Enchanter charm isn't classic, we all know this

[loramin]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm not a coding expert, but I assume most if not all of what is on P99 is based on some sort of source coding. So, if you think Charm is overpowered compared to what it was on live at launch, then it's probably based on EQ code from a time when Charm was that powerful. If that code is from later in the timeline, then presumably there would be some sort of patch note or evidence at some point saying that they had upgraded the effectiveness of Charm.

If evidence of the claims can't be presented, then it has to be presumed that the current coding is accurate for the classic era. For every person who says that they're 100% sure that something worked X way, there's another person who says they're 100% sure it worked Y way. Personal memories or anecdotes are insufficient to change something. That's just the way it is.

No one has access to the original code. Literally no one: not even Daybreak (the current rights holder) has the original EQ server source code, at least as far as anyone knows.

And that's the frustrating thing about all this, because there's this mix of "known exploits" and "unknown exploits", ie. stuff that was wrong on live but Nilbog's fixed it here, and stuff that was right on live but Nilbog has it wrong here.

Nilbog has taken a "fix exploits, leave broken negative stuff" approach to making Green/Teal (not) classic, which is a completely reasonable option, and makes total sense. BUT... as with anything, the devil is in the details, and the details work out to Nilbog nerfing the hell out of (say) Mages (in the one era they're kinda decent, before they become complete crap), because they had very obvious things that he can see and fix (or in the case of spells, leave unfixed).

Meanwhile, because there's no proof one way or the other, Nilbog just goes by whatever research he's got when it comes to Enchanter resists ... even if that makes the most powerful class in the game, now and through Velious (ie. forever here), even more powerful.

At some point I truly hope Nilbog will realize that, like it or not, he's become a game designer, and when viewed holistically (ie. not separately, in isolation) some of his design decisions are making the game worse, and less classic. When he blindly fixes only the obvious "exploits", which tend to fall more heavily on "weak" classes, simply because they're the ones that are clear and known, while ignoring the obvious (but virtually impossible to prove) imbalances in the most powerful class, he's making one of those choices ... implicitly, whether he means to or not.

It doesn't matter whether Enchanters had better or worse charm resist rates on live: one class being able to burn through the game's content vastly better than any other class is just as much an "implicit exploit", fully worthy of fixing, if not more than many of the other explicit exploits he's fixed.

Or maybe Nilbog is just a huge Enchanter lover at heart [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] But I really doubt that: I really think he's absolutely trying to do the right thing, and using good criteria on every individual decision he makes. So I just hope he can take a step back, look at the bigger picture, realize "something isn't right here", and thus realize that a fix is needed, like say making charm resists SIGNIFICANTLY higher.

And I say that even IF P99 resists are currently 100% accurate vs. live (which seems unlikely), and he only makes the change for a "classic environment" reason. He's made tons of "classic environment over classic mechanics" decisions on Blue and (especially) Green/Teal already.

Increasing charm resists would ABSOLUTELY make Green/Teal feel more classic, because NO ONE remembers Enchanters being like this. But again, this likely isn't just about "classic feelings": it seems likely that the class has benefited for far too long here from having more obscure mechanics, and even if that's corrected with higher resits, it likely still would be the most powerful class in every single era of classic EverQuest!

[bum3]

^ You will stare at the wall with me to make it classic.. won't you?

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by bum3 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

^ You will stare at the wall with me to make it classic.. won't you?

You make a shit post to a thoughtful post. With the same tired beginnings of an argument.

[sentinel]

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

Increasing charm resists would ABSOLUTELY make Green/Teal feel more classic, because NO ONE remembers Enchanters being like this. But again, this likely isn't just about "classic feelings": it seems likely that the class has benefited for far too long here from having more obscure mechanics, and even if that's corrected with higher resits, it likely still would be the most powerful class in every single era of classic EverQuest!

Great overall post.

This is really the crux of the matter. Since there is no way to know how the accurate current charm mechanics are, the only other thing we can do is rely upon how often this level of charm abuse happened on live. Which we all seem agree happened drastically less if at all. Chanters were a vaunted CC class who could save your group's ass, not nearly as known for being solo gods holding down end game spawns.

For those of us who played back then, all we can do (whatever our position) is try to remember. And for a 20 year old elf sim, that is not accurate. We can try to reason why folks didn't charm as much: unstable connections (dsl was actually prevalent, but okay) and/or poor gamer skillz (chanters can stun????). Maybe that's true, but we don't really know.

The admins are doing their best guessing and that is enough for me, but I have doubts as to the accuracy of charm mechanics.

[Mushman]

Accurate code or not, the power of charming as it now when played competently destroys the classic EQ ecosystem.

We have solo/duo charm content buzzsaws taking up large amounts of the limited real estate. Anyone LFG is a negative expected value invitation because they are only limited by travel distance, not clear speed of every PH or named mob in their vicinity. Adding anyone else is losing pixels and XP bar progression.

[keithjinternet]

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

No one has access to the original code. Literally no one: not even Daybreak (the current rights holder) has the original EQ server source code, at least as far as anyone knows.

And that's the frustrating thing about all this, because there's this mix of "known exploits" and "unknown exploits", ie. stuff that was wrong on live but Nilbog's fixed it here, and stuff that was right on live but Nilbog has it wrong here.

Nilbog has taken a "fix exploits, leave broken negative stuff" approach to making Green/Teal (not) classic, which is a completely reasonable option, and makes total sense. BUT... as with anything, the devil is in the details, and the details work out to Nilbog nerfing the hell out of (say) Mages (in the one era they're kinda decent, before they become complete crap), because they had very obvious things that he can see and fix (or in the case of spells, leave unfixed).

Meanwhile, because there's no proof one way or the other, Nilbog just goes by whatever research he's got when it comes to Enchanter resists ... even if that makes the most powerful class in the game, now and through Velious (ie. forever here), even more powerful.

At some point I truly hope Nilbog will realize that, like it or not, he's become a game designer, and when viewed holistically (ie. not separately, in isolation) some of his design decisions are making the game worse, and less classic. When he blindly fixes only the obvious "exploits", which tend to fall more heavily on "weak" classes, simply because they're the ones that are clear and known, while ignoring the obvious (but virtually impossible to prove) imbalances in the most powerful class, he's making one of those choices ... implicitly, whether he means to or not.

It doesn't matter whether Enchanters had better or worse charm resist rates on live: one class being able to burn through the game's content vastly better than any other class is just as much an "implicit exploit", fully worthy of fixing, if not more than many of the other explicit exploits he's fixed.

Or maybe Nilbog is just a huge Enchanter lover at heart [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] But I really doubt that: I really think he's absolutely trying to do the right thing, and using good criteria on every individual decision he makes. So I just hope he can take a step back, look at the bigger picture, realize "something isn't right here", and thus realize that a fix is needed, like say making charm resists SIGNIFICANTLY higher.

And I say that even IF P99 resists are currently 100% accurate vs. live (which seems unlikely), and he only makes the change for a "classic environment" reason. He's made tons of "classic environment over classic mechanics" decisions on Blue and (especially) Green/Teal already.

Increasing charm resists would ABSOLUTELY make Green/Teal feel more classic, because NO ONE remembers Enchanters being like this. But again, this likely isn't just about "classic feelings": it seems likely that the class has benefited for far too long here from having more obscure mechanics, and even if that's corrected with higher resits, it likely still would be the most powerful class in every single era of classic EverQuest!

[Vormotus]

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

At some point I truly hope Nilbog will realize that, like it or not, he's become a game designer, and when viewed holistically (ie. not separately, in isolation) some of his design decisions are making the game worse, and less classic. When he blindly fixes only the obvious "exploits", which tend to fall more heavily on "weak" classes, simply because they're the ones that are clear and known, while ignoring the obvious (but virtually impossible to prove) imbalances in the most powerful class, he's making one of those choices ... implicitly, whether he means to or not.

Traduttore, Traditore

This applies not only to linguistics but several fields of Logic and anything that derives from it.

One of the first things drilled in my Logics 101 class during College by a very adamant man that loved to single out bilingual speakers and then forcing us to translate key phrases.

It is IMPOSSIBLE, and there is even a field of it, to actually translate concepts in language (Untranslatability).

Why am I mentioning this into this thread?

I completely translated then decoded your message, which flies well out of the boundaries of the game yet easily fits within it, but at the same, applies so beautifully to the current issue at hand, and many others as well.

I have zero stakes in the argument, but felt forced to reply to this particular snippet of your post.

What you allude is something that is known by many of my colleagues and myself during therapy as well as colleagues in related fields.

Your feeling, so written, is also accurate on the level you portray the P99 developer.

Essentially, the statement of making the server as "classic" as possible , is a flawed argument, a self deception, not intentional, but when deconstructed it is shown to be in its ugly truth, its naked truth.

The whole thread is amazing to me as seeing the issue debated , if you remove all the trappings related to P99, Enchanters, Enchanter Spells, Camps and Game Mechanics, can be 100% reinterpreted , applied, poured into or plain copy/pasted into practically any argument relating to a point where the origin is unclear and all that we are left with is "original texts", or "words of the originator" "what the ancients said" "the motto of our company" etc, etc, .

It is fascinating on so many levels, I must confess until you wrote this particular snippet I had to do some analysis of my own curiosity to find out what was so appealing about it.

I had to share it, even some of the pre-fabricated replies by some posters are so astonishingly similar to other cases I have studied before that it made my hair stand on the back of my neck.

Just marvellous, simply marvellous.

I really really have a hard time following some standard threads here, but this one fell into such classical tropes I can only stare with awe at how similar, no matter the differences, all of us are, regardless of all our normal social trappings and "impersonas" we take in here.

Fantastic thread [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Much love as usual from the lonely Isthmus my dear friends!

I will now try to add a bit of something to the discussion, for the fun of it.

[bum3]

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

You make a shit post to a thoughtful post. With the same tired beginnings of an argument.

Sure. You can read it how you want without putting any thought into it. But think about it. How hard was it to charm mobs when barely anyone had the internet to control it? If charm broke on 1, let alone multiple, during a packet spike, the raid wiped. I'm sure you feel differently, but most of yours' are shit posts too. At least mine is trying to open discussion on how things really were in classic. But thanks for enlightening us with your shit post on my shit post. Here's hoping to more shit posts linked to mine!

[Bazia]

they ruining all the good zones tbqh 5 enchanters soloing camps in every zone other than like uguk

[bum3]

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

Traduttore, Traditore

This applies not only to linguistics but several fields of Logic and anything that derives from it.

One of the first things drilled in my Logics 101 class during College by a very adamant man that loved to single out bilingual speakers and then forcing us to translate key phrases.

It is IMPOSSIBLE, and there is even a field of it, to actually translate concepts in language (Untranslatability).

Why am I mentioning this into this thread?

I completely translated then decoded your message, which flies well out of the boundaries of the game yet easily fits within it, but at the same, applies so beautifully to the current issue at hand, and many others as well.

I have zero stakes in the argument, but felt forced to reply to this particular snippet of your post.

What you allude is something that is known by many of my colleagues and myself during therapy as well as colleagues in related fields.

Your feeling, so written, is also accurate on the level you portray the P99 developer.

Essentially, the statement of making the server as "classic" as possible , is a flawed argument, a self deception, not intentional, but when deconstructed it is shown to be in its ugly truth, its naked truth.

The whole thread is amazing to me as seeing the issue debated , if you remove all the trappings related to P99, Enchanters, Enchanter Spells, Camps and Game Mechanics, can be 100% reinterpreted , applied, poured into or plain copy/pasted into practically any argument relating to a point where the origin is unclear and all that we are left with is "original texts", or "words of the originator" "what the ancients said" "the motto of our company" etc, etc, .

It is fascinating on so many levels, I must confess until you wrote this particular snippet I had to do some analysis of my own curiosity to find out what was so appealing about it.

I had to share it, even some of the pre-fabricated replies by some posters are so astonishingly similar to other cases I have studied before that it made my hair stand on the back of my neck.

Just marvellous, simply marvellous.

I really really have a hard time following some standard threads here, but this one fell into such classical tropes I can only stare with awe at how similar, no matter the differences, all of us are, regardless of all our normal social trappings and "impersonas" we take in here.

Fantastic thread [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Much love as usual from the lonely Isthmus my dear friends!

I will now try to add a bit of something to the discussion, for the fun of it.

I will leave a shit post for you because you are awesome. I love you.