They should never merge... - Page 5

Taelana · 10-21-2006, 07:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Illuminator

It was more directed at people like Ishboooooooooozor.

That sounds like a drunk...lol

Xlrate · 10-22-2006, 10:27 PM

What they need to do is very simple. Reduce down to 13 classes. 3 tank types 3 healer types and 7 dps/buffing types.

Balance could be achieved very easily for tanks by fixing the avoidance/mit issue and doing the way tanks hold agro better. Make your 3 tanks be limited to plate/tower, chain/kite, and leather/no shield equippable (but gets an avoidance bonus and can DW) then fix hate generation, have some reactive hate, some taunting, some nuking some combat arts et. al.

For healers you could balance things very easy. Druid, Cleric, (I forget what the warding ones are called). Lets start it off, Clerics get the most armor choices and round shields, best and fastest single target healing, slowest and most expensive group heals, and best buffs for tanks and self, their spell dps is basically crap but they get a bonus to melee dps and are limited to crushing weapons. They keep reactives as their specialty heal of choice and recieve a damage shield. Clerics buff Str, STa and WIS.

Druids, Least armor choices of all the healers leather and cloth only, Stay with H.O.T.s, Group healing is their specailty fast and high, Single target healing is their weakness. They buff casters the best but also recieve a melee proc to grant out, the stats they buff are int and AGI and maybe limited spell haste. Druids have the strongest nukes out of the healers and AE's. Their melee dps is ornamental at best. Druids do have a very limited root / slow.

OK lets fix those that ward. Limited to chain armor and bucklers, recieves an extra line of ward spells (so they will have 3 specialty lines of healing as opposed to other healers 2) They are solid at warding but lose some power on direct heals. Their buffs lean towards agi, haste, and raw HP. They have very few buffs. They have best debuffs out of all the healers. They have short time proc buffs they can cast on enemies so when any group member lands melee, there is bonus damage given.

You all can figure out how to balance dps classes, although i would highly advise
Warlocks +necro
Wizard + conj
Illusionis + Coercer
Swashy + Assassin + Brig
Ranger
Dirge + Troub
Beastmaster

Pink Poodle · 10-24-2006, 01:32 PM

Honestly, if the classes were merged I'd most likely quit.

It is possible to make all 24 classes decent, it can be done; it's just that SOE is kinda... bah when it comes to that!

For example, I think a few more tweaks could be use to make the two Enchanter classes more distinct, without overpowering one over the other.

Either way, you can't make everyone happy.

Manyak · 10-25-2006, 01:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rhoslyn Deviak

Honestly, if the classes were merged I'd most likely quit.

It is possible to make all 24 classes decent, it can be done; it's just that SOE is kinda... bah when it comes to that!

For example, I think a few more tweaks could be use to make the two Enchanter classes more distinct, without overpowering one over the other.

Either way, you can't make everyone happy.

the enchanter classes ARE distinct. yes they both give mana regen, and they can both mezz, but thats where the similarity ends. yeah compared to everyone else they are pretty shitty (no argument there), but compared to each other they are pretty damn well balanced, and probably the best balanced out of most of the other class pairs. the coercer is a utility class with some situational DPS, and the illusionist is a DPS class with situational utility.

the coercer gets far better utility from extra regen, channel, HL, +DPS, INT debuff, resistance debuff, more mana drains (however useless they really are), amnesia (since the illu one doesnt really work properly), and tank hate. But illusionists still get a taste of that utility with mana regen, savante, int buffs, haste, and a spell proc (obviously not as good), but is able to put out an AVERAGE of 1.6k-1.8k DPS to a single target in a raid when grouped right, compared to a coercer's 600-800 average.

besides, 1 coercer and 1 illusionist on a raid is still significantly better than 2 of either one (unlike alot of other class pairs). therefore they are definately balanced pretty damn well against each other. its just that no encounters really allow them to fully use their abilities like other classes do, thereby making them unbalanced when compared to everyone else.

Snark · 10-25-2006, 03:11 AM

I agree they could potentially make 24 balanced classes, but whats the point? With 24 spots in a raid, it seems odd to expect people to find a reliable one of each class. By merging classes you improve the usefulness of each character. When you create more, classes are singled out for their weaknesses instead of their strengths.

Pronoia · 10-25-2006, 03:32 AM

It's probably too far down the line to merge now anyway.

Other designers should probably take note of the headaches associated with balancing a large number of classes when there are only 24 raid slots available.

For the solo and group game, 24 classes are fine. *IF* they were properly able to balance the pairings against each other for raid purposes they would have been fine. We're 23 months down the line and finally things are getting close to where they should be for the majority of pairings.

Pro.

Scafloc · 10-25-2006, 09:27 AM

With hindsight, there's no way the devs would have made 24 classes. The only reason there are so many is because of the now-defunct archetype system, which basically required it. They've stated how hard it is to balance 24 classes whilst keeping them distinct multiple times, and it really sounds like they wish they'd not done it. If they were making the game now, without archetypes, we'd probably have this as the list of classes:

Warrior
SK
Paladin
Brawler
Cleric
Shaman
Druid
Bard
Rogue
Assassin
Ranger
Wizard
Necromancer
Conjuror
Enchanter

quamdar · 10-26-2006, 03:51 PM

i do wish that they would redo the classes. honestly i am surprised the didn't with EoF i thought for sure that is why they got rid of archetypes so that they could eventually get rid of some of the classes that are just too alike.

Manyak · 10-29-2006, 09:36 AM

they got rid of archetypes cuz some classes were still using low lvl spells over their high lvl ones sometimes

Taelana · 10-29-2006, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scafloc

With hindsight, there's no way the devs would have made 24 classes. The only reason there are so many is because of the now-defunct archetype system, which basically required it. They've stated how hard it is to balance 24 classes whilst keeping them distinct multiple times, and it really sounds like they wish they'd not done it. If they were making the game now, without archetypes, we'd probably have this as the list of classes:

Warrior
SK
Paladin
Brawler
Cleric
Shaman
Druid
Bard
Rogue
Assassin
Ranger
Wizard
Necromancer
Conjuror
Enchanter

isnt that the list on EQ ... minus Beast?