Enchanter charm isn't classic, we all know this

[Hroth]

Classic "experience" or classic mechanics, what is it that is actually more important to a classic server?

I personally think charm is way more powerful here than it ever was in '99, but for arguments sake let's say the P99 devs got the mechanics exactly right. The experience of 99% of the people who played in 1999 was that charm was far more unreliable and was only used as a gimmick or a last ditch effort. Even if they are correct, the mechanics as they exist here lead to game play that doesn't match classic. If the "P99 classic" charm mechanics were changed to be far more unreliable, the P99 experience would be much more similar to classic.

The classic mechanics of hybrid exp penalties and standard ZEMs also leads to very unclassic behaviors. In 1999 those things were not known at all, or only known by a tiny fraction of the playerbase. Consequently, people's class choice, whom they would group with, and where they would hunt was not at all affected by those classic mechanics. On P99 those mechanics dominate game play decisions. Ironically, removing those classic mechanics would actually encourage classic game play.

Why doesn't this server allow boxing? Classic mechanics certainly didn't prevent it.
We all know it isn't allowed because allowing it would destroy the classic experience. Imho, it is stupid to allow other classic mechanics to achieve the same effect. I'm here for the game play, not for mechanics that are perfectly true to ones that the world didn't even know existed in 1999.

As an aside, I think charm may not have been possible to this extent in 1999 just because the population wouldn't allow it. Peak time zone populations were 100+ in lguk and 70+ in solb on my server. No one was going to allow an enchanter to solo a camp or lock up mobs to kill when there was a small army of people at the zone line just waiting for their name to come up on a list so they could get some exp. Heck, I remember it was common to have 2 full groups inside Oggok killing guards. No one was going to allow a single necro to solo the whole zone. Lower level zones were not any better either. The world was a crowded place.

[Ligma]

Green pet pulling was a thing starting in luclin yet people still insisted on using monks and bards to pull for several expansions. Literally any mob could be split instantly and be moved anywhere in the zone with no social agro.

People just weren't very good, and mostly are still pretty bad. Most guilds have always been carried by a small core, competent crew. And that's still true today.

[sentinel]

Chiming in -- played from day one vanilla to PoP.

Charm was absolutely not used as much back then. As mentioned here, it was more of a CC tool (which was likely its intended use).

I think we all agree charm is overpowered and probably game breaking (especially in vanilla), but unless we have the numbers it is hard to say whether it is any different now than back then.

My guess is charm was coded differently back then. I, and most other EQ nerds, loved reading Everlore, CastersRealm (don't see that getting mentioned as much by you youngins), and of course the official Verant forums. If it could have been abused like this, folks would have kicked and screamed. Chanter was a group support class back then.

[Vizax_Xaziv]

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

If it could have been abused like this, folks would have kicked and screamed. Chanter was a group support class back then.

See now people on P99, in their defense of Chanters, most commonly use the lines of "we just didn't have as much knowledge back then" and "we were less skilled at the game."

But here's the thing: all the knowledge we DO have now is the result of experimentation back then. On Tallon Zek we had a large number of extremely capable players at the endgame.

I played a Wizard in Vanilla and spent *LOTS* of time in the computer lab @ school on Everlore and Castersrealm. Like you said, if Enchanters (specifically Charm) was as powerful back then, it absolutely would have been nerfed. At the VERY LEAST the strength of the spell would have become common knowledge.

Are we supposed to believe that no Chanters in the top-end guilds like FOH and Triton ever experimented with their Charm Spells and/or Charisma builds? They figured out essentially EVERYTHING else about the game but never realized that Charm was overpowered?

I don't buy it!

[mycoolrausch]

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

As mentioned here, it was more of a CC tool (which was likely its intended use).

I don't think so. The spell duration gives us some insight into the designer's intentions. If they wanted it to be short duration, they could've made it a short duration spell, like Mez and Roots.

It seems like common sense that when you have NPCs that are overtuned for their level (more HP and DPS than a player) to make up for their deficits in AI and predictable behavior, and you give the player the ability to take control of that NPC, you should probably nerf that NPC in some way now that its not under the control of predictable AI . This never occurred to them. But then again they thought druids deserved a 10% heal nerf, and no heals past level 29 all the way through Kunark. Great vision, but not so good on the details.

[bwe]

P99 and EQEmu overtuned Charm and/or undertuned resists based on their best guess at recreating classic values. Now we have to prove that it's too overpowered instead of having to prove that the current power level is the way it was in classic. People are too attached to their OP (but super fun) enchanters for anything to ever change. /thread

[Ligma]

Are we supposed to believe that no Chanters in the top-end guilds like FOH and Triton ever experimented with their Charm Spells and/or Charisma builds? They figured out essentially EVERYTHING else about the game but never realized that Charm was overpowered?

The first AoW kills from LoS were completely dependent on charm.

[Buellen]

Hello again

I have been trying to find data to support the folks who say its wrong here on p1999. I have not found any parse in era and only found 12 pages of post from the charm spells on this link.

https://web.archive.org/web/20041111...?Id=38&Page=12

So far my personal experience with charm spell here on Teal matches a lot of the same experiences the posters on that link. We have more than a few posters showing charm lasting from 2 to 8 min.

I have not done any research into higher version of this spell line so take this info for what it is.

[Vizax_Xaziv]

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

The first AoW kills from LoS were completely dependent on charm.

Yes. And Velious-era Kael raids are about the earliest I remember Charm being heavily used.

[gnomishfirework]

I played a enchanter during velious.

I didn’t charm cause it was dangerous and would get me killed on breaks. I don’t recall it always breaking in 10 seconds. It’s just that we didn’t know to snare charmed mobs and keep them debuffed on resists. Didn’t see that until post PoP.

I think it was knowledge, not mechanics.

Still, if what people are claiming is true should be easy to find proof. Dunno why they’re making posts when a simple petition thread with the proof they are basing their opinions on would work better.

I’m guessing this thread was simply made by someone who is wrong.

I mean, it’s simple matter of your memories are clearly faulty since you all cannot find one shred of proof.