Random (M)MORPG thoughts

[Faceless_Sentinel]

You misunderstood his point. He was saying, players demanded that they get access to the same toys that everyone else had, and niches went away.

And I said that this is better than wow classic situation when one classes were infinitely better than others and nobody played them.

You also misunderstood the other points being made. Briefly: the tier lists that Rusty was talking about were for raids, not groups. And that very much mattered until each raid was a solved problem (usually about two tiers later). Holy Light was absolutely massive healing. I think it could also crit? 10% of a massive heal was still massive. They also had absolutely fantastic spot healing with insta-cast Flash Heal on Judgement, and the Flash Heal left a hot behind. They were exactly what Rusty said. Your point about Holy Paladins having to "deal damage" is silly. Holydins didn't "do damage", they sat in melee range casting a completely ineffectual auto-attack in order to enable their healing mechanics.

Isn't that the difference in mechanics, how characters play?

I think at the end of the day it's what Stack and Rusty said: you don't want a ROLE-PLAYING game with a wide variety of ROLES to fill, you want multiplayer Farmville. Where you can have different appearances and press different buttons in different orders, to see different graphics that achieve exactly the same result as everyone else that generally does what you do. You don't really want a Paladin, or a Shaman, or a Rogue, or a Warrior. You want a Healer, a DPS and a Tank with different costume sets.

You got what you wanted from WoW. We lost what we wanted.

You think of yourself too much if you think that you understand what I want. You should stop throwing big words with no context and start giving examples to your statements, especially about "role play" aspect. If you saying that fury warrior and arcane mage were played the same way because they are both dd's, then we live in different worlds and played different games.

[Stack of Turtles]

Isn't that the difference in mechanics, how characters play?

It's not, no. Using slightly different numbers to do the same ultimate thing isn't "playing differently".

[Kalarion]

I think we're talking past each other. I'll post more on this later if you'd like. But the TLDR is, you keep talking about being satisfied that the mechanics of each class - that is, how they're played, what buttons get pressed - being different. What we're talking about is wanting to be satisfied with the function of each class - that is, what each class does, either uniquely or best (edit: with a heavy preference for "uniquely") - being different.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

I think we're talking past each other. I'll post more on this later if you'd like. But the TLDR is, you keep talking about being satisfied that the mechanics of each class - that is, how they're played, what buttons get pressed - being different. What we're talking about is wanting to be satisfied with the function of each class - that is, what each class does, either uniquely or best (edit: with a heavy preference for "uniquely") - being different.

I will wait for examples.

I understand what you are talking about, but I don't see how this can be done in mmo rpg, in single player or coop RPG yes, but in mmo rpg I have big doubts.

[Xenich]

I think we're talking past each other. I'll post more on this later if you'd like. But the TLDR is, you keep talking about being satisfied that the mechanics of each class - that is, how they're played, what buttons get pressed - being different. What we're talking about is wanting to be satisfied with the function of each class - that is, what each class does, either uniquely or best (edit: with a heavy preference for "uniquely") - being different.

I will wait for examples.

I understand what you are talking about, but I don't see how this can be done in mmo rpg, in single player or coop RPG yes, but in mmo rpg I have big doubts.

I gave some examples with EQ like classes concerning the Druid/Cleric and how their healing was better or worse depending on the types of classes they healed. I think that is kind of the point here.

Clerics used to hate healing me as a monk. Their complete heal was amazing, but it was a long cast and overkill for the type of tanking a monk does. They could do it ok, but were certainly not ideal due to a sudden spike of damage that would take the monk down and the time to get the complete heal in wasn't enough time before average damage took out the rest.

A druid on the other hand had faster cast heals and heals over time. They could alternate between those to catch a spike, and the regens would catch up healing with the avoidance streaks of the monk.

Contrast that with a Warrior a warrior who evenly mitigated damage on a consistent scale, with larger HP pools, but because the druids heals were less powerful, they got no gains from misses and so it would drain their mana faster just as the cleric would run out of mana faster due to all of the excessive over healing trying to keep up with the monk.

Other classes like the shaman balanced this out with things like slows to compensate, but again... how well the healer did was dependent on the class they were healing and the damage that was being done.

Monks were often used in raids as "Rampage" tanks because they avoided a lot of the damage and required less consistent healing because of it.

All of these concepts of play are layered niches in design and focus which allow classes to be shine in different situations, but also be limited in others.

This is a dynamic the system you describe does not have. Its every class can heal, tank, or DPS equally, but just "different" and it is the "equality" of that design that defeats the entire point of the play I think we are trying to communicate here. (at least that is how I am seeing it)

TLDR:

A class should not be equal to another like class (Healer vs Healer), they should be better or worse dependent on various factors that determine their strengths and weaknesses in order to create variations and depths of play. This means... some will be great at some things and suck at others (ie the kid can't have all the toys).

Edit:
Is is also why "muh class balance" focus has been the number one killer IMO of game play mechanics as it concerns multiplayer games. You don't balance a class to class, you balance a class to content for their specific purpose and focus, but unfortunately many gamers can't accept the concept of "Well, I suck at that, but I am good at this".

[Faceless_Sentinel]

I gave some examples with EQ like classes concerning the Druid/Cleric and how their healing was better or worse depending on the types of classes they healed. I think that is kind of the point here.

Clerics used to hate healing me as a monk. Their complete heal was amazing, but it was a long cast and overkill for the type of tanking a monk does. They could do it ok, but were certainly not ideal due to a sudden spike of damage that would take the monk down and the time to get the complete heal in wasn't enough time before average damage took out the rest.

A druid on the other hand had faster cast heals and heals over time. They could alternate between those to catch a spike, and the regens would catch up healing with the avoidance streaks of the monk.

And said that I don't like that type of forced min-maxing, especially considering how long it takes to level up one character and get gear for it in everquest. God forbid it turns out that one type of tanking(avoidance or mitigation) is worse than the other and one type is simply discarded as ineffective, that is two classes that nobody will play, just like with shadow priests from Rustys example.

[Stack of Turtles]

I gave some examples with EQ like classes concerning the Druid/Cleric and how their healing was better or worse depending on the types of classes they healed. I think that is kind of the point here.

Clerics used to hate healing me as a monk. Their complete heal was amazing, but it was a long cast and overkill for the type of tanking a monk does. They could do it ok, but were certainly not ideal due to a sudden spike of damage that would take the monk down and the time to get the complete heal in wasn't enough time before average damage took out the rest.

A druid on the other hand had faster cast heals and heals over time. They could alternate between those to catch a spike, and the regens would catch up healing with the avoidance streaks of the monk.

And said that I don't like that type of forced min-maxing, especially considering how long it takes to level up one character and get gear for it in everquest. God forbid it turns out that one type of tanking(avoidance or mitigation) is worse than the other and one type is simply discarded as ineffective, that is two classes that nobody will play, just like with shadow priests from Rustys example.

I don't think you know what "min-maxing" means.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Is is also why "muh class balance" focus has been the number one killer IMO of game play mechanics as it concerns multiplayer games. You don't balance a class to class, you balance a class to content for their specific purpose and focus, but unfortunately many gamers can't accept the concept of "Well, I suck at that, but I am good at this".

This inevitably leads to a situation where a certain class, for example is good at enchanting equipment and nothing else and the character of this class is used for 15 minutes to push buttons to put enchantment and abandon it. I consider this to be bad gamedesign.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

I gave some examples with EQ like classes concerning the Druid/Cleric and how their healing was better or worse depending on the types of classes they healed. I think that is kind of the point here.

Clerics used to hate healing me as a monk. Their complete heal was amazing, but it was a long cast and overkill for the type of tanking a monk does. They could do it ok, but were certainly not ideal due to a sudden spike of damage that would take the monk down and the time to get the complete heal in wasn't enough time before average damage took out the rest.

A druid on the other hand had faster cast heals and heals over time. They could alternate between those to catch a spike, and the regens would catch up healing with the avoidance streaks of the monk.

And said that I don't like that type of forced min-maxing, especially considering how long it takes to level up one character and get gear for it in everquest. God forbid it turns out that one type of tanking(avoidance or mitigation) is worse than the other and one type is simply discarded as ineffective, that is two classes that nobody will play, just like with shadow priests from Rustys example.

I don't think you know what "min-maxing" means.

I don't think you know how far "min-maxing" can go.

[Stack of Turtles]

Is is also why "muh class balance" focus has been the number one killer IMO of game play mechanics as it concerns multiplayer games. You don't balance a class to class, you balance a class to content for their specific purpose and focus, but unfortunately many gamers can't accept the concept of "Well, I suck at that, but I am good at this".

This inevitably leads to a situation where a certain class, for example is good at enchanting equipment and nothing else and the character of this class is used for 15 minutes to push buttons to put enchantment and abandon it. I consider this to be bad gamedesign.

If the game has a solid "profession" system where roleplaying being an actual enchanter and not a front-line hero is viable, that's awesome. Otherwise, no character should only be good at enchanting equipment because that's not something the actual adventurer going into the dungeons should be doing, it's more something a specialized craftsman like a smith should do in a town, and the poor game design is in making that choice to begin with.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Is is also why "muh class balance" focus has been the number one killer IMO of game play mechanics as it concerns multiplayer games. You don't balance a class to class, you balance a class to content for their specific purpose and focus, but unfortunately many gamers can't accept the concept of "Well, I suck at that, but I am good at this".

This inevitably leads to a situation where a certain class, for example is good at enchanting equipment and nothing else and the character of this class is used for 15 minutes to push buttons to put enchantment and abandon it. I consider this to be bad gamedesign.

If the game has a solid "profession" system where roleplaying being an actual enchanter and not a front-line hero is viable, that's awesome. Otherwise, no character should only be good at enchanting equipment because that's not something the actual adventurer going into the dungeons should be doing, it's more something a specialized craftsman like a smith should do in a town, and the poor game design is in making that choice to begin with.

That is why I ask you for more concrete examples, because your general descriptions suggest exactly the kind of situations.

If the game has a solid "profession" system where roleplaying being an actual enchanter and not a front-line hero is viable, that's awesome.

That is a problem, I don't remember games that have that kind of things.

[Xenich]

I gave some examples with EQ like classes concerning the Druid/Cleric and how their healing was better or worse depending on the types of classes they healed. I think that is kind of the point here.

Clerics used to hate healing me as a monk. Their complete heal was amazing, but it was a long cast and overkill for the type of tanking a monk does. They could do it ok, but were certainly not ideal due to a sudden spike of damage that would take the monk down and the time to get the complete heal in wasn't enough time before average damage took out the rest.

A druid on the other hand had faster cast heals and heals over time. They could alternate between those to catch a spike, and the regens would catch up healing with the avoidance streaks of the monk.

And said that I don't like that type of forced min-maxing, especially considering how long it takes to level up one character and get gear for it in everquest. God forbid it turns out that one type of tanking(avoidance or mitigation) is worse than the other and one type is simply discarded as ineffective, that is two classes that nobody will play, just like with shadow priests from Rustys example.

Hence my comment about the kid with the pile of toys.

Edit:

By the way, that isn't forced min-maxing, that is designing classes with strengths and weaknesses which allow for a more dynamic aspect of play where every class can bring something to the table depending on various situations. It is called "depth of play", something the systems you describe lack.

To each their own though, I just find your tastes... bland and meaningless in game play.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

I gave some examples with EQ like classes concerning the Druid/Cleric and how their healing was better or worse depending on the types of classes they healed. I think that is kind of the point here.

Clerics used to hate healing me as a monk. Their complete heal was amazing, but it was a long cast and overkill for the type of tanking a monk does. They could do it ok, but were certainly not ideal due to a sudden spike of damage that would take the monk down and the time to get the complete heal in wasn't enough time before average damage took out the rest.

A druid on the other hand had faster cast heals and heals over time. They could alternate between those to catch a spike, and the regens would catch up healing with the avoidance streaks of the monk.

And said that I don't like that type of forced min-maxing, especially considering how long it takes to level up one character and get gear for it in everquest. God forbid it turns out that one type of tanking(avoidance or mitigation) is worse than the other and one type is simply discarded as ineffective, that is two classes that nobody will play, just like with shadow priests from Rustys example.

Hence my comment about the kid with the pile of toys.

Edit:

By the way, that isn't forced min-maxing, that is designing classes with strengths and weaknesses which allow for a more dynamic aspect of play where every class can bring something to the table depending on various situations. It is called "depth of play", something the systems you describe lack.

To each their own though, I just find your tastes... bland and meaningless in game play.

Your "depth of play" leads to using meta classes of current balance and makes other classes just useless and nobody played them. To each their own I guess.

[Stack of Turtles]

Your "depth of play" leads to using meta classes of current balance and makes other classes just useless and nobody played them. To each their own I guess.

You do need actually decent game development to make it work, but it can work.

[rusty_shackleford]

Attempting to homogenize classes created far worse balance issues that could only be resolved by further homogenization.

[Tweed]

I haven't read anything here, but I'm guessing that Faceless is being a huge ****** again.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Your "depth of play" leads to using meta classes of current balance and makes other classes just useless and nobody played them. To each their own I guess.

You do need actually decent game development to make it work, but it can work.

I agree completely, but I highly doubt that the earliest release version of EverQuest did it from the first try.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Attempting to homogenize classes created far worse balance issues that could only be resolved by further homogenization.

Having most classes useless and unplayable if far better solution. No, it is not.

[rusty_shackleford]

Attempting to homogenize classes created far worse balance issues that could only be resolved by further homogenization.

Having most classes useless and unplayable if far better solution. No, it is not.

But that's the opposite of what it actually was, each class was unique and useful.
Hybrids kinda sucked because the main designers hated hybrids due to still being butthurt about EQ, but that's not an inherent issue.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

RE: Minmaxxing is not the problem. The problem is that modern MMOs do not facilitate the formation of friendships, so that people are laughing with their friends and don't care whether or not he has the "meta build". Without friends, everyone becomes a mercenary job hunter viewing each other as tools to get their videogame loot, as cogs in a machine to be replaced if they are not "optimal" enough.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Attempting to homogenize classes created far worse balance issues that could only be resolved by further homogenization.

Having most classes useless and unplayable if far better solution. No, it is not.

But that's the opposite of what it actually was, each class was unique and useful.
Hybrids kinda sucked because the main designers hated hybrids due to still being butthurt about EQ, but that's not an inherent issue.

You lying once again: https://www.project1999.com/forums/arch ... 36736.html

1.) Are Clerics absolutely REQUIRED for groups at the later levels? It used to be that you HAD to have a Cleric or else you literally couldn't group. Non-Cleric heals were far too inefficient. In my opinion, Clerics should only be a requirement for bosses and possibly a select amount of other game content. Druids should be able to function perfectly fine as the main healer for a party outside of those limited exceptions. Looking at the p1999 Wiki skill list, it appears that Druids are far behind.

Druids were roundly considered one of the most useless classes once the expansions came along. They were called upon for teleports to certain areas to save time and that's it. They weren't able to do ANYTHING else of value and were completely outclassed by Shaman, who had the same level of healing + excellent self energy regen + the most powerful slow debuff in the game + they could do MORE damage (and for less energy expended) because of having a worthwhile Pet and good haste spells and comparable DoT's/DD's + they got other buffs/debuffs that were a bit better (+Attribute buffs of every kind and the Malaise debuffs) and they even got SoW!!!

2.) Is spellcaster damage (for the spellcasters who should actually be able to do great damage - Magicians, Wizards, and Necromancer) complete **** at the later levels in comparison to melee damage? After Kunark came out, these spellcasting classes took massive hit. Their spell progression became weak in comparison to earlier levels and melee classes got incredible new skills and equipment. Melee classes were doing something like 3x as much damage in comparison to a Magician (unless they had the epic pet, which is hardly a fair consideration and even then it was significantly lower) - a class that had the LEAST amount of utility out of all the casters and was dedicated to DPS! Being able to summon mod rods or perform the occasional Call of the Hero hardly makes a class equally viable.

Wizards had a more specific purpose of at least being able to provide burst damage against very difficult opponents but such a thing was only needed very occasionally. Their DPS over time was embarrassingly weak in comparison to a melee...about 1/5th of what a melee could do.

The problem with healing isn't that Druids and Shamans suck (though perhaps their heals don't scale as much as they should), but rather that Clerics are too good at it. This has the additional result, according to standard EQ class design, of the Cleric being pretty terrible for any job *except* healing, which results in a mandatory class that's pretty crummy outside its area of expertise.

The Warrior suffers the same issue--it dominates its raid main tank role, yet it's rubbish for everything else. Rogues have a little more flexibility thanks to hide/sneak, but not much, and are mostly sub-par for anything except sustained damage dealing.

Most modern MMORPG's have consequently eliminated the notion of the "pure" class that can only do a single job. It's just too inflexible. In the long run, the hybrids won out. It's easy to see why. Remove the 'pure' classes, and EQ's remaining classes are pretty well balanced within their roles. Shadow Knights and Paladins are pretty similar as tanks; Druids and Shamans are both about equal as healers (albeit with vastly different secondary functions), and most the remaining damage-dealers are pretty close, too. Exceptions exist of course--this post is strictly general--but overall the problem classes in EQ are and have always been the 'pure' classes.

https://thedruidsgrove.org/archive/eq/t-3855.html

Druids:


ITEM: Healing.

DESCRIPTION: There is a general consensus that clerics are the only useful healers past 50th level. Shamans and Druids are supposed to be secondary healers. But post 50 their spells are too inferior and fizzle too often to be effective as healers at all. Some suggestions are to move Superior Heal to level 51 (and reduce its fizzle rate) and/or add in a new one at 56th. Where shamans might be able to use Torpor to fulfill their healing needs, we may need to make a new spell for druids at that level. We also need to be careful not to make them too good at healing. That’s the cleric’s turf. Whatever is done here should also be done with shaman, in some similar fashion (though probably not the same way).

[Faceless_Sentinel]

RE: Minmaxxing is not the problem. The problem is that modern MMOs do not facilitate the formation of friendships, so that people are laughing with their friends and don't care whether or not he has the "meta build". Without friends, everyone becomes a mercenary job hunter viewing each other as tools to get their videogame loot, as cogs in a machine to be replaced if they are not "optimal" enough.

Thanks God I had friends when I played Lich King.

[Xenich]

And said that I don't like that type of forced min-maxing, especially considering how long it takes to level up one character and get gear for it in everquest. God forbid it turns out that one type of tanking(avoidance or mitigation) is worse than the other and one type is simply discarded as ineffective, that is two classes that nobody will play, just like with shadow priests from Rustys example.

Hence my comment about the kid with the pile of toys.

Edit:

By the way, that isn't forced min-maxing, that is designing classes with strengths and weaknesses which allow for a more dynamic aspect of play where every class can bring something to the table depending on various situations. It is called "depth of play", something the systems you describe lack.

To each their own though, I just find your tastes... bland and meaningless in game play.

Your "depth of play" leads to using meta classes of current balance and makes other classes just useless and nobody played them. To each their own I guess.

Except my entire explanation showed that was not the case.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Hence my comment about the kid with the pile of toys.

Edit:

By the way, that isn't forced min-maxing, that is designing classes with strengths and weaknesses which allow for a more dynamic aspect of play where every class can bring something to the table depending on various situations. It is called "depth of play", something the systems you describe lack.

To each their own though, I just find your tastes... bland and meaningless in game play.

Your "depth of play" leads to using meta classes of current balance and makes other classes just useless and nobody played them. To each their own I guess.

Except my entire explanation showed that was not the case.

Reality of classic EverQuest:

Having most classes useless and unplayable if far better solution. No, it is not.

But that's the opposite of what it actually was, each class was unique and useful.
Hybrids kinda sucked because the main designers hated hybrids due to still being butthurt about EQ, but that's not an inherent issue.

You lying once again: https://www.project1999.com/forums/arch ... 36736.html

1.) Are Clerics absolutely REQUIRED for groups at the later levels? It used to be that you HAD to have a Cleric or else you literally couldn't group. Non-Cleric heals were far too inefficient. In my opinion, Clerics should only be a requirement for bosses and possibly a select amount of other game content. Druids should be able to function perfectly fine as the main healer for a party outside of those limited exceptions. Looking at the p1999 Wiki skill list, it appears that Druids are far behind.

Druids were roundly considered one of the most useless classes once the expansions came along. They were called upon for teleports to certain areas to save time and that's it. They weren't able to do ANYTHING else of value and were completely outclassed by Shaman, who had the same level of healing + excellent self energy regen + the most powerful slow debuff in the game + they could do MORE damage (and for less energy expended) because of having a worthwhile Pet and good haste spells and comparable DoT's/DD's + they got other buffs/debuffs that were a bit better (+Attribute buffs of every kind and the Malaise debuffs) and they even got SoW!!!

2.) Is spellcaster damage (for the spellcasters who should actually be able to do great damage - Magicians, Wizards, and Necromancer) complete **** at the later levels in comparison to melee damage? After Kunark came out, these spellcasting classes took massive hit. Their spell progression became weak in comparison to earlier levels and melee classes got incredible new skills and equipment. Melee classes were doing something like 3x as much damage in comparison to a Magician (unless they had the epic pet, which is hardly a fair consideration and even then it was significantly lower) - a class that had the LEAST amount of utility out of all the casters and was dedicated to DPS! Being able to summon mod rods or perform the occasional Call of the Hero hardly makes a class equally viable.

Wizards had a more specific purpose of at least being able to provide burst damage against very difficult opponents but such a thing was only needed very occasionally. Their DPS over time was embarrassingly weak in comparison to a melee...about 1/5th of what a melee could do.

The problem with healing isn't that Druids and Shamans suck (though perhaps their heals don't scale as much as they should), but rather that Clerics are too good at it. This has the additional result, according to standard EQ class design, of the Cleric being pretty terrible for any job *except* healing, which results in a mandatory class that's pretty crummy outside its area of expertise.

The Warrior suffers the same issue--it dominates its raid main tank role, yet it's rubbish for everything else. Rogues have a little more flexibility thanks to hide/sneak, but not much, and are mostly sub-par for anything except sustained damage dealing.

Most modern MMORPG's have consequently eliminated the notion of the "pure" class that can only do a single job. It's just too inflexible. In the long run, the hybrids won out. It's easy to see why. Remove the 'pure' classes, and EQ's remaining classes are pretty well balanced within their roles. Shadow Knights and Paladins are pretty similar as tanks; Druids and Shamans are both about equal as healers (albeit with vastly different secondary functions), and most the remaining damage-dealers are pretty close, too. Exceptions exist of course--this post is strictly general--but overall the problem classes in EQ are and have always been the 'pure' classes.

https://thedruidsgrove.org/archive/eq/t-3855.html

Druids:


ITEM: Healing.

DESCRIPTION: There is a general consensus that clerics are the only useful healers past 50th level. Shamans and Druids are supposed to be secondary healers. But post 50 their spells are too inferior and fizzle too often to be effective as healers at all. Some suggestions are to move Superior Heal to level 51 (and reduce its fizzle rate) and/or add in a new one at 56th. Where shamans might be able to use Torpor to fulfill their healing needs, we may need to make a new spell for druids at that level. We also need to be careful not to make them too good at healing. That’s the cleric’s turf. Whatever is done here should also be done with shaman, in some similar fashion (though probably not the same way).

[rusty_shackleford]

druids in early EQ sucked because they lacked a niche, that's the exact opposite of what we're talking about

[Tangerine]

RE: Minmaxxing is not the problem. The problem is that modern MMOs do not facilitate the formation of friendships, so that people are laughing with their friends and don't care whether or not he has the "meta build". Without friends, everyone becomes a mercenary job hunter viewing each other as tools to get their videogame loot, as cogs in a machine to be replaced if they are not "optimal" enough.

When you put it like that, it sounds like a workplace.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

druids in early EQ sucked because they lacked a niche, that's the exact opposite of what we're talking about

They were useless

Druids were roundly considered one of the most useless classes once the expansions came along. They were called upon for teleports to certain areas to save time and that's it. They weren't able to do ANYTHING else of value and were completely outclassed by Shaman, who had the same level of healing + excellent self energy regen + the most powerful slow debuff in the game + they could do MORE damage (and for less energy expended) because of having a worthwhile Pet and good haste spells and comparable DoT's/DD's + they got other buffs/debuffs that were a bit better (+Attribute buffs of every kind and the Malaise debuffs) and they even got SoW!!!

[Xenich]

Your "depth of play" leads to using meta classes of current balance and makes other classes just useless and nobody played them. To each their own I guess.

Except my entire explanation showed that was not the case.

Reality of classic EverQuest:

But that's the opposite of what it actually was, each class was unique and useful.
Hybrids kinda sucked because the main designers hated hybrids due to still being butthurt about EQ, but that's not an inherent issue.

You lying once again: https://www.project1999.com/forums/arch ... 36736.html

1.) Are Clerics absolutely REQUIRED for groups at the later levels? It used to be that you HAD to have a Cleric or else you literally couldn't group. Non-Cleric heals were far too inefficient. In my opinion, Clerics should only be a requirement for bosses and possibly a select amount of other game content. Druids should be able to function perfectly fine as the main healer for a party outside of those limited exceptions. Looking at the p1999 Wiki skill list, it appears that Druids are far behind.

Druids were roundly considered one of the most useless classes once the expansions came along. They were called upon for teleports to certain areas to save time and that's it. They weren't able to do ANYTHING else of value and were completely outclassed by Shaman, who had the same level of healing + excellent self energy regen + the most powerful slow debuff in the game + they could do MORE damage (and for less energy expended) because of having a worthwhile Pet and good haste spells and comparable DoT's/DD's + they got other buffs/debuffs that were a bit better (+Attribute buffs of every kind and the Malaise debuffs) and they even got SoW!!!

2.) Is spellcaster damage (for the spellcasters who should actually be able to do great damage - Magicians, Wizards, and Necromancer) complete **** at the later levels in comparison to melee damage? After Kunark came out, these spellcasting classes took massive hit. Their spell progression became weak in comparison to earlier levels and melee classes got incredible new skills and equipment. Melee classes were doing something like 3x as much damage in comparison to a Magician (unless they had the epic pet, which is hardly a fair consideration and even then it was significantly lower) - a class that had the LEAST amount of utility out of all the casters and was dedicated to DPS! Being able to summon mod rods or perform the occasional Call of the Hero hardly makes a class equally viable.

Wizards had a more specific purpose of at least being able to provide burst damage against very difficult opponents but such a thing was only needed very occasionally. Their DPS over time was embarrassingly weak in comparison to a melee...about 1/5th of what a melee could do.

The problem with healing isn't that Druids and Shamans suck (though perhaps their heals don't scale as much as they should), but rather that Clerics are too good at it. This has the additional result, according to standard EQ class design, of the Cleric being pretty terrible for any job *except* healing, which results in a mandatory class that's pretty crummy outside its area of expertise.

The Warrior suffers the same issue--it dominates its raid main tank role, yet it's rubbish for everything else. Rogues have a little more flexibility thanks to hide/sneak, but not much, and are mostly sub-par for anything except sustained damage dealing.

Most modern MMORPG's have consequently eliminated the notion of the "pure" class that can only do a single job. It's just too inflexible. In the long run, the hybrids won out. It's easy to see why. Remove the 'pure' classes, and EQ's remaining classes are pretty well balanced within their roles. Shadow Knights and Paladins are pretty similar as tanks; Druids and Shamans are both about equal as healers (albeit with vastly different secondary functions), and most the remaining damage-dealers are pretty close, too. Exceptions exist of course--this post is strictly general--but overall the problem classes in EQ are and have always been the 'pure' classes.

https://thedruidsgrove.org/archive/eq/t-3855.html

Druids:


ITEM: Healing.

DESCRIPTION: There is a general consensus that clerics are the only useful healers past 50th level. Shamans and Druids are supposed to be secondary healers. But post 50 their spells are too inferior and fizzle too often to be effective as healers at all. Some suggestions are to move Superior Heal to level 51 (and reduce its fizzle rate) and/or add in a new one at 56th. Where shamans might be able to use Torpor to fulfill their healing needs, we may need to make a new spell for druids at that level. We also need to be careful not to make them too good at healing. That’s the cleric’s turf. Whatever is done here should also be done with shaman, in some similar fashion (though probably not the same way).

There were a lot of whiners in EQ who spent a lot of time complaining about their class while other people were out doing what they claimed they couldn't do.

Your response would be akin to me linking you some whine posts from the wow forums.

Thanks though!

[Xenich]

druids in early EQ sucked because they lacked a niche, that's the exact opposite of what we're talking about

Like I said, they worked well with monks. I ran with a druid and duo'd constantly. They had some rough spots, but they healed monks quite well (compared to clerics who constantly had issues with the complete heal timing and my spike damage).

I do remember people "telling" me what I was supposed to be, what I could and couldn't do, etc... but it didn't stop us from doing things. In many cases I was the primary tank for group content, well... up until the monk nerf on mitigation, then we were worse in mitigation than a leather druid by roughly 10% is what the parsers ended up settling on. It was enough to make it very difficult unless you pushed past a certain AC cap.

I remember people saying "X class is DPS, X class is Tank, etc..." It was ******** and created tons of problems, especially with Furor from Fires of Heaven who was the main instigator in getting the monk nerf because he was ****** off (at something as usual) and even then he admitted it was way overboard.

[Xenich]

druids in early EQ sucked because they lacked a niche, that's the exact opposite of what we're talking about

They were useless

Druids were roundly considered one of the most useless classes once the expansions came along. They were called upon for teleports to certain areas to save time and that's it. They weren't able to do ANYTHING else of value and were completely outclassed by Shaman, who had the same level of healing + excellent self energy regen + the most powerful slow debuff in the game + they could do MORE damage (and for less energy expended) because of having a worthwhile Pet and good haste spells and comparable DoT's/DD's + they got other buffs/debuffs that were a bit better (+Attribute buffs of every kind and the Malaise debuffs) and they even got SoW!!!

LOL

My Driud friend would have ripped this apart (as he did when this came up at the time).

This is typical whinefest from *******.

Next you will link me Thott (Bard) on Monkly Business complaining about how Bards are so underpowered and monks need to be nerfed even worse than they did with the first round of mitigation nerfs, all the while the dumb *** had Feign death, harmony, speed, snares, etc... and could swarm kite an entire zone, but wahahahahaha!!! Me want more.... I am useless! LOL