Two ADV level 90's - dragon slaying difficult

All of these methods are "cheating" to some people.

 

Yea that's why i don't use the queen in chess. only for cheaters.

I'm not trying to say we should aspire to be like UO, and make things easy.

But it's also important not to glamorize UO as more balanced than it was, and also to keep in mind that UO was successful despite these "flaws," and not because of them.

What made killing dragons worthwhile was they provided 900-2000 gold, which you needed to buy a set of armor because you lost it. It's that symbiotic relationship that gave game actions value, not some kind of "challenging experience."

Every game will be reduced to its simplest path to victory. Humans play them, and humans adapt. You can try to make that path as convoluted as you want, but it won't add as much significance to the interaction as making that action an integral part of a bigger process.

In sota right now, i think that "bigger process" is mostly experience point progression.

 

Dang I cheat and still can't win!

I don't think it is cheating and apparently the developers didn't think it was cheating.

 

You kinda make your point... but you have to see that those tactics weren't intended to work so easily... as you said EA never had to improve the AI, they just went full level mode like WoW and created stronger monsters instead, some of which should not be more powerful than a 500 year old dragon.

a real dragon would have used telekinesis on your tambourine and peaced yourself, then made a nice BBQ

I have no real issue with players killing drakes, even some kind of lesser dragons... but a dragon is a dragon is a dragon.

Agree with your point about symbiotic relationship that does not exist in SOTA.

I mean I agree that players should be able to band and defeat a dragon, but it should still be rare, with as I said specific group tactics, weapon specialization, each dragon having different weaknesses to make it interesting.

Sure its a MMO, one hit kills are unfun... but this a DPS game and since we don't have counters and real skill based game, it sure would mean than unless in single player mode, dragons should be group content, not 2 players with the uber anti-dragon build of the day... a group.

 

Or they simply couldn't be bothered to hire a proper AI programmer I should know I worked for EA 3 years after Origin left...

It would have taken Origin 2 weeks to correct it, EA estimated it would cost 4 million $ and a whole year to revamp monster AI. Instead they went on to push back the skill cap, force everyone to max out resist and created harder and faster monsters, with the same lame AI. Heck you could drop a dragon with sacks of flour and a blade spirits... it magically forgot it had the teleport spell to land on your presumptuousness. Like it magically forgot it had dispel for peace and cure for poison... it was uber lame.

Then it became necessary to have the best weapons around to make sure you could clear that new content, and insurance made sure you didn't lose that perfect equipment and that in turn completely destroyed crafting. Then they had to improve crafting, and we ended up with the perfectly ripe RMT machine we know today.

Our devs say alot of crap about EA, but we're following the exact same path they did, almost point for point.

 

I used to farm dragons in UO as an archer.

 

By what, kiting them ? Making sure they stayed stuck against a stalagmite ?

Besides its not an argument... even the ancient wyrm which was 10 times as powerful people killed easily because the AI was almost non-existant.

3 of us could kill them endlessly... it was so boring and one of the reasons I quit again...

really walk in the park... I didn't even have to check my health or anything...

From Ultima Wikia :

Oh daemons really, they could invis themselves really ?

Dragons in UO has like 5 spells and never had any strong mind and fearsome magical abilities, because they were never finished.

Destroy a party before it even engaged combat.... that sure sounds like a one hit kill.

STRONGEST of creatures... in UO they were mid-tier and only able to shoot regular fireballs and firebolts, nothing like a dragon.

Oh here we say even the strongest warrior wilts under the magical flames !

UO also never programmed dragon eggs, that was in the plans, but EA decided to scrap it, like a 100 other important things.

Communion with other planes, 6th sense ? Invisibility... highly intelligent (aka I do not let myself be kited or dragged behind a rock)...

I could go on...

 

My point was that you didn't have to be a mage to kill dragons in UO. Dragons in UO were way too easy (especially considering how suckass archery was).

 

you're right... it was just an example I gave that made it easy. Other argument still stands...

Unless we don't care about continuity...

 

uh.. ok. In UO, I killed GREATER dragons with an anti-reptile bow. I can't remember the name of the bow, but it wasn't cheap. It was great fun, and I never "cheated" to get it done. In Ultima V, I would go out in search of dragons and sand traps, and kill them with magic axes. Great fun. In-fact, those were my favorite days in that game. U6, can't remember. U7, again magic axes.

Oh, and I DO remember reading that post. I know what you're talking about. I am willing to bet that you could ultimately kill dragons, with a little practice, in the very game that had that in the documentation. Look... I am not trying to argue with people here. I'm just saying that my favorite times in ALL of these games was when I was taking on the "boss" type creatures. If I have been playing the game for years, I expect that there should be some dragons I can kill, and some that I just can't! Is that so horrible of a concept?

 

Yeah magic axes... crystal sword... we do agree here.

In UO you are speaking of the period after EA made the game a WoW/EQ clone where you had powerscrolls and uber gear, effectively turning you into superman, in the end I could even solo the biggest baddest daemons from the deepest dungeons without even a hint of stress... it was almost a joke.

Exactly, we do agree on the scale too... there should be drakes and lesser dragons, or young dragons you could kill more easily.

And I will repeat myself, a real dragon should not look like some mutant crocodile that has his front claws atrophied into a mangled atrocity that would not even support the weight of the dragon's neck.

 

Yaar.

 

So many of us have been saying this for years! Why do you think they'll listen now? I don't expect anything will alter the current grind in the game. But, if they miraculously decide to finally listen because of this statement from BDF, I'll send him a cold one and reinstall the game.

 

thats worth a truckload, maybe we should make a gofundme, IS THAT LEGAL ?

 

We should think a little more about that, in particular.

How does the first person shooter makes it more fun while keeping the realism ? It invents body armor... which can deflect bullets to the head. No rules broken..

What made ultimas and UO fun is that you had to be a team, you had to be dynamic and as BDF keeps saying your actions had consequences. What we have is reminiscent but sorry I'll be brutal here, when you see dozens of players taking photos of themselves on top of a dragon like a hunt trophy we're not talking about pushing realism here, we are in the realm of pure... wait is there even a word for that ?

Not sure...

it's a question of imagination and logic.

 

Are you guys still talking about the subject of the OP ?

 

It's all interwoven because when killing a dragon is casual, pretty much everything is casual.

It comes to a point where its clownish and it feels like the game is for people to burn through, just like they burned through death decay like its some joke.

Theres a reason even the dwarves would not stand face to face with Smaug... right ? Cause he's a dragon, you can have the best armor if he steps on you, that's that man.

So yes, its totally on topic.

People focus on what *some* people, ok perhaps I'm guilty... but some people talk about the infamous "gap" then they use that as an excuse to ignore the broader subject at hand. Why are your complaining about the gap ?

Well did you forget the whole context ? It's not really the gap, we know we're going to catch up... its HOW people have created that gap that matters in a RPG.

It's also even broader in the sense that it speaks also of the scale at which time and money can acquire you said distance from the first plateau both in skills and power until episode 2.

I feel the scale is cartoonish, and incomplete.

HOWEVER, I think its pretty easy to correct.

So this is not a dead end subject like death decay *cough* pun intended, that should simply be abolished and buried and banished from at least this plane of existance.

 

I love how people always think that having a family and a job somehow stops them from playing good in games. I know some of the best MMO players out there who compete on top level just by being efficient, playing cooperativly with likewise minded people.

I can understand though that the motivation to play in this game is not very high... after all there is nothing to fight for in this game. I am sure if they'd address that, also people with less time would be able to find their place.

I agree in one point though. The game needs to avoid enabling the small groups that are left playing from getting too much control now. I would normally prefer that tbh, but the lack of players means it is very easy for a bunch of people to control any PVP asset we might get in the future. This game needs broad mechanics to enable all players to play together or against each other. Factions are well suited for that, or red vs blue mechanics with a justice system and maybe influence on certain areas of the map by good or evil forces. Guild PVP should be saved for later when the game has a healthy population.

Farewell.

 

I still don't really understand why people are so concerned about this "gap". Any game you pick up and play unless you are there from day 1 you are going to be behind the top dogs. Even in a game with level caps, the people playing longer have acquired better gear, deeper understanding of game mechanics, better skill from years of practice, etc etc. That's just how these things work. And yeah, some of these games have level caps, so while you may feel like you "catch up" there's a massive difference between a fresh capped player and a grizzled veteran if nothing else in terms of knowledge and experience.

The main difference is that Sota has no 'hard' cap, so you can see people with skills with higher numbers - the reality is that the softcap for xp and diminishing returns here are so brutal that while yes, there's a marginal difference between say, 120 and 140 in a skill, the xp required to achieve that is often as much as the rest of their entire character done-over. What I am saying is that someone dumping 50 million xp into a passive so that it gives 4 more min/max damage is not what is making the difference and it is not why people are able to steamroll content - a large part of this is down to player skill due to repeated practice, a large part of this is down to gear, and if their base stats are 10% higher across the board than someone with 1/100th of the playtime honestly I think they've earned it.

You are not going to stop the top dogs, those who can grind and play for more hours than you can possibly invest - and you will never catch up unless they quit, and this is true in EVERY mmo.
The problem is that there is far too much concern about what 'those' players are doing and far too much content is being balanced against the elite.
Just let them do their thing. Let them 'have' their xp bonus in multiplayer since every good multiplayer spawn is always occupied forcing us 'lesser players' onto FO just to find something to kill. Better yet - remove these bonuses if you're worried they only benefit the elite.

That's the beauty of selective game modes. You don't HAVE to compete - over anything - it doesn't matter if someone's stood killing the dragon every 2.16 minutes with a stopwatch - its not going to stop your group from doing their own thing in their own instance.

And if the devs wanted to stop this behavior they need to learn the way to do it is not to nerf the loot to pointlessness, or ramp the difficulty up to impossible, but just add flags limiting such things to however many times per day they deem appropriate - a quest timer to boss loot would solve any economic quibbles about boss farmers hemmoraging artifacts into the economy and maybe other players could actually loot one once in a while. However consider that the fact that they are doing so means you can take that money you made mining and simply go buy the artifact you need - honestly, probably a lot less tedious/risky than boss farming to begin with.

My point is just play the game - play it how you want, with who you want, and do the bits you enjoy. It isn't a race. We aren't even at launch yet. Some of the elite will lose interest when they have consumed all the content and have no more worlds to conquer. And that's okay. Others will stay and enrich the community with their knowledge, and that's okay too. It doesn't matter! If this were an open pvp game where you constantly had to worry about such people getting bored and splatting you for no reason, I could see the 'gap' concerns, but - thank goodness - it isn't - so why are you so concerned about what other people are doing? If you invest the same effort you can enjoy the same status, anyway.

I know I'll personally never catch the 'pack' - if they all quit today I'd probably have to keep doing what I'm doing for another year to even come close. The fact that I can constantly make my character ever so marginally better or every so marginally stronger is a key motivation for me to keep playing: doors being slammed in my face or reaching some sort of arbitrary cap or suffering through some pointless, useless decay system designed to slow people who will not be slowed begins to beg the question, "What am I logging in to do today?" "What do I want to achieve?" While I love the social aspects of the game, if the best thing I have to look forward to is relandscaping my lawn or picking an outfit for the next party, its probably time to move on to the next game. Sota has kept me as a player longer than any game in the last 10 years precisely because there's no end to what I can achieve and I hate to see the elegance of this system continually hampered to try and make us all "equal" - an impossibility from the start and against the original classless vision.

 

I read your wall of text... kind of smooth but you cite two extremes, it pushes us further from the truth.

Maybe Baron is simply misguided in some of his ideas about how to equalize that gap ?

I don't mind the gap... I mind what can be done with it, for if game there be then something needs to be gained.

In this paradox of you don't need to compete over anything vs play the game how you want it, I simply cannot even begin to play.

so sure, soft cap and all, but if the distance is so high and my only two choices are time or money... then its a rich man's "game" and that kinds of spoofs everything don't it ?

You say EVERY MMO has that gap... just think about what you say, take a deep breath if you will and then think some more.

I wouldn't be here if I didn't live what I say I am.

I'm not on game inventor forum I'm on SOTA forum and I pledged to a king to whom I am loyal by saying these truths.

All I'm saying is... scale down the dragon, smaller please, lets really focus as much as possible on continuity and honoring our inspirations. Trashing the nostalgia will get alot of people offended, and they might react by becoming even more rigid.

This should be a RPG and not a place where everyone has a dragon head in his bedroom. Why have this fantasm of achieving incredible feats of legend if there is noone more legendary to aspire/compare to ? And what makes him/her legendary should be much more than stats and skills and even political power.

It should have to do with virtue, ethics, favor from the gods.

I know... forbidden word