The Dragon is soloable in Grumvald.

Ultima IX aside.. how many dragons have you ever defeated in an Ultima without any kind aide? Single player Ultimas (again IX aside.. and I suppose the Underworlds but I don't recall them having dragons anyway).. were always played as a party.. ok ok.. minus I & II but that was the technology at the time. From III through VII (don't recall dragon's in VIII either come to think of it).. you almost always had companions.

As they are working on companions for offline mode.. why should anyone be able to solo something like a dragon without them? The Last Dragonborn has come and gone..

 

A true SP experience from Richard.. as I just pointed out above.. doesn't always mean traveling and fighting alone.

 

Why should a dragon not be soloable? Before we pushed for companions the plan was to be alone in offline mode. So how would we defeat dragons if we would be alone? Also we don't know yet how the companion system will work. Will companions be at our side all of the time? Will the leave to do their own thing? How will they support us in combat?
So right now I think that when playing alone, every Monster should be defeatable. Should it be easy to kill a dragon alone? No. Should it be doable? Yes.

As for SotA not being the Witcher 3 or Skyrim.... basically I expect the Sp (offline) to be a single player game comparable to Skyrim and The Witcher. Not in terms of AAA graphics or presentation but in terms of how it plays and feels like. A true SP RPG experience like The Witcher 3, Skyrim, Fallout, Pillars of Eternity...

 

Because they're freakin' huge and nasty?

I never once heard that or was left with that impression.. and even if it is true.. so what? That's not the plan now. You're not forced to be alone so why should the game assume you have to be?

So what if we don't know. It'll get worked out. Just because we don't know how the devs will pull it off.. does not mean we should ignore the existence of companions now and assume they'll be worthless in a fight. If the goal is you shouldn't be able to solo a dragon without them in SP.. then we should assume it will work as intended.

I expect a true SP RPG experience like Ultima.. like any other Lord British game.. with companions. As SotA is after all, a Lord British game billed as a spiritual successor to Ultima.

 

As far as I know SotA is a game, where everybody can choose the own favourite game style - a selective game style game so to say I agree - in multiplayer mode the dragon shouldn't be easy conquerable by one person. I suggest the devs fix that and make the strength of the monsters, big bosses and so on scalable. And of course all these super monsters should be conquerable in solo mode - there is no doubt

 

I should be able to beat any monster in game, as long as they come up Green or Blue on the conning system.

The ability to solo the dragon comes with shear experience. If the Dragon comes up Green to me (20+ levels Below me) why shouldn't I be able to beat him? Blue I should have to work, but I should be able to beat him.

Now, it should be more work than Jobe goes through here, granted, but on the issue of him being solo-able, yes I believe he should be.

 

/em munches on popcorn

 

@Lord_Darkmoon You DO realize that enemies in SP are being retooled/balanced differently than their MP counterpart, right? It's been mentioned (to my dismay) more times than I cared to count.

That's what I'm expecting too. While I hate baby-sitting companion NPCs when I play RPGs, I want a reason to surround myself with companions and I expect the AI to be competent in combat.

 

Of course. But I meant single player RPGs in general, not something the pretends to be a single player RPG but instead is a (offline) MMORPG in disguise

Sure but what about SP online? Will this mode be balanced as well? Or will I be forced to go into MMO mode to kill the Dragon?

 

I sometimes think that players consider the Devs braindead. Should any creature be solo-able? In other words, should they sell a game as single player with content that cannot be completed? If companions are a key part of the story and a player plays entirely solo then it is their mistake if they can't complete all content. It is not the fault of the Devs.
These guys know how to make games and are not going to design something without considerable thought and discussion. Creating content that can't be completed is not a mistake they will make.

 

Yea I don't need another ffxi (though I will always love it) it required a lot of people to do anything.

I think the dragons Max hp/ hp regen need a boost to align it with some of the harder mobs that are out now.
only 7k hp? that's not much at all.

But it wasn't a bug that was used to beat him, just the know how for certain skills, that yea should be sorta nerfed against mobs like that.

 

In FFXI, long ago boss monsters were generally made completely immune (as in no dice roll at all) to certain spells, particularly Sleep, which has roughly the same effect as Root currently does on a monster in SotA (stops moving and stops attacking).

Also, debuff spells in FFXI specifically can not be "extended" by casting them on someone/something that already has that debuff in effect. It is strictly a "no effect" when that happens. If you want to keep something debuffed, you have to wait until the debuff expires (you can watch for the text message in the chat window when it expires), then you can re-apply it. (Admittedly in SotA you have to wait for the spell to return to the deck, but you can certainly give it a better chance of returning.)

It's just too powerful to be able to spam binds/sleeps before they have a chance to expire. This prevents a lot of exploitative behavior that makes boss monsters too easy to kill.

 

the dragons are missing the ability to snatch you up and carry you off, drop you, pick you up in there mouth and swallow you whole.

 

I remember when I first heard of RDM that solo'ed Kirin lol

But yea ud be surprised at what people can make soloable in games with enough knowledge

 

Did you seriously just post that? This is on par with an ignorant "you people" statement. If this isn't a troll post, I don't know what is...

 

I'm so confused. First he wants "immersion and the believability of the world" as per a previous statement, now he wants to solo dragons. Can we just not have epic bosses and have little bite size lizards; I don't see any believe-ability in a few humans going out and fighting dragons with much success. Even if you hurt it.. it'd just fly away.. fight or flight (literally) instincts and all.

~Wodin

 

Please, we debated a lot through the whole SP vs MP thing. Being able to defeat alone an enemy that's supposed to be defeated by a group is something that's relevant for all the playstyles. I think there's something interesting here, and it can be lost if we allow our passion to make it another argument to another discussion.

I agree with you regarding the amount of work required. I see the dragon appears as Yellow to Jobe, and he seem to be quite high level... I'm in the mid tier currently, and bear patriarchs appear yellow to me. Does that mean that a Dragon poses the same challenge to Jobe than Bear Patriarchs poses to me? I certainly expect it doesn't work that way.

IMO There are certain monsters in the game that should be above the conning system. Because of their size, or ferocity, or special characteristics. Also IMO, the game should be less dependant on the conning system (and levels) if we're supposed to enjoy the whole world when we're higher in power.

The way i see it, this is the old, standard approach. Just increase the stats so the player needs higher stats to defeat it. That's doable, but also make us to rely even more on character skills. I just wonder... How relying on character stats helps in making the whole of the game enjoyable? that kind of decisions push us in the wrong direction.

For me, this is the key. Don't design the dragon focusing just on "you need to have at least this DPS and this damage and this gear and that resistance". That's what i already have in plenty of other MMOs! Every fight should be unique, and the way of making fights unique is by adding behaviors to mobs, and means for the player to react to that behavior. In the same way, the dragon should be able to react to player actions. For example:
- as Moonshadow suggested, imagine dragons(TM) can pick you up with their mouth. In that situation your character should be able to use certain skills to break free from the dragon's prey. For example dodge or shield bash.
- Jobe used Ice Arrow to slow the dragon. Well... he's a dragon and he's immune to fire, and fire usually removes cold effects, so when freezed, the dragon could use some seconds to bask himself with his breath, removing the coldness and giving him TEMPORAL immunity to cold effects, and also preventing him to use his dragon breath on you.

That kind of behavior is what i'd like to see while fighting in SotA. That way you can solo a dragon if you have the stats (of course you need stats) and if you have the appropiate skills, but also if you have the luck of having the appropiate skills in the appropiate time, and the player skill required to manage all that while you move around and react. That's certainly a kind of fight that makes a game memorable.

 

Right now I see SotA as a single player RPG as this was promised and because we have an offline mode.
If there are dragons in the game I should be able to kill them in offline mode. With or without the help of companions as we don't know how the compansion feature will work yet.
If you need others to kill the dragon in MMO mode I don't care. But when I play in single player mode I should be able to kill the beast, too. If not then what use is the single player mode? I want to play alone and fight alone (maybe aside from NPC companions).
You cannot include a dragon into a single player game and then say "Sorry but this enemy can only be defeated in a group".

Another thing: You all seem to think about killing a dragon in open combat. But what if there would be more ways to kill it? In a single player RPG there could be many ways to kill the dragon. How about luring it into a trap? How about having rocks being dropped on it, it being driven into a lava pit or spikes or how about imprisoning it instead of killing it? Something that is more than just pressing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the hotbar until it drops?

 

I sure hope so. If you're playing the game solo because "humbug! I hate other players!" then why the hell are you playing online in the first place?

I fully expect the whole "fighting a dragon" as a completely separate thing from the "I want to farm stuff without competing for resources nodes".

So you're condemning something on the premise that we don't know how it'll work? And you want the game to be balanced with as if the feature would never exist?

We're all talking about open combat because that's how the subject was presented. It was showcased in online mode... one dude soloing a dragon... in open combat.

I'm not concerned about scripted events.

 

I think that there should be dragons and other bosses that are just impossible to solo and there should be weaker dragons and other bosses that can be soloed with a sufficiently high-level character.