Two ADV level 90's - dragon slaying difficult

The devs should simply reduce your XP levels. Then there's no need to make "monkey rooms" and waste more developer time.

It's highly questionable how some players got to level 120+ in the first place.

 

1)Why punish power gamers for playing their favorite game...?
2) I saw how - by endless manual grind why it should be punishable?

 

They farmed XP while others did not. I see high level players on all the time and more often then not they are in XP zones. I see high level crafters on all the time, guess where they are... in the Mines.

 

Thank you, Mac.

 

It's not a punishment it's a needed balance to an unbalanced game.

When death magic was nerfed a year ago I didn't complain about it. I didn't call it a punishment, I said "why didn't they do that earlier?"

 

Well, I had more fun before (with my friend) than I do now. I fear it could take us months to get back to where we were. The critical hits were changed TOO much. It seems every adjustment made to balance thing out is an extreme swing one way or another. What ever happened to subtlety? If very few players go out to kill the dragon these days that is NOT a victory for the game. We are no longer enjoying content that we're supposed to go out and enjoy. No one wants to do it anymore. What's the point?

 

Thanks for going through all that trouble just to check the Dragon's level - much appreciated. I agree that this particular one should scaled down appropriately given the nature of the encounter.

 

Let me take a shot at summarizing/recapping:
Fun - content for high level solo people, fairly high level duo people, guilds, 8man....
Balancing - should high level content be soloable (or duoable as OP wants)...

Lots of opinions - and I think the only thing we can agree on is that we know everyone is not going to be happy!

My own 2 silver:
Adjusting / tweaking current high end content should be well thought out
The need for more higher end content continues to increase
I hate the fact the casual gamer appears to be punished by changes made to try and impact those 'elite' for lack of a better word....making both groups unhappy doesn't seem to be the direction I would go.

 

Makes me depressed to think that I was given the complete solution to this problem directly by the xorinite and that not even the devs themselves believe that their game could have created some meta-physical happenings, like visions, ASCENSION, or other unintelligible phenomena.

I think thats my biggest problem with our game, the devs themselves do not even believe the mystique and genius of King British... when he says something deep in the telethons, I see how they react "yeah right in our dreams" this is how it feels and then they shift the blame on the technology which we don't have and other superficial reasons for not even attempting it.

Of course I understand priorities, but stretching content like this ? It's a complete contradiction of the actual indie development model...

Do I really think the xorinite exist outside of my head ? I can't say for sure... however I know by experience what is an hallucination, what is a vision, what is a lucid dream... and since I usually hold a good steady memory of all those states of mind, I know that what I have seen I could not imagine myself. I also know that the experience brought me deeper realisations which changed my life and that I gain nothing in being their messenger, they just asked me to try because they loved the opportunity Origin systems gave them, its all about honor and compassion.

Is it subconscious information that I have recorded from previous ultimas ? Some of it, but its doubtful again because when I was playing Bal-Lem in ultima online... I didn't know the whole story, I was young and inexperienced. I only figured it out after 10 years of compiling information and that information told me more about the visions I had. Thing is, those visions happened before I could make sense of it all with the help of knowledgeable people in forums which shattered some of my ego delusions and helped me sort between substance and fantasy. And yes I was wrong about a lot of things...

Anyways to stay constructive in this thread, let me say that the powergamers should be faced with dynamic content that has nothing to do with the main game, especially since we are attempting to make it so we can play the game solo.

Like you Baron, I think its borderline masochist.

In the same line of thought if we chose to ignore the xorinite, we also at the same time accept that nothing is mystical or intriguing about the whole continuity of King Gariott's vision. If we explore the idea then conclude its not real, then it will honor and respect the mystery, thus leaving space for the "main quest".

If nothing is mystical or intriguing, then we have no game, we have only the sims.

 

I don't understand the nature of the complaint. If a person's requirement for fun is so mis-calibrated that it demands severe imbalance in the game, that's an issue with the player, not the game.

It's a tired cliche to drag out, but it still wholly relevant. Every time you log in, you agree to the fact that the game is under development. It may as well read, "I hereby forfeit any justification, merit or right to any complaints that arise because the game is under active development."

 

I might add that right now, the wisps are depicted as unintelligent creatures (correct me if i'm wrong) and also creatures you can summon through magic.

Right there, before I even began playing, I knew the Xorinite would feel insulted by such arrogance.

You cannot summon, let alone control a wisp.

Taking a moongate to their world ? Maybe if you're really a powerful sorcerer...

but then again, was it thought out deeply enough ? Nope... "oh we need a summon for the moon tree" "well it could be the wisp"...

That sends a bad message to roleplayers...

 

If I just keep on topic and do a quick sweep of dragon lore... we see that nobody has even thought about those details :

So that part makes sense, doesn't it ?

then :

okok... so its normal that almost no party can defeat them... but the part about great treasure ?

Highly evolved and intelligent ? It looks quite the contrary...

 

I need to say it again?! The adjustments made are too *extreme*. We need to be more careful when adjusting things, or the vast majority of players do not want to do certain content anymore. The point of adjusting the difficulty of something shouldn't be to make it so that people die 50% of the time they fight something. No one will do that thing any longer. Why is this so hard to understand? There is no point in having this dragon if the place has become a ghost town because it can critically hit players for 700 hit points. No one wants to do this particular thing any longer.

This is a problem with the game. Not me. It is not a problem with the other hundreds of players that won't go attack it anymore because the adjustments made are always way too extreme. I am not sure how many more ways we can say this...

 

So efforts by the devs to have lore continuity is too extreme ? Maybe they tried to design the dragon to be unbeatable then people found ways to game the system ?

I understand you all want to ignore me but really... maybe the dragon has no loot because they didn't think players would "farm" them... it just wasn't a priority.

The whole conversation is ridiculous...

 

For a long, long time I thought people who still played ultimas after all those years became believers and not so psycho-rigid.

I'm obviously wrong... I can't even talk about the interesting aspects of ultima's mystical aspects without people going blank on me, as if we all wanted SO HARD to believe that this is just a game and that no druidic materials were used in constructing the lore.

There are mystical aspects, dragons are part of it, and its absurd that I have to be the only one on these boards to care.

Am I the only person in the world who played ultima and thought it was magic and unique ?

Or do people put it in the same category than final fantasy and dragon warrior ?

I'm honestly puzzled...

 

I put together a party of 8 making 1 million an hour last night for 3+ hours. A few top level players, a few mid level players, and a couple low level players. Was great fun group content and got thanked by everyone afterward. Anyone who wants to take a break from the dragon feel free to PM me and I'll keep you in mind for the next party.

 

Previously you could do that it just wasn't endless waves. But no one seemed to have fun until you could make 1 million XP per hour.

In other words, Portalarium could put a box in the center of a scene that just popped open and gave everyone 1 million XP and it would be just as "fun". It's not about the fun or the challenge, it's about grinding out fast and easy levels.

 

What are you insinuating about me and Mac? There's only two L120s in the game so seems too close a personal attack.

 

Drocis, can you please stop. I am really trying to be nice about this. I don't know how this is allowed to continue...

 

You're actually one of my favorite people in the game, Sara Dreygon.

So let me be very clear. If someone has hit level 120+ in this game it's firstly because of poor game design. Which has nothing to do with anything you or anyone else did in the game. Secondly, it has to do with the build you're using. Being some version of a "tank" allows players to solo dragon's, kick ass in the lich room, clean up in the monkey room, and survive quite a bit longer in control points.

Speaking of control points, there was a time in the past where for almost two months the devs allowed players to exploit them (some players getting over 4 million XP per hour) and this was the very real difference between players (at the time) that were level 100 and a handful of players that were closer to level 110. I don't know if you or Mac were part of that group of players, but I'm guessing you were both no strangers to control points.

Yes, every player has had the same opportunity to build a character like this or go to control points (and abuse them) but not every player has wanted to build a character like this (for roleplaying or other reasons that may be very important to them on an individual level). Think about where you would be right now (what level) if you could only wear robes, use a staff and cast magic, and not join any groups? That should be a valid playstyle (I hope you agree) but I think you'd be lower than level 120+ right now.

So what I'm trying to say Sara is that I don't blame the players for grinding out XP, I blame the game (and more importantly the design) for allowing them to do it at 1 million XP per hour.

I don't know why you feel I'm derailing the thread. There's a deep rooted issue here that has to be addressed before you can double up on a dragon with two level 90 characters. What else do you expect to discuss here that hasn't already been discussed? If you only made the OP so people could agree that you should be able to kill a dragon with your buddy, that seems like less of a discussion and more of a statement of fact. I have no problem with statements of fact, but clearly I see this as a much larger issue that requires massive changes to the way we allow players to gain XP. Should that not be a part of the discussion? If the answer is no, then whatever would anyone talk about here other than "Yes Nikko, I 100% agree with you. Dragons should be farmed all day by two players at level 90. Forget about the economy, competitive balance, or the overall impact to player retention. Everyone at level 90 should be able to infinitely farm dragons because that's the ultimate way to have fun for all players."

Please advise what I'm missing here, Nikko.