P99 Much Less Skills/Rotations/Combat Depth?

[Whiskiz]

Hey guys, i'm wanting to get into Everquest in some form or another, but i'm not sure where to do with P99 TLP and Live.

I love the look of the oldschool, the challenge, complexity, community, group play, freedom/exploring/adventuring etc and see almost everything i could want in P99, but:

I hear since it's ooold school that it has much less abilities and/or rotations and so much less combat depth to it.

Not just a bit less but much, much less abilities/rotations/combat depth.

That's probably the one thing i couldn't trade for everything else. I know i'd end up getting bored before long spamming the same buttons on the same grind over and over and over. Especially with the grind being alot more hardcore than most other places.

It's hard to even enjoy a favorite class when you're just spamming the same couple of things over and over. None to minimal rotation and/or rotation options, strategy/skill choice etc.

Is it really as bad as it sounds? I know the community and challenge and all the rest would make up for it, somewhat, but at the end of the day the majority of game time would be spent in combat grinding, so it'd be great if there was a little more to it.

Any thoughts?

[aaezil]

depends on your class. Positioning is more important than 3 rows of hotbars if you are the tank for instance. if you are a cleric you will pretty much sit, stand to cast heal, then sit again for 60 levels ( with the occasional root or whatever). Bards are polar opposite can be very active and always pressing buttons

[Pyrocat]

If you want complexity, play an enchanter, bard, necromancer, or shaman. Don't play a melee type character.

[Izmael]

Cleric is only straightforward if you play the class like a healing bot.

Clerics can lull, memblur, root, nuke, stun, blind, fear and whatnot. A cleric who knows his class is actually fairly versatile and can be challenging, fun and rewarding to play.

[Jimjam]

The problem is a lot of people get mad if you play outside their expectation of a class's role.

I was lucky enough to be in a double shaman group in Seb. We wanted to do disco, but had no cc. I borrowed my static's cleric and used a line up exclusively consisting of roots, stuns, paci and mem blur. Was pretty entertaining seeing the excess adds just Jason Statham home when hit with the paci/atone combo.

I think OP would most enjoy Enc or Bard depending if he wants a melee or range based character.

[gortimer]

I think OP is coming from modern MMO where you stand in one spot mashing the same 12 abilities as they refresh.

In EQ there is none of that. New games have no strategy beyond what order to use your abilities to minimize refreshes.

EQ is all about strategy. Some people play the game as straightforward as they can and don't do anything fun. But you can push the limits of the game and really explore what everquest can be about.

[fadetree]

OP -
Rotations as such don't exist, unless you want to count debuffs before attacks. You do get strategic timed abilities later called disciplines. EQ is deceptive, don't count the lack of a giant set of abilities as an indicator. Get in and play for a while, there's a lot of subtleties that will become apparent via numerous deaths. As was mentioned, Bard or Enchanter are probably the closest to what you're looking for. Melee char play is mostly around positioning and aggro mechanics, although they (except warrior) have some amount of spells.

Live does have a huge set of 'AA abilities', but the process of acquiring them is a grindfest and they don't really have a 'chain' aspect if I recall correctly. My advice is to go ahead and give P99 a shot on a chanter or bard. If you are a masochist you can play a Ranger, which is a class that has a general utility but usually isn't played up to its full potential. Necro is another such class, although survival is much easier than on a Ranger. Necros are underappreciated and usually not played up to the full potential, with people mostly soloing whereas in a group a well played Necro can do just about anything.

[kined]

Cleric is only straightforward if you play the class like a healing bot.

Clerics can lull, memblur, root, nuke, stun, blind, fear and whatnot. A cleric who knows his class is actually fairly versatile and can be challenging, fun and rewarding to play.


Agree with this completely. It's also a blatant exa.ple about how things being straightforward is a choice. If you play a clefic in a full group of an xp zone it's bound to be boring. Making a change friend and diving into howling stones together? That's gonna be a challenging adventure where both of you use a wide range of tools. The cleric has to be just as attentive and active as the chanter.

Live doesn't really have that many more tools... It's all the same stuff, it's just a little less flash here... It's still just nukes, dots, slows, hastes, fears, snares, roots, mezzes etc.

[Legidias]

Classic EQ has been way more about things outside of pure combat though.

Dying costs you way more (time) than in modern MMO's, making deaths way more 'exciting' than "Oh hey I respawned, let me pay 2 gold and run back and continue where i left off". EQ has a much higher skill requirement for CR, depending on if you can camp a cleric, if mobs aggro on corpse drag, if they see through sneak, etc.

Depends on playstyle, AFAIK modern MMO's dont even usually use a calm / lull to single pull or have FD style pull.

As stated above, bard / ench for varied playstyle.

Bard will rotate songs continuously throughout fights.
Enchanter will (at least decent ones?) have to re mem spells pretty often given the 8 spell mem max.

If you look at types of combat, I dont see many other MMO's having the varations on ways to kill mobs as in EQ. Snare / root kite, charm kite, AE kite, fear kite, etc.

[NecroP99]

For melee there is absolutely 0 combat depth, for charming on Enchanter/Necro or quading/charming on druid there is much more to it and it can actually be a bit of a pain to get good at.

If you are looking for a replacement for WoW this isn't it

[aaezil]

^ melee has tons of combat depth actually. Positionig mobs and yourself, the push mechanic, interrupting spells, resists, ac vs hp, aggo holding, disciplines, single pulling... list goes on and on and on

[GinnasP99]

Agreed, just because there isn't 30+ buttons to press doesn't mean this game has no depth

[NecroP99]

^ melee has tons of combat depth actually. Positionig mobs and yourself, the push mechanic, interrupting spells, resists, ac vs hp, aggo holding, disciplines, single pulling... list goes on and on and on

Not sure if you are trolling or serious...

I am comparing to modern MMO - Every single modern MMO you have to position mobs and yourself and interrupt spells so this is nothing to get excited about. EQ melee is a step above a MUD in terms of complexity. The inherit "EQ raiding is harder than other MMOs" comes from the fact that healing in EQ sucks and nothing else.

I love EQ, I actually prefer EQ, but to say it has even 1/100th the complexity of combat as a game like WoW is just not even worth debating.

[NecroP99]

Agreed, just because there isn't 30+ buttons to press doesn't mean this game has no depth

So Rogues wait until they see the warrior get a proc and then turn on auto attack and spam backstab on CD. Once an hour they activate Inner Flame that lasts for 5 seconds. If they get agro they hit evade. Am I missing something?

[Twochain]

For melee characters, pretty much yes. If you're a rogue, you hit auto attack, then press backstab sometimes.

Monks, while fighting is the same story, PULLING, and being an effective monk takes more skill than most classes in other MMO's

However, Enchanters are probably the class with the highest skill ceiling of any MMO out there. Enchanters such as Solving, Nybras, Slanging (hah), and others can do down right ridiculous things that often take 3+ level 60s to accomplish.

I mean shit, enchanters can: be one of the most effective pullers in non-raid dungeons, the highest DPS by a pretty wide margin via charmed pets, have the ability to CC better than any other class ever, improve group efficiency bigly, etc. No limits.

[pasi]

Gameplay don't get much better than clicking auto-attack and a single ability every 12 seconds.

If you're going to play EQ: either have insatiable lust for pixels or another game going on a side-monitor.

[7thGate]

Rogues can often begin attacking before a warrior procs, depending on the situation. Evade aggro down after each backstab and back up to drop proximity aggro if pulled from the warrior, and you usually don't get hit very much. Sometimes you'll get hit some with evade failures/no procs from the warrior, but if you've got a regen spell on you'll gradually heal that damage without putting pressure on your healers.

Not that that is a huge amount of tactical depth, but there is a little bit. Everquest can have reasonable amounts of strategic depth, in terms of making choices about how to approach hard fights, but not so much with the standard group XP grinding as a melee.

[Muggens]

Yeah its really that bad OP, geriatric game with little to no buttons to push, u will get bored Im sure, there are no combos or anything, barely any UI in game, slooow grind.

U can try changing the UI, use macros and combat parsing, have sounds n words pop UP, click f9 to change view ever other second, listen to dubstep etc for a more modern gaming feel

[skarlorn]

If you want complexity, play an enchanter, bard, necromancer, or shaman. Don't play a melee type character.

melees are fucking atrocious on this server. By smoking pounds of marijuana I managed to get a warrior to 60 and raid geared even though his abilities included:

auto attack
kick
disarm (basically useless)
taunt

and that is about it. eventually you get discs, which you can use once in a while.

Some sick people will try to convince you that the positioning, weapon swapping, and other stuff makes melee in depth on this sever. They're delusional.

[Canelek]

Classic Everquest is simply risk versus reward. It has a habit of knocking you down when you are feeling cocky, locking you into a complicated and (sometimes expensive) corpse recovery. But if you succeed on that deep dungeon group (or duo/solo), it can be a huge reward, as far as gaming goes, of course.

Modern MMORPGs, while quite pretty with awesome class depth and versatility, are simply too easy, with virtually no risk/excitement.

Because P99 is such a pain in the ass grind, somehow if you make it long enough to get item X, complete quest Z or reach level 60, it all seems worth it in a strange way.

Shit's Classic.

But if you want melee/casting combos, manual dodge components, LFG systems and a quest log, you best find another game.

Give it a try though--it ain't for everyone, but as you can see from active player numbers, it must be fun to some, eh?

[Legidias]

Instant gratification vs the long haul

[NecroP99]

For melee characters, pretty much yes. If you're a rogue, you hit auto attack, then press backstab sometimes.

Monks, while fighting is the same story, PULLING, and being an effective monk takes more skill than most classes in other MMO's .

The art of monk pulling died with the sneak nerf. If you are referring to nToV I will simply answer 'NOT CLASSIC'... I honestly have no idea why the GMs allow guilds to train the zone around. Tagging a dragon out of a line of mobs is not something that requires much thinking. Especially when you are cheesing it with TL boxes, idols, and CoTHs

[Gozuk]

Flashy combat? Nah.. It's basically D&D visualized

[Evia]

The art of monk pulling died with the sneak nerf. If you are referring to nToV I will simply answer 'NOT CLASSIC'... I honestly have no idea why the GMs allow guilds to train the zone around. Tagging a dragon out of a line of mobs is not something that requires much thinking. Especially when you are cheesing it with TL boxes, idols, and CoTHs


I'd argue there is now more of an art to feign pulling since sneak nerf. Now you actually have to be skilled at pulling. Understanding mobs pathing, and being great with timing. As opposed to just clicking sneak and winning.

[Whiskiz]

Thanks for the insight guys!

If you want complexity, play an enchanter, bard, necromancer, or shaman. Don't play a melee type character.

The general consensus seems to be to try one of the above classes for more depth, maybe even Ranger (which is what i usually play and was looking at.) One of the souls i used to play in Rift was Bard and i had to go Bard in FF14 for the Archer class, recently, so maybe i'll give Bard/Ranger a go in P99 first.

It also sounds like if you're good enough you can do awesome things with Ench so maybe i'll make a couple characters and go from there.

This completely, but theres something I always liked about the rogue class and backstabz and big damage...simple yet a lot of fun. Everyone enjoys something different, topping dps charts is my thing :)

Me too, i'm always trying to stay on the top of DPS charts, but not if it means sacrificing all combat depth - because it's only so rewarding while pressing 3 different buttons :P

I think OP is coming from modern MMO where you stand in one spot mashing the same 12 abilities as they refresh.

In EQ there is none of that. New games have no strategy beyond what order to use your abilities to minimize refreshes.

You should think and make assumptions less, haha.

Have you not heard of raiding and general end-game? Gl trying to just "stand in one spot and mash the same 12 abilities" in any tier of Rift raiding let alone tier 3. (RIP Storm Legion)

Or FF14 - especially "mashing the same 12 abilities" with 30+ skills and needing to do proper rotations to keep up with the required damage/healing/mitigation.

Sorry if i don't also have trouble doing that and enjoy the challenge :P

[wwoneo]

Everquest on P99 is NOT mechanically intensive on any class throughout the entirety of the game compared to most modern games such as WoW. So, if you want something that is mechanically intensive, don't play Everquest, you will get bored.

Everquest if anything is more of a knowledge based game, rather than a mechanically intensive based game.

[dbouya]

honestly combat in p99 is deeper than pretty much any mmo you can play without a time machine.

yes there are no rotations. there are very few abilities. but ability rotations aren't depth. they're button presses. ability rotations are basically just bard twisting, lots of button pressing. If you want to break your wrist play a bard. Enchanters/shamans/necromancers/severalother casters are all fairly "Deep" though.


depth is choice. p99 is full of tough choices you'll make all the time, anything even gets slightly hairy. positioning, facing, roots, sitting down causing aggro, etc. choice with consequence breeds depth. lots of buttons to press doesn't add depth unless those buttons MEAN something (maybe PoP was deeper than p99 but there's no place to play that without a time machine).

Oh an alternate point: DDO had insanely deep combat, but it's full of pay2win and twinks now so it's kind of too inconsistent and easy for it's own good, but that'd be another great one to visit with your time machine.

[jackd104]

+1 for Necro. So many styles to play. So many techniques. Matching the situation with the proper play style and strategy and then striving to execute well and efficiently never gets old for me.

[Jimjam]

If you want unnecessary clickiness for melee you can weave:

Toggle target to self
/doability x (where x is bind wound)
/stand
Toggle to previous target
Attack on

IF the RSI doesn't get you by higher levels you can further weave in downtime:

Breastplate heal clicky
'Bind Wound' from combat abilities tab
'Sit' from general abilities tab (to force stand out of bind wound)
wait for bandage and bp heal to complete then repeat cycle.

On red you can weave sit/stand into your bp heals instead of bandaging for extra sitting regen instead if required.