Two ADV level 90's - dragon slaying difficult

Nah it's me... I guess the rules weren't fully known it does makes it unfair, told you I'd admit it eventually. I don't pretend I can change the nature of a man.

We have a jester, a time lord, a magistrate, an obsidian eye, an oracle... but no king... and gods who abandoned us.

What has novia left ? an Avatar that nobody wants ? lemme laugh !

Sounds like nobody is ready to stop what is coming...

I have warned you all...

 

Well perhaps what they have done is proving insufficient as BDF suggests.

 

Not insufficient, just not what "he" thinks is sufficient. The Devs might have a different opinion then he does on what is an appropriate level. As some of the higher leveled players already stated, they are not leveling as fast as the lower level players are right now. I have quickly caught up to my groups highest level player and I only actually play a couple hours a day if that. We have new players quickly catching up to me.

 

They need to be more transparent with changes, especially to combat, the most important thing in the game. By far.

Forgetting that point for a moment, I'm mildly annoyed at any RPG that allows two people to kill a dragon by themselves unless they're gods or have something specifically lore-based that grants the power for them to do so. The idea that two people with bows walk up and kill a dragon plinking it with arrows is nonsense - especially when the only other mechanic needed is basic healing.

This is insanity to me. Also, there's a few videos on youtube of it. Suppose someone curious about the game looks up some gameplay videos to make a decision, sees a dragon, and then watches two players bow it to death with one of them occasionally healing the other if they get crit. No other mechanics. No dragonslayer, unique event nonsense. Two dudes just walk up and kill one of the most iconic RPG elements in a boring, self-admitted easy fight. Why would I want to play that game if, when it gets to the point that I can finally stand toe to toe with these mythical creatures, all I need is a friend, a bow, and a few minutes.

This should've never been possible in the first place.

/rant over, what the OP described is equally annoying. Major combat changes need to be more detailed - what was provided with the patch notes, release instructions, etc. is the bare minimum and woefully inadequate. Don't waste people's time being guinea pigs when major changes to gameplay are introduced to a game where progress has counted for a year and a half.

 

I think its poor game design when players want to skip content just to "catch up". Players should want to play the game and enjoy the journey.

 

If the player is inpatient and thinks they need to farm and farm to catch up to the highest level players then that is on them. There is no real reason to skip PvE content since there is no content in the game that a player can't enjoy at a low level that a high level player can. This is an MMO, the highest level player might be able to solo or duo the content and the lower level players can group up and complete that same content.

 

Yeah, this is an RPG/MMO. Everyone forgets about the "role play". Its sad when everyone just min/max to the endgame content, or lack thereof. I know many who play and like to just sit and get exp by being in a group. You can sit back and drink your big gulp, eat a pizza, watch netflix, while your in game character just sits and grows. Kind of like a plant, you just got to water it once in awhile.

 

That is the problem when you combine MMO and RPG. MMO is all about the end game and playing with friends. RPG is all about the story and being the character.

 

yep, thats why its bad game design.

 

I do agree with @Rada Torment that people should be in for the journey, but that requires knowing which rules you have to play by from the get go. And these have nothing to do with levels...

That is why I almost posted a facepalm when I realised people know that BDF wants something different, yet they do not seem to understand he means NO LEVELS. A real lord British game isn't level based, and let me remind you all that BDF never really played UO, he wants it because he had the time to think about what others have said, and decided it made more sense to him.

@TheBalance makes a fair point... when only LEVELS mean you can slay a dragon with a team of two, then there is all the achievements missing, the special weakness of each dragon, the specialization with a unique weapon which might allow a group to defeat it... it all becomes a kind of run of the mill indeed.

We say we are classless, but the efforts of the last two years showed we put almost all our effort on making all "paths" or "classes" balanced and to the extreme, making HUGE changes such as the last change on buffs, changes that SHOULD have been thought about from the beginning, when we said the magic word classless.

While I don't think this is bad for the RMT enabled SIMS we already know (and its a beautiful world, I really think it)... I think its not what many of us signed for...

And our concerns are being brushed aside with great swats of statistics, like the bag mode... oh 3% used it... well maybe its because it didn't work at all ?! But sure bag mode is more important in a skill based game with its gameplay advantages than in a level based game in which we chose the "REVELATION" (not my words) that the list mode is.

The same list mode that made me nauseous when playing WoW and EQ... and all for... convenience ? The other magic word our game brags not to encourage... no flashing exclamation point they said !

Our development brags about creating a hybrid, bringing the different player-bases together in one new world order. Well it seems we haven't succeeded.

 

I didagree, they can absolutely be both. I’ve played a fair number of MMOs that I absolutely loved The story and role-playing my character. In the same games I also loved just going out and playing the content with my friends. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever but again can’t be both. Many have.

 

Thats why at least studios like blizzard have at least created a PvE, PvP AND RP servers.

Because nothing overjoys a roleplayer more than seeing powerminers and powerlevelers running around ignoring their character and telling them to go away because they can't do anything to them anyways because they're protected by the oracle in their meta-activity.

Right ?

 

True. Some MMOs made this before, so yes, is possible. Lotro, swg, uo, eve...in all of them you can roleplay and find big groups of people doing same, the story in some comes from npcs, quests, and in others like EVE the story is created by players (one of the best sandbox experience).

 

Not sure what you disagree with. I didn't say they couldn't be blended.

 

People have to remember that even if it was a trauma for UO to lose origin and be split into two moons, people continued to enjoy the game for a long time afterwards, even with the hundred more sim like modifications EA made to it...

So there is merit to a well balanced RMT sims... rare things acquire value, PvP can flourish because risks are more meaningful (even without death decay) people find their kicks somewhere down the line.

People have learned to appreciate that kind of perfect pvp/pve balance which is an art, and lets give it to Chris, he knows what he's doing. So when you attract those players, its no wonder they will have alot of feedback and bug reports to make sure it becomes perfect, in the process you kind of alienate yourself from the core goal of revolutionizing the genre.

So yes, in stats those players play more, play to achieve, play to min/max... can't be bothered with core concepts which would make this game more like a spiritual successor. There was a grassroots effort to integrate as many of those elements as possible with limited resources, why are you whining ?

Then the roleplayer easily becomes the bad gal/guy, because stats do not truly represent him/her.

 

Right, I did or rather said they can't be blended by brute force, which clearly the cabal did with the "two moons" of novia.

 

I always hated this argument.

If my memory serves, a player could kill dragons alone in every Ultima game, and I loved all of those games. This argument is a lot like "you should die from one one bullet in this (First Person Shooter) game, 'cause that's how it is in real life!". Sometimes it is just better if we can do things in games that break the rules of what would happen in reality. Reality just isn't very fun.

 

Which I believe is the point of video games. We should be able to kill dragons.

 

Yeah well, sounds like you didn't play ultimas, or maybe you went to see the dragon once you had the ultimate weapon

To kill a dragon in UO you pretty much had to be a mage and use tactics that were in fact not supposed to work, but EA never finished the beast AI properly, it wasn't supposed to get stucked behind a boulder waiting for your EV to kill it. If you faced it "legally" the dragon could throw you 2 firebolts and 3 energy bolts all at once, it was a one shot kill pretty much unless you had GM resist AND were lucky.

I can see why people would hate this argument, they hated Ultimas and UO and prefered commercial RPGs in which you are superman.

Earlier in the thread I have quotes passages from ultimas that said dragons were the most formidable, unbeatable foe... yea it said unbeatable, but of course you didn't read the thread.

 

in UO you could farm dragons all day with just a resurrection robe and a tamborine

or add bandages/tamed dragon and invis regs if you wanted to do it on easy mode.