I don't think it as much to do with lack of creativity or thinking outside the box as much as players unwilling to wait around 8 hours a day for that bard or cleric.

I fondly recall having to stop playing my favorite class and level a more desirable one in order to just find a leveling party.  Until this issue is fixed, i don't see a return to the way it used to be.

I want pvp balance to remain on pvp servers, and for pve servers to get variety in abilities, if they can't figure that out just nerf mathematical numbers on pvp server 'til it works... It doesn't make sense for a warrior to cream a magic using druid or wizard, because magic is greater than physical... wouldn't magic users have knock back push and magical barriers?? 

Melees are also usually overpowered in games anyway... like rogues sneaking up from stealth and cc someone to death who couldn't fight back for a single second, and then vanishing to completely heal themselves a second after the kill!! 

In old EQ1 casters had to meditate for like half an hour and melees with auto attack just kept going... 

Casters worse enemy shouldn't be just about any melee like it used to be... auto attack was brutal lol... 

Also lame ideas like cross realm zone sharing should be pvp only, please don't overcrowd zones and make boring dailies even more impossible to do due to dead mobs and waiting on spawns for solo mob kills... 

Please, give us a game with huge variety of class/skills and don't nerf it after launch, its sad to remember what EQ2 and WoW used to be in vanilla... It's sad that all cool variety in pve is taken away for pvp homogenization boredom... Forget the pvp and concentrate on being a great pve game, then open up a pvp server with special rules !! 

Or, go strictly pvp  and choose whih way you want the game to be please... its so boring having every class be so similar ( 

Oh yeah, that being said, the easiest way to phase out cleric is what they did add damage shield to them self only and increase soloing so more clerics could solo, mercs also helped them a ton.... 

Druids and Shamans could have a rez equal to a cleric, thus you wouldn't need a cleric if all healers had the good rez. 

That's what Everquest 2 did right, but taking out the permanent timer buffs was wrong, having to be in group/raid for the buffs is wrong, I love the mass group buff aa and sitting in guild lobby for buffs on EQ1... 

Having to go around buffless solo is meh, cause all you get is self buffs... or whatever class your mercenary happens to be for a bit extra buff there... 

Druid/Shamans were good enough healers, just need rez and it would be great!! Sort of like how any good Monk/Warrior/ShadowKnight/Paladin or even a Ranger could tank in a pinch, but tanking required skill , which is why you couldn't find them... 

Finding a good tank is always a problem if the game has a challenge, because most people can't handle the stress or care to do it... That's why wow bribes with the special goodies treat bag for a required lacking class to come do dungeons through lfg finder, and it isn't even hard as a game, just people don't want to have that responsibility and role!! 

I still consider Evequest 1 a Trinity: You couldn't group without a Tank (Even if that's a Ranger), a Healer (Even if that's a Ranger as well), and a Slower (Even if that's a Ranger with Epic Swords).  Whether it's a Beastlord, Shaman, Enchanter, Bard, or a Ranger, you got quad hit one round killed without slow on most mob encounters.  Without a healer obviously you were doomed (before mercenaries).  Tank is actually the easiest thing to attain if you are willing to do old outdated content, because any raider could take hits from older outdated content in their superior gear, if you were really hard up unable to find a tank like I've had before numerous times in my raiding guild... 

Tanks log on for a raid (12 of them!) , then all promptly log off, and all you got left for a bonus xp weekend no less are Rangers willing to tank, well off to outdated old content we go to farm AA!! 

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Rydeson

     Tupo..  Interesting suggestion, but I would like to offer something else..   Instead of having classes defined as "group, hybrid and solo"..  Give every class "group, hybrid and solo" skills..  This means that for example sake that each class will have 60% solo skills, 30% hybrid skills and 10% class defining group skills..  When you do this anyone can play any class they desire with no penality in solo'ing solo content..  This will require that the world have both both solo and group content..  Using EQ as my example, 95% of the roaming zone mobs will be soloable by any class.. However, once you come across a named mob or camp, this is where your class defining group skills come alive such as Mezing, Pulling, Rezing, CC'ing and Healing.  Hybrid skills would be watered down version of the unique group skills..

     I only offer this suggestion because I hate to have to switch toons back and forth based upon my desire to solo or group mobs.. Especially in a moments notice..

Most MMOs have their skill trees set up to support that. Limited respeccing gets in the way of being able to swap out regularly if you want two distinctly different builds.  However, if you want to be able to switch from primarily solo character to primarily group character, check out Rift's system.

     I played Rift, and as much as I liked the concept behind the soul swapping, it still failed in to my eyes..  I still want those unique class defining abilities that does NOT exist in Rift or most current games..   Back in the day a monk's ability to FD was awesome for corpse recovery, pulling and what not.. Druid's ability to Harmonize, or an Enchanters spell of Mez.. Toss in some porting, evacing, snaring, rooting, fearing, etc etc.. just don't exist in today's game.. Players got too envious of too many roles.. Back in the day, some casters did well with AOE spells, but were meh at single target damage.. While others sucked at AOE damage all together..

     Today's devs have to appease to the mass player base that demand to be able to do everything by any class..  An example of this was the WoW Paladin..   Heals, DPS or Tank..  take your pick.... I want more then just 3 roles..

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by daltanious

• quest hubs are a must

Second Life, Wakfu, Puzzle Pirates, and Ultima Online didn't get that memo.

This is obvious. :-)

I have read only the OP for this thread, so if what I'm about to say has already been said, I still don't apologize, because it bears to be said, again.

If you want a real MMORPG, then you actually have to put together the expansion of the last three letters of that abbreviation, Role-Playing Game, as in Dice and Paper.  You don't have all that ridiculous garbage from the first post, Rezzer, Tank, Healer... blah, blah, blah, it's all crap.

Oh, and before anyone goes and looks at the upcoming Pathfinder MMORPG, they're going to need to prove they actually want to set up an RPG before my money can begin to be earmarked.

I'm sick and tired of playing World of Warcraft in various colors, ambience, and back story's, when there's no real adherence to that back story; each of these are little more than MMOCGs, or Combat Grinds, and I'm sick of them.

I want quality, and that quality will come from placing the limitations and differentiations on classes like they have in tabletop RPGs.  'Nuff said.

Respond away, guys... I've been working with the tech support folks, here, but I never receive responses, so have fun but don't expect me to come back.

Two things happened:

1) Everything was consolidated into the now-familiar trinity to enable the quick formation of groups for instanced content.

It didn't have to be done that way: as we have seen recently with experiments in casual drop-in grouping (WAR, Rift, GW2, etc.,) when content is not instanced and abilities affect anyone in the vicinity--as opposed to restricting it to a party--you could then bring back highly-specialized buffs and other unique skills.

2) All classes were given enough of everything to make them solo-capable. I can't think of any class in any modern MMORPG that doesn't have DPS + mitigation + healing + buffs. The main difference between them is which role they are (sometimes just slightly) better at.

This I haven't seen any "solution" for, although easily switcheable multi-specs could enable solo-modes and specialized modes as needed. The closest to this I have seen lately, and also the closest to bringing back a 4th "buffer" role into the mix was with the Rift Mage Archon specialty that significantly buffed groups and debuffed mobs for very noticeable amounts--at least it was at the beginning, I don't know how that has evolved over time. It absolutely sucked at soloing but there it was no biggie since you could mix and match and develop 6 or more specs as a Mage...one of those could be your favorite solo spec.

But the real problem is that all of these creative solutions take time and are harder to implement and balance than the simple trinity games. If developers are making the decissions, you can see some of it in games here and there. But when the "suits" are calling the shots...well, you all know that's when we get yet-another-WOW-clone with the standard trinity.

Originally posted by Scot

Lessening of game difficulty and hybrid classes only happened to please the solo crowd. Likewise for the more recent "every class is a healer", it is there to suit solo play.

In a modern easyMMO you are the trinity, no one else is needed.

By recent and modern, you mean 1997, right?

Originally posted by Alders

I don't think it as much to do with lack of creativity or thinking outside the box as much as players unwilling to wait around 8 hours a day for that bard or cleric.

I fondly recall having to stop playing my favorite class and level a more desirable one in order to just find a leveling party.  Until this issue is fixed, i don't see a return to the way it used to be.

Why do you think it has to be fixed? Because you were "suffering" all the time from having to make a choice?

Where does this double standard come from, when there is too many rogues (or anything else), people go "damn fotm rerollers, i have to play something else just to get a spot", yet when there are not that many people playing a essential class, its always "damn game system, FORCING me to play something i dont want".

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by Banaghran

Originally posted by Alders

I don't think it as much to do with lack of creativity or thinking outside the box as much as players unwilling to wait around 8 hours a day for that bard or cleric.

I fondly recall having to stop playing my favorite class and level a more desirable one in order to just find a leveling party.  Until this issue is fixed, i don't see a return to the way it used to be.

Why do you think it has to be fixed? Because you were "suffering" all the time from having to make a choice?

Where does this double standard come from, when there is too many rogues (or anything else), people go "damn fotm rerollers, i have to play something else just to get a spot", yet when there are not that many people playing a essential class, its always "damn game system, FORCING me to play something i dont want".

Flame on!

:)

 

he's right.

back to eve because its an mmo where you can 'change' your class very quickly assuming you cross-trained...

I can fly a guardian. ('healer'). I really can. I got a titan killmail with a guardian drone once. -not final blow-.

but I don't want to.

reality is this: if you make clases, then make them mandatory, you better also make them enjoyable. if a tank or healer is something NOBODY wants to play, the developers failed. I don't want my healer to be rocking back and forth repeating to himself "I hate my life I hate my life, the things they make me do. I'll quit and reroll. I'm quiitting today for sure" as he heads into a raid.

I want a healer who wants to be a healer and who's good at being a healer. If no such thing exists, then the role was developped disproprotionatelly compared to the other roles. similarly if everyone wants to be a healer, it was developed disproportionatelly.

I understand making an mmo and balancing it isn't easy but...that's what some people do their entire workweek. I need to see some results. its the profession they chose, its the job they chose, now its time to get it done.

Balance the roles. You must.

Remove PvP from the game and the problem is solved.  Remove PvP from the game and you'll get everything you're asking for.

PvP is the plague that has destroyed the MMORPG scene.

Simply put, class balance...

You cannot possibly hope to balance 20+ classes for PvP.  You cannot possibly hope that some "buffer" only class will be viable in PvP against a DPS style class.

PvP needs to be left to the CoD, Halo, League of Legends, and other games designed to be player vs player oriented.  Leave the role playing, level grinding, and questing out of it.

you cant remove pvp. players naturally want to compete with one another.

also the strictness of class composition an class balance is a bigger problem in PvE than in non-elite pvp.

finally, 'tank' is not a viable pvp role so I don't see how your idea can fix class balancing since there's already only 2 roles in pvp not 3.

Originally posted by Painlezz

Remove PvP from the game and the problem is solved.  Remove PvP from the game and you'll get everything you're asking for.

PvP is the plague that has destroyed the MMORPG scene.

Simply put, class balance...

 

Touching on this, because it's something I'm working on atm.

I think the issue is that people roll support classes and expect to be able to hold their own in PVP.  That forces the developers to turn support classes into DPS classes.  I think the same thing happened to classes when public demanded that all classes become soloable.

In the end, you have all classes soloable, all classes PVP worthy, and what used to be specialist classes really don't exist any longer. (edit: at least not like they used to)

Originally posted by Robokapp

Originally posted by Banaghran

Originally posted by Alders

I don't think it as much to do with lack of creativity or thinking outside the box as much as players unwilling to wait around 8 hours a day for that bard or cleric.

I fondly recall having to stop playing my favorite class and level a more desirable one in order to just find a leveling party.  Until this issue is fixed, i don't see a return to the way it used to be.

Why do you think it has to be fixed? Because you were "suffering" all the time from having to make a choice?

Where does this double standard come from, when there is too many rogues (or anything else), people go "damn fotm rerollers, i have to play something else just to get a spot", yet when there are not that many people playing a essential class, its always "damn game system, FORCING me to play something i dont want".

Flame on!

:)

 

he's right.

back to eve because its an mmo where you can 'change' your class very quickly assuming you cross-trained...

 

I can fly a guardian. ('healer'). I really can. I got a titan killmail with a guardian drone once. -not final blow-.

 

but I don't want to.

 

reality is this: if you make clases, then make them mandatory, you better also make them enjoyable. if a tank or healer is something NOBODY wants to play, the developers failed. I don't want my healer to be rocking back and forth repeating to himself "I hate my life I hate my life, the things they make me do. I'll quit and reroll. I'm quiitting today for sure" as he heads into a raid.

 

I want a healer who wants to be a healer and who's good at being a healer. If no such thing exists, then the role was developped disproprotionatelly compared to the other roles. similarly if everyone wants to be a healer, it was developed disproportionatelly.

 

I understand making an mmo and balancing it isn't easy but...that's what some people do their entire workweek. I need to see some results. its the profession they chose, its the job they chose, now its time to get it done.

 

Balance the roles. You must.

 

I have a huge problem with this statement.

In old school EQ you could raid with a ton of people. The important things were to control a fight with tanks and healers and dps was there for the utility and to make the boss go faster. In later raids they added other things for dps classes to do that were unique. I did not raid EQ on the cutting edge....but I did in WoW.

In WoW the sole reason for enrage timers being added to the game, along with limited raid sizes, was to give a meaning to DPS. Now the DPS mattered because you would hit the enrage timer. In the cutting edge guild though the raid strategizer would pick how many healers and how many tanks you needed for an encounter. This number would change based on the needs of the raid (perhaps +2 healers to keep everyone alive to learn a part of the encounter, perhaps even healers to clear it a few times then -1 or -2 healers when put on farm status).

This comes from someone who had a DPS main and a healer alt when the dps class was not needed or healing was needed moreso, etc etc.

This dynamic change in the optimum party for the cutting edge really hurts more casual raiding guilds because you might form a raid based on who showed up that day which may or may not be an optimum composition.

To get back on topic, balanced healers will not be fun for the average player. A balanced healer should not be able to outheal one players dps otherwise they will always be optimal (and thus, mandatory) for organized groups whether it be pvp or small group pve or a raid. A balanced healer will not be able to dps while healing (unless healers healing+healers dps=total damage of a dpser). A balanced healer will not have more utility then others while adhereing to that formula either.

Frequently healer classes in MMOS, in an effort to attract players that would not otherwise heal and to make them more fun to play even to ones who would choose to heal, are overpowered. They can outheal a person's dps, they can contribute dps while doing this healing if needed and they have equal or greater utility in most cases.

Your view that a healer if required should be fun.....just makes them even MORE required. Does my view of a balanced healer sound fun to you and would you play that character?

And that is the problem. In order for a healer to be fun to the average person they have to have a lot of raw power. The average player needs to have powerful life reversing spells such as an in combat rez or a heal over time combined with a DOT spell. ETC. Spells that make them FEEL powerful. The problem is that these very same spells become so mandatory. Why would I raid with less then the maximum number of healers with the exception of gimicks (enrage timers) or for the sake of speed (farm runs). The same applies to pvp and small groups.

And yet if you actually wanted to have balanced healers, no one would play them because they would not FEEL powerful. Interesting problem.

Originally posted by Robokapp

you cant remove pvp. players naturally want to compete with one another.

 

also the strictness of class composition an class balance is a bigger problem in PvE than in non-elite pvp.

 

finally, 'tank' is not a viable pvp role so I don't see how your idea can fix class balancing since there's already only 2 roles in pvp not 3.

Tanks are viable in PVP or rather COULD be viable, just depends on class design and mechanics.

Body blocking of range shots/magic, skills that redirect focus to themselevs or away from the opponent such as a soft taunt skill that debuffs all damage from an enemy character by 66 percent unless they attack the user or an actual taunt. Or pvp mechanics like zones of control or capture the flag give aditional usefulness to a tank. Respawn mechanics could also be tuned to reward tankier character.

Developers just choose not to in most cases.

People complained for years, how looking for that 1 role to fill out the team, was the difference between a working group or people disbanding and doing something else because they couldn't find that one "needed" class

Any change to the industry is either because people whined enough or because there is more money to be found doing it differently. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive

Originally posted by XAPGames

Originally posted by Painlezz

Remove PvP from the game and the problem is solved.  Remove PvP from the game and you'll get everything you're asking for.

PvP is the plague that has destroyed the MMORPG scene.

Simply put, class balance...

 

 

Touching on this, because it's something I'm working on atm.

 

I think the issue is that people roll support classes and expect to be able to hold their own in PVP.  That forces the developers to turn support classes into DPS classes.  I think the same thing happened to classes when public demanded that all classes become soloable.

 

In the end, you have all classes soloable, all classes PVP worthy, and what used to be specialist classes really don't exist any longer. (edit: at least not like they used to)

 

Well, if one class can solo and another class cannot that imediately creates a huge population imbalance. Thus, the games that have the most class specialization generally have forced group/group encouraging mechanics and none or very few classes that can solo.

I do not think that support should be able to hold their own in pvp, particularily if they can offer good team buffs. But buff classes were removed and that role has generally been given to everyone in WoW clones and most AAA MMOS nowdays.

If by support you mean healer then in a pvp enviroment they need to be able to outheal one person or they feel really bad in pvp. Thus you have this problem where healers can't be soloed thus it requires greater coordination to fight them and thus it is easier to win with and thus it is op. This stems from making healers have fun mechanics to FEEL good when they are played and thus power level goes way up in order to meet the expectation to feel good as the class.

If a support class cannot hold its own in pvp...then its buffs/utility will be worth taking to be part of the group to make up for their lack of soloability in pvp or it won't....and the class will be a MUST HAVE or a MUST NOT HAVE class. While yes there is an area where they can be balanced..... realize your balance for this class will be like balancing on a tight rope compared to the other classes standard balance beam.

Originally posted by Painlezz

Remove PvP from the game and the problem is solved.  Remove PvP from the game and you'll get everything you're asking for.

PvP is the plague that has destroyed the MMORPG scene.

Simply put, class balance...

 

You cannot possibly hope to balance 20+ classes for PvP.  You cannot possibly hope that some "buffer" only class will be viable in PvP against a DPS style class.

 

PvP needs to be left to the CoD, Halo, League of Legends, and other games designed to be player vs player oriented.  Leave the role playing, level grinding, and questing out of it.

Agree with this, games should be OR/OR, would be much better.