Quote:
Originally Posted by Topgunben
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Did Brad ever explain why certain things were the way they were in classic?
Just a couple of examples below but we all know there are a lot more.
-Casters are simply more powerful than melee, was it a willful imbalance? Or accidental?
-regen rates are virtually the same for casters as they are melee?
-wizards are kind of shitty
-certain zones are just dog shit. Beholders maze is just one example.
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It was all talked about on usenet or the various EQ-related boards, but good luck finding all the discussion today. Verant's right arm didn't always know what its left was doing, so sometimes you got completely different answers from one developer to the next.
The idea with casters was they were stronger as long as they had mana, but they paid for it with lengthy downtime and blind spellbook meditating. It didn't work out all that well in practice because often enough the melee had to sit around waiting on casters anyway, and melee gear was so weak that melee players couldn't really take much advantage.
Some zones were plain unfinished, and a few weren't implemented at all. Same issue most of these types of games have. In EQ, more often than not the unfinished parts tended to stay unfinished. Development preferred to focus on the never ending expansion rush or money was diverted into other projects.
989/Verant was repeatedly told Wizards weren't great, but they doubled down. It was supposed to have the highest burst damage of any class--which it does. Just VI apparently thought burst was way more important than the players did. Wizards did provide a group protection against kill-stealing, so there was that, and with most experience groups waiting around for spawns between cycles, without P99-style nonstop fighting, they didn't seem as bad as they do on here.