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Originally Posted by fadetree
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Rangers were originally too powerful in beta; they were the equivalent of the classic OP tank/mage archetype. So, they got whacked. Too hard imo, but oh well.
Thats not where the hybrid penalty came form tho, I don't think, I think it was from a general idea found in DD games about multiclassing.
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I refer you here:
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When EverQuest player characters were being designed, it was immediately apparent that some races and classes would be more powerful than others given versatility and other factors. Later, it came to light that the concept of being "more powerful" began to break down at the upper levels, given that everyone capped at the same level. We could not let any one race or class be immensely more powerful than another at that final point, as it would essentially put parts of the game off limits to those who chose the less powerful classes...
...In fact, the majority of changes made to classes in the name of balance in the last year were based on the assumption that, at the high end, each class should still be roughly as needed and balanced as any other.
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- Gordon Wrinn
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In the low levels, rangers are very powerful compared to warriors. If there were no penalty or shortcoming to compensate for it, they'd be a clear winner. But as they level up towards 50, you start to see big plusses in the ability of hte warrior to tank better. Not only are they able to afford plate armor at higher levels, but the defense tables and some other factors were also updated over time to beef them up.
Take a lvl 17 warrior and a level 17 ranger. They're both wearing approx equivalent gear - leather or banded, more than likely. The warrior might have 50-60 more hp and a critical chance at low health, but not much beyond that. Whereas, the ranger can root and snare the enemy and compliment with other spells and finish it off from a distance and increase survivability greatly.
Many of hte classes are doing similar things in the low levels. They're meleeing, first and foremost. Some of the casters might even melee until level 20. But after that their class overpowers their own desires.
Take a lvl 50 warrior and a level 50 ranger and you'll see the warrior benefiting more from their tanking abilities. And this is really how EQ was designed in its first year and how it followed after. Players learned over time that warriors did the best tanking and rogues and wizards were best at dps and so on.
The game was made so that at the higher levels the classes would be roughly equal. This differed from the early design stage where they made the hybrids too strong. This is why they removed the exp penalties.
Compare this to the racial advantages/penalties. Other than slam and stun immunity for the ogre, you can see that as the game progressed the intial racial stats became insignificant. And when AA's were added, players could even acquire innate slam and some stun immunity. They removed the night blindness too. This continued until there was very little difference between the races at all. Finally, in September 19 2006, they removed racial exp penalties. Here's the link for it:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/hist...es-2006-2.html
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- Race based experience penalties have been removed.
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