Experience Penalties...

[stormlord]

I thought this was interesting:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/edit...rs_letter.html

I will not make an exhaustive post. It's too much to consider on my (at present) limited time.

But... Rangers ARE better at soloing than a warrior. I compared equal level ranger/warrior in a solo situation against the same mob with similar equipment. It was no comparison. The warrior failed miserably. But is this compensated in a group situation? Yes, somewhat. A ranger's abilities are more redundant in a group. So his big advantages are reduced. The warrior has more hp and better damage mitigation. A warrior is highly sought after because of his specialization, whereas, a ranger is just a grunt to fill for dps'ers. So, ignoring a ranger's utility, assuming that it's a large group, why would anyone choose a ranger over a monk or rogue or wizard? Without the utility, a ranger is just a inferior form of dps.

Assuming a max of +/- 4 for valued ability effectiveness:
Ranger abilites:
# solo
# group
# other
Warrior abilities:
# solo
# group
# other

It would look something like that. So after doing the math, would the answer suggest that rangers need an experience penalty? Are they overpowered?

I'm fine with the experience penalty. I've always felt that rangers, overall, are better than warriors and other group-classes. Not because rangers are valued more in groups, but because I do a fair share of soloing and having things like tracking or sow or superior camo or a damage shield is a big bonus no matter what I do. And if I want to make money, a ranger is better at doing that than a warrior because of DS and solo-capability.

Like it or not, even warriors will try to solo on occasion and even prefer to sometimes.

I think this is a very subjective matter. Personally, I do not like the hard class system used in everquest. It cannot absorb balancing errors very well. It doesn't encourage the kind of non-linear things I like. Generally, EQ has tried to have non-linear things but they don't fit very well with it because of its nature.

I prefer skill-based games that allow you to more quickly change skills. My pet theory is that a resource-based reward system wherein rewards (like experience, items, etc) are finite and replenished over time would be a better system for non-linear gameplay, as it would have the ability to absorb game-balancing errors by preventing them from being excessively exploited. For example, if you found out that you could trap a non-player in a door frame and kill it without any danger then this reward system would decrease what you receive from the kills after each successive kill. Eventually, you would get 0 reward from killing it. If you moved to a new creature you would get more reward, but it's dependent on other factors too. If the skill you use is overpowered then it's absorbed better by the system because: a) players can change their skill-set more rapidly to have hte skills that work well - so as not to be stuck with inferior skills b) if you kill things super fast, you will eventually deplete them and have to move to a new area. I'm sure these ideas can be evolved much further. I've only begun to even think about this system. It came to mind a while back. It made me wonder: if this is indeed true, might this suggest that our universe is protective against exploitation because of its finiteness?

How can you exploit something if it stops giving? That's my point.

[Kika Maslyaka]

Well hybrid Xp penalties were the most stupid idea in initial game design.
Verant designed a game where half of the classes were ultra specialized, while other half were "jack of all trades" but good at nothing.

Their idea was that pure classes will group and raid, while the other half will solo. This of course ultimately fail, cause game obviously proven non solo friendly from any reasonable perspective, other than extreme grinding boredom

However, at the same time, classes like necros or mages who were UBER at soloing, did not had such a MAD XP penalty like hybrids did.
Verant finally realized this, albeit 2 years later, and removed Xp penalties in Velious era.

Another thing - the design concept where some classes sacrifice their combat potential for cash-generating abilities is DEGENERATE beyond believe. This approach leads to EVERYONE making cash generating char first, getting ton of cash and then twinking the hell out of their combat character, instead of legibly playing them.

Please do give druids and wizards self ports as a "travel bonus", but do not allow them to turn it into unlimited source of income - aka do not give them group ports. Or make group ports cost an insanely expensive reagent so they can only afford it if their guilds pays for it for some sort of guild emergency. So approach to buffs. Enchanters should not be able making shit load of plat by sitting in place whole day casting Clarity.

This is why I keep praising EQ2, where buffs you can cast, act as "auras", and only affect your group - if person joins the group - he gets buffed, if he leaves, buff stays behind.

[Atmas]

Originally Posted by Kika Maslyaka [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well hybrid Xp penalties were the most stupid idea in initial game design.
Verant designed a game where half of the classes were ultra specialized, while other half were "jack of all trades" but good at nothing.

Their idea was that pure classes will group and raid, while the other half will solo. This of course ultimately fail, cause game obviously proven non solo friendly from any reasonable perspective, other than extreme grinding boredom

However, at the same time, classes like necros or mages who were UBER at soloing, did not had such a MAD XP penalty like hybrids did.
Verant finally realized this, albeit 2 years later, and removed Xp penalties in Velious era.

Another thing - the design concept where some classes sacrifice their combat potential for cash-generating abilities is DEGENERATE beyond believe. This approach leads to EVERYONE making cash generating char first, getting ton of cash and then twinking the hell out of their combat character, instead of legibly playing them.

Please do give druids and wizards self ports as a "travel bonus", but do not allow them to turn it into unlimited source of income - aka do not give them group ports. Or make group ports cost an insanely expensive reagent so they can only afford it if their guilds pays for it for some sort of guild emergency. So approach to buffs. Enchanters should not be able making shit load of plat by sitting in place whole day casting Clarity.

This is why I keep praising EQ2, where buffs you can cast, act as "auras", and only affect your group - if person joins the group - he gets buffed, if he leaves, buff stays behind.

Mostly disagree with this post with the exception of that classes like Necro probably should have gotten more of an xp penalty (they do have some).

I don't think the xp penalties were a bad thing but they probably should have been announced. The benefits of hybrids over pure melees was very pronounced earlier in the game. In a lot of ways its like the newer editions of DnD that allow people to gain levels in different classes.

The roles of certain classes are tied to Fantasy Lore and MUDs that go way back. It was actually upsetting to most people when PoK arrived and made the world too easy to traverse for all. The bells were something I and many people dislked in EQ2. There are basically only two places you can't get to without a porter and those have a cost component. For the rest porting is a time saver and many classes have unique abilites, IE rez, corpse summon, crack, buffs, that only they can provide.

Not everything is always fair and I hate when games try to make it that way. A major reason why I quit WoW (the 3rd time) was the homogenizing of multiple classes to placate people. Paladins complaining that their AoE dps was inferior to Mages was just ludicrious.

I strongly dislked the EQ2 aura buff system. It made no sense for magical enchanments to only work in the presence of someone.

[pickled_heretic]

Originally Posted by Atmas [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Mostly disagree with this post with the exception of that classes like Necro probably should have gotten more of an xp penalty (they do have some).

I don't think the xp penalties were a bad thing but they probably should have been announced. The benefits of hybrids over pure melees was very pronounced earlier in the game. In a lot of ways its like the newer editions of DnD that allow people to gain levels in different classes.

what is the benefit of hybrid/melee early in the game? hybrids get some low lvl spells to play around with (admittedly some of them are quite useful..), melees get pretty much every relevant melee skill earlier (and in some cases, they get skills that hybrids will never get!). seems balanced to me.

and more importantly, what is the advantage of hybrids vs any divine or arcane spellcaster? can they solo more effectively? group? lmao. if the penalties were designed after any actual class effectiveness they would look absolutely nothing like they do now.

we already have the case of devs tweaking shit that they feel was out of line regardless of the classic timeline, the hoop nerf and pet classes come to mind as recent examples. what is the point of keeping hybrid penalties if there is pretty much unilateral agreement that it's retarded?

[Diggles]

Originally Posted by pickled_heretic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

what is the point of keeping hybrid penalties if there is pretty much unilateral agreement that it's retarded?

it's ~classic~

[Snaggles]

Originally Posted by pickled_heretic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

what is the point of keeping hybrid penalties if there is pretty much unilateral agreement that it's retarded?

Just keeping it as legit as possible I guess.

I don't think it makes sense that a Ranger (for example) have a massive exp penalty due to ease of life where the Druid doesn't. Sure they have far more tricks and mobility than a Warrior but ports should deserve a penalty based on that logic.

In the end the grind to 60 sucks for any class. Hybrids it's just lemon juice in a cut kind of bad. If you want to be that class the penalty shouldn't sway the decision because the suffering ends eventually. I loved my Ogre SK and actually soloed a fair amount of the way to 65. It was slow but having options was better than not and I could solo the first 8 Coldain rings with ease.

Oh...and killing Rogues solely with taps and blood boil was the best. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Vasilyevich]

Do they ever fix any of the obvious fuckups of the original dev team?

Something that comes to mind, obviously wrong 100% can not be used as a stat by this class stats on knight planar pants.

Or is this strict it must be as close to original as possible?

I remember a time when you could make toolboxes for a profit. That was part of kunark, but it's an obvious fuckup that should never be implemented here.

[Kika Maslyaka]

Originally Posted by Atmas [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Mostly disagree with this post with the exception of that classes like Necro probably should have gotten more of an xp penalty (they do have some).

I don't think the xp penalties were a bad thing but they probably should have been announced. The benefits of hybrids over pure melees was very pronounced earlier in the game. In a lot of ways its like the newer editions of DnD that allow people to gain levels in different classes.

The roles of certain classes are tied to Fantasy Lore and MUDs that go way back. It was actually upsetting to most people when PoK arrived and made the world too easy to traverse for all. The bells were something I and many people dislked in EQ2. There are basically only two places you can't get to without a porter and those have a cost component. For the rest porting is a time saver and many classes have unique abilites, IE rez, corpse summon, crack, buffs, that only they can provide.

Not everything is always fair and I hate when games try to make it that way. A major reason why I quit WoW (the 3rd time) was the homogenizing of multiple classes to placate people. Paladins complaining that their AoE dps was inferior to Mages was just ludicrious.

I strongly disliked the EQ2 aura buff system. It made no sense for magical enchanments to only work in the presence of someone.

I have nothing against strong lore/fantasy theme ties between classes and their abilities. Verant just did a horrible job and translating then from DnD over to a PC. Classes don't need to be identical substitutes of each other (like in wow) to be different yet balanced. But Verant completely ignored that. The blind following of the Vision ended in some classes being always wanted everywhere, while some others struggle to get anything done at all.

Even Verant themselves acknowledged that Xp penalties were dumb, and were an error in design concept - can't argue with that [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

As far as EQ2 buffs go - the caster has a magical aura that radiates from him. If you range in range - you benefit from his aura. rather simple concept.

As far as travel bells go - they only connected near by areas anyway - don't forget that eq2 world is basically fragmented eq1 world. So instead of zoning from Freeport to Desert of Ro directly you travel there by using a bell.
Actual boat travel also made come back during Faydark expansion, thought wasn't really important.
EQ2 has a pile of its own flaws, but it also fixed a number of issues that were inherently broken in eq1.

[Mardur]

Yes, Rangers are over-powered.

[Lazortag]

Bards and pet classes are probably the only classes that deserve an exp penalty.