OP's server sounds very cool, but it's missing one key component: pvp.

I think the paladin resist change would have to be more than just some extra numbers. It implies a sweeping change to both the resist mechanics and the design of encounters. I think the goal would be to create a class that is universally tougher tanking all forms of damage and shrugging it off be it melee or spell while warriors remained as the kings of straight up melee tanking. By giving paladins such massive resists, you could make them extremely desirable for encounters tuned to specifically require that skill set. Imagine that if instead of flurrying, the AoW proc'd a fear or a 1200 point DD. A knight might be preferable.

While we're throwing out hypothetical changes, CH should never have existed in its current form. It should have either a massive cool down, or it should cost X mana per point of damage healed. You could make it still be very efficient, but the cost is that it will drain a lot more mana.

I'd also like to see epics completely reworked. Making them all weapons was completely stupid and it totally invalidated so many items in the game. The rogue epic should have been a cloak or boots. The wizard epic could have been a ring or a hat. Sure, some of the epics could have been weapons, but to do it across the board was just silly and it homogenized everyone. Gone were the days of melees fighting over what weapons to use, they all just equipped their epics and called it a day.

IMHO one of the inherited EQ class disbalance problems is that there supposedly 3 potential tank classes, yet one of them has such a huge mitigation bonus, that in 90% of encounters warrior is automatically preferred over knights. Similarly, out of 3 healers, only one is considered to be true raid healer. That forces raids and sometimes even groups to go beyond mandatory holy trinity concept of tank+healer+dps to even much more restricted and class specific war+cleric mandatory base. The better approach would have been to put all tanks on equal level damage mitigation wise but give then 2ndary rank variety. Same way, all healer classes should be equally potent raid level healers - each capable of raid healing, but with a different approach (see how EQ2 did healers).

And yes, old EQ raids are too blunt - all boss mobs end up with insane melee and occasional Death Touch/AOE for flavor. Funny how Verant diehard DnD fans never thought about it as extremely dull.

I dunno I think you're coming at it with a better level of hindsight than they ever had. Games moved on, WoW came along and shook up the raid scene a ton (then trivialised it to shit)...we look through our "2013 sunglasses" and 1999 content looks uninspiring, flat and even boring.

My memories of raiding Velious/Luclin/PoP saw improvements for sure (though flagging in PoP for me was a bastard as I couldn't attend as many raids as a Euro player on a US server as I'd have liked :p).

Point taken though, there's no eclipsing CH or a well geared warrior's damage mitigation.

I think everyone forgets you are comparing hybrids to pure classes. I am sorry if the hybrid isn't hybrid enough, that is another topic. Maybe they should have their hybrid skills improved. A hybrid though should not do the job equally of a pure class.

WoW screwed up there game eventually the same way because no one understands a hybrid. A hybrid is a mix of two or more classes and should be

this is EXACTLY what is the problem with EQ - you have pure classes who will always be better in a group/raid situation, where all the hybrids will be sub-par and you have hybrids who do better at solo (thought nowhere as good as a "pure" necro and with hideous Xp penalty)

The proper approach would be think about ALL classes as hybrids where a class has a PRIMARY role and a SECONDARY role. For example:

Paladin: Primary - Tank, Secondary: Support Healer

where

Warrior: Primary - Tank, Secondary: Support Melee DPS

This way each tank class can tank (read mitigate) equal well, but each can have his own side perk.

If you don't do this you will always have a situation where pure class will exist only for raid purpose, and hybrids only for soloing, essentially playing 2 different games on the same server.

Concept of a "hybrid" works well in a single player game, or in a more solo friendly MMO, but not in a hard core group/raid oriented game like EQ.

[QUOTE=Kika Maslyaka;928845]this is EXACTLY what is the problem with EQ - you have pure classes who will always be better in a group/raid situation, where all the hybrids will be sub-par and you have hybrids who do better at solo (thought nowhere as good as a "pure" necro and with hideous Xp penalty)

Well I think that is why Sony-Devs came up with AA's to help even out classes. The problem with P1999 is even when Velious comes out a Ranger, SK, Pally will still not be worth a crap. Mobs hit hard as hell in Velious meaning a Warrior and a Cleric are king even more plain and simple in a group.

Many of these suggestions are why EQ begin heading toward easier progression and why WoW is easy mode.

As much as the difficulty of EQ added to its charm, at the end of the day, people tend to enjoy easy vs. hard.

I'd say its more to do with Blizzard's WoW subscribers being typically younger than Verant/SOE's where EQ was concerned.

Levels of ADHD have increased in the last 10-15 years and certainly where I'm from I can see kids are more distracted and have ever shortening attention spans (more distractions, iPods, smartphones, etc). That kind of stuff filters into the game. If an encounter is too hard, people might unsubscribe because "the game is stupid". As long as the bucks roll in, the game is considered successful.

Problem is now though, people have seen their hard work go to the dogs each time as Blizzard trivialises and gives the smaller casual guilds the chance at the same gear...happened as early as The Burning Crusade, I worked for weeks/months to get to the top of the PvP ladder on my server during vanilla (10-15 of us versus another 10-15 on another premade team) to then see the window lickers just buy shit up like it was nothing :(

To those who earnt it, it sucks to see everyone wearing/wielding it. That's just my take on Blizzard, shitting on the "try hards" to keep the casuals subscribed :p Quit during WotLK when big fight PvP got stupid with Death Knights pulling random people into a mob of 40 to be gangraped. Saw the Panda expansion and figured it'll be dead soon... I guess they must have found a set of younger players again :)

So easy versus hard... hard wins for me every time. Learning an encounter or putting the required effort in was part of the fun :)