Class Balance

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Two reasons it's a failed design concept:

2. Skills that don't scale well
-------------------------------

Slow and complete heal spring to mind. If you have the incredibly
powerful ability to reduce the number of times per minute a creature can
take a swing, and you make that ability scaling rather than static, then
no matter how weak you make it initially, sooner or later it will be
become so over powered that you will have to make content to assume
everybody has it.

Complete heal, well the name says it all really, overpowered from day
one and only gets worse as people's maximum hitpoints increase. Even
limited to 7500 hitpoints, this spell will continue to be overpowered
until most folks usually have many times that.

Slow should have been an innate and static ability for those classes
that have it, like defensive is for warriors. Complete heal should never
have existed.

Scaling badly in the other direction: Harm Touch! Lethal at level four,
irrelevant at level 70.


1. Gameplay favors specialists by being more predictable and repetitive.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

What if it were just as normal to fight 3 less powerful creatures at
once as it is to fight a single more powerful creature?
What if some creatures insisted on fighting at long range?
What if some ran at 50% health?
What if some refused to take on more than 3 players?
What if some creatures just plain refused to fight and had to be *hunted*?
What if some were too smart to be agro controlled, and had to be kited?
What if some could be enticed to fight or baited?
If traps and ambushes were useful?
If some creatures died with one blow if effected by the right kind of
poison?

What if some creatures picked one or more of the above traits at random
when they spawned?

What if there were ways for the designers to make creatures harder (and
worth more experience) that went beyond "it hits hard and it has a lot
of hitpoints"?

You would be willing to consider someone who is third best mitigator but
who can handle the unexpected. Hell, you might well hire them BOTH.

Cheers,
James

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

<james@doesntlikespam.org> wrote:
>
> What if it were just as normal to fight 3 less powerful creatures at
> once as it is to fight a single more powerful creature?

What if you could form a group of 3 wizards, an enchanter, a cleric and a
bard and fight dozens of less powerful creatures at once?

> What if some creatures insisted on fighting at long range?

What if the players decided to run up to their feet anyway?

> What if some ran at 50% health?

What if we called them "those goofy mobs in N.Ro LDoN"? What if some never
ran? What if we called them skeletons?

> What if some refused to take on more than 3 players?

What if some refused to take on more than 6, or 18, or 36, or 42, or 54, or
72?

> What if some creatures just plain refused to fight and had to be *hunted*?

What if somebody had an idea about a mob that refused to fight and then
tried and failed to figure out a way to actually make it challenging? =P

> What if some were too smart to be agro controlled, and had to be kited?

What if kiting is, in itself, a form of aggro control?

> What if some could be enticed to fight or baited?

What if I had to say a trigger phrase to start a fight?

> If traps and ambushes were useful?

What if oxymorons were a valid form of currency? Assuming "useful" wasn't
the word you intended, I don't see why you ask the question, as traps and
ambushes have been used heavily in EQ since Luclin, and increasing most
every expansion. If you instead mean player-made stuff, in a game with
static mobs (and dungeons designed around that concept) and no PvP to speak
of, their usefulness would be limited no matter how much you tried to make
them relevant.

> If some creatures died with one blow if effected by the right kind of
> poison?

If some mobs died when I looked at them with my frickin laser beams?

> What if some creatures picked one or more of the above traits at random
> when they spawned?

What if you had a mob called "Rallos Zek the Warlord" who just plain refused
to fight and had to be *hunted*?

> What if there were ways for the designers to make creatures harder (and
> worth more experience) that went beyond "it hits hard and it has a lot
> of hitpoints"?

Then we'd all be playing a different game. Its name would be Guild Wars or
City of Heroes (only games I've seen that actually take that concept to any
length).

> You would be willing to consider someone who is third best mitigator but
> who can handle the unexpected. Hell, you might well hire them BOTH.

Why are you stumping for monks? Oh, wait, you mean shadowknights, the class
*tied* for the #2 spot. Don't let their healing ability fool you, it can be
deceptive. Most shadowknights I know tank better than their paladin peers.

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Faned <faned@wyld.qx.net> wrote in
news:slrnda8ofp.76m.faned@wyld.qx.net:

> <james@doesntlikespam.org> wrote:
>> If some creatures died with one blow if effected by the right kind of
>> poison?
>
> If some mobs died when I looked at them with my frickin laser beams?
>

Well, some mobs do die with one blow, assuming the appropriate AAs, and a
level 46 or lower mob.

--
On Erollisi Marr in <Sanctuary of Marr>
Ancient Graeme Faelban, Barbarian Soothsayer of 70 seasons

On Steamfont in <Insanity Plea>
Graeme, 33 Dwarven Mystic, 24 Sage, Treasure Hunter
Aviv, 15 Gnome Brawler, 30 Provisioner

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

In article <RB_oe.69196$VH2.33898@tornado.tampabay.rr.com>,
bgbdwolf@gte.net says...
> the wharf rat scribbled:
>
> > People keep talking about how overpowered cheal is, but
> > if it's that great how come people still die?

> Because the game is built around it. And because people
> still make mistakes (and things like lag still exist, etc.)

As a cleric, I usually lose people with plenty of mana left, not due to
lag or connection issues, but due to misplaced aggro.

Sometimes its due to "mistakes" but that's to broad. As often as not
we'll be fighting something that will shred any group member but the
tank (ie a 'difficult' mob, and we'll get a 'difficult' wandering add or
respawn.

By diffult, I mean difficult to control... e.g. the constructs and
golems in the hole... unmezzable, and so magic resistant that you can't
reliably park with root, or land slow or anything. And the zone is quite
dense so kiting isn't much of an option either.

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

"Phaedra" <extra@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:BADpe.998$hK3.360@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net:

>
> "James Hicks" <james@doesntlikespam.org> wrote in message
> news:5VWoe.4300$F7.1386@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>| Two reasons it's a failed design concept:
>|
>| 2. Skills that don't scale well
>| -------------------------------
>|
>| Slow and complete heal spring to mind. If you have the incredibly
>| powerful ability to reduce the number of times per minute a creature
>| can take a swing, and you make that ability scaling rather than
>| static, then no matter how weak you make it initially, sooner or
>| later it will be become so over powered that you will have to make
>| content to assume everybody has it.
>|
>| Complete heal, well the name says it all really, overpowered from day
>| one and only gets worse as people's maximum hitpoints increase. Even
>| limited to 7500 hitpoints, this spell will continue to be overpowered
>| until most folks usually have many times that.
>|
>
>
> You've left out snare, snare is at least as powerful and game breaking
> as slow and complete heal. Is that because one or more of your
> characters can snare?

Many mobs are immune to movement speed changes too.

Speaking as someone who cannot snare, and has had the chance to play with
it using a clicky snare item, it does really trivialize my soloing when I
can get it. When I can't, I use root to keep mobs from running, sure
they continue attacking until the bitter end then, but, it's the price I
pay for not being a snaring class.

>
> Complete heal was not overpowered from day one. It wasn't until people
> began having lots of health points that it became so powerful. Fast
> heals today are more powerful in many ways than complete heal was back
> in the day when you compare percentage of total mana, efficiency and
> cast time.

Complete heal was what made many of the old high end encounters possible
to actually conquer without an army of clerics. The time it probably
really broke things was when level 60 was added.

>
> Slow has been modified by slow mitigation.
>

Some mobs mitigate, some are immune, many are affected fully, or at least
mostly by it. A 70% reduction in damage output of a mob is pretty game
altering, and makes many encounters extremely difficult, if not
impossible to do without one of the primary slowing classes.

--
On Erollisi Marr in <Sanctuary of Marr>
Ancient Graeme Faelban, Barbarian Soothsayer of 70 seasons

On Steamfont in <Insanity Plea>
Graeme, 34 Dwarven Mystic, 24 Sage, Treasure Hunter
Aviv, 15 Gnome Brawler, 30 Provisioner

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

<extra@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Graeme Faelban" <RichardRapier@netscape.net> wrote in message
> news:Xns966F5C335A219richardrapiernetscap@130.133.1.4...
> | "Phaedra" <extra@hotmail.com> wrote in
> | news:BADpe.998$hK3.360@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net:
> |
> | >
> | > "James Hicks" <james@doesntlikespam.org> wrote in message
> | > news:5VWoe.4300$F7.1386@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> | >| Two reasons it's a failed design concept:
> | >|
> | >| 2. Skills that don't scale well
> | >| -------------------------------
> | >|
> | >| Slow and complete heal spring to mind. If you have the incredibly
> | >| powerful ability to reduce the number of times per minute a creature
> | >| can take a swing, and you make that ability scaling rather than
> | >| static, then no matter how weak you make it initially, sooner or
> | >| later it will be become so over powered that you will have to make
> | >| content to assume everybody has it.
> | >|
> | >| Complete heal, well the name says it all really, overpowered from day
> | >| one and only gets worse as people's maximum hitpoints increase. Even
> | >| limited to 7500 hitpoints, this spell will continue to be overpowered
> | >| until most folks usually have many times that.
> | >|
> | >
> | >
> | > You've left out snare, snare is at least as powerful and game breaking
> | > as slow and complete heal. Is that because one or more of your
> | > characters can snare?
> |
> | Many mobs are immune to movement speed changes too.
> |
>
>
> Yes, they had to make changes to how snare affected the game because it was
> so powerful. I didn't go into detail about snare. I was pointing out that
> snare is one of the three most powerful skills in the game, but rarely
> mentioned when someone goes on a complete heal/slow rant. History has shown
> me that this is usually due to the fact that the person complaining can
> snare but can't slow or complete heal.

As a monk who 3-boxes a slower and a CH'er...

Snare is powerful, and, though I can't even begin to count the times I wish
I had the ability, the lack of it very seldom stopped me from accomplishing
something. Root is just as powerful and possessed by a lot more classes,
even if it is generally a less savory alternative.

That said, I have the monk snare AA and consider it a great tool even with
its harsh restrictions (very short duration, only useable once a minute,
eats endurance that would otherwise be used for damage output, and mobs can
"dodge" it), as well as having carried a snare-proccing weapon in the past.

Snare could be removed from the game and the only type of play that would be
completely eliminated is snare kiting. Everything else would go on with
minimal change.

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

"Meldur" <Meldur@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:bdsea1thr570tsu56uhsdj4lpo1scs7n45@4ax.com...
> On 8 Jun 2005 15:03:49 GMT, Graeme Faelban
> <RichardRapier@netscape.net> wrote:
>
>>"Phaedra" <extra@hotmail.com> wrote in
>>news:BADpe.998$hK3.360@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net:
>>
>>>
>>> "James Hicks" <james@doesntlikespam.org> wrote in message
>>> news:5VWoe.4300$F7.1386@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>>>| Two reasons it's a failed design concept:
>>>|
>>>| 2. Skills that don't scale well
>>>| -------------------------------
>>>|
>>>| Slow and complete heal spring to mind. If you have the incredibly
>>>| powerful ability to reduce the number of times per minute a creature
>>>| can take a swing, and you make that ability scaling rather than
>>>| static, then no matter how weak you make it initially, sooner or
>>>| later it will be become so over powered that you will have to make
>>>| content to assume everybody has it.
>>>|
>>>| Complete heal, well the name says it all really, overpowered from day
>>>| one and only gets worse as people's maximum hitpoints increase. Even
>>>| limited to 7500 hitpoints, this spell will continue to be overpowered
>>>| until most folks usually have many times that.
>>>|
>>>
>>>
>>> You've left out snare, snare is at least as powerful and game breaking
>>> as slow and complete heal. Is that because one or more of your
>>> characters can snare?
>>
>>Many mobs are immune to movement speed changes too.
>
> Not to mention that at higher levels most mobs summon,pretty pointless
> if they are snared or not,this leaves me with a very limited choice of
> mobs I can solo for meaningful experience.
Summoning only mitigates snare; it doesn't make it meaningless. As a
necromancer, snare allows me to kill summoning mobs that I would not be able
to with only root. Admitedly this is not usually a good source of xp, but
has great value in obtaining loot. The example that immediately comes to
mind is runes in Noble's Causeway.
--
Sinaiel Soulmerchant
Wraith of Misericordia
on Brell Serilis

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

<davian@nospammindspring.com> wrote:
>
>
> "Graeme Faelban" <RichardRapier@netscape.net> wrote in message
> news:Xns966F5C335A219richardrapiernetscap@130.133.1.4...
>
>
> >
> > Complete heal was what made many of the old high end encounters possible
> > to actually conquer without an army of clerics. The time it probably
> > really broke things was when level 60 was added.
> >
>
> I wasn't high end way back then, but I don't really see old world encounters
> where CH would make any kind of a real difference.
>
> For Vox and Naggy, their fear plays havoc on CH's 10 sec cast time. And
> there weren't any other high end encounters. And with the small amount of
> damage they put out (relatively speaking), druid and shaman heals were more
> than adequate. (if level 52 twink raiding exp is any guide.) Cazic (in his
> original form) and the Eye of Veeshan both death touched. I'm not sure about
> Inny, did he still do his AE knockback then? That would really screw up CH
> casting if he did.

52 twink raiding isn't a very good guide. Higher levels (yes, even just 2),
newer spells and gear from at least one extra expansion, etc., made it a far
different fight, thus why they level limited it to begin with. I'm pretty
sure I could 3-box either of them now with a set of level 52 twinks (maybe
I'll try that someday, the guild lobby summoners make me brave). As well,
with all of those mentioned and many many more, you look for ways to keep
clerics *out* of the AE so as to keep them CH'ing. As I recall, Naggy was
often pulled to his doorway and the clerics stacked behind the walls on
either side of the door to avoid the AE. I forget the details on Vox as I
did it a helluva lot less (and had a much worse ratio of wins even still).

> Kunark times I'd think it would be starting to be used regularly in exp
> groups, but it's not too good with many Kunark raid mobs. Gore and Sev both
> had fear to make it mostly unusable. Would be good against VS, but most Trak
> fights can't be MT'ed due to the trak touch proc.

With a smart tank, Trak can be MT'ed just fine and always could. Just sit
down soon as you're tossed. Regardless, you just have another warrior ready
to step up. Gore required the efficiency of CH because the slow made it
such a long fight. Sev... well, I never had much luck with Sev back in the
day. I've soloed him recently for revenge. =) The fear didn't go off
often enough to make CH a bad idea, though it was definitely supplemented by
spamming right after a fear to save the tank.

> Seems to me that Velious was when the spell really became broken. Kunark
> hadn't been too, too bad, but Velious was the first real round of massive
> mudflation in items. Increasing tank hitpoints allowed for insane mana
> efficiency (to the point where nobody would really consider using any other
> spell) as well as the ability to survive spikes during the 10 second wait.
> Velious raid bosses also seem especially susceptible to CH and CH chains.
> Greatly decreased use of fear and death touch in favor of AE damage and
> massive hit points. Actually, with the exception of Sontalak, I can't really
> remember any velious bosses that we didn't use and abuse CH on. (With various
> degrees of patch healing, of course.)

Velious really cemented the CH chain, no doubt. Mobs like Vindi and AoW
just wouldn't be doable without it, and all raid mobs had exponentially more
hp to chew through, while dps upgrades didn't keep up. Made for loooooong
fights.

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

"42" wrote

> wolfie says...

>> the wharf rat scribbled:
>>
>> > People keep talking about how overpowered cheal is, but
>> > if it's that great how come people still die?
>
>> Because the game is built around it. And because people
>> still make mistakes (and things like lag still exist, etc.)
>
> As a cleric, I usually lose people with plenty of mana left, not due to
> lag or connection issues, but due to misplaced aggro.
>
> Sometimes its due to "mistakes" but that's to broad. As often as not
> we'll be fighting something that will shred any group member but the
> tank (ie a 'difficult' mob, and we'll get a 'difficult' wandering add or
> respawn.

Getting an add (wandering or respawn) is -- by my definition -- a
'mistake.' So is misplaced aggro.

However, as I said, CHeal isn't quite so overpowering
simply because encounters are tuned expecting CHeal to be
available. Those mobs that would "shred any group member
but the tank" wouldn't hit so hard if CHeal wasn't in the game.

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

In article <4LZpe.117727$IO.92879@tornado.tampabay.rr.com>,
bgbdwolf@gte.net says...
>
> "42" wrote
>
> > wolfie says...
>
> >> the wharf rat scribbled:
> >>
> >> > People keep talking about how overpowered cheal is, but
> >> > if it's that great how come people still die?
> >
> >> Because the game is built around it. And because people
> >> still make mistakes (and things like lag still exist, etc.)
> >
> > As a cleric, I usually lose people with plenty of mana left, not due to
> > lag or connection issues, but due to misplaced aggro.
> >
> > Sometimes its due to "mistakes" but that's to broad. As often as not
> > we'll be fighting something that will shred any group member but the
> > tank (ie a 'difficult' mob, and we'll get a 'difficult' wandering add or
> > respawn.
>
> Getting an add (wandering or respawn) is -- by my definition -- a
> 'mistake.' So is misplaced aggro.

Like I said, I think your definition is too broad.

In many situations you *expect* to get a double every now and then. If
you are playing in a zone that's near the edge of your groups ability
then usually you can deal with it...and sometimes you can't. You could
play it safe and hunt only in areas where you can always win, but I
frequently choose not to.

Thats not a "mistake" by any reasonable definition; its a deliberate
choice.

Similiarly if the mob runs and gets adds because the SK's chaincasting
of clinging darkness got resisted 6 times in a row... that's not a
mistake that's just life with EQ's RNG.

> However, as I said, CHeal isn't quite so overpowering
> simply because encounters are tuned expecting CHeal to be
> available. Those mobs that would "shred any group member
> but the tank" wouldn't hit so hard if CHeal wasn't in the game.

Of course the game is tuned to CH... its not broken FOR clerics. Its
broken for every group or raid WITHOUT one.

Its broken *because* encounters are tuned expecting it to be available.
If it were always available then it would be ok, but what about what
happens when its not? Hundreds, if not thousands of encounters are tuned
around having CH. Groups without CH are at a significant disadvantage,
and are effectively fighting encounters that are more difficult for them
than they were "supposed to be".