Unofficial Class Census Data for Yelinak TLP and Bertox Live

Given that class balance is a long standing concern among the player community, I thought it may be helpful to post an unofficial and unscientific census of EverQuest classes. I chose one TLP server (Yelinak) and one live server (Bertox) which I added as a baseline so TLP can be compared to live.

To obtain the data I joined every class channel during peak hours and during off hours and input the numbers from each class channel into the Excel database into PowerPoint.

Here are my results without commentary:

Yeah that's nothing close to what a "balanced" TLP would look like.

How many of those enchanters are AFK automated stunbots for PLers

A balanced game doesn't mean every class has the same number of players, so I don't really get the point of including that. At best you could say that there should be some ratio between the roles and that within the same role the distribution should be roughly equal, but that's hard to apply to early EQ where there's only 1 or 2 clear "pure" classes of each role and everything else is varying degrees of hybrid.

Player distribution also isn't a very good indicator of class balance. In this game, more people pick classes based on perception, playstyle, and utility than they do actually looking at parses and running sims and being like "in full BiS this class does 7.3% higher damage during a burn phase".

Probably an insignificant amount. It's just the boxes of normal players inflating the numbers of enchanters, clerics, and bards.

I love seeing class population graphs.
Post more.

I think you may want to try again and check each class channel and only use the class that shows at least above level 20 and not sitting in bazaar, PoK , PoT and other known zones people just park alts, to get an idea of the active players. Even then you wont be able to use data for the anon players in your count but you would at least get some idea of the playing class count and you also would need to do this over a few weeks, not just diff times during the same day.

Show me a trend over a week or ideally a month… and we can discuss.

This analysis suffers from point in time reference, an assumption that pure balance means equal representation across the classes, and that somehow people in a class global chat is representative of active characters being played.

In example, people may be standing AFK in a buff zone, be a trader mule, or simply not logged in and playing an alt. Also, live servers aren’t as restrictive on boxing so people may run a SK + SHM + 4 MAG and dilute the actual population on Live that would inhibit a comparison to a TLP in a very different era.

Darkpaw knows what classses are being played the most and the least. They could easily publish the data here on the forums. Since they do not, I thought I would post this unofficial unscientific data gleaned from the number of players who have joined each channel.

This data confirms what many on the forums have hinted in the past: that there are about 4 classes that are chronically being underplayed by EQ players.

These classes are not being played because because they are underpowered and lack suffucient utility that makes them undesiriable.

It is not unreasonable to have the opinion that all player classes in a fantasy MMORPG should be equally valued and desired by the players. Therefore it is incumbent on the developers to strive to improve the desirabiliy and usefulness of underplayed classes.

Darkpaw recently revealed their 2023 Roadmap for EQ. Many people have noted that there was no mention of class balance as one of the deliverables. Darkpaw also never revealed who determines the content of the roadmap. Is is just what the devs want, the players want, or a combintation of both? As players, we were not told this. I also believe that players were not give a chance to submit their ideas for the 2023 roadmap either.

Class balance one of the most important considerations in making and maintaining a MMORPG. Diveristy of classes is a good thing. Nobody wants to play a game where everyone is playing a handful of classes and rejecting the rest. That's a recipe for a monotonous cookie cutter world. The diversity of classes mirrors the diversity of players. We all have different wants, needs and methods of expressing ousevles via our in-game avatars and classes and the designers should strive to facilitate that on an ongoing basis.

Thanks for the advice. I'll see if that is possible in a future census.

Good information. The bonus is no conclusions are drawn, so we are each given a bit of space to draw our own thoughts on it.

I've been dabbling on Yelinak the past week and am starting tor regret the energy and resources expended there. So far, that server feels completely and totally dead. Mischief is far larger (not surprising given the ruleset), and Aradune even outmatches it.

Came back after a move figuring I would hit up Yelinak because the other servers were a bit far past where I wanted to catch up to, but man...it's rough population wise.

I like Aradune, been playing since classic but its definitely starting to show its age in the number of players. That being said, Mischief is such an outlier in terms of population vs the era it is in that comparing any other server to it, just isn't fair lol

I'm not a huge pro class balance guy. For the most part it isn't what the game is supposed to be. This isn't WoW where everyone can fill every role. If I want that I can log in to another game.

Rogues could use a little love for the early era TLP stuff (more BS dmg, poison making revamp)
By all accounts casters could use a little boost in 70 era content
Dru/Sham should get early era Rez spells. Maybe capping around 50% exp res. (kind of like they left Zephyr/TL in game for early eras - should do the same for rez)

Outside of that seems like the game is fine.

Mashef made some good points.

From what I have heard and read; it currently seems to me that:

• WIZ on Live - needs DPS boost badly.
• WIZ on TLP - needs DPS boost badly.
• MNK on Live - needs DPS boost badly.
• MNK on TLP - is fine until ...Berserkers? I know Bards get Fade in PoP and become the "preferred" puller thereafter because they can do it faster and safer than anyone else, in most scenarios.
• BST on Live - works a billion times harder than a monk to barely reach the same level of DPS and has a gimpy pet until 70's or so?
• BST on TLP - works a billion times harder than a monk to barely reach the same level. Offers buffs though, which is nice.
• Rogue on Live - is fine, in current live.
• Rogue on TLP - needs a DPS buff, either more backstab damage and/or by applying beefed up poisons. SUCKS to level solo and so does finding a group from after PoP until mercenaries.

Iksar monks are cute. Please save them!

It just might be that Priest classes are the only thing that will ever really sink in for me. Cleric has always been my 'go to' class but I like Druid and Shaman too. I think they should be given rez's somewhere around PoP, when population starts to die on TLP's.

For that matter, you may as well start mercenaries in LDoN, because I love LDoN's and everyone else seems to hate them. It's hard to find a group by that point if you aren't max level, so as far as I'm concerned, merc's should just be added then so non-boxers have an option during downtime/solo.

I'm a pro-class balance person. For me, having a fantasy class-based MMORPG where classes are equally desirable creates a more interesting world. Groups behave differently depending on the makeup of the classes because each class has strengths and weaknesses.

Sure WoW classes have more flexibility due to talent specs but I don't think anyone believes that a WoW warrior can ever substitue the role of a WoW healer like a priest, druid or shaman.

Perfect class balance is impossible, but that doesn't mean that the EQ devs should not at least try to help the under played and unpopular classes become more desirable.

I believe that the EverQuest 2023 Roadmap is a bit light on substance and they way to rectify this is to include class balance as a deliverable.

I don't think monks are "fine" on TLP, they are too strong but apparently fixing them is too much work so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ooo data! I would agree, I'd love to see this over the course of a month - as well multiple servers. I think there are conclusions that can be established from the data, however more data is needed for better and more distinct conclusions.

Immediate standouts are - Yelinak lacking is overall players. Bertox has a surprising amount of rogues vs the other melee classes.
Sad to see beastlords being neglected on each server. I've boxed a BL and they require a lot of mana and APM to do a lot of damage but I've always had a ton of fun on my BL. If they had a BL launch in classic on a TLP I'd definitely have to main one and give them the old college try.

They are pretty strong the first few expansions but that doesn't mean they need a nerf. I can out DPS one on my Druid, and my Necro, if I'm not worried about agro. You want to talk about "too strong"? How about an Enchanters charmed pet doing more damage than the rest of the entire group combined?

Too strong... lol.

You should do this daily for a month. You missed the entire raid crews on bertox. Also, accept that your data is inherently flawed, because class channels are memes.

Also, in your 'ideal' balanced scenario, there would be a severe lack of bards

I think boxes would impact this data greatly, whether that is intended or not. But you will always have more people boxing classes like shamans, bards, clerics, etc then say paladins, rogues, necros etc. And that has nothing to do with class balance.

Boxes do impact it a lot, because there are classes like bnard, they are good in every/any group. then dps classes like mage are very strong dps and low effort.

For yelinak this pretty much just shows what classes are best paired with enchanters.

Imo the most needed balance is dps casters from 65-85ish because once melee get time weapons they can do full dps with no downtime.

Maybe make a gather mana for wizards and mages that can refill your mana 100% with like a 5-10min cooldown this would go a long way.

They will still be hardcapped by agro but not by being low on mana doing nothing after bosses

Edit: also something needs to be done in certain eras about mob resists. I dare any dev to do a ldon raid as a caster and think 80%ish resists are balanced in any way