There was the holy trinity of RPGs.. The tank, the dps (deeps), and the healer. EQ brought this idea to life in a hybrid model. We had classes that were slotted to roles and quasi roles that filled these 3 needs. Tanks: (Read these loosely). Warrior Paladin SK Monk Bard Rogue Ranger Shaman Pets The warrior was the best tank followed by the knights. Monks, Bard's, Rangers, and Rogues could all take hits and hold mob aggro via damage. Shamans were known to tank by slow/incaping mobs. Pets could often OT/Tank sometimes depending on the group make up. DPS: Basically anyone but a cleric. Even enchanters could dps with charmed pets/baby nukes. They, of course, were not equal in their offerings, but they all got the job done. Healers: Clerics Druids Paladins Shamans (Later on twitch necros actually could heal groups during a period of time). Healing is healing. You heal enough, for long enough, and fast enough of your don't. Necros twitching could keep groups up doing group content as could a paladin with a deepwater helm (Kunark lovin!). Hybridization: Paladin SK Ranger Monk Shaman Bard Druid So why are there 4 roles for a 3 role system? EQ added (lets not nit pick who did what when in RPG land..for our purpose this is true) hybridized classes into the mix. They could do partial roles for multiple role purposes. Paladins could tank and heal, SKs could tank and do decent dps, Bards did a bit of everything, Rangers could DPS, Utility, and take DTs. Shamans could heal and do utility/dps. Druids could heal and utility/dps. None of the hybrids could do any role as well as the "pure" classes could. Wizards and rogues topped DPS during this time. Warriors were the supreme tank. Wielding two weapons allowed them to tank AND do some damage that knights really lacked. Clerics of course healed circles around the other healers. Mages did dps just short of the Wiz/Rogues and had utility functions added in. Not a true hybrid as they did too much damage along with utility. Enchanters did damage/removed damage. They are a pure classes that doesn't truly fit the mold. They stopped damage from happening (without tanking) and did damage in alternative ways (charms). So why bring all this up again? Well EQ today isn't what it was in the beginning. It's better and its worse. Non plate classes just aren't tanks anymore (unless they are in raid gear.. but I will try not to beleageur this fact). Mage pets/BST pets (and I assume necros maybe?) Can tank as well as the plate tanks (with the limitations of no melee damage dealers being in melee range). Everyone (even clerics these days) can do dps and likely have some form of utility that used to be restricted to certain classes (Gates, SOW, ressurection, etc.). People like to call it the homogenization (or dumbing down) of the game over time. I would rather think of it as progression of the games model over time. So again, why am I writing a bunch of useless text on the forums? I believe that it is in the best interest of EQ in the long run to bring about a more standard field of playing (read the rest .. don't assume I want hand outs or desire to make the game easier). There are many ideas that people have hashed through many times. I don't believe that most of them https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/the-tanking-issue.208464/page-5#post-3059045 will ever come to fruition in EQ. The one idea that I personally have seen the least flaming pitch thrown on is this: Let players use two mercs at a time. This allows any player to complete the holy trinity of tank, healer, dps no matter the class. I realize that EQ was and always will be targeted at group play. Players used to choose classes that had great solo ability if they wished to play in that manner. Today, however, things aren't what they used to be. We don't have 1000 people sitting in EC tunnel on a good saturday or 50 groups in the average level range seeking players. We have to maintain and grow what we do have. The best method to maintain and grow the game at this point is to make it enjoyable to the most people we can without making it into another game. Following the KISS method (we avoid anything majorly difficult to code and/or upsetting old time players who feel they deserve their status), we go for the single easiest change that will allow for a more enjoyable experience to the most people in the shortest time with the least impact on EQ as a whole. Those classes who are melee (and have trouble tanking such as myself a group equiped beastlord) can play in quasi current content without having to wait on others to join them. People that enjoy grouping with others (and I assume that's most of the population who don't box) will still seek out others. I certainly do when my time allows for me to join others without leaving them holding the stick. It is simple to not use if you feel that is demeaning to the game. So why would these be helpful to the game? We have all received the ability to gain all AAs up to UF. So for a new (or less advanced character) to advance closer to the modern baseline, it takes much less time. This idea can lead to a huge explosion of new (old but new to you!) content refactoring. If we assume that all players at least have the ability to reach baseline quickly, then we can also assume that most of the old low level content is not needed in the manner it was originally intended. We can thus (we being devs not player we) take old zones and tier them off into -2 current, -1 current, and current expansion levels. This will of course make original EQ content that is level 85 much easier than level 85 content in UF or HoT. The difference being that re-itemizing all these zones would be a TON of work and cause countless balance issues. So we don't! Simply leave the itemization and let us play the zones simply for the fun of playing them. We have enough routes to get gear, weapons, and other toys. Who wouldn't want to do some old school quest with mobs quading for 16k? I mean, come on, that is just EQ incarnate! TLDR: 2 Mercs up at same time per PC. Adjust zone levels for unused content (any zone prior to SOF should be up for grabs here) to -2 current expansion, -1 current expansion, and current expansion levels without new loot. Just let us play them with a purpose instead of being dormant or grey fodder for bored days. Thanks folks for at least reading the topic => /GortarGortar p.s. I know there are typos and grammatically atrocities. I will correct them as I have time if anyone responds to the thread in a cognizant manner.
Naugrin, depends on who you were. It has to be always been to me damage / not damage / and damage the other guy. Tank, Healing, and DPS.
Newp, definitely the Trinity was Warrior/Cleric/Enchanter Several years back a Dev revealed that the criteria for class balance was in 4 areas Armor, Healing, Crowd Control and Damage Dealing Armor is anything that can contribute to mitigating incoming damage. Healing is anything that can contribute to the restoration of damage. Crowd Control is anything that can be used to affect the behavior of mobs and Damage Dealing is anything that contributes to increased damage to mobs Bards as an example. The can greatly add to the damage caused by group member, they can mezz, pacify and snare, they can slow and debuff mobs making them easier to hurt, they can increase AC and help mitigate the incoming damage and lastly they can keep mana levels high so that all can continue. Because of those factors that Bards can contribute too they do not get huge personal DPS, they can't hold aggro very well without losing other capabilities and so on. Even Wizards get "crowd control" in the form of snares and roots I'm thinking that you've confused EQ with WoW myself
Sorry if I'm harsh, but you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Holy Trinity of EQ and it pretty much destroyed the rest of your post. It is quite clear you didn't play during the time of the "Holy Trinity". I think I understand the basic point, but you really need to go back and not use that term as it has very specific connotations. If you still don't get it, the Holy Trinity had nothing to do with archetypes and everything to do with 3 specific classes: Warrior, Cleric, and Enchanter. DPS was not even a consideration as there were 7 classes that were available for that role. But without the aforementioned 3 classes, you either didn't group or you scaled back what you were trying to do. There are lots of problems with your history of EQ in general and you really mish-mash things from different times and few that just aren't accurate. And all of this in defense of having two mercs?
I have played since right before Kunark across several accounts, and I don't remember the trinity ever being Warrior/Cleric/Enc. While it's true those classes were much better back then, you could do just fine with other classes and without an enchanter, you just had to play differently rather than playing in easy mode. That being said, I do not support 2 Mercs per character, and never will. New merc classes, for sure, but never more than one per person.
oddly enough if a new game doesn't have those clearly defined roles im not really interested in them to me it will always be tank healer dps and cc/slows if you had first three you was good to go if you had 4th covered you were a great group.
This was the trinity. In the original post he doesn't even classify enchanter as one of the roles. DPS was not really needed, but handy. All you "needed' to do anything in the game was a warrior, cleric, and chanter.
I played since beta till today. As I stated, people have opinions. The original developers used to reference the trinity as such so I do as well. I think of enchanters (personally) as a quazi tank. They stop damage similar to armor but as a class instead of an item. I am sorry some feel that allowing the game to be played by a larger audience is making it easier. The game was/is/and likely never will be "hard". It had moments that made you want to smash your keyboard, but those weren't hard. Hard is going to work every day and not telling users how you feel as an IT administrator. Hard is losing a person IRL that you cared about. Playing a game is never "hard". It can be fun, not fun, or fun and frustrating (Losing 4 bodies under Cazic-Thule .. while every other 45+ player on the server does the same thing and requires a GM depop of the entire zone). Even that wasn't hard... just frustrating. Kinda like trying to melee as a casual game player in EQ today. Try tanking VOA mobs as a BST in silver gear for a few hours and you will come closer to hard.. or better yet remove all your raid gear and fight something that's not grey to you. That will give you a semblance of hard .. and rather un-fun I would think no? Games are meant to be "fun" .. let people have "fun" and you will have more people to have "fun" with?
Jehmal, in counter point to your post, chanters were a luxury in early eq. They were HARD to play and had a bazillion spells. We normally used other tanks (read: MELEE) to OT/AT the mobs. This started going the way of the dodo in SOV era when enchanters truly became a must have for more situations.
I don't get the connection between the first half of the post ( "holy trinity" information ) and the conclusion ( 2 mercs ).
Filatal, in reference to you, harsh is fine. I just want opinions and hopefully constructive reasoning for them. Yes I mish mashed periods of EQ into a wall of text. It was done that way for a reason. EQ isn't what EQ was and likely will not be what it is for long. I have ideas that I wish to express and hopefully get the right people to at least acknowledge them (positively or negatively). I understand that most people don't agree with my ideas that I have expressed here. I still stand behind the belief that these would be positive gains to EQ. The AA grant had a vocal negativity towards it. I believe it was a good move and has come much later than it should have. This is coming from a once "power gamer" to an older and milder casual gamer with only a year or so /played per character :>. My third character from April of 99 probably has closer to 18 months /played that my current that only has 6 months /played.
Tarrin, if we assume Asq + Bsq = Csq (or Kittens for Gaeene), we thus follow the rule that to play EQ we need the holy trinity. Declining population, 15 years later, and many changes in everything in the world (of norrath and real), it makes sense to many to allow the game to be played in a more open manner. Anyone who wants to box can simply do that now (for free with f2p). Many people (myself included) just don't enjoy boxing. I am my character and he is me (not really but hey its still an RPG). I want to play my character. I don't often (my problem I know) get to play for multi hour stretches like I did 15 years ago. So for me to have the trinity (or the ability to play the game as it's designed) I would need to either have people join me then me leave then join me then me leave, or have 2 mercs up at once. It is not as though there isn't an entire 4 games worth of land mass going unused right now. Giving people the ability to play the game as its designed more flexibly _WHILE_ doing things to improve the game (such as reusing old content by granting those zones higher mob lvl to be appropriately tiered to todays mudflation) would go a long way in making EQ great(er) than it is now!
You are making the assumption you still need the holy trinity in EQ today. You do not. I regularly use a tank merc with zero slows/mezzing. It is tough at times. Some things are out of my reach using this particular set up. I am fine with that. There is still plenty I can do when I am unable to find a full/more balanced group.
Tank merc = tank = trinity (from my perspective). Since basically every class (including Cleric) can do some form of DPS (not great, but well call it dps), then the trinity requires a healer/tank. If you are a healer or tank then you only need you (since you are healer/tank and dps in this theory). A dps class (oh I don't know.. lets say a rogue!) needs a tank AND a healer.
Its not an opinion. The "holy trinity" was warrior, cleric, enchanter. And it came about in Kunark for the warrior with the development of discs (making warriors WAY WAY better at taking damage), the stagnated skill/stat caps from 51-60 for knights, the relative stagnation of knight spell casting from 51-60 when we still received hand me down lower level cleric/necromancer spells that did not scale well at that point, and the general disfavor people had with grouping with hybrids due to the huge shared exp penalty. So even if a knight could tank something well enough, people that didn't know them did not want to group with them in higher level content. Druids/shaman got pushed to the wayside with inflated hitpoints and damage intake that their heals couldn't keep up with, and in raids it became a complete heal chain as the only viable way to heal a tank. Enchanters weren't quite as indispensable in terms of a specific role, but their haste buffs and mana regen buffs, and the ability to mez more than one mob in camp and allow for the development of constant pulls sure made them swell. You could get around no enchanter easier, but one of the big problems was if you had a cleric many people didn't want a shaman. Any other claim about what was meant by holy trinity is just making stuff up.
There is DPS..and then there is DPS. That is like saying everyone can heal because you have bind wound. A healer with a tank merc is probably accomplishing less than a dps class with a healer merc. I do not feel that every single person in EQ should be able to be their own group. Mercs are there to help a group fill spots, not to replace them single-handedly and remove the grouping option period. I don't see how this could possibly be good for EQ in such a way that pros outweigh the cons.. EQ has enough elements making it anti-social right now. It does not need more.
Abazza, I know your a very skilled player in what you do, but it is still an opinion not a "fact". Quotes from developers during 98-2000 and developers from 2001-2005 and developers from 2005-... all are different and valid for their time periods. I would assume that even asking them the same question at the same time would yield different responses. The Vision (TM) was publicized as one idea while talking directly to developers yielded a different impression during the same period of time. To play EQ now (forget everything else), can we not agree someone must tank, someone must heal, and somehow the mob must be damaged? So we need a tank, a healer, and dps of some form. Crowd control isn't required in most situations in EQ (for group related content). Two mercs allows for 1-2 players to cover all of these bases with necessary ability (read enough healing to survive the hits and enough dps to kill it before tomorrow). The statement about land masses is related to people's idea that giving more solo/duo players opportunities might squeeze in on "their" areas (and just sounds like FUN!).
Tarrin, I understand your opinion on the two mercs. I feel its valid in that the most anti social game is one with no players. Keeping/bringing in returning players (I don't honestly feel that we will gain enough new blood in EQ again to make a significant dent) is the only way to make it (keep it) social. This goes back to the if you don't like something don't use it. Boxing already freely allows "single player" groups and did not (has not) killed grouping as an option. This is simply allowing those who value 1 character greater ability to play EQ.
