Quote:
Originally Posted by integrable
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I never saw a bard swarm kite more two or three dozen mobs in classic. We don't know the devs intended for entire zones to be swarmed because it just didnt happen for them to see and react to it. I don't care about locking it to 4 mobs I just think there is a large discrepancy between bard swarm kiting in p99 and classic swarming.
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4 mobs is a tad rediculous (bards do significantly less damage per tick than druids and wizards, which can already solo 4) but I could also agree with setting a static cap of something like 10, 20, 30 targets on bard aoe damage abilities. That's more how most people swarmed on classic, a couple dozen mobs at once. Whole zone clears definitely did happen in classic but they were uncommon. Would be a fair second alternative to a policy change while keeping a minimal impact to the balance of the game.
Whole zone clears did become common around the time velious released because low end hardware could handle it and players became aware of its existence. You could swarm a zone on a $150 video card in 2001, and more like a $250-600 card in 1999-2000. Already backed this statement up with proof above.
I have nothing to back this up, but the SoE dev I knew before EQ released essentially described swarm kiting as a selling point to get me to play EQ around the time beta rolled out, so I know it's an intended mechanic. It's just a matter of digging up an old archived forum post or something, because yeah I have no proof. I seem to recall developers mention swarming several times on the forums back in the day, wouldn't be too hard to prove they were aware of it.
That and, as I've mentioned twice already, they buffed swarm kiting in Kunark. Got any explanation for that one?