Quote:
Originally Posted by agdros
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This.
This is what makes people play a ranger. You will never become bored with a ranger because you have the opportunity to "change jobs" very quickly depending on what is required.
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That's what makes rangers fun.
I started a ranger in 1999 and 2001 and played it off/on until 2010. I created a few alts here and there but they never got past ~30, except for the paladin, but the paladin was a later creation.
My ranger on live got to 85 with 1200+ aa.
My ranger in 1999 had 13+ days /played. Never played that ranger after 1999 (different server).
The problem is that in groups the versatility of a ranger is greatly diminished because more specialized classes take on those roles. This, in combination with changes to EQ at the higher levels over the course of a year, is what led the EQ developers to remove the penalties on hybrids. If you want, you can read about it here:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/edit...rs_letter.html
(deeper review... they added an experience penalty pre-release because in order to keep rangers competitive somewhat in groups they had to beef up their skills/stats while also giving them extra versatility, otherwise they'd have to take too much from one area to feed it into another. what i'm saying here is they took from dps and tanking (and other primary skills/stats) and put that in snaring and rooting and healing and dotting and dding and archery and buffs and so on, but they couldn't take out too much or rangers would be severely non-competitive in groups. so to avoid cutting back too much on dps and tanking they added an experience penalty. however, an experience penalty doesn't work as a balancing mechanism when everyone is capped. additionally, they made changes to the game at the upper levels that evened out the classes. lastly, the experience penalty was making it impossible for hybrids to level alongside friends at a similar rate. what they did was remodel the game so classes are balanced and obsoleted experience penalties as a counterweight. note that they kept the smaller experience penalties at first, but they later removed them in the years after.)
One issue is that the generic classes were not as versatile (is true even much later in EQ's evolution). As a result, they're not as fun, especially solo. Additionally, most classes are not fun in groups because their roles are so specific. As a ranger in a solo situation, I had to use most of my skills. However, in a group I would often be stuck in a dps role and we'd camp one spot for hours. Only the fact that I had a group of people to talk to and the occasional disaster was my interest kept intact. I'll admit that when I was solo I often wished for company because there's nothing worse than doing the same ol' solo-route you've been doing for a month.
The worst thing about classic EQ is its camping because it leads to so many other problems. The repetitiveness of group and solo play could have been reduced if camping was less effective, for instance.
I've tried to play warriors and rogues and other classes. But I inevitably find that they're too specific. There's just not enough break. It's not fun to do the same thing over and over.
Bottom line, a warrior is tank and spank. That's boring. A ranger can tank and spank too, but they can also snare and kite with dots/dd's and bow/arrow. Using root, they can better handle an add. If they get into a bad pull, they can snare/root and run for the zone line. If they're lost, they can track and use that information to locate their destination. Warriors can use bandages, but so can rangers. And rangers can also heal and they can do all this while in-combat by rooting/snaring. I could go on and on how a warrior is very boring.
Increasing HP/DPS is not the way to make a warrior or generic class fun. That's easy-mode. Lots of "modern" mmorpgs make that mistake. The key to making fun gameplay is diversity and consequences.
What I'm trying to say is that versatility is FUN. Versatility doesn't mean pressing a win button or leveling without challenge, it means having lots of tools and having to be wise about when you use them.
Not all "generic" classes in EQ were necessarily boring. The warrior is just an extreme example of how things can get too boring. The enchanter can be a very exciting class to play in the right situations, for example.