Enchanter charm isn't classic, we all know this

[Tecmos Deception]

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

I understand lots of people enjoy the powerful, high risk-reward style of it. Put me on that list as well, it's a lot of fun. That said, it isn't classic. It's a "win button" condition you can execute with some knowledge and practice that nothing else comes close to. Do you really think it's in the vision of classic to have that kind of power behind charm?

Is it what the original devs envisioned? No. But what you think "the vision of classic" means isn't what p99 is pursuing. Neither is what the original eq devs pictured in their heads during development. So it's pretty irrelevant.

[Mushman]

I'm not that knowledgeable about it but I thought historically they have made some changes for the sake of playability that steered away from classic mechanical values. If it's a case by case basis i just think they would be making everyone's experience more enjoyable and "classic" with reconsidering how charm performs currently.

[cd288]

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

I'm not that knowledgeable about it but I thought historically they have made some changes for the sake of playability that steered away from classic mechanical values. If it's a case by case basis i just think they would be making everyone's experience more enjoyable and "classic" with reconsidering how charm performs currently.

That's not the point of the server. It's to re-create classic EQ on the EQ timeline. Not to make arbitrary decisions that because people are better at using a strategy today than they were back then we're going to nerf something. With what you're proposing, they'd also need to get rid of the wiki, eliminate the ability to alt+tab/play windowed, eliminate single IP restrictions, not allow anyone to connect with anything other than a dial up modem, etc. if the goal is to force people to be exactly like they were in 1999. Get over it dude.

[Jimjam]

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

I'm not that knowledgeable about it but I thought historically they have made some changes for the sake of playability that steered away from classic mechanical values. If it's a case by case basis i just think they would be making everyone's experience more enjoyable and "classic" with reconsidering how charm performs currently.

Generally unclassic adjustments seem to be made for cases where the change substantially decreases CSR load.

The 25 aoe limit, /list, there aren't a huge numbers of intentional departures from previously classic mechanics.

The only big non-csr departure from classic is where entire raids worth of lifetap earrings would be used to instagib dragons on spawn. That and titanium client features like /rewind and pet window.

[kjs86z]

30+ pages of people arguing about enchanter strength on p99.

To those complaining: its only going to get worse when you hit Kunark and then on to Velious. We're the strongest class in the game, deal with it.

Consider Blue today!

[loramin]

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

Generally unclassic adjustments seem to be made for cases where the change substantially decreases CSR load.

The 25 aoe limit, /list, there aren't a huge numbers of intentional departures from previously classic mechanics.

The only big non-csr departure from classic is where entire raids worth of lifetap earrings would be used to instagib dragons on spawn. That and titanium client features like /rewind and pet window.

And this is EXACTLY my point. The staff policy seems (and for the most part is) extremely reasonable: "we only fix exploits and things that use up our time". That completely makes sense for a 100% volunteer operation!

But again, you can't design by making one-off bug decisions in isolation. And whether he likes it or not, Nilbog is designing a game: there's just too much unknown about the exact details of classic mechanics, and it's just the nature of emulators that the people making them have to make countless judgement calls.

The problem is, Nilbog has made tons of such isolated decisions, which all made perfect sense and were perfectly logical in isolation ... but he wasn't paying attention to the bigger picture in the process. He hasn't noticed that all those decisions in isolation were design choices, and the game he's designing has made Enchanters:

Originally Posted by kjs86z [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

the strongest class in the game, deal with it.

to a degree that vastly exceeds what they were on live.

Yes the staff has extremely limited resources to make all of this happen. Yes nerfing exploits and allowing other frustrating (but non-exploit) mechanics makes sense. Yes making things unclassic as necessary (eg. lists, AoE mob limits) is a good thing when it makes the server overall more classic (eg. because it without them the GMs would have no time to assist us).

But that last one, and the motivation behind it, is critical. The staff didn't make a classic /list implementation: instead they took a step back, put on their game designer hat, and said "how can we make this situation the best and most classic it can be even if we have to break the literal classic mechanics?"

That question is exactly what needs to be asked with Enchanters, because by making completely logical and rational decision in isolation, the staff has made their server unclassic, in the same way Bards doing 50+ mobs and not letting anyone else XP in the Overthere was unclassic (even though countless logical and rational individual decisions, about Bards and what their classic mechanics were, had been what created that very situation).

Ultimately P99 is about classic Everquest. I truly think that anyone taking a step back, and doing their best to make an honest comparison of P99 to live, would see that Enchanters are not classic here. That should be fixed ... either with a 100% classic (as far as anyone can prove) resist increase, or even through an "unclassic but makes things more classic" change.

[Vexenu]

It is now clear that only a Teams PvP server can save us from the plague of Enchanters charm soloing everything.

[Tecmos Deception]

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

It is now clear that only a Teams PvP server can save us from the plague of Enchanters charm soloing everything.

Doubtful. They're still just as good at PVE and a charmed pet in PVP, with some setup, can still be a problem depending on the situation. Plus chanters have the best dispels, great buffs including GRM, unresistable mez later on, etc.

My red chanter solod in dungeons all over and hardly anyone came to say hi because they weren't chanters who could get to where I was to say hi.


I guess maybe in classic with hundreds of players online it'd be too busy for solo chanters to do much during primetime. But even blue and green pops dip low on off hours, and of course a teams pvp wouldnt end up with 1500 players in prime.

[enjchanter]

It is clear that you all fear my power and I have become too strong for my own good

[Tecmos Deception]

Eh. That charmed pets couldn't be controlled thing isn't too convincing imo without corroboration. The way that post is worded makes me wonder if this guy is just mixing up how animations and charms function. Maybe he didn't even have keys made or try to use the pet control commands since the animation he was used to before he ever had charm didn't respond to them.

But yeah for sure there are issues with enchanter spells where they didn't work in earlier classic like they do on green. Unsure which of those if any staff have interest in changing. I thought most of them have been brought up, but maybe not through the proper bug-report channels. Stuff like runes and chanter AC buffs not stacking in the early days, tash being resistable, etc.


Lor - what exactly do you think has been done to make enchanters stronger than they were on live? The most recent evidence (and pretty solid evidence, imo, which it sounds like you didn't look at because it's legit testing done not random zam anecdotes or cherry-picked lines about charm being dangerous) about charm durations in this thread suggest p99 charm strength is pretty close excepting perhaps charming MUCH lower-level mobs (which isn't what makes charm OP anyways).

And in a general "OP chanters are bad" sense, as someone else mentioned, the main changes towards unclassic mechanics have been done to ease CSR problems (raid timers and rotations, bards monopolizing zones, etc), not to address overall game balance (charm numba 1, class exp penalties ahead of timeline changes, monks in late velious, etc).