Hello and welcome to our in-depth article featuring our scaly playable race; Dragons!
In this article, we’ll give an extensive look into dragons, how they will be implemented, what the players will be doing as dragons, and what players should be expecting. So let’s get into it!
Dragon Stages
Dragons will have a total of 5 molts across 6 stages of growth:
- Hatchling: Newly hatched dragons have no weapons or tools, even their claws are not fully formed yet, so their only defence is running and hiding due to their size. They are scavengers at this point and will need to be cautious in order to survive to their next molt.
- Youngling: With some time, nuggets and a nest, dragons will molt and gain the ability to glide short distances as well as a larger health pool. Most fauna, however, will still be able to kill an unsuspecting Youngling.
- Juvenile: Upon entering the next stage dragons gain fire breath and full-on flight, though for only a short time. With newly formed claws, they will be able to combat and kill most things that decide to challenge them, however, groups of enemies will still be deadly.
- Adolescent: Now, nearly full-grown, dragons at this stage have most of their racial abilities unlocked and can beat most fauna. Humans and Raknar will have a challenge when fighting this stage of a dragon.
- Adult: At long last, all of the dragon’s abilities are unlocked and they are now a force to be reckoned with. With full flight abilities to stay in the air as long as needed, they can breathe fire anywhere they please and their armour is near impenetrable. It will take a coordinated attack to take down an adult dragon.
- Ancient: After a dragon has consumed so many nuggets they are radiating heat so intense that everything around them takes damage. A single-player running at an Ancient Dragon is a harbinger of death by flame and claw.
After each molt, dragons will gain a new race-specific ability that will assist them to progress to the next stage. In summary; Hatchlings have nothing, Youngling dragons can glide, Juvenile gain fire breath, and so on. The dragon will have to use these abilities, as well as their wits, to successfully survive and progress. However, with each new stage, comes new dangers as well. You will have to slightly adjust your playstyle as you progress less you’ll pay the ultimate price.
Dragon Nests
Along with the stages of the dragon, there will also be dragon nests. One for each stage and it has to be at the most updated stage in order to molt (e.g. you cannot molt into a Youngling from a hatchling nest). The dragon nest will essentially be your home for you. Dragon nests will mainly be used for 3 things:
- Molting – this is how you get to the next stage. Make sure your nest is updated and your molting meter is full and you’ll be able to progress to the next stage.
- Storage – Any excess food, nuggets, or other loot you find you will be able to store in your nest for long(er) periods of time.
- Contributing to settlements – Once there are more than 3 nests (or homes in general) around, then you and the nests around you will have started to create a settlement-the beginnings of a ‘civilization’. Stay within your settlement, or your nest’s range (doesn’t have to be a settlement) and your abilities will get slightly heightened as you will be defending your home. The more homes around you, the more your abilities get heightened.
Building nests will just be similar to building a home like any other race, harvesting the resources around you to successfully craft a nest. Once complete, dragons can start upgrading the nest and utilize the benefits.
Dragon Combat
Once a dragon reaches the Youngling stage, they slowly become a force to be reckoned with. Dragons will have quite a few ways to combat all enemies; claws to swipe at and deal damage to enemies, tails to catch enemies behind them off guard, wings to blow an enemy off balance, and of course, fire breath to set enemies ablaze. Dragons should be careful though as their armour will not be sufficiently developed until the Adult stage and are still vulnerable to attacks. All of this will allow dragons to feel like a mini-raid boss while also still allowing for them to be killed if players are sufficiently coordinated.
Nuggets
Yummy, metallic and high in essential vitamins (don’t tell the Hatchlings, though, babies can be picky eaters), nuggets will be the main resource that dragons depend on to progress. What are nuggets though? Nuggets are lumps of metal in the earth that dragons can either consume to grow, or they can use the nuggets to craft nests and other dragon-related items. There are three types of nuggets: Copper, Silver, and Gold. Each nugget will further progress the dragons towards molting depending on its type. Dragons will be looking for nuggets for large portions of time as they will be needed in order to grow and to upgrade their nest. As a Hatchling, dragons cannot harvest anything, as none of their racial abilities are developed yet, so they will need to find resources by scavenging in order to build their first nest.
Dragon Mobility
Dragons can of course move in all 3 mediums. They can walk/run through the world of TerVarus, fly/glide through the air (once they’ve developed wings) and can swim/dive through oceans or lakes.
Playstyle and Difficulty
The hatchling stage for dragons will be one of the hardest in the game. Plans are not to make it impossible but humans will have crafting and harvesting at first and raknar will have combat, so hatchlings will have nothing to start with but the player’s wit. Hatchling dragons will need to be very careful as they cannot reasonably kill anything except small animals in this stage and will need a very cautious playstyle in order to overcome the harshness of Tervarus. With each new stage, it will become easier to play and progress as a dragon, though the dangers will change. Once players get to the ancient stage, they will probably have the easiest time of all the races as nothing can take down an ancient dragon alone… but humans are rarely alone.
