Yep, I agree completely. Endurance based CC sounds great to me, but in reality, will most caster classes not also have some forms of CC? Poisons, traps, and locks are valid but those aren't things that I believe would necessarily encourage people to play a class.
An example is Wizard/Druid ports, Gate, etc. Neither of these are necessary to play the game, the way traps/locks might actually stifle progression. Very few people will play a class simply because it is needed. It needs to be fun to play.
Things like perfect stealth, or near perfect (as is SoS in EQ), would be an example of something that would be a non-required, yet fun function of a class. It might be a bit overpowered though, but you'd be hard pressed to convince me that Wizard ports aren't "overpowered" in a similar sense.
Hybrid classes are a huge worry of mine, following the same train of thought. Rangers may very well be the most unnecessary class in the entirety of EQ, and I would not like to see such imbalance repeated.
DragonFist said:I agree that casters should have an auto-attack (spell based).
Eh, I'd rather not see this honestly. It makes no sense to me for a caster to be throwing out mini spells in between spells for no mana cost and if they cost mana then I imagine that would be mana better spent casting a "real" spell.
But if for no other reason I'd rather see the tuning done so that the damage that would have otherwise come from auto-attacking is factored into the umph of the actual damaging spells. A lot of MMOs I have played the past decade have melee and caster per-hit damage pretty close to one another, melee throwing out abilities every 1-1.5 seconds and casters weaving spell after spell every 1.5-2 seconds. Magic doesn't feel powerful when a melee is hitting for 125 and a caster for 175, a monk is punching the mob in the ribs but a wizard is literally conjuring scorching flames out of the ether and melting the mobs skin off. DPS should be balanced but I'd like to see casters with some 3-5 second cast times and the damage to reflect the raw power of magic.
At the risk of bringing this back to topic. Instead of having bind potions sold by NPC's, I'd like to see them as a craftable. Maybe a brewer or alchemist, with the recipe available to be found/unlocked/learned somewhere along the midpoint of the crafts progression. Still giving melee an option when and if a spell is not available, however, maintaining an emphasis on interdependence (through spells or crafts). My worry would be that said potion would quickly become far too available. If, for example, a warrior could purchase a bind potion from an NPC or PC for a negligible price, why not just give them the ability. Nto once when playing EQ did I have to wait more than a couple moments to receive a bind when I was playing, and I played both caster and melee classes. I never felt cheated or at a severe disadvantage when playing my warrior because I couldn't bind myself. Typically I was in a new zone and leveling for more than a week, so it was a non-issue to look for a couple of minutes for a bind when I got there. Also of note, just because I had a bind spell on my Druid didn't mean that I somehow bound myself after every few feet of progression, often times it was impractical for me to give up my bind in town for one out in the boonies.
The disparity between caster and melee dps is really the difference between close range combat and long range combat. Throughout history, warfare developments have been all about developing better long range combat capabilities than your enemies or better survivability for short range combat.
The real way to balance caster and melee dps is through encounter design, not increasing or decreasing the amount of time it takes to run to your corpse after death.
Mixing mob physical defenses slashing/piercing/bludgeoning/poison/disease/force/wood vs energy defenses fire/cold/lightning/acid/sonic/positive/negative, engagement envelope size, and response times will do far more to make each DPS class interesting in their own way without resorting to petty “you can’t have quality of life X because I don’t have quality of life Y”.
Outside of DPS Hunger Games, Tanks, healers and CC will also want their own niche where they can feel valued and unique. It’s a rare healer that tries to stop a different healer from joining their guild like DPS often do and Main tank can be so exhausting that they need rotations to stay fresh but due to only needing a couple in a whole guild their numbers are also contested like DPS. CC is such a hard to define role but ultimately all CC is raid overhead. If you can get away without using it then you usually do.
I'd love to see that much attention put into encounters of all sizes! Nothing that bores me more than bland fights. Why give me CC options A, B, and C if I never have to use them. Why give me a spell that "blinds" an enemy, but actually does nothing to mobs?
Hopefully raid encounters will require more than 1-3 tanks.
This conversation has really drifted sideways.
I pray to the gods, old and new, that we are not allowed to bind anywhere other than our starter city.
IF we want to earn the right to bind someplace else, we need to affiliate with that location (city's only perferably, IMO) by doing some type of citizenship quest or something. Everytime you do a citizenship quest for a bind location then it's saved for you. So you can bind back and forth at different "closer" locations to your hunting site.
Feyshtey said:Why would a class that doesnt have magic be able to perceive locations that are available for bind, let alone have the ability to actually do it?
Cause magic. Outside of a liche and a phoenix there is no mythical representation of a creature being killed then creating a new corporeal body, if any mortal can any could. I happen to like the idea of both faction being required to move your bind point to cities and having possible new bind locations being a function of the perception system.
If your argument is based on convenience or being "fair", that's a different position than class definitions.
In the case of convenience (or lack of), I don't think that in and of itself is a sufficient argument resulting in healthy gameplay mechanics. In the case of being "fair", I often find that a preoccupation with achieving fair more often than not results in achieving a lack of fun.
Being an MMO player that always has one caster character and one melee-oriented hybrid character I don't have a position based on my own convenience or sense of fairness. I find the ability to bind freely with one and not the other to bring a notable amount of strategic and intresting diversity to the two classes, and reinforces for me that I'm not just playing a muddled psuedo-likeness of one class in two forms.
I like a lot of these ideas. Personally, I would like to see a few things possible.
1) Stones ,or Soulbinder NPCs, available in all Major cities to bind any player.
2) Priest and caster classes able to bind any player at any location (city or not)
3) Only having 1 bind location per individual to promote travel and keep the risk associated with death
:) :)
Feyshtey said:If your argument is based on convenience or being "fair", that's a different position than class definitions.
In the case of convenience (or lack of), I don't think that in and of itself is a sufficient argument resulting in healthy gameplay mechanics. In the case of being "fair", I often find that a preoccupation with achieving fair more often than not results in achieving a lack of fun.
Being an MMO player that always has one caster character and one melee-oriented hybrid character I don't have a position based on my own convenience or sense of fairness. I find the ability to bind freely with one and not the other to bring a notable amount of strategic and intresting diversity to the two classes, and reinforces for me that I'm not just playing a muddled psuedo-likeness of one class in two forms.
Fairness is impossible to achieve when comparing apples and oranges, such as the ability to bind with literally any other mechanic that isn't binding.
I agree that pursuing fairness to a faulty extent where casters are just a mirrored version of a melee with fireballs, that is not a desirable outcome. However, it is completely arbitrary to give specific classes extremely strong out-of-combat utility.
I doubt we'll see Rogues casting port spells. At the same time, WIzards casting port spells is pretty overpowered unless other classes get something cool, too. Binding as a very strong utility ability that is arbitrarily limited to classes that cast spells doesn't sit right with me. You could easily have NPC binders required for all classes, or crafted items with a single charge of a bind spell.
Trasak said:I would rather see bind points be meaninful for everyone and tatics and risk vs reward rather than casters being able to benifit from a significant quality of life advantage simply for having a blue bar.
Being able to bind anywhere can and should have its tradeoff. While a melee being forced to bind in a city is inconvenienced, he also has no fear that when he spawns on his bind (either thru a gate to bind or a death) he won't get instantly dogpiled by hostiles there. It is certainly meaningful for both, and suggesting that it's a no brainer bonus for casters isn't appreciating the possible bigger picture.
Liav said:It's logical-ish in EQ because auto attack required no resources, whereas a freshly rezzed caster was worth exactly zero dps.
This is one of the major reason why I want auto attack to take a backseat for melee gameplay, or for casters to have a ranged (spell based) auto attack. Auto attack is cool and all, but in EQ it was literally all you did as a melee.
There are ways to mitigate zerging without having to necessitate things like this, anyway. EQ's early content were 100% zergable loot pinatas. In other games, dying in the middle of an encounter is a lot more punishing, if not an outright wipe depending on the situation. While I don't think one death should necessarily spell instant doom, I think it's possible to avoid zerging simply by having fights not employ exclusively braindead mechanics (or no mechanics at all).
Good points.
Liav said:Feyshtey said:If your argument is based on convenience or being "fair", that's a different position than class definitions.
In the case of convenience (or lack of), I don't think that in and of itself is a sufficient argument resulting in healthy gameplay mechanics. In the case of being "fair", I often find that a preoccupation with achieving fair more often than not results in achieving a lack of fun.
Being an MMO player that always has one caster character and one melee-oriented hybrid character I don't have a position based on my own convenience or sense of fairness. I find the ability to bind freely with one and not the other to bring a notable amount of strategic and intresting diversity to the two classes, and reinforces for me that I'm not just playing a muddled psuedo-likeness of one class in two forms.
Fairness is impossible to achieve when comparing apples and oranges, such as the ability to bind with literally any other mechanic that isn't binding.
I agree that pursuing fairness to a faulty extent where casters are just a mirrored version of a melee with fireballs, that is not a desirable outcome. However, it is completely arbitrary to give specific classes extremely strong out-of-combat utility.
I doubt we'll see Rogues casting port spells. At the same time, WIzards casting port spells is pretty overpowered unless other classes get something cool, too. Binding as a very strong utility ability that is arbitrarily limited to classes that cast spells doesn't sit right with me. You could easily have NPC binders required for all classes, or crafted items with a single charge of a bind spell.
I have no objection to NPC's that can bind melees, and having them distributed throughout the world. Even beyond strictly in cities. I have no objection to craftable consumables that anyone can use to bind, but I'd prefer they only be craftable by classes that have the ability to bind. I don't like the idea of everyone having to use NPC's to bind, even though I acknowledge thta being able to bind is a pretty powerful utility. The tradeoff should be in providing other utilities that are equally beneficial that make sense for classes that can't bind.
And again, it's worthwhile to say again that being able to bind anywhere isn't 100% positive. You can (and should be able to) completely screw yourself by binding in a bad spot. User beware.
I suppose it comes down to where you can bind, death loops are user error but could be escaped from. Still I think it becomes "unfair" when certain classes can bind in additional locations or worst anywhere, completely breaks imbalances the Death Penalty.
Really didn't want to get into all the class balance thing but I was pointing out that when I played a Caster Class and I died I still essentially had all my tools available... basically something to control getting aggro be it , Root/Snare/Teleport/Evac/Charm/Fear/Run Speed/Mez. When I played a melee on a Corpse run your punished more, your weapons were on your body and you generally had limited or even no utility to control aggro or a nasty situation on a corpse run.. generally I only ever died on solo CRs with my non caster class characters.. with a caster you get aggro and cant deal with it then your doing it wrong (MOB DPS / character mitigation is irrelevant if the MOB cant hit you)
Unless of course you've got a spell book that stays on your corpse just like weapons did/do and need it to cast most spells and you cant root / snare etc without it :D
Ultimately this isn't about class though and it needs balanced so people can group fast... tough one IMO
Zorkon said:Liav said:I'm trying to come up with equally beneficial utility and I'm failing.
Tracking
Stealth
Teleports
Sow
Summons (coh)
Etc. Etc.
Apples
Oranges
Mangoes
Strawberries
etc.
I understand your point, but you're just listing off traditional MMO mechanics. I'm not convinced they're anywhere near equal.
Liav said:As is Bind a traditional mechanic.Zorkon said:Liav said:I'm trying to come up with equally beneficial utility and I'm failing.
Tracking
Stealth
Teleports
Sow
Summons (coh)
Etc. Etc.
Apples
Oranges
Mangoes
Strawberries
etc.
I understand your point, but you're just listing off traditional MMO mechanics. I'm not convinced they're anywhere near equal.
Zorkon said:As is Bind a traditional mechanic.
That's not the point. My point is that you can't justify giving bind to a specific class or group of classes while dismissing it as being okay because there are "other forms of utility". You can't quantify the effects that allowing all spell-using classes to bind will have.
My point is very simple: How do you balance things when what you're balancing isn't quantifiable?