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Dragon Barding Deeds....
- Thread starter UODevTracker
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Hi all,
Just sticking my head back in the forums after a fair length of silence due to getting 66 (and 66.5) done and being out on paternity leave a couple of weeks. Hope everyone who hangs out on Stratics is doing well.
Swamp dragon armor works like it used to work, the main difference is that it now affects the resists on the swamp dragon (depending on the properties of the ore), supports the exceptional quality bonus, and can have it's durability increased by certain ores.
The bonuses it gives is directly related to plate armor bonuses when made with special ore. I didn't make up new properties for the ore, I just made it apply to the dragon.
As before, when you are riding the dragon and take damage, some of the damage is mitigated by the dragon's armor. This works seperately from your resists, it is a straight reduction in damage. The armor takes durability damage when this effect occurs. This effect does not work in PvP.
I am aware that the easier to find ores are going to be attractive as dragon armor because they raise durability and are cheaper. My hope is that these ores will finally have a decent market, especially since dragon armor is disposable.
The primary goal in the improvement was to increase this creatures survivability and thus their viability. I was advised that swamp dragons weren't used very often because if you got dismounted the dragon would almost surely be killed. Swamp dragons do fairly low damage, but with the right armor they are a servicable, if consumable, tank that takes 1 taming slot.
UO is all about options, your options, and I hope these changes have made this creature a more interesting and useful option. As some people in this thread posted, the options are not infinite, but there are more of them now than there used to be. Long live the sandbox game!
I really hope you all enjoy this upgrade to the swamp dragon armor.
Just sticking my head back in the forums after a fair length of silence due to getting 66 (and 66.5) done and being out on paternity leave a couple of weeks. Hope everyone who hangs out on Stratics is doing well.
Swamp dragon armor works like it used to work, the main difference is that it now affects the resists on the swamp dragon (depending on the properties of the ore), supports the exceptional quality bonus, and can have it's durability increased by certain ores.
The bonuses it gives is directly related to plate armor bonuses when made with special ore. I didn't make up new properties for the ore, I just made it apply to the dragon.
As before, when you are riding the dragon and take damage, some of the damage is mitigated by the dragon's armor. This works seperately from your resists, it is a straight reduction in damage. The armor takes durability damage when this effect occurs. This effect does not work in PvP.
I am aware that the easier to find ores are going to be attractive as dragon armor because they raise durability and are cheaper. My hope is that these ores will finally have a decent market, especially since dragon armor is disposable.
The primary goal in the improvement was to increase this creatures survivability and thus their viability. I was advised that swamp dragons weren't used very often because if you got dismounted the dragon would almost surely be killed. Swamp dragons do fairly low damage, but with the right armor they are a servicable, if consumable, tank that takes 1 taming slot.
UO is all about options, your options, and I hope these changes have made this creature a more interesting and useful option. As some people in this thread posted, the options are not infinite, but there are more of them now than there used to be. Long live the sandbox game!
I really hope you all enjoy this upgrade to the swamp dragon armor.
I am open to tweaking the armor further, but I want the change to be simple. I don't want the player to need a slide rule to decide which armor they want to use.
Right now, the durability is decreased by the unmodified damage, then the damage is applied based on the resists.
If you see it going down faster than before it is because this happens when you are on the mount (as before) and when the swamp dragon is hit when you aren't on it (because the swamp dragon is getting the benefit of the armor.)
So, the 2 most obvious changes to me are:
A) increase the durability on all armors regardless of ore... most likely just double it.
or
B) remove durability based on modified damage, not base damage.
A would leave the value of the various ores pretty much the same and just reduce downtime.
B would increase the relevance of their differences.
Here is a couple of design goals I didn't mention before:
It is important to me that this is some love for armor makers and miners and that is why I want it to be consumable/disposable. However, I realize that if it is consumed too quickly then it won't be used and thus is not helping anyone. It seems to me that 4 hours of use is about right but I'm willing to debate that point.
Also, I don't want everybody to use swampdragons, I want it to be an interesting choice, not a required one. This supports the above poster's comment about individuality.
We tried putting pet dyes in SA and the players rejected it big time... like, there was an uproar. 90% absolutely hated it and 10% loved it. So, I'm just saying we tried but the community rejected it. Since the dragon armor changes the whole color of the dragon, it is the closest thing we have to a pet dye. That means you get 9 colors including base ore which is more than you get for any other mount or pet.
Right now, the durability is decreased by the unmodified damage, then the damage is applied based on the resists.
If you see it going down faster than before it is because this happens when you are on the mount (as before) and when the swamp dragon is hit when you aren't on it (because the swamp dragon is getting the benefit of the armor.)
So, the 2 most obvious changes to me are:
A) increase the durability on all armors regardless of ore... most likely just double it.
or
B) remove durability based on modified damage, not base damage.
A would leave the value of the various ores pretty much the same and just reduce downtime.
B would increase the relevance of their differences.
Here is a couple of design goals I didn't mention before:
It is important to me that this is some love for armor makers and miners and that is why I want it to be consumable/disposable. However, I realize that if it is consumed too quickly then it won't be used and thus is not helping anyone. It seems to me that 4 hours of use is about right but I'm willing to debate that point.
Also, I don't want everybody to use swampdragons, I want it to be an interesting choice, not a required one. This supports the above poster's comment about individuality.
We tried putting pet dyes in SA and the players rejected it big time... like, there was an uproar. 90% absolutely hated it and 10% loved it. So, I'm just saying we tried but the community rejected it. Since the dragon armor changes the whole color of the dragon, it is the closest thing we have to a pet dye. That means you get 9 colors including base ore which is more than you get for any other mount or pet.
Well, while it isn't out of the question, let me reveal to you that when you put armor on the swamp dragon it is actually changing to a different mob. So, what you are really saying is that you want new mobs x the number of ridable pets.
I would love to add barding for horses, which is just 1 more mob, but ultimately that is an art task and I don't make the art schedule. The idea of horse barding has floated around a few times here and it has never actually floated onto the schedule, something else has always been more urgent. Maybe if we can get the swamp dragon armor to be fun and somewhat popular, it will bouy up a bit in priority.