Honestly I don't think the exp penalty really matters at all as far as when people decide what they want to play. Maybe I'm just being naive, but to me when I pick a character I consider two things: 1) am I going to enjoy playing this character, and 2) will I be viable at end game. The biggest problem I think with the weak classes is not the exp penalty, it's just that they're generally unappealing. I think for example, any class without bind affinity is not something I'd be interested in playing without a cleric constantly with me. It really limits what you can do in the game. There are a lot of other issues as well, but I think people generally just want to be powerful and useful. There has to be a solid reward for playing a paladin or whatever that makes someone want to make one over something else.
edit: ill further say I think the game would be overall better and more fun if ANY class could bind affinity at level 1, with no restrictions other than the obvious ones like no dungeons, but for obvious reasons that can't happen. It's really hard to say what from classic made the experience more fun/better and what made it worse.
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