Remove Hybrid Penalty

[Sektor]

Not sure why these exist but a ranger having a penalty is pretty crazy. You will see more people building hybrids and added pop onto the server for this one little change.

[Dullah]

+1

I think originally Verant intended for hybrids to be somewhat more powerful, but come Kunark, they actually end up being just a little more utility and pretty useless in the end game.

Not that I have any illusions of this ever being changed, just thought I'd throw in a +1.

[Proverbs28]

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

+1

I think originally Verant intended for hybrids to be somewhat more powerful, but come Kunark, they actually end up being just a little more utility and pretty useless in the end game.

Not that I have any illusions of this ever being changed, just thought I'd throw in a +1.

called me a useless paladin on thread 15 mins ago.

then shows me why...

here destin i thought i was just a bad player.

but i guess i was just useless end game because of verant.

FEEL SO MUCH BETTER NOW!!!

thanks buddy. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Dullah]

Originally Posted by Proverbs28 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

called me a useless paladin on thread 15 mins ago.

then shows me why...

here destin i thought i was just a bad player.

but i guess i was just useless end game because of verant.

FEEL SO MUCH BETTER NOW!!!

thanks buddy. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You were useless because you were useless, had nothing to do with your class.

Paladins are fun though and great in pvp, even if their benefit in the end game pve scene is small.

[stormlord]

It's all covered here:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/edit...rs_letter.html

For those who don't want to read it, I'll try to explain.

They gave additional powers to hybrids that were not fully compensated for in stats/skills.

Lets compare a level ~17 ranger and warrior.

Basically, they gave a warrior 15% more hp than a ranger and higher ac softcaps and (rare) criticals when under 40% health and higher initial strength for a small boost to atk and the ability to wear plate.

They gave rangers the ability to cast a 10hp minor heal, a root, a snare, a small dot, a small direct damage spell, small buff (or two), and I think that about sums up their spells. They also gave rangers bow criticals, the best bows, tracking and hiding/sneaking.

You might think that the warrior has quite a few advantages in combat, but in solo situations and in small groups, the ranger's ability to root and snare are tremendous life savers. 15% hp is insignificant compared to the ability to root or snare. The ac softcap is insignificant in the lower levels since almost all players are wearing cloth and/or leather and maybe some banded. The critical bonus for warriors is too random and not dependable. One death and you lose a lot of time!

I actually compared a 17 warrior and a 17 ranger myself in a solo situation against a brigand. The warrior died at about 20% brigand health on average. The ranger managed to kill the brigand with 50% hp and 50% mana remaining. Most of the gain is in root and snare. Without those, the ranger is worse than the warrior.

You also must keep in mind that the 10hp minor heal reduces downtime in solo situations. While it's not nearly as useful in groups, it can still help infrequently.

The problem is that it's hard to know how much root and snare are worth in strict terms. This is what really challenged the design team and maybe confused them. In a group situation, the rangers abilities are redundant. In solo or small group situations, they can save lives. But none of this has a number attached to it. It's very non-linear and hard to measure. Players might not even use these abilities right. In any case, they chose to give hybrids a 40% experience penalty to compensate for their extra "utility". Utility is chinese for intangibles.

They guessed that the experience penalty would make things equal. The problem is that when players reached the max level cap then the experience penalty would no longer balance the classes and thus the hybrids would be overpowered. This became a lot clearer when players DID hit the cap.

They also didn't fully anticipate what would happen to groups that were composed of friends. The hybrids would level so much slower that they would become a hindrance to the group and eventually would not stay within the level range to get experience. This means that hybrids would be outleveled by their friends and removed from the group.

The fact that hybrids shared their experience penalty in groups made things worse.

Furthermore, the changes they made to the game after launch tended to assume that all the classes should be balanced equally. This means that they gave extra bonuses to non-hybrids and/or assigned disadvantages to hybrids. This reduced the power of the hybrids.

To sum it all up, the experience penalty system introduced more problems than it solved.

Now that's basically what the link says.

Here's what I think...

There's no way to have a jack-of-all-trades class without destroying their ability to group versus classes with specific roles. Rogues and monks and wizards will top DPS. Enchanters and druids will top CC. Clerics and Shamans and Druids will top healing. Warriors will top tanking. Necromancers will top soloing. This means that in a group situation the classes which come with specific roles built into their class are more favored than hybrids, since hybrids are more generic in their capabilities. So hybrids will be much less valued in a full group UNLESS they can compete with classes that're built with specific roles in mind. So the only way to really do this is to overpower them by giving them extra dps or extra healing or extra cc or whatever while -already- giving them extra utility for soloing power. This allows them to compete in a group so they won't always be left either soloing or joining small groups.

Verant/SOE chose -not- to, either:
a) Overpower hybrids
b) Continue overpowering hybrids

The only way to do this is to either breakdown the divide between soloing and grouping so that extra utility is less class defining and/or to give hybrids additional roles in a group. My feeling is that they did both over the years. They gave everybody more ability to solo and also gave hybrids unique roles. One example of "giving hybrids a unique role" for a ranger might be their ATK buffs which they using while soloing but use in groups too. Or their ability to track. Or snaring. These things either stack or aren't made redundant in groups.

Remember that if a ranger is as good as a rogue at dps on average AND a ranger has a better ability to solo than a rogue and a rogue doesn't have other roles than the ranger will be overpowered. You can't liberally give soloing abilities only to a couple classes while also giving them equal grouping abilities to other classes. There's a give and take going on. Things have to be balanced so that everyone gets a fair shake.

More modern games have chosen not to divide classes based on soloing/grouping capability. I would argue that this is a good idea, generally. I don't think it's good to restrict a player's options in these terms.

[Proverbs28]

good job destin. posting and supporting an idea you CARE about.

[Dullah]

I think you are somehow confused with how forums work. Threads aren't created only for those who support them, but to actually converse and debate topics to arrive at ideas and compromises that people find mutually agreeable.

Don't know why I'm even wasting my time responding to someone who communicates like a 10 year old that flunked reading comprehension and can't even bother to use any form of punctuation. First the spelling, and then the grammar...

[nabsev]

Does the hybrid penalty hit group also or is it only on them? Can't remember if this was changed.

[Proverbs28]

english not my first language , jerk

[Dullah]

It doesn't work like most people think, but ultimately yes it affects the group. The exp you receive is based on the total experience you've ever earned. People with penalties have earned more even though their level doesn't accurately reflect it, thus they get more of the exp pie.