Oops, you hit the panic button.......

[Jazmyn]

....you must now spend the next week of your life digging in the dirt.


This has probably been discussed before.. but I really want to know why Dragons get penalized so much for using specialty attacks when bipeds dont.

Why such a huge penalty forusing silverstrike, gold rage or shield of gold? Aren't dragons supposed be able to use these attacks? I'm down to 340K hoard because I hunted something my own level and had to use gold rage and silverstrike a few times. I used shield of gold ONCE, and BAM - 1000 HV!! Geesh!I know Dragons in the L75 to 100 range that are trying to function on under 250K hoard!

ILIKE playing a dragon, and LOVE flight, but I HATE dragon crafting. Yet, it's the only way it seems to increase my hoard. I found zero "hoardables" this past week.I hunted golems, which dropped no cash to hoard, and gems, which I can't hoard. Every now and then I'd geta trophy.. hoard it? or turn it in for exp? If I hunt something that drops cash, they are harder to kill, so I must used the specialty attacks more, so even if I hoard all the cash, I still come out behind. No other class is forced into crafting like this.

What's the chances that these specialty attacks could start taking less of the hoard perhaps, or we could get a form to make special hoardable items or something? Dragon crafting is seriously boring right now! My choices seem to be.. digging for stone or digging for metal. I need more of a variety than this!

My only other option is to die alot more than I already do, and then play an altwhileI wait for the DP's to go down on my Dragon. :(

[Jaraiden]

Fight smarter.

Hoard management.

Wait for AE to restore hoard items (until then, fight the old world monsters - Old Rachival and Observatory).

[Vahrokh]

It is an ancient story.

In the beginning there was a complete, utter, uncurable mo.ron who made AE losemany thousands subscriptions.

He decided that dragons were too cool.
So cool that no player would play anything but dragon.

This is the beginning of all.

As a "counter move", to "keep numbers reasonable" he imposed on programmers (sorry, I forget the name of the "he") to invent some deterring features at playing dragon.

The first, huge, bright idea was decaying hoard.
An idea so smart, so historic that after few months they had to remove before no dragon remained. AE lost thousand dragons just to this dumb thing.

The dragons being gimps instead is not an idea but a natural outcome of not being planned nor implemented at all in the beginning.
In an ancient interviewa dev statedmore or lessthat "we were told that dragons would be in game but it was so late and unheard of, that we laughed out loud and went on. Then the day came and we had to rush slapping them together to throw players a bone". Naturally content was not there, nor lairs, nothing. Not even flight (it was "doable in offline mode" but with no connection in game.
The "scramble" at doing dragons was about copying some spell effects from mage, some graphics here and there and nothing more. They did not even cared of making dragon healing compatible with dragons. It required life to get a bonus, not primal.
And so on. So much that still today we have almost no graphic effects nor sounds.

But the mo.ron was not done with us.
His ideas corrupted the "mind" of others, so even if he had been hopefully fired, the others followed his tracks. So we got hoard decay removed, but got the hoard costing moves as exchange. With the "promise" that we'd get hoard drops to refill it.

What a gross lie. For some time they were available on limited, high content (read: middle level and low dragons got the shaft) mobs.

Then such mobs had been scrapped off game and replaced with the next big lie: trophies to hoard.

In the end, bipeds could kill at fast speed and get the tremendous amount of trophies needed to make up for old good hoard drops and once again they started strangling genuine dragons or feeding their pet dragon alts.

Then bipeds discovered that doing 100s of trophy quest to level up the Xth level 100 was a Good Thing so they even stopped selling trophies.

Once again we got the shaft.

In a game that changed all since entering in production, having the shaft is the only thing that had been constant. Enjoy yours. [li]

[Blue Hasia]

Me i dont have gold shield hotkeyed and for digging heck I been at it for about 6 weeks I make about 100k HV if I work hard on it for that day

[Jazmyn]

Jaraidan wrote:

Fight smarter.

Hoard management.


Vahkroth wrote:

The dragons being gimps instead is not an idea but a natural outcome of not being planned nor implemented at all in the beginning


I think you guysmissed my point.

I do not consider Dragons to be gimpy and I'm not asking how to fight without these abilities.. I'm asking:

A) Why are we penalized so badly for using them?

I thinkavalid comparison would beif weapons and armor wore out. The morea personused their abilities, the fastertheirequipment wears out. You then have to stop and make a new set of armor or a new weapon. The more wear and tear on armor or weapon, the less effective it is. That's about what dragons face with thehoard drop everytime they use a special ability.

and

B) Okay, so if we MUST craft to raise hoard..can we have something other than digging in the dirt for something to do?

I HATE quarry/mining. There's no variety to dragon crafting at all. You can craft scales or spells to hoard.. that's it?

[Jaraiden]

I think you guysmissed my point.

I do not consider Dragons to be gimpy and I'm not asking how to fight without these abilities.. I'm asking:

A) Why are we penalized so badly for using them?

I thinkavalid comparison would beif weapons and armor wore out. The morea personused their abilities, the fastertheirequipment wears out. You then have to stop and make a new set of armor or a new weapon. The more wear and tear on armor or weapon, the less effective it is. That's about what dragons face with thehoard drop everytime they use a special ability.

Hoard powered melee attacks essentially replace hoard decay that AEhad inflicted on dragons. So it isbetter than hoard decay as Silver Strike isrelatively cheap (when used moderately). Oh, don't use Gold Shield, ourarmor is pathetic, due to poor design.

There have been topics about item decay besides only tier VI items, but nothing from AE about adding this type of realism (whichWoW has, btw). Just not a part of Horizons. Besides, many biped players get new items every 5 to 10 levels (armor, weapons) and 20 to 25levels (tools and jewelry).

Dragons just fight differently than biped characters, and generally poorly compared to a modest MCed one (hatchling more so than adult). So we need to manage our hoard to give us more frequent access to Silver Strike and Gold Rage.

B) Okay, so if we MUST craft to raise hoard..can we have something other than digging in the dirt for something to do?

I HATE quarry/mining. There's no variety to dragon crafting at all. You can craft scales or spells to hoard.. that's it?

AE has opted for the same "digging" gathering motion for essence harvesting . . . again, lack of effort to add a different animation.

Unfortunately, the most effective way to hoard craft is with a biped blacksmith/weaponsmith/armorer (any class that can make metal items) or a jeweler. You craft bars and trade to the biped to make the metal items he/she trades to you. Again, AE calls it player to player interaction, clearly overlooking the fact that it makes dragons reliant on bipeds (as they have finishing machines in the field via placement by AE or player plots).

Premerge, you could also craft Imperial resource parcels (iron/slate was 10 hoard/parcel), but AE refuses to restore those formulas. AE opts not to read into the lore they create, where dragons could create more proper hoard items from bronze/silver/gold/platinum and their respective tiered gems.

Dragons are just an unfinished, poorly implemented race that is generally inferior than biped multiclassing. And AE opts not to complete the race or make it more on par to biped multiclassing (they rather provide biped content).

As AE has said, playing a dragon is a challenge.

Since AE rarely responds to such comments made by dragon players (last "reply" to dragon issues was 6/25/04), it is best to file a support ticket and wait a few days for a canned response.

[Jazmyn]

Gee, I didn't mean this to be a "rant about AE" thread. Really, I just wondered why. I was told that hoard decay was a bug, not an intended thing btw. But paying per use is better than having the decay. I'm not seeing the additions to my armor either tho anymore. I went up from 370K hoard to 410K hoard and my armor didn't change at all, where it seemed to have been going up about 4pts per 10k before. There's a post here that lists that for my level I shouldn't be maxing out the hoard bonus until about 1.5 mil hoard.. so, why didn't I see anything improve with the addition of the 40K hoard?

I don't think dragons are a botched product like folks want to paint them to be. I play bipeds too, dragons are far superior in many ways. I don't know any bipeds that can upgrade thier armor every 5 to 10 levels either. But, I play a druid alt and she only gets like 7 AU per level, someclasses get 10 per level, but I still think the increments are every 100 or 200 AU, depending on class armor restrictions.

I know a lot of people want to compare this game to WoW, but to me you're comparing apples and oranges there. WoW lacks the two things that attract me to this game, Dragons, and imagination. IMHO.

Personally I think AE did a great job on dragons, and I have yet to see any other game do anything even remotely as grand in their character designs as AE has done in Horizons.

Anyways, I'm hoping AE has something at least on the drawing boards to make dragon crafting as interesting as biped crafting is. It's not the animationthat I don't like. Even as a biped I don'tlike quarry/mining, yet I can still enjoy crafting with Confectioner, Tinkerer, Outfitter, where I'm harvesting other things.

I'd love to be able to create crystals or be able to mold precious gems and precious metals together to make something interesting, something creative. I really think creating crystals should be a dragon craft, since it's sort of a magical item.

[Jaraiden]

Hoard levels are low at lower levels, then go up nearly exponentially . . . level 50 hoard is 1 million, level 100 it is 26.5 million to get that final 400 + 80 armor due to hoard. Maybe someone has a table, I don't(it depresses me). You canfit a curve through those three points (0,0 ; 1 mil, 50 ; 26.5 mil, 100) to see.

Please don't confuse Armor Use (AU) with Armor. I'm sure you'll find your Druid has comparable armor (armor with/without Armor techand any jewelry with armor) to your dragon, at the key levels 21, 41, 61, etc. Biped armor can change as much as every 10 levels.

And you are correct on the playable dragon aspect - this is the only MMORPG with a full dragon character (Wish may have Dragonkin and Neverwinter Nights do allow some dragon RPing . . . can't fly nor do much though).

Play your dragon a little longer and watch the fellow bipeds in your party closely. You'll see.

Better yet, compare the playing experience (reward for effort) as you fight common monsters (or remember how they were fought) - druid vs. X and dragon vs. X. Then up the level a bit, druid vs. Y and dragon vs. Y. Pick beast-type monsters though . . . . not reaver-type ones.

[Moredhel84]

Just found a Hoard cap chart on the VNboards, should exlpain why you didn't see any rise in armor.

HOARD caps by LEVEL provided by CyclopsSlayer from HorizonsVault Dragon Adventurer Boards.
Level-------------Total Hoard
1---------------------100
2---------------------200
3---------------------300
4---------------------400
5---------------------500
6---------------------600
7---------------------700
8---------------------800
9---------------------900
10--------------------1000
11--------------------2600
12--------------------4200
13--------------------5800
14--------------------7400
15--------------------9000
16--------------------10600
17--------------------12200
18--------------------13800
19--------------------15400
20--------------------17000
21--------------------25100
22--------------------33200
23--------------------41300
24--------------------49400
25--------------------57500
26--------------------65600
27--------------------73700
28--------------------81800
29--------------------89900
30--------------------98000
31--------------------123600
32--------------------149200
33--------------------174800
34--------------------200400
35--------------------226000
36--------------------251600
37--------------------277200
38--------------------302800
39--------------------328400
40--------------------354000
41--------------------416500
42--------------------479000
43--------------------541500
44--------------------604000
45--------------------666500
46--------------------729000
47--------------------791500
48--------------------854000
49--------------------916500
50--------------------979000
51--------------------1108600
52--------------------1238200
53--------------------1367800
54--------------------1497400
55--------------------1627000
56--------------------1756600
57--------------------1886200
58--------------------2015800
59--------------------2145400
60--------------------2275000
61--------------------2515100
62--------------------2755200
63--------------------2995300
64--------------------3235400
65--------------------3475500
66--------------------3715600
67--------------------3955700
68--------------------4195800
69--------------------4435900
70--------------------4676000
71--------------------5085600
72--------------------5495200
73--------------------5904800
74--------------------6314400
75--------------------6724000
76--------------------7133600
77--------------------7543200
78--------------------7952800
79--------------------8362400
80--------------------8772000
81--------------------9428100
82--------------------10084200
83--------------------10740300
84--------------------11396400
85--------------------12052500
86--------------------12708600
87--------------------13364700
88--------------------14020800
89--------------------14676900
90--------------------15333000
91--------------------16333000
92--------------------17333000
93--------------------18333000
94--------------------19333000
95--------------------20333000
96--------------------21333000
97--------------------22333000
98--------------------23333000
99--------------------24333000
100-------------------25333000

[Jazmyn]

Jaraiden wrote:

"Better yet, compare the playing experience (reward for effort) as you fight common monsters (or remember how they were fought) - druid vs. X and dragon vs. X. Then up the level a bit, druid vs. Y and dragon vs. Y. Pick beast-type monsters though . . . . not reaver-type ones."


Okay I did just that. My Dragon and my Druid are both Level 57. Here's what I found out:

Druid fights best against groups of monsters that are 20 levels below her. She gets less exp per kill, but gets more kills. She cannot successfully solo a creature 5 levels above herself though, she just doesn't hit hard enough to counteract their natural recovery rate.

Dragon fights best against single monsters as much as 5 levels above him. But, he does not do as well against a group that's 20 levels below him. He just gets hit too much and his heals do not keep him up for the time needed for his AoE's to take the mobs down. I also noticed that Dragon casts sluggishly in comparison to Druid. His spells would also restart everytime he got hit.. resulting in a lot of "you being to cast.. WHAM, you got hit!..You being to cast .. WHAM, you got hit.. You begin to cast.. " etc. Therefore he was not landing anywhere near as many spells at the rate the Druid was.

I'm not sure what reward for effort you're expecting. But, exp wise, dragon soloing a single Aquamarine golem got about the same exp as Druid soloing group of 7 snow pygmies. The time it took was in favor of the Dragon, and also in favor of the dragon was that the trophies gained could be used to trade in for exp. In favor of the Druid was that she got a better cash haul and more comps/forms/techs due to killing more monsters. though what she got was lower end than what the Dragon would get. Also in favor of the druid was that the trophies gotten can be used for multclassing and raising another school up.

In the end, I think my Dragon is the big tough guy in comparison to the Druid, just because he CAN hunt at his level successfully. Now, when out on group hunts with other multiclassed bipeds, I noticed that for the most part, their ratings were higher than the mobs they were fighting. Keep in mind my Druid's level is 57 but her rating is 63, yet she isMOST effective against groups of monsters in the L35 range. That's not as impressive to me as a L57, R57 Dragon soloing monsters in the L65 range. Something that my Dragon CAN do, and my Druid CANNOT do.

With that said, I can see the point of the L100 dragon. Once you hit L100, there is no way to get higher than that. Whereas my Druid COULD get up to a rating well over 100, and someday that would make soloing those higher level groups a reality for her. Where it will not likely be possible to for my Dragon. Even though it would mean having multiple L100's on my "Druid", it's still a possiblity for her. She would likely have to have a rating up around 130 to solo L80 group mobs effectively. Still, I don't see it being something my dragon would be able to do even at L100. This certainly means that bipedswill outclass Dragons at those high levels.

With the current game scenario, it makes it very difficult for full dragon participation when it comes to taking out blight anchors. Those mobs are in packs and I don't see loneL100 dragons taking down L90 + Kwellens with their accompanying mobs. Whereas I HAVE seen lone bipeds successfully fight these mobs. Those bipeds also had ratings of 120 - 130 and even higher than that. So, is it that Dragons need to be able to multiclass too? OR, is it that the levelcap needs to be raised for Dragons and only Dragons? Coulda loneL130 Dragon fight successfully against an L90 Kwellen with it's accompanyng blights?

One thing that I personally believe would go a long way to helping out dragons at this point would be to make them less susceptible to the DoT's that they get slammed with. Where my Druid has several ways to remove bleed and seeping blight etc.. my Dragon has NONE!Dragon has died way too many times because of not being able to counteract an ongoing DoT. He kills the monster, only to die from the DoT because he's used his instant heal and refreshing breeze up already and the other heals can't counteract the DoTfast enough.Another thing that dragons are lacking is a AoE stunner. Thunder issomething I can use as a Druid which gives me time to fire off heals and detox's. It's an AoE stun spell.. short duration, but enough time to get the heals fired off. Dragons could use such a spell themselves.

[Vahrokh]

You are in the peak of your dragon vs mobs curve. When you'll come to level 65-70 you'll meet a vast "gap" with nothing useful, ended quests etc. so you'll level up and up and up without any visible increase of your dragon overall worth.

Meanwhile the druid will catch up and surpass it.

At level 47 dragon without hoard usage I could solo a level 60 wolf (posted screenies of it too on Tazoon.com).

At level 100 I can barely kill some kinds of level 85 mobs since they are excessively nasty.
Or, better, they are not _that_ nasty.
They just require a good set of skills to counter their moves.
Dragons have 0 skills, so any non dumb basic mob will beat them up.

That is, what you feel now for debuffs killing you, will spread and become "stun that kills you", "area effect that kills you" etc. etc. in 100 different but killing facets.

Now, your druid will already have innate or wearable (read Crimson Scourge jewelry) counters. And in any moment will be able to raise a secondary class to get that bit he lacks to overcome the obstacles.

As dragon instead all you'll have will be a resser.