Dragon Rebalancing

Suggestions Little Crusaders Suggestions
1

I’ll start off by saying, I love this gamemode, it’s a creative army against one juggernaut where the attackers can be killed in one hit so they need to catch the dragon off guard to defeat it, which is why I’m really upset at the current state of the gamemode.

These issues have most likely been brought up before but I think it’s time for me to voice my opinion over it.

The dragon is not fun to play, the crusaders have more over you than just numbers and need to be rebalanced so the dragon is more of a threat and needs more stratagy and ambushing in order to effectively defeat.

First when players are stunned, the tail whip is designed to punish players who attempt to jump on your back, which is why it makes no sense whatsoever that players can jump straight back on and hit the button before you have another charge with no consequences. They got caught and should be forced to retreat, not be able to do the exact same thing again because the dragon is unable to retaliate the second time around, what should be done is either stunned players jumping abilities are drastically reduced or the tail whips delay needs to be reduced to before the stun wears off.

Next is the bite range, it doesn’t need to be increased horizontally, but vertically, a valid strategy is for the crusaders to rush the dragon like a moron jump straight over its bite range and immediately press the button, this completely throws out the strategic and flanking based playstyle that the crusaders are supposed to have. Also stairs, the dragon can’t bite people on a lower or higher level than it which is ridiculous.

Then there’s an issue with the crusaders themselves, bunny jumping, it’s been brought up before many times but it’s really quite damning. It’s not enough to simply reduce the acceleration, there needs to be a hard set speed limit since crusaders can fly turbo speed across the entire map and kill the dragon before it even knew anybody was coming. In case you’re saying that bunny jumping is a skill based action and takes practice it isn’t, because macros exist. Anybody with a macro program could simply queue it to spam space every fraction of a second and not even have to think while doing it. Bunny jumping in it’s current state just doesn’t work for this style of game, because the dragon is slow enough without players literally going over 5x their usual speed.

A lot of people agree that the dragon just isn’t fun to play anymore, but a few crusaders would argue that a game with no inherent challenge isn’t all that fun either.

I really hope you look into this and make the dragon at least somewhat more capable.

Thanks for reading.

2

I would like to argue for the implementation of a fireball or flame mechanic that serves as a way to scare knights rather than just a roar.

1 Like
3

would this be purely aesthetic or would it add to the gameplay?

4

It would be similar to the Roar mechanic but rather than be a prolonged roar that can leave the dragon open, it would be a fire attack that, when hitting a knight, sets them on fire and scares them. It can also possibly kill, though I’m not sure what type of mechanic would be used to utilize that seeing as the knights don’t have health bars and all die in one bite. Holding right click could also charge a fireball attack that explodes into a burst of flame when hitting something and igniting whatever is in range. I feel something along these lines would probably raise the skill ceiling for the dragon while also making it less easy for the knights to get close.

5

I think giving the dragon a ranged attack would make it too powerful, knights wouldn’t get an opportunity to flank it if it can just camp a spot and shoot fireballs over and over, and if it can kill them they probably would rarely dare go near it, all melee attacks is probably the best option.

5 Likes
6

Maybe the dragon could shoot either 2 fireballs per round, or it would have a very long cooldown, definitely wouldn’t kill though.

I’m not saying there should be a ranged attack, it’s just a few tweaks to balance it maybe.

7

Dragon could start with 2 fireballs and only gain one back after getting a kill via biting someone. Fireball kills wouldn’t restore their fireball ‘ammo stock’ so they can’t have infinite firepower. Not sure how you would fire a fireball since standard controls are already mapped to something.

8

The dragon can already camp certain spots as is, we don’t need it also being able to range kill in them as well.

9

A simple change for a start would be to adjust speeds. I think slightly increasing the dragons speed and making knights sprint recharge cooldown alittle longer (Yes even when crouching) would help alot. One of the biggest problems for dragon is knights are usually juuuust out of reach. It needs to be alot easier to punish knights that make bad plays or are in bad positioning.

Visually however I do wish the dragons attacks had more visual effects to them. For example an effects bubble with screenshake that zooms out when the dragon roars. To give a better understanding of how big the hitbox is. A trail effect for trail whipping for the same reason. Etc.

Knights can have visual effects aswell. We already have the sweating particle effect? Why not display that on knights when their sprint is on cooldown? That’ll give dragon players visual keys to strategize their next move.

4 Likes
10

I was about a few minutes away from adding roar aoe visual effects, wanted it for months, its really annoying to step forward an inch when the dragons roar is almost finished and get the full duration.

I’m pretty sure the tail whip misses if knights either slightly jump or stand on your head, like to see the head fixed but for the jumping the dragon can just delay until after they land.