Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - Beta My dream for Dragon Mode

Before you read this know that I would like to be able to win a game entirely in Dragon Form, so they will be biased towards that...

I honestly think the Dragon in this game should be like a RPG Main Character, in other words I think more passive skills should be added so that you can customize it to your liking, and that instead of a research type system, maybe add a leveling type system for the Dragon (this would balance the game in the beginning, so the dragon is weak similar to your base army). The research system can work but there should be a limit to the amount of skills you can get, say like nine, total that are permanently equipped, and I know that there is a limit already in play, but I mean like a roof, so that after you get the nine, you can no longer research anymore, or you have to give a skill up to get another

Also I think skills should be made so that if you want you can create a tank like dragon, with over 3500 hp, or a Glass cannon, with base health, but enough firepower to take out Juggernauts in a few seconds, and maybe even add the ability to customize you basic attack, increasing firepower for speed, speed for power, both for splash damage, or even the ability to make it DoT.

I know these will likely never be implemented, but I seriously think making this game pro RTS is incredibly stupid, and disagree with it, and I'm not asking for a god Dragon, but just a dragon mode where you can take on a decently experienced RTS player's army alone and have a shot at beating him

Thanks for listening, I know I probably made very little since

Before you read this, know that you're not supposed to be able to win the game entirely in Dragon form.

I don't agree that 9 total skills is all you should be able to research. The system is already in place to say you can bring 9 and only 9 abilities to a round. What's the difference between that and forgetting an upgrade if you have 9 researched except to be more inconvenient?

Given the mobility of the Dragon, I think your hypothetical example giving it the power to take out the expensive Juggernauts in a few seconds is giving far too much power to the Dragon. Even if the Dragon didn't survive the attack, it would still win because respawning the Dragon is by far cheaper and faster than replacing the Juggernaut is for the enemy.

I do think that the Dragon in its current form in Campaign mode is really too weak and needs the equivalent of 30% Damage Reduction as a base ability, not a researchable and equippable skill.

From my experience, I found out that you just need to be in Dragon Mode for short periods of time, quickly cast some spells to help your units out or to kill the most dangerous units. For the rest of the time you need to micromanage your units.

If you try this, you'll almost win against the AI all the time

Stabbey, I disagree about replacing a juggernaut vs a dragon - you can build a juggernaut very fast (also something that should change, in my opinion), and once you start attacking with massed juggernauts you already have the resources to replace them, when needed.

A dragon is much more costly, and at the moment it is more of a novelty that does nothing.

Fodbaddun, in that case, you can simply replace the dragon with tactical spells and be done with it, and I don't think that's what they intended. Sure, attacking a massed big army of anti-air should be a suicide, so should attacking a full base, but the dragon can't even do a simple hit and run. I attack and attack and attack and cause less damage than a simple unit, then die in 5-10 seconds, despite dodging.

That's really counter-productive, especially since you take the time to control the dragon and lose the ability to manage your army in the process.

I'm afraid I cannot agree on your first point. In the current build, a Dragon is flat-out cheaper than a Juggernaut, in both resources and time. A Dragon can die twice (25 Recruits each respawn cost) for less Recruits than the cost of one Juggernaut (52 Recruits), and less time (instant respawn versus whatever build time a Juggernaut has, but I'm sure it's like 8 seconds at least). Claiming the Dragon is more expensive (and then in the next sentence saying it's a "a novelty that does nothing") is objectively wrong.

I can, however agree that the Dragon in campaign mode - without upgrades - is indeed a novelty that isn't really that useful. We'll have to see after the upcoming patch how things change.

If you were hoping for a dragon of that kind of power there would have to be some kind of mechanic in which you poured resources into improving it over time. So if you spent 2000 population into improving the dragon it could be extremely powerful until it respawned. That would definitely be my preference for how the single player would work at least.

As it stands, it's just a clunky way of buffing troops in a battle, you drop to dragon form use an ability and drop out. It would be a huge improvement if they got rid of the dragon entirely and these were just general commands. As far as I'm concerned that's rather less than ideal so I hope this can be changed or at least modded.

Stabbey, you are arguing using numbers and build times, which is hardly the big picture. A juggernaut is a unit of immense power which you can build a number of. You park a few of those outside the range of the enemy's defenses and it clears down everything, multiple units in a single blast, buildings, defenses, the works. Only strong air units can handle them.

A dragon, while I agree is not exactly more expensive tit for tat, does next to nothing in large sieges other than providing quick buffs. You can't even use it to harass anything, since the damage it causes is insignificant, as far as I could tell.

You can argue that the dragon is an instant respawn, but it's not exactly just another unit - it forces you to stop handling your army and lose sight of the battlefield. In this game, units are flimsy, and you can lose an entire army in a few seconds if you're not careful. I was playing around with a dragon a bit, and when I returned to the actual battle, another army was storming my beaches and destroying nearly half of my buildings.

Summoning a dragon should be high risk, high gain. At the moment it's just high risk. Indeed, we'll see after the upcoming patch(es).

Edit: I just returned from a game and the juggernauts cost 48 recruits, not 52. But like I said, the numbers don't tell the whole story.

Ironclads are good for taking down Juggernauts, the problem is that the maps are designed so that in 1v1, naval units can't reach each other most of the time. That should probably be tweaked.

The Dragon's anti-armour powerup is already quite good against Juggernauts.