[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Cyrano [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm fortunate in that I have pretty good gear. I can probably hang in top DPS for everyone besides epic rogue, I can hold aggro really well using snare/root, and I can pull as well as anyone until higher levels.

The only thing that keeps me from groups is bias against rangers but I'd argue that a really well equipped ranger can increase the exp of a lower level group way more than that penalty would cause.

Originally Posted by Culkasi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If people wont group with you because you are ranger, they have misunderstood the reason to play a 15 year old game. Min maxing in mid 20s group on P99 is.......wrong.

Cyrano, I played a ranger starting in 1999 and played another all through the years. It was the only class I really played, besides the paladin. I also played here. I played all sorts of classes. Never leveled past about 23 because I think the lower level game was funner. SO why say this? Because you can trust me.

NOW to what I know. The #1 reason Rangers had an experience penalty probably lies in their ability to solo good (not great). The experience penalty was the payment. Now, you may wonder why anything has to be paid? So they solo good and don't group well, isn't that payment enough!?? Well, I will cover that later in the post. I will start with discussing basics. If you can't wait, scroll down to (juicy part).

I actually compared a level 17 warrior and a level 17 ranger on p1999 just to see what the difference would be. The warrior got the mob down to about 20-30% and then died. The ranger? The ranger was resting after the fight with about 50% hp and 50% mana. How'd the ranger do it? Using snare and root. They're very powerful when soloing. I may or may not have used the bow. The details are distant now, but the impression was powerful: Rangers solo much better than warriors.

Of course, we ALL expect rangers to solo better than warriors. But why was this the reason the ranger had an experience penalty? The answer starts with the thinking. If a class could solo well it usually lost something as a group member. Druids, for example, have always been hated for not healing well or not doing great damage. Even necromancers, the most powerful soloers, have trouble in groups because they do so much of their damage with dots. Dots are not mana-efficient in groups. Necromancers also are not a good support class. They're limited in their ability to help others.

Why did they have to lose group ability to solo well? Because back then there was the feeling nothing was free. A jack of all trades had to lose specializations to pay for it. They couldn't have the best of both worlds or the specialized classes would complain. This was a common thread in single player RPGs too: To have a balanced skill set, one had to refrain from specializing. You'd have X points to spend and X was much less than the skill point total. Additionally, there were a number of very important skills.

Something like this:
Lets hypothesize a game with these skills: Offense, Defense, Utility.
...Offense: Damage dealing.
...Defense: Ability to survive damage.
...Utility: Ability to survive challenges which're not just offense/defense-based.
Rules are:
...1 Each skill can be trained up to 100 points max.
...2 The player is allotted a max of 100 points to distribute amongst the skills.

So you can do this: 100 Offense, 0 defense, 0 utility.
Or this: 0 Offense, 0 defense, 100 utility.
Here's a "balanced" distribution: 33 offense, 33 defense, 34 utility.

With modern games, the idea that a jack of all trades has to lose specialization(s) to pay for having a balanced skillset and that this is what they have to do to solo well has been partially or completely discarded in favor of mechanics which - for the vast majority of cases - do not harshly penalize a player's ability to solo or group based on the skills they train.

I think most of hte ability to solo in modern games has been separated from the things you choose to train. So it really doesn't matter what you train or which class you choose because you'll be able to solo equally well as anybody else. This doesn't stop you from attempting to be different from others, it just means the way you're different does not compromise between soloing and grouping.

(juicy part)

Lastly I want to share a conspiracy with you. I know I'm not going to win any friends by saying this. But I think the original creators of the ranger class and other soloing classes actually fudged the numbers and BOOSTED them in groups. Before they decided to boost they discovered these classes were toooooo weak in groups.

"Tooooo Weak!!!??" you ask? HOW CAN THAT HAPPEN. Well ti's simple, and I'll explain. The reason is sitting in plain sight. By giving a class the balanced skill set, thus enabling better soloing, this removes specializations. Remember: Can't have the best of both worlds or someone will complain. Now classes that specialize will suddenly have a much higher priority in group settings because their specializations are higher. We all know how groups organized things: Tank, Healer, Dps, CC, etc. Well as a result of all this the jack-of-all-trades classes now find the bulk of their skills completely redundant and useless in a group.

But that's ok, you say? They chose to solo better and this means htey don't group as well! Isn't this what I explained earlier? Give and take! Remove from group and put in solo. Nothing is free.

Here we meet a dichotomy: Solo-classes can't also be great group-classes unless great soloing ability is available to group-classes. Otherwise, players will complain. However, if good soloers can't be good groupers then what about the fact this is a MMOrpg? MMO = players in groups. The very nature of the game is to play together, isn't it? And so they had to boost the solo-classes to keep them from being scorned by groups.

This decision to boost them in groups was integral in giving solo-classes an experience penalty. Think: If they not only could already solo and get good experience like that, but were ALSO given a bonus to make them more appealing in groups, this would in sum make them soloing gods!

SO hear me out, whether or not I am right. But my conspiracy goes a little further. When they decided to remove the experience penalty, they also removed some of their soloing capability. Maybe htey changed the mitigation tables? Reduced value of root? Alternatively, they might instead boost the soloing capability of all non-soloing classes. They may have even done some of this by accident. Why? Because without a change of this sort the boost I mentioned earlier might make them too strong while soloing. And yet they don't want to remove the boost because they want rangers to still group after the exp penalty is removed.