Bard in Dreadlands

[indiscriminate_hater]

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

Bard mass(charm or otherwise) kiting didn't exist for the vast majority of EQ's "classic" existence since the PC hardware processing burps and server/internet burps would often lead to instant death. even multiple kiting by a druid with snared enemies was dangerous due to hardware issues back then and generally only done when you could survive a round of combat or two with the entire pack of enemies you were kiting.(generally low blues)

Uh, what? I'm pretty sure quad kiting wasn't bottlenecked by hardware, even in 1999. Nor was charm kiting 10-15 mobs. I remember running through EC tunnel and going on 30 man raids with few problems even on my shitty comp

[DMN]

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

Uh, what? I'm pretty sure quad kiting wasn't bottlenecked by hardware, even in 1999. Nor was charm kiting 10-15 mobs. I remember running through EC tunnel and going on 30 man raids with few problems even on my shitty comp

I said that druids kiting only 4 mobs, even when snared , was still dangerous back then. So kiting 4+ without snare was a virtual death sentence with even the slightest hardware burp. 30 man button mashing zombies on your side are quite a bit different than 30 man zombie army chasing your drum beating ass.

[Silencia]

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

Bard mass(charm or otherwise) kiting didn't exist for the vast majority of EQ's "classic" existence since the PC hardware processing burps and server/internet burps would often lead to instant death. even multiple kiting by a druid with snared enemies was dangerous due to hardware issues back then and generally only done when you could survive a round of combat or two with the entire pack of enemies you were kiting.(generally low blues)

That's completely inaccurate and stupid. Not only did it exist back then, but more than bards did it. The only difference was other classes proceeded to stand on 3D objects where they couldn't be touched. I leveled a wizard doing this extremely fast.

Want to get rid of it? Fine. Just don't sit there and say it wasn't classic when it was (with various exceptions), especially considering this entire game is extremely far from classic. The phrase "not classic" is so stupid.

Druids hardly able to pull four mobs? What? Your vision is so skewed by jealousy it's insane.

[DMN]

It's certainly not inaccurate, while "stupid" is pretty subjective. Reality is often stupid, so maybe you can qualify it as such. What you describe by abusing pathing, which wasn't limited to simply standing on certain 3d objects, was what was described back then as an "actionable offense". If a GM caught you killing mobs in such a way by purely abusing pathing you'd be warned > suspended. It's really irrelevant however because we are talking about bard kiting and not general pathing abuse.

Bard kiting did exist in the period that is being arbitrarily defined as "classic" here, but the window of its existence was quite small. Far smaller then, say, the period of unnerfed DOT damage I actually find it an interesting anomaly in gaming history since it was purely hardware issues that prevented its use, not game code preventing it from occurring.

[Silencia]

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

It's certainly not inaccurate, while "stupid" is pretty subjective. Reality is often stupid, so maybe you can qualify it as such. What you describe by abusing pathing, which wasn't limited to simply standing on certain 3d objects, was what was described back then as an "actionable offense". If a GM caught you killing mobs in such a way by purely abusing pathing you'd be warned > suspended. It's really irrelevant however because we are talking about bard kiting and not general pathing abuse.

Bard kiting did exist in the period that is being arbitrarily defined as "classic" here, but the window of its existence was quite small. Far smaller then, say, the period of unnerfed DOT damage I actually find it an interesting anomaly in gaming history since it was purely hardware issues that prevented its use, not game code preventing it from occurring.

My point was that computers could handle multiple entities in a close proximity. A lot of the time you simply didn't face them so nothing would render. The only time I ever had an issue (my computer was really average, if not below) was much later in EverQuest's life in the Luclin expansion. Shar Vahl was horribly optimized.

[DMN]

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

My point was that computers could handle multiple entities in a close proximity. A lot of the time you simply didn't face them so nothing would render. The only time I ever had an issue (my computer was really average, if not below) was much later in EverQuest's life in the Luclin expansion. Shar Vahl was horribly optimized.

You are a bit confused on the "Type of lag" that tended to kill you when you multi-kited, with a bard or a druid.

The "face lag" you described was actually the mostly innocuous type that could easily be made up for by just cutting more oblique angles when turning and in geneal just giving yourself a little extra wiggle room. The real issue(s) was when people would enter the zone you were currently in. The larger the group the larger the problem. This was why dag's cauldron was notorious for a long time for huge ping spikes -- unrest trains that emptied the zone. butcherblock, another prime kiting zone also was notorious for them,too -- the newb filled boats. Not only was there a rendering issue client side with, but the server also would spike from the new players, on top of the general lag spikes anyone on the internet got back then. It wasn't unusual for people to fall to their death in dag's cauldron due to an unrest train nuking the zone with lag. They would simply be swimming, and bang, lag spike, splat on the lake bottom.

[Murri]

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

Bard mass(charm or otherwise) kiting didn't exist for the vast majority of EQ's "classic" existence since the PC hardware processing burps and server/internet burps would often lead to instant death. even multiple kiting by a druid with snared enemies was dangerous due to hardware issues back then and generally only done when you could survive a round of combat or two with the entire pack of enemies you were kiting.(generally low blues)

Bard ae kiting was nerfed during PoP era. There was plenty of time where it was happening.

Also I can't ever remember anyone doing it with the strafe method. Everyone did it with selos and lots of people did figure 8 style paths or ovals to have song land when they path close to them. I'm sure those methods were used instead of just nice circles because of the lag.

[DMN]

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

Bard ae kiting was nerfed during PoP era. There was plenty of time where it was happening.

Also I can't ever remember anyone doing it with the strafe method. Everyone did it with selos and lots of people did figure 8 style paths or ovals to have song land when they path close to them. I'm sure those methods were used instead of just nice circles because of the lag.

You would sometimes see small scale charm kiting back then. Like 2-3 enemies, charm one to fight the other two, move away. etc a basic charm killing strategy In these cases a lag spike of several seconds at worse just might end up doing severe damage to you, and not kill you. On top of my own experiences of being a beta tester for EQ and played the game up until velious/luclin with max level characters on three different servers, there are other reasons I know it id not exist in that time period.

First bards were never the first 50s/60s on new servers. This was almost exclusively the domain of druids and necros. On very rare occasion a shaman would upset the order, post roots not breaking on DoT ticks. This makes no sense if people were swarm kiting back then. you'd certainly see bards vying for numero uno, but that didn't happen.

Also, I'm sure it would have been talked about in the uberguild I was in on one of the servers. (seekers of norrath on fennin). We talked about/debated stuff like that all time time. When fennin would go down we'd have contests for leveling up characters on different servers -- how i ended up with max level chars on three different ones.

Additionally, when they did do the DoT nerf and it was explained amidst tons of drama: the main reason was they didn't want people aggro kiting things since it created a danger zone for other players nearby. It wasn't that DoTs wee overpowered because they actually increased the power of DoTs. Anyway, mass bard kiting is 10-15 times worse than your typical aggro kite for danger to other players. So if it was being used it would have been nerfed at the same time. It would have also been bitched about on the druid's grove(and necro/shaman forums) non-stop, both before and after the DoT nerf.


My guess is that it must have existed sometime post luclin. But it certainly didn't exist prior to that.

[renordw]

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

Bard mass(charm or otherwise) kiting didn't exist for the vast majority of EQ's "classic" existence since the PC hardware processing burps and server/internet burps would often lead to instant death. even multiple kiting by a druid with snared enemies was dangerous due to hardware issues back then and generally only done when you could survive a round of combat or two with the entire pack of enemies you were kiting.(generally low blues)

This. Although people are whining and bitching that it's inaccurate, this is my recollection as well. The majority of people who tried multi-kiting would get hit very often because of dial-up latency. All the people I knew back then said it was too dangerous to attempt. Yes, there were people who worked in IT and had T1 connections and what not, but the majority did not.

[DMN]

You' d have to connect that T1 line directly to verant's server cluster to avoid the vagaries of the internet. High ping was usually not the problem, within reason, but the massive lag spikesthat lasted several scond or more. These were very frequent in the first coule years of EQ's existence. And it would only take one time happening at a bad time to wipe out hours of hard work... Which is why people played it safe, and no bards mass kited, while only the ballsiest druids quad kited and generally only light blues.

Even that direct T1 line (which didn't exist unless you workd for verant) still wouldn't solve verant's server issues or poor graphic cards/driver optimization.