A Large-Scale Fundamental Change to EQ2 - Page 37

Xavion · 01-19-2008, 04:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kuian

Brawlers and Enchanters for another along with the Shaman's I'd say.

/rant

OK...brawlers maybe, but I'm so sick of hearing about Chanters...I don't want my class merged with Illys to have my charm taken away and have some crappy stupid limited clone. That, and there are other significant differences between the two just from the AA alone.

Anyways, how about SCOUTS? They could definitely merge a couple of them as they all have far too many similarities imho. I would probably leave Dirges alone though, if I had to pick one to remain the same.

Zerkers also seem pretty...I won't say useless, because I don't believe that, but they are definitely somewhat of a passed-over class to me, just on popular opinion alone. Personally, I feel the same way, from grouping with them, to having played one as an alt.

I'm not trying to get on anyone's hate list here, I just think the wrong classes always get mentioned for scrapping or merging. The game isn't ALL geared around DPS, but many of the damned players sure try to make it that way. Many people ignore good support classes without even knowing much about them, then want to write them off just because they aren't as popular as the million-and-one furys and assassins we have in the game. These are the last people who should be making suggestions to try and make a game better.

/rant off

Yannos · 01-19-2008, 06:40 AM

I would rather go the way SWG did ... pre nge of course. Where you can nearly make any class you so desire. Start off with a few simple "archtypes"

Fighter
Cleric
Shaman
Rogue
Enchanter
Necro

and then like SWG have 4 or so branches that you can take. for example

The Cleric
Line 1) would be heals and all that has to do with healing
Line 2) Buffs
Line 3) Debuffs
Line 4) Rezzing

The Fighter
Line 1) Combat Arts and taunts
Line 2) Self Buffs
Line 3) Passive skills (double attack, Melee Crit, mitigation)
Line 4) Special Skills (ToS and what not)

So what someone could do if say they wanted an inquisitor/Battle cleric like character. They could take the heal and buff lines of the cleric and the combat and passive skill lines of the fighter.

or if you add a necro whos lines might be

Necro
Line 1) Pets
Line 2) Dots and Lifetaps
Line 3) buffs
Line 4) utility (roots, snares)

you take the fighters line 1,2 and 3 and take the Necro's line 2 and you nearly have a shadowknight.

obviously there would be a limit one what you could take as far as lines .... maybe one character can only hold 4 lines of abilities at once. So if you wanted 4 different lines from 4 different archtypes you could.

obviously the FOTM and Tank Mages would come out and you know what i say let them. I would rather have a few people play "the uber" class than limit everyone to strict roles.

Xavion · 01-19-2008, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yannos

I would rather go the way SWG did ... pre nge of course. Where you can nearly make any class you so desire. Start off with a few simple "archtypes"

Fighter
Cleric
Shaman
Rogue
Enchanter
Necro

and then like SWG have 4 or so branches that you can take. for example...

...you take the fighters line 1,2 and 3 and take the Necro's line 2 and you nearly have a shadowknight.

obviously there would be a limit one what you could take as far as lines .... maybe one character can only hold 4 lines of abilities at once. So if you wanted 4 different lines from 4 different archtypes you could.

obviously the FOTM and Tank Mages would come out and you know what i say let them. I would rather have a few people play "the uber" class than limit everyone to strict roles.

While I admire your desire to take the constructive approach and give an actual "idea" unlike most people... I can't help but notice what you started that off with.

SWG was chocked full of bad ideas both from the start to now. One of the main concepts of leveling your skills, aquiring spells, and earning AA is to do it along the way. In other words, not grind a tree for a month and then be all done with your class have have nothing to do (unless you pvp)... no reason to do quests except for gear really. Without a progressive system, it ceases to be "Everquest 2" and becomes "SWG 2".

I just don't think this is a very good idea at all.

Also, where you said "mage tanks", after mentioning SK's in the previous paragraph, I kind of had to chuckle. SK's ARE mage tanks as it is now (well, ok...warlock tanks

). It just seems you're trying to divulge a system to satisfy the masses, which is understandeable. But that's just it, not everyone can be made happy... at least a good portion of the gaming population will find some reason to dislike this, or any other system for that matter. It's sadly just the way of things.

Honestly, for all it's bugs and lack of content, the one shining light in Vanguard was the classes and their customization. Now they had a great system figured out, in my humble opinion. Any game where you have a set class, but can put the points earned each level (after lvl 10+) into whatever stat you wanted to...that to me is sweet. And then you still had the option of balancing that out with the stats/effects from whatever gear you chose to equip. Clerics could be awesome plate healers, or could be exactly what some of the pallys in this game probably wish they were- decent healers would could actually do good spell/melee damage. There was actual variety among the classes, it was a rare but good thing to see.

Yannos · 01-19-2008, 06:34 PM

I partly agree i mean SWGs system was not perfect I know this as well. Though i think the concept is very sound. Plus I like the "openness" of it, the ability to make almost any type of character i desire was a lot of fun and made me feel more attached to my character.

In SWG even though the leveling was fairly quick and painless I had enough to keep me busy. I had crafter friends that needed certain quality animal hides, bone or meat that they would "hire" me to find them lots of it. I was a bounty hunter so hunting Jedi was one of my favorite pasttimes LOL, hunting rebels was also fun as well (can you tell im fairly big advocate of PVP heh)

And then when they added the space expansion i barely spent any time on the ground hehe.

As for the tank mage thing, while the shadowknight(i had a level 80 shadowknight) is close when most hear tank mage they think of a Guardian who can nuke like a warlock or wizard. And you would get those type of people who would find the "uber" spec and use it. but i dont think that should be a deterent to a system like this.

Honestly i doubt a system like this would work right now in EQ2, because then they would have to do redo nearly EVERYTHING. I just would love to see MMOs get away from the strict class system ... I mean I would be happy with a Guild Wars and FFXI system of subclasses that give your primary class some extra abilities.

But im a big advocate of class customization

Xavion · 01-20-2008, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yannos

... I mean I would be happy with a Guild Wars and FFXI system of subclasses that give your primary class some extra abilities.

But im a big advocate of class customization

I'm a big advocate of that too...and Guild Wars I tried during the free trial weekend....I might still be playing it every so often if it had only been an actual mmo-type world and not just a bunch of instances.

Auroz · 01-21-2008, 12:18 PM

Please don't merge shamans >.<

Catseyes · 01-24-2008, 06:35 AM

leave the preds alone also plz. Assassins and Rangers have 2 entirely different play style. Even in EQ1 they were separated (rogues/ranger).

And again, why people want EQ2 to looks like other mmorpgs ? why always wanting to be wow-like or swg-like or daoc-like ?

Something different for me would be to work in the way EQ2 always been, instead proposing always the same other mmorpg cloning.

Xavion · 01-25-2008, 01:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Catseyes

leave the preds alone also plz. Assassins and Rangers have 2 entirely different play style. Even in EQ1 they were separated (rogues/ranger).

And again, why people want EQ2 to looks like other mmorpgs ? why always wanting to be wow-like or swg-like or daoc-like ?

Something different for me would be to work in the way EQ2 always been, instead proposing always the same other mmorpg cloning.

I wasn't necessarily referring to Assassins or Rangers. For one, If people really want to open up the debate on un-needed classes, think that troubs are pretty much looked at as the class that most people don't want to play, but many look to have in a raid. Just take the two or three abilities that make them special and give them to Dirges, and that takes care of that (Dirges are, at least imho, far superior to troubs). But some of the other scout classes also have many similarities that could be reconsidered.

Second, the only reason I mentioned it was because others opened this up for debate, as they always do. =/ I actually agree with you Catseyes- I don't want to see (or think the game even needs) a big change to the class system or anything else really. It's like my class...I'm sure the few people who are happy and good at playing Troubs don't want the class to change or go away as much as I don't want to see the same happen with Coercers. If the devs put certain classes in the game and let them stay for this long...is it really hurting anybody that they exist? I never honestly understood the mention of merging classes or kicking some...and it always came from people who played a completely different class.

How about worrying about the things that affect everyone and not the ones that don't?

All I could really complain about is (of course) for them to fix some of the small class issues (spells not working as intended/described) that have been going on for far too long, and maybe throw in more group instances in Kunark. But those are things that can be resolved at any time the devs wish to get out of the break room and do it.

Holymoly · 01-25-2008, 09:11 AM

I think that perhaps the time has come to bite the bullet and say EQ2.....it's finished. When the game was designed it assumed (wrongly) the direction that graphics engines were going. Consequently it finds itself down a dead end alley.

Similarly, the classes....good in theory, but in reality a pain to itemize and balance. The original roadmap of level progression to 200 (?) has clearly been thrown out of the window years ago as can be seen by the "bolt on" appearance of recent expansions. No integration with the old world at all.

So, my idea is to say "It's Over". Continue issuing content in the way of Adventure Packs...Fallen Dynasty...in order to refresh and add to popular content but move development over into planning EQ3 (working title only please). SOE bought the rights of Vanguard, which is/will continue to be a total turkey, for IMO the purpose of providing a base from which to start from. Incorporate a decent engine and issue a new game hopefully far more involved that the WoW wannabee that EQ2 is fast becoming. Enough people were prepared to give Vanguard a go, knowing its complexity, but were eventually put off by the fact that it wasn't really up to beta standard and the graphics sucked. Take the hint SOE...leave EQ2 where it is...(EQ1 lite) and give us a new game somewehere in between the 2 EQs. There WILL be enough players prepared to pay for it!

Ravanos · 01-25-2008, 01:20 PM

I agree Holy I think eq2 is dead in the water and the developers are just doing enough to keep the cash flowing in.

Personally I would love for them to scrap EQ2 and Vanguard's developement and focus on a NEW game ... NOT a new Everquest game. this time try to turn the MMO world on its side and unlike other companies DON'T copy WoW and hope that those sick of WoW will move.

either go with a Class/subclass system like that of Guild Wars/FFXI or heck even a skill based system (would even settle for a pre-nge SWG system.)

A city building/seiging system

Little to no instance zones you want to raid an area you might have to fight other guilds for the mobs

"Lawless" areas where resources are plentiful but PVP is open

Boats and high seas combat ... fighting pirates or becoming one

Try and move as far away from the "holy trinity" as possible heh.