Quote:
Originally Posted by Crede
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I also think your claim dilutes the guide you have created, which I can appreciate the research and a lot more people may have read if you would have presented it more as that instead of some end all to the shaman racial debate.
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Thank you! The goal of this guide is to try and be an end all to the debate. I believe a lot of confusion on this subject has been generated over the years precisely because quite a few people have this odd idea that video games (or Everquest specifically) are somehow not quantifiable in objective terms. I am not aiming this comment at you to specifically single you out, it is just an observation I have had after years of playing the game and reading the forums. If there are a lot of people out there who do not want to read my guide because they do not believe the racial debate is quantifiable, that is a problem of understanding video games on their part, not a problem with me or my guide. It really isn't that difficult to quantify the benefits of Troll/Iksar Regeneration. Regeneration is simply adding two values together every 6 seconds. That can be predicted with 100% certainty, assuming no crazy bugs occur. I haven't seen any tick related bugs in the many years I have played on this server, so it isn't like you can exploit the tick to give you a large increase in Regeneration, unless you try cheating. The ability to get an extra tick's worth of damage or regeneration on certain spells isn't a bug per-se, it is simply a necessary consequence of how they needed to limit data transfer back in the days of 56k modems.
As a programmer myself, I can tell you that games, while complex, are not some miraculous machine that can spontaneously generate a plethora unexpected events (like real life). Yes, complex games can give rise to interesting bugs (unexpected events), but they are still well within the bounds of video games if you understand how they work. It isn't like Skynet will be born out of World of Warcraft. That is simply out of the bounds of the codebase's capabilities. Everquest overall is a very stable game, and the existing bugs or exploits have been VERY well documented and defined. A Shamans capabilities are strictly defined, as are the mechanics of the game. Unless you are cheating, it is very easy to find the limitations of a Shaman. If you watch my videos, the strategies employed in them are the primary methods of playing a Shaman. I am not saying people do not play differently, or cannot play differently. I am not trying to FORCE people to play in a specific way. The simple reality is games have classes because those classes are designed to be played in a specific way. This is why some classes can fear kite, for example, and others cannot. Of course you could play a Torpor Shaman without using Torpor and Cannibalize together. But I do not think most people would agree with that tactic, even though it could be done. They certainly wouldn't encourage other players to do so, and they wouldn't believe this suggestion is forcing people to play their way.
The idea here is to help people understand how a Shaman works, so they can use them correctly, and make the best decisions possible. If someone is knowledgeable enough to create a character for a very specific purpose or fight, they probably do not need my guide in the first place. For MOST people, they create a Shaman to play a Shaman in the "normal" way. That means there is a "best" race to accommodate the most common denominator of player. This is why I have a few different categories in my guide, to make sure people understand which race is best for which playstyle. The reason why the "overall best" Shaman race is the focus of the guide is because it is the most complex subject. Trolls automatically win the "best race while leveling" debate, so I don't really see a need to go very in depth on that part of the guide if someone doesn't think they will level to 60. It is the same thing with the "raid only" Shamans. That is honestly a minority of players, because one of the biggest draws of a Shaman is their soloing capabilities. Most "raid only" Shamans are bots to be honest.