Sloving the dragoncase once and for all

[Alyeska 2,621]

Posted this before in another one of them dragon threads. I do think they need to be reworked before respawning, respawning them in their current way will still be a game of "which organized group gets it first" with the added bonus of "######, a dragon spawned on my deed and destroyed everything".

 

I think I forgot to add, all dragons should be male. Females are currently able to lay eggs, which makes farming them possible. (which makes it almost seem as if devs DID intend for people to pen and farm them at some point )

 

 

Nerf their drops, make them much weaker, make them respawn occasionally, make them die to old age, remove bashing.

 

-Nerfing their drops to one or two hides only makes them a less interesting target valuewise while still giving enough for a few drake sets to reward the people who kill it. (Drake hides weigh 15 kilograms and currently a dragon drops up to 8 if butchered succesfully. One drake can give about 36 drake sets, which is kinda ridiculous IMO and the reason that theyre so valuable). Scales would be the same way, one or two scales.

-Making them weaker allows smaller, less organized and newer players to also be able to fight them, instead of needing a large group of good fighters with top equipment. I'm thinking of something like 5 people to kill it. (currently you need about 15 to 20 top notch fighters with really good gear, you need a magranon priest to smite it, and fo priests to keep everyone healed) Tougher than any normal creature out there, but not extremely difficult to kill.

-Respawning them occasionally, say, every 4-6 months after the existing dragon dies, with an event message so people know its out there. Spawn an egg that hatched after a few days so it can be picked up and moved by players if its in an awful spot, or brought back home for the lucky finder to be killed or penned. The colour of the dragon that hatches should be completely random.

-Die to old age. If someone decides to pen rather than kill it, it will not prevent the next dragon spawnings. Also allows for a "peaceful" way of obtaining the loot. This would apply to a dragon in the wild too, so an unreachable or unfindable dragon will die after a certain time. How long a dragon would live would be debatable.

-Remove bashing. If youre going to spawn new dragons on an existing and built up server, it will land close to someones deed sooner or later and wreck havoc. The old age should take care of penned dragons anyway.

[Slickshot 1,195]

Yea, one thing that perked my interest in that game towards the end was the crafting system.  Other than that I was just way too expensive for me to maintain.  All of the end-game content was immensely affected by throwing mountains of cash at it, and it all seemed kinda pointless anyways.   There was little sense of accomplishment when all you did was buy hour house. 

I know right?  I dumped money into that game to buy some of my guild members mounts.  The leftover diamonds I used to buy gold with and dump said gold into my guild contribution just to level my guild up.  Pain in the ass game.  The essence of pay to win for sure.

 

 

The only reason I don't want to see this everywhere. Is because it's a unique armour that not everyone and there mother is using. And that's how it should stay in my opinion.

However when something is broken it needs to be fixed.  The price market and exploitation of penning dragons to make and sell drake is ridiculous and has been a broken mechanic for quite some time now.  It has need of being fixed.  You do this one of two ways:

1. Remove all drake armor from the game coding.  This would cause a ######-storm because most people who have drake have paid RL cash for it.  Did I mention they paid WAAAY too much RL cash for it?  More than it's worth?

Start spawning dragons again with the same drop rate or slightly increased.  This would make drake armor a little less rare and broken priced, however it would still be the best armor in the game and not at all easy to obtain.  After a few dragons have been killed and harvested the drop rate can be tweaked and lowered.  This would produce more drake in the current market, pulling the price down a bit to a more reasonable figure.  This would also give people who enjoy hunting and adventuring a new fresh experience in this game.

 

Option 2 sounds like the best option, doesn't it?  It's not a matter of if it needs fixing, it's a matter of HOW and WHEN to fix it.  It's coming folks, you can count on it.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Slickshot

[Kamill 61]

Sloving, the art of slow loving.

Embrace the dragons!

[meiyeeer 78]

+1 to respawning. Make them not drop loot if that's really an issue, but content shouldn't be locked to just the first couple people on a server. I also doubt that drake would drop in value that much if you can't farm them and they only spawn once a year or something like that (make it a holiday event maybe?). More people join and drop out every year than drake would be created.

[As_I_Decay 1,592]

"devalue the market"...

Rolf just devalued yours and my land... and offered no compensation at all. If Rolf has no issue with devaluing a transaction of an item I made with him, there's absolutely no reason he should protect player to player investments.

Respawn, full loot, after a period of time from its death.

[Shrimpiie 3,665]

Remove all drake armor from the game coding.  This would cause a ######-storm because most people who have drake have paid RL cash for it.  Did I mention they paid WAAAY too much RL cash for it?  More than it's worth?

Indeed it would cause a mass issue. Remove them, and see exactly what issue would ensue, and be on everybody's hands that were for it to begin with

Edited April 29, 2014 by Shrimpiie

[Klaa 4,872]

No need to remove existing sets.

 

If one doesn't like the proliferation of dragon armor, require that dragon materials be needed for future imping. One can already observe the impact of that on the Epic servers.

 

Even existing sets will get beaten down through usage over the short term.

[Slickshot 1,195]

Change is certainly necessary.

[Shrimpiie 3,665]

No change is needed when there is no problem.

[Ecrir 887]

No change is needed when there is no problem.

 

PvE in Wurm is really missing big group activities at the moment. Dragons are exactly that, but they are so rare it's ridiculous. Dragons are like raids in theme park mmos (except that you also need to actually find the dragons here, the raids usually have a pre-set location), so just imagine a theme park mmo where each raid can only be done once on a server, and then never again.That's dragons in a nutshell.

 

How is the lack of PvE group activities not a problem for a game which calls itself an MMO? That it's a sandbox MMO hardly matters there as respawning dragons does not go against the spirit of the sandbox, they could simply have flown in from unexplored lands.

Edited April 29, 2014 by Ecrir

[Hashirama 870]

WE NEED DRAGONS..i myself havent seen one and am tired of seeing the wiki images..every player needs this..those who want to earn from this...also need it...but making them usual like any other armour would cause them to be okay...and no major profit would be there from dragons...make drake get dmged faster than other armour types...better protection BUT more dmg to armour wearer...do anything to balance this stuff about the armour..and to the devs.. if you dont want to reduce the value of armours..make the 1st dragons give armour..make the upcoming spawns just like any other mobs..the new players DO want to see something other than the wiki images..do anything..but make a dragon right now! i dont care if it gives 0 money..or 100 gold...making them useless like any other mobs wont do harm to anyone..not even those "for the motion" and those "against the motion".. dont know about others..but I want the dragons
again..-1 to flying it will be impossible to manage it 'in a proper manner' and it will make the game crappy...and very very complicated..if its 2d...its for some reason

Edited April 29, 2014 by Hashirama

[Slickshot 1,195]

No change is needed when there is no problem.

No offense Shrimpiie, you and I have a lot of good convos, however you are a naive fool if you believe there is no problem here.

[Shrimpiie 3,665]

I have no energy for this debate anymore. People will always be people, always jealous of something they don't have but can obtain through hard work. I won't call people naive fools, but I certainly would call them delusional in thinking inspired only by jealousy. Removing Drake armor, or requiring an improvement only from Drake Hide is a vastly stupid change to make. Again, the best idea that has ever come out of these silly debates is to yes re-spawn Dragons, but not with full loot, maybe half loot or no loot at all, as the biggest point has always been that people want to see or fight a Dragon, not caring nearly as much about the armor.

 

As an added note: I have always defending Dragon's and Drake armor, even before I managed to save up enough for a set. Sure I have wanted to get in to kill a Dragon, but I never complained, instead I saved up my coins to buy myself a set of the armor.

[Slickshot 1,195]

I have no energy for this debate anymore. People will always be people, always jealous of something they don't have but can obtain through hard work. I won't call people naive fools, but I certainly would call them delusional in thinking inspired only by jealousy. Removing Drake armor, or requiring an improvement only from Drake Hide is a vastly stupid change to make. Again, the best idea that has ever come out of these silly debates is to yes re-spawn Dragons, but not with full loot, maybe half loot or no loot at all, as the biggest point has always been that people want to see or fight a Dragon, not caring nearly as much about the armor.

 

As an added note: I have always defending Dragon's and Drake armor, even before I managed to save up enough for a set. Sure I have wanted to get in to kill a Dragon, but I never complained, instead I saved up my coins to buy myself a set of the armor.

I'd say before you put your foot in your mouth...lol but you already did that.  This is why I called you naive.  You believe the ONLY reason for change is due to "jealousy" and that is so simple-minded to think that way.  I honestly feel like you haven't read many of the long posts concerning why dragons should be respawned.  Many of these posts bring up  good points and good ideas for how to respawn them, but you look right over them because you're a fan of the drake armor you hold.  Biased much?

 

And in your last sentence you said you never complained about not being able to hunt a dragon, but instead saved up your coin to buy a set.  Good for you bud.  You seem to think it all revolves around people being able to have a set of drake.  Drake can piss off for all I care, and for what most care, we just want the opportunity to hunt these big baddies like any other hunter would enjoy.  I don't think that's too much to ask honestly.  It hurts absolutely nothing to spawn a dragon every once in a while with little to no loot drop.  Think about that for a moment.  List the pros and cons.  There are 0 cons on that list.  So remind me why you are against it again? 

Edited April 29, 2014 by Slickshot

[Shrimpiie 3,665]

No body likes to read over walls of text, especially when they span several pages. I've seen a fair share of Dragon topics, and it has been extensionally beaten out, so my reply is based on the general theme that each one has held.

[Jeixi 146]

No body likes to read over walls of text, especially when they span several pages. I've seen a fair share of Dragon topics, and it has been extensionally beaten out, so my reply is based on the general theme that each one has held.

 

Alright, so rather than argue with you, I'll just point to the poll results so far. 

[Slickshot 1,195]

Alright, so rather than argue with you, I'll just point to the poll results so far. 

And the truth, will set us free.

[KanePT 699]

Posted this before in another one of them dragon threads. I do think they need to be reworked before respawning, respawning them in their current way will still be a game of "which organized group gets it first" with the added bonus of "######, a dragon spawned on my deed and destroyed everything".

 

I think I forgot to add, all dragons should be male. Females are currently able to lay eggs, which makes farming them possible. (which makes it almost seem as if devs DID intend for people to pen and farm them at some point )

 

 

Agree with most of what you said, i'm on the fence about nerfing the hide, though. But i guess that if 3-5 players can kill a dragon by themselves then it really doesn't need more than enough hide for 1-2 sets max.

 

Indeed it would cause a mass issue. Remove them, and see exactly what issue would ensue, and be on everybody's hands that were for it to begin with

Can't be any worse than Rolf personally logging ingame, Destroying a Reinforced wall and allow a group of players to loot at least a set of said rare "s*** storm causing armor".

If the armor isn't that rare, but made simply hard to obtain, then it would be adding several new positive features to wurm:

1- Would have something actually hard, just not unbearably slow and tedius, to the game.

2- Would have a goal for PvE players (both fighters and some crafters, something to strive for and achieve, not just "look at my bling and numbers". This is something that i've been feeling lacking for a while now. A driving force to keep me engaged on wurm. Which is why i've been logging in for 30m and then leaving lately.

3- Would solve some of the issues with Chaos where people are too scared to join because of older players being severely overpowered, also would forfeit the need to actually have a safe storage for the overpriced armor, since it would be easier to obtain.

 

No change is needed when there is no problem.

Lol delusion is strong there mate. You can bury your head in the sand, but that doesn't mean the problem won't be there when you take a peek.

 

I'd suggest adding dragons and go for a "Raid boss" scenario:

 

Tone the dragon down so that it can be killed by smaller groups without the need to recruit people from other servers to get a kill. Give less loot, have dragons (and other uniques) spawn more regularly, i'd say twice a month have a random unique (not just dragons) spawn on each freedom server, maybe more aggressive spawns on chaos and epic (to feed the need for armor and such).

 

Maybe create a special "building" that spawns with the unique. The Unique creature itself won't roam outside of the building unless challenged. Maybe make the building a spawner for specific "minion" creatures around it (shouldn't be much harder than current trolls/champions).

 

If combat is ever improved, AI and special attacks that require specific actions can be added to make the combat more engaging. Even with current combat stuff like the creature saying "I'll smite you!" in chat and then after 1-2s doing a very damaging aoe 1 tile around it, that needs to be dodged by disengaging (or other simmilar stuff) can be added.

 

Give it a timer (displayed through event messages or dialog from the creature) once timer is over the creature runs away, or pushes players out of its dwelling and the dwelling will teleport to a new location.

 

Have said dwellings spawn on specific conditions (flatish land with a certain radius away from deeds).

 

Finally add new crafts, similar to drake using new materials dropped by each unique. (Like Forest Giant Bark for special wood items (like unique shields that are lighter and take much less damage from fighting, etc.) Maybe even add a few new uniques (to be renamed "bosses" or whatever) to the pool with new stuff. I mean this is a fantasy sandbox, its not like you lack options.

 

Current state of things does not promote a healthy community, does not promote interest in the game only thing it promotes is greed.

 

I think also a few countermeasures could be added for inter-server farming, so the spawner building would deny entrance to people that have changed servers in the last 3 weeks. (Or something appropriate).

Or if a char kills or participates in the killing of a unique he has to wait 28 days (standard month for most wurm things) to be able to enter the spawn building again.

 

Also note that the spawn building doesn't actually need to be a specific building or the unique even spawn in it. It shouldn't be too hard for a dev to carve away a few islands in GV have the uniques spawn in each island and have the building act as a portal to each of the islands, although this would probably mean that a lift on the skill cap at least for fighting, healing, characteristics and priestly things would be required.

Edited April 29, 2014 by KanePT

[Slickshot 1,195]

Greed-train, all aboard!

[Alec 730]

I'm here just to remind you to keep that stuff far away from Epic.

 

Thanks.

[KanePT 699]

I'm here just to remind you to keep that stuff far away from Epic.

 

Thanks.

What wouldn't like to fight a dragon?

[Alec 730]

What wouldn't like to fight a dragon?

 

I wouldn't like to need scale/drake for PvP or more ways for people to make RL cash out of the game.

[Slickshot 1,195]

I wouldn't like to need scale/drake for PvP or more ways for people to make RL cash out of the game.

That's the point though. lol  People make RL cash on drake because it is so rare and they hoard it.  If it were more available it wouldn't be so costly and not worth paying so much for.  On the flip side if you remove it all-together or nerf it a bit, it wouldn't be so costly or so overpowered.  Either way, change must happen.  You know it, I know it, everyone knows it.

[Deathangel 427]

I like the idea mentioned previously that the first dragons of the server drop loot and that they respawn after but do not drop loot. Seems balanced to me, economy wise. New players will get to fight them, old players investments won't go to waste.

Edit by loot I meant hide or scale.

Edited April 30, 2014 by Deathangel

[Druidnature 1,118]

Only way this will ever work is if they respawnable with either new armour type, don't drop at all, or only drop 1/5th (change value slightly) of normal.

But first, dragons themselves need to work.

Imping drake with drake, is the stupidest idea I've ever seen, and it will continue to be. Unless someone has 1000KG worth for my two sets.

Just yesterday, a few kills brought my armour from 78ql to 72 (chest and legs)

Even buffed to take 1/100th of that, it's stupid and illogical even with dragons on full loot.

No loot, 1/5th loot, or even better, new cool looking armour with similar/same stats, just a new look. (Benefits current armour holders and none-armour holders)