Dragonarmy revisited

[Arman]

Back to the DA though.
By imposing that "feature" as heavily as you do, you know you may in effect be killing the efficiency of the guild to the point that for the "power players" of the donut being a gladiator or mercenary may in fact become more appealing?
Which basically also means that evil will have NO desireable melee guilds.
So there is that.

I think all guilds should be appealing. And when it comes to powerplayers you may be right... from an efficiency point of view they may want a guild that offers more flexibility for all circumstances rather than greater damage output for specific circumstances. The DAs place in global guild balance in my mind is still meant to be the solo offensive evil melee guild. Knights the solo good offensive melee guild. Union the neutral equivalent? AA more the evil defensive melee guild, Neidar more the good/neutral defensive melee guild. With gladiators and mercs sitting in the middle. Calians the team damage utility. All should be viable play options.

As for bleeding attacks.
Just see how good that worked out for RDA, the arguably weakest melee guild in genesis now.
It kinda didn't work out at all.

That's the feedback i got. It's the main reason I want to re-work the DAs... thematically the RDA are the exact opposite of what they should be.

[Draugor]

Tbh, the "locked weapons" thing is silly, the dragonarmies used more or less all weapons since they where composed of various races and used pretty much what they had, minotaurs with axes, ogres clubs etc etc. There should be one army and you can pick your colour inside it upon joining, that could dictate your choice of weapon, green for club, blue sword, red pole etc if we're going to lock it, better to just make weapons optional upon joining.

[Tarax the Terrible]

Tbh, the "locked weapons" thing is silly, the dragonarmies used more or less all weapons since they where composed of various races and used pretty much what they had, minotaurs with axes, ogres clubs etc etc. There should be one army and you can pick your colour inside it upon joining, that could dictate your choice of weapon, green for club, blue sword, red pole etc if we're going to lock it, better to just make weapons optional upon joining.

I love the idea, I thought that was a rule from the books tho.
Whilst trying to check that I saw this.

"The Blue Dragonarmy also were the only army to make use of undead, which were under the leadership of the death knight Lord Loren Soth, who made a pact with Highlord Kitiara during the war." http://dragonlancenexus.com/lexicon/ind ... Dragonarmy

Interesting...

[Draugor]

Aye, thats not weapons tho, wich is what imo any real army should have free,

[Amberlee]

Back to the DA though.
By imposing that "feature" as heavily as you do, you know you may in effect be killing the efficiency of the guild to the point that for the "power players" of the donut being a gladiator or mercenary may in fact become more appealing?
Which basically also means that evil will have NO desireable melee guilds.
So there is that.

I think all guilds should be appealing. And when it comes to powerplayers you may be right... from an efficiency point of view they may want a guild that offers more flexibility for all circumstances rather than greater damage output for specific circumstances. The DAs place in global guild balance in my mind is still meant to be the solo offensive evil melee guild. Knights the solo good offensive melee guild. Union the neutral equivalent? AA more the evil defensive melee guild, Neidar more the good/neutral defensive melee guild. With gladiators and mercs sitting in the middle. Calians the team damage utility. All should be viable play options.

As for bleeding attacks.
Just see how good that worked out for RDA, the arguably weakest melee guild in genesis now.
It kinda didn't work out at all.

That's the feedback i got. It's the main reason I want to re-work the DAs... thematically the RDA are the exact opposite of what they should be.

The problem here is.
You basically kill the ONLY viable evil fighter guild in the game for the powerplayers.
That means you kill the evil side off.

[Cherek]

Isn't it a bit early to make that bold prediction Amberlee, even for you?:)

The idea here is really the opposite - make both wings equally strong and playable, not make BDA unplayable. Give it a chance first. And if the recode ends up killing the BDA and not helping RDA, you're entitled to one "I told you so!" Just one though!

[Arman]

The problem here is.
You basically kill the ONLY viable evil fighter guild in the game for the powerplayers.
That means you kill the evil side off.

I think it's actually the opposite. The proposed changes will make all the evil fighters guilds a viable option for players, powerplayers included. The choice for players will come down to play style preference.

...the ONLY viable evil fighter guild in the game

I don't feel the BDA is the only viable melee guild. It is definitely the MOST viable by a long way because of the way the guild's abilities are set up and the skills it offers. In my mind, that has resulted in it being the guild that all players who want to play an evil character gravitate to... to the detriment of the Army of Angmar and RDA.

Anyway, the changes to BDA won't make them unviable. The changes may not suit powerplayers if their guild choice is all about min/maxxing and optimisation, although I feel the proposed changes will open up other customisation options that could be leveraged by those players.

And I do want to say I appreciate the discussion on the topic. Some of the ideas i really like, such as opening up the option of weapon choice and altering the offensive specials to focus more on the damage type (slashing weapons for slash, impaling weapons for impale). The role of two-handed weapons vs one-handed / shield vs two one-handed weapons? And maybe even opening the door to flexibility in skill training to cater to defensive or offensive preference? Anyway, happy for the discussion to continue.

[nils]

Army of Angmar

If there was a thing as a queue..

[Draugor]

I don't feel the BDA is the only viable melee guild. It is definitely the MOST viable by a long way because of the way the guild's abilities are set up and the skills it offers. In my mind, that has resulted in it being the guild that all players who want to play an evil character gravitate to... to the detriment of the Army of Angmar and RDA.

The detriment of AA comes at an insane lack of power and not that special tanking, they are "decent" tanks at best but they break shields like old people break femurs, the layman option is good for ogres and mercs tho, really good actually, but the OOC potion is close to useless, RDA are just useless, cant damage and cant tank, so nothing is to their detriment. BDA is as Amb said, the only guild that is really viable for evils atm.

Alot of guilds need balancing checks tho, make Dragonarmies into an evil calian version or something, armies fought in groups and formations so them beeing team fighters kinda fit. And yes, they turned on eachother etc etc, not in THAT high a degree.

[Arman]

RDA are just useless, cant damage and cant tank, so nothing is to their detriment.

Yep. They will be the biggest beneficiaries to the changes made to the Dragonarmies.