Why does everyone hate rangers?

[stormlord]

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

I'm fortunate in that I have pretty good gear. I can probably hang in top DPS for everyone besides epic rogue, I can hold aggro really well using snare/root, and I can pull as well as anyone until higher levels.

The only thing that keeps me from groups is bias against rangers but I'd argue that a really well equipped ranger can increase the exp of a lower level group way more than that penalty would cause.

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

If people wont group with you because you are ranger, they have misunderstood the reason to play a 15 year old game. Min maxing in mid 20s group on P99 is.......wrong.

Cyrano, I played a ranger starting in 1999 and played another all through the years. It was the only class I really played, besides the paladin. I also played here. I played all sorts of classes. Never leveled past about 23 because I think the lower level game was funner. SO why say this? Because you can trust me.

NOW to what I know. The #1 reason Rangers had an experience penalty probably lies in their ability to solo good (not great). The experience penalty was the payment. Now, you may wonder why anything has to be paid? So they solo good and don't group well, isn't that payment enough!?? Well, I will cover that later in the post. I will start with discussing basics. If you can't wait, scroll down to (juicy part).

I actually compared a level 17 warrior and a level 17 ranger on p1999 just to see what the difference would be. The warrior got the mob down to about 20-30% and then died. The ranger? The ranger was resting after the fight with about 50% hp and 50% mana. How'd the ranger do it? Using snare and root. They're very powerful when soloing. I may or may not have used the bow. The details are distant now, but the impression was powerful: Rangers solo much better than warriors.

Of course, we ALL expect rangers to solo better than warriors. But why was this the reason the ranger had an experience penalty? The answer starts with the thinking. If a class could solo well it usually lost something as a group member. Druids, for example, have always been hated for not healing well or not doing great damage. Even necromancers, the most powerful soloers, have trouble in groups because they do so much of their damage with dots. Dots are not mana-efficient in groups. Necromancers also are not a good support class. They're limited in their ability to help others.

Why did they have to lose group ability to solo well? Because back then there was the feeling nothing was free. A jack of all trades had to lose specializations to pay for it. They couldn't have the best of both worlds or the specialized classes would complain. This was a common thread in single player RPGs too: To have a balanced skill set, one had to refrain from specializing. You'd have X points to spend and X was much less than the skill point total. Additionally, there were a number of very important skills.

Something like this:
Lets hypothesize a game with these skills: Offense, Defense, Utility.
...Offense: Damage dealing.
...Defense: Ability to survive damage.
...Utility: Ability to survive challenges which're not just offense/defense-based.
Rules are:
...1 Each skill can be trained up to 100 points max.
...2 The player is allotted a max of 100 points to distribute amongst the skills.

So you can do this: 100 Offense, 0 defense, 0 utility.
Or this: 0 Offense, 0 defense, 100 utility.
Here's a "balanced" distribution: 33 offense, 33 defense, 34 utility.

With modern games, the idea that a jack of all trades has to lose specialization(s) to pay for having a balanced skillset and that this is what they have to do to solo well has been partially or completely discarded in favor of mechanics which - for the vast majority of cases - do not harshly penalize a player's ability to solo or group based on the skills they train.

I think most of hte ability to solo in modern games has been separated from the things you choose to train. So it really doesn't matter what you train or which class you choose because you'll be able to solo equally well as anybody else. This doesn't stop you from attempting to be different from others, it just means the way you're different does not compromise between soloing and grouping.

(juicy part)

Lastly I want to share a conspiracy with you. I know I'm not going to win any friends by saying this. But I think the original creators of the ranger class and other soloing classes actually fudged the numbers and BOOSTED them in groups. Before they decided to boost they discovered these classes were toooooo weak in groups.

"Tooooo Weak!!!??" you ask? HOW CAN THAT HAPPEN. Well ti's simple, and I'll explain. The reason is sitting in plain sight. By giving a class the balanced skill set, thus enabling better soloing, this removes specializations. Remember: Can't have the best of both worlds or someone will complain. Now classes that specialize will suddenly have a much higher priority in group settings because their specializations are higher. We all know how groups organized things: Tank, Healer, Dps, CC, etc. Well as a result of all this the jack-of-all-trades classes now find the bulk of their skills completely redundant and useless in a group.

But that's ok, you say? They chose to solo better and this means htey don't group as well! Isn't this what I explained earlier? Give and take! Remove from group and put in solo. Nothing is free.

Here we meet a dichotomy: Solo-classes can't also be great group-classes unless great soloing ability is available to group-classes. Otherwise, players will complain. However, if good soloers can't be good groupers then what about the fact this is a MMOrpg? MMO = players in groups. The very nature of the game is to play together, isn't it? And so they had to boost the solo-classes to keep them from being scorned by groups.

This decision to boost them in groups was integral in giving solo-classes an experience penalty. Think: If they not only could already solo and get good experience like that, but were ALSO given a bonus to make them more appealing in groups, this would in sum make them soloing gods!

SO hear me out, whether or not I am right. But my conspiracy goes a little further. When they decided to remove the experience penalty, they also removed some of their soloing capability. Maybe htey changed the mitigation tables? Reduced value of root? Alternatively, they might instead boost the soloing capability of all non-soloing classes. They may have even done some of this by accident. Why? Because without a change of this sort the boost I mentioned earlier might make them too strong while soloing. And yet they don't want to remove the boost because they want rangers to still group after the exp penalty is removed.

[Laugher]

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

What can a ranger bring to a group that another class can't do better and without the xp penalty?

They can filter their track window and use it to their advantage to charge people vengeful quantities of platinum for their services [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Fleetwood]

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

If people wont group with you because you are ranger, they have misunderstood the reason to play a 15 year old game. Min maxing in mid 20s group on P99 is.......wrong.

Amen.

[Kergan]

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

The #1 reason Rangers had an experience penalty probably lies in their ability to solo good (not great). The experience penalty was the payment.

The reason they have a penalty is because EQ was based on DnD multiclassing penalties. The original design was to make them actually more powerful and penalize them for it.

In reality, in many ways a jack of all trades master of none is a bad thing. Rangers don't do the DPS of rogues or monks, don't tank as well as warriors, etc. Their versatility is what makes them unique for melees. Versatility is not valued in a group environment, in almost all cases it is better to have a full group of specialists focusing on doing a single task. That is just the way EQ works.

The penalty was removed eventually for a reason, because it shouldn't have existed in the first place. It was a mistake, left over from an early design philosophy. You're paying a penalty and getting nothing in return, and on top of that you're literally slowing your group experience gain down.

[G13]

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

The reason they have a penalty is because EQ was based on DnD multiclassing penalties. The original design was to make them actually more powerful and penalize them for it.

In reality, in many ways a jack of all trades master of none is a bad thing. Rangers don't do the DPS of rogues or monks, don't tank as well as warriors, etc. Their versatility is what makes them unique for melees. Versatility is not valued in a group environment, in almost all cases it is better to have a full group of specialists focusing on doing a single task. That is just the way EQ works.

The penalty was removed eventually for a reason, because it shouldn't have existed in the first place. It was a mistake, left over from an early design philosophy. You're paying a penalty and getting nothing in return, and on top of that you're literally slowing your group experience gain down.

The P99 Developers conveniently left it in

The obvious time sink serves their purposes. The original EQ Developers realized this too, which is why time sinks became a staple of MMO Development.

The whole concept of "Must be Classic Bad Design and All" went out the window with variance

There really is no rational excuse to keep the exp penalties in place

[Tuljin]

A decently geared 50something Ranger can tank just fine, and is a great puller using bow and root pulls. Snare is also a very powerful and useful ability in dungeons. The DPS will come from elsewhere, for example using snap agro and making sure the back of the mob is always turned to a rogue or other melees makes a huge difference over time.

The real issue with p99 is the rampant class snobbery and general hesitation to take any type of challenge or risk in a group. For example, many Warriors refuse to group without a Cleric healer. Many people refuse to group without an Enchanter. People don't roll Rangers cause they cant get groups, so they roll a Cleric instead so they can get groups all the time and do nothing but sit on their asses and heal and ride the xp train to 60.

A good player would not bat an eye to taking a good Ranger in a group, especially someone who just wants to move the damn xp bar. Moving the bar is better than not moving the bar, period. Sometimes you cant sit around and wait for the "perfect" group composition. Nubs just get rattled because they can't pull mobs without needing a chanter AOE and can't survive with only Superior Healing.

[Emile]

No need to take it personally, it's just the way the game was at this point. The usefulness of other classes in a xp group setting is greater. In you MM group are you going to take the ranger over the 8 epic rogue twinks sitting at the zone line? I say this as a wizard, a class that is more useless in an xp group situation than any.

[Estu]

Originally Posted by G13 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The P99 Developers conveniently left it in

The obvious time sink serves their purposes. The original EQ Developers realized this too, which is why time sinks became a staple of MMO Development.

The whole concept of "Must be Classic Bad Design and All" went out the window with variance

There really is no rational excuse to keep the exp penalties in place

The P99 devs don't care about whether the EXP penalty provides a time sink to players. They care about having a classic-era EverQuest server. What did classic-era EverQuest have, during Kunark, before Velious came out? Hybrid EXP penalties.

[PDX0621]

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

A good player would not bat an eye to taking a good Ranger in a group, especially someone who just wants to move the damn xp bar. Moving the bar is better than not moving the bar, period. Sometimes you cant sit around and wait for the "perfect" group composition. Nubs just get rattled because they can't pull mobs without needing a chanter AOE and can't survive with only Superior Healing.

This. I grouped with a ranger about a week or so ago in MM, one of the only rangers I've seen in my 6-7 months of playing. Guy was awesome. Did good damage, snared, pulled, and rooted every mob, allowing me to proxy aggro. Guy even helped heal the casters during down times/med breaks. The versatility of the class is awesome, if played by a competent person. Also, some of the best groups I've ever had in EQ, or other MMO's are the unconventional, hodge podge "let's see if this works" groups. Give it a try. Any exp is better than no exp, right?

[Jimjam]

Rangers are Schrodinger's class. Due to the popular hate / xp penalty / etc any ranger you group with is either gonna be a super awesome player or the most awful legolas fanboy newb ever.

You just gotta open that box to find out!