What were devs thinking when they made Monks?

[liquidki]

Yeah, looking at the wiki all the velious equipment jumps to the top of the dmg/AC charts. To be fair I don't know how you solve the problem of mudflation while increasing level caps and putting out new and more powerful items which of course are needed for the more powerful monsters. But how do you prevent those uber items from massively devaluing everything that came before? I dunno if there is a solution to that.

[fastboy21]

You're forgetting that tanking isn't just about getting hit...you need aggro abilities. Most monks aren't going to snap aggro back the way taunt or casting can.

In a group setting, over a long haul, having a warrior that needs more healing is preferable to a monk without the ability to reliably hold and snap aggro. Not only is it less efficient (exp/hour), but it is also a lot more stressful on a grinding group if mobs are bouncing around.

If you get multiple mobs without CC the monk has basically no chance to hold aggro on them all.

Also remember that the balance you're speaking of is largely gear driven for a monk. A monk in era appropriate gear (from live) wasn't going to out tank a warrior even in an exp grp. Every monk on the server didn't have a t-staff, fungi, epic, full suit of black panther at lvl 1, hp rings, etc.

[fastboy21]

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

Yeah, looking at the wiki all the velious equipment jumps to the top of the dmg/AC charts. To be fair I don't know how you solve the problem of mudflation while increasing level caps and putting out new and more powerful items which of course are needed for the more powerful monsters. But how do you prevent those uber items from massively devaluing everything that came before? I dunno if there is a solution to that.

Its hard...and part of the problem is that games generally don't worry about this issue because most MMOs aren't going to last 20 years. Even when EQ was a booming success I doubt the devs would have thought it was going to continue the way it did.

You can do lots of itemization things to slow it down though:

1. Limit direct upgrades. Make gear situational, so that every expansion doesn't see you dropping your old Top Tier class armor for new Top Tier class armor.

2. You deepen existing content instead of replacing it with new content. Add augments, modification items.

3. You create utility items that are not replacements of old items.

This keeps the old stuff needed AND makes the new stuff needed. Folks will do jboots...a newbie vanilla quest, for example, from launch until the day p99 goes black. It never goes away. What other game would a max lvl character 5 expansions into the MMO still have "newbie" gear on them that they NEED? EQ is really the only one I've ever played that does that. Jboots is only one example.

Once you start walking down the path of each expansion adds 30% difficulty, so top gear needs to improve by 30% you are moving down the path to problems. One of the reasons why classic EQ was so fun is that Velious and Kunark didn't make the old world useless. Even through Luclin and PoP there were good reasons to revisit the old world zones, and the content wasn't totally obsolete yet.