Crafting Mastery Quests

[dorrin]

i know the last thing the devs probably want is more work, but i believe these quests are worth saving and revamping somehow.

quests define dragons.
i don't know how many times i've told people "go do your quests!" .. even when i hear people whine .. i hope they get some sort of enjoyment out of these (admittedly mostly very stale) quests if for no other reason than to take them _away_ from the grind of normal levelling for a while. for me all of this is part of the dragon experience. we aren't automatically given 9 points in our skills (or 10 in lairshaping and crystalshaping).. we EARN that last point. that means something to me, but i suppose for others it's nothing special.

what about all those NPCs?
what's the point of even having those NPCs if they don't have quests anymore. ..but what will dralk and chiconis look like without those NPCs? ghost towns... it's not much i suppose, but having those extra NPCs makes dralk and chiconis at least feel *somewhat* lived in...

please reconsider taking these quests out. i realise i'm probably in the minority here so this post won't amount to much, but like another recent topic... this is a game-defining change, and IMO it's not one for the better.

[LOVWYRM]

I gave it a second thought:

I agree with Aqua, Gimbolt and especially Dorrin here!

[Sssargon]

I'm a bit on the iffy side with this.

I would say yes to get rid of them because: There are no links to them, hatchlings have no idea where to go, they don't even know they're there.

But IF they could be revamped in some way....I would personally prefer that.

[Nagafyn]

I see no problem in this would allow us to concentrate on crafting instead of running off every 10 levels to grind out quests

[walkerglassmire]

I have to say, I'm with dorrin on this as well. Not enough anyone going through the dragon cities as it is.

And, to slightly expand the point, from the old days (or maybe not so old really) one of the big complaints in the Dragon vs. Biped war is that Dragons get all these quests to tell them where to work on their craft and slayage. Bipeds didn't. I really don't think the way to solve that argument is to remove quests that are already in game, working, tested, balanced and well, working properly as intended.

Always, more content rather than less.

[Firebrand]

Those quests are grind. But craft in itself is grind but nature anyway.
But with those quests, you have to grind for a purpose: you are rewarded with a skill bonus and an experience bonus. Removing them is just turning Dragon Craft to pure mindless grind.
It can just take you out of the mindless grind for a while.

As I can understand the need of cleaning the database, but from a player's perspective you remove some content (not maybe the best one for sure) and replace it by.... nothing?

dorrin's suggestion is interesting, but as you are knee-deep in the Tier II revamp, I don't think it could be done before months.
But for the moment, the current quests are something to do and are working. Please don't remove them.

[Tcei]

I find the idea appealing of revamping the quest. Personaly I've alway felt they needed to be more in line with what you get when you do the adv ability quest, exp wise.

With the adv quest you normaly gained enough exp by the time you finished them all that if you had to grind to get to the next set it was only 3-4 lvls useually, at least it was this way up until you hit about 60-70. Craft only gets you about 3/4 a lvl after the 20-30ish ones, wich doesnt leave them feeling very rewarding for the ammount of work needed IMHO.

[Hrough]

I personally hated doing the crafting quests. They weren't rewarding enough and I always felt I could make more exp just grinding craft instead of having to go all the way to a trainer, all the way to do the quest and then all the way back. It felt like a waste of time trying to get that passive skill.

The initial hatchling crafting quests are good - maybe have that trainer mention the different levels of resources? - it's just the Chiconis/Dralk crafting trainers that bother me.

[Dracaena]

Interesting topic, one that has taken me a fair bit of time to reflect on before I made a post. From a technical standpoint I can see the reasoning for making them a passive ability automatically given with levels. From a gameplay standpoint I disagree with removing the quests.

I think it might help to remember how these quests came about in the first place. They weren't here when the game started. Dragon crafters did lag behind skill wise in the beginning. It took many prayers to the gods for something to be done to correct the poor skill development. There was much rejoicing among dragonkin when the first of the trainers arrived. Those were dragoncrafter, spellcrafter, gemworking, quarry, and mining. It wasn't until later that the essence trainers arrived, and I think that is why there is more personality with the dialog for them. It was later still that the stoneworking and smelting trainers arrived. I think that is the correct timeline, as best as I can remember it.

I don't know how much or how little time the developers had to spend on quest design when those ability quests were first put in. And that none of the other existing dragons referenced them wasn't a big surprise then either. We were all overjoyed just to have those trainers. I would rather see those quests updated more to current thinking then scrapped. Dragons are about the quests. It would be a diminishment to lose them.


Dracaena Starfyre

[Dhalin]

I say we remove the quests, but put other quests in their place, stuff that isn't so grindy, or something. The whole "bring me xxxx of yyyy" is kinda meh.

For example... instead of Smelting Mastery I, maybe the dragon who used to have the smelting line of quests said "Hey, if you go out and make a strength head scale, I'll give you..." or something like that. Add some flavor text like "My mate just laid an egg and we haven't had time to go out and get him his first head scale yet, could you do it for us?" or some-such... rewards would probably HV items and a few silver, or maybe even basic resource formulae that dragons use/need.

You could even throw in a random dragon scale form or something in there as well.

Heck I think bipeds should be able to *quest* their jman and expert basic resource formulas as well.

Edit: I realize in a hurry I said 'head scale', I think I meant 'chest scale' instead. lol. I forget when a dragon gets what scale.

Edit2: And don't forget, you still have the adventure quests too. Those alone make dragons unique from bipeds (though I wish bipeds got something like that too). Just because we're removing the boring 'bring yyy of xxx' doesn't mean we can't put other quests in their places. This is about saving some DB room by removing a lot of abilities from each dragon, without nerfing them whatsoever. What Awdz said about skill and leveling up wouldn't really be an issue -- instead of getting 10 skill in one lump-sum, you'd get that same 10 skill slowly over a period of time. At Lv9, you'd have 81 skill instead of 72 skill. When you ding Lv10, you'd have your 90 in both cases -- presently you ding Lv10 and have 80 skill, and do the quest to get 90. That 9 skill difference as you're leveling won't hurt much of anything.

[Tathar]

I'll agree to this only on the condition that the Wishgiver returns from the Forbidden Zone with stuff that would rival the +10 to stats from before. Boon techs perhaps? Maybe new highly coveted items that can't be obtained any other way, or a gift spell (in dragon and biped forms) that gives all of the buffs from before? I'm sure you guys can think of new Wishgiver rewards that don't rely on passive abilities.

[Dhalin]

I'll agree to this only on the condition that the Wishgiver returns from the Forbidden Zone with stuff that would rival the +10 to stats from before. Boon techs perhaps? Maybe new highly coveted items that can't be obtained any other way, or a gift spell (in dragon and biped forms) that gives all of the buffs from before? I'm sure you guys can think of new Wishgiver rewards that don't rely on passive abilities.

So, you want us to keep the results of the Crafting Mastery, and then get More ontop of it? That's like... having your cake and eat it too.

We're not going to lose anything with the proposed change; your base skill at Lv100 will be 900 skill either way except for Ingenuity, Lairshaping, and Crystalshaping. The ONLY thing that changes is that you will get the +skill gradually (+1 per level) instead of all at once (+10 once every 10) and you don't need to do the grindy stuff.

Sometimes those quests can be a pain in the butt anyways, especially the the ones that require/want new materials you can't feasibly (or can't at all because of lack of techs) work yet.

Edit -- I think the Lv30 stuff wants t2... still, at Lv30, gathering t2 unless you're tricked out can be slow and painful...

Nah, I'd rather get my skill passively as I level. It helps the game out by reducing database size, removes some of the grindy quests (as I said above, we could replace them with less grindy, more interesting quests that give HV, coin, or Tech/Form rewards instead).

[Tathar]

So, you want us to keep the results of the Crafting Mastery, and then get More ontop of it? That's like... having your cake and eat it too.

We're not going to lose anything with the proposed change; your base skill at Lv100 will be 900 skill either way except for Ingenuity, Lairshaping, and Crystalshaping. The ONLY thing that changes is that you will get the +skill gradually (+1 per level) instead of all at once (+10 once every 10) and you don't need to do the grindy stuff.

Sometimes those quests can be a pain in the butt anyways, especially the the ones that require/want new materials you can't feasibly (or can't at all because of lack of techs) work yet.

Edit -- I think the Lv30 stuff wants t2... still, at Lv30, gathering t2 unless you're tricked out can be slow and painful...

Nah, I'd rather get my skill passively as I level. It helps the game out by reducing database size, removes some of the grindy quests (as I said above, we could replace them with less grindy, more interesting quests that give HV, coin, or Tech/Form rewards instead).

Actually, I just want the Wishgiver back. I miss that guy. We used to go drinking together on weekends, and he'd give me all sorts of cool buffs and items when he got drunk.

[Amerelium]

I'd...........keep them, methinks.

[Xzchatchyk]

I´d like to have a bit more information about that.

"1. Removing Dragon Crafting Mastery Quests (and passive abilities)
2. Increasing Dragon Crafting Skills by +1 per level each to compensate

The benefits to this are:

1. Fewer grinding quests. Since these "quests" really don't contain much if any lore or story, they are simply pure grind.

2. Helps clean the database up a little on our end (removal of 8 passive abilities on every dragon)."

About what amount of cleanup are we talking?
If this is a mere 0,1% than I´d go with no change!
But if its >5 % than let´s do it.

But I´d rather go with a polishing of those quests. Removal of the abilities is ok, but those quests could give xp for new tasks. (but new calculated tasks)
So the NPC would stay, the lore and advice would stay, but the db would be cleaned up.
Since those abilities are passive we wont miss them.

BUT...
As already said. There is a lot more to do eg. some things that arent working.
I´d say leave those abilities as what they are, except its a noticeable db cleanup, thats worth the work.

[Dhalin]

I´d like to have a bit more information about that.

"1. Removing Dragon Crafting Mastery Quests (and passive abilities)
2. Increasing Dragon Crafting Skills by +1 per level each to compensate

The benefits to this are:

1. Fewer grinding quests. Since these "quests" really don't contain much if any lore or story, they are simply pure grind.

2. Helps clean the database up a little on our end (removal of 8 passive abilities on every dragon)."

About what amount of cleanup are we talking?
If this is a mere 0,1% than I´d go with no change!
But if its >5 % than let´s do it.

But I´d rather go with a polishing of those quests. Removal of the abilities is ok, but those quests could give xp for new tasks. (but new calculated tasks)
So the NPC would stay, the lore and advice would stay, but the db would be cleaned up.
Since those abilities are passive we wont miss them.

BUT...
As already said. There is a lot more to do eg. some things that arent working.
I´d say leave those abilities as what they are, except its a noticeable db cleanup, thats worth the work.

I mentioned giving minor rewards in place of the quested abilities.

That should make everyone happy.

1). Cleaning up of the DB. ANY DB cleanup, even if 1%, is good.
2). Better rewards from these quests. We still keep our 900 skill, but get slightly more XP, or a little coin, or maybe a form or tech, would be really nice.
3). The opportunity to change the quests to add more lore/story/advice in them (and make them seem less grindy) would be quite golden too.

[Tathar]

Actually, I'm in favor of this idea as long as the relevant trainers don't just disappear because of it. I'd rather see them give a wider variety of quests, even if they don't give passive abilities as rewards. One of the things that make dragons interesting is the wider variety of quests available.

We certainly don't need the racial towns to feel as barren as player communities have become. Maybe the NPCs everywhere could be more dynamic like Pratt, Geoff, and Millicent.

[Guaran]

I´d like to have a bit more information about that.... About what amount of cleanup are we talking?
If this is a mere 0,1% than I´d go with no change!
But if its >5 % than let´s do it.

But I´d rather go with a polishing of those quests. Removal of the abilities is ok, but those quests could give xp for new tasks. (but new calculated tasks)
So the NPC would stay, the lore and advice would stay, but the db would be cleaned up.
Since those abilities are passive we wont miss them.

BUT...
As already said. There is a lot more to do eg. some things that aren't working.
I´d say leave those abilities as what they are, except if its a noticeable db cleanup, thats worth the work.

This.

My first thought was, they go and delete the quests and it will break some other dragon quest that has these as dependencies... but after pondering, I do not think AROP has any crafting quests as pre-req. What about Drulkar's Wrath quest? I know it requires lairshaper school to start. Not sure of any other pre-req's...

If it isn't broke, don't fix it. Unless the db cleanup would be really significant.

If it is siginificant and cleanup proceeds, I'd vote for keeping the npc's and giving them new quests. Could be simply for craft exp, a fairly large (worthwhile) amount maybe, but only a limited number of times it could be done. The same once every 10 levels could apply, although at level 100 since there would be no need for more exp, something else would need to be the reward. Think up something cool and interesting The quests could even be the same quests in general (to keep the training aspect the old ones had such as directions to resource locations), flavored up a bit, and result in a really nice exp reward in place of the old passive ability reward. There should be a good enough incentive to want people to do them. mmo = a timesink. hopefully a fun one. In this way people pay to play for a longer time and the company does better. For this alone complete removal wouldn't be a good thing.

As others have mentioned, the newer quests that the essence trainers have is quite entertaining. Be kinda crummy if that's lost.

[Frith-Rae]

Actually, I'm in favor of this idea as long as the relevant trainers don't just disappear because of it. I'd rather see them give a wider variety of quests, even if they don't give passive abilities as rewards. One of the things that make dragons interesting is the wider variety of quests available.

We certainly don't need the racial towns to feel as barren as player communities have become. Maybe the NPCs everywhere could be more dynamic like Pratt, Geoff, and Millicent.

THat's just it - since the revamp of tier I Chiconis has been dead. It use to be a thriving racial city - back when hatchies went there to level up the craft for the ROP and such.

But now, its dead. Has been for years.

I don't like the fact that these quests are so grindy myself - but unless theyu're goign to be replaced with a different reason to go to these racial cities they'll be even MORE dead.

I can't speak for Dralk, its a different tier and always was - Chiconis was the one that got "revamped" way back when and it was a mistake to take draggies to what is to me "biped starter land" (Since it use to be Chiconis for dragies to go to after NT). I also dont live in Dralk, And Dralk was never my "lazing learning school" like chiconis USE to be.

USE to be you could just sit next to the poral and within 10-20 minutes have 4+ dragons (andmore the longer you sat there as a group) and such sitting around you just talking away, simply from the numbers because the town was central to dragon development.

Now I can go hours without seeing another soul there, if not days and days.

Taking out even more reason to be there - why even have dragon racial cities anymore?

Now take out the crafty grindy quests and put various other quests in their place - well now that's a good idea.

[Dhalin]

Now now Frith, we don't need to be sarcastic...

My idea was to take away the Crafting Mastery Quests and replace them with crafting quests that give other rewards (coin, forms, techs, etc) instead. And you STILL have the Adventure Quests that cannot be replaced (unless we are to just learn the stuff automatically, but why would they do that? It wouldn't reduce DB size like the Crafting quests would).

You'd still need to visit Chiconis/Dralk for the Adventuring quests every 10 levels.

As to Dralk, I *really* wish they'd fix that background music bug for Lava Areas... it is one of the reasons why I avoid Dralk like the plague, and one of the reasons I am really anticipating the end of my biped's need of Obsidian/Platinum.