It seems clear from the updated FAQ that weapons (and or spells) will have variable damage vs enemies. This can be examined in the light of what we have seen displayed about weapon types (slashing, punturing, crushing) vs body types.
... An opinion on how this could work, and still minimise the development effort can thus be made:
1. Weapon type vs Mob-Body-Class
Already defined as weapon type (Slashing, Piercing, Crishing) vs Body-Class (Skeletal, crystalline, exoskeleton, blobby). Using the 'correct' type of weapon cases damage to be done at 'optimal' level (1.0x dmg) while any of the other sub-obtimal options (eg Slashing vs Skeletal) would give lower multipliers eg 0.75, 0.50, 0.25 etc.
Clearly learning to identify and use the correct weapon vs enemy body-type is important.
NOTE : It also follows that a this matrix applies to players as well as mobs! Some pets (eg a Necromancer's/DireLord's Skeletal pet, might sustain less damage from the enemy Orc's Slashing attacks!)
2. Weapon material/smithed-enchantment vs Mob-Body-Type
It follows that the same function :
DMG_Modifier (Wpn_Type | Wpn_MAT | Wpn_ENC, MobB_Class | MobB_Type | MobB_ENC)
will produce a multiplier between 0.0-1.0 for the effect of weapon material (Wpn_MAT) vs the Mob's Body-Type (MobB_Type). Thus an unenchanted blade vs a Ghoul may have a multipluer of x0.2, while a +2 weapon has x0.5 and +4 has x1.0. In exceptional circumstances a weapon deemed 'not sufficiently enchanted' might do x0.0 dmg, but I suspect it would be preferable in most cases to have a steeply dropping multiplier for each level a weapon is below what is considered a necessary level of enchantment. Perhaps halving again the multiplier for each level below that 'needed'.
3. Weapon active-enchantment/proc vs Mob-Body-Type/Enchantemnt
Extending this idea to encompass active enchantments on the weapons would then be trivial. thus a fire-based weapon attacking a highly fire-based creature would have a reduced multiplier, while a diametrically opposed elemental weapon might have a greater than x1.0 damage multiplier.
Eg Aradune's Fiery Avenger of OP_ness vs Ice Giant ...
DMG_Modifier (Wpn_ENC, MobB_ENC) = 1.75
This can easily (?) be extended to allow for spells (as 4th damage type) and thus allow for Fire spells being more effective vs cold creatures etc.
What about the flip side of the coin? What if players were able to acquire rare items that at least reduce incoming damage from non-magic sources? Immunity would probably be OP vs. animals and stuff like that. But a significant reduction in damage would be a nice form of situational gear.
Noone mentioned EQ1 cleric hammer summon. Those spells became obsolete later on, but in early days those were viable weapons, and magical.
I think how common magical weapons are in the world plays a huge part in these discussions. EQ1 launch was special because people actually saved plat for fine steel sword, because it was the best sword they could get, and it took awhile for people to discover any magic weapons. Needless to say, nowadays in EQ2 you run your noob to bazaar and pick up a magical weapon on the cheap thats gonna be way better than most of the drops you will see for a looong time.
Amris said:There were a lot of arguments about how things "punished" melee (or punished healers because they couldn't solo, or punished this or that class because they couldn't heal competitively).
What is important to remember is that anything that "punishes" you, punishes your entire group. Remember the guy above who knew that HIS inability to get aggro because he couldn't melee WOULD KILL THE GROUP so he ran to the guards??
These seeming "punishing" things force players to depend on each other. In this way, these melees that typically can run around at low levels soloing for hours now have reason to reach out to casters after they unexpectedly actually get killed by something.
What you see as "punishment" is actually one of the most important "devices" that cause people to work together where ordinarily they would just solo their way through those levels.
I get that but punish too far and you don't punish anyone's groups...because you aren't in them..Doomsaying can be valid in some situations or invalid in others...don't just discount it off the bat.