Amun now open! - Dragon Caves

[jorgeseg]

Originally Posted by bois

For the gears that the dragon will drop, I don't know what they are for sure.

As such , it is very difficult to speculate as it may well be that the current Amulets drop as well as something new in jewellery.
Weapons/ armour we don't know yet either.

Anyway , I had a look a Squid island. I must say I am quite pleased that NGD implemented the suggestion I made so many moons ago.

Okay. I had a look at most of the island and Ii am quite pleased. Three realm areas areas with very interesting terrain, separated by bridges with a central meeting point. A good challenging island for PvP and RvR. Excellent.
It is quite large as well which is a good thing. Like I suggested, it went off Ignis coast and I am quite happy about that.
Also, I am quite pleased that NGD finally decided to employ very expensive real estate in the persistent world that was going unused. That is, ocean space.

Unlike Linuxmage, I have no problem with the climatic type of the island. Green and foliage is the most attractive to new users and as such works for me. If we are looking at retention, you must go with the most desired colours and landscape.

Because of the proximity of trainers/ other useful NPCs to the teleporter on the main continent, it is not absolutely neccessary to have them on squid island. What I do look forward to are a few NPCs on Squid Island that give out a few simplistic quests.

There is still an issue that opponents can pass the Ignis wooden gates and camp the save. It does not seem to be an issue on the other 2 gates.

My only concern is this:
While level 1-15 looks like a great idea and is an excellent way to introduce players to what the game has to offer, I am concerned that players simply don't have the gear and more importantly, the power and discipline points to make a good go at this, say before level 10.
I counter my own argument by saying that seeing more players active in a zone ( and this island will surely do this) will give the aura of bustle and activity that makes players stay.

Since NGD has done so much work to simplify, shorten the curve and make levelling from 1-10 so quick, this may pass very quickly.
So quickly, that players now hooked on the RvR may struggle through the drought that would be level 15 to say level 45-50. It is going to be difficult for NGD to build 2 more islands of this type to satisfy the demand in the 15-35 range. Unless NGD has a further use for Carnival Island, they could still retrofit it for higher level RvR.

NGD knows better than me for they have the data but I still suspect that the biggest retention problem is not 1-10 but maybe a little later on at say 15-35.

In any case an excellent job so far.

What can Squid island use ?

One fort of the old model but with no guards.
One tough boss. I am suggesting you bring back Tankabon and make him just a bit more badass than he was before.
Tie a quest to this boss.

If the idea is to show the pvp aspect to newcomers, then it would be nice if u could train inside that island, and u get maybe 20 extra discipline points or something like that. Otherwise it wont be nice for mages, since lvl 5 warriors can easily kill lvl 5 mages and perhaps archers too... But again, only if the aim is to show the pvp aspect.. im not sure whats the main idea of the island but i like it.

[kmdk]

Btw off topic ,if you update ,are you planing to fix/change 2 hours respawn of Aggers market NPC's?
Seriously this is lame bug /feature ....

[Raindance]

Originally Posted by kmdk

Btw off topic ,if you update ,are you planing to fix/change 2 hours respawn of Aggers market NPC's?
Seriously this is lame bug /feature ....

Merchant in Altaruk was first, go wait in line.

[time-to-die]

Originally Posted by Frosk

.

Hi,
What is the role of archers @ the dragons. People don't even invite archers for the raid because they have no auras or heal spells...

[Phlue4]

hi,

Originally Posted by Frosk

The "final stomp" the fix note is referring to, is the power that the Dragon casts when the timer reaches 00:00.

This is done this way to avoid someone actually surviving the Stomp, and being weirdly removed outside.

Best,

You do know that you can climb up back to the starting point in Tenax' cave? (at least 2 days ago).
Being there, you will survive the stomp.

Originally Posted by V1r14

The harder the dragon is, the possibility of being picked as a Warlock, Hunter and Marksman shrinks, thanks to the 15-People-Limit.
It is a huge disbalance compared to the past Dragon. In the past you could at least visit the dragon.

and now what's better?
Having "only" three subclasses who can kill the dragon or the dragon being so easy it gets killed like 400 times a day?
If you wanted archers and locks to be productive, the whole system would have to be changed... way too much effort.
Least, the drop system is now rather fair. The way it was before was just...

(note: Daen Rha, Evendim and Thorkul should at least be adjusted to lvl 60, PLEASE!!!!! SUCH a minor fix. Please change the level of the superbosses to 60 NGD. Maybe there should be even more changes, but the level is the most important one for now)

---

Generally, I like this whole dragon instance thing very much

Originally Posted by kmdk

Btw off topic ,if you update ,are you planing to fix/change 2 hours respawn of Aggers market NPC's?
Seriously this is lame bug /feature ....

[Slartibartfast]

Originally Posted by time-to-die

Hi,
What is the role of archers @ the dragons. People don't even invite archers for the raid because they have no auras or heal spells...

The same role as warlocks have - none.

[GreekFireborn]

warlocks have some really nice debuffs though that can prove really useful(elemental exposure,infuriate,sadistic guards,petrify hands,laziness,fragility,curse,blindness)on debuff setup i have managed to drop twice with the old tenax Furthermore archers do have some useful debuffs as well though many do not notice(hinder,sudden strike,sticky touch,death sentence for hunter-finger crush for marksmen).Im not saying locks and archers are as useful as barbs knights and conjs but can certainly help in killing a dragon

[andres81]

Originally Posted by GreekFireborn

warlocks have some really nice debuffs though that can prove really useful(elemental exposure,infuriate,sadistic guards,petrify hands,laziness,fragility,curse,blindness)on debuff setup i have managed to drop twice with the old tenax Furthermore archers do have some useful debuffs as well though many do not notice(hinder,sudden strike,sticky touch,death sentence for hunter-finger crush for marksmen).Im not saying locks and archers are as useful as barbs knights and conjs but can certainly help in killing a dragon

The dragons have very high resist rates, my experience with old dragons was that one or two debuffs of 20 take effect and that is useless because one barb more in the group can do much more.

[GreekFireborn]

Originally Posted by andres81

The dragons have very high resist rates, my experience with old dragons was that one or two debuffs of 20 take effect and that is useless because one barb more in the group can do much more.

well what lvl charakter did u use?on my 60 lock almost no debuffs got resisted

[bois]

Originally Posted by jorgeseg

If the idea is to show the pvp aspect to newcomers, then it would be nice if u could train inside that island, and u get maybe 20 extra discipline points or something like that. Otherwise it wont be nice for mages, since lvl 5 warriors can easily kill lvl 5 mages and perhaps archers too... But again, only if the aim is to show the pvp aspect.. im not sure whats the main idea of the island but i like it.

The idea of the island is multi faceted.

1. Use the previously unused persistent world space. That is, the oceans.
2. Add a taste of end stage content for newcomers.
3. Make the game seem more active by new players seeing more foot traffic.
4 . Add a bit of diversity to the early content and hopefully improve player retention.

In addition it leaves room for such things as neutral NPCs providing unified quest content. Instead of making 3 quests each for 3 realms, you can have neutral NPC give same quest to all realms. This would be a big savings on programming time.

But , like I tried to suggest, maybe just maybe 1-15 is not a perfect fit. Maybe level 10- 25 maybe a slightly better fit. Only time will tell.
26- 40 could have carnival island. ( yeah I am pushing that hard but I think it could work on the cheap. )

A mechanism must be found for level 40 and above for those guys to compete in the main world.
To that end, I suggest offering level capped special ( I am sure they can do it) equipment , armour, jewellery and weapons to these level 35-50 players. They can be collected by drop from bosses and by premium quests lines
NGD should really investigate premium quest lines as a way of making money.

Actually, if I were NGD, I would cap all the current Dragon amulets to level 55 max and introduce all new amulets. ( Item whores insert rage now).

Like I said earlier, for the dragon lairs, the emphasis is on DPS. The dragon kill can be divided into 3 stages. DPS, mana reduction and ranged attacks becoming stronger.

1st stage is like normal. Melee damage and ranged damage stays the same.
2nd stage : the dragon armour increases for both melee and ranged. An energy type bar appears and this must be reduced (by mana drains ) to make the dragon armour weaker.
3rd stage, the dragon armour hardens thus it gains resistance against melee attacks. However, it loses armour resistance to ranged attacks both magical and physical. These ranged attacks become very effective at this time.

Thus, all classes have their part to play in the defeat of the dragon.