Experience Penalties...

[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.