EQ Never

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Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,221
2,367
I don't understand this avoidance or outright refusal of the trinity.

I understand and respect that they want to give players the choice to do different things, and it isn't always fun being the primary healer. Of all people on this forum, I'm probably the loudest advocate of player freedom (and how Blizzard absolutely failed at it). However, the solution is NOT to give everyone the ability to do everything just because you want to give them that choice to do different things - and then turn right around and restrict that ability with classes.

The only way I see something like this being fun as advertised is if all the artificial barriers are broken, and we have a skill system like UO. If you want to give players freedom and versatility, I don't understand why you have discrete classes to begin with. I don't want to 'switch classes'. If you don't want to let me tank, heal, and dps all at the same time, then design that within the context of the game - eg, I can't cast magic in heavy armor, but do not restrict it by my current class: having to switch from 'shaman' to 'warrior'.

Imagine instead they remove the entire concept of a class, replaced with all those classes' skills. You pick some, you discover some, you're awarded some. That's what they should be aiming for (which isn't in the vein of EverQuest in the SLIGHTEST. I have no idea why this game is called EQ Next).
I think the theory is simply they do'nt want people to be only able to do one thing, or to have to do only one thing. You can still choose to only do that one thing, and I assume you'll be able to run setups that will be focused on healing or tanking(triple utility class with a weapon that has support abilities for example) however these setups are just not required.

That's the theory, practice it rarely works out very well, GW2 tried similar systems but it muddied the combat quite a bit and it put unnecessary strain on good players when they're grouped with shitty players because unlike a trinity system where you can carry other people(if you don't play DPS), it's much harder in a system with no trinity where everyone is responsible for their own health.

I agree that a no class based system could work better but I think there's a point in having clearly defined classes, if only by half their skills, for class recognition and shit. Some people like the concept of "being a paladin" or whatever, even though the system is flexible enough to also please people who "want to be everything". A pure skill based system, not so much and then you have to think of all the poor braindead people who can't figure out how to make a class if they don't have templates and shit like that. I guess that last point could be fixed, but still if you look at what they talked about in terms of class design, they said each class will have its own stances, its own armor, its own weapon skills. They showed Tempest weapon skills and they all had lightning, but the Warrior skills were all "hit stuff and make the ground shake" and shit. So class identity is something they want, not just do whatever system.
 

Composter

Golden Knight of the Realm
505
22
Whether it was due to mechanics/larger raid forces/phase of the moon or whatever, EQ had a much slower consumption of raid content overall then any MMO I have played since. Many casual guilds didn't even touch higher tier content until the next expansion. So regardless of individual's claims of faceroll etc the overal equation EQ used resulted in much less face rolling (yes some obviously tied to respawn rates but even when they started introducing instances content did not just fall over dead. Fuck Omm or whatever his name was didn't even get beat until an expansion later.

Thats why I liked EQ in some respect, you had to be geared, you needed AA's etc. It just felt better staged progression I guess. Hell even in raid zones, they actually used to have variance of loot quality where earlier bosses had less quality with some stud item or 2 sprinkled in with a unique effect you wanted etc. Now everyone has complete equal gear set drops on each mob with the last boss having 1 minor step up in loot. Its just so blah....fuck Ilvl's was one of the worst ideas ever implemented in games as far as I am concerned. Fuck equality, we want variance, we LIKE imbalance to an extent. We like RARITY...yes people will bitch and moan that someone has something they don't but at the end of the day, guess what, that is what drives people.

I know camping days are done etc but one such great early implementation was a tranquil staff in EQ: kunark. Fucker was amazing and rare as fuck. It turned a monk into a beastly mother fucker especially when combined with a fungi tunic. After seeing one in action I swore my alt WOULD HAVE ONE, I camped and I camped, I sold/bought in EC on an alt trying to make money so I could be ready in the rare case one came for sale etc. When I finally got one I was fucking so thrilled. I know we can't completely replicate the process tied to this in todays gaming world but fuck me I'd love to have a game recreate that feeling. Hell getting Ice Comet and later on GSS and being one of the few wizards to have on the server just made my day and they were huge improvements to ones performance. Not .5% increase omg thanks for killing my boner....
Yeah, comes down to differentiation vs. commoditization. Ilevels pretty much commoditized loot. Commodities suck, too.
 

Xaxius

Lord Nagafen Raider
531
147
Sounds like Rift unfortunately. Good on paper, cookie cutter in reality.
That's the really unfortunate thing here, it's all on paper and essentially theorycraft. There isn't anything they can point to and say "Here's how it looks in the game world today" because it doesn't exist. Historically with SoE, they talk a good game but their execution is another story. Making all these grand gestures of what's going to be in your game doesn't mean a damn when you can't get it to work.

Perfect example below...



In the first few minutes of this "tech demo" you hear the dev talk about how creating armor is going to be super easy because they'll be able to scale it all races without having to tweak them, etc, etc. We all know how that turned out.
 

Kedwyn

Silver Squire
3,915
80
It was slower because many of those guilds were locked outfof content until the bigger guilds were done letting it rot. There was also the problem of losing their players to the bigger guilds as they geared up on lower content. People with ambition moved on quickly when they realized the only way they would see content is by gtfo.

That system sucked for anyone not at the top unless you were casual and didn't care about gear in which case you could cyber all day long in ec or get your tongue stuck on the Great Divide spires.
 

DMK_sl

shitlord
1,600
0
Did you watch or read the changes about the A.I.? It actually is one of the most compelling features of EQN. The game does not feature static respawns or the same behavior as previous MMOs.
Yeah I did and I said a few posts up from your that I'll believe it when I see it. At the moment I'm thinking more a long the lines of GW 2.5 when it comes 'questing'. Which isn't too bad just not very revolutionary either.
 

Rombo

Lord Nagafen Raider
763
199
Theres a few thing wrong at the moment with Eqnext ( classes / removing holy trinity etc etc) but giving players the tool to expand the world after it gets SoE approval isnt one of them.

''Outsourcing'' to players is the answer the mmorpg worlds have been waiting for so long to counter player content consumption that cant be satisfied by a in house dev team. If blizz couldnt do it with their resources, who could.
 
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counter player content consumption that cant be satisfied by a in house dev team
i agree, and player-created content isn't their only weapon against that. the world as they've presented it seems extremely intuitive, and seemingly instance-based to a degree. supposedly digging a tunnel today in 1 spot would yield a different result in the same spot dug tomorrow.
 

Big Flex

Fitness Fascist
4,314
3,166
I was just browsing the official forums, going over the softball "Round Table" polls and laughed to myself. I really hope they implement the Ratongas for two reasons.

1) I hate them as much as many seem to love them.
2) I know, without a shadow of a doubt, it'll look like "Ratatouille".

rrr_img_39030.jpg


It's going to be so fucking funny when it happens.
 
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i prefer them to the kerrans. if we MUST have an animal race, go with the ratonga.

or obviously, the shissar would be #1
 

Carl_sl

shitlord
634
0
i agree, and player-created content isn't their only weapon against that. the world as they've presented it seems extremely intuitive, and seemingly instance-based to a degree. supposedly digging a tunnel today in 1 spot would yield a different result in the same spot dug tomorrow.
I'm really hoping that there's no instancing involved in these "earthquakes" that will shake up the underground tunnels and caves. The fact that they can rearrange and probably even re tier the underground without changing the overland world is pretty cool and a great way to renew content.
 

Rod-138

Trakanon Raider
1,183
966
Lots of rage was had and I made a Bubba Gump joke.

To play devils advocate to the "40 classes sound diverse, but we'll end up optimizing a handful" I say, maybe not.

People keep forgetting there is no xp. There is no reason you have to really optimize. If your adventuring the lands and what not, and tier 2 Druids have access to SoW, then you may decide that's what you want. You may want tier 2 bard speed, so you work on that - now, you have a low lvl movement speed alteration, so do you continue on these paths or start working on dat backstab? How will it effect your Druid buddies ?

THIS CAN STILL BE COOL PEOPLE JUST FORGET ABOUT THE LION AND MYBE THERE'S A CHANCE
 

supertouch_sl

shitlord
1,858
3
developers can abandon the camping model, but adding simple behaviors like training and persistent mob aggro and consequential death penalties would go a long way toward capturing the "essence" of older mmos. everything is so sterile and safe these days.