What Classic EQ should be (game mechanics discussion)

[Hobie819]

Really, one really only needs to look at pen and paper RPGs to discover what would be awesome things to add to EQ in a perfect world:

Tradeskills: as mentioned, they should be much more useful. In traditional pen and paper RPGs, almost everything up until the end of the game is purchased at shops from merchants. Rules are in the game to make just about anything. Think about it - everything in the game (except for those items that are biological in nature) were created by someone, sometime and then became named and a part of lore afterwards. In a perfect EQ world, rules should exist and I should be able to make "Hobiewan's dragon slaying staff". It could either be a traditional great staff that, due to some heroic deed while fighting an evil dragon was imbued with magical dragon slaying properties by Karana himself, or it could just be something I made due to the knowledge I had of fighting dragons. Kill 4 dragons and you now get the ability to imbue items with dragon slaying properties due to your knowledge of dragon slaying.

Loot: Killing a sabertooth tiger should always provide the adventurer with chunks of meat, sabertooth hides, etc... Killing a griffin should provide the adventurer with 100's of feathers, not a rare chance at 1. Killing Quillmane should not provide a Pegasus cloak - it should provide Pegasus feathers that a very skilled tradeskiller can then make into a cloak.

Quests: Really - what sane person wants billions of gnoll fangs? How many times can an epic quest giver really ask for Venril Sathir to die? In a perfect EQ world, quests would be given at random and would be given more from players than from NPCs - we outnumber NPC's anyway. In a perfect world, players could award experience based on those quests. In a perfect world, EQ would have a player based quest builder where the player would select from a number of options to build their quest and then the program would calculate the variables based on the quest scenarios and decide an appropriate amount of experience to award. If NPC's can ask for 4 rat ears and award experience and gold for it, why can't players ask for 20 bonechips and reward players with experience?

Property: Adventurers need places to store their loot. Storefronts, guild houses, houses themselves - houses and guild halls were even promised when EQ was out at the beginning but was late redacted as the developers realized how impossible it would be. It would be nice to have something that represented me. It would also allow cities to grow and be more lively. Of course to buy property, you would need to have money and political influence which opens the world up to more quests to where faction would mean more.

Fame: For those in the top guilds, how many times have you killed Cazic Thule, Lady Vox, etc...? How many times have you, in storyline, saved the world? How often have villagers rewarded you for your deeds? In a perfect EQ world, faction would mean much more then it does now.

meaningful encounters: The first time you take down an enemy, it is meaningful. you get that rush of "wow, that was cool - we did it!" The 50th time - not so much. In a perfect EQ world, named major bad guys would only ever exist once. That would make for a lame MMORPG though, and really is only a carryover from pan and paper RPG where it is much more feasible. In a pen and paper RPG, there are only supposed to be a very few high level characters that can even take down a major bad guy.

Changeable Words: The world would change based on things happening in the game lore. How is crushbone still populated? Their emporer has been slain over and over again. Elf guards 3 times the power of the emperor literally sit 5 minutes away.

Most of the above scenarios just aren't feasible being a MMORPG and I realize that. But to make roleplay mean more many of these things would need to be implemented to feel meaningful about what is done in game. There are hundreds of other options to mention as well, but really - they can't be implemented given the nature of the game so I'll hold my post to those mentioned above.

[rollin5k]

nah baalzy light sources seem right, but a humans should need them to see, like to see at all and walk around

[harnold]

light sources are right but the problem is it is all negated with the gamma slider

[iruinedyourday]

This thread is having an identity crisis.

[NegaStoat]

If we're making some sort of list about this stuff, Stamina should be at the top. That's all I know.

[iruinedyourday]

I still think the npc's in karanas should be more thankful for my sheriffing of the bandits out there.

[Kich867]

If I were to redo classic, this would be the list of changes I'd make:

Game Mechanics:
- Alter threat to take into account damage done, not just swings
- Taunt displays a message letting you know that it has no effect on monsters already aggro'd on you.
- Remove experience penalties
- Reduce strength of many monsters outside of indoor dungeons to allow more classes to solo. While still a less optimal approach, at least give more classes the option.

Classes:
Warrior:
- Warriors gain a "Threaten" skill capping at 210, causing a flat amount of aggro that scales with skill, level, and maybe some sort of cute modifier like charisma. 8 second cooldown
- Warriors gain a "Cleave" skill capping at 210, attacking with all weapons (DW / 2h) against all monsters within 180 degrees in front of them. Higher skill improves chance to hit. 10 second cooldown

Ranger:
- Rangers bow damage modified to behave and scale similarly to 2 handers (damage calculated the same, weapon damage bonus the same). Bows would not receive double attack, but would deal double damage to non-moving targets starting at level 1 instead of 51, creating a unique flavor to Ranger bow DPS: individual very large hits.
- Ranger Epic receives similar treatment to warrior epic, able to be turned back and forth between bow and swords.
- Trueshot Discipline duration reduced to 15 seconds, timer reduced to 30 minutes.
- Drop "Agility" as a bonus stat and replace it with "Dexterity".
- Rangers can train in either Specialize Melee or Specialize Archery, improving their chance to dual wield / double attack VS improving their chance to hit and crit with bows.

Paladin:
- Paladins gain a "Block" passive skill, reducing damage of a physical attack between 25-100% (based on a roll influenced by Block skill).
- Paladins can "Block" with their epic weapon.

Shadow Knight:
- Shadow Knights gain a "Block" passive skill, reducing damage of a physical attack between 25-100% (based on a roll influenced by Block skill).
- Shadow Knights can "Block" with their epic weapon.

Monk:
- At level 10, Monk's gain a "Sprint" passive skill that caps at 200. This skill naturally increases their run speed by 0.1% per skill point. This skill stacks with other movement speed increasing effects. This skill is raised by movement.
- At level 30, Monk's gain a "Deftness" passive skill that caps at 200. This skill naturally increases their attack speed by 0.05% per skill point. This skill stacks with other haste effects.

Rogue:
- Added enchanted poison vial recipes: at every trivial skill level for every rogue poison there is a new recipe to create an enchanted poison of that type. This applies a permanent coating to a blade, able to be overwritten by stronger poisons. (1 ppm) Unequipping or trading the weapon removes this proc.

Bard:
- Song power is now also positively affected by Charisma.

Wizard:
- Wizards gain the "Empowered Spell" skill at level 40, causing their next damage dealing spell to deal additional damage. Usable once per minute.

Cleric:
- Remove the "Complete Heal" spell.

All Casters:
- Intelligence scales spell damage for INT casters
- Wisdom scales spell damage for WIS casters
(Both pending a calculation as to how to apply that, but it would be a somewhat linear % based increase)

Tradeskills:
Blacksmithing:
- Improve cultural smithing gear for all races.
- Introduce more and better cultural smithing weapons for all races, to match the higher-end smithing gear.

Tailoring:
- Introduce cultural Tailoring for High Elves and Erudites.
- This gear will be focused on casters.
- Improve cultural tailoring (leather armor) from Wood Elves.
- Adding another set of Quiver recipes for each Quiver, at a higher trivial point. These are Enchanted quivers that will not consume arrows fired from them.

Fletching:
- Add cultural fletching to Wood Elves


The aim would be:
- bring SK's / Paladin's up to the tanking status of Warriors without having them share the HP/AC pool.
- Solidify Rangers as either a melee or ranged DPS class--whichever you prefer. While less damage than Rogues or Monks, close enough that it's not an issue.
- Make casters more interesting by providing higher damage/healing via their primary stats.
- Borrow from the DnD roots a little with some of the classes.
- Make warriors better at snap aggro / AOE aggro.
- Add a little flavor to rogues, monks, and wizards.
- Make tradeskills more interesting.
- Wiggle Endless Quiver into the game before AA's.

[justin2090]

I would make all monk secondary attacks do something special so that they can define their role in the group. For example Flying Kick would do its normal damage + threat reduction for dps and Dragon Punch would do its normal damage + AC/Agi bonus for tanking.

[Bboboo]

I demand more server lag as well as longer zone loading times!!

[kaev]

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

I demand more server lag as well as longer zone loading times!!

Lag with high pop yes, but long loading times are :notclassic:

Don't recall any long zone loading until the evil of the luclin client and dx9. Original was very quick, kunark still was pretty quick, velious not quite so quick what with the new textures, but luclin is when it got outright slow.