When are they Implementing the Charm Nerf?

[Troxx]

You mostly didn’t see enchanters charming a lot on classic because we didn’t have 5-10 years of kunark followed by velious forever more there after. Expansions rolled out quickly, charming did eventually get nerfed and EQ moved on. There were a few places where ench charm (albeit super dangerous) made otherwise brutal encounters doable. I can’t remember the name of the trial but think that run in Gates of Discord you has to do with a single group with the ass-beater mob that could and would trash a defensive warrior that wasn’t raid geared to the 9s. Having a charmed dog thingy meant you only had to survive the brutality for a few short seconds because the hasted dog would rip it in half.

But a fair bit of the time the dog would break charm and eat the ench before anyone in the group could react. Winning combo was a Ranger (am3/EQ, trueshot, snare and harmony), an ench, a cleric, a defensive warrior … and then you could help carry 2 guild mates through each run for their one time win..

Remember that on classic timeline less than 1/5 or 1/6 of any given server’s population had a single level 60 main character halfway through Luclin. Not only were we all relative noobs but less was known about game mechanics or games at large. I played in highschool on a dial up and we only had one phone line so we’re talking an hour here vs there. I think my highest was maybe 20 before I went off to college in 2001 and had broadband. I played a Ranger then and remember not getting to 60 and having TS/AM3 until at least halfway through the Luclin timeline.

Charming was possible in this era on live but you never saw people doing it much because
-we were all noobs who didn’t know better
-most had bad connections
-the vast majority of any given server was low level
-expansions dropped routinely that eventually pulled the plug on the mechanic

Had it been known or widely used, I’m confident Verant would have nerfed it.

I’m NOT advocating a nerf mind you, but thems the facts

[loramin]

Look, I totally understand (and agree with!) the argument that we play differently than live players did. The thing about us being stuck at level 60, while Live had Luclin and future expansions, is absolutely true, and does make us more "top heavy".

Likewise, our wiki is better than Allakhazam, Caster's Realm, etc. ... but really, not by that much, and certainly not in relevant ways for this dicussion. Like yes, our wiki has the exact mob loc, and will even show you with a red x on a map where that loc is; Allakhazam didn't have such data for most mobs. But every class had their own forum, with tons of people (again, live had more than 10x the players we have) discussing every last detail of their class, so it's 100% false to say "oh no one in live knew what they were doing".

Enchanters on live knew about levels and charisma. They may not have been as certain of their exact effects, but they absolutely understood how to charm (and I can point you toward a wealth of evidence ... just the Caster's Realm guides on the Wayback Machine alone should be enough). They chose not too (or at least most did; again some did solo charm). And what no one has been able to explain is why only Enchanters (and to a lesser extent Druids/Necros/Bards) make different choices here.

No one is saying "oh those live Warriors didn't know how to solo" ... or well, actually, they did [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] There were long, passionate arguments about how binding wounds in combat was totally classic, and people just didn't know how to play their class on live ... until it was proven that combat bind wounds was nonsense, and removed from here.

But with stuff like 25+ mob kites and combat bind wounds being removed here, every class plays fundamentally the same as they did on live. Warriors group, or solo poorly. Same for Clerics. Necromancers and Mages solo (or group, if they feel like it). All just like live.

Charming is the only thing fundamentally different from Live here: Enchanters are the only class that was predominantly a group class on Live, but is now predominantly a solo class here.

So, I'm not saying to remove charm: if no one could charm solo here, we wouldn't have a good emulator either! All I'm saying is, somehow, some way (and there are much smarter people than me with more details to offer) charm should be somewhat more risky ... like it was on Live.

[DMN]

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

But with stuff like 25+ mob kites and combat bind wounds being removed here, every class plays fundamentally the same as they did on live.

And thats why we have bards kiting, what, just 24? Very fundamentally classic. Druids soloing king tranix? clerics soloing the chardok royalty? monks soloing shroom king? i'm sure you don't want me to bring up shaman again, am i right or am i right?

[-Catherin-]

This thread now has the #2 most replies in the caster's subforum, only behind Necro, how do you not choose Iksar? Which was created in 2015.

Let's go for Gold, guys.

[loramin]

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

And thats why we have bards kiting, what, just 24? Very fundamentally classic. Druids soloing king tranix? clerics soloing the chardok royalty? monks soloing shroom king? i'm sure you don't want me to bring up shaman again, am i right or am i right?

Bards did swarm kite in classic: I know, because I had a friend who played a bard and learned how to do it [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] As for the rest, those are all extreme examples, that simply show what others have been saying about playing an emulator years after the original. Yes, a handful of dedicated players, pushing a game to the limit, can do a few things (eg. solo something hard) that hadn't been done before on live.

But none of your examples is anything like a class being played fundamentally differently by virtually everyone who plays that class. Most Enchanters grouped on live, but most Enchanters solo here: that's not true of any other class (again, you don't see Warriors or Clerics mass soloing here, or Necros deciding to group most of the time ... they all play fundamentally the same as they did on live).

When something so basic is different from the original, it strongly suggests the emulator isn't emulating well.

[Troxx]

Yeah tipt sounds right.

[Toxigen]

loramin you really just need to make an enc twink on p99 and get it over with

[loramin]

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

loramin you really just need to make an enc twink on p99 and get it over with

I have one as an alt on Blue, but I'm waiting to make one my main on Green 2.0 ... with the hope that charming gets made more classic before then.

Now you might say "Loramin you're full of shit, no one wants to play a nerfed class". But the thing is, the Live Enchanter was not "nerfed": they were still a great and popular class! I just want to play that class, not the "easy mode" P99 version.

[Troxx]

I saw bards “swarm” on classic.

Like aoe dotting a whopping 4 mobs at a time.

[loramin]

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

I saw bards “swarm” on classic.

Like aoe dotting a whopping 4 mobs at a time.

I never played a Bard, but I assure you I watched (over his shoulder as he played) Enderii of Bristlebane learn to swarm kite with ... a lot of (I didn't count exactly how many) mobs in The Overthere, in 2001 or 2002. I was quite jealous [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I believe it was still in Velious, but it's possible it wasn't until Luclin (these are twenty-plus-year-old memories after all). Still, I don't think anything fundamentally changed between Velious and Luclin, to enable swarm kiting for non-AA characters (we must have been in our 20's-40's when this happened, so AAs weren't a factor).

P.S. And he just had a normal residential Internet connection (we lived off campus) ... I can't remember for sure, but it was almost certainly DSL.