kaid
Blackwing Lair Raider
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Hehe I was a riftstalker back on release of rift and god the gnashing of teeth in pvp if I got the flag a durable teleporting tank rogue flag carrier was a beast.
What classes from all other MMOs would you bring back into a new Game?
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Miele
Lord Nagafen Raider
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In vanilla WoW mobs used to flee at low health, it was later scrapped because according to some internal research this panicked windowlickers that didn't know what to do. I remember when warrior tanking I had to occasionally swap stance to Harmstring a runner, because the mage frost nova was on cd. It added another element to the gameplay and this, for a tank that had no AE skills whatsoever in defensive stance, made the gameplay very engaging. Thunderclap required battle stance, so it was a pain to use and it didn't generat much threat anyway, so it was normally used to open a fight: charge, tclap, swap to defensive stance, battle shout and the single target sunders for the win. Threat was not guaranteed, you had to work for it, so you could reliably control 3 or 4 mobs, you needed to have support and cc.
Regarding support in modern games, you are right, it doesn't work in groups because it slows down and the contribution is not measurable. I for once, liked the Rift bard, it did some damage, it provided good boosts to the party, but in one-group content, it was honestly subpar compared to a dps build and it showed.
Even a game like GW2 that potentially was a good ground to utilize support classes, ended up being all dps doing speedruns.
The concept of speedruns alone is in my opinion out of place in a MMO, but apparently some people have a hardon for them. One thing is trying to stay ahead of respawn, one other is skipping 80% of the trash, but I disgress.
Old EQ had a different issue imo: the only person who was always playing was the puller, the others took turns at hitting their 3 or 4 buttons (if those many). It was a chat with dragons with the occasional messed up pull that kept everyone awake.
Big_w_powah
Trakanon Raider
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At least when I was pulling, those 3-10 mob pulls weren't mess ups, they were wholly intentional after the enchanter bitched at having nothing to mez.
shabushabu
Molten Core Raider
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Zehnpai
Molten Core Raider
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I had an auto-fire joystick I made excellent use of. Tape that baby down and then take a 3 hour nap.
Support classes are hard to do because they're either stupidly overpowered (Enchanter when you can charm), pointless (Enchanter when everything is immune to mez) and rarely stack well (Sorry, we already have our one requisite enchanter for the raid...) but are absolutely required (John the Enchanter has to go to bed, we're calling the raid).
Big_w_powah
Trakanon Raider
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Thats why you don't give absolute control to one class.
You spread things like CC around to all the support classes. You then make each support capable of different buffs/debuffs/empowerments without making them exclusive to a single class. The enchanter can restore mana and give nuke-procs. Well, the druid can give nuke procs at 80% of the power and the bard restores mana a little better than the enchanter. The shaman has the best slow but the bard and enchanter both have suitable versions, while bringing their own suite of tools.
Then you make the buffs/debuffs somewhat short duration, and regens very active, so the class isn't a (de)buff bot. This requires just as high an APM as a similar DPS class.
EQ's way of doing support was silly, lets be honest.
Also, don't cripple support or healer DPS to the point of pointlessness. Just make it so that a healer trying to get good DPS isn't providing much in the way of healing. and support should have a decent DPS baseline (not to a DPS's level if you keep DPS as a class archtype, but enough that they can finish a mob easily. They should also have less downtime between mobs as a general rule)
I would've loved to play a shaman in EQ if I didn't need a roguebot to backstab shit I was tankrotting to make it not fall asleep territory. Although, 2boxing a cleric/rogue was fun for a time.
kaid
Blackwing Lair Raider
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Support classes are hard to do but there are a few examples of them being done right. The defender and controller archtypes from city of heroes are excellent examples of how to do a support class without turning them into pure heal bots.
Big_w_powah
Trakanon Raider
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I will say I enjoyed the potential of the WoW druid. If not given a "haha, you stay in this form all the time" kinda spec choice they would've been awesome. Flopping from form to form as short CD cooldown abilities based on the need, and having the tools to perform most roles based on a stance switch option over permanent forms. They could've been the ultimate jack of all trades.
Pasteton
Blackwing Lair Raider
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Was it Eq that had scouting mobs? Can't remember now but some mmo I played, you had a brief chance to engage/stop an enemy mob that was like a scout , if you failed at that the cavalry would be coming soon.
In addition to fleeing mobs, mobs that gated was also a cool mechanic. Staying ahead of a fast respawn, another gameplay feature that you don't see anymore. I don't remember the zones anymore but I know there were some camps that a lot of groups just couldn't do because they couldn't get there. Another thing i miss - rare items being visible/evident on the mob that has them - ie sarnak battle shield, or frenzied ghoul attacking way faster when he has fbss. It'd be nice if some form of these mechanics were seen again in a game- it's like they just got scrapped from the genre a decade ago.
In addition to fleeing mobs, mobs that gated was also a cool mechanic. Staying ahead of a fast respawn, another gameplay feature that you don't see anymore. I don't remember the zones anymore but I know there were some camps that a lot of groups just couldn't do because they couldn't get there. Another thing i miss - rare items being visible/evident on the mob that has them - ie sarnak battle shield, or frenzied ghoul attacking way faster when he has fbss. It'd be nice if some form of these mechanics were seen again in a game- it's like they just got scrapped from the genre a decade ago.
popsicledeath
Potato del Grande
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Add CHeal to the list of greaaaat fun! Nothing more fun than a mob taking 5 minutes to finish off the last 5% because it's constantly healing.... only being half sarcastic, it was cool, just sometimes too much when they could chain heal.
The best dungeon crawling fighting to camps to be had was a few months after Kunark came out when loot and levels weren't too high yet, a lot of people were still camping Karnor's zone line, where trying to fight to and keep a camp in Old Seb was an all night affair. Especially trying to go to the kitchen area and there was an autopull bug in one of the hallways and 20 mobs would suddenly be on your ass. Or running to Howling Stones and sending someone in invuln because the effing mobs at the zone-in DTed (if I recall, was some reason in the early days we'd sometimes wipe just trying to get INTO the damn dungeon).
Chicken and egg relationship between boring class design and dungeons going to shit? Or good class design nobody cares about because mindless dps zerg was the only strat that matters.
After reading this thread and thinking about how 'support' used to be, like snaring runners, I remembered we called then RUNNERS because they'd effing bolt for it. As opposed to GWs where I noticed some mobs do actually turn and start to, ahem, 'run' by basically slowly slinking off to be slaughtered that much quicker. Not exactly dangerous.
The best dungeon crawling fighting to camps to be had was a few months after Kunark came out when loot and levels weren't too high yet, a lot of people were still camping Karnor's zone line, where trying to fight to and keep a camp in Old Seb was an all night affair. Especially trying to go to the kitchen area and there was an autopull bug in one of the hallways and 20 mobs would suddenly be on your ass. Or running to Howling Stones and sending someone in invuln because the effing mobs at the zone-in DTed (if I recall, was some reason in the early days we'd sometimes wipe just trying to get INTO the damn dungeon).
Chicken and egg relationship between boring class design and dungeons going to shit? Or good class design nobody cares about because mindless dps zerg was the only strat that matters.
After reading this thread and thinking about how 'support' used to be, like snaring runners, I remembered we called then RUNNERS because they'd effing bolt for it. As opposed to GWs where I noticed some mobs do actually turn and start to, ahem, 'run' by basically slowly slinking off to be slaughtered that much quicker. Not exactly dangerous.
Big_w_powah
Trakanon Raider
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I still say we just need a monster hunter style combat game, with interesting abilities.
Lordy, its been too long- remind me what they did again please?
I know I enjoyed running around with Holy Word and earthquake in Sojourn as the original incarnation of Varia.
Totally agree that healers and support having similar DPS to other classes. I think the best way for buffs is to make them short (3-5 seconds) with a medium length cooldown (30sec to 2min) so that people aren't solely focused on buffs.
Big_w_powah
Trakanon Raider
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3-5 second buffs? WTF? 30-90 second buffs, 25-80second cooldowns. Plenty of time to DPS in between.
Big_w_powah
Trakanon Raider
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Agreed.
Seriously, all of the bards I knew who were legitimatelygoodat their class, hated it. The jokes about carpal tunnel are not overblown. The people who liked grouping with well-played bards, had one as an alt, or thought switching between Anthem de Arms and Cassindra's every now then, while tossing out an occasional boastful bellow or Kelin's? Sure, they think bards were the greatest thing ever.
The reality is that a well-played bard took probably more attention, focus, awareness, and APM than any other class in the game and the benefits they offered in return for that? Marginally better than their counterparts. In some cases, even worse. The bard effort required vs. reward merited was one of the worst ratios in the game.