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Originally Posted by Xanoth
While i agree (it was one of my 3 things for the "what 3 things could improve eq2" discussion), I don't think its the only issue.
Something about the class concepts and style feel stretched to fit a role or a job, rather than have those concepts expand to fill a role etc. They almost feel reverse enginired and hollow if that makes sense.
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to some extent, it reaches back to the basics of character development.
we started from a "good" city and an "evil" city, and thusly in conflict with one another. however, instead of being forced into conflict, we end up being encouraged to work together. (the only exception is the terribly designed pvp system... where a lot of people end up going exile and can work together anyway)
fundamentally, we start out with the notion of good vs. evil and then it's almost immediately abandoned. the swords of destiny quest line had both groups working for the leader of the evil side.
the problem with abandoning the conflict is that when you do it, you forsake the roles you set forth, and it becomes pointless to even make a distinction between the classes. not only do they already operate the same way, but now there's no reason for one to be evil and one good, because they both end up being neutral and cooperative.
furthermore, there is a fundamental flaw in class design: archetypal design. they started with the basic idea that they wanted four groups - tanks, healers, melee dps, caster dps - and then built the system around that. it limited their possibilites and pushed all of their classes into a very flat role. while there is variety in how each class accomplishes its goal or adds to combat, the fact that the system was directly built from an archetypal perspective is what produced the flatness of the classes. it probably also gave them the idea that they could bring things down from the class level to the subclass level, where there would be another great chance for a split.
perhaps in the original design of classes this worked. as i remember, the game was much more complicated back then. however, when they did the first major combat revamp (with the release of DoF) they took a step back and simplified a lot of things. to accomplish this, they collected everything back to the archetype level and reassigned roles to the classes, then the subclasses. at the time i was playing a warden, and i remember logging in that day and not knowing any of the spells in my book anymore. what they had done with my class was build it off of a "healer template". each healer class had a heal, arch heal, and specialty heal line. we each had a regular damage spell, with damage unique to our class, and an special damage spell that did additional damage to creatures of type X (which varies by class), and then several group buffs and a single target buff that varied by class only in what resist or stat they boosted. after that, there were a few spells left over that made up the bread and butter of what now "defined" the class. when this class simplification happened, the archetype-down system began to fail. it was because classes were more complex that it had worked in the first place.
i think it's too late to merge classes together. DoF may have been the best time for them to have done it - they could have simplified the system, re-evaluated and defined the new roles of the classes, and added the achievement system (or something similar) as a means of differentiating - but i think that would have been too much even then.
hoping for the best for you guys, but it would take a ton of work on their part and even more willingness to change on the part of the players. as much as players complain, they're usually not willing to give up a lot of what they have. you'd probably lose a few things you like in the process. if you like eq2 for what it is, then keep playing... but if you want something else, your time would be better spent looking elsewhere.
Re: Passion for your class...
