Quote:
Originally Posted by Grizzin
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I was actually referring to the OP, with his talk of a Ranger being the best viable tank, in a specific situation of Cleric mana not being an issue. I speak in absolutes and black/white terms on Ranger functionality because in the current timeline of whats being emulated, what I stated is indisputable fact. That is the literal definition of a Jack-of-all-Trades. However...
You still fail to grasp the point I was making, that regardless of the reasoning behind why you feel Ranger's should not have an Exp penalty, this server is not functioning on logical reasoning. It is emulating classic EverQuest, wherein Hybrids still retained their Exp penalty. It's not about whether or not it makes sense, it's about the fact that in Classic -> Whatever Expansion that finally dropped Exp Penalties, they existed in this timeline, thus, we have them. The developers may not even agree with Exp penalties, but the fact remains that as a server that is emulating classic EverQuest, you must adhear to every classic aspect, including Exp penalties.
True, eventually they did create an environment where every class was able to solo and group on a roughly even level, but again I say to you, this is not that environment. Discussing why we can or why we can't do so on this server is pretty pointless.
I get the feeling that you did not understand that I was more or less agreeing with you, and just want to use this as an opportunity to verbosely speak on your knowledge of Rangers; in which case, carry on. I would just like to again point out the futility in it all.
Ranger's had a lot of things wrong with them in the initial 3 expansions - down the line, they fixed that. However, we are not down that line yet, nor will this server ever be. If you are playing a Ranger now, you are, like you said, accepting the consequences of your choices.
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Then get what I'm saying and listen carefully... (sorry if i repeat myself or skip things you said)
Jack-of-all-trades != Overpowered. (see that?) You make it sound as though a jack-of-all-trades scheme will always demand an exp penalty or a negative penalty to compensate. But this is not true. If you have 10 points and 5 abilities, it doesn't matter if you put 10 of them in one ability or 2 of them in each - neither choice would be overpowering or require an exp penalty. But an exp penalty did and does exist, so why?
If what we see on p1999 truly is an example of jack-of-all-trades then an exp penalty would be completely unnecessary. It wouldn't be needed and it wouldn't be needed back then when Verant added it. It's my contention that Verant did not add an exp penalty for no reason at all. They might not have been top of the line professionals, but they would have at least had some solid reasoning for it. I say that they added it because rangers/hybrids were overpowered. Furthermore, my argument goes that rangers were overpowered because players could not accept hard choices (true jack-of-all-trades schemes) or that they simply were looking for more diverse game-play that they couldn't find in a simpler class like a warrior but got stuck with this jack-of-all-trades sh**. Verant (and SOE) did not like exp penalties to begin with, nor did they like having some classes be overpowered. When a class is overpowered, it tends to create conflict. Look at the jedi class in SWG, look at how long that lasted? Overpowered classes stick out and become the targets of scorn. So Verant/SOE slowly cut away the jack-of-all-trades branches (because most players couldn't cope with the consequences), and removed the exp penalty as well. This allowed them to avoid overpowering anybody.
But in all this I can't help but think it's the boring-ness of the gameplay that might play a role. To skip past that and to focus only on players not being able to cope with consequences would miss a huge opportunity to satisfy this portion of the player population that likes jack-of-all-trades solely for the larger toolset. Developers just need to make gameplay that's more satisfying and diverse and doesn't quickly grow stale. Giving a class autoattack and extremely high strength does -not- make that class good gameplay! Gameplay is about making choices and about diversity and about attaining your goals. Empty classes are bad gameplay. The fact that most players don't like hard choices is just a distraction. Understanding this point could be very important.