skill without ever see a tree and much less a board plane.

This would add an enormous diversity in game, with no 2 consecutive crafters having the same skills like a photocopy, because just by doing some different things would lead to different paths.
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And what about spells and skills?
Why are we robots? We all learn revitalize. It takes 30 seconds to cycle. At level 1 and at rating 200 it's still 30 seconds, unless we tech it etc etc.
Isn't such a world boring?
Since the mana thing seems to dent little in Hz playerbase (and other games do it, so let's be funky here) why not just introduce a bit of thrill? Every time I click an ability or spell, it won't recycle in X seconds. It will recycle in X +/- 25%. A nice variation that will keep people on their toes when ie a revit says 40 seconds while fighting anchor undead or will let them smile in relief when under heavy fire it says "ready in 20 seconds".