How to fix rangers and warriors without losing the "classic" feel.

[Lucia Moonglow]

I'll probably get flamed for posting my honest opinion here, but this is it anyway.

Warrior
Currently, warriors have a very difficult time holding aggro. Yes, taunt makes it possible to regain aggro temporarily if it's lost, but they shouldn't be losing it in the first place, nor should they be required to "build aggro" prior to the rest of the party engaging unless the fight is against a raid boss.

Solution: Change taunt so that it generates a flat amount of aggro per use based on the taunt skill, with diminishing returns if the target is higher level than the warrior. Similar to the Incite line present on live, but without the ability to be used at range.

Ranger
As was the case prior to Luclin and the introduction of AAs and ranger-specific group buffs, rangers have no real role in the game. They are an attempt at a "jack of all trades" class like the Bard, however unlike the bard they cannot bring anything unique to a group, and as such most group roles are better served by a different class entirely (rogue for DPS, monk for pulling, druid for snares, etc).

Solution #1: Up ranger DPS so that they're placed just behind (or on equal terms with) monks. You can up their melee DPS, provide ranger-only weapons, or up their archery damage. There are a number of ways to accomplish this.

Solution #2: Give rangers a unique line of buffs that stack with other buffs, making them appealing to certain groups. Good examples are group ATK buffs for melee groups, or mana/HP regen buffs (similar to the BST spiritual line).

[Rotted_Corpse]

With Tracking, Harmony and Snare Rangers are great for groups (better in outdoor for first two then in a dungeon). And their dps isn't that gawd awful bad as some would like all to believe. Its mostly class hate from others that just don't know any better. IMO they bring a lot to a group and would not hesitate inviting one at all.

(yes and others have track too but not to such a high skill as a ranger does).

Rotted Corpse
Necromancer of Cabilis

[Doors]

Good solutions but eventually the 'not classic' dipshits should be in this thread. Nevermind item linking, etc.

Thankfully the WoW minded part of the playerbase is in the minority, so as long as you're not an asshole and know what you're doing you can play any class here and people will group with you.

[yaaaflow]

doesn't it kind of lose the classic feel when you do things that are distinctively not classic?

[Ostros]

doesn't it kind of lose the classic feel when you do things that are distinctively not classic?

No. Depends on how far you go, actually. Little changes here and there wouldn't ruin it. I'm just here for the original three with standard exp rates and penalties, standard dungeon difficulty, etc. No fancy overt custom changes. I seriously wouldn't mind non-classic tweaks, or even changes that happened beyond Velious.

I'm a content player, not a mechanics and patchnotes nut. Don't break it, and no one will complain.

[Lucia Moonglow]

doesn't it kind of lose the classic feel when you do things that are distinctively not classic?

No, because let's not fool ourselves about what constitutes the classic feel of EverQuest.

Nobody thinks back fondly about how warrior aggro was broken, or how taunt didn't work. Nobody happily reminisces about how rangers had no real role in groups or how you couldn't med without staring at the book.

Slow leveling was classic, because it meant when you gained a level it really meant something. I'm not in favor of the hybrid experience penalty because I don't think it's justified, but overall it's not the biggest deal.

It's the leveling, the zones, and the items that constitutes the classic feel. It's the game under Verant's design rather than SOE's. It's the old school models that might look bad but at least they're animated well. It's not being able to cross the entire game world in two zones by flying through PoP, and it's zones like SolB, Sebilis and Velkator's Lab still having some appeal.

Broken warriors might be part of the history of classic, but that doesn't mean they're part of what we all want to experience once again.

[DevGrousis]

doesn't it kind of lose the classic feel when you do things that are distinctively not classic?

You say as you sit at your computer looking at your NOT classic UI lol

[Aadill]

Ranger
Solution #1: Up ranger DPS so that they're placed just behind (or on equal terms with) monks. You can up their melee DPS, provide ranger-only weapons, or up their archery damage. There are a number of ways to accomplish this.

Solution #2: Give rangers a unique line of buffs that stack with other buffs, making them appealing to certain groups. Good examples are group ATK buffs for melee groups, or mana/HP regen buffs (similar to the BST spiritual line).

Welcome to Velious.

[YendorLootmonkey]

50% of the issue with rangers i'd say is perception/"bandwagon ranger-hate", another 30% is the xp penalty, and the rest is the whole "rangers are a versatile class but groups look for specialists, not generalists" design flaw that doesn't get rectified until Luclin.

[gnomishfirework]

Warriors are the best tanks. Rangers have tons of utility and gain buffs in velious.

Live has also addressed these problems.

[Swish]

doesn't it kind of lose the classic feel when you do things that are distinctively not classic?

Like clickable item tags in chat?

[WizardEQ]

I'd like to add my 2cp.

Last night in MM, we had a group (cleric, mage, wiz, war, rog, sk) to do the Graveyard with the lvl 27 SK (twinked, mind you) as the puller. In the midst of discussing pulling the 3 mobs in the jail, she just said "Guys I think you'd like someone else to pull jail, I'm leaving." And within seconds she was gone. Just like that! After a while, we regrouped with a necro that knew his stuff cold but no puller (war kept going /afk all night). We held out ok, but really needed a puller. Just then a lvl 23 ranger (Xanthias?) pops in /lfg. We got him immediately and started rolling. With unresistable harmony, he was able to split the mobs comfortably and the exp started mounting. I had to cut out early, with another wiz (Selwinn!) left in the group. So I ended the night satisfied.

I had done a CR earlier, and two more in MM with horrific trains by a rogue that shall remain unnamed. So after a bad night, getting an unorthodox crew together, lead by a ranger pulling, turned out to be a success! Thank you to the cleric Serran who stuck with it all night!

[greatdane]

There's an enormous difference between changing combat mechanics, skills, items and spells completely and leaving in a piece of intangible convenience like item links. The latter does not change gameplay in any way whatsoever, the game would be 100% the same without them except you'd sometimes have to type out an item's stats instead of linking it when you want to show it to someone else. I also suspect it's one of those things they can't remove because it's fused to the client, like the [53 Warder (Druid)] tags and such. Re-designing classes isn't even remotely comparable to that.

Besides, the issue is that if they change one thing, people will want more things changed. Soon enough, this will be Project 1999 Custom Content 5x EXP New Classes instead of the closest ever copy of classic Everquest. If you want a more balanced game, try one of those custom servers or, better yet, a modern MMORPG. If the devs agree to one non-classic change, the playerbase will demand another, and another. Everything will devolve into arguments about how this or that would be an improvement, how imba or underpowered x is, and how they'll have to change y or Joe will quit.

This server's sole purpose is to adhere as strictly as possible to Everquest canon. It's a harsh, difficult and unbalanced game, and that's why people like it. I can assure you that the absence of major deviations from history is why it has become by far the most popular and succesful emu server, and that it'll stop being so the moment the devs start changing things as they see fit.

How can you claim that it won't compromise the classic feel when what you want to change is the classic feel?

[Gustahn]

I dont know how many times it can be said....i think we need a big giant mandatory sticky everytime you log in saying they are going by classic updates.

The posts here are the same as then asking if taunt really worked and how gimp a ranger was.

Does taunt work yes...with a very low aggro thresh atm.

Are rangers gimp? Only if you faceroll them as a MT....

Rangers were designed with the intent as a range class. BUUUUUT being really no good bows in vanilla and kun to keep up viable damage growth mixed with blowing through arrows in .5 seconds....

Tolan bracrs helps alot, but to be fully effective atm you have to invest in fletching.....then kite like a boss.

Vel/Luc era is the time of main class changes...and only a faction of those will be seen here...so we deal.

[azeth]

Simple fix for warrior aggro would be to increase their hate generated per swing. If every melee swing generates base 1+X (x= amount of hate generated per damage), warriors may benefit from a base 1.2+X or something similar.

as far as rangers go though, there really isn't anything to be done for them. the fact is whether or not you identify the server community has a WoW min/maxer personality, it does. that said, the Ranger's couldn't possibly better examplify all gimmick 'n no grit class characteristics that really just don't have a place in todays gaming community.

[Tewaz]

I love this idea because it will add more rangers to the server. I know it isn't classic, but rangers seriously got screwed in classic and someone needs to buy all that Tolan's gear.

[Dr4z3r]

I can assure you that the absence of major deviations from history is why it has become by far the most popular and succesful emu server, and that it'll stop being so the moment the devs start changing things as they see fit.

This right here is better than I could have put it.

Custom spells for rangers? Really?

[Duie]

I dont know how many times it can be said....i think we need a big giant mandatory sticky everytime you log in saying they are going by classic updates.

The posts here are the same as then asking if taunt really worked and how gimp a ranger was.

Does taunt work yes...with a very low aggro thresh atm.

Are rangers gimp? Only if you faceroll them as a MT....

Rangers were designed with the intent as a range class. BUUUUUT being really no good bows in vanilla and kun to keep up viable damage growth mixed with blowing through arrows in .5 seconds....

Tolan bracrs helps alot, but to be fully effective atm you have to invest in fletching.....then kite like a boss.

Vel/Luc era is the time of main class changes...and only a faction of those will be seen here...so we deal.

ERRR Wrong

Ranger at first.. talking 1999... were considered one of the tank classes and i know your gonna be suprised by this but umm, they Tank pretty damn good till Kunark.NOW kunark roles around and you got all these Ranger that are used to being main tank for groups, Getting creamed. Over night literally, Rangers went from being a MT to DPS w/ the best agro generators in game and not one way to deagro themselves

I see all this crap about how much DPS a ranger does in a group, Are you consedering the magic damage as well? have you even parsed a lvl 60 monk to a lvl 60 ranger? you maybe suprised. evenly geared, evenly leveled, A ranger who plays his or her class to its full potental can and does hold there own

[Duie]

one other thing.... Keep in mind that snare on this server is basicly useless to a group.. On live in this era, if a mob got to 1/4 % health, that fucker would take off like a banshee and bring all his friends back toyou if you did not have him rooted or snared.

Agro was Based of damage and swing rate, not procs as it is here. Jade mace anyone? there is a reason we remeber some of these weapons being more saught after than they are here

[Gustahn]

ERRR Wrong

Ranger at first.. talking 1999... were considered one of the tank classes and i know your gonna be suprised by this but umm, they Tank pretty damn good till Kunark.NOW kunark roles around and you got all these Ranger that are used to being main tank for groups, Getting creamed. Over night literally, Rangers went from being a MT to DPS w/ the best agro generators in game and not one way to deagro themselves

I see all this crap about how much DPS a ranger does in a group, Are you consedering the magic damage as well? have you even parsed a lvl 60 monk to a lvl 60 ranger? you maybe suprised. evenly geared, evenly leveled, A ranger who plays his or her class to its full potental can and does hold there own

ERRRR.... This is where reading comprehension comes into play when you reply.

You didnt respond nor read to a single point. Then proceeded to speak on points never stated. Heck all you really did in the first para was just state what i said in one sentence.

[Duie]

your point about rangers being designed as range classess in this era is simply not true sir

[Gustahn]

[QUOTE=Duie;316790]your point about rangers being designed as range classess in this era is simply not true sir[/QUOTE

In the sense of hybrid nature yes, not a full fledge stance.

They just didnt get it till vel/luc era when everyone got what they were suppose to have all along.

[greatdane]

I see all this crap about how much DPS a ranger does in a group, Are you consedering the magic damage as well? have you even parsed a lvl 60 monk to a lvl 60 ranger? you maybe suprised. evenly geared, evenly leveled, A ranger who plays his or her class to its full potental can and does hold there own

A monk still out-damages a ranger, all else being equal. Rogues as well, by a significant margin. It's a bit harder to gauge the caster classes because it can be so random and variable, but if they fix pet damage, I'm sure magicians and possibly even necros on longer fights will out-perform a ranger.

A ranger's DPS will be roughly equal to, or possibly slightly higher than, a warrior's. Only for as long as the ranger has mana, however, and even with clarity, you won't be able to keep up a steady flow of nuke/dot damage forever. If the group is chain pulling, you won't really have opportunity to med up. If the fight is long, you'll run out of mana before the end. Rangers are bad DPS compared to the other classes in that category. Woodsman's Staff will possibly bump a ranger's raw melee damage to the level of a warrior's, but if a warrior was to fill a DPS role, they'd have access to nearly-identical weapons anyway.

"Holding your own" is a matter of interpretation. A ranger can do his job reasonably if he doesn't suck, so in that sense, he can pull his weight well enough. If holding your own means performing as well as other classes in the category of whatever role you currently fill, the ranger doesn't, being the worst in every category it can possibly be squeezed into. Rangers do alright, but the group would pretty much always be stronger if the ranger had been another DPS or tank class (whichever they're tasked with doing). It's only if the group needs a DPS who can also root, snare, track and harmony that a ranger becomes a remotely appealing option. Needless to say, this practically never happens. If the mob flee mechanic worked like it should, rangers would be slightly more wanted, but not a whole lot considering how common snares and roots are.

[baalzy]

Didn't read the rest of the thread. The ultimate fix for these classes is this:

Wait.

They'll be fixed according to the timeline.

[Aadill]

Didn't read the rest of the thread. The ultimate fix for these classes is this:

Wait.

They'll be fixed according to the timeline.

[skybluepugwash]

Rangers and warriors are pretty much where they were on live in Kunark as I remember it. Things change for both classes in Velious so I don't see that any amendments outside the classic timeline are required.

The two issues I see that have both been mentioned here are:

1) mob run speed / flee speed
2) agro more dependent on procs than number of hits

These are widely acknowledged / dev confirmed as being different to live, but I can't find the reasons in a forum search (might be me being crap at searching). Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[YendorLootmonkey]

Didn't read the rest of the thread. The ultimate fix for these classes is this:

Wait.

They'll be fixed according to the timeline.

Depends on what you mean by 'fixed'. Rangers don't get a role defined for them until Luclin, which we've been told we won't see on this server.

In Velious, we get 2 Mins (or 18 seconds, depending on the raid tactic) of glory via disciplines, release from the class xp penalty, and Panic Animal so we don't have to beg to get into groups for XP. Most of the rangers experiencing these issues now will already be 60 (except for me, at the rate i'm going), so the last two are a bit of a moot point.

[Dantes]

A lot changed after Velious, Warriors really came into their own. We still have a patch coming later that allows us to taunt mobs at higher levels. I think part of the perception that we suck so bad here comes from other melee classes being overpowered. Apparently the devs think so too - we've seen nerfs (corrections) to rogues, monks, and ShadowKnights that level the playing field a bit. That, and everyone is extremely well geared here.

[greatdane]

A big factor in the "warriors suck" perception is that gamers have lost the ability to wait. I'm sure pretty much every one of us has played WoW or one of its clones, and in those games, non-tanks expect to be able to unload immediately and with little concern for aggro if the tank knows what he's doing. If you try that in classic EQ with a warrior tank, he has no chance of keeping aggro. We used to have to give the tank five or ten seconds to build aggro even on exp mobs, and if you didn't do that, you knew aggro would ping-pong. Sometimes you didn't care if the group was strong enough to let the rogue or wizard take a few hits, but that's beside the point. If you want to engage instantly and unload without worry, get a hybrid tank. If you want more efficient CHs and a sturdier tank, get a warrior and be prepared to hold back a little.

[Dantes]

If you want to engage instantly and unload without worry, get a hybrid tank. If you want more efficient CHs and a sturdier tank, get a warrior and be prepared to hold back a little.

Or simply root every mob before mez break. I've noticed this works well, by the time root breaks I should have proc'd enough to really piss that mob off.

[greatdane]

It can work, but root isn't the most reliable thing. It tends to break quickly, and even moreso if people deal any kind of direct magic damage. If your group has a monk with trance sticks, a wizard, a nuking ranger and a lifetapping necro pet, root on high-level dungeon mobs (who are often buffed by nearby cleric/shaman mobs) typically won't last more than a couple of ticks. It's nice in the lower and mid-levels, but I wouldn't want to depend on it in Sebilis.

[Zagtor]

I also suspect it's one of those things they can't remove because it's fused to the client, like the [53 Warder (Druid)] tags and such.


Sorry for slight derail, but this is fixable if you know how to hex-edit: http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=40061

[Lucia Moonglow]

Interesting replies. I'm going to ignore the "rangers/warriors eventually get fixed" nonsense because that's exactly what it is. This server isn't going to pass Velious, so the fixes the classes needed that they got in Luclin aren't going to show up.

How can you claim that it won't compromise the classic feel when what you want to change is the classic feel?

I've already explained what the classic feel is. It's not broken mechanics unless you fondly recall broken mechanics as contributing to gameplay.

Agro was Based of damage and swing rate, not procs as it is here.

Aggro was never based on swing rate, this was a very common myth. Aggro was always based on the amount of damage output. The myth that it was based on swing rate came from the fact that fast weapons put a more steady stream of DPS out, therefore if you're fighting a mob that's just barely at the cusp of picking between you and someone else, waiting 4 seconds for that next swing can mean the other person gets hit once or twice. While swing rate could technically improve your ability to hold aggro, that was simply a side-effect of the way damage translated to aggro, not any sort of intrinsic bonus to fast weapons specifically.

A big factor in the "warriors suck" perception is that gamers have lost the ability to wait. I'm sure pretty much every one of us has played WoW or one of its clones, and in those games, non-tanks expect to be able to unload immediately and with little concern for aggro if the tank knows what he's doing.

Great, someone else using the WoW comparison to try and strengthen their argument. This isn't about comparing warriors in EQ to warriors in WoW, it's about comparing warriors in EQ to other tanks in EQ. Building aggro is something warriors should have to do for raids, not for normal leveling groups. Besides, knights don't have to spend a few rounds building aggro.


I will admit that rangers aren't too bad off really and generally just have a bad reputation. Warriors, however, ARE broken and Verant and SOE both acknowledged this later in the game. EQ was the first real game of its kind, so to pretend that anyone would have gotten group role mechanics right on the first shot is just silly.

I hear a lot of people saying that fixing taunt would somehow "break the classic feel", yet nobody's able to say how besides just saying "It's not exactly like classic!" So in other words, the only thing that bothers you is the knowledge that it's different rather than the actual impact it has on the game.

Let's face facts, warriors are underplayed compared to other tanks. Guess what? They weren't in classic. Know why? Because A) We didn't realize how broken they were and B) We always hoped there was a fix coming around the corner. With this server, if the "OMG classic" fanatics get their way, we already know they'll never get the fixes they deserve.

I love what Rogean and Nilbog have created here. It does bring with it a sense of nostalgia and an enjoyment of the way EQ used to be before Planes of Power, Nexus, cat people, and horrible concepts like recommended/required level on items. Those are the concepts that ruined EQ. Making the world small, restricting or eliminating twinking, making a bazaar so that players could sell AFK, making zones that allowed you to get from 1 to 20 in a single day without powerleveling...classic was an absence of that and a hard grind towards 60, it wasn't someone sitting there with a checklist saying "Nope, that's not technically classic. Nope, that's not either. Nope, it was different in classic."

[baalzy]

Mechanically warriors might be broken on this server because things aren't working the way they should.

This doesn't negate the fact that warriors were still heavily relied on for raid tanking in classic. So while they underperformed they were still viable and capable.

My experience with them in groups is that they tank just fine (admittedly the only warriors I tank with are rolling BOBDE&Ringed Mace).

Rangers suffer because they don't offer enough to a group to justify the xp penalty. Once the penalty is removed then life should get easier for them. Jolt (which should be in any time now) should also help. Now picking up a ranger gives you respectable DPS and a backup tank with their utility and no negatives. They still probably won't be picked over a monk or rogue, but people will be less likely to ignore them outright and xp with 5 people and wait for a rogue/monk to become available.

I'd agree though that Luclin AA's were what finally allowed rangers to come into their own. Respectable sustained DPS while outside the range of most AOEs? awesome. Massive DPS for a good duration outside the range of most AOEs? Super awesome.

[greatdane]

If you want to balance the game, you'll have to change just about everything. Make warrior aggro easy and you've erased knights from meaningful existence. Make ranger in line with the other top DPS and you've made the best DPS class in the game, considering their ability to SoW, root, snare, track, invis and so on. There is some measure of balance in good old Everquest, it just isn't very kind to the players. The classes were apparently not designed to be equally strong but rather equally appealing to the player in one way or another. Druids and rangers were hugely popular classes despite their weakness, and that's because they can do so many things and are convenient and versatile to play. If you're a casual player who wants to be able to do many things without caring too much about being the best at any, druid is the perfect choice - you can solo, you can group as either healer or DPS, you don't have to worry about travel, and people will often want your help. Same thing with rangers - you can tank or DPS and you have almost every general type of spell available to you, they're just mostly weak. Turn rangers into rogues with the huge variety of utility that rangers have and there would be no reason to play a rogue.

Analogies are perfectly valid. Don't get frightened and defensive whenever someone mentions WoW. There's no need to be reactionary. People were pretty happy with the classes in the beginning, and it's not until we all started playing with math and efficiency in mind instead of immersion and relaxed enjoyment that we started to care that some classes had weaknesses that didn't correspond to their strengths. It's a change of mentality, one that was amplified by WoW's mainstream lowest-common-denominator style of playing and now manifests as a complete inability for many players to adapt to the classes in their group.

What you want to do is switch the imbalances around. Give warriors built-in aggro that allows them to hold it reliably and easily and they would be the best tanks for everything, dwarfing out paladins and shadowknights. Then you'd have to buff those two classes. Make rangers do as much damage as monks and rogues and you'd have to give those classes similar utility and versatility. There's no point trying to fix the classes because they'd all need so much fixing that this wouldn't be the same game. You can't try to fix everything while preserving the classic feel, because part of the classic feel is the class structure.

Besides, trying to argue for changes like these is useless. They won't do it. It's not a matter of convincing the developers. You'd have to murder and usurp them. The entire point, the defining property and purpose of existence of this server, is to copy the way the game was. Every month someone comes in trying to spearhead some silly "fix", and every time people have to tell them that it won't happen, not necessarily because the fix is bad but because it cannot happen. Why would you come to the one server that revolves fully around the ideal of getting as close to 100% identical to classic Everquest and try to suggest the exact opposite? It's futile.

[Hasbinbad]

All of these suggestions are great you guys! I can't wait for you to start, develop, pay for, and moderate your own server where they can be implemented, and rangers can be a viable class, and the mission statement of the server won't be the dusty old p99 "Relive the classic Everquest MMORPG Gaming Experience as it was in 1999 and onward." bullshit, but the cool new one you're starting "Experience the classic feel of Everquest as I think it should have been!" ..and the sun will rise in the west and set in the east, and unicorns will shoot rainbows out of their asses!!

OMG CAN'T WAIT

[Dantes]

It can work, but root isn't the most reliable thing. It tends to break quickly, and even moreso if people deal any kind of direct magic damage. If your group has a monk with trance sticks, a wizard, a nuking ranger and a lifetapping necro pet, root on high-level dungeon mobs (who are often buffed by nearby cleric/shaman mobs) typically won't last more than a couple of ticks. It's nice in the lower and mid-levels, but I wouldn't want to depend on it in Sebilis.

Works well enough in Sebilis with a high level shaman. Had a few great groups with Shaman root parking everything in the disco camp. I think it depends on who's spending the mana on it, in the case of a shaman this is a very useful utility.

[Knuckle]

I was very pleased to find that I wasn't the only vampire at the meet and that a couple of my sisters of the night were also there. They told me that they'd been staying with a friend of Ursa's called Wetsuit but that he'd sadly passed away recently and so they had found a new home with Gibbmodoll along with Wetsuit's other girls.

http://i439.photobucket.com/albums/qq119/TimJ_2008/DSCF2190.jpg

[YendorLootmonkey]

I will admit that rangers aren't too bad off really and generally just have a bad reputation.

You kinda just made me stop reading anything you had to say after that. :P

Rangers have very little necessary role in groups or in raids right now. In Velious, we at least bring Trueshot and Weaponshield as tools to a raid. And some ATK buffs to groups/raids.

Right now, what we bring to the table -- aside from some nice outdoor pulling tools that not many groups take advantage of, because a druid can do the same thing AND serve as a healer or backup healer, AND evac you when shit gets hairy -- is "versatility". The problem is, that versatility only benefits the person playing the ranger. While it is what makes the ranger class fun, and is why I started a ranger on P99 knowing full well what I was in for, after having played a ranger as my only class for years on Live, groups generally don't care how much of everything you can do. The min-maxers want the specialists in DPS, the specialists in tanking (also contributing to the warrior problem, as knights are the specialists in tanking for groups right now), and the specialists in crowd control.

Not only is a ranger not a specialist, unless you want to know what mobs are up in Fear/Hate/Sky, but they bring their 40% XP penalty to the group for being that generalist that no group really desires. To me, that puts rangers in a fairly bad position in Kunark. As others have said, if you wipe away all the unjustified ranger-hate on P99 because of years of being the butt of all jokes... a high-level ranger in the pre-Kunark Classic era on Live was actually pretty bad-ass, and could actually tank.

Now, it wouldn't be so bad if rangers could solo effectively, but we can only solo in very set circumstances during certain level ranges with certain gear. And even then, I wouldn't say it's effective. Bow-kiting something around for 10 minutes while a group is killing 10 mobs in 10 minutes isn't "effective", in my book.

I'm not saying warriors aren't "as broken", but a lot of warriors' problems are because groups forgot how to let the tank gain aggro. Keeping aggro on the tank was never solely the tank's responsibility -- it was a group effort and we worked around it back on Live, because we didn't know Taunt fixes were coming. We didn't know Jolt was coming. We adapted.

[Kassel]

Oh Shiz, I agree with Hasbinbad, looks like i hasbinbad

[Sethius]

All of these suggestions are great you guys! I can't wait for you to start, develop, pay for, and moderate your own server where they can be implemented, and rangers can be a viable class, and the mission statement of the server won't be the dusty old p99 "Relive the classic Everquest MMORPG Gaming Experience as it was in 1999 and onward." bullshit, but the cool new one you're starting "Experience the classic feel of Everquest as I think it should have been!" ..and the sun will rise in the west and set in the east, and unicorns will shoot rainbows out of their asses!!

OMG CAN'T WAIT

Oh man, this post is beautiful. Can we just automatically have this post added to every thread that comes up with more stupid non-classic ideas that they personally feel would make (whatever they don't like about EQ) better?

It's so tiring to see people come in here and continue to add their two cents on what needs to change about EQ to make it funner than it was originally on live while also supposedly adhering to the "feel" of classic, while also adding to the piles of other people who want to change some aspect of EQ because they didn't like it.

I have news for you, if this server feels like classic, but isn't classic, that same balance that made classic epic will not exist... some things that happened in classic will change, big or small, and the implications cannot be seen now, I assure you. Rebalancing classic to make warriors better at group threat, or rangers better at not sucking... how will that affect other things? I can tell you that when the dev's at Blizzard make small changes that seem mundane, WoW sometimes encounters far reaching changes to other aspects of the game that they didn't expect... and they have tens of millions of dollars to spend on R&D... what makes you think you can balance something personally in a game as big as EQ?

Besides that, making fun of rangers is a part of the classic feel for me... do not take that away.

If we listened to all the changes requested, this game would not be even close to classic EQ. It would be some abomination. Making things easier is not the classic feel, that's a modern MMO. Classic EQ was annoying and difficult, deal with it or leave.

If we listened to just a few, sure, some ranger could wank in the corner at how awesome his class is now despite that being the opposite of classic, but where do we draw the line?

I say we just draw the line where the dev's have already drawn it, follow classic as closely as they can (some things can't be helped), and continue playing on the EQ emu server that has hundreds of players every night. Start changing on the whim of what every self-proclaimed EQ expert feels is in the spirit of classic (but really is just an excuse to make classic funner for their chosen play style), and I'm pretty certain this place will die off.

[Ektar]

http://i824.photobucket.com/albums/zz162/Postorofpictures/butterfly-nolegs-2.jpg

[Zadrian]

Warriors are the best tanks. Rangers have tons of utility and gain buffs in velious.

Live has also addressed these problems.

The only way live really addressed this problem is by blending all the classes.

With the ridiculous amounts of AAs, rangers can potentially out-dps monks/rogues wizards - etc.

Have a buddy that did over 1mill damage in 45 seconds.. he's a bard.. that's silly.

[Kika Maslyaka]

once rangers loose Xp penalty and get fear animal - they finally fit into decent solo classes range

its truly ridiculous that such powerful solo class as necro (who still contributes tremendous DPS and utilities to a group) only has 10% Xp penalty where poor rogue/druid hybrid gets 40%. Verant must have been thinking with their dicks when they design this... or they all just had necro pet chars

[bakkily]

yes, all the rules are supposed to be upon adnd, but sometimes i have wondered to myself what the hell was verant thinking on some things, i feel this game is the best mmo out there next to vanguard

[Stormhowl]

I think the inflammatory remarks and unnecessary hostility being directed towards the OP is truly ridiculous. Is such flaming necessary, or even constructive? If you don't like what's being said, ignore it and move on.

I disagree with the OP's premise, but not because I'm not interested in what he has to say, but because the server is designed to mimic Classic EQ as closely as possible. There's no need to castrate him for it, and you're doing a good job of showing new-comers that there's a vocal minority of angry, unsavory individuals populating this server. It certainly took me a few days to work up the "courage" to start a thread or two here, because I see how hostile some people here get for no reason what so ever.

This may be the Internet, but that's no reason to react so poorly to a simple thread and degrade the OP for it.

[Ektar]

rogue/druid hybrid

I've always been under the impression a ranger was a fighter/druid. An alternative suggestion just blows my mind. thoughts?

[falkun]

Rangers aren't a full plate class like the fighter/warrior. They also get sneak/hide like rogues.

As a counter-point, they can use 2H and larger 1H (IE: wurmslayer) like fighters. They also do not receive backstab.

Honestly though, the conclusion of rogue/druid hybrid fits the EQ ranger better than the warrior/druid hybrid. But wasn't it AD&D that has the rules about how your armor status affects your ability to cast spells? So druids wearing any armor above leather (maybe chain) couldn't cast spells, that's why rangers (a warrior/druid hybrid) is restricted to chain, to fulfill the AD&D standard of restricting armor to maintain the freedom to cast spells?

[YendorLootmonkey]

But wasn't it AD&D that has the rules about how your armor status affects your ability to cast spells? So druids wearing any armor above leather (maybe chain) couldn't cast spells, that's why rangers (a warrior/druid hybrid) is restricted to chain, to fulfill the AD&D standard of restricting armor to maintain the freedom to cast spells?

Huh? Rangers are ONLY non-plate hybrid in EQ until Beastlords come around. Its more about the nature of the class than it is whether they can cast spells or not.

[Tiggles]

Huh? Rangers are ONLY non-plate hybrid in EQ until Beastlords come around. Its more about the nature of the class than it is whether they can cast spells or not.

Paladins and Dark paladins could cast spells in plate because they where all touch/divine.

[falkun]

Let me see if I can clarify Yendor...

If I remember correctly, if you were a dual-class in AD&D (my direct example being Baldur's Gate games), your item restrictions were the strictest set of gear equip-able by both classes. For instance, a fighter could wield almost any weapon and armor to do everything, however druids could only wield blunts and scimitars and could not cast spells if they wore armor above the "leather" class. As a fighter/druid dual-class, you could wear whatever you wanted (fighter), but if you had on heavier armor than leather, you had to swap down to leather or below to cast spells (druid restriction).

Since EQ was heavily influenced by the AD&D ruleset, I am making the assumption that the reason rangers were deemed to be a chain-mail class was because of ties to this AD&D restriction. Or it may be that the roots of the ranger class are more rogue/druid based and since rogues cannot wear armor heavier than chain that the restriction was also maintained for rangers.

Also, I don't know if EQ had the mechanics to be able to code "if armor > chain, then ability_to_cast = off", so they just made the broad designation that they could not wear armor above chain.

Obviously this is all speculation and you are free to agree or disagree as you see fit.

[falkun]

Paladins and Dark paladins could cast spells in plate because they where all touch/divine.

Also, the AD&D cleric and paladins were always plate classes. I honestly loved that the main healer could also wear the armor that allowed them to stand in the thick of it (even if their skills didn't complement this). The WoW priest in cloth always felt fragile compared to a EQ cleric in plate. I always thought the WoW holy paladin was a much more iconic healer than the WoW priest.

[Tiggles]

Aragorn wore chain in the movies

[baalzy]

Aragorn wore chain in the movies

/thread

[greatdane]

The classes are pretty heavily based on their AD&D counterparts; or, I should say, on the classes of SojournMUD whose classes were almost completely copied from AD&D. SojournMUD was the main inspiration for Everquest, so that's the reason for the similarities with AD&D where, for instance, the ranger class wears chain armor. Brad McQuaid played a ranger on SojournMUD where the class was an underpowered joke. I guess he was really dead-set on sticking to his inspiration.

[YendorLootmonkey]

Since EQ was heavily influenced by the AD&D ruleset, I am making the assumption that the reason rangers were deemed to be a chain-mail class was because of ties to this AD&D restriction. Or it may be that the roots of the ranger class are more rogue/druid based and since rogues cannot wear armor heavier than chain that the restriction was also maintained for rangers.

Also, I don't know if EQ had the mechanics to be able to code "if armor > chain, then ability_to_cast = off", so they just made the broad designation that they could not wear armor above chain.

Obviously this is all speculation and you are free to agree or disagree as you see fit.

Oh, I understand what you're saying, but then shadowknights are a hybrid of a plate/cloth class, and therefore shouldn't be wearing plate.

I think it just has more to do with class balancing... i.e. if you give rangers plate, spells, double attack, dual wield, AND archery... why would people want to play a warrior or knight class? Instead, they gimped our mitigation/avoidance and made us a chain class, which also fit the AD&D version of what a ranger was. And then to continue the class balancing exercise -- if rangers out-DPSed rogues, what would be the compelling reason to play a rogue? If rangers did awesome ranged damage, where's the risk in that... make sure melee is still their primary form of DPS. Etc. All the way down to... lets just make a ranger a jack-of-all trades -- without the foresight of "wow, rangers can't really do anything well even though they're hybrids... are they really deserving of this XP penalty?" until Velious, when the class-based penalties were finally lifted. Even during Luclin, when the devs decided to throw rangers a bone and make archery a primary form of DPS through AAs and itemization, the bitching from the other classes was too great, and our ranged attack abilities took a nerf (so I heard... this was actually after I stopped playing around the time of GoD) because it was too overpowered (i.e. high damage outside of AE range at virtually no risk).

Hybrids were originally imagined to be much more capable than the pure classes, and thus deserving of the 40% XP penalty... but in practice, that gap in ability never quite panned out (except for knight classes in terms of holding aggro, but I would say that was more of an issue with the warrior class NOT having good aggro tools... as evidenced by taunt fixes). In my opinion, the classes that could solo effectively should have received the 40% XP penalty... but I don't think the designers had a firm grasp on which classes could solo effectively until everyone started playing the game. It almost seems like they thought all the hybrids would be able to solo effectively.

But this is all an exercise in speculation, I suppose. Overall, I tend to agree with the rogue/druid hybrid theory.

[greatdane]

You could say that they are more capable, they're just not necessarily stronger. The way I see it, we pay the exp penalty for the ability to be two things at once. Especially before Kunark, shadowknights and paladins weren't far behind warriors and the main distinction in terms of melee prowess was dual-wield. Disciplines kind of skewed this ideal, and they did indeed remove exp penalties in the third expansion after adding disciplines in the second. The pure melee classes are extremely simple and limited in what they can do, and it make some measure of sense to me that taking a melee class that's almost as good* as a pure melee and giving them dozens of mostly useful spells justifies a penalty. Shadowknights are fairly decent soloers and paladins are pretty good healers while rangers have a wheelbarrow full of useful tools. It looks like a design lapse that pure classes become so much better than hybrids in the very end, and for most of the leveling process, the hybrids are generally better classes to play.



*in theory at least, if not in practice. I'm sure the developers didn't intentionally design rangers to be pretty poor DPS or knights to be largely unable to tank raid mobs, but I suspect the development process kind of spiraled out of control, leading to hamfisted extremes like defensive discipline to make up for the lack of options warriors had.

[Ektar]

Oh, I understand what you're saying, but then shadowknights are a hybrid of a plate/cloth class, and therefore shouldn't be wearing plate.

I think it just has more to do with class balancing... i.e. if you give rangers plate, spells, double attack, dual wield, AND archery... why would people want to play a warrior or knight class? Instead, they gimped our mitigation/avoidance and made us a chain class, which also fit the AD&D version of what a ranger was. And then to continue the class balancing exercise -- if rangers out-DPSed rogues, what would be the compelling reason to play a rogue? If rangers did awesome ranged damage, where's the risk in that... make sure melee is still their primary form of DPS. Etc. All the way down to... lets just make a ranger a jack-of-all trades -- without the foresight of "wow, rangers can't really do anything well even though they're hybrids... are they really deserving of this XP penalty?" until Velious, when the class-based penalties were finally lifted. Even during Luclin, when the devs decided to throw rangers a bone and make archery a primary form of DPS through AAs and itemization, the bitching from the other classes was too great, and our ranged attack abilities took a nerf (so I heard... this was actually after I stopped playing around the time of GoD) because it was too overpowered (i.e. high damage outside of AE range at virtually no risk).

Hybrids were originally imagined to be much more capable than the pure classes, and thus deserving of the 40% XP penalty... but in practice, that gap in ability never quite panned out (except for knight classes in terms of holding aggro, but I would say that was more of an issue with the warrior class NOT having good aggro tools... as evidenced by taunt fixes). In my opinion, the classes that could solo effectively should have received the 40% XP penalty... but I don't think the designers had a firm grasp on which classes could solo effectively until everyone started playing the game. It almost seems like they thought all the hybrids would be able to solo effectively.

But this is all an exercise in speculation, I suppose. Overall, I tend to agree with the rogue/druid hybrid theory.

didn't read the whole thing. Trying to finish reading something before class. but SKs are not fighter/necros; they are fighter/cleric - based on D&D.

SK is derived from anti-paladin, which is a paladin that used evil cleric based things instead of good cleric based things.

Did you know that evil clerics could turn paladins? lol.

An evil cleric was, more or less, a necromancer. But he was more divine than arcane. I actually do more enjoy the aspect that a necromancer is arcane - but to make a hybrid of fighter/arcane would have been silly, especially if trying to make him the paladin counterpart.

Paladin - fighter/cleric (plate + plate / 2 = plate)
SK - Paladin counterpart (plate)
Ranger - fighter/druid (plate + leather / 2 = chain)

imo.

[Hasbinbad]

rangers may get sneak and hide, but they certainly do not get sneak and hide "just like rogues" lol

rogue would be the last class i would think of when i thought of which classes ranger is composed of.. rangers are like the anti rogue..

[Ektar]

ok so as I read about decentralization of government, I think back.

Under WARRIORS, the classes were Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger. That's why I think of them as fighter/druids :P

No matter how rangers turned out, EQ is based on D&D. It is much more likely that an EQ ranger is a fighter/druid based on this fact.

But just like the gargantuan size of my penis, there is no way to prove it.

[Hasbinbad]

ok so as I read about decentralization of government, I think back.

Under WARRIORS, the classes were Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger. That's why I think of them as fighter/druids :P

No matter how rangers turned out, EQ is based on D&D. It is much more likely that an EQ ranger is a fighter/druid based on this fact.

But just like the gargantuan size of my penis, there is no way to prove it.
pics pls

[Kika Maslyaka]

Aragorn wore chain in the movies

Aragorn was only level 8 ranger - he didn't had any spells yet, and he kept killing all those green orc who gave no XP. They did killed a few level 10 trolls, but Xp was split between the group, and with 40% Xp penalty that wasn't enough to ding.

Gandalf suck as wizard btw - apparently the only spell scroll he ever memed was Flash of Light :confused: