Why Dragon Runs Are Fun

sandukutupu · November 2019

If you are new and never been to the Well of the Dragons, every hour at 45 minutes after 5 dragons land on all available maps. I am pretty sure the developers never expected the players to develop their own strategy to kill 10 or more dragons. They only remain on the map for 10 minutes, one must be ready with a swift mount to keep up.

Why are Dragon Runs so much fun? One of the best reasons I can think of, this is a community event. It was not created by the designers, it is created and endorsed by the players. I don't need or want dragon coffers, I have 100% Tyranny of the Dragons, I know I like doing the Dragon Runs because they are fun.

I still remember the very first time I encountered the DR as my ranger. He was out hunting Thayans for Elminister's weekly quest. Over that hill a huge army of dragon slayers came rampaging down on Rogrotus the black dragon. At that moment, I was hooked, they ruined my hunt, but it was different. Feel free to share your memories and what you believe makes the Dragon Run special. Add some screenshots as well.

wilbur626 · November 2019

What if the devs made encounters like these drop loot that was actually useable/worth farming for ? That would make it even more fun 🙊

sandukutupu · November 2019

wilbur626 said:
What if the devs made encounters like these drop loot that was actually useable/worth farming for ? That would make it even more fun 🙊

As I stated above, there is plenty of "loot", that is just not why I do it. Acquiring wealth real or imagined is not fun, it is work.

greywynd · November 2019

It's all fun, games, and dead dragons until the lag demons attack.

lordtweety · November 2019

I miss being able to jump to a nearly full instance that wasn't on the DR radar and doing a DR solo or with one or two friends, seeing how many dragons we could get in that 10 minutes. Obviously before the M16 nerf gun came out. I don't think I've been back since then. Certainly not in the last 4-5 months.

sandukutupu · November 2019

lordtweety#3604 said:
I miss being able to jump to a nearly full instance that wasn't on the DR radar and doing a DR solo or with one or two friends, seeing how many dragons we could get in that 10 minutes. Obviously before the M16 nerf gun came out. I don't think I've been back since then. Certainly not in the last 4-5 months.

Oh, scaling hasn't been in effect for some time now. We had a rough time of it when Cryptic introduced scaling. It seems Cryptic pulled out a bit late on that one. Am I to understand people just assume the runs are no good now? This run was just the other day, I took screenshots, we got 10 with 2 minutes remaining, but didn't have enough instances to jump again. But that was late at night too. With Undermountain gear we can have small DR's that are very successful. The only thing lacking is enough players to fill maps. Normally we have no issue getting 12 when maps are available.

@greywynd I haven't seen much lag here with the low numbers, I thought the population was down because you guys were farming Charms to Trade to Illusionists. Maybe you should return, we need your lag to slow us down. Some players have complained the runs are too fast. Big hint here people; you need an epic mount for this one. Don't ride in with your legendary mount set to green speed either.

greywynd · November 2019

I was in one last week, I think it was, lagged out on green. By the time I was able to move they were heading to white. I just hopped zones to where they would be going next and waited on black. Just sucks to lose that much time.

agilesto · November 2019

Sadly now the dragon runs don't have the same appeal reward-wise than before, even if the legacy campaigns boosted it a little, but I still like doing them once in a while. Dropping the purple stones was always the jackpot for me in the early mods of the dragon runs, it was really exciting.

But the thing I like the most about the dragon runs is seeing the diversity of the mounts. As a mount collector I love this part of the customization, and seeing 40 players on dozen of different mounts working together to take down dragons is a really cool feeling.

sandukutupu · November 2019

The reward is the community effort put forth in doing them. Placing yourself in the zone 10 to 15 minutes ahead of time in the zone to call it, means you appreciate this activity greatly. But even to ride in, and ask the location of 4 to 5 minutes ahead of schedule, says you find something about the event rewarding. One of my friends in the guild asked me about the status of the game, asked if there were new mounts or companions for the Liars Masquerade. I told them nothing much "new" just the werewolf costume. But they still came to do the DR.

If they did it for profit (astral diamonds) one can make roughly 7,500 AD per run which is probably 1% of what most of us have in our bank on any given day. While this profit only takes 10 minutes to acquire, it can only be done once per hour, so it would take 10 hours to generate maybe 75 K from it. This is why I assume no one really does this for any profit but as I stated above there is plenty of "loot". I assume a few new people are running it to finish up their boons in ToD. I know I did this often while waiting on Tiamat.

This is why I have to suspect, players are enjoying the community created events more than anything the company has made. People have more fun when they create and are allowed to be creative. The caller enjoys their moment in the spotlight, even with a mere 10 minute window for their 15 minutes of fame. Reward isn't measured in gold, astral diamonds, experience, or level, it is the effort put forth to be part of the collective and community.

I believe the objective of creating positive change in this game, is important to the collective consciousness of the community. There is a power that can be created out of suppressed anger, inspiration, and faith, if enough people put their time into any event, they can overcome the obstacles. When you have a group of people with the goals, talent, and intelligence to actualize those intentions, then you have something really powerful.

froger · November 2019

I had a lot of fun running Dragons in WoD back in the day. I do miss having multiple people calling out Green in multiple instances leading up to the event. It was a big deal to get into an instance and run and the regular timing of the event meant you had to think about gameplay. You had to think about running the prison and if you'd be done in time to get in the event or wait another hour. I think having demo / edemo on a regular schedule was good to for the same reasons. I wish there were new events occuring once an hour requiring the community to organize and plan for. Events with desirable rewards, a good chance of success, and a fair chance of failure.

sandukutupu · November 2019

As many of you at level 80 already know, Sybella is asking for the BHE in WoD this week. All you need is one dragon and 3 demonic encounters. I was just over there and 8 maps were all full up. I will post up some more action screen shots later on.

Have fun!

wickid · November 2019

dragon run. its not about the rewards. its about friendship and fun. I am little wicked one (wickid), I have hosted more dragon runs than I dare remember. its about the speed, its about waiting for that first dragon to fall, the anticipation, the cooperation of members of different countries, no prejudice of race, color or politics. its not about looking and inspecting and saying your not this and you are not that. its polite fun, people helping people and working as a team for a common goal. come to WOD, have fun with us and make new friends in countries all over the world, DRAGON RUN 6, 15 MINUTES TO DRAGONFALL.

sandukutupu · November 2019

Here are some more screenshots from the DR, just heading to bed. I will always enjoy doing dragon runs with Wickid @geppetto5280 and everyone else. Sybella has the dragon runs maxed out offering it as a Legacy quest for level 80. Don't let that stop you from enjoying a DR anytime of day or night, get in there and have fun!

lordtweety · November 2019

geppetto5280 said:
I am little wicked one (wickid)

And any time I was in well of dragons I would check the timer and see if you were calling and head to green. Fun times.

callumf · November 2019

lordtweety#3604 said:

geppetto5280 said:
I am little wicked one (wickid)
And any time I was in well of dragons I would check the timer and see if you were calling and head to green. Fun times.

Agree. Like.

rustyroo13 · November 2019

I've never participated in one yet, but it looks like so much fun! Which color dragon does everyone start with?

sandukutupu · November 2019

rustyroo13#1749 said:
I've never participated in one yet, but it looks like so much fun! Which color dragon does everyone start with?

Green upper right on the map.

The dragons always land at 45 after, I show up between 25 to 35 after to check for a low populated instance. If someone is calling it out in chat (such as; DR #4) I simply pull up my map and change instance to #4. Try not to pick #1 because it is the default landing zone for players. When I am calling, I try not to use abbreviations, and my characters do get into the act; Goro Thay: Phindar when the green dragon lands here on #4, you distract it by jumping into its mouth. While it is choking on you, the rest of us will be attacking. or Will Robert Snooks: Come to the dragon run, green #3! Kill dragons, take their gold, they can't spend it.

Details here on the official wiki.

tchefi · November 2019

agilesto said:
Sadly now the dragon runs don't have the same appeal reward-wise than before, even if the legacy campaigns boosted it a little, but I still like doing them once in a while. Dropping the purple stones was always the jackpot for me in the early mods of the dragon runs, it was really exciting.

But the thing I like the most about the dragon runs is seeing the diversity of the mounts. As a mount collector I love this part of the customization, and seeing 40 players on dozen of different mounts working together to take down dragons is a really cool feeling.

That's exactly the same for me.

On the rewards subject, I think, as the legacy quests don't give any Linu's favor (and honestly i can't understand why, design wise, Sybella ToD/SKT/ICD still gets some locks or are still strictly timegated as before because of Linu's favor or reputation not rewarded, especially in comparison with Chult/Barovia.....), it would be great to have a weekly quest, with a Linu's favor as a reward, given by Elminster with the goal of killing 5 dragons.

The existing one requiring to turn i can't remember many points of hoard treasure is horribly long and painful, and not even close to be an alternative compared to farming Tiamat for Linu's favor.

Tiamat farming is not a thing anymore (at least in my ally and i don't see many calls in PE for that). Also the event x2 campaign currencies (Tyrany x2 was allowing us to drop x2 linu's favor during Tiamat) seemed to have been replaced by x2 sybella's legacy campaign, so there is no more periodical incentive to farm Tiamat which would have concentrated players/rerolls trying to catch up on this campaign.

So vote for a weekly quest "kill 5 dragons" (or maybe "kill one dragon of each kind") in WoD for a Linu's favor reward :P

sandukutupu · November 2019

@tchefi#6735
Am I the only one here that is getting the rewards?

I don't see the need to for Cryptic to put their thumbs into this community created event and spoil it. You already receive rewards for doing the Dragon Run. I have no need for Linu's favor as all 8 of my characters have finished ToD, they already tend to stack up on me. How do you plan to use them beyond finishing the campaign? The store sells some outdated armors. Books that cost even more AD, than I could spend for them in the AH.

This useless token can be found in the Temple of Tiamat rewards and the "Rewards for the Hoard" repeatable quest. I already average between 5K to 7K AD doing any DR, on a given day, each hour, I choose to do one. But having the team convert the runs into Linu's favor and they will pull back on the other rewards. Not to mention dumping what you get from an average 10 dragon killed, would net you about 300 or more points into the repeatable quest. The math on that comes to about 5 runs to get Linu's Favor at present.

I find the sense of a community effort and the runs themselves, more rewarding than the AD, and if I could, I would seriously give you all of my Linu's favor because I have no need for it.

pitshade · November 2019

4 to 5 runs for a Linu is right. I generally get around 21 to 25 coffers for 10 dragons. 100 coffers completes the quest.

tchefi · November 2019

sandukutupu said:
I have no need for Linu's favor as all 8 of my characters have finished ToD, they already tend to stack up on me. How do you plan to use them beyond finishing the campaign? The store sells some outdated armors. Books that cost even more AD, than I could spend for them in the AH.

Good for you, but not everyone has played as long as you, and some still find Linu's favor needed in their campaign, or useful.

That's said, I have 38 toons, only 11 of them have finished ToD. I plan to get at least 16 of them to finish all the campaigns related to Sybella Legacy quests, so i still got 5 to do the necessary amount of Linu's favor.
My guild is not level 20 yet (level 19, I join it when it was level 3 back 3 years ago) + I also own a secondary guild (of mules) which is not even level 5 + most of the guilds in my ally are not level 20 (only 3/13), so Linu's Favors I earned on toons who have already finish ToD (and more generally all excedentary old campaign currencies) are droped in the stronghold mimics for guild marks (usually turned then into consumables or mastercraft ingredients).

sandukutupu said:
This useless token can be found in the Temple of Tiamat rewards and the "Rewards for the Hoard" repeatable quest. I already average between 5K to 7K AD doing any DR, on a given day, each hour, I choose to do one. But having the team convert the runs into Linu's favor and they will pull back on the other rewards. Not to mention dumping what you get from an average 10 dragon killed, would net you about 300 or more points into the repeatable quest. The math on that comes to about 5 runs to get Linu's Favor at present.

If i remember correctly, it's something around 20 (21 ?) Linu's favor you need to complete the last repeatable task (5 times) and the boons.
So 100 dragon runs ? Ahem... Even when it was much more than that (before they reduced the amount of linu's favor needed, back when i did ToD on my 2 mains it was way more that were needed, something around 50), I never really bother with the rewards of the hoard, Tiamat on x2 ToD event was the way to go.

Now, it seems there is no more x2 campaign currencies, only x2 Sybella Legacy which doesn't reward any Linu's favor.

So we are somehow back to almost the same amount of Tiamat runs and/or Rewards of the hoard as it was needed 3 years ago in x2 ToD events.
Someone who did it between chult release and undermoutain release has been able to gather in x2 ToD events all linu's favor needed for the campaign twice as fast as now or long before...
Which is not, for me, something really normal ^^ if you consider the "catching up" reason behind legacy quests or x2 legacy quest events.
Which is why give one more Linu's favor as a reward for running a DR would make sense.

sandukutupu said:
I find the sense of a community effort and the runs themselves, more rewarding than the AD, and if I could, I would seriously give you all of my Linu's favor because I have no need for it.

I also love the concept of the Dragon Run ^^, and how it gather a bunch of people to run it together

. Sybella's heroic of ToD had really bring it back to life. But i won't do it for fun : i would prefer the Dragon Flight in the Stronghold for that

pitshade · November 2019

After you complete the Campaign on the first character, use that character to make Patron tokens. Cuts in half the number of Linus a character needs for the boons.

Next double currency event starts December 19th. This has nothing to do with Sybella's quests, other than the fact it doubles them as well. You will get 2 Linus for each Tiamat run or Coffer quest.

tchefi · November 2019

Mmmmh, maybe I completely misread or misinterpreted the tooltip (I hadn't test Tiamat during the last x2 legacy campaign nor really pay attention if the various quests in the campaigns beside sybella's legacy quests were rewarding x2 as i'm not really pushing my rerolls hard to finish their campaigns ^^) or maybe something has been lost in the french translation. Will check it tonight.
(I'm aware about the patron token, but was thinking about new players

)

By the way, dragon run is fun, as it is the real topic :P

mithrosnomore · November 2019

It takes, if my count is correct, 17 Linu's favor to complete the campaign and get all the boons, and that is getting your 'Incantations of the Dragon Queen' books (you will need two) through the general store.

If you want to get those books through the Linu's Favor store, they are 15 Favor each, as are the four neckwear artifacts and one shield available there.

I *think* that the shield is redundant, but I may be wrong. I am thinking that the neckwear is only available there, so if you want them for appearance unlocks and collection purposes, have fun.

So while some people may not care about Linu's favor, I think for people that still need Linu's Favor for their character(s), it would be nice to see some reliable alternatives to getting it.

If there is such a way, then it needs to be advertised better.
Heck, I don't even know how to get into the dungeon to fight Tiamat, never mind whether it's a thing that people do any more.

wickid · November 2019

Again, it's not about prizes, go do LOMM. It's about friends and having fun. Now, onto the scaling issues. Mod 17 scaling in WOD is over. Even when it was we couldn't kill one dragon in 10 minutes. But I was brought up differently. I never give up, I didn't smack on cryptic all over the internet and threaten to quit the game. Please everyone, enjoy the game, it's actually quite fun.

ecrana · November 2019

mithrosnomore said:
It takes, if my count is correct, 17 Linu's favor to complete the campaign and get all the boons, and that is getting your 'Incantations of the Dragon Queen' books (you will need two) through the general store.

I won't even tell you how many Linus it used to take to complete your boons. 17 is absolutely nothing and peanuts compared to the grind this used to be. Those books are drops too so you could always check the AH or run the content until one drops.

plasticbat · November 2019

ecrana#2080 said:

mithrosnomore said:
It takes, if my count is correct, 17 Linu's favor to complete the campaign and get all the boons, and that is getting your 'Incantations of the Dragon Queen' books (you will need two) through the general store.
I won't even tell you how many Linus it used to take to complete your boons. 17 is absolutely nothing and peanuts compared to the grind this used to be. Those books are drops too so you could always check the AH or run the content until one drops.

I think it was about 60 something. It also was in the era that only elite could do timat.

greywynd · November 2019

It was 80. 30 for the first. 50 for the second.

sandukutupu · November 2019

I have to agree with @geppetto5280 even if they pulled the AD rewards and Linu's favor, I would still do runs for the pleasure and the company. Back when we had "scaling" in the WoD, we just did Black, White, Red - jump - Red, White, Black. We still had fun and killed 6 per hour. Not that we want to go back to scaling, we are saying that even in the face of adverse conditions the Run has survived.

thefiresidecat · November 2019

sandukutupu said:

wilbur626 said:
What if the devs made encounters like these drop loot that was actually useable/worth farming for ? That would make it even more fun 🙊
As I stated above, there is plenty of "loot", that is just not why I do it. Acquiring wealth real or imagined is not fun, it is work.

the loot is worthless. he said " drop loot that was actually useable/worth farming for" . it would make a big difference. farming dragons was fun when the loot was worth having. it's not now.

akemnos · November 2019

I would say that i would actually disagree that these are "fun" or a great community thing. I only show up for these on a single day every x amount of weeks where i need to kill a dragon for the legacy quest.

Most of the time i have been there it has been anything but smooth. I admit there was a couple hosted by Wicked that i saw that were done well but lots of times that i have been around it was basically like this:

- random zone people - spam request for invite to dragon run
- eventually someone states dragon run is on instance x
- flood of people asking for invite to instance x
- more requests for zone info
- zone is stated
- more requests for invites to specific zone
- Someone states starting 2nd dragon run on instance y
- complaints about that person starting on instance y and that is already forming on x person states they cant join due to it being full and others confirm this
- I check zone and it is only at 32 of 40 max
- i state that they cant get in unless they are invited
- silence from anyone complaining about new run starting
- new run keeps spamming and getting complaints
- dragon run starts
- check instance numbers. 34 in first zone, 15 in second zone
- dragon killing commences
- green dies and everyone rushes blue
- all the green/blue mount people reach blue as it dies and dont get credit, this repeats for most of them throughout the run
- complaints galore about people killing to fast and not caring about the slower people.

etc etc etc.

Dragons were interesting once a long time ago when it was worthwhile to actually do them. now for me it is just another HE that i dont care about 99% of the time. Maybe i am just unlucky and most run a lot smoother but the above is my general experience with them now.

Why Dragon Runs Are Fun

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