Dragon Feedback

Feedback, bugs, and general gameplay related discussion.
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Shevarash
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Dragon Feedback

Postby Shevarash » Thu Jan 27, 2005 4:34 am

Questions, comments, bugs, and constructive critcism for the new Dragon code are welcome here in this thread. I need your feedback on this, so please don't be shy. :)
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Postby Ruxur » Thu Jan 27, 2005 6:33 am

we just smote cholora, seemed WAY too easy.
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Postby Shevarash » Thu Jan 27, 2005 6:37 am

Yeah it was, some substantial parts of the code were accidentally disabled. Will be fixed in the next boot.
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Postby Shevarash » Thu Jan 27, 2005 7:45 am

A bunch of stuff didnt copy over correctly, that is now fixed. Try again. :)
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Postby Maedor » Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:04 am

The new MR system seems a bit spammy. I've been fighting mobs that used to shrug about...2% of my spells, and I now get the shrug message on every spell. Could it possibly be coded that you only get the shrug message if a certain % of the spell is blocked? (like 50%?).
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Postby Shevarash » Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:06 pm

I realize its a bit spammy, especially for an Invoker, but I do want to have some kind of cue so that you can tell when a mob has MR so you can adjust your tactics appropriately. What about a system where the MR message only goes off 1/5th of the time or something? Feedback welcome.
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Postby Sesexe » Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:33 pm

Shevarash wrote:I realize its a bit spammy, especially for an Invoker, but I do want to have some kind of cue so that you can tell when a mob has MR so you can adjust your tactics appropriately. What about a system where the MR message only goes off 1/5th of the time or something? Feedback welcome.


Just reiterating what I said last night on GCC.

Be nice to get a different message depending on the percentage of damage the mob shrugs.

10% shrugged "succoms to nearly the full power of your spell!"
20% "was unable to avoid the majority of your spell!"
etc
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Postby kiryan » Thu Jan 27, 2005 10:44 pm

so far, i like what i see

soloing dragons has become much more dangerous as it should with the bite.

dragons are much more entertaining to fight.

I'd be interested to see if the IC2 4 dragon fight (havoc/ruin +2) is doable.... or if CC dragons were made dragons and the Q fight....

will eq be restatted to reflect the new changes in difficulty?
and tonights winner in the Toril EQ lottery is demi belt and skull earring!
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Postby Gormal » Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:20 pm

If the damage messages were different depending on how much the mob shrugged, we could gag the lesser ones to avoid spam.
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Postby Sesexe » Fri Jan 28, 2005 12:25 am

Gormal wrote:If the damage messages were different depending on how much the mob shrugged, we could gag the lesser ones to avoid spam.


A toggle!
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Postby Shevarash » Fri Jan 28, 2005 1:56 am

Yes, Areas will be updated if neccessary, but of course after we get a feel for the difficulty level of the new dragons.
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Postby Thilindel » Fri Jan 28, 2005 3:45 am

just off the top of my head, rippling longsword and starsilver plate (dracolich) should be quite nice :P even very low lvl wyrms and such are ungodly hard. I went from 990 to approx 330 in 3 hits. Altho it's VERY exciting, it's also hard to believe a lower lvl dragonkin would do such ungodly power. Wyrm I'm talking about is drulak's very own scumbag pond's :P I certainly appreciate your time in putting the 'oh %&#! A DRAGON!' back in dragon fights, but it's so drastic I find myself cowering and finding excuses asap from dfights :P (As facing any dragon shouldn't be, 'Oh hell yeah, lets do it!' anyway)
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Postby Jegzed » Fri Jan 28, 2005 6:46 am

Maybe the easiest is to not use the new dragoncode on any mob below level 45?

I dunno how the CC wandering dragons were coded, but they never windbuffeted before.. Just roared and breathed gas. Basically, they were there to roar people to cause spanks .)
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Postby Thilindel » Fri Jan 28, 2005 7:02 am

Ok, after reading the new dragon fight logs, I _really_ hope rippling sword and all those other single fight for goodies dragon rooms are gonna be upped. *cringe* That dragon that snuffed maxler's group..omg, that was painful to watch.

The other thing is: Why did Grunelda flee? Shouldn't ANY lich be immune to fear?

Last thing: Please impliment Cloak of Fear ( or whatever that spell is called that gives a huge bonus to resisting fear ) if dragon code is to remain as is :P They're definitely kickin asses and takin names now!
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Postby bisu » Fri Jan 28, 2005 9:07 am

Since dragon fight is a scary thing...
should upgrade those dragonscale robe or restore back its old stat..:P
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Postby Ashiwi » Fri Jan 28, 2005 2:33 pm

I imagine they'll probably continue to tweak the dragon code until they get it where they want it, then upgrade or downgrade loot as necessary.

I have to admit, I would love to see rippling given back its glory, even if Alphabet's load rate has to be dropped even more.
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Postby Areandon » Fri Jan 28, 2005 4:13 pm

What will this mean for already very hard dragon fights. I imagine that for the endfight for fire embody it will be even more harder to get a group for now. Same holds for fights like pyrohydra i guess.
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chlora

Postby daggaz » Fri Jan 28, 2005 4:45 pm

Think they managed to fix chlora.... I wasnt there myself, but my guild did her this morning. I saw a LARGE pile of corpses, and heard a lot of surprising stories. Good going, gods. And this from a dragon that used to be easy with two people.

Yeah, loot changes will be good, too =)
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Postby Zen » Fri Jan 28, 2005 6:45 pm

I'm not sure about Liches, but Paladins in FR are immune to all fear effects, like dragon fear. Perhaps Paladins should be immune to dragon roar in this new dragon code? It probly doesn't add anything more than flavor to the game, but hey.

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Postby Lahgen » Fri Jan 28, 2005 7:40 pm

Well, strictly speaking, it's not like you can just go into an inn in tabletop, and say

"Hey adventurers, let's go kill the ancient great wyrm red dragon up north so I can get my new sword/spell!"

Chances are, except for a rare few, they'd look at you like "wtf?" and wish you well in your newfound death wish. :p

So yes, it will be harder to get groups for dragons. What of it?
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Rather than seeing "subpar race/class," see "challenge."
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Postby Sesexe » Fri Jan 28, 2005 8:20 pm

I'd just like to emphasize my gratitude towards the staff for making a much needed aspect of the game challenging again! I'm looking forward to battling dragons as much as I am in riding one tomorrow afternoon :)
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Postby Yasden » Fri Jan 28, 2005 9:04 pm

Sesexe wrote:I'm looking forward to riding one tomorrow afternoon :)


Make sure you use protection, you freak. :P
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Postby Lilira » Fri Jan 28, 2005 9:26 pm

Areandon wrote:What will this mean for already very hard dragon fights. I imagine that for the endfight for fire embody it will be even more harder to get a group for now. Same holds for fights like pyrohydra i guess.


Pyrohydra...

Shudder....

That was NOT fun.

I see two of those fights in my future, as well all the dragons for Ancestral Shield.

And the battle tomorrow is gonna kick booty with them on OUR side!!!!

WOOT!!!!
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Postby Salen » Fri Jan 28, 2005 10:54 pm

Why are any of the hydras considered dragons?

The are stupid (can't cast)

Don't have wings (can't buffet)

Should only have single breath is any at all.
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Postby Jegzed » Fri Jan 28, 2005 10:55 pm

Kobud tells you 'well we went to clouds today.. we were owning the patrols for a while charging grid.. and we ran into a young cloud giant that spanked us'

Kobud tells you 'err young cloud dragon'

You tell Kobud 'suspect they gotta tweak the dragon code for lowlevel dragons'

You tell Kobud 'clouds and cc are !doable right now.'

Kobud tells you 'nod.. im not touching anymore dragons for a few days'

Kobud tells you 'chlora was a frickin spankfest this morning'

Kobud tells you 'but we needed it for the rare so we threw corpses at it till it died'

You tell Kobud 'I dont like how they get to do so many stuff each round.. that should be level-dependenet'

You tell Kobud 'I mean.. if Chlora spanks a 15person group.. thats COOL'

Kobud tells you 'yeah definately'

You tell Kobud 'random CC dragon spanking = gay'
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Postby Sesexe » Fri Jan 28, 2005 11:19 pm

Has it been confirmed that the CC dragons have the new Dragon code? Or is this all just speculation?
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Postby Bilraex » Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:21 am

Love the fact that dragons were made harder, but right now they are silly. Just did ancient silver for ashield, this is a dragon that before changes could be solo'd. It did 400+ dmg in the first 2 rnds from a buffet and breath. My 81hp gheal takes more than 2 rnds to cast when I make qc.
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Postby rer » Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:28 am

Considering that dragons are supposed to be 30 times as large as humans, give or take, it makes sense to make them hard as hell to kill.

Looking forward to Tiamat with these changes in!
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Postby Salen » Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:29 am

Multiple proc actions in a single round is retarded. It was retarded with old dragons and it is still retarded with new ones. Bite followed by buffet.
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Postby auslyx » Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:34 am

saying something's retarded isn't constructive :P However, I'd like to see that these buffets while proc'g extra clawing would be 'lesser buffets' a.k.a. just a 2 round bash maybe rather than 8 rounds or whatever it was.
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Postby rer » Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:34 am

Multiple procs makes sense in some cases - a fire breathing dragon that bites in the same round for example - MMMmmm! Toasty Salen!

Wing Buffet and Tail Sweep do not make sense together - to whip back far enough to Buffet, and still swing their tail around at the same time, and be close enough to hit - I dont think so.

Of course, I dont know how much coding would be required to differentiate different combos of procs, but... just my 2 cents.
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Postby Salen » Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:40 am

Nope, I'm sticking with retarded.

Buffeting should be a major ass action that takes a reload time before they do anything else, let alone another big action.

Being able to stack mass damage attacks is lame. I had the 300 pt bite + buffet +regular attacks in a single round. Dscales did nothing whatsoever.

I realize there will be some adjustments. I'm just hoping someone notices the stupidity of the !delay procs this version of dragons.
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Postby Elet » Sat Jan 29, 2005 8:12 am

Sesexe wrote:Has it been confirmed that the CC dragons have the new Dragon code? Or is this all just speculation?


not so sure bout cc dragons. but hell 15 people groups spanked to young cloud dragon? that's sux0r

HAGE!
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Postby Lahgen » Sat Jan 29, 2005 2:14 pm

One more thing to bear in mind:

I don't know for sure, of course, but it's possible that Shev made them this strong so he could receive your input and get an idea of how to make it more manageable.
Kesena OOC: 'i wish my daddy bought me power tools'

Dorgh group-says 'damn, even with Cofen helping Mori, they STILL can't kill someone

Hekanut says 'I know level doesn't matter much, but most won't take seriously if a level 2 claims to be the best thing before, during, and after sliced bread.'



Rather than seeing "subpar race/class," see "challenge."
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Postby Salen » Sat Jan 29, 2005 3:50 pm

There has got to be a better way of testing this stuff than 'Let's just drop it on the live Mud'. Throwing away a level or 2, possibly some eq to hear 'Oh, we didn't know. We'll tweek it some' sucks major.

I feel sorry for those of you who need AShield/Dscales/Inferno... anything that requires Jabber/Hydras, cuz you prolly aren't getting it.
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Postby Corth » Sat Jan 29, 2005 4:06 pm

Instead of losing levels against them, Salen, how about avoiding dragons for a day or two until they can be tweaked?

Corth
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Postby Grunelda » Sat Jan 29, 2005 4:07 pm

Think I have to agree here Salen, has to be a better way to test it.

I've joined every dragon run that I knew of since the new code has been brought in. We have tried differing combos of classes, differing combos of spells etc. We have yet to have one success and racked up probably 50 player deaths. Now some of the regulars on these runs are not as willing to try because they are out xping for the first time in a long while. :P

I'll keep trying if asked, but my eagerness is fading.

Grunelda
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Postby Salen » Sat Jan 29, 2005 4:25 pm

Corth

First, a day or two who's time?

Second, if no one says anything, nothing gets changed.

Third, if no one does them, no one knows anything to say.

Fourth, I'm out of nachos.

Fifth, the first response is always, 'Get better. Try different tactics', so we have.

Sixth, never pass up a fifth.

Seventh, I have little faith in 'Change is coming' since at least 1 of the problems have existed since dragons got buffet and never changed. (Buffet/breath same round is now buffet/bite/breath/tail/pounce)

Eighth, if no one says anything, nothing gets changed (actually eighth is repetition is all that seems to be heard)

Ninth, thou hast lost an eighth.
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dragons..

Postby daggaz » Sat Jan 29, 2005 4:25 pm

The code is kickass, but it needs to be mitigated for dragon type/level.

Hatchlings, I really do not think, should be able to roar as well as they do. The clouds hatchlings roared constantly, and heres the new twist, you flee even if you are casting. It does make sense tho that they roar more and proc less, as they are small and can only buffet effectively against gnomes. But such a terrifying roar, constantly? Nahh....

As for multiple procs, yeah they are cool, but highly powered and should be for the more experienced dragons, and still not something the dragon does constantly in battle. Otherwise dragons are just meat grinders and nobody does them and all this great new code goes to waste. That young dragon in clouds that spanked our group roared, triple or double procced the first victim, and just kept on going. I couldnt cast dscales without being roared out. People died left and right. It was overkill and took away from the experience.

One last thought...how about a hidden counter for dragon killing experience? Harder dragons = more points. A highly experienced dragon fighter would have less chance of being terrified by the roar, might even give a tiny bonus to dodge. Just a thought.
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Postby Grunelda » Sat Jan 29, 2005 4:45 pm

Fine points Dagaz.

Also I would like to add: why do undead flee everytime on a roar? Do undead feel fear or awe? I really doubt they do feel anything but hatred if they feel or experience the world as we do at all.
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Re: dragons..

Postby Vahok » Sat Jan 29, 2005 10:28 pm

daggaz wrote:The code is kickass, but it needs to be mitigated for dragon type/level.

Hatchlings, I really do not think, should be able to roar as well as they do. The clouds hatchlings roared constantly, and heres the new twist, you flee even if you are casting. It does make sense tho that they roar more and proc less, as they are small and can only buffet effectively against gnomes. But such a terrifying roar, constantly? Nahh....

As for multiple procs, yeah they are cool, but highly powered and should be for the more experienced dragons, and still not something the dragon does constantly in battle. Otherwise dragons are just meat grinders and nobody does them and all this great new code goes to waste. That young dragon in clouds that spanked our group roared, triple or double procced the first victim, and just kept on going. I couldnt cast dscales without being roared out. People died left and right. It was overkill and took away from the experience.

One last thought...how about a hidden counter for dragon killing experience? Harder dragons = more points. A highly experienced dragon fighter would have less chance of being terrified by the roar, might even give a tiny bonus to dodge. Just a thought.


Daggaz hit the nail right on the head. Little dragons (ie. cloud hatchlings, CC dragons, etc.) shouldn't have the impact their older brothers have. Maybe adjust hps, drop roar (who would be scared of a baby roaring, dragon or not?) or something to make the lesser ones managable. The big, bad dragons...sure, make them have a bit of fear to them. But a group of 15 level 50's should not get wasted totally by them. Personally, I'd rather see dragons target single PC more. If the dragon is smart/lucky and kills a couple group member that way, that would cut off the lifeblood of a group, causing a realistic spank. But having half the group fleeing out and the other half lying on the ground is lame. Dragons should kill players from horrible damage, not the other effects which we have no defense against. Dragon fighting shouldn't be just plain luck in terms of "I just hope this dragon only roars 10 times this fight". I understand that dragons should be one of the more powerful foes in the game, but good luck questing now since everyone is scared.
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Postby Demuladon » Sun Jan 30, 2005 4:26 am

Make roar effectiveness dependent on various factors eg number of group members in room, and group morale in room.

Use prestige to determine group morale.. 1000 prestige = 1 morale point.

if group moral in room is less than "roar points" of dragon then player flee's begin.



Could include room size and terrain type into calculation for extra fun (large room flat terrain =roar less effective)
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Postby Dezzex » Sun Jan 30, 2005 7:02 am

Now can we finally get rid of the 532 superfluous dragons that zone makers like to throw in willy nilly, resulting in more dragons than friggin gophers?

There wouldn't be half the backlash there is if dragons were actually... rare. It might even be cool. Unfortunately they are far too prevalent.

Actual zones like Musp or Jot that might have reason to have a couple dragons walking about don't bother me too much, but when you're walking from DK to HP and you see 3 dragons that's just ridiculous.
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Postby Corth » Sun Jan 30, 2005 5:18 pm

Agree Dex.

Additionally, besides making them more rare... certain areas are going to have to be tweaked up to remove the gratuitous extra dragon that got tossed in a room full of mobs... or the *egads* multi dragon rooms!

Corth
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Postby daggaz » Sun Jan 30, 2005 6:18 pm

actually vahok (im too lazy to use the quote function) I would have to disagree about a bit of what you said. I think dragons should definitely have some skills/attacks which we have no defence again, and they most definitely should be able to scare half the group off and knock the rest on their asses. At least, the really big ones should. The REALLY big ones outta be able to slay a character in one bite, imho, and if it were up to me, the nastiest kind would actually swallow half your corpse, say from the waist up. Or the whole thing. Or maybe just your arm, or head. But those would be the nasty mothers.

And yeah, I also think big powerful dragons should be far more rare. Their broods, and lesserdragon kin it seems ok to have a bit more scattered to the winds, but I always thought it silly to see those metallic dragons plogging up traffic on the kings highways. (WHY must they load on roads? didnt anybody read the dragon manual? only some do that)

One last thing... I dont think it should be impossible for one or two people, with awesome skill, equally awesome luck, and powerful items, to slay a dragon. The legends are full of such stories...far more often than stories of fifteen man butchersquads. Perhaps the code could be tweaked so that dragons only used their full force on large groups. Small two or three man teams would play on the dragons ego, causing less fear and raising less of a defence. It should still be hard as hell of course, with enough fear and risk to be worthy of the legends. But a chance... yes.
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Postby Disoputlip » Sun Jan 30, 2005 9:08 pm

Dragons should not have the proc where you have to use bandage. (bleed proc?)

In AD&D this is a very special attack that only Barbazu have. And only because they have a specific glaive. (proc in weapon, not on mob).

I really like that the change has been so breathweapon match AD&D. Bleed proc is sort of ruining that.
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Postby Jegzed » Sun Jan 30, 2005 9:51 pm

Maybe dragon bleed should be a different bleed proc.

One that continues for 1d4 ticks, draining 40-60 damage each tick.. but can't be bandaged...
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Postby Sesexe » Mon Jan 31, 2005 4:42 am

Salen wrote:There has got to be a better way of testing this stuff than 'Let's just drop it on the live Mud'. Throwing away a level or 2, possibly some eq to hear 'Oh, we didn't know. We'll tweek it some' sucks major.


Look at it this way Salen, you're playtesting. You have the chance to actually influence the direction of an aspect of the mud by your constructive feedback. No shit.

Furthermore, as was harshly evident with the campaign finale saturday, despite how much and how long the staff tested code on testmud, they still couldn't forsee the plague of unforeseeable circumstances that only happen on the damned main mud.

Or do you honestly hold your own point of view as an experienced player so low?


Ps. It's not like testing to death on testmud makes a lick of difference when everything goes to f'n hell on main anyways. I'd rather have the chance to offer feedback in the making, and hear the views of others who've been here over 8 years as well. I don't get that on testmud.
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Postby Sarell » Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:37 am

Perhaps make new dragons a new class and just manually change the dragons that should be them into this new class.

Chlora, Saks, Alphabet, Infernos, Tower Silver, Deep Dragon, Oakvale Global Dragons, Ancestral Shields, Q(cc), Quartz, Red Dragon for Embody, Shadow Dragon, Clouds cloud dragon silver dragon red dragon, green dragon at nazi, the 2 big dragons at ic2 (out of 4), Musp dragons excepting the baby reds (have to think hard about the dragon room), Jot white dragon on hill and with loki, Jabberwok....

That might be a much easier solution than having to base attack styles on level, and would stop you from having to assess the level of each dragon in the game.

Rooms with multiple dragons are going to be tricky, 3 reds at tia was always super hard, with current dragons any 3 dragons in a room would toast you. I think the problem is with adding more large area damage procs that don't have check on how often the mob can use them. If I recall correctly in DnD they used the idea that a dragon could breath 3 times a day, this made it so that you had to think about when the dragons would breath not just have them spout it every round. Perhaps just some sort of lag time on the effects and random chance of using the area effects depending on how many people are in the room, so that you couldnt just get it to waste skills and lag itself on pets/clerics and rangers.

I personally was pretty against wingbuffet being so unchecked on dragons. I thought that it made them too random in terms of, oh darn we got unlucky, have to CR, which was boring. Rather than being able to say more like, well we have 10 average people, it will be a hard fight, but 15 decked heroes should make it a bit easier. I think unchecked large amounts of area damage spanking you just isn't much fun. Maybe once or twice for WOW that was unlucky factor, butnot going into a fight that is just going to be like a coin toss whether you get unlucky and die.

I really really like the new variability of effects dragons are equipped with and believe this will ultimately fix the wingbuffet all or none problem I have just described when we find the right levels for it.
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Boboloppe
Sojourner
Posts: 63
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 7:09 am

Dragons and mass damage

Postby Boboloppe » Mon Jan 31, 2005 7:18 am

Ok I may sound negative here but then again I'm pretty negative on this topic. However I'm going to be as constructive as possable.

I don't like the way the dragon code is being pushed. from my experience with the dragons before and after they just seem to hit the whole group with a massive breath/spell/buffet/tail attack. to me this isn't really multiple Items it just the same thing with different text maybe a bash or stun and maybe if you are unlucky it nukes your gear.

I think a system where breath and all other area attacks do less damage becouse they are covering a large area with a single attack. would help to offset the lower damage of areas add into the code single or 2 target attacks that do more damage becouse if a dragon breaths on 15 people scattered about they will take less damage than 1 target getting the full force of the same dragons breath.

instead of a braud sweep of the tail let them swing it like a club to strike 1 or 2 fighters doing good damage and possably bashing or stunning them.

in other words make the dragons do alot of damage in a way that we can deal with and use good stratagy to defeat them. if 1 or 2 men go down we will need to regroup on the fly in the battle to fill in the way it is now it's basicly can we get lucky and not get area attacked enough to die before we kill it.
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