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.