New dragon AI makes melee almost useless.

After spending about a month getting my blades and a few other skills up for killing dragon, The dragon ai is now changed and melee is pretty borked fighting the dragon now. If I chase the dragon, it just flies off and starts breathing fireballs on me till I run up to it again, to make it fly away again. I have to sit there and eat fireballs till he lands and comes at me to get a few hits in before it flies away again.

And lets not forget the changes to obsidian golems and the way they negate magic around them now. Lets make a game when the people can be anything, but make it so only bow is useful all around. When I started playing, I wanted to be a mage. Worked well until they made certain mobs so magic resistant that I was forced to learn a weapon just so I could go mine where ghosts are. NOW I am being forced to use a bow to do what I want to do. Seriously need to give 100% return on exp when changes like this are made to completely negate a whole set of skills.

 

I disagree with the title of the thread.

Just today i killed 20+ Dragons with blades.
I don't have the chasing issues like you do. There are ways to counter the "flying off thing" due to how the AI pathing works.

The dragon is even easier now than before with the locked glyph stacking thing. But that's another topic.

However, one thing that is true is that the dragon became now easier for Archers/Ranged.
But melee useless on dragons? nope, not true.

 

Well, not useless, but going from 30-40 second kills to 2-3 minutes. All the time, exp and gear I have invested to kill the dragon faster then I could with a bow is now undone. I am just getting sick and tired of putting all this effort and coin into a build just to have changes completely undo that effort. I wanted to be a mage, but they added res and now even made mobs that completely negate all your magic. Right now, we should have 100% exp return on pretty much all skills because of changes like the obsidian golems and dragon AI. I understand the game is in development and changes will be made, but give return of exp back then, we have people investing time, effort and for some real cash to achieve goals like killing the dragon.

 

I agree with the 100% return btw. Atleast for now while things are still being changed/adjusted.

And i wish the dragon and any other boss wasn't even soloable But that's just me.

 

You could kill a dragon in 30-40 seconds? Now you're complaining it takes 2-3 mins. I understand the frustration in that it takes that long because of the pathing it does, makes it a boring a frustrating fight, but I think there was an issue in the beginning that you were able to kill a dragon in 30-40 seconds to begin with...

 

I fully agree with this.

 

I can kill it that fast with great risk. First off, my hp is only at about 650 during the fight and my resistance is 0, so if I miss a buff like fortify, glancing blow or shield of ice, I am dead in like 2 hits. My issue is not with the time, my issue is with spending a month getting the build able to do so, just to have the dragon AI changed, wasting all the exp and mats for the gear I made for it. I already have bow skills, I was already killing it with a bow in a few minutes. A guildy showed me how fast he can do it with blades, He was 20 levels lower then me and killing it faster then I was, so I learned blades.

Now, if the issue was that blades kills the dragon to fast, not polearm, not bludgeon, not bows, then why make the choice to make things difficult for all melee, not just swords? It was bad enough when they made the dragon magic resistant and pretty much forced anyone who wanted to kill the dragon to pick up a weapon, but now make it so bows are by far the best choice to kill the dragon. I understand I'm going to have to bite the bullet on the gear I made and the time I wasted, but can I at least get my exp back?

 

I`m not specialist in dragon killing.
But I think that good solution will be - mesmerise skills force him to land. Players would chose use damage over time abilities and wait till he flying or not use it but fight him on the land almost all time. I fight a dragon in Rise yesterday and yes he is flying much time (i`m an archer). I think good AI will be: he flying against melee and fight on the land against archers and mages (stuns knockbacks hits...)
P.S. Also archers make less damage if target elevation is higher so for both melee and ranged kiling speed was slowed down i think.(but not sure here becouse if he flying he dont makes knockbacks, so autoattack dont stop)

 

His hitbox is still on the ground. You can tell when you use fireflies, the flies stick to the ground, and you can still hit him while hes in the air, so I am not sure about elevation playing a part here, but you do raise an interesting point.

 

Classless system.... Guess we need everything!! Wait until they put in resistances for certain melee weps/ranged.. You will need to have every melee/range skill. Be just like Magic skills hitting for 10 dmg on bosses. Can't slash or bludgeon the dragon.. But you can pierce.. #MakeSotaGreatAgain (Fun)

 

There is a bug with npc targeting that had a major impact w/ the dragon. It wasn't dragon specific. Entered bug # 50352. Fixed for the next patch. What ppl see is a dragon that refuses to fight melee but rather stay ranged. This bug was written up here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...design-dragons-flee-flight.98806/#post-871210

Emphasis this release was to fix some major bugs with the dragon. Those were fixed and the dragon ai was cleaned up a bit. Expect it to get balanced and tuned in the coming releases. I need some time from combat design to tackle how we really want the dragons to fight better. The dragon should properly toggle between ranged and melee just about equally after the patch.

 

Dragon's are smart. They should find the most powerful enemy and destroy it first.

I would also suggest giving Dragons the innate ability to put fear into those with low adventurer levels, freezing them for a period of time so that the Dragon can be left to single out the most seasoned of the group.

We know how players think. Tank. Kite. Get Aggro. Most players don't do well against an enemy that has the sole focus of killing them above all else. Especially if near by healers are too busy trembling with fear to assist. Likewise, if the Dragon used a tail sweep that required everyone nearby to jump, that might also be difficult for someone like a healer that is used to just standing out of range. It would be nice if players had to use a minimum amount of skill to actually kill a Dragon, verses just standing around tanking and healing.

 

Thank you for responding and letting us know what's going on. It is appreciated, especially for things like this.

 

" Likewise, if the Dragon used a tail sweep that required everyone nearby to jump"

It does do a tail sweep you can jump, however, it is not aoe so only the person targeted has to jump.